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<font size=3><br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4><b>February 21,
2006<br>
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<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.counterpunch.org/<br><br>
<br>
</a></font><h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5 color="#990000">
<b>Who Was Left Behind Then? Who is Being Left Behind Now?<br><br>
<br>
</font>Six Months After
Katrina</b></h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5>By BILL
QUIGLEY<br><br>
</font><font face="verdana" size=6 color="#990000">N</font><font size=3>
</font><font face="verdana" size=2>early six months ago, my wife Debbie
and I boated out of New Orleans. We left five days after Katrina
struck.<br><br>
Debbie worked as an oncology nurse in a New Orleans hospital. She
volunteered to come in during the hurricane so that other nurses with
children could evacuate.<br><br>
There were about 2000 people huddled in the hospital--patients, staff and
families of staff and patients. Plate glass windows exploded in the lobby
and on crosswalks and on several floors. Water poured in though broken
windows, ceilings, and down the elevator shafts. Eight feet of brown
floodwater surrounded us. The entire city immediately lost electricity.
Soon the hospital backup generators located in the basement failed. No
lights. No phones. Even the water system stopped. No drinking water. No
flush toilets.<br><br>
You can imagine a hospital with 2000 people and no electricity, water,
food, or flushing toilets. Breathing machines did not work. Cell phones
did not work. Because the computers stopped working medicines were
unavailable. Elevators in the 8 floor building did not work. We quickly
ran out of food because the cafeteria and food were also in the flooded
basement. The gains of 21st century medicine disappeared. Over 40 people
died in the hospital over the next few days as we waited for
help.<br><br>
Now imagine an entire city with no electricity, water, food or flushing
toilets and tens of thousands of people left behind.<br><br>
Debbie and I left five days later by way of a small fishing boat, the
back of a garden truck, and the kindness of strangers. We returned 15
weeks later. Many of those left behind then who evacuated with us have
yet to return.<br><br>
The Katrina evacuation was totally self-help. If you had the resources, a
car, money and a place to go, you left. Over one million people
evacuated--80 to 90% of the population.<br><br>
No provisions were made for those who could not evacuate themselves. To
this day no one has a reliable estimate of how many people were left
behind in Katrina--that in itself says quite a bit about what
happened.<br><br>
Who was left behind in the self-help evacuation?<br><br>
In the hospital, we could not see who was left behind because we did not
have electricity or TV. We certainly knew the 2000 of us were left
behind, and from the hospital we could see others. Some were floating in
the street--face down. Some were paddling down the street--helping older
folks get to high ground. Some were swimming down the streets.<br><br>
We could hear people left behind screaming for help from rooftops. We
routinely heard gunshots as people trapped on rooftops tried to get the
attention of helicopters crisscrossing the skies above. We could see the
people trapped in the Salvation Army home a block away. We could hear
breaking glass as people scrambled to get away from flooded one story
homes and into the higher ground of several story office buildings. We
saw people swimming to the local drugstore and swimming out with
provisions. But we had no idea how many were actually left
behind.<br><br>
The poor, especially those without cars, were left behind. Twenty-seven
percent of the people of New Orleans did not have access to a car.
Government authorities knew in advance that " ... 100,000 citizens
of New Orleans did not have means of personal transportation."
