Anger, hopelessness and frustration on the Gulf Coast--Katy's experiences

My time in post-Katrina New Orleans and the Gulf Coast was at once emotionally charged, draining, and inspiring. I spent the week across the coast in New Orleans, Biloxi, Gulfport, and Slidell. Wow. Communities have NOT recovered. They have NOT been rebuilt. In fact, many folks are still waiting for the general debris to be removed. My general thought can be summed up like this: How the $#*(@$ is it possible that a year later so little has changed??????

"But all this money has gone down there, billions of dollars..." people have said to me.

While it's true that billions have been commited, much of it has not yet left the White House. Furthermore, much of it that has is tied up in governors' offices and hasn't yet been disbursed. And even if it has been dispursed, there are still hundreds of thousands of people waiting for their checks from FEMA and from insurance, people are waiting for the government to help them rebuild their homes, their businesses, their communities.

And don't even talk to me about looting. This is NOT where we should be focusing our time. Yes, everyone concedes that there was some bad stuff going on, but there were communities breaking into grocery stores to feed their families. Regardless of how you feel about survival theft, let's focus on the extreme destitution that Katrina revealed and the devastation it left behind her.

The injustice of it all: so many people's lives were destroyed by the storm. Where to begin.

Those in public housing (obviously the poorest of the poor). Public housing units and projects (that were notoriously ill-kept and dangerous) have been condemned by the government and there is no effort to rebuild them. So what are New Orleanians to do? And you dont have to take my word for it.

Renters. Renters have gotten nothing. Period.

Even people outside of the flood plains. You could only buy flood insurance if you lived in a flood-zone predicted by FEMA. Well, FEMA's flood maps turned out to be wrong. VERY wrong. So many who wanted flood insurance could not get it.

I am inspired by the work of the People's Institute and the People's Hurricane Fund and they have lots of information about what went wrong. Read this on Democracy Now (I should note Curtis yelled at me on the phone saying "If youre scared of poor people, don't bother coming down here!") and listen to this.

Oxfam has done tremendous work and has made a wonderful 20 minute video, a short 3 minute clip can be seen online here. This is IMPORTANT for you to know about the rest of the Gulf Coast--outside of NOLA--that has been totally, totally neglected. Listen to the stories of the rural folk, the poor, the shrimpers, the Vietnamese, the Latinos, etc. These are important stories and the 3 minute clip is important for you to see. I have the full video if any of you want to watch it--it is INCREDIBLE.

Read more about the atrocities...look up articles. This is ONE YEAR later and why has nothing changed?!?!

Being down in the coast, even one year later, made me so angry about what is going on. People still cried while telling me stories of being trapped in houses, of losing everything, of the trauma they had suffered, and of the anger they felt towards the govenrment. It was so frustrating to learn of the NGOs and nonprofits doing amazing work who had gotten so little support--from the government, from the foundation world, and from private donors.

I made it a commitment to share these stories with other people and to share the good work of others with everyone. I sincerely hope that you can make a donation to one of the incredible groups doing good work (and I will post them soon).