It's a little late for Mr. Bush's birthday, but here is my belated birthday present to him. A reminder of a region in need:
Below are a compilation of some of the latest Hurricane Katrina survivor stories that I have housed at dkosopedia. As several diarists have emphasized, it is incredibly important for us to keep a record of accounts of survivors and the general condition of the impacted areas as the Bush administration and its cohorts begin the task of historical revisionism. Please consider contributing survivor stories which you come across to the dkosopedia entry, Hurricane Katrina survivor stories, or for those doing research, remember that this resource is there.
From
Verified rape cases during Katrina increase as continued overcrowding ensures more assaults
The risk of sexual violence against female evacuees and their children is increasing as extended family members and neighbors continue to be cramped into temporary housing nearly eleven months after Katrina hit.
Verified rape cases have climbed to nearly 70 according to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC) located in Harrisburg, Pa, while Judy Benitez of the Louisiana Foundation for Sexual Assault (LAFASA) said in a June 13 article that an epidemiologist has confirmed at least 46 verifiable cases in their database.
However, new rape cases are occurring due to the lack of housing, especially affordable housing, as speculating landlords jack up apartments up to New York City and San Francisco prices, often asking for deposits up to three times the monthly rent.
As a result, people are living cheek-by-jowl, in living rooms, bedrooms and even in kitchens and bathtubs. There is no privacy and no room. Knowing New Orleans as I do, there is vermin: roaches, ants and mice. In such an limiting environment, and recovering from the horrors of Katrina over a long period of time, people--men--are bound to crack.
From Even OilCos still cannot deal with aftermath of Katrina
Katrina caused irreversible damage. Even entities with lots of money (OilCos) cannot or will not spend money to bring things back to where there were. Hydrocarbons production is down, and the region is no longer inhabitable - and won't be.
The sudden destruction created (or unveiled) very real shortages in the supply chains. We've seen this elsewhere (see this diary on the lack of tires in the mining sector), but it appears that the extractive industries are increasingly struggling against shortages in many different sectors (drilling rigs, port capacity, transport, qualified personnel, specialised components, etc...) and unable to respond to demand, even when paying whatever price it takes.
in the case of Katrina, this means that if the best endowed industry, with the strongest incentives to repair things cannot cope, everybody else is doing even worse and the region is most likely unable to rebuild and start again in any meaningful way.
From Want to help New Orleans? Save the libraries!, citing Conventioneers helping rebuild city libraries
Accompanied by images of soggy books and moldy walls, an October assessment report on a library branch in eastern New Orleans was to the point: "Fish in parking lot. Overturned bookdrops. Major flooding. Shelves collapsed, books floated in water," it said. "Closed indefinitely."
ALA leaders said the Hurricane Katrina tragedy demonstrated nationwide the critical role public libraries can play in a disaster. Libraries in far-flung communities across the country offered Internet access to displaced residents desperate for information. Then, when those residents returned home, local libraries gave people a place to find housing, look for jobs, and share information. ALA officials take issue with a Federal Emergency Management Agency policy manual that doesn't list libraries among essential services after a disaster.
"Everybody wanted to come down here, to do what they can to help in the recovery process," said Michael Dowling, an ALA administrator coordinating roughly 900 volunteers in New Orleans. "Libraries are kind of the heart of the communities. They're a cornerstone, a building block to community service, to democracy. This is an opportunity to raise awareness for the value of libraries to a community."
From NOLA is depressed
It seems to me that most people just don't understand what it feels like to live in New Orleans right now. I am not in New Orleans, but I lived there for several years in the past and still have many, many contacts in the city. I paid a visit for Mardi Gras and a few days after, and I'll be going back in a few weeks. Anyway, I talk often with people who are rebuilding the city and their lives and the overwhelming feeling that I have gotten from people is depression. A common refrain is "Please tell me what the hell I'm still doing here, because it doesn't seem worth it right now."
From Breathtaking - Fraud, Lies and Incompetence in Katrina Response
...legislators learned that the response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita spawned "one of the most extraordinary displays of scams, schemes and stupefying bureaucratic bungles in modern history, costing taxpayers up to $2 billion."
