A half decade after Hurricane Katrina’s knock-out blow, New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward is a checkerboard of homes and empty lots. The energy-efficient homes of the Make It Right Foundation stand out on the landscape, their contemporary designs contrasting with weed-filled empty lots. There are approximately 5,000 lots in the community, some with homes and some without, according to Patricia Jones, executive director of the Lower 9th Ward Neighborhood Empowerment Network Association. Some simple measures bear out the losses. The Greater New Orleans Community Data Center says this ... Read More
Recreating the Creative Industry in New Orleans
August 24, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
After Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, there seemed to be hundreds, if not thousands, of proposed solutions to the "problem" of New Orleans. Some argued that the city should be relocated to higher ground; others said it should be rebuilt from the ground up as America's model green city; still others advocated that the city allow nature to determine its shape. These blueprints had one thing in common: They sought to re-establish The Big Easy as one of America's great cities (even though some of the city's detractors argued that it should be abandoned altogether). While many of the proposals ... Read More
Mass Evacuation Worked in Rehearsal, But …
September 16, 2008 • By • Leave a Comment
When the nation weighed the success of New Orleans’ evacuation for Hurricane Katrina, few looked to the more than 1 million citizens who drove vehicles or booked flights to flee the threat through their own means. The overwhelmingly negative reviews, rather, rested with local and state governments’ inability to assist tens of thousands of residents who either didn’t have transportation to get out or couldn’t afford the gas and lodging they would need on a multiday evacuation. An image of yellow school buses parked in neat rows while submerged in Katrina’s floodwaters epitomized ... Read More
The Grass Floodwall: Gustav Highlights Need for Wetlands
August 29, 2008 • By • Leave a Comment
Although Hurricane Gustav did not strike coastal areas of Louisiana with a force reminiscent of the devastating Katrina three years ago, as had been feared, it still refocused attention on the Gulf Coast's protection from big storms. Officials insist New Orleans is safer now than it was then, but even with more man-made protections on track, nature's own floodwalls need to be erected, too. In the years since the hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated New Orleans, the Army Corps of Engineers, along with its partner agencies, have committed $14.6 billion to repair and upgrade the region's ... Read More
Forecasters Work to Avoid Next New Orleans
April 4, 2008 • By • 1 Comment
Whether contemplating several feet of snow on a ski resort roof or watching a drenching storm pelt a windowpane, you know all that water has to go somewhere. How ironic that, during the week when the scarcity of water in many places around the globe was highlighted with the celebration of World Water Day (March 22), untamed water wreaked havoc on some 250 communities in a dozen states in this country. There goes that pesky weather again. But, as Mark Twain opined, nobody does anything about it. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, however, is doing its part in terms of ... Read More
No Easy Solution
March 4, 2008 • By • 2 Comments
Related video: Mississippi Forgotten There were those, of course, whose post-Katrina vision for New Orleans was no New Orleans at all. Or at least not a New Orleans that was going to involve much in the way of national investment. Proponents of this view ranged from former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who later recanted, to racists and religious fundamentalists eager to see a majority black city with a reputation for moral lassitude punished for its sins. And then there were environmentalists for whom New Orleans’ ruin was a rhetorical convenience in debates about global warming, only ... Read More
