I have been a part of three mission trips to New Orleans in the last year. Having lived through Hurricane Katrina myself while living on the Gulf Coast I was moved by devastation in my home state of Alabama as well as Mississippi and Louisiana. I knew that I had to go last year and help do something.
I remember being in a Country Inn and Suites in Atlanta, Georgia watching Hurricane Katrina batter the Gulf Coast. I was worried about my home but as I sat in the Country Inn lobby watching the News with residents of New Orleans I was at a loss for words. These “real” people were pointing out areas of their city as we watched the brave members of the Coast Guard rescue people from the top of their homes. I recall them pointing out Franklin Ave. Baptist Church which is a large African American church. I talked to many of them and these weren’t “poor” people. They are “Americans” and many of them were believers.
It is so easy to move on with our lives when we aren’t confronted with the truth. While I was in New Orleans last week one of my former students Joe Kennedy came by to see us at Edgewater Baptist Church. Joe and Angela Davis are the reasons I started blogging. Joe has a passion for missions and is finishing his degree at New Orleans Seminary. Joe told me horror stories of the corrupt politics in New Orleans. He said the reason it flooded so badly last week is that the pumps don’t even work!
Joe tells a tragic story of his last year in New Orleans here. I think Joe’s story gives you a first-hand understanding of what the residents are feeling.
Friends, some would say we shouldn’t rebuild New Orleans. I say we have no choice. New Orleans is one of the biggest Shipping centers in the nation. We are talking about people’s homes. Imagine if your $100K, $150K, $200K or more house was completely destroyed. I know if that my home was wiped out I couldn’t just leave.
The corruption in our nation is horrible. How can people take advantage of their own? Is this really a “United” States? My heart breaks for all of those affected.
What do you think?
Filed under: United States, corruption, missions, ridiculous, sad
What do I think??? I think the Hurricane Katrina was one of the most unnecessary tragedies of our time. The majority of destruction came from the flooding, not from the hurricane winds. It amazes me how these levies were allowed to be unmaintained. There were many failures and plenty of blame to go around.
The hurricane was tragic.
That the region is still in ruins 2 years later is criminal.
From the perspective of a member of the British Commonwealth, I think that the USA is like many different countries under one flag. I will never understand the way you tick. Our tiny air force managed the evacuation of an entire city after Cyclone Tracey- why didn’t yours do the same? You have troops carrying out an illegal invasion ands occupation of another country- whose deathj toll is now 650,000 and escalating – why weren’t they recalled to where they were most needed? Crazy, crazy, crazy!!!
bpb,
it was less about a lack of maintenance, and more about the fact that they were never ready to handle cat-5 anyway. granted, it was cat-3 when it landed, and it hit mississippi head on. (so be careful when you talk of no wind damage… that’s ridiculous- we had more damage in my neighborhood in alabama from the wind than we did during ivan, which hit us much closer a year prior to katrina.) so yes, there was plenty of wind damage. and water damage. and in new orleans the flooding was inevitable, although had the levees held it would have been considerably less. it floods a foot just during a thunderstorm in some areas of the city. in the 9th ward, the industrial canal levee that breached was hit by a renegade barge that broke free from its moorings. in chalmette and st. bernard parish (just next to the lower 9th), the waterline is non-existent because the water topped the levees without problem. the point i’m saying is that they were never prepared to begin with. for the most part, it was less about maintenance.
Another Joe Kennedy checking in here ….
I too feel bad for everyone affected – it was a terrible disaster and should not have been as bad as it turned out to be. All Americans should be embarrassed at the lack of preparation and response.
On the plus side, it has hopefully taught us to be more prepared – and there are numerous stories of many people who did what they could to help those affected.
As far as rebuilding goes, I love New Orleans and enjoyed my time there last October for Nardi Gras, but if my family was impacted like that once, I feel I would owe it to them to get the heck out …. I’m far more attached to life, liberty and my family’s safety to live in an area where there is so much desperation – and chance of another disaster.
Maintenance of the levee system is a non issue.
Most of the federal work on the levee’s was done in the 80’s and would not have been completed for a few years yet. The corp was charged by congress with the project in the late 60’s so I guess they took too much time. Sadly, they did not use the data from their own studies in the 70’s in their levee designs but instead stuck with stuff from the 50’s (when much less was known about hurricanes and their forces). As it turned out – the system was doomed.
In Katrina the levee’s washed away for various reasons. The “bowl” of New Orleans was flooded by the three breaches in the outfall canals. They were due to design failures and should never have happened. The flood walls were taken out while the water levels were 3-4′ below their design tolerances. The main breach in the lower 9th was mostly because that stretch was never finished. Some walls were still several feet lower than the walls next door. When the water topped the lower sections it started scouring at the base of the wall next door causing it to fail – the water coming through that breach opened the back side of the one next to it and so on. The size of the entire span that was wasted was more than large enough to allow a barge to simply float through. In St. Bernard some of the levee’s washed away to nothing due to overtopping in less than 30 minutes. Armoring would have prevented that but it was deemed unnessessary. There were over 50 breaches in a “protection system” that should have been able to withstand the forces Katrina presented. The Army Corp, a branch of the US government, built that system and personally I hold them accountable for most of this mess.
Joe Kennedy two – on the Saturday before the storm hit my husband and I packed my mother, our 2 year old and the 3 day old in a car and left (just like the mayor told us to). We headed to my Aunt’s house in North Louisiana and never saw even a drop of rain from Katrina. So far this year 5 states have Fire Management Assistance Declarations and there have been 34 Major Disaster Declarations according to FEMA. Where can we go that is safe?
Forest fires, mudslides, rockslides, tornadoes, flooding, flash flooding, earthquakes, tsunami, volcanos – other than hurricanes name a natural disaster where you can get your family to certain safety as far in advance (and in the New Orleans area we only had about 40 hours from the 1st projected LA strike and the actual landfall which is very short notice). About 1.5 million people evacuated the region and it went pretty smoothly. Compared to Rita a few weeks later or Ivan the year before it went like silk.