Greyhound and Amtrak stopped service on the Saturday before the
hurricane. These are people who did not have cars because they were
poor--over 125,000 people, 27% of the people of New Orleans, lived below
the very low federal poverty level before Katrina.<br><br>
The sick were left behind. Some government reports estimated 12,000
patients were evacuated. I estimate at least an additional 24,000
people--staff and families of patients--were left behind in the
twenty-two hospitals which were open at the time.<br><br>
The elderly were left behind. The 280 plus local nursing homes remained
mostly full. Only 21% evacuated and as a consequence 215 people died in
nursing homes, at least six people died at a single nursing home while
they waited four days for busses. The aged who lived at home also
certainly found it more difficult than most to evacuate as they were more
likely to live alone, less likely to own a car and nearly half were
disabled.<br><br>
Untold numbers of other disabled people and their caretakers were also
left behind. There were tens of thousands of people with special needs in
New Orleans.<br><br>
A physician reported hundreds of people in wheelchairs were in front of
the Convention Center. A comprehensive study of evacuees in Houston
shelters found one in seven physically disabled, 22% physically unable to
evacuate, 23% stayed behind to care for someone physically disabled, and
25% had a chronic disease such as heart disease, diabetes or high blood
pressure. There were no provisions made for their evacuations.<br><br>
Children were left behind. While there are no official estimates breaking
out children left behind, I know from what we saw during our evacuation
that many, many children were among those left behind. About one-fourth
of the people living in the areas damaged were children, about 183,000
kids, including 47,000 children under the age of 5. Over half of the
children displaced were African-American and 30% of children in the
damaged areas were poor, nearly double the 2000 national census rate for
child poverty of 16.6%. These children were almost twice as likely to
live in a female-headed home than children nationally.<br><br>
Prisoners were left behind. Local prisons held 8300 inmates, most on
local minor charges awaiting trial and too poor to post bond. Thousands
were left behind with no food, water, or medical attention. Jails depend
on electricity as much as hospitals do doors of cells and halls and pods
and entrances and exits are electronically opened and closed. More than
600 hundred prisoners, one entire building, were left behind once the
prisons were evacuated--left in chest deep water, locked into
cells.<br><br>
Ultimately as many as 40,000 people took refuge in the Superdome which
lost power, lost part of its roof, the water system failed and the
toilets backed up. Another 20-30,000 people were dropped off at the
Convention Center. Conditions at the Convention Center were far worse
than at the Superdome because the Convention Center was never intended to
be used for evacuees it did not have any drinking water, food, or medical
care at all. Ten people died in or around the Superdome, four at the
convention center.<br><br>
Unfounded rumors flew about rapes and murders inside these centers--and
the myth that rescue helicopters were fired upon--have all been found to
be untrue. But those rumors so upset military and medical responders that
many slowed down demanding protection from the evacuees--only to be
greeted by "a whole lot of people clapping and cheering" when
they arrived.<br><br>
Debbie and I left the hospital after five days. Helicopters finally came
and airlifted out many patients, their families and staff. Others, like
us, left in small fishing boats piloted by volunteers.<br><br>
The Coast Guard reported it rescued 33,000 people and the National Guard
reported rescues of another 25,000 people. Louisiana Department of
Homeland Security said 62,000 people were rescued from rooftops or out of
water--not including those already in shelters. Many, many others, like
us, were rescued by volunteers in boats and trucks.<br><br>
Some people never made it out of metropolitan New Orleans. February 2006
reports from the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals show 1,103
bodies were recovered from the storm and flood, with over 2,000 people
still reported missing. About 215 people died in local hospitals and
nursing homes.<br><br>
Where did the survivors end up? According to FEMA, evacuees ended up all
over--applications came in from 18,700 zip codes in all 50 states--half
of the nation's residential postal zones. Most evacuee families stayed
within 250 miles of New Orleans, but 240,000 households went to Houston
and other cities over 250 miles away and another 60,000 households went
over 750 miles away.<br><br>
Who ended up in shelters? Over 270,000 evacuees started out in shelters.
The Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and the
Harvard School of Public Health surveyed 680 randomly selected adult
evacuees in Houston shelters on September 10-12, 2005. The results of
that survey illustrate who ended up in shelters:<br><br></font>
<dl>
<dd><font size=3>* 64% were renters<br>
<dd>* 55% did not have a car or a way to evacuate<br>
<dd>* 22% had to care for someone who was physically unable to leave<br>
<dd>* 72% had no insurance<br>
<dd>* 68% had neither money in the bank nor a useable credit card<br>
<dd>* 57% had total household incomes of less than $20,000 in prior
year<br>
<dd>* 76% had children under 18 with them in the shelter<br>
<dd>* 77% had a high school education or less<br>
<dd>* 93% were black<br>
<dd>* 67% were employed full or part-time before the hurricane<br>
<dd>* 52% had no health insurance<br>
<dd>* 54% received their healthcare at the big public Charity
Hospital<br><br>
</dl>The people who were left behind in Katrina were the poor, the sick,
the elderly, the disabled, children, and prisoners--mostly
African-American.<br><br>
<br><br>
</font><font face="verdana" size=2 color="#990000">Who is Being Left
Behind Now?<br><br></font>
<dl>
<dd><font size=3>"Hurricane Katrina likely made one of the poorest
areas of the country even poorer ... .Both those who were poor before the
storm and those who have become poor following the storm, are likely to
face a particularly difficult time in reestablishing their lives, have
few if any financial resources upon which to draw."<br><br>
</dl> <br><br>
</font><font face="verdana" size=2 color="#990000">Congressional Research
Service 2005<br><br>
</font><font size=3>Debbie and I ultimately ended up spending several
months in an apartment in Houston while New Orleans started its recovery.
Loyola Law Clinic, where I work, moved into the Disaster Relief Center in
Houston and our clinic students interviewed and gave assistance to over a
thousand evacuees.<br><br>
We were able to come back to New Orleans for good in mid-December because
our house was located close to the University and only sustained roof
damage. Very few of the people who were evacuated with us have been able
to return.<br><br>
It seems clear that most of the same people who were left behind in the
evacuation for Katrina are being left behind again in the reconstruction
of New Orleans. In fact, now there are even more being left behind.
Hundreds of thousands of people have not been able to make it
back.<br><br>
Drive through the city away from the French Quarter, Central Business
District and the St. Charles streetcar line and you will see tens of
thousands of still damaged and unoccupied homes.<br><br>
Hundreds of thousands of people have not made it back.<br><br>
There were 469,000 fewer people in the metropolitan New Orleans area in
January 2006 than in August 2005. Why? Many reasons.<br><br>
Most of the City was still without power in early 2006. About two-thirds
of the homes in New Orleans did not have electricity in early 2006, even
fewer had gas.<br><br>
Seventy-three percent of the homes in New Orleans were in areas damaged
by the storm. But, as the Brown University study concluded " ...
storm damage data shows that the storm's impact was disproportionately
borne by the region's African-American community, by people who rented
their homes and by the poor and unemployed."<br><br>
Poor people were hardest hit and are having the hardest time returning.
"The population of the damaged areas was nearly half black (45.8%
compared to 26.4% black in the rest of the region), living in rental
housing (45.7% compared to 30.9%), and disproportionately below the
poverty line (20.9% compared to 15.3%."<br><br>
Renters are not coming back because there is little affordable housing.
With tens of thousands of homes damaged, the cost of renting has
skyrocketed. An apartment down the block from my house rented for $600
last summer--it now rents for $1400. Trailers have not arrived because of
federal, state and local political misjudgments. Over 10,000 trailers
were still sitting unused on runways in Hope, Arkansas in February 2006.
In my interviews with evacuees who were renters, few were protected by
any insurance--most lost everything.<br><br>
The little reconstruction that has started is aimed at home-owners.
Louisiana is slated to receive $6.2 billion in Community Development
Block Grant money and the Governor says $1 billion "could be used to
encourage the rebuilding of affordable housing." So with 45% of the
homes damaged occupied by renters, affordable housing "could"
end up with 16% of the assistance.<br><br>
Public housing is politically out of the question in early 2006. There is
no national or local commitment to re-opening public housing in the city.
U.S. Congressman Richard Baker, a longtime critic of public housing in
New Orleans, was quoted in the Wall Street Journal after the storm saying
"We finally cleaned up in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God
did." As the Brown study politely observed "people who
previously lived in public housing seem to have the least chances to
return, given current policy. All public housing has been closed (and
special barriers bolted to the doors) ... plans for reopening the
projects or for constructing new affordable housing have not become
public."<br><br>
Debbie lost her nursing job when her hospital failed to reopen. She is
not alone. There are now 200,000 fewer jobs in the area than in
August.<br><br>
When I teach about the working poor, I tell my students to look for the
working poor at the bus stops in the morning and in the evening. The
working poor have not returned. As the Brookings Institution Katrina
Index tells us pre-Katrina public transportation in New Orleans averaged
124,000 riders per week; in January 2006 there were 11,709 a week, only
9% of the pre-storm number.<br><br>
The sick are not likely to return anytime soon.<br><br>
Healthcare in New Orleans is now difficult even for those with insurance
but nearly impossible for the poor without it. While there were 22
hospitals open in New Orleans in June, in early 2006 there were 7, a 78%
reduction. Before Katrina there were 53,000 hospital beds in the area, in
February 2006 there were 15,000--waits of more than 8 hours in emergency
rooms are not uncommon. With so many hospitals closed, people needing
regular medical care like dialysis or chemotherapy cannot expect to
return.<br><br>
Worse still for the poor, there is no public hospital in New Orleans any
more--the Charity Hospital that over 50% of the people in shelters went
to has not been reopened.<br><br>
Many of the disabled are still in the areas where they evacuated to,
causing financial and medical concerns in those states. Others of the
disabled, who lived at home prior to the evacuation, fear being
institutionalized.<br><br>
Children have not returned to New Orleans. Most public schools remain
closed or have been converted into charter schools. Before the storm
there were 117 public schools with 60,000 students. In January 2006,
there were 19 open, including 8 new charter schools, serving about 13,000
students. Houston alone has nearly 20,000 evacuated students. The failure
to reopen public schools in New Orleans has prompted litigation to force
the charter and public schools to accept children.<br><br>
Prisoners have again been left behind. Some of those evacuated were kept
in jail long after their sentences had run. Only 7 of 42 public defenders
have returned to represent the thousands still held in jail.<br><br>
Even among homeowners, it is much more likely that white homeowners will
have the chance to rebuild than black homeowners because of deep patterns
of racial disparities in income--white median income is $61,000 compared
to black income of $25,000. Black businesses were severely impacted by
Katrina.<br><br>
Rebuilding by homeowners in mostly black low-lying neighborhoods is much
less likely at the time of the writing of this article because of
bulldozing plans by the city and because rebuilding in those areas
depends heavily on planning and homeowners insurance and flood insurance
issues, many of which have yet to be resolved.<br><br>
As a result, because renters, poor people and those without work are
overwhelmingly African-American,<br><br>
"New Orleans is at risk of losing 80% of its black
population."<br><br>
"New Orleans is not going to be as black as it was for a long time,
if ever again," Alphonso Jackson, the secretary of the U.S.
