Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch

Ike Coverage: Another blow to storm-struck Galveston as UTMB announces massive layoffs, hospital downsizing

2008-11-13T16:46:00.001-05:00

Still picking up the pieces from Hurricane Ike, Galveston suffered yet another blow this week as the county's largest employer announced plans to cut almost a third of its work force. The decision will also mean a dramatic loss of beds in the island's only hospital.

The University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston will lay off 3,800 of its full-time employees, the Houston Chronicle reports. The university's board of regents made the decision during a meeting held this week in El Paso. More details on which jobs will be cut are expected next week.

Ike made landfall near Galveston on Sept. 13, causing an estimated $710 million in damages at the massive UTMB complex, which had only $100 million in flood insurance -- the maximum it could get. The storm forced the closure of UTMB's medical school and hospital, which is the school's main revenue source.

UTMB was already having financial problems before the storm. It had been losing money on its indigent-care program for years -- $59 million in fiscal 2008 alone, according to the Chronicle. The facility has traditionally provided care for the state's uninsured and for its prisoners.

UTMB's John Sealy Hospital -- the only hospital on Galveston Island and an elite trauma center -- will be downsized from 550 beds to 200. Its staff will bear the brunt of the layoffs.

Questioning whether a smaller hospital could support the medical school, Galveston Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas said the decision will "be worse than the impact that we are suffering from Hurricane Ike."

Employees targeted for job cuts will be paid through mid-January to help them through the holidays, the Galveston Daily News reports. What the layoffs will mean for the state's uninsured remains uncertain.

Ike Coverage: Storm devastates Houston's affordable housing stock

2008-10-22T14:03:00.000-05:00

As the world witnessed during Hurricane Katrina's aftermath, disasters have a way of revealing underlying social inequalities. That lesson is now being repeated in the wake of last month's disaster along the Gulf Coast.

When it tore through Houston, Hurricane Ike severely damaged more than half of the city's apartment complexes, which are home to more than 93,000 renters, according to a Houston Chronicle investigation. Furthermore, the units that were damaged were not distributed equally throughout the city:

Most of those apartments were located among the city's most vulnerable neighborhoods, where blight already had driven many buildings into disrepair even before the storm, according to the data.

In response to another Chronicle investigation published earlier this year documenting substandard housing conditions in Houston, Mayor Bill White ordered increased oversight of multifamily housing and promised to spend $1 million a year on new staff for the effort. Unfortunately, the increased scrutiny came too late for Houstonians of modest means who found themselves in Ike's path.

Ike Coverage: As the post-storm housing crisis deepens, Texans beg FEMA for toxic trailers

2008-10-20T10:54:00.001-05:00

In the wake of Hurricane Ike, the housing crisis has grown so severe in some parts of Texas that local officials are asking the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide the same kind of formaldehyde-emitting travel trailers that caused serious health problems for Gulf Coast residents following Hurricane Katrina.

Because of what local officials have called a "bureaucratic logjam," FEMA has been unable to arrange for the immediate delivery of full-size mobile homes and similar manufactured housing units to coastal Texas. Over a month after Ike hit, only 62 of these trailers have been delivered to the Southeast Texas counties of Jefferson, Orange, Hardin and Chambers, the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service reports:

This seems strange since these full-size trailers are the primary temporary housing unit that FEMA relies on in the wake of disasters. This is a problem that needs to be addressed immediately and plans put into place to prevent this from reoccurring in the next disaster.

While they're waiting for the full-size trailers to arrive, local officials and storm-affected residents argue that the travel trailers -- even with their elevated formaldehyde levels -- are preferable to living in tents. Used in manufacturing trailer components, formaldehyde has been linked to respiratory problems and cancer. Off-gassing of the chemical is an especially serious problem with the approach of winter, when trailer residents are more likely to spend time inside with the windows closed.

At a community meeting held last month in the Orange County community of Bridge City, local residents asked FEMA for travel trailers to put in their driveways while they work on repairing their homes. But FEMA officials said they're "out of the travel trailer business," the Beaumont Enterprise reported.

Earlier this month, a federal judge refused to grant FEMA immunity from lawsuits filed by Katrina survivors whose health was damaged by formaldehyde exposure from living in the trailers. U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt said there was evidence the agency delayed its response to high formaldehyde levels in its trailers due to liability concerns.

Voting Rights Watch: Post-Ike displacement could cause voting problems for Galveston

2008-10-20T08:44:00.001-05:00

Since Hurricane Ike crashed into the Texas coast last month, residents of hard-hit areas have encountered problems finding a place to stay while the region recovers -- and government at all levels has failed to provide adequate help for the displaced.

In Galveston, where three-quarters of all homes were damaged in the storm and many public housing units were rendered unlivable, local officials have requested 500 trailers from the federal government, but the city still hasn't found a place to put them. Meanwhile, members of the local apartment association complain that the city has been slow in providing needed permits that would allow them to accept tenants. Things have not been moving much faster at the national level, with state and county officials describing the Federal Emergency Management Agency's temporary housing efforts as a "bureaucratic logjam."

"FEMA keeps telling us that they've got a process to deploy temporary housing," Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs Director Michael Gerber told the Houston Chronicle. "But in four weeks, they've deployed fewer than a hundred that are occupied."

With so many of the region's residents still displaced, there are concerns that problems may result on Election Day -- but the county has already rejected one possible solution.

At the suggestion of state Rep. Craig Eiland of Galveston, who has been staying in Austin since Ike flooded his home, the Texas Secretary of State's office offered to allow Galveston County to use super precincts, also known as "voting centers." Under this system, Galveston's 187,000 registered voters would have been able to vote at any county precinct on Nov. 4. But County Clerk Mary Ann Daigle rejected the offer, saying there wasn't enough time to make the necessary changes.

Galveston elections officials have made some concessions for the displaced, though. The county is set to open 14 early voting locations today, and it will offer two temporary voting precincts to accommodate displaced voters -- one of them near the American Red Cross tent shelter that's been housing around 500 people a night. Voters registered anywhere in the county can cast ballots at the early voting locations, which are expecting record crowds. Elections officials advise displaced voters to avoid Election Day problems by taking advantage of early voting, which runs through Oct. 31, or by casting an absentee ballot by mail by Oct. 28. (For information on early and absentee voting in Galveston County, visit GalvestonVotes.org.)

