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Everyday Advocacy: For better or for worse, I will never forget it
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6/5/06 - This reflection comes from John Johnson, the Domestic Policy Analyst for the Episcopal Church Office of Government Relations, on the conclusion of his recent tour of New Orleans, LA.
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He was a tall older grandfatherly man with grey hair, green short sleeve shirt and jeans on as he got off the airplane at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport. Walking from the Jet way exit on his way down the terminal corridor to who knows where, he said, “It may be a trailer, but I’m glad to be home.” New Orleans has been my home away from home for only four and a half days and this is what I have seen with my own eyes and my perspective of the shared personal experiences of a few of the millions of people who were affected by last year’s Hurricane Katrina. Nine months after the hurricane, there still is tremendous damage here—physical, structural, emotional and political; the damage is immense and it is spread far and wide.
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“Don’t be fooled . . . the city is not back to normal.”
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My journey began as I flew into the airport in New Orleans. I was fortunate to be able to look out the window as the small regional jet flew a Northern approach to the airport flying in over the Gulf of Mexico. At first glance one sees the infrastructure one would expect to see at an airport: fuel sites and related buildings, roads, chain hotels, warehouses, pine trees, buildings and a city in the distance. As we began to fly over homes and structures I noticed the thousands of blue tarps that at first glance looked like pools but were really covering roofs.
Fellow participants in a conference that I attended June 1-5 in New Orleans spoke about their own experience coming from the airport to Loyola University. The woman driving the shuttle took it upon herself to prepare her passengers for life in post-Katrina New Orleans. “Don’t be fooled by the drive from the airport to the conference site,” my colleague reported relaying her now well-rehearsed welcome, “the city is not back to normal.” She went on to explain that many of the restaurants were still closed and that those that were open were operating on a limited basis. Many people were working 10 and 12 hour shifts because there were not enough workers here to fulfill the hours of operation—a luxury that we all have come to expect. The driver told my friends to be patient if your meal takes longer than expected, as the kitchen staff may not all be back yet. But she did say, “Spend your money.”
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On my own cab-ride in, what I noticed most was that the roads seemed to be in pretty bad shape, both the interstate and the city streets. Pot holes and uneven pavement lined just about my entire trip wherever I was in the city. Bags and piles of trash were everywhere in the city, rich neighborhoods and poor. Trash collection was obviously a real challenge. As we drove through parts of town, it was almost as if nothing had happened, but slowly I began to notice that the houses were vacant. Some had faint paint markings from when the home was searched; others had water lines on them. Here and there ever so sparsely I saw a white trailer that had septic plumbing right into the city’s existing sewer system. The FEMA installed trailers cost $70,000 each, which raises one of the first of many complaints among residents. More than one said, “Just give me the money and I’ll be there tomorrow to rebuild my house.” Many have waited months for the trailers, and many more still wait.
After settling into my room for my stay, I boarded an air conditioned private school bus for a tour of the New Orleans. Central City, East New Orleans and the lower Ninth Ward were all part of a 4 hour tour.
Before I go any further, I want to dispel a question that has been raised by many from outside this city. Should we even rebuild this area? Certainly the question has merit, so long as someone comes and sees for themselves the extent of the area that we are discussing. While it may not be wise to build in some areas, without question this area must and will be rebuilt. From my perspective it is almost offensive to suggest to literally hundreds of communities that they shouldn’t rebuild here. Juxtaposed against the rebuilding in New York City around the World Trade Center, the physical, structural and emotional damage to the entire Gulf Coast region merits the pouring out of love and support that this region has seen and much more.
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The Gravel Streets of Central City
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As the bus pulled through a few of the almost gravel streets of the part of New Orleans known as Central City, we stopped in front of a light brown warehouse, one of several designated brown sites in the city. Twenty feet across the street sat homes inhabited by poor, mostly black families. The homes were simple, nothing fancy, but they were intact homes before the storm. They were also almost surely filled with the chemicals that cause the warehouse across the street, with a tall chain link fence and barbed wire at the top, to be considered a superfund site. Our guide on the trip said that no one knows if the homes have been contaminated, but residents aren’t yet able to come back. The search teams have marked these doors with a large “X.” The spray paint also identifies the team that did the search, the date, whether any dangerous items were found, and the number bodies, if any, that were found. Every now and then a house would note, “Dog under porch” or “Cat inside.” I never asked how to determine if a body was found; I just didn’t want to know; it was too much and the tour had only started.
We continued to ride though the city picking up the interstate as we headed to East New Orleans. We drove by the Super Dome clearly scarred by damage with workers repelling from the flying saucer shaped roof. The Super Dome is being rebuilt.
There is a proud and large Vietnamese Community located in East New Orleans. Many hundred homes there experienced significant flooding but have returned quickly to rebuild, inspiring the city and many others who want to return. Father Vien —short for the Rev. Vien thé Nguyen—the Vietnamese Roman Catholic Priest at Mary Queen of Vietnam Catholic Church (see New York Times Article below) who greeted us to share the biggest concerns of the community -- an enormous landfill being filled with dump truck after trailer after truck of debris and untold other hazards, is 80 feet deep and will be 100 hundred feet high. There is no liner for the fill either.
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Father Vien says, “The mayor’s people told me that I shouldn’t worry because if it flooded again the canal would take anything dangerous away from my community.” Father Vien said that he watched as the canal brought water into his community and his church, and that he didn’t think that the city could guarantee that it wouldn’t happen again. Writing about his remarks can’t accurately capture the sarcasm in his voice, but it was clear that the Roman Catholic priest doubted the city’s promises. With the proximity of the landfill to the community, I can’t say that I blame him. Father Vien’s Church is a sprawling facility – the trailer-like metal fabricated building so common to the churches of the I remember from my youth. It included an outside cement stage and a large cement paved area all around for cars to park or for people to assembled. It was also where the Church celebrated their Easter Morning Vigil with nearly 600 in attendance. There was a small city of trailers just beyond the community with a private security guard stationed outside the gate of the several acre plot that looked like the old parking lot to the church. The gate was marked by a very large Vietnamese-looking city entrance similar to those that mark the entrance of any “Chinatown” in Washington, New York, or San Francisco, but the lack of ornamentation characteristic of Chinese art made it distinctly Vietnamese.
As the bus drove us toward the entrance of the new land fill, we could see in several places on our left areas of development. For me, it was a familiar site. Having grown up in South Georgia, I always knew when pine trees were being harvested. In Georgia, pine trees are cut down in acre plots and the soil is turned and prepared for a new planting of pine trees, which typically take 15-25 years to mature. As you drive down the road, a row of pine trees is usually left along the road so that the harvest is not such a shock to those driving by. However on this trip, as we drove to get as close a view as we could to the new land fill being dug and filled, we learned that the source of the dirt for use in the new levees, was one of the oldest live oak forests in Louisiana and likely the nation. I grew up around hundred-plus year old oak trees in Georgia and I was surprised to find myself nauseous when I realized that oak trees were being sacrificed in such large measure. Surely there must be an alternative.
The bus drove up a small dirt access road adjacent to a canal, one of many in the area. As we stood on the bank, we could see a nine foot alligator just on the other side lying, perhaps resting or hunting. As we stood on the bank it swam toward us to the middle of the canal which was about 100 feet wide. In the distance truck after truck could be seen unloading several tons each of debris. Wood, shingles, plaster covered in lead paint, trash, batteries, appliances, computers, furniture new and old, all arrived to be deposited in an area that for years had been proposed as a land fill despite successful opposition by the Vietnamese community, until the storm that is. Father Vien was told, “This is an emergency.” WM or Waste Management is the sole source company. We dropped Father Vien back at his church and headed for the ninth ward.
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Nothing Could Have Prepared Me for What I Saw in the Ninth Ward.
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It doesn’t really matter to me that the ninth ward was block upon block of cinder block homes among shack like house among well built two room one bath homes among two-story duplexes with tin roofs here and there; by and large most of the homes were paid for, and were dwellings where families have lived for generations, many from the days of emancipation. As I walked through the neighborhood, as large if not larger than that of Capitol Hill (both NE and SE quadrants), I had to ask myself: how do you place a price on a home that has no mortgage? How many of us can say that our homes are paid for, free and clear, and what price would we put on knowing that our homes are ours completely with no other financial entanglements or obligations?
I could easily see why many would view this community as a “blight” of the city compared to the mighty mansions that were found all around the old Southern City, its neighborhoods divided by Canal Street, separating two kinds of architecture in the city. The French Quarter represents the architectural French and Spanish influences pre-Louisiana Purchase. Just past Canal Street is the Warehouse and Garden District of New Orleans with its Victorian influences of large grass acreages surrounding large homes with verandas on at least three sides. While the architectural and financial differences may be easily measured between the two areas that is, what seems to be affluent and ghetto, the pride and appreciation for property was so very apparent even in devastated areas. As one of my hosts said, the storm [Hurricane Katrina] was an equal opportunity storm.”
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The breach of the levy in the lower ninth devastated everything. The area is completely abandoned now, save a growing number of volunteers who come at the request of former residents—many seniors—asking for assistance in gutting their homes so that they can prepare to move back in. Block after block there is nothing but devastation, roofs intact above collapsed homes, trucks and cars resting against the walls of other homes picked up by the rushing water and left to rot in a virtual ghost town.
The scene was reminiscent of the description my own grandfather wrote about in his letters to my grandmother when he was in the Navy during World War II going ashore in bombed out Tokyo. You literally could walk up to these abandoned homes and look in the door or a window. The rush of water came into the homes and lifted every piece of furniture, every decorative ornament, pictures on the wall, anything. When the water receded, it left the lives and possessions of the owner or occupant in shambles. In some houses mirrors remained firmly in place above mantles with a water line showing not where the water rose up to, but the place where the water settled for many days and even weeks. Pictures and CDs were strewn about any number of homes. People used to live here, albeit in “blight,”, but no more.
As we left the ninth ward and toured other affected areas including the home of Fats Domino, it struck me that for the first time that I was less concerned about the environment and more concerned for the people. In a way nature is fortunate. In the vast areas where trees were knocked down and left broken, green was returning, but the people were not.
I would like to write more, but find that it is too painful. My nerves and emotions are raw and very sensitive at this point. The pictures that I took leave me feeling like a voyeur at some terrible car crash multiplied a million times over. And despite what I was able to capture by image, nothing can compare to seeing, smelling and feeling what is here. For better or for worse, I will never forget it.
Submit your comments and thoughtsto eppn@episcopalchurch.org with the subject line “Everyday Advocacy”
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