Witnesses at the hearing described how prison inmates bilked FEMA of more than $10 million dollars in disaster funds, and described how "half a billion dollars worth of mobile homes" went to waste.
From Notes on crime in NOLA and should-be criminals in Baton Rouge, containing numerous links to blogs chronicling the current state of affairs in New Orleans
CRIME: Crime now seems to be completely out of control in the city. What else are we to think when Mayor Nagin requests that the National Guard be deployed in New Orleans to bolster an overwhelmed NOPD? But this does seem a bit odd when one considers the rhetoric that was heard in the run-up to the recent mayoral elections - Nagin claimed that crime was under control and had full confidence in his new chief of police. The challenger, Mitch Landrieu, did say that crime was rising and a new police chief was needed, but he said it very quietly. Really, crime was barely addressed at all in the campaign. And now, only a couple of months later, the National Guard is needed? O RLY? Could it be that perhaps the crime rate has been steadily rising for months, and the politicians swept it under the rug until there was an incident so heinous that it could no longer be ignored?
From comment in NYT: NOLA Experiencing "Near Epidemic of Depression & PTSD by nolalily
Living in New Orleans is a risk; a big risk with an uncertain future. It is difficult, from my end, to help stabilize patients as it is all too easy to fall into their way of thinking. You cannot lie but, at the same time, need to present the largest picture possible. I stay abreast of local happenings as much as I can as sometimes there's some good news. I have helped people come to the conclusion that they will have to move and other's have been able to come to grips with the challenges ahead and have decided they're up to them and will stay.
One thing I know about us: New Orleanians appear as emotionally fragile as the old buildings of the Quarter even before the storm. But just like them, they somehow manage to endure.
From NYT: NOLA Experiencing Near Epidemic of Depression & PTSD, citing A Legacy of the Storm: Depression and Suicide
Gina Barbe rode out the storm at her mother's house near Lake Pontchartrain, and says she has been crying almost every day since.
"I thought I could weather the storm, and I did -- it's the aftermath that's killing me," said Ms. Barbe, who worked in tourism sales before the disaster. "When I'm driving through the city, I have to pull to the side of the street and sob. I can't drive around this city without crying."
Many people who are not at serious risk of suicide are nonetheless seeing their lives eroded by low-grade but persistent feelings of sadness, hopelessness and stress-related illnesses, doctors and researchers say.
From Your daily reminder that New Orleans is hurting
Our beloved New Orleans is still, 10 months after Katrina, in a state of rotting
disrepair that just boggles the mind. From Biloxi all the way to Texas
evidence of Katrina is like a visual kick in the guts. Most importantly,
it's not just buildings that bear the mark of this incredible natural
disaster, families and communities are still struggling to pull together and
rebuild after the trauma of loosing everything.
From Notes on NOLA - things lost
As I have said elsewhere, it isn't. Outside the Isle of Denial, NOLA is largely a ghost town. The neighborhood I lived in when I was in grad school - around Burgundy and St. Roch - has started picking up. Mimi's and Big Daddy's and a lot of restaurants and coffee shops are open. But most of the city is still abandoned.
From Meanwhile....
We have a government more content in spending untold hundreds of billions of dollars rebuilding what we destroy in Iraq, than we are in rebuilding what nature destroyed in New Orleans.
I recently returned from a trip to New Orleans on business. The downtown and French Quarter are recovering, although there are still highrises with boards as windows, and the Superdome is still half uncovered.
From Notes on NOLA - Mardi Gras edition
As some of you know, I went to NOLA for Mardi Gras weekend - came back yesterday. Here are a few observations in no particular order.
The amount of debris is still overwhelming. When you drive to NOLA from ATL, the entire stretch of I-10 from Mobile to NOLA is littered with debris. All of the vegetation is blown over. You drive miles and miles and all you see are brown trees blown over and rivers of debris. Once you get into Louisiana, there is complete devastation from Lake Pontchetrain to the high rise. All of the malls and businesses around Crowder Blvd. are closed. There are abandoned and burned out apartment complexes. Junked cars. Empty, rotting houses. I can't imagine what the people seeing it for the first time must have thought. It is right there off of the highway. No field trip required. Welcome to the Big Easy.
The locals were holding their breath.