There are also worries that some Galveston residents who tried to register before Ike may not make it onto the rolls by the time they show up to vote. Though the county registrar's office was able to retrieve its mail affected by Ike's flooding in Galveston's main post office, there are fears that voter registration cards may have been lost in transit. Cards filed well before the Oct. 6 deadline are still arriving at the registrar's, whose staff has been working overtime to process them, the Galveston County Daily News reports.

A citizen whose name does not appear on the registration list can still vote by casting a provisional ballot, which is counted once the discrepancy is resolved. Galveston election workers are bracing for what may be a record number of provisional ballots this year.

Election 2008: Have New Orleans and the Gulf Coast been forgotten?

2008-10-17T13:21:00.001-05:00

The Times-Picayune reports that through the six hours of presidential and vice presidential debates during the past month, New Orleans was mentioned only once. This one mention was made this past Wednesday night, in a quick reference by John McCain in support of charter schools. But as the Times-Picayune reports, the reference didn’t relate directly to the hurricane recovery issues.

The silence around Gulf Coast recovery issues by both candidates has troubled Gulf Coast advocates, leaders, and policy-makers, who have been struggling to keep Gulf Coast recovery and the region on the national agenda. According to the Times-Picayune:

Anne Milling, founder of Women of the Storm, a New Orleans-based advocacy group for continued national help with recovery efforts, expressed disappointment that only one reference -- in three presidential debates and one vice presidential one -- was made to a region still experiencing difficult rebuilding issues.

It’s “rather sad considering the magnitude of our problems and federal dollars allocated,” Milling said. State and regional leaders say follow-through in repairing and improving the federal levees that failed during Hurricane Katrina is essential to protecting the national investment in the area's shipping, oil and gas, and fishing industries as well as preserving the history and culture of south Louisiana.

As the Institute for Southern Studies has reported in our Gulf Coast recovery series, the Gulf Coast could take up to 10 years to fully rebuild, according to some estimates. Even though the Gulf Coast has come a long way since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck in 2005, immense barriers remain to rebuilding and renewal in the region. For instance, federal, state and local leaders have put forward no policy to ensure adequate levels of affordable housing despite the crisis it represents for the region. And as we reported in our most recent report, Faith in the Gulf:

The pace of renewal has been greatly slowed by a lack of resources, especially from the federal government. As of August 2008, the federal government has allocated about $126 billion, of which just over $100 billion has been disbursed or made available to state governments—a considerable sum, but still short of the total needed to revive the storm-ravaged region.

What’s more, the lion’s share of federal spending since Katrina struck has been spent on emergency relief and response, not long-term rebuilding needs. According to an August 2007 analysis by the Institute for Southern Studies, only about $35 billion of the $116 billion total appropriated by Washington had gone towards long-term rebuilding. Meanwhile, the federal funds that have been directed to long-term rebuilding have often failed to reach those in need. In the same study, the Institute also found that out of the $35 billion that had been earmarked for long-term rebuilding by the two-year mark, more than half had not been spent.

Three years later, the imbalance remains. As of August 2008, less than half of FEMA’s $11 billion in Public Assistance funds allocated post-Katrina have been earmarked for long-term rebuilding needs. Of that, only 29 percent has been spent in Louisiana and Mississippi. City leaders in New Orleans now report that they have only $1.3 billion in federal funding available to cover the city’s remaining rebuilding projects.

It appears Gulf Coast residents won't be giving up the fight just yet. Advocates continue to push to keep Gulf Coast rebuilding on the national radar and to assist Gulf Coast residents in mobilizing needed federal support.

“Tell everyone you know about what’s happening down here,” Pam Dashiell, a longtime leader in the Holy Cross neighborhood in the Lower Ninth Ward, told us in our latest report. “Don’t let them ever forget.”

And as Milling told the Times-Picayune, it will be important to keep members of Congress and the new presidential administration that takes office Jan. 20 aware of the continuing rebuilding needs and their importance to the nation.

Louisiana state official signs agreement needed to close the notorious MR-GO

2008-10-15T13:00:00.002-05:00

Facing South has reported on the catastrophic impact of the federally-sponsored Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet (MR-GO), a money-losing shipping lane that ultimately intensified Hurricane Katrina’s storm surge.

This week Louisiana’s coastal czar moved to break an apparent deadlock with the Army Corps of Engineers, sending a letter to a senior Corps official committing the state to expediting the purchase of land needed to build a rock dike to close the MR-GO, reports the Times-Picayune.

According to the Times-Picayune:

Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority Chairman Garret Graves said he decided to send the tersely worded letter to John Paul Woodley, assistant secretary of the Army for public works, after hearing that local corps officials had blamed the state for delays in signing an agreement with the corps on closing the controversial shipping channel, also known as the MR-GO.
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In the letter, Graves reiterated the state's position that the law authorizing the closure “establishes that this work on the MR-GO is to be conducted at 'full federal expense' -- or at no cost to the parishes, levee districts or the state of Louisiana.”

Earlier this month the Associate Press reported that some fifty years after digging MR-GO and destroying vast wetland areas, the Corps has finally begun to look at restoring the damage the channel caused in the swampy landscape southeast of New Orleans. The Corps announced plans to conduct public hearings starting next month on what measures can and should be taken to restore the coastal wetlands in question.

For years the EPA and other federal agencies let energy companies and other interests decimate Louisiana’s coastal wetlands, the best buffers against hurricanes. For just as many years, residents, coastal advocates, environmentalists, civil rights groups, and policy makers argued for MR-GO’s closure, as the shipping channel continued to grow in size due to erosion, bringing with it daily tidal flows of salt water that killed marsh and swamp forests. It wasn’t until after the devastation of Katrina that that the outcry against the channel gained momentum, prompting Congress to allow the Corps to close the shipping route. The Corps plans to hire contractors to plug the channel by June 2009 with rocks.

