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    ADAMS - The Making A Disaster

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    MARKETS OF SORROW, LABORS OF FAITH ‘New Orleans in the Wake of Katrina VINCANNE ADAMS ‘Dake University rest Durham & Londen 2013 two THE MAKING OF A DISASTER 12 flow ofrver-sea trafic and maritime commerce. By 2005 many of the waterways were no longer used and had created probleme from the start! ‘The: Corps of Eng! nailding and main- i reasingly worried losing approximately thirteen square miles per year, orabout one football field of marshland every sous > resident pret recovery inthe Lower Ninth Wed (2008). hour“ By 2005, New Orleans had litle protection against major storms. Pre- vious Gulf storms of Katrina’s magnitude would have landed much farther from the city and were subsequently reduced in size before hitting Greater ‘Now Orleans itself With the wetlands gone, storms moved directly inward from the Gulfand made landfall closer in. Moreover, the storm surge tay led with much greater intensity through a man-made channel system, di= recting the wort effect ofthe hurricane into the city itself Second, most locals knew that even though the Army Corps of Engi neers had known about the problem for decades, just as it knew that the levees would not hold up against anything over a Category 2 storm,it did not repair them. In fact, as early as 1998, engineers and local environmen. talists warned thet levee walls were not suficently rigid, strong, or stable enough to withstand predicted storms. Despite political debate among city, regional, and state officials and the media about the severity ofthe situation and the possibility thatthe levees could be compromised by a lage storm, no repairs or strengthening projects were done before it was to late? (One reason for the deferred maintenance of the levees was thatthe Army Comps of Engineers had been undergoing internal changes for atleast two decades prior to Hurricane Katrina, Private-sector companies, including the Shaw Group, Bechtel, Halliburton, n'a, Titan, Blackwater, and sR Associates, had developed relationships as legacy contractors with the fed eral government The wall between the subcontractors and the federal Corps had become more like a revolving door berween pt sectors with former Corps engineers working in Key exe these companies, Few saw or raised concerns over the confit of interestin ‘this siouation; those who did were often fired” As a result, throughout the 19908, the Corps became increasingly invested in helping subcontractors undertake waterway projects that had les todo with protecting the public The levees still went unrepaired, 1 the protection from the wetlands that once stretched from city toocean, the Greater New Orleans area was impacted harder than expected passed mostly tothe ausng sino water damage in the ct itself bot within hours the levees filed and the real damage took place Breaches in the levees were seen in Sty different locations, with more than ‘twenty occurring within the fist twenty-four hours after Katrina passed through, and with twenty of these levee breaches located in the an¢o canal alone Eighty percent of the Greater New Orleans area was flooded, with ‘whole neighborhoods submerged under more than ten feet of water, and ‘some neighborhoods were nearly entirely washed away. With more than 350,000 people affected, the federal government de- lared a state of emergency. Because the Federal Emergency Management Authority (senca) had merged withthe Office of Homeland Security only ‘two years before, many of the same firms that subcontracted to the Army ‘Comps of Engineers (such as Blackwater and the Shaw Group) were called ‘upon to provide disaster relief through noncompetitive contracts, despite the fact that they had no experience or training in humanitarian assistance ‘operations* Rescue and Relief “The debacle of the lack of immediate relief after this catastrophe is by now 2 very familiar story. More than 455,000 people were evacuated, and for those unable to evacuate before the flood —upward of 50,000 people, with roughly 25,000 at the Superdome alone—survival was difficult Rescue ‘operations were late, disorganized, and misguided. Floodwaters remained in the city for up to three weeks. Within a month, Hurricane Rit reflooding the already inundated Lower Ninth Ward and other low! areas, tearing off roof, and filing trees onto houses and cars inthe few neighborhoods that were not previously looded. This forced thousands of to locations even farther ava from their people into secondary evacuat homes. No one escaped the storm's impact, All told, more than a million people In the region were displaced; up to 600,000 people were stil displaced a month afterward. Hurricane evacuee shelters housed 273,000 people, and PEA eventually housed 114,000 households in their now-infamous trailers At the five-year mark after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, more than 100,000 fewer people lived in the Grester New