The Forgotten Disaster
The Ottawa Citizen - Monday, March 03, 2008
Don Sawyer
We forget quickly about horrible catastrophes even in our own back yard -- but the people of a devastated New Orleans still struggle after the media are long gone.
NEW ORLEANS - Disasters come, and disasters go. One day it's hundreds of Chinese dying in winter storms. The next it's dozens perishing in freak tornados hitting the southeastern U.S. Then it's on to a tsunami in Southeast Asia or floods in Bangladesh.
If we note them at all, these disasters register as a vague, numbing backdrop of tragedy and suffering thankfully far away and disconnected from our own reality. But for the people caught in these catastrophes and trying to live in their aftermaths, the sadness and challenges remain long after the rest of us have moved on to the next diamond mine cave-in in South Africa or famine in the Sahel.
Perhaps that is human nature, a necessary ability to emotionally distance ourselves from the suffering of others, a buffer that allows us to function without being overwhelmed by the relentless tragedy that seems to plague our globe. We just can't afford to be that empathic.
Unless, of course, those affected belong to our tribe or family.
My daughter Melissa lives in New Orleans. Less than three years ago the most devastating storm in U.S. history swept into the city, collapsing dikes everyone knew (including the Army Corps of Engineers that built them) could not withstand a storm of this magnitude. Eighty per cent of the city was suddenly under water. Nearly 2,000 people died.
Remember? We watched a child dead in its mother's arms as a U.S. military Humvee sped through the rubble and a helicopter aborted its mission after coming under fire from the ground. We saw thousands of people lying listless in broiling heat, deprived of food and water for days.
We shook our heads. These scenes weren't from Baghdad or Kandahar. This was happening in the United States, the wealthiest country in the world. How, we wondered, could it have come to this? But, like all tragedies, that don't affect us personally, we moved on. Fresh horrors were waiting on the TV. Figuring out how to pay the car insurance took precedence over a calamity 3,000 miles away. And, anyway, we were all sure they'd figure it out, make things right. I mean, it was America, right?
I did not have the luxury of "disaster disconnect" with Katrina. My daughter fled the night before the storm hit with little more than a few clothes and her dog in the car. She was caught in the nightmarish evacuation, inching along clogged highways for more than 24 hours. And she was one of the lucky ones. The thousands without cars, mainly the poor and marginalized - and black - were left to watch helplessly as the storm approached and flooded their homes and neighbourhoods. They then tried to survive without fresh water, basic sanitation, food, or any coherent assistance.
Now about half of New Orleans's pre-Katrina population has returned. Though some have managed to rebuild, many more live in decaying houses or cramped FEMA trailers, face closed hospitals, send their kids to even more chaotic schools, look out on miles of abandoned homes and businesses, and live in a city "protected" by levees that are no more hurricane resistant than before.
Melissa is one of the returnees. After she fled to Houston she lived for the next year in various rented apartments while desperately trying to maintain her organization, the Youth Empowerment Project, one of the few agencies still providing meaningful services to at-risk youth in New Orleans. And now she's back, living among the detritus and tragic after-effects of Katrina.
I am writing this in New Orleans, where we are visiting Melissa, and take it from me, the tragedy is not over. Despite the cheery New Orleans jazz playing on the radio in the background of the coffee house I'm sitting in, one of the great cities in America is still a disaster area, abandoned by government, venal insurance companies, and much of the professional class, who have moved on to less risky business.
Hundreds live in a makeshift village of tents and old sofas under a highway underpass. Many neighbourhoods are a jumble of collapsing homes and empty lots. Whole sections of the city look like a set for some post-apocalyptic sci-fi movie.
But the cameras have long since moved on, fixated on the never-ending presidential primaries and Britney Spears's fall from grace. New Orleans is forgotten for new scandals, new disasters. The bumper stickers and T-shirts of those who have struggled back to The Big Easy tell their tale of frustration, neglect and greed: Proud to Swim Home to New Orleans; Make Levees not War; After we rebuild Iraq, can we start on New Orleans?
So next time a natural or man-made disaster splashes across your TV screen or makes the front page of the Citizen for a few days, think about the survivors left behind, many of whose lives will be changed forever.
You might want to begin by thinking about the people of New Orleans, who day by day work grimly to clean up the mess left by years of social neglect, as well as hurricane Katrina.
Don Sawyer is a writer, educator and aid worker. He lives in Salmon Arm, B.C. For more information on Melissa's organization, go to www.youthempowermentproject.org.
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