Scientists and residents blame the MRGO for flooding in eastern portions of the metropolitan area, and a lawsuit over that allegation is pending in which the Corps faces paying residents tens of millions of dollars in damages.

(Photo: Bayou Bienvenue just north of the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans. This use to be a thriving cypress swamp working its way eastward to Lake Borgne, forming the northern geographic boundary of St. Bernard Parish. That was until MR-GO flooded the bayou with saltwater and killed the native cypress trees.)

Ike Coverage: Galveston's homeless may soon have no place to go

2008-10-14T15:24:00.001-05:00

Before Hurricane Ike devastated Galveston Island on the Texas coast, about 60 homeless people spent their nights at the local Salvation Army building. But that building was extensively damaged in the storm and won't reopen for at least two months -- and the people who depended on it may soon have no place to go.

The shelter's clients are currently living in a Red Cross tent city set up behind a local elementary school, the Galveston Daily News reports. But the tent city is scheduled to close on Oct. 26.

Major Elda Flores, director of the Salvation Army shelter, says she has heard the authorities want to pressure her to reopen soon. But she says that's impossible because the building has been gutted. The electrical systems have to be replaced, and the flood-damaged first floor will have to be almost completely rebuilt.

At a city news conference held yesterday, it became clear that officials have no idea what will become of Galveston's homeless when the tent city closes.

This is the latest housing problem to afflict the island's poor residents since Ike struck a month ago. We recently reported that Galveston's public housing residents were ordered to leave their homes but were given no answers about where they were supposed to go. Some presumably ended up in the soon-to-be-closed Salvation Army encampment.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has announced it will launch a program providing rental assistance to families displaced by Ike, but that isn't set to start until November -- a week after the Red Cross tent city is scheduled to close.

In Louisiana, nearly 6,500 subsidized apartments sit unrepaired

2008-10-13T14:30:00.000-05:00

The Times-Picayune reports that more than three years after Hurricane Katrina, nearly 6,500 privately owned, federally-subsidized apartments sit unrepaired in the state of Louisiana. Most -- about 4,000 -- are in the New Orleans area.

In New Orleans, many of these apartments were built during the 1960s and 1970s, and were subsidized by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in a federal effort to create more low-income housing by giving private developers low-interest, federally insured loans. According to The Times-Picayune:

Before the storm, the apartments made up nearly 5 percent of the city's total rental stock and about 40 percent of the subsidized housing affordable to extremely low-income residents, according to PolicyLink, a nonprofit housing research organization.

HUD did not provide detailed data on the number or status of all the subsidized rental properties, but information the agency gave politicians, researchers and housing advocacy groups suggests that about 800 of the apartments have reopened while 4,000 remain closed.
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But it's difficult to be exact, because the information coming from HUD is incomplete and hard to get.

“It's like it's the biggest secret in the universe,” said Sen. Mary Landrieu, whose office has tried, unsuccessfully, to get detailed data from HUD about these properties.

Housing advocates are demanding that HUD take a more active role in reopening the affordable apartments, half of which were occupied by senior citizens, reports The Times-Picayune. Since HUD has yet to release a definitive plan that outlines which properties will reopen and which will not, and why, and since the properties are owned by a long list of private owners, it’s difficult to determine who's doing what, reports the Times-Picayune.

Facing South has reported on the affordable housing crisis facing many New Orleans residents. Hurricane Katrina damaged or destroyed nearly 52,000 rental units in the city and the homeless population has doubled to about 12,000 since the hurricane. The bureaucratic delays and the lack of progress on these private, federally-subsidized properties represent yet another a major barrier to rebuilding and providing housing for thousands of people in need.

Housing advocates underscore that instead of supplying affordable housing, some of the large apartment complexes now present a massive blight issue. Before Katrina, the subsidized apartments were a key strategy for housing the poor -- but without these rentals thousands of working poor, disabled and elderly people still live with relatives or struggle to pay steep post-Katrina rent.

Moreover, thousands of low-income households have been unable to return to HUD-assisted properties in New Orleans as many low-income tenants continue to face bureaucratic nightmares and delays. As The Times-Picayune reports:

Unlike residents of public housing complexes, renters in the HUD-subsidized apartment complexes dealt only with private landlords, and have had trouble figuring out where to get help within the FEMA-HUD bureaucracies, said Laura Tuggle from New Orleans Legal Assistance. As a result, about one-third of the HUD-subsidized renters she sees have no housing aid. And it's now too late for them to seek disaster-related rental help, she said. “Every day that passes is another day that a former HUD-assisted family sits on pins and needles, not knowing when their housing assistance may end,” she wrote to HUD in July.

Ike Coverage: Hurricane's environmental toll shows perils of expanded offshore drilling

2008-10-07T22:33:00.000-05:00

When Hurricane Ike hit the U.S. Gulf Coast last month, it unleashed an environmental disaster, details of which are only now beginning to emerge. The ecological damage gives some indication of what the tropical storm-prone Southeast could face with the expansion of the offshore oil industry.

At least a half-million gallons of crude oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico and the wetlands, bayous and bays of Louisiana and Texas, according to an Associated Press examination of federal data:

The AP's analysis found that, by far, the most common contaminant left in Ike's wake was crude oil -- the lifeblood and main industry of both Texas and Louisiana. In the week of reports analyzed, enough crude oil was spilled nearly to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool, and more could be released, officials said, as platforms and pipelines were turned back on.

About half of the crude oil known to be spilled so far came from one facility operated by St. Mary Land and Exploration Co. on Goat Island, Texas, near hard-hit Bolivar Peninsula, the AP reports. Ike's surge flooded the plant and broke the pipes connecting its eight storage tanks, which held oil produced from two wells in Galveston Bay. Most of that oil is believed to have ended up in the Gulf of Mexico, which is already suffering from a massive Dead Zone caused by agrichemical pollution runoff.

Studies on marine species have found that the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons contained in petroleum can remain toxic for many years following an oil spill. Crude oil also contains toxic heavy metals.

