I am angry with our govenment for their slow response to help the people trapped in New Orleans. Could this slow response have anything to do with Institutional Racism?

Date:   9/2/2005 5:50:46 PM ( 19 y ago)

Why Do the Poor Always Suffer?


This started out as a blog comment to Your Enchanted Gardener's blog about Hurricane Katrina: http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=92&i=711 I'm sharing it with all and inviting comments.


I am feeling lots of anger with our government today--New Orleans was a disaster waiting to happen. The government knew of this powerful storm coming in days before it hit, and many warnings were given in previous years that such a storm of this magnitude would break the levees unless they were shored up. Human destruction of the wetlands and marshes also added to flooding, as these natural areas could have helped absorb some of the water from the storms and lessened the strain on the levees. To blame Mother Nature for the devastation is ludicrous. This was a man-made disaster in the making, secondary to negligence on the part of our own government and habitat destruction by humans.

When you look at the photos of the poor in New Orleans who are stuck at the Superdome, you see mostly African-American faces. The question keeps rising in me, unbidden--I don't want to think it, but I can't help wondering if this lack of government action to problems long known, and the slow pace of rescue efforts is somehow linked to institutional racism.

I think some of the violence that the "rescuees" are showing the "rescuers" i.e. sniper fire against ambulances and rescue helicopters --could be partly due to this rage, anger, boiling over from the poor, mostly people-of-color towards the system of government that has favored the elite, wealthy, white man for all of our country's history. How much have we in this country really helped the poor people of color in this country? How much has really changed in the past 120 years since the Civil War? the past 40 years since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's and the Watts Riots in Los Angeles?

Anyone else feel this way? I welcome all comments.

Love,
Liora Leah


*****************************************

TAKE ACTION to ask for accountability and shared sacrifice in the aftermath of Katrina by clicking here:
http://www.workingforchange.com/activism/action.cfm?itemid=19560

Hundreds of thousands - if not millions - are now homeless. Can you open your home? Offers of housing are especially needed in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas.

To open your home go to:
http://www.hurricanehousing.org
http://www.openyourhome.com

******************************************************

More on Hurricane Katrina:

URGENT ECO-ACTION ALERT! SAFE WATER FOR NEW ORLEANS : http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=309&i=134

CDC wants to drop BLEACH on the flood waters of New Orleans to prevent disease. Whole Foods has volunteered to pay for and deliver the natural agent Effective Microorganisms for an ecologically safe and tested way to purify the flood waters.
TAKE ACTION: http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=309&i=134

NEW Orleans Wetlands Restoration: ECO-ACTION ALERT!

Protecting coastal communities from the next Hurricane involves restoration of vital wetlands that aborb wind energy and reduce hurricane storm surges. TAKE ACTION to let Congress know that along with funds for rebuilding, funding for restoration of the wetlands is imperative: http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=309&i=140


Hurricane Katrina HOW TO HELP  http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=309&i=123

Racism & Katrina, Continued: http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=309&i=133

Habitat for Humanity to Build New Homes in Gulf http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=309&i=131

California Delta at Risk http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=309&i=128

Nuclear Katrina http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=309&i=126

Katrina Smashes "Energy Alley" http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=309&i=124

Mother Earth Speaks: Hurricane Katrina http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=356&i=33

"Do Not Block My Waters!" Mother Earth Speaks http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=356&i=34 

 ******************************

September 2, 2005 latimes.com : National News


IN KATRINA'S AFTERMATH: CHAOS AND SURVIVAL
Survivors Wait as Disaster Builds
Officials say they're doing all they can. Experts had foretold numerous problems.

By Nicole Gaouette and Richard Serrano, Times Staff Writers


WASHINGTON — When disaster strikes in the United States, Americans expect a full-throttle response from the government, with whatever it takes to help to the victims — food, water, rescue teams, emergency medical supplies, helicopters, and National Guard soldiers to protect property and life. And the response is expected to be fast and efficient.

That's not how it worked out this time.