Department of Housing and Urban Development, told a Houston
audience.<br><br>
Recall some of the characteristics of people who ended up in shelters,
then compare to the situation currently in New Orleans:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>* 64% were renters--now rents have skyrocketed and public housing is
mostly closed;<br>
<dd>* 22% had to care for someone who was physically unable to leave--now
there are many fewer hospital beds;<br>
<dd>* 52% had no health insurance--now the main center of public
healthcare is closed;<br>
<dd>* 76% had children under 18 with them in the shelter most public
schools are closed;<br>
<dd>* 93% were black--the areas hit hardest were black and poor;<br>
<dd>* 67% were employed full or part-time before the hurricane--there are
now 200,000 fewer jobs than before the hurricane.<br><br>
</dl>The people left behind in the rebuilding of New Orleans are the
poor, the sick, the elderly, the disabled, children, and prisoners,
mostly African-American. Again left behind.<br><br>
The television showed who was left behind in the evacuation of New
Orleans after Katrina. There is no similar easy visual for those who are
left behind now, but they are the same people.<br><br>
<br>
</font><font face="verdana" size=2 color="#990000">Conclusion<br><br>
</font><font size=3>There is not a sign outside of New Orleans saying
"If you are poor, sick, elderly, disabled, children or
African-American, you cannot return." But there might as well
be.<br><br>
The people left behind in the evacuation of New Orleans after Katrina are
the same people left behind in rebuilding of New Orleans--the poor, the
sick, the elderly, the disabled, and children, mostly
African-American.<br><br>
Now that we are back from Houston, Debbie has just started a new job at
another hospital. I am fortunate enough to work at one of the
universities which was not severely physically damaged by the storm and
floods.<br><br>
We are back. But where are our neighbors, the people we rode out of the
city with? Where are the hundreds of thousands of our neighbors and will
they ever be allowed to return?<br><br>
Where is New Orleans now, and more important, where is it going to
be?<br><br>
Finally, if all levels of government and corporate power allow this to
happen in New Orleans, do you think it will be any different in your
city?<br><br>
Bill Quigley is a civil and human rights lawyer and Professor of Law at
Loyola University New Orleans School of Law. You can reach Bill at
<a href="mailto:Quigley@loyno.edu">Quigley@loyno.edu</a><br><br>
<br><br>
</font><font face="verdana" size=2>Suggestions for further
reading:<br><br>
"<a href="http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html">A Failure of
Initiative: Final Report of the Select Bipartisan Committee to
Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane
Katrina,</a>" U.S. House of Representatives. February 15,
2006.<br><br>
"<a href="http://www.gnocdc.org/reports/crsrept.pdf">Hurricane
Katrina: Social-Demographic Characteristics of Impacted Areas</a>,"
CRS Report for Congress, November 4, 2005, Summary.<br><br>
"<a href="http://www.brookings.edu/metro/pubs/200512_katrinaindex.htm">
Katrina Index</a>," Brookings Institution, updated
monthly.<br><br>
John R. Logan,
"<a href="http://www.s4.brown.edu/Katrina/report.pdf">The Impact of
Katrina: Race and Class in Storm-Damaged Neighborhoods</a>,"
"<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/katrina_poll091605.pdf">
Survey of Katrina Evacuees</a>," This survey of 680 randomly
selected adult evacuees in Houston shelters was conducted September
10-12, 2005 by The Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation
and the Harvard School of Public Health, questions 11a and 62. <br><br>
</font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
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