Groups hope to see microlending programs at work in the Gulf Coast

2008-10-07T12:58:00.001-05:00

The Christian Science Monitor poses the question this week: could microloans work to revitalize the Gulf Coast in the same way they have worked for poor areas of Africa and Asia?

Three years after Katrina, one-quarter of New Orleans small businesses remain closed. But the return or recovery of small businesses “is essential to the long-term stability of these neighborhoods,” Christy Wallace Slater of the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation (LDRF) told the CS Monitor.

In the Institute for Southern Studies recent report, Faith in the Gulf, we reported on the vital work of Jewish Funds for Justice (JFSJ) and other faith-based groups and funders in community-centered redevelopment work along the Gulf Coat. This latest project by JFSJ is the first person-to-person microloan program in the country, and it will be partnering with contributors nationwide to provide loans to struggling small businesses along the Gulf Coast.

The campaign, called the 8th Degree, will give microloans ranging from $5,000 to $15,000, which will be distributed through the ASI Federal Credit Union (ASI). The JFSJ campaign is modeled on Kiva.org, which enables individuals to give a loan of any size directly to entrepreneurs in the developing world, the campaign aims to enlist individual Americans to do the same for hurricane-ravaged businesses, reports the CS Monitor.

Ike Coverage: Galveston mayor's wish list has some complaining of "conspiracy"

2008-09-30T12:54:00.000-05:00

The rebuilding requests that Galveston Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas presented during last week's congressional hearing on the post-Ike recovery has generated so much controversy that the local paper has published an editorial trying to assure readers that it did not involve some sort of nefarious conspiracy.

One item on Thomas's wish list that's proven particularly suspect was the request that the federal government hand over undeveloped land it holds on the island's relatively unscathed east end. Opponents of a plan championed by Thomas and others to essentially give away that land to private developers "saw a conspiracy" to carry out that plan, the Galveston Daily News reports.

Thomas also requested money for a bridge over West Bay -- a proposal that generated an enormous controversy back in the 1990s and which the state eventually rejected as too expensive. Thomas also asked for a flyover lane off Interstate 45 that had initially been rejected as a political favor for developers. The mayor, we should probably note, is president of Thomas & Company of Galveston, a private real-estate and investment firm.

City Manager Steve LeBlanc said the wish list was put together by the city's department heads and some consultants after a discussion lasting about an hour. The paper scolded city leaders for the undemocratic nature of the process:

...[I]t is also hard to see how anyone at city hall might think large sums of federal money actually might be spent on the items on that list without further discussion by the city council. After all, any money the city receives should be spent on projects that reflect the will of the people, and that is properly expressed through elected representatives.

Gustav Coverage: Hundreds of Katrina Cottages ruined by Gustav

2008-09-25T13:48:00.000-05:00

When Hurricane Gustav hit the U.S. Gulf Coast earlier this month, it ruined hundreds of cottages in southern Mississippi that were provided to residents left homeless three years ago by Katrina. So far, more than 230 of the so-called "Katrina Cottages" have been deemed uninhabitable by insurance adjusters due to water and storm surge damage, according to a release (pdf) from the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency. There are current over 2,800 Katrina Cottages occupied by families across South Mississippi.

The state is offering affected families a few options: relocation to a cottage in a commercial mobile home lot, with the family responsible for paying any lot rents or fees; placement in a cottage on other land where local codes allow it to be there permanently and where it does not have to be elevated higher than six feet; or moving to a rental apartment with the state footing the bill for the security deposit and rent through February 2009, when assistance for Katrina victims is set to end. Families that opt to live in a cottage will get the opportunity to buy it at a reduced rate based on income and ability to pay. Funds to house the Gustav victims are coming from insurance proceeds for the destroyed cottages.

"We are making every attempt to not only help these families find housing, but to ensure they are able to remain within their communities and school districts where they currently live," said MEMA Director Mike Womack.

The Associated Press reports that most of the uninhabitable cottages are located in Mississippi's coastal Hancock County, which was Katrina's Ground Zero. The state obtained a federal waiver that allowed the cottages to be temporarily set up in flood zones so residents could live on their own properties.

Mississippi built the cottages with a $281 million federal grant. While Louisiana also got money for cottages, it hasn't built any yet. The idea for the cottages arose during the post-Katrina Mississippi Renewal Forum as a way to provide storm-safe emergency housing that could be transformed into permanent dwellings.

(Photo of Katrina cottage by Samantha Bearden from MississippiRenewal.com)

Ike Coverage: In Texas, undocumented workers are rebuilding the coast

2008-09-25T11:49:00.001-05:00

In towns along the Texas Gulf Coast, residents continue to rebuild following Hurricane Ike. The Houston Chronicle reports that Ike’s destruction is sparking one of the largest rebuilding efforts the state has seen in decades, and much of this work will be done by illegal immigrants.

Homeowners have already turned to undocumented day laborers to help with debris removal, roof repairs, and repairs to other storm-damaged property. Contractors have also hired them to rebuild or restore businesses and the city's infrastructure, reports the Chronicle. Unlike in New Orleans, which experienced an influx of Hispanic immigrants coming to work in the recovery effort, in Texas many of the area’s existing immigrant population will do the rebuilding work.

According to the Chronicle:

…this tug and pull of the labor force highlights an uneasy dilemma: The region needs the muscle of undocumented immigrants, but simultaneously is a cog in a broader crackdown of illegal immigrants at worksites.
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The looming demand for immigrant labor for rebuilding efforts illustrates how dependent Texas industry and commerce are on undocumented workers.
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According to a 2006 study by the Greater Houston Partnership, construction is the largest employer of undocumented workers in the city, employing nearly 36,000 people.

Crackdowns on illegal immigration, including the numerous immigration raids of the past few years, have had a devastating impact on many immigrant communities in Texas—separating families and creating a climate of fear. More the ever, the large role that immigrants have played in rebuilding the Gulf Coast following the devastating storms of the past three years illustrates the need for long-term immigration reform and not short-term policies of scare-tactics and raids.

