This coming Saturday (August 29th) is the anniversary of the day Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana and Mississppi and the Alabama coastal regions of the USA. I sat in shock and horror as I watched CNN and other outlets report on the devastation. And heard a president bumble his way through yet another major disaster. That president had had a meeting with his officials days before concerning the set of storms mingling to form "The Perfect Storm" on course to strike with full force in those areas. After much map reading and vector drawing by experts it was calculated that NOLA was gonna get the brunt of the strike. Where in NOLA? Saint-Bernard's Parish, the Ninth Ward that's where. Where low-income people lived shielded by levees that were already holding back tons of water as New Orleans is a city built under sea-level. All hourly-wage-earning, non-having-vacation home-to-whisk-away-to-in-SUVs from the swirling-driving-raintype of people. A big number were renters dotted with a big section of homeowners whose sole asset was that paid-up house. No matter how little they paid for it. Mostly Black with a mix of White, Asian, Latino/Hispanic. After the way their "rescue" was handled, I saw they had another adjective in common - EXPENDABLE. Once your gov't renders you that, you are done. Because that means your fellow MIDDLE CLASS countrymen will see you that way too. And you immediately become invisible and have no worth. and what does one do with stuff like that? One disregards and discards it. And that's what happened.
Hence the list of bad things then unleashed on expendable people that were just as killing as the hurricane:
- People turned back at gunpoint on a bridge to another town because they were not seen as WORTHY of being saved.
- People left in houses to drown, or suffocate from sweltering heat, in attics they'd rushed to to avoid the rising water.
- Elderly and the critically-ill abandoned in houses or nursing homes to die.
- Five (5), full days to truck in drinking water. 5 days! Aid has gotten to disaster victims in foreign countries faster. C'mon, people.
- And I won't even start with the Superdome bullshit.
- White survivors captioned on TV and in media as "finding food" at an abandoned convenience store whereas non-White folk were captioned as "looting" an abandoned convenience store for food. Oh, yes there we idiots out there stealing TVs who soon realized they were fools when it occurred to them, "What am I gonna do with this TV?"
- Even law enforcement went rogue and started murdering people because they could without impunity.
- And to make matters even more horrid, about two weeks later Hurricane Rita slammed into the Florida Straits and roared into the Texas-Louisiana border.
The picture as a whole was "those people aren't worth saving because we can't anyway."
Yes, there were attempts at helping like those pre-loaded debit cards that were handed out to survivors for neccessities and ended up being used for foolishness by some. And those FEMA trailers.
Nice try but damn! It was on the ISSUER of the cards to limit, or ban, where those cards could have been used. And the trailers were toxic. Double fail.
- Add in the herding of people out of town on buses to the hinterlands which ended up separating families.
- The exacerbation of health problems lots of evacuees had that worsened with shock from displacement that ended in death for untold numbers.
- The betrayal of the expendable by Mayor Ray Nagin.
- The land grab by the monied to buy up parcels of land in the ninth ward.The city is smaller and richer and more White now. Gentrification for days! I'm sure the levees will never fail now.
- And lastly the rush to pretty up the French Quarter and get ready for Super Bowl (!) that coming year. Priorities! Priorities!
The good:
A bright spot. People like Brad Pitt are building safe, affordable housing and helping any way they can. And that is beautiful. I see a Jimmy carter replacement already.
And yeah, if you have the funds, the fortitude and the time, NOLA is gonna be a fab place to be. If you are fresh out of funds, low on energy, coupled with a lot of melanin, you will probably never recover or return or ever be seen by your fellow Americans as anything else but a whiner who should have been a prepper.
So sickening and sad.
But, hey! For the few, the proud and the special...Laissez les bon temps roulez!
http://thegrio.com/2015/08/23/ten-years-after-hurricane-katrina-another-reminder-blacklivesmatter/
http://cryptome.org/info/katdead-01/katrina-dead-01.htm (WARNING! THESE PHOTOS ARE GRAPHIC! WARNING!)
Article link from the grio
Image link from cryptome
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