Reflections from New Orleans... almost a year later...

It's a stinking hot day in Boulder, Colorado. Not much different to a typical Melbourne Summer, except the altitude and the american accents. I discovered last year that altitude makes 1 beer go the distance of 2... so I've turned into a very very cheap drunk. I've just attended the 31st Natural Hazards Workshop held by the University of Colorado. An intense and incredibly insightful event it was, particularly the bit when Michael Brown showed up to give an 'all american speech' - word for word... i don't lie! He said the word 'scapegoat' about 4 times and clearly feels that he should not be held responsible for the tragedy that has yet to be addressed by the administration. For those who don't know who Mikey Brown is... he's the ex-FEMA boss who completely stuffed up the response to Hurricane Katrina. He admitted he had no idea how to deal with emergency management but learnt it on the job - and that is better... apparently... or in this case... apparently not. The crowd was about to erupt, in fact... many exceptionally provocative questions were asked, and he didn't really answer anything. He referred to the media as - Barbara Streisand like - BS - as Bull Shit - he said this at a rather formal academic workshop that's quite famous for their work in risk reduction. So.... I'm heading down to Baton Rouge and New Orleans tomorrow. The national guard presence has been escalated in preparation for an even worse hurricane season thanks to our ability to completely ignore the process of global warming leading to climate change that will see the gulf as a target for the next CAT 5.. do they get any stronger than that? Apparently the NOPD have been extorting cash from people... bit like the police in some developing countries who don't get paid enough. Over the past week, I've had the privilege of meeting a family from Grand Bayou, a tiny subsistence shrimping community down south. If you have read the National Geographic (2002) on the Louisiana Bayou's and the impact of the oil extraction on the marshlands and bayous, you can see Father Paul's boat and Miss Ruby's house... as it was, sitting serenely on the banks of the bayous (pre-Katrina). The colour is exuberant, a mishmash of blues, greens, browns, brightly coloured stilted homes and bright red and yellow boats. It kinda reminds me of a Vietnamese fishing village that Jayse and I stumbled upon 10 years ago when we cruised the Mekong in Cambodia with a gunship beside us. They extended an invitation to me to come see their place and the Vietnamese community who have settled down in the deep south after the Vietnam war, around 1974-76. Before Katrina hit, they lived a peaceful existence with the land, free from the formal cash economy. They talked about the receding coastline and how it has forced them further and further inland, further and further into the urban, further and further into the cash based economy that we know as capitalism. I met a 15 year old girl named Ani who now lives in a FEMA trailer in down town New Orleans. The novelty of going to the mall and movies (or what's left of it) was great for the first week, she said. But, then... cash ran out and her heart yearns to go back to the Bayous to hear the cicada's and crickets, play with the jelly fish, go crabbing and climb mangrove trees. Right now, the bayou's are way too toxic for any sort of habitation and she has noticed the absence of the mating ritual of crickets. It's not just about the changes you see, but the changes that you hear... the difference is astounding she says. So, my impressions of the South come from talking to these incredibly extraordinary people who are so damn resilient that I can't call them Katrina Victims.... they are the survivors... those who will keep on going and going despite the political issues influencing the inability of people to recover, rebuild, re-establish a sense of normalcy to their lives. Now... remember... this happened 8 months ago. 8 months after the Tsunami, I went down to Phuket to do the same thing - look at the informal economy and talk to those who live their lives within this structure. The resiliency is almost mirrored... however, rebuilding was almost finished and the informal sector workers had switched occupations and found means to make a living and return to a state of NORMAL in Thailand. In the South of the US... the debris remains as it was swept in, the homes remain stagnant, stinking and moulding, the land itself, is leaching the toxic waste of household cleaning products and industrial waste that covered the area in August/September.... and still now. I want to share this all with you, as very few outsiders (bar official people) have gone down to the grass roots to find out how these people live their lives, prior, during and after the Hurricane. I won't lie... YES... I'm scared to death of hanging out in New Orleans, where the carnage is still in full view and very few residents have come back. With an increasing presence of National Guard in preparation for the NEXT BIG ONE... I have to now sit down and work out my own contingency plan. This is my pre-field work impression... I must admit, this is a greater challenge than doing fieldwork in other countries I've worked in - yes... even that crazy Remote Areas project in upland Laos treking from village to village doing M&E qualitative analysis... this even beats Bangladesh! so I'll keep u updated when i can... very little exists down there... electricity, gas, running water, landline telephones... are all adhocly connected... mostly unconnected and non-existent. Remember... I'm in the US... a developed country... Can it happen in Australia? (check out an article I helped write in the Australian Journal of Emergency Management - Hurricane Katrina: American exceptionalism or business as usual... implications for Australia.

It's all a bit insane here. It's a worse than the tsunami stuff i've seen. Literally kinda like i'm walking into a warzone. Where the levee's have breeched, the entire 'hood is FLATTENED!!! then as you go further back, houses have moved entire blocks or two or three... then I saw homes on top of other homes and homes on top of cars. Soft toys hanging from trees, debