KATRINA's PUBLIC FIGURES

 

Hurricane Katrina formed on 8/24/05.  Katrina was the 11th tropical storm of the 2005 hurricane season, and turned westward on August 25th, toward Florida.

In the satellite image above, I have placed an arrow where we rode out Katrina here in Slidell.  Just south of us is New Orleans. At 5 a.m., an hour before the storm struck land, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which administers the system of levees and floodwalls in and around New Orleans, received a report that the levees of the 17th Street Canal, the city’s largest drainage canal, had been breached. East of the city, massive storm surges sent torrents of water over the levees along the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet (MRGO) and into St. Bernard Parish, located just southeast of New Orleans.

In all, levees and floodwalls in New Orleans and surrounding areas fell in more than 50 locations during Hurricane Katrina, flooding 80 percent of the city and fully 95 percent of St. Bernard Parish.

New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin was a central figure during the aftermath.  Nagin was released from federal prison in 2020, about three years before he was due to complete his 10-year prison term on corruption charges.  He was found guilty on  20 counts of wire fraud, bribery and tax evasion.

Then Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco passed away in 2019 at the age of 76 from cancer.  Despite partisan accusations, she did her job after Katrina.   She called President Bush and asked for “everything you’ve got.”

But a rift had begun to open between the Republican White House and the Democratic governor. According to Michael D. Brown, the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency at the time, Mr. Bush regarded Ms. Blanco as “totally incompetent,” while his senior adviser Karl Rove, in Mr. Brown’s view, saw an “opportunity to denigrate her for political advantage” — claims that the White House denied. 

Speaking of "Brownie, you're doing a hell of a job", this assclown is now a talk show host.  Now living in Denver, the 60-year-old Brown hosts a daily show on 630 KHOW, his city's radio station that is also home to shows by Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and other fiery conservative figures.  Go figure.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, then Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., helped create and pass legislation for pets and animals that are and would be affected by disaster events: the Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act.  In 2008, Lantos declared he would leave the House due to esophageal cancer. On February 2008, Lantos passed away from esophageal cancer.

New Orleans Police superintendent Eddie Compass resigned

 less than a month after Hurricane Katrina hit, amid severe criticism of police conduct, including a police killing of unarmed people on the Danziger Bridge and the cover-up of Henry Glover’s death after he was shot by a police officer. Since 2007, Compass has directed security for the state’s Recovery School District, which oversees nearly 60 schools in New Orleans, a dozen in Baton Rouge and a few in Shreveport. In a a television interview Compass said he was forced out by then Mayor Ray Nagin.

Jabbar Gibson, then 20, became famous after he commandeered a school bus in New Orleans and transported 80 people he picked up along the road to Houston.   On January 9, 2006, he was arrested by New Orleans narcotics detectives and federal agents and subsequently indicted on federal charges relating to possession of cocaine, heroin, and a revolver. He was sentenced to fifteen years in prison and was released in August 2015. 

Then U.S. President George W. Bush appointed Chertoff as the Secretary of Homeland Security at the start of 2005. Several months later, Chertoff and his department came under fire for their response of Hurricane Katrina. He served in his position through Bush's administration to the opening of Obama's. He is currently involved in the Chertoff Group, a consulting firm.

Russell "don't get stuck on stupid" Honore: As leader of Joint Task Force Katrina, he coordinated

 military relief across the Gulf Coast after the 

 hurricane. The retiredlieutenant general's webpage https://generalhonore.com/ notes that he "was widely hailed by the media as the 'Category 5 General.'" He's now a business consultant, public speaker, and a senior scientist for The Gallup Organization, "working on developing questions to determine levels of preparedness." He says he's now devoting himself to "creating a 'Culture of Preparedness' in America." His book "Leadership in the New Normal" was published in 2012 by Acadian House Press.

Never Forget - K+14

Fourteen years ago.  When you say it like that, it seems like a long time.

When you've experienced it - the storm AND the aftermath (still going on) - it seems like last week.

Katrina - the storm that keeps on giving.

My direct experiences were more on the outer edge, but witnessing the pain and suffering and the devastation is enough to leave an indelible mark on your heart.  

Yes, strides have been made in rebuilding, lessons have been learned and implemented.  The American people and the WORLD showed us the good in humanity.  Much appreciation to all of those people.  But - as is the case every time - the cruel people who lie in wait for a situation like Katrina to happen so they can bash those affected to satisfy their black souls showed their ugliness.  Their time will come.

Anyway, I have dug through my blog here to find pictures and stories of the aftermath of Katrina so we never forget how far we've come.

Here's a video taken right after Katrina in Slidell where it meets with Lake Pontchartrain.

Photographer Edward P. Richards documented Katrina devastation in New Orleans on this webpage https://biotech.law.lsu.edu/katrina/html/index.htm in extraordinary black and white photography.

This car was suspended over the marsh in Slidell for several months before it succummed to the mud.

NOLA Blogger Michael Homan posted about his experiences as he stayed in New Orleans during the storm.  Here's the link:  http://michaelhoman.blogspot.com/search?q=katrina+diary

Slidell Cleaners in Olde Towne Slidell flooded and never re-opened as a cleaners.  The building has been an art gallery, an art school and is now a Wine Garden.  

One of the wildest things I saw after Katrina was the boats that were moved by the winds and storm surges.   To see more, here's a link to a page I created after the storm: http://www.angelfire.com/la3/judyb/orphan_boats.html    

The boats shown above were pushed over the levee from Lake Maurepaus

NOLA.COM put together this graphic to show how Katrina's surge pushed through the area as she passed by on her way to the Mississippi Coast

 Click on this link to watch:  https://www.nola.com/news/environment/article_238e35b0-e52a-5ed8-aed1-ec5da3ef16da.html.

"There were over 50 failures of the levees and flood walls protecting New Orleans, Louisiana, and its suburbs following passage of Hurricane Katrina and landfall in Mississippi. The levee and flood wall failures caused flooding in 80% of New Orleans and all of St. Bernard Parish." (from wikipedia)

1,833 people lost their lives to Katrina, as a result of drowning, injury, trauma and heart conditions in Louisiana and Mississippi.  Katrina's diaspora spread all over the country.  Many people never came back.  Some just walked away from their homes.  You can still drive through parts of New Orleans and see where time stood still.   Here on the Northshore you can find lots overgrown and if you look thru the growth you will find old, dilapidated homes that have probably not been touched in 14 years.  

Conversations often come around to peoples' Katrina experiences - still.  We think of time as "before" and "after"  the storm. Katrina is many times referred to as "the storm".  While searching the internet the other day I discovered that "Katrina Tours" are still active.  Anything for a buck.  

People still live with PTSD from their Katrina experiences.  My late brother was stuck in New Orleans for the storm.  He was a raging alcoholic and stayed at a casino on the lake where he was working. He was flown to Massachusetts in about a week after the storm, but he came back in a year.  He only fit in in New Orleans.  PTSD and all.

I named this blog "Thanks, Katrina", which is something I said a lot after the storm.  Katrina took a lot away, and whenever I'd reach for some something, or look for something at the store, or want a certain food then realize it was no longer there, I'd utter "thanks, Katrina".  

Sure, there are things that were born in the storm's aftermath: stores, restaurants, hotels, etc.  But we'll never get back the people who were in our every day lives.  They're gone, moved on, passed on.  And that sucks.  But we move on.

Thirteen Years

Pictures and stories at a page I created in the aftermath of the storm:   http://www.angelfire.com/la3/judyb/katrina.html

August 29th 12 years later

Warning, the following is a stream of conciousness, written while I watch TV coverage from Texas and remember Katrina's anniversary.  

Twelve years to the day, we find ourselves in a tropical storm mode, watching the Houston Texas area drowning in the rainfall from Harvey (a hurricane name that will probably be retired, like Katrina).

Watching the images of rescue from the floodwaters is having a strong negative affect on those that lived through Katrina.  PTSD is raising its ugly head in Katrina land.

Many things have changed since 2005: social media assures that we receive up-to-the-minute information and images via Facebook and Twitter; there are community portals, neighborhood web sites, and local discussion lists; cell phones are more prevalent than in 2005, text messaging helps people communicate   and find one another; there are many more  cell phone towers too.  Katrina taught us what to have ready in case of a storm: nearly everyone I know in this area has a fairly new generator, needed for long periods of electricity loss.

We have learned NOT to wait for the government to come to our rescue.
 
The Cajun Navy was born in after Katrina to help flood victims quickly and without red tape.

Cajun Navy headed to Texas
 
We will always have the memory of fear, sadness, anger, revulsion, etc.  These feelings come automatically whenever we read/see/hear about disasters.  Especially hurricanes.

Watching Harvey coverage unfold is hard, it brings back memories to August of 2005.  Not only in Southeast Louisiana, but also on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, which took a direct hit from the storm.

Biloxi Mississippi after Katrina

The city of New Orleans, 80% which was submerged due to levee failures,   is STILL being screwed over by the very people whose job it is to be sure the pumping stations are working.

NOLA after Katrina. I still think of this picture whenever I hear helicopters

Much of the city flooded on August 5th of this year due to the fact that 14 out of 24 pumping stations were not working during a strong rainstorm.   Here's hoping that most of those pumps work hard this week with Harvey coming to visit.

Of course some things never change:  the haters are still out there in droves, asking the same idiotic questions, putting people down for being poor, black, ethnic.  People are gouging the hell out of victims.  Hopefully, karma will be visiting these "people" soon.

If you've read this far and are curious about what it was like on August 29, 2005, go to this link for the now defunct Times-Picayune's coverage of the storm.  Just reading a bit of it put that lump in my throat.  So much suffering and no one could help.

The only "live" coverage we had for about a month after the storm was WWL radio,  whose on air personalities became like family members to us. 

Curious about what it was like in the early aftermath?   local reporter Chris Rose penned a  number of newspaper articles  during the months after the storm that many Katrina veterans could identify with.  The collection eventually came together in the book "One Dead In Attic".

So 12 years on a lot has changed: new buildings, new homes, new stores, new restaurants.  New Orleans' streets still suck, the crime rate is still as bad as before Katrina, but the city is buzzing in many good ways.   The Mississippi Gulf Coast is a great entertainment destination, and all new construction from Waveland to Ocean Springs is a must see (I still need to see some of it).  Slidell, where I live is still a boring Northshore town, but I like it like that, just small enough.  Every once in a while we run into people at the store or a festival and the conversation usually finds it way to "the storm".  Everyone has stories of ruin and survival.  There is a special kinship that has been borne between veterans of "the storm".

So I say "thanks, Katrina" in a different tone than I did 10 years ago.  Thanks for all the good that has happened since we walked outside on that August afternoon  and saw a whole new, scary world.  I think after all we  experienced,  we find ourselves smarter and we possess the empathy necessary to get through life.

A Village Called Versailles

Working in the East, I watched the daily recovery from Katrina. It took 3 months for me to return to work after the storm.

This heartwarming story made me cry, for these people found their voice and demanded their new home to be free from toxic waste.

Please watch when you have time. It is uplifting. Thank you.

Finally, the Tenth Anniversary is Over

It's been a whirlwind of remembering ten years ago: TV, Radio, Internet, Books.

But people who lived through, witnessed the storm and the aftermath, don't feel happy about all of the hoopla. Only Chris Rose can described how we feel.

Taken from the website Vice, is a Chris Rose original:


August 29, and Hurricane Katrina has reached critical mass in New Orleans.

But when I tell you about a storm hitting south Louisiana right now, I am not talking about August 29, 2005, the day that wet, wide mess of a storm whipped across our coast and kicked our asses.

This is not a reenactment, a retrospective, nor a documentary. This is now. Right now, today, the howling, gale force winds are blowing hard down here and the flooding is catastrophic, again.

The flooding is of memories in this town, none of them good, some of them haunting people to the brink of collapse, like the levees. The hard winds of emotion are reducing some residents to fits of agony. The "remembrances" and "observations" and "celebrations" from that time and since are so intense that some residents have packed up and left town this weekend to get away from the media maelstrom and relentless sorrowful nostalgia that is now filed under the name: Katrina, Ten Years After.

Related: The Lower Ninth Ward,Ten Years After Katrina

OK, this is also a time of metaphors gone wild around here. Of total loss of perspective. Of holding on tight, to something or someone—anything or anyone. I am no less guilty of that than any other.

New Orleans is an all-Katrina, all-the-time carnival of excess right now. Every newspaper headline. Every talk show. Every art gallery, playhouse, even every nightclub because every band has a Katrina song. Some have entire albums.

All the famous people are here, from presidents to the pundits. The American fetishizing of anniversaries has hit this town like a Category 5. And although you can look around and see a city standing tall and tough, physically—with all our new hotels and hospitals and malls and even our new levees—the damage here now, at this most poignant date on the Gulf Coast calendar, is emotional, psychological, and just plain mental.

It's not to say that these are not better days in New Orleans—the Crescent City, the Big Easy that isn't so big and never was as easy as most folks think. Our economy is ripping. The recession of the past ten years was, for us, a windfall. We got so much federal, corporate, and charitable money that no one in the world has any idea exactly how much.

We have a lot to be thankful for. We have, for the most part, blossomed into that big, bright, beautiful, rebuilt, reborn, and re-imagined shining city on the hill. Except for the hill part. There are no hills here. But you get the point.

Numbers tell the story: In fiscal year 2014, the city collected over $46 million in revenue from hotel occupancy fees, and this year is on pace to be even higher. According to the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau (NOCVB), 9.52 million people laid their heads down to rest in our 39,000 hotel rooms last year—both of those the largest numbers on record.

And here's a fetcher for you: Prior to Hurricane Katrina, there were 809 restaurants in the city of New Orleans. Now, there are 1,408. Of course, since I started writing this story, two or three more probably hit the market.

I mean, everyone knows we love to eat down here. But 600 more restaurants than before? With 10 percent fewer residents?

This country is hungry for some New Orleans right now, to be sure.

According to Katrina 10, a Rockefeller Foundation think tank and the city's primary source for economic statistics and analysis, New Orleans is among the most vibrant small business environments in the country now.

"Entrepreneurial activity in New Orleans is 56 percent above the national average, painting a rosy picture for the business climate," reads one recent analysis. "Fueled by an engaged community, strong financial incentives, and an unmatched culture, one of the fastest growing startup hubs has grown out of the recovery of New Orleans."

The publisher of Forbes magazine described the city's economic growth since Katrina as "one of the great turnarounds in American history."

So, like I said, these are better days. We should be walking on sunshine, right?

And many are. Lots of folks—maybe even most—are feeling just fine around here about what this city has become. It's cleaner, smarter, and prettier—if that were possible.

But it's also still a dangerous place to walk around at night in some neighborhoods. And beyond the veneer of national coverage, we have more broken streetlights than some cities our size have streetlights, total. Our streets—paved upon a wet, sinking foundation—are in a constant state of upheaval (literally, not metaphorically).

And the truth is, for all the tax dollars this country has poured into rebuilding our levee system—the previous incarnation of which collapsed the first time it was ever tested and killed 1,600 of us—we have no idea if the new one works. There is no way to know if it will work until millions of pounds of water get hurled into the rock again like last time.

We are living now, as we lived before all this, on blind faith.

So for all the good and bad, we flutter back and forth about what terminology is appropriate for this occasion that looms over us. Is it an anniversary? A remembrance? Mourning? Observation? Celebration? Eulogy? Commemoration? You tell me: What are you calling it?

Truth is, they're all appropriate. In a larger communal sense, this is a time to raise a toast to the triumph of the human spirit and a recognition of the resilience of the people of New Orleans. But there is a strong undercurrent bubbling up this weekend, flushed out by the endless stream of imagery and remembrance and observation and celebration and media lights shining down on us, which has some folks running for cover.

And not the metaphorical kind. Wounds have been re-opened here. Scabs ripped away. Memories a lot of people had managed to escape for ten years have come flooding back like, well... a flood. (I warned you!)

Like I said, it is the anniversary of metaphors, ten years since Katrina, the glorification of which we have managed to avoid for, well, ten years.

There are many here wishing hard and fast for this to go away, for the date to pass, for the attention to wane, for the conversations to switch to the weather, the Saints, the elections, anything but this.

Jesus, even Donald Trump would be a welcome distraction.

We here are stuck in an endless cycle of Katrina—a name many here still refuse to speak. And despite the profound, inescapable and triumphant leaps of recovery and rebirth we have experienced, there's no two ways about it: This is tough as shit to go through again, to relive on a local level the exposure of our national nightmare and disgrace.

To see how far we have come yet how far we still need to go. It's a national discussion being played out in a city of lore that looms large in the American imagination but is actually, truthfully, a pretty small town. Considering.

Nevertheless, New Orleans is shouldering once again the burden of our unfinished—and in some cases unstarted—national conversations. Race. Poverty. Income Inequality. Energy. Rising seas. Loss of the wetlands.

And that's fine. We love conversation down here. We love talking as much as we love eating. In fact, all we talk about when we're eating is what we're going to eat next.

But I stray. Everyone here has a story to tell. And over this weekend, unless you unplug, disconnect, and go off the grid, you just might hear every one of them. But we're OK. We're gonna make it. And we're gonna stay here and keep making our way through this wild ride, trying to find our way back home.

There is nowhere else for us to go—even though many in the media, clergy and Congress told us we should find another place ten years ago. But maybe they have learned, at long last, at this most painful and triumphant juncture, what we here have always known: The longer you live in New Orleans, the more unfit you become to live anywhere else.

That's the one true crazy thing about all this. Here, at the nation's first geographical front against disaster, subsidence, evaporation and extinction: We're still here, ya bastards.

Chris Rose is a New Orleans-based freelance writer, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and author of the New York Times bestseller 1 Dead in Attic.some aspects.

Vince Vance is New Orleans

Katrina in Slidell

Katrina's aftermath - Gulf Coast

With the ten year anniversary of Katrina coming up on later this month, I'll be sharing videos of her destruction.