Orleans area, and an estimated 870 families were sil living in reaca trailers ‘The highest estimates of death from these 2005 events exceed the off- cial numbers offered by the government. Hurricane and levee fallures most injury and trauma (25 percent), and heart failure (3 percent). Nearly half ‘of all victims were over the age of seventy-four* Most ofthese deaths oc ccurred in homes, in attics, and from rooftops where people were stranded ‘or swept away. Most of those who stayed behind did zo because they could safer “weathering” the mandatory evacuat suming things would “blow over” as they had in [pest hurricanes like Betsy in 96s. Some stayed behind because they didn't ‘want to abandon their pets, ‘No matter the reasons they stayed, the poor, the elderly, and the infirm ing from their parents’ arms into the raging water Some people per- ‘shed while waitin for rescue in the city’s Superdome and at the conven- ‘camps that were eet up during the River Flood” Although under guard by military and afd personnel, people {in Causeway Camp reported poor organization and a total lack of commmu- nication, When buses came sporadically, people were herded on with no knowledge of destinations, and in many cases they were eeparated from both friends and nuclear family members Sally, afifty-si-year-old Cau- casian wornan from St. Bernard Parish, was stil livingin.a FEM traler fifty miles from her original home when she told her story two and a half years pursing home ‘ee got all our people out of ‘wel heard a big boom, and we said, “What to the right, I dont know if you have ever seen th don Adventure, but there was this wal of water co the ‘wall of water was maybe, I sey, ewo city blocks away, but of course you could see itbecauce it was so large. Well, we didn't know it at the up maybe. Iwould say two minutes because bythe time we goto the second fight, the water was right her onus... We stayed ike eight hours like thar], and we realized we didn't have any 77s everything actually know thatthe levee roke here, you know, we saw ‘was out then, you know. $0, we di had broken in three places. We ke ‘everything floating and everything, soit was pretty bad. Our cars floated off, got washed out the neighborhood, they eae around. Tey a andall, and they came around and started res ‘when they did rescue us (use the term loosely), they took us to St. Bernard High School. OK? Well, we stayed there three days and three nights, and we had like a pack of crackers one day, like this, and a bottle of water that had to last you all day”ti the next day. And, ‘the next day, if they found something, then you got another pack of crackers. The third day we had to share a botle of water with three people like that. No sewage, no water, no toilet, no nothing. OK. by the thied day the world finally caught on that there is something en they sent in the National Guard, who- was after three days and three nights ce something you read about, you know... it was real, : Tam going to tell you real, real bad. So, when the National ‘Guard came in on the third day, they decided they was going to take ‘us outof St, Bernard High School, which is right over thereto the Iefi, and they were going to ship us somewhere, you couldn't see the tops ofthe houses, [mean it was something Like out ofa war movie but aobody my age saw it befo real bad, Iam telling you, when I say eal ba, real bad, ves were gone: they were more stressed out than use they los their homes, and they are trying to help you they are worried about their own people. There were alot of yhat happened you know. that you Jesus.” There vas could, they hit the deck... The National Guard made you get down on the ground. 1 went back tothe same position. I was trying to tell them, “I cannot bend. Iuse a cane” I sak, “I can't lay down." So he puts an a-36 to my head. I sid, “Let me explain something to you” ‘mean, he couldn't have been more than twenty years old. You know fn, and {said T hurt my leg, What I id, just ay as there. And then we had to geton ‘way out fom (St Bernard] praise the Lord, we get to Red Cross; get all the buses lined up. Well, thank God; I don't know if it wes Red Cross, or Salvation Army, but 4s soon as you got off the truck everybody gota bottle of cold water. And, let me tell you, that tastes like champagne after three days. So, everybody got a bottle ofthat because it was cold, you know. So, 20%, ‘thought Pa lose my mind in Metairie. They had seerineennveiy enue (hes they were pputon separate buses). I mean, these kids are screaming and howl- ing... And I thought I'd lose my mind: ve there. They actully pulled, pulled the children out and nobody is going to explain said some of them children have never been reunited. That's horrible, and seeing the dead bodies, and the dead animals, and Lam sorry, butit was... disrespect for the dead, you know. So, we get on the Nobody knows where they are going. You are just shuttled like After days of waiting in an abandoned evacuated city, the first oficial help to arrive on the ground