Three days after Hurricane Katrina struck Monday, rescue workers still had not reached numerous storm victims on rooftops and highway overpasses whose unanswered pleas for help were captured by news crews. Gunfire kept some rescue workers from devastated sections of the city, and police said they could not guarantee the workers' safety.

News reports showed a crowd of refugees, including children, stranded without adequate food, water or medical attention at New Orleans' downtown convention center, even though it had been designated a shelter after the Superdome filled up. When Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff was asked on National Public Radio why no help had been sent, he said he was unaware of the problem.

And the Federal Emergency Management Agency was using trucks and buses — not airplanes — to transport many of its highly trained units to the New Orleans area, although California had responded immediately to a federal request for urban search-and-rescue teams, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said Thursday.

FEMA told her staff that this was "standard operation procedure," Boxer said in a letter to the agency, but "standard operating procedure is not what we should be following during this time of crisis."

How could such problems bedevil an area long identified as a disaster waiting to happen? Why were federal, state and local officials surprised by the flooding when experts had repeatedly pinpointed issues? How could the federal agencies that are charged with preparing for such emergencies — and have often reacted effectively in the past — have apparently stumbled so badly?

The questions were all the more serious as it became clear that most of the suffering was not in the storied precincts of Bourbon Street, the Latin Quarter or the Garden District, but in predominantly black, working-poor neighborhoods that New Orleans tourists seldom see.

It's not as though no one expected the disaster. For years, federal and other studies had zeroed in on New Orleans as one of the nation's most vulnerable areas to a natural disaster — a major city lying below sea level, sandwiched between Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River, in the heart of hurricane country. As recently as November, one expert laid out a disaster scenario that read like a scr1pt for Katrina.

"Should the response have been much better organized? Absolutely," said Richard Stuart Olson, who has been researching disasters for 30 years and is chairman of the political science department at Florida International University in Miami. "None of this can be a surprise."

He said growing public frustration in the New Orleans area reminded him of the anger at FEMA's halting response to Hurricane Andrew in 1992, but he said, "This is a much larger version of 'Where the hell's the cavalry?' "

President Bush and other federal officials insisted the government was responding quickly, first to rescue stranded residents, then to help recovery efforts and stop the flooding of New Orleans as high waters keep spilling from Lake Pontchartrain.

At times, the president and his chief spokesman struck a defensive tone in the face of criticism that the relief efforts had been too slow and that federal funds had been cut back for New Orleans flood control in recent years. Bush and White House spokesman Scott McClellan said it was not the time to engage in "politics" or "finger-pointing."

McClellan said 50 medical disaster teams were in the region, along with about 30 search-and-rescue units. He said the Department of Transportation had dispatched a thousand trucks carrying 7 million meals and millions of gallons of water. About 15,000 tarps were brought to the Gulf Coast to provide temporary shelters, plus 10,000 rolls of plastic sheeting and 3.4 million pounds of ice, he said.

Secretary Chertoff said that rescue operations were continuing "in full force" but that relief workers were challenged by the dual nature of the disaster: Hurricane Katrina's devastating landfall, followed a day later by the flooding of Louisiana's largest city.

"We are continuing to search 24/7," Chertoff said to criticism that relief efforts had lagged. "We search at day. We search at night."

In Louisiana's capital, Baton Rouge, the head of FEMA, Michael D. Brown said power outages, rising waters and violence by looters and others shooting at rescuers had complicated relief efforts. But he denied that the government was slow in responding.

He called the situation unsettled, however, and urged patience. "We can make this work," he said.

Critics in Washington and Louisiana said that even though Katrina had been closely tracked on its way to the Gulf Coast, the administration had not used the time to prepare adequately. They also complained that the Bush White House had repeatedly slashed congressional efforts to boost funding for levee work and other flood control upgrades.

As recently as January, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) had warned on the House floor that if Hurricane Ivan last year had veered westward and hit New Orleans, thousands would have died and infrastructure would have sustained $100 billion in damage. "The city has always been at risk," he said then.

Sen. Mary L. Landrieu (D-La.) told her colleagues on the Senate floor a year ago that it was crucial to spend more government money to shore up the levees at New Orleans. "I hate to say it," she said. "It's going to take a loss of hundreds of thousands of lives on the Gulf Coast to make this country wake up and realize what we are underinvesting in."

Critics also noted that late last summer, in the midst of a hard-fought presidential campaign in which Florida was pivotal, FEMA received glowing marks from Florida officials for responding quickly to hurricanes there.

Some wondered why the New Orleans response was earning no such praise.

White House spokesman McClellan sought to dismiss such criticism as politics. "The last thing that the people who have been displaced or the people who have been affected need is people seeking partisan gain in Washington," he said.

Yet sharp criticism of the government's response to Katrina was not confined to politicians. Many experts in hurricanes, flooding and emergency management were more pointed.

The measures that Chertoff and other administration officials are putting together now should have been "in motion three to four days before the storm hit," Florida disaster researcher Olson said, especially in light of the fact that the New Orleans' vulnerability to a hurricane and a consequent flood had been carefully studied.

In November, for instance, a periodical published by the University of Colorado Natural Hazards Center examined the potential impact of a Category 4 or 5 hurricane on New Orleans. In a column, the director of the University of New Orleans' Center for Hazards Assessment Response and Technology, sociologist Shirley Laska, estimated that the damage would include storm surges, flooding and the breakdown of the levee system.

"They did anticipate breaching of the levees, that the pumps wouldn't work," said Natural Hazards Center Director Kathleen Tierney. Louisiana and New Orleans "couldn't get the federal assistance they needed. They knew they were living on a time bomb."

Disaster experts said the chaos after Katrina also should have been anticipated, particularly considering the absence of a local or state government plan to completely evacuate the city.

"There was no plan to get the poor out. They issued an evacuation order, fine. But 20% of New Orleans lives below the poverty line," said Vincent T. Gawronski, who studies the politics of disasters and is an assistant political science professor at Birmingham-Southern College in Alabama. "Do they all have cars? Did they give them buses to get out? No, they gave them the Superdome."

The Superdome was pressed into use as a shelter last year during Hurricane Ivan, but that storm did not hit the city with full force. Gawronski noted that Katrina damaged the huge structure when it hit as a Category 4 hurricane. "What would have happened to those people if it had hit as a Category 5, as it could have?" he asked.

Tierney said that some cities, including Los Angeles, designated schools as shelters for the Red Cross to run. "Nothing of the sort was planned for a major hurricane in New Orleans," she said.

"The plan was simply to get some people out and the rest to the Superdome," Tierney said. "A network of shelters was never part of the plan, even though it was recognized that the city is a bowl and would be filled with water, that there would be no electricity."



Environmental problems worsened Hurricane Katrina's impact
mongabay.com
August 31, 2005
Updated: September 2, 2005


The loss of coastal marshlands that buffer New Orleans from flooding and storm surges may have worsened the impact of Hurricane Katrina.

In the past, the region's wetlands have served as a natural buffer that slows hurricanes down as they come in from the Gulf of Mexico and helps protect New Orleans from storms. But all this has changed.

Experts say the the construction of levies along the Mississippi river delta has hastened the decline of wetland vegetation along the coast by preventing these ecosystems from receiving the floodwater and mud that they need to survive. Joe Suhayda, a retired coastal engineer at Louisiana State University who has spent 30 years studying the Gulf coast, says in an interview with American Public Radio, "So the hurricane can move closer to the city before it starts to decrease. So in effect, the city is moving closer to the Gulf as each year goes by."

America's Wetland, a Baton Rouge organization, estimates that More than 1,900 square miles of the Louisiana have disappeared since the 1930s due to development and the construction of levees and canals. This, coupled with the loss of barrier islands and stands of natural vegetation has made the New Orleans area more susceptible to storm surges. Sharon Begley, a science columnist for The Wall Street Journal, notes that studies have shown that for every square mile of wetlands lost, storm surges rise by one foot.

Global warming may only make the situation worse by rising sea levels and warmer seas that will fuel ever stronger storms.

Popularity:   message viewed 4778 times
URL:   http://www.curezone.org/blogs/fm.asp?i=976298

<< Return to the standard message view