Thanks to Alex North, Mississippi Gulf Coast photographer for this beautiful picture

Katrina hit the Gulf Coast head on. Here's a look at the aftermath

Karma

During the months after Katrina, House Speaker Dennis Hastert had this opinion about rebuilding New Orleans:

"It looks like a lot of that place could be bulldozed," he told the Daily Herald of Arlington Heights. Asked if the government should spend billions of dollars to rebuild," Hastert said: "I don't know. That doesn't make sense to me.

Ten years later, Karma has paid "Denny" a visit. From MotherJones.com:


According to the indictment, Hastert aroused suspicion by making a series of $50,000 cash withdrawals from his bank, which was required to report any cash transaction over $10,000 to the Treasury Department. After the bank questioned Hastert about those withdrawals, he began taking out unusual amounts of cash that were just shy of the $10,000 reporting threshold—a red flag to bankers, who reported him to the feds. The cash was allegedly part of $3.5 million in hush money that Hastert, a onetime high school wrestling coach, had agreed to pay a former student to keep quiet about allegations of sexual abuse.

Never Forget

Taken by the Guerra family from Chalmette, Louisiana. August 29, 2005

For the end of a K+9 Weekend

Blue Tarp Blues, by Sonny Landreth. God Bless Us All.

My Hero

"Stuck on Stupid". I have that bumpersticker still on my car.


Highlights on Honore's time in NOLA


Honore looks back

August 29th

It will probably be mentioned as an afterthought on the nightly news, but here in Southeastern Louisiana August 29th is a day that is more memorable than the rest of the year. On this date 8 years ago - August 29, 2005 - Hurricane Katrina roared ashore on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, devastating the small towns of Waveland and Bay St. Louis.

She also flattened Gulfport and Biloxi.


I'm not even going to go into the political impact of these storm. I'm also not going to dwell the repulsive comments from our "fellow Americans". Although the haters represent a small chunk of our fellow citizens, their vitriol hurt. And they're still at it today. I feel sorry for people with that much hate in their hearts.

A lot of the immediate coverage was centered around New Orleans, and rightly so.

There are so many stories of horror and survival. Even today - 8 years after the storm - when you meet someone in line at a festival or in the store, the subject usually comes up. We survivors need to talk about "The Storm". I don't think we'll ever NOT want to talk about it. It's therapy to those of us who lived through it and still want to live here.

I've put together a montage of Katrina's devastation on this page. After The Storm I was out of work for 2 months, so I taught myself basic HTML and created the page. It kind of helped my survivor's guilt.

Memories of The Storm are anywhere one travels in Katrina's path: overgrown lots, forgotten decrepit houses, flattened beachfront properties on the coast. To offset those sights, it is still evident that the area is still coming back, 8 years later.

Oh, yeah. Something else happened on August 29th: Hurricane Isaac. The odds of this storm hitting on the same date as Katrina blew us away. Isaac blew away our electricity for almost a week, flooded our streets. He did much less than Katrina, he was just a nuisance.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

We survived both storms and the ineptitude of the U.S. Government in their aftermath. Today - August 29, 2013 - we are blessed with cool weather and clear blue skies. Many thanks to those who've cared, contributed toward our rebirth and all of the prayers.

Words of solace from a Katrina survivor

From the incredibly talented Ian McNulty , words of solace from the survivors of Katrina to the survivors of Sandy

Excerpt:

It was early November 2005, about two months after Hurricane Katrina, and I’d been back at my New Orleans home for a few days before I spotted my first neighbor. She’d come back for her own first look at her house and at our neighborhood, all of which had been flooded by the levee breaches here.

I was relieved that she was okay and I beamed happily at her. She smiled back, reflexively it seemed, because a moment later, she started shaking a little as tears gathered in her eyes.

“Can you believe it?” she said. “I mean, what are we supposed to do now?”

Her question hung there as we both gazed around. By this time, the floodwaters had long since drained away, leaving what had been an old, colorful neighborhood of homes and businesses, churches and schools as a blanched, shattered, stained, debris-strewn landscape that was dead quiet, with no other people to be seen.

I hugged her, because she was crying now and because I had no other way to answer. I didn’t know how anyone could possibly begin fixing the total mess that had suddenly engulfed our lives.

Originally posted by NJ dot com

7 Years

Mother Nature has a warped sense of humor, bringing Isaac in on this date. Please keep the residents of Plaquemines and St. Bernard Parishes in your prayers, as they are flooded seven years to the day after they were devastated from Katrina.

K plus 6