in some perts of the Greater New Orleans five days after the hurricane lef, they found desperate people who we fering from dehydration and starvation. They were disoriented and ‘The situation brought out the best in some people. Victims ti each other, wading through water and using any sort of boat to get supplies of food and water from stores or homes and bring it back to where people and city exits Informal neighborhood groups like the ‘Soul ‘of working-class Aftican American men from the Seventh Ward, patrolling their neighborhood by boat. They rescued x aid to neighbors. idents and provided also brought out the worst in some people. sheriff who had patrolled the shelter she was staying in they were refused on buses filled with blackevacuees, and back residents were told that they would not be allowed on white buss, Rescue soldiers were told that there were snipes and criminal on the loose hough some people uggert thet “miper fie” as probably Marines shooting stay dogs. Stranded survivor recall biing more harassed than helped bylaw enforcement for ther refisal to leave any oftheir neighbors behind before che themeeves could be evacuated Rescue crews hired by military and security companies began to se themeeivesa¢ gunmen on the attack apsinst an enemy force, athough twas not aways lear who the enemy realy was. Disaster Capitalism ‘Media coverage began to show the magnitude of the evacuation failure carly on. Delays in responsiveness were blamed on the federal government ‘and the Louisiana governor's offi wall documented were delays caused by the companies who were ed by the government to help with rescue and relief. Buses and ships from surrounding aress, from local school bus drivers to cruise lines and even uss carriers, had arrived con their own to help transport the stranded out ofthe city. But they were ‘ured away by government authorities because private companies had al- ready been contracted by #20a/Homeland Security to rescue people, even ‘though these subcontractors had not yetarrived ® Halliburton, for example, With its long history of subcontracting with the military in overseas opera tions, had been hired to provide buses, and this deterred the arrival ofother t were ready to help The people of New O1 , frstof the hurricane, and then of crime thatensued private business operations turned a bad situation into hired security personnel working for the privat Blackwater Security, or what is now called Xe Services, was one such com- ‘pany. Despite the fact that this private-sector military company founded by Erik Prince and Al Clark had already been made infamous by its killing of innocent civilians while on duty in Fallujah, Iraq, it was hired, along with ‘ity other private security groups, including an Israeli company called In stinetive Shooting International (st), to help with zescue and relief According to some sources, Blackwater was paid $250,000 a day to help ‘A mere two days after the hurricane tually arvived in New Orleans, Blackwater with the recovery in New Or ‘made landfall, even befor advertised thatit was helping with the Gulf Coast relief effort through airlift services, security, and crowd control. And what kind of help was actually? ‘Armed men had hit the streets of New Orleans in armored cars, patrolling ‘with machine guns and no official explanation as to who they were and why they were there. Innocent people wandering the streets and trying to find food, transport or medical assistance were met with harassment, trz0x, and, in some cases, incarceration instead of help. captured vividly by Dave Eggers i New Orleans resident Abdulrahman the hurricane Even after the floodwaters receded, Blackwater continued to work under a federal contract through the Department of Homeland Security to provide armed guards to Fesca reconstruction projects in ways scovery process in a beloved American city®* The racial contours ‘riminalization of stranded victims only augmented the degree to and friendly rescue—and there were someof these— there were an equal number of stores of horror. situation that called for humanitarian relief work wes being confused with one of national and, more sadly an opportunity for profit making * Theexisting ture of subcontractors, and particularly the close relationships between the Army Corps of Engineers and groups like Halliburton, Blackwater, and the Shaw Group, enabled companies to secure large contracts and funds up front, with virtually no check on their past performance history in the de- livery of humanitarian relief This same pattern of for-profit subcontracting is one ofthe key zeasons for not only the filed rescue and reliefbut also the slowed recovery, as we will see. Bechtel and Halliburton won lucrative contracts not jst in the immedi ts in Iraq for poor performance, and sks pending twenty investigations for wrongdoing, law violations, bribery, bid rigging, and overcharging, this company was given multiple Katrina contracts even after its of rescue, Hired to clean up Navy yard, pump water out of New Orleans, help the Army Corps of Engineers restore utilities, and perform other assorted jobs, Halliburton made good money ‘on the disaster, Bechtel was hired to begin supplying temporary housing on ‘the day the hurricane hit, even before damage had been assessed. The De- partment of Homeland Security, with FEM, was given 63.6 billion, which for by taxpayers®* living in their trailers lerand those who had the money needed st for repairing their own homes rather than buying a trailer. Many sere ‘angry to learn that ema had paid its subcontractors, inchuding Hallibur- ton and Bechtel, roughly $229,000 for each trailer provided to New Orlean- ans Most returning residents, including the Bradlieus, felt that if they homes well before 2009. 