Along the Louisiana coast, indigenous cultures and communities remain in peril

2008-09-22T12:46:00.002-05:00

Hurricanes, flooding, and coastal erosion continue to threaten many indigenous communities across coastal Louisiana. Albert Naquin, chief of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Indians on Isle de Jean Charles in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, says it's time for the island's remaining residents to move farther inland, surrendering their way of life to the twin threats of storm surge and coastal erosion, reports the Times-Picayune.

Due to land loss, the island and much of the community is being swallowed by the Gulf of Mexico. According to the Times-Picayune, more than a week after Hurricane Gustav flooded much of Isle de Jean Charles, Hurricane Ike brought a 9-foot storm surge, overtopping the island's 6- to 7-foot levees and swamping homes once again. Although the Native American residents of the island have lived through numerous floodings, most do not have the money to continually rebuild, and the community knows it will never get stronger levee protection.

As the Times-Picayune reports:

Like other bayou communities, Isle de Jean Charles is a victim of coastal erosion, subsidence and sea-level rise. The oil and gas industry's construction of canals for vessels and pipelines enabled saltwater from the Gulf to invade and destroy freshwater wetlands. Levee building also caused southern Louisiana communities to be cut off from the Mississippi River and its sediments, which would have replenished the land and prevented it from sinking.
Island shrinking

Isle de Jean Charles once stretched about four miles wide, but is now a quarter-mile wide.

Coastal and bayou communities throughout Louisiana have been sinking for years, placing Cajun, Creole, and other unique cultures along the coast at risk of disappearing completely, and threatening the livelihoods of entire coastal communities. This land and culture loss is one of the biggest ecological and social disasters along Louisiana's coast.

Tribal leaders and tribal attorneys say the recent storms again sound the alarm that Louisiana's coastal communities need stronger flood protection and more emphasis on coastal and wetlands restoration to reduce surge, reports the Times-Picayune. “These communities are cultural and historical assets,” Joel Waltzer, a tribal attorney for the Pointe-aux-Chenes Indians, told the Times-Picayune, adding that losing the communities “would mean the end of an entire lifestyle and, in this case, the end of an entire people.”

Ike Coverage: Relief workers weather an above-average hurricane season

2008-09-12T13:36:00.002-05:00

Hurricane Ike is pushing its way into Texas today and tomorrow, and already hundreds of thousands of people have evacuated to further inland locations. The National Weather Service issued a warning to people living in small houses on Galveston Island that they faced “certain death” from flooding if they remained in their homes. A mandatory evacuation has been issued for Galveston, and hurricane warnings were issued for a 400-mile stretch of coastline that stretched from south of Corpus Christi to Morgan City, La., reports the New York Times.

Disaster relief groups already on the ground serving evacuees affected by Hurricane Gustav are turning toward Texas this week, readying a relief response as Hurricane Ike makes landfall. Non-profit and faith-based relief operations such as Operation Blessing, the Southern Baptist Disaster Relief, the Salvation Army and World Vision have put relief teams are on the ground to begin distributing food, water and other needed items to victims.

Relief workers, overwhelmed but prepared

These groups have been stepping up their activities and providing non-stop relief work in what has been a well-above-average hurricane season. As the Institute for Southern Studies underscored in our recent report, Faith in the Gulf, these faith-based and non-profit relief organizations have become a vital part of relief and recovery work in hurricane-prone areas.

Some of their recent work includes:

Since Gustav made landfall in Louisiana, thousands of Southern Baptist Disaster Relief volunteers operated feeding kitchens at 23 locations in five states. Southern Baptist volunteers have prepared nearly 770,000 meals; completed 275 chainsaw jobs; provided 7,903 showers and 1,138 loads of laundry, reports the Baptist Press.
In preparation for Hurricane Ike, Texas Baptist Men have activated four teams to serve around the state and will prepare about 46,000 meals a day, reports the Baptist Press.
The Pentecostal relief outfit, Convoy of Hope, is responding to victims in Cuba, Haiti, and Jamaica, after providing in recent days more than $1 million of aid to the Gulf Coast of the United States following Hurricane Gustav. In the United States, Convoy of Hope has distributed 26 semi-truckloads of relief supplies to more than 200,000 people in Louisiana and the U.S. Disaster Response Team is preparing to redirect its efforts to Texas, according to Reliefweb.
Following Hurricane Gustav, the Salvation Army served more than 100,000 meals throughout the gulf coast area. This includes food service for evacuees, volunteers and other first responders who are helping in the evacuation. The ministry has more than 100 mobile feeding units, two 54-foot mobile kitchens and multiple fixed feeding sites at its Corps and other outposts throughout the region, reports the Salvation Army in a press release.
Nationally, churches across Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, and as far north as Oklahoma have opened up their doors to evacuees following the most recent storms.

“We’re in full preparation mode here,” Audrey Black, manager of World Vision’ Storehouse in Picayune, Miss., said in a World Vision press release prior to Hurricane Gustav’s landfall. “We have been seeing long lines at gas stations and stores as people stock up on necessities—but not everyone can afford to stock up. World Vision’s priority is to make sure we're ready to help the region's low-income and forgotten populations.”

In Houma in the days following Gustav, North Carolina Baptist disaster relief units rolled in with six 18-wheelers filled with meal supplies, to cook 30,000 meals a day for delivery to residents by the Salvation Army’s fleet of disaster response trucks, reports the Baptist Press. “People ask, 'Why do you need these guys?’” Kilm Liretta, a Houma reporter, told the Baptist Press regarding the North Carolina Baptists’ feeding operation. “You know what I tell them? Without these guys, we’d be lost.”

In response to Hurricane Ike, nonprofit and faith-based volunteers, staff and vehicles are awaiting deployment with other equipment and supplies to storm-struck areas. The American Red Cross has requested that Southern Baptists Disaster Relief, the third largest disaster relief organization in the United States, be prepared to provide up to a total of 500,000 meals per day, while the Salvation Army has requested another 70,000 meals, reports the Baptist Press. Relief workers have been working with the American Red Cross, the Salvation Army and federal and state officials to plan a response in Ike’s expected strike zone.

The steady stream of storms has caused many groups to recruit more volunteers. “One of the problems we’ve been facing is fatigue,” Mickey Caison, director of operations at the Southern Baptist Disaster Operations Center, told the Baptist Messenger. “We’ve been going at it hard all year with tornadoes and floods and ice storms. So we’ve been in a response somewhere all year long. And a lot of those volunteers have used their vacation days already. As we are working toward additional responses, we are looking at whether we are going to be able to mobilize enough people.”

Saving the Coastline

Sharon S. Gauthe, director of southern Louisiana’s Bayou Interfaith Shared Community Organizing (BISCO), a congregation-based community organization part of the PICO national network, has been working in the Hurricane Gustav hard-hit areas in Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes to bring attention to the relief and recovery needs of the area. "Please spread the word that we do need to be helped in our communities," she said.

Local faith-based groups such as BISCO continue to engage in advocacy work to ensure that communities impacted by these storms gain better protection. For instance, BISCO is interested in seeing policy that improves the safety of communities in southern Louisiana. “Man has destroyed that protection and now we’re forced to get out to survive,” Patty Whitney, a BISCO community organizer, said in an Oxfam press release following Gustav. “Before, people could prepare. They could board up, stock up on supplies. They knew how to protect themselves from the furor of nature because nature itself provided protection.”

BISCO believes that protecting healthy marshes along the coastline and helping to restore the marshland would provide a level of security and safety so many of these costal communities desire. “The technology is there, but the political will is not,” Whitney said in the press statement, underscoring that BISCO is determined to change the political landscape. “Our goal is to work with communities and networks across the country to help build the will to save the coastline.”

FEMA wasted millions on Katrina no-bid contracts

2008-09-11T15:46:00.001-05:00

According to a new report by the Homeland Security Department's office of inspector general, the federal government wasted millions of dollars on four no-bid contracts it handed out for Hurricane Katrina recovery work, the Associated Press reports.

Investigators examined temporary housing contracts that the Federal Emergency Management Administration awarded without competition to Shaw Group Inc., Bechtel Group Inc., CH2M Hill Companies Ltd. and Fluor Corp. in the days immediately before and after Hurricane Katrina, the Associate Press reports.

All four companies have strong government and political ties. According to the AP:

[The report] found that FEMA wasted at least $45.9 million on the four contracts that together were initially worth $400 million. FEMA subsequently raised the total amounts for the four contracts twice, both times without competition, to $2 billion and then $3 billion.
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FEMA did not always properly review the invoices submitted by the four companies, exposing taxpayers to significant waste and fraud, investigators wrote. In many cases, the agency also issued open-ended contract instructions for months without clear guidelines on what work was needed to be done and the appropriate charges.
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FEMA lacked a real-time inventory system to ensure that property attained and maintained by the four contractors, such as trailers, were properly accounted for.

Investigators also found that FEMA paid $20 million for a camp for evacuees that was never inspected and proved to be unusable.

In the past three years, FEMA has steadily come under fire from lawmakers and government investigators for awarding no-bid contracts worth hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars in the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita in the fall of 2005. Facing South has previously reported on the problems presented by FEMA’s no-bid trailer contracts. This latest report, according to the AP, is just “the latest to detail mismanagement in the multibillion-dollar Katrina hurricane recovery effort, which investigators have said wasted at least $1 billion."

Gustav Coverage: Help needed in Louisiana's hard-hit indigenous communities

2008-09-08T14:04:00.000-05:00

There are reports of extensive devastation from Gustav in indigenous communities across areas of Louisiana hit hardest last week by the storm. United Houma Nation Principal Chief Brenda Dardar Robichaux has been posting reports to her organization's website describing her travels throughout the rural area. In her latest dispatch from Saturday, she recounts her visit to a coastal Terrebonne Parish community that's also home to members of the Biloxi-Chitimacha tribe. Due to land loss, the community is being swallowed by the Gulf, but some homes are able to withstand the onslaught better than others, as she describes:

Friday morning was the first day that I was allowed access to Isle de Jean Charles. A first responder brought me pictures the night before, but I had not yet seen the Island personally. So my husband Mike, my 11 year old daughter Felicite and I, wearing our rubber boots, headed to Isle de Jean Charles, one of the hardest hit communities. Island Road, the highway that leads to the settlement, lay covered with dead trout, drum and red fish. We parked our truck at the beginning of the Island and walked several miles to the end. The pictures did not prepare me for what I was about to see. We witnessed homes off their foundations that had floated on levees and piles of rubble that were once homes. After years of coastal erosion and without a good protection levee this community was very fragile. Hurricane Gustav showed no mercy. I became very angry that something had not been done sooner to protect the barrier islands that would have given my community a fighting chance. I remember stories told to me of how there were acres of land on which children played baseball, and pastures where horses roamed. To see the state of the Island now was overwhelming.

Of the 100 or so people who live on the Island we met with approximately 4 families. The rest had not yet returned to see the fate of their homes. We stopped at what was left of every home, walking through a foot of swamp mud and leaving contact information so that we could try to offer assistance.

As we approached the end of Island, we saw a stark contrast as camps owned my non residents were often left totally intact, without any visual signs of damage. We met one of the camp owners on his was out who exclaimed that although the hurricane was bad he thought it was going to be a lot worse. He must have repeated those thoughts a half dozen times. I could not believe what he was telling me. NOT THAT BAD…COULD HAVE BEEN A LOT WORSE…FOR WHOM? Surely not the residents of the Island! As we continued to walk the next camp owners spoke from the balcony of his perfectly intact camp and expressed with pride how his camp has withstood the last three hurricanes without any damage because it is built with 32,000 wood screws. Our people can’t afford HOMES built with 32,000 wood screws. So we are left with homes totally destroyed and may have to consider relocating, leaving the land we love while non residents with resources can build CAMPS that will sustain hurricanes force winds and coastal erosion. Why hasn’t something been done sooner to protect our community? Is it because the Island is a poor Indian community so it doesn’t matter what happens to us?

After we finished our assessment, we returned to Raceland to join tribal citizens, family and employees as they prepared the Old Store Relief Center. An afternoon rain shower proved too much for the hurricane damaged roof. The infamous Hurricane Katrina "blue tarp" will be put on the roof until it can be repaired.

To help the Houma, send tax-deductible donations to the United Houma Nation Relief Fund, 20986 Hwy. 1, Golden Meadow, LA 70357. Supplies may also be sent directly to Old Store Relief Center, 4400 LA Hwy 1, Raceland, LA 70394. Among the items most needed: nonperishable food, water, flashlights, batteries, gloves, boots, shovels, large garbage bags, cleaning supplies, fans, tarps, tree and debris removal equipment & supplies, personal hygiene items, ice chests, first aid kits, gas gift cards, Walmart gift cards, generators, Depends, Ensure, baby formula, diapers and baby wipes.

(Photo from United Houma Nation website)

Gustav Coverage: Gustav's Impact on Louisiana and Haiti

2008-09-06T12:47:00.001-05:00

By Bill Quigley, guest contributor

Hurricane Gustav killed 18 people in Louisiana and displaced 1.9 million. Over 800,000 homes are without electricity, nearly half the state, and some will not see power for up to a month.

In Haiti, Gustav killed 77 with another eight missing and damaged nearly 15,000 homes. Tropical storm Hanna, which closely followed Gustav, killed at least another 60 people. Tens of thousands of people have sought safety on rooftops and temporary shelters. Rotting cows drift in the flood waters.

Louisiana is the poorest state in the US, home to nearly four million people, with per capita income of around $16,000 per year. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, home to nearly nine million people, with a per capita income of less than $400 per year.

In Louisiana, gas and water are scarce. On Thursday September 4, 2008, authorities reported a three-mile line of people waiting for food and water outside of New Orleans. The evacuation of 1.9 million people in Louisiana went relatively smoothly. The return has been much more difficult.

Reports from community organizations in Haiti say people have not eaten since Monday. Melinda Miles from Konpay reported: "Twenty-four hours of rain drenching the huts of the poor, perched on the cliffs, and drowning the slums, huddled on the edge of the sea. Homes were washed away by overflowing rivers, and others had flash floods tear through their walls. Fields of plantain trees are now stagnant puddles - breeding ground for mosquitoes - and agricultural fields were destroyed throughout the region. Almond trees floated into the sea and coconut trees were uprooted."

Tens of thousands of people in Louisiana remain displaced. A thousand people in one shelter reported there were no bathing facilities at all. People washed up in a bucket. Another shelter reported 30 people arrested outside a nearby convenience store. Buses will start bringing people back on Friday.

Haiti was in deep trouble before being hit by a series of storms. Hunger is widespread. Sky-high food prices sparked riots and turmoil as people could not afford to purchase enough food.

Louisiana had not yet recovered from Hurricane Katrina, three years ago. New Orleans still has over 65,000 vacant and abandoned homes and over 100,000 fewer people since Katrina. Many of the elderly, disabled and African-American working poor remain displaced.

"There is no food, no water, no clothes," the pastor of a church in Gonaives, Arnaud Dumas, told The Associated Press. "I want to know what I'm supposed to do ... We haven't found anything to eat in two, three days. Nothing at all."

Critics question why prisoners in New Orleans were returned by public transportation days before tens of thousands of citizens had the same opportunity.

President Rene Preval of Haiti told Reuters, "We are in a really catastrophic situation. There are a lot of people on rooftops and there are prisoners we cannot guard." In Gonaives, a city of 160,000, half the homes remain flooded, according to UN troops. People begged for food and water outside the UN troop base.

"All and all, the response has been excellent," President Bush told the nation. The US Embassy in Haiti announced it was releasing $100,000 in emergency aid to Haiti.

In Haiti, the situation is critical. "If they don't have food, it can be dangerous," Haitian Senator Youri Latortue told The Associated Press. "They can't wait."

"We expect a surge of evictions and power cutoffs," said Brother Don Everard of Hope House, a social service agency in New Orleans. "People were having trouble making rent and utilities before evacuating for Gustav, now it will be worse because they have spent all their money to evacuate."

Haiti is 1,300 miles away from New Orleans. Other hurricanes are now approaching the Caribbean.

Bill Quigley is a human rights lawyer and law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. He can be reached at quigley77@gmail.com.

Cinema Fridays: A Village Called Versailles

2008-09-05T12:01:00.002-05:00

In the Institute for Southern Studies' recent report Faith in the Gulf and in our past reports, such as One Year After Katrina, we’ve talked with Vietnamese leaders in New Orleans East and have documented the remarkable stories of the 9,000-strong Vietnamese-American community of Versailles in their efforts to rebuild post-Katrina and to find a political voice.

Filmmaker S. Leo Chiang captures the inspiring rebuilding of the Vietnamese American community in post-Katrina New Orleans East in his new documentary A Village Called Versailles. He is currently completing a feature-length version of the film, but PBS' Frontline/World has posted a 15-minute online version through its Rough Cut series here.

Versailles, home to one of the densest ethnically Vietnamese populations outside of Vietnam, was severely impacted by Hurricane Katrina. But the community came together to rebuild and to fight for a political voice.

From the Frontline/World report:

Like the rest of New Orleans, Versailles was devastated in the fall of 2005 by Hurricane Katrina and the floods that followed. Many Vietnamese Americans in New Orleans East were evacuated and dispersed. But despite all of the difficulties they faced, the community, led by Pastor Vien Nguyen of the Mary Queen of Vietnam Church, refused another forced exile. “There has been a switch," Father Vien says. “Before Katrina, home was Vietnam. After Katrina, home is here.”

Armed with this new sense of belonging, the Versailles Vietnamese returned just six weeks after Katrina to begin rebuilding. By January 2006, more than half the community had returned, and the rest of the City began to take notice.

Ironically, it was the flood and its aftermath that catalyzed the transformation of Versailles from an isolated refugee community into an integral part of New Orleans. Besides the work of community leaders such as Father Vien, Vietnamese-American activists began arriving from elsewhere in the country after Katrina to work with community members toward the goal of gaining a unified political voice for the previously ignored Versailles community. Soon after, they found a common enemy in the Chef Menteur Landfill.
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Only through this struggle to rebuild their community and to make their voices heard have the Vietnamese American residents in Versailles finally learned the tools of democracy and ultimately claimed their American identity.

Frontline/World’s Rough Cut, a regular series of online video reports from around the globe, won two Webby awards in 2008. For more Rough Cut online videos, visit here. For more information on filmmaker S. Leo Chiang visit Walking Iris Films.

Beware of unauthorized groups taking Gustav victims' pets

2008-09-05T09:18:00.000-05:00

The Louisiana SPCA is warning New Orleans residents that several unauthorized groups have entered the city to remove pets from people's properties, presenting themselves as animal rescuers.

The LA/SPCA is the only group in Orleans Parish authorized to respond to animal rescue calls and animal emergencies. If residents see anyone who is not with the SPCA entering their own or their neighbors' property and attempting to take an animal, they are advised to call the police.

LA/SPCA began its ground rescue operations on Wednesday, and is working in cooperation with the New Orleans Office of Emergency Preparedness and the New Orleans Police Department, reports director Ana Zorrilla:

"Any other animal group not working with the LA/SPCA and not authorized to enter the city and found taking any animals from residents' homes and yards are stealing," says Zorrilla.

To report an animal emergency or an animal needing rescue, please contact the Louisiana SPCA at 504-368-5191 ext. 100, or by email at info@la-spca.org. Groups interested in helping with the rescue effort should do so through the system established by the Louisiana State Animal Response Team.

Gustav Coverage: Birmingham blues

2008-09-04T16:21:00.001-05:00

Today I'm traveling back from New Orleans to North Carolina via Birmingham. I stopped in at the main Red Cross shelter for Gustav evacuees that's been erected at the city's Civic Center to see how people were holding up.

Over 3,400 evacuees were brought up from Louisiana to 10 shelters in Birmingham, and many more came in the own cars. Cars with Louisiana plates are packed underneath the expressway running through town.

The Civic Center shelter seemed to be going smoothly, but everyone -- the Red Cross operators, dozens of volunteers and of course the people living there -- was visibly worn down.

Most of all, people were frustrated that they couldn't get back home. In south Louisiana, all but hard-hit Terrebonne and Plaquemines parishes have ended mandatory evacuations and residents are allowed to return. But those who were evacuated by FEMA buses have no say, held hostage wherever the buses and trains took them -- and FEMA has made no announcement as to when they'll be taking residents back.

"I'm leaving tonight -- I don't care how I get down there, I'm getting out of here," one older woman told me. "We haven't heard ANYTHING about when we're getting back," a man with his young son told me.

By all accounts, the evacuation out of New Orleans went smoothly, in stark contrast to Katrina. The fear now is that, if that a frustrating and chaotic return policy will cause people may shun FEMA-run evacuation services next time -- and the Gulf Coast will be right back to where it was with Katrina.

Gustav Coverage: Human rights monitors needed for evacuee shelters

2008-09-04T12:27:00.000-05:00

The U.S. Human Rights Network is seeking volunteers to monitor potential human rights violations, gather information, and conduct interviews in shelters housing Gustav evacuees. Volunteers are needed in Memphis, Knoxville and Nashville, Tenn.; Alexandria and Shreveport, La.; Houston and San Antonio, Texas; Atlanta; and Fort Chaffee, Ark. USHRN is looking for volunteers who speak the various languages of the Gulf Coast, particularly Spanish, French and Vietnamese. For more information, call (404) 588-9761 or e-mail jwilliams [at] ushrnetwork.org.

Gustav Coverage: Evacuees return home, powerless and cash-strapped

2008-09-04T12:09:00.000-05:00

Reporting from the Gulf, Institute Director Chris Kromm tells us that Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal held a press conference this morning during which he discussed the widespread electrical outages affecting his state. According to documents released this morning by Jindal's office, almost 1.2 million electricity customers across the Louisiana remain without power -- 60 percent of all of the state's customers.

In the service area covered by Entergy, the state's largest power provider, there have been more than 825,000 outages. That means Gustav already ranks as the second-most damaging storm in the company's 95-year history, surpassed only by Hurricane Katrina's 1.1 million outages. The company -- which includes Entergy Louisiana and Entergy Gulf States Louisiana -- is preparing to dispatch 9,000 repair workers but warns there have been massive damages to the transmission system, which means the difficulty of the restoration efforts will rival that faced post-Katrina:

"This will be a marathon, not a sprint," said Renae Conley, president and chief executive officer of the companies. "We’re restoring power as quickly and safely as we can, but this recovery will take weeks."

Meanwhile, the economic crunch facing evacuees that Chris discussed this morning on American Public Media's "Marketplace" radio program shows no sign of easing soon. So far, about 37,000 people have applied for personal assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Chris reports -- but reimbursement for hotel stays is still not a sure thing.

Gustav Coverage: A Look at New Orleans before Gustav hit

2008-09-04T07:56:00.000-05:00

This special report produced for Democracy Now! by New Orleans journalist Jordan Flaherty and New Orleans filmmaker Lily Keber, highlights some of the concerns New Orleans' residents felt around the evacuation and the state of New Orleans three years after Hurricane Katrina. Filmed in the hours before Gustav landed in Louisiana, the report features Saket Soni from the New Orleans Workers Center for Racial Justice, Bill Quigley from Loyola Law Clinic, Carol Kolinchak from Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana, and many others.

Gustav Coverage: FEMA to provide financial assistance to evacuees

2008-09-03T15:54:00.000-05:00

Facing South previously reported on Gulf Coast advocates’ campaign to demand “Cash Not Comfort” from FEMA. The Katrina Information Network reports that due to the resulting public pressure, FEMA has announced that they will be making disaster aid available to those affected by Hurricane Gustav.

The Times-Picayune reports that evacuees, property owners with damage and local governments in 30 parishes will eligible for a variety of benefits, including: reimbursement for certain evacuation expenses, including hotel rooms; rental payments for temporary housing for those whose homes are unlivable; grants for home repairs and replacement of essential household items not covered by insurance to make damaged dwellings safe, sanitary and functional; and a number other financial assistance packages.

The aid application is available online.