On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall over southern Louisiana, causing unprecedented destruction along the Gulf Coast and in New Orleans. At least seventy-one billion dollars in federal money has been spent.
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In this documentary, The Laura Flanders Show explores, from the grassroots, systemic changes in housing, economic development, and policing.
Ryan Berni, a senior adviser to New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, said the city stepped up enforcement actions against property owners in recent years, and many owners responded by cleaning up their properties to comply with the law. “I’m lookin’ for shrimps that come out of the Gulf or out of Lake Pontchartrain”. “That’s what really made me stay here”.
As the water receded and families and picked up the pieces, the one thing that many say helped keep them hopeful about the future was music.
It’s the anniversary you don’t want to remember: the day a big wind drowned the city of New Orleans.
New Orleans was particularly at risk, as the city is completely surrounded by water and about half of it sits below sea level. Most of the people who came to a special worship service Thursday night were born in New Orleans.
But even people who talk about a renaissance speak in the same breath about those who didn’t recover. He pointed to the scandal surrounding Nagin, who in 2014 was sentenced to 10 years in prison for corruption, as well as the faulty infrastructure exposed by Katrina.
The city now has almost 39,000 hotel rooms, according to the visitors bureau, a few hundred more than it had in 2004 and 10,000 more than at the end of 2005.
“What I’ve seen in the community is not people reminiscing about how it used to be but imagining what it can become”, said the Rev. David Faulker, of Trinity Episcopal Church in Pass Christian, Mississippi, part of a network of faith groups that helped bring stability to the region after Katrina.
None of this existed before the storm, Schultz said: “The vibrancy of the city was nowhere near what it is today”.
New Orleans native Brooke Boudreaux has been part of this transformation as operating manager of the iconic Circle Food grocery store in the 7th Ward near Treme, which calls itself “the Birthplace of Jazz”. And she said large disparities remain between whites and blacks when it comes to employment and income. He sees the change but said the city has work to do.
“New Orleans is doing great….”
One of the worst hit cities was New Orleans in Louisiana, which was nearly destroyed by the storm after drainage canals were breached.
But when they retire, their fervent dream – the thing they think about all the time – is to move back to the city of their birth.
Generations of home ownership worked against the Lower 9th, because many lacked the flood insurance mortgage lenders require, said Sierra Club activist Darryl Malek-Wiley.
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“When we hear “leave for a hurricane” we always got excited, because we got out of school, got to play games and sit around, do what kids do”, Dunbar said. As such, he has first-hand recollection of what the 12 feet of flooding did to the museum and its artifacts following Katrina, and the nine feet that Hurricane Rita dumped into the city the following month. And Forbes Magazine listed New Orleans as America’s No. 1 “brain magnet”. Your answer could save lives in the event of a storm.
