There was nothing natural about the disaster that befell New Orleans in Katrina's aftermath. —By James Ridgeway
Confronted with images of corpses floating in the blackened floodwaters or baking in the sun on abandoned highways, there aren't too many people left who see what happened following Hurricane Katrina as a purely "natural" disaster. The dominant narratives that have emerged, in the four years since the storm, are of a gross human tragedy, compounded by social inequities and government ineptitude—a crisis subsequently exploited in every way possible for political and financial gain.
But there's an even harsher truth, one some New Orleans residents learned in the very first days but which is only beginning to become clear to the rest of us: What took place in this devastated American city was no less than a war, in which victims whose only crimes were poverty and blackness were treated as enemies of the state.........Read Rest Here
As we approach the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, we're sure to start seeing some brief nods toward the event in the mainstream media: photos of people stranded on rooftops and bridges, maybe some re-runs of Anderson Cooper's on-air breakdown, along with a few heartwarming stories of survival and rescue to keep us from feeling too guilty about having abandoned an entire city of poor people to their fate.
What's less likely to receive much coverage is the aftermath of the storm--the years of neglect, the government-approved corporate ripoffs, and the ongoing suffering that persists to this day.......................
Last night, 1-02-009, on the PBS News Hour they held a discussion with "Frontline" correspondent and filmmaker June Cross who describes her documentary "The Old Man and the Storm" which will air on PBS's "Frontline" on Jan. 6th, New Orleans: Three Years After Katrina.
This is a timely documentary more than three years after Katrina and especially as to the way the Government has been handling that compared to the extremely quick bailouts of the financial institutions in the present economic collapse and at other times when the corporate elite demanded their political friends come to their aid. There are three short video's at the 'Frontline' site that I'm embedding below, the third one touches on just that, especially as to the promises made by the President bush and other Government Officials and to the rapidly failing 'free market' 'trickle down' economic policy of the GOP.
It is also timely in these times that are rapidly coming down to hopefully not total destruction. The subject of the documentary, 82 year old Mr Herbert Gettridge, belongs to the generation of skilled tradespeople, extremely skilled, that built the economy we once had, where through hard work, knowledge, skills, an always thirst to improve, pride and much more, not only the businessmen benefited but so did the worker and their families. He's of a skilled trade, an artist, of many trades that are now dead or dying because few are left who used to work in them and the young haven't developed the knowledge to even attempt them. Trades in the construction of the country, trades in the manufacturing of our own needs especially with being able to quickly transform those skills if needed for our National Security, not having others build what we need. A whole host of trades or other descriptive jobs that no longer exist or only exist in small pockets sans the numbers if needed quickly.
Six months after Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans, producer June Cross came across 82-year-old Herbert Gettridge working alone on his home in the lower Ninth Ward, a neighborhood devastated when the levees broke in August 2005. Over the next two years, Cross would document the story of the extended Gettridge clan--an African-American family with deep roots in New Orleans--as they struggled to rebuild their homes and their lives. Their efforts would be deeply impacted by larger decisions about urban planning, public health, and the insurance industry, by the decisions of policymakers about federal funding for rebuilding the Gulf, and state and city plans for dispersing those monies. The moving personal story of Mr. Gettridge and his family reveals the human cost of this tragedy, the continued inadequacies of government’s response in the aftermath of Katrina, and how race, class, and politics have affected the attempts to rebuild this American city.
The third video, at the PBS Frontline site, is the one I mentioned above that touches on the who gets what, rapidly or even at all, and the failure of the bush administration to not only keep the promises made, in front of the camera's, in photo ops and when needed to propagandize politically, but the total lack of feeling any need to come to the aid of the citizen of the country but quickly aid the corporate elite, the politically elite's base as bush called them.
The two year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, and still there are tens of thousands of families without homes. 30,000 families are scattered across the country in FEMA apartments, 13,000 are in trailers, and hardly any of the 77,000 rental units destroyed in New Orleans have been rebuilt. To share some of these people's stories, we have put together a short film, "When the Saints Go Marching In."
Watch the video: "Two years after Katrina and thousands are still w/o homes"
By now, the initial images are familiar: rows of city blocks flooded past the horizon, crowds outside the Superdome begging for help, hundreds stranded on highways looking for somewhere to go.
Two years after Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana on August 29, 2005, the story is no longer about leaving. It's about coming home. For many, that process has not been easy. Tens of thousands of houses still remain empty, a majority of them belonging to the poor. In New Orleans alone, most of the 77,000 rental units have not been rebuilt.
As staggering as the numbers are, though, they cannot do justice to the emotional turmoil left in the hurricane's wake. Just what does it take for a family to start over? How does one survive not only the loss of a house, but the very real economic hardships of paltry insurance payments and lack of jobs, housing, and so many basic needs.
Photojournalist Brenda Ann Kenneally, originally on assignment for The New York Times Magazine, documents the seemingly endless struggles some families face as they set about Finding the Way Home: Two Years After Katrina.
What does it take for a family to start over? Photojournalist Brenda Ann Kenneally documents the seemingly endless struggles some families face as they set about Finding the Way Home: Two Years After Katrina.