8. Axa taller pack in St Roch/ Eighth Ward (2007) ‘The Waiting Begins ‘not long before the burricane crisis was transformed into a larger catastrophe signaled once again by forces much more powerful than any storm. After the water subsided and people began to return, Hurricane Katrina was simply called “Katrina” —an ongoing disaster mazked by pro- and even getting road signs replaced fet pet dents who were jast trying to dig thelr homes out of the mud and ‘Even three years later, these basic infrastructural systems were not in place for many neighborhoods?” In the end, New Orleanians realized they would have to not only find ways to rebuild their homes by themselves but als, in some cases, fight to get their neighborhoods’ basic infrastractares rebuilt, People felt abandoned, It made sense that, for atleast the fest six months to 2 year, a sort of chaos ensued, But by year two after the floods, families began towonder what was going wrong. Everything was aking forever. Well into the fourth year post-Katrina, most returning residents stil feltlike they had a long way to go to reach recovery. Federal and state resources were ‘promised but didn't arrive. In fact, the government was spending money to help, but litle of fe ended vp helping those trying to rebuild. New Orlean- fans waited and waited, trying to find ways to access what resources they bad heard about, to get their life in panca trailers sorted the long and arduous process of rebuilding on their own or ny, was that PEMA did provide had paid for them to be dis: "The Army Corps of Engineers and local FEMA. subcontractors alsa helped remove trash for the first two years—a greatly needed service, because New Orleans had 22 millon tons of debris on its ‘streets after Katrina Private compani not enough so that st when it came to rebuilding and geting ting neighborhoods up and running, and > rebuilding, everyone had to savings, if there were any. Those who had either re ance could make requests for payouts, but most insurance c onstrated abysmal support and paid fa lower than what residents was the ‘Administration (spa) loan program. ‘The federal government authorized the SBA to offer low-interest federal disaster-relief loans to local retarning residents who could establish that they were good credit risks (that they had steady jobs or collateral in a home or business). Many returning residents ‘ook on these loans because it was their only source of finance for rebuild- ing bus, 2s well ee, few residents were enthustasticor really even capable of taking on debt, especially because many still had mortgages. Finally, the Road Home Program mobilized funds to help homeowners “use up” personal ‘or homeowner insar- zeturn and rebuild, This federal program provided funds tothe Louisiana Recovery Authority to provide returning homeowners with funds to make up the difference between what insurance paid and what their homes were ‘worth. As we will see in further chapters, by late 2008, neatly two-thirds ofthe funds made available to the Road Home Program had not been dis- persed Even for those who had received awards, the funding was insuf- ficient to rebuild without incurring further debt, This surprised residents, because the allocations from the federal government (quoted in the media) seemed more than adequate to compensate homeowners fully. One prob- Jem was that assessments of home values by Road Home were far below ‘what homeowners calculate based on documented tax and sales resulting in an abundance of arbitration cases. Adding insult to injury, ‘some people who received Road Home funds had to return large portions ‘of funding (sometimes up to half of w properties they had not been able to lve infor several years. For some, che [Road Fiome funds had to be used to pay off mortgages on homes that could zo longer be lived in. A citizens’ action group called cutar (Citizens’ Road Home Action Team) was formed by a returning resident, a science profes- sor from Tolane, to protest the slow pace of the Road Home Program and its flawed operations. A Senate hearing was held where citizens voiced their concerns, bat the slow pace of the distribution ofthese resources was debilt- tating for those who were wating. ‘What we see inal of these cases is that the trail of government support for rebuilding New Orleans wound ket of proftoriented companies th resources would generate busines g gies fled to provide adequate help and delayed trying to rebuild, The fact that the Road Home Pre y state-ran program, was actually subcontr pany called rer International was a good example ofthis. In ed to design the recovery program before it eventually won the no-competition subeon- tractor bid for 2006, Then 1c transformed its relief services into source ‘of market opportunism in record time and watched its stock rise even be- for it delivered any assistance to homeowners. As we wil seein later chap- ters,icr used procedures foraccounting and distribution tht placed corpo- rate interests above those of grant recipients, which, for some resides Hlenry Bradlien, precipitated a disaster worse than the hurricane. Aft contract ended on the Road Home Program, 1c moved on to more lucra- tive government contracts, even though they left nearly half of the appli- cants who applied for Road Home funding with absolutely nothing, How- ever, 1oF was only one ofthe many subcontractors that made profits on the disaster of Hlorticane Katrina and also on the delays to recovery that they caused, ‘The Human Price of Delayed Recovery Between 2005, when Hurricane Katrina hit, and 2010, New Orleanians ex- perienced a time of excruciating walting, prolonged distress, and frustra- tion, These years were marked by arse in the mortality rate, which doubled in the first two years after the storm. While many of these deaths were largely for those who were unable to get medications or treatment for condi- tions that needed regular medical management, many residents were con- vvinced that their relatives and neighbors simply died fcom the “heartache” ‘of so much loss and from having to wait fr so long. Family members were ‘gone or dispersed around the country. Homes were gone. Heirlooms and ‘Photos, documents that showed tiles to homes and cars, insurance papers, bank statements, jew furniture, art: everything was destroyed. “The suicide rate had tr ‘was not an exaggeration to say that every ‘one was depressed or Most people needed psychiatric help, but ‘even four years after the storm few could find mental-health services in the ** Websites diected distraught homeovmers to contact “suicide.org” for ‘they were considering that option. “Te takes a good deal of endurance and strength” one of the Bradlieus! nighbors seid, “But after three yoars with so litle visible recovery, it wears down and erodes that strength... Lifeas knew itis gon of uncertainty, insecarity I fel insecure, Maybe 's a very big sense of insecurity here I don’t—like~ alot of that is feeling insecure. You don't know ‘what they're gonna do.” ‘Another New Orleanian said that trying to recover was like living in “3 hamsters whhe!": ‘You keep spinning, but you ae tying to reach the end of your des- tinaton io terms of job, home, resources, ebulding, bat you are not getting anywhere. You are in that spinning whee, you know, but ‘you keep trying. You getup and you goto this place, and you this place. The Road Home tome i ike an imaginary in Wonderland, Really, thats what it is because you are you havent heard anything ese, you know. You are still in ‘the well so thats like «spinning wheel, and you cant move forward - Life keeps going on, you se, it's like it's going on, butts not goingon. Residents trying to recover in the months that stretched into years after the flood and storms recall that it was haed totally up the numberof injus- tices that bad become visible and palpable, and many felt a deep sense of betrayal. Among the most visible of these injustices were those meted out slong lines of race and cass Racialization of Recovery and the Profile of Dispossession Displacement affected New Orleanians of all social classes and all racial groups, but the degree to which both the hurricane and floods led to dis- possession and impoverishment inthe years afterward was racially uneven and exacerbated by the way that recovery was organized: specifically, the poor were disproportionately hurt more than those with financial resources. ‘Others have shown that racism explains e good deal ofthe deley in rescue andcrelief operations as well as the criminaliztion of victims of the dis- aster and the violence against them” What has been explored less is how racial disparities are seen in the recovery years as the disparities tha already ‘existed along lines of race and class were made more visible and more ex: ‘treme in and through differential access to and use of recovery resources, Market-oriented strategies for recovery that sought t0 use fiscal resources where they were most likely to bring profits, rather than using them where the need vas greatest, fueled a siruation in which African Americans would be offered less than others. Existing inequalities in socioeconomic starting points helped fuel a racialization of recovery that meant African Ameri= can communities would be the least likely to return and the last to recover, In some cases, it became clear by 2010 that many of the largely Afri- can American neighborhoods simply had not recovered and likely never ‘would, Racial tenstons were heightened by the slow pace of recovery and at ‘times were visible in higher ates of gang-relatd street violence that return ing residents ssid was tied to new kinds of desperation. Here, too, market- ‘oriented solutions and the mechanics of disaster capitalism multiplied the problems of race-based violence in a city already troubled by a large racial aisparity. stitated the largest group of renters. stance from fed- ‘away from these re- sources when they did apply for help. Even among homeowners, fewer Afti- ‘can Americans than other groups hed the paperwock evidence they needed to obtain Road Home funding, and this was because they often were ex- ‘dluded from traditional sources of funding forhhome mortgages oa the basis of their race ‘African American families, for instance, were the most likely not to be In possession of title documents that federal relief services required. Even shen they had them, homeowners found that such documents often had not been changed from deceased family mem had inherited their property- Those who bo ‘and ownership but Home Program, use they were not transacted through banks and mortgage-based deeds, thus denying many rightful owners the funds that were designated to help them rebuild. ‘Worse still, even when Road Home provided rebuilding funds to ALri- ‘can Americans, these recipients were more ikely than others to have their ‘homes undervalued in the assessment process." Using assumptions that ‘African American neighborhoods had property values that were uniformly lower than. tance programs! ighborhoods insurance companies and recovery asi Road Home offered nancial support that was far below ‘what homeowners should have received.” Reports that the Road Home Pro- ram unfuirly discriminated ageinst African American homeowners were verified by the courts in 2010, which reported that prejudice occurred spe. cifically with the calculations of lower pre-storm home values in neighbor: hoods that were predominantly African American than in neighborhoods ‘that were predominantly white” The ways in which the market has always ‘worked unequally for different racial groups was only made worse in a re- covery that relied on strategies for rebuilding that favored fiscal measures of ‘worthiness above other measures, such as humanitarian or human ri based assumptions about need, Thus many people who were qualified sista enied adequate funding because of race-based aby cal worthiness, Recovery processes in New O: sn this sense the ways in which basic citizenship rights were ugh ‘grid of market concerns and, asa result, based on race, rights were denied to some more than ot (One of the main routes to dispossession among African Americans in the recovery period was that of the organization of recovery in ways that prioritized those who were already market-visible— that is people who al- ready had afoot in the game by owning a home that had a paper tral within the banking system. For people who could not show the specifi paperwork of title used within the mortgage industry (even if they could show that they had paid taxes on their property), American community was more zdiant on ‘with, whether in the ways they bout ‘the ways they held tiles to homes, informal strategies 2 long way to expl ing the degree to which a market-driven recovery would exclude Afri Americans. ‘More significantly, the large population of New Ocleans renters (roughly 54 percent, with some a2 percent of wom were low income and living ia publicly subsidized housing) were not offered Road Home funds or rauch other support that would help them return** Middle- and low-income renters and people wo lived in federally subsidized housing were the most impacted by dislocation. Renters were given FEMA tralers only if they had ‘access to private property upon which to put the trailers, or if they had ac- ‘ess to the few public spaces that were converted to trailer parks and a means of jasifjing their return to the city by volunteering a ast responder or a3 pezton whose rental home was being rebuilt or was in- habitable ‘Many renters who did not own property were initially housed in large trailer lots several hours outside the city in Plaquemines and St. Bernard ish, Those in government-subsidized housing were told that if they used > example, daring the recovery period), locations where there were no public transporta- ‘out how to makea living, many tinerant labor they were able to do in New Orleans and simply lived off of federal welfare. When the last ‘of these parks closed down in 2009, few of the people who had been living from thelr pre-storm rates infact, the storm and floods were used by local New Orleans government offcialsasan excuse to eliminate a large percentage ofits working-class and val of less well-paid immigrant ir place The fact that rental hi

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