Please remember, it wasn't the hurricane, it was the LEVEES. This is what happened in real time: Amazing map with times of levee breaks.
This is what is happening now. One year later.
The statistics are part of a Legal Student Hurricane Network request to watch Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke, but form a succinct description of New Orleans and the surrounding area one year after Katrina. Here it is:
One year ago, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. As the natural and man-made disasters engulfed the region, the nation turned its attention to the storm's immediate aftermath. However, a year later, the crisis continues.
Today, less than half of pre-Katrina New Orleans residents have been able to return home; over 70,000 of them are living in 240-square foot FEMA trailers (which are particularly vulnerable during the hurricane season) and many people are still waiting for trailers to be delivered; the state's charity hospital system is in shambles and psychiatric care is non-existent; most of the Lower 9th Ward is still without potable water; 6,000 criminal defendants await trial, many of whom do not have attorneys; 60 percent of the businesses within the city limits have probably not reopened; federal officials have doled out only about 40 percent of the $110 billion promised to the Gulf Coast; not a single dollar of federal funds to rebuild houses has made it to Louisiana homeowners; and renters have been virtually left to fend for themselves.
But the numbers do not tell the whole story. The pain, the frustration, the anger, the desperation and the anguish are still as real today as they were in the days after the tragedy first unfolded. The Gulf Coast residents have not forgotten – they are still living the tragedy. And we cannot forget, either.
I request all of you to keep writing and spreading the word about our city. Continue to talk with everyone. Engage those in discussion who are of an opposing mindset and let them know that We Are Not Ok . Thank you.
(Closing statements at the Rising Tide Conference. Many thanks to Maitri)
Please pass this on.
Katrina NOLA New Orleans Hurricane Katrina Louisiana FEMA levee flooding Corps of Engineers We Are Not OK New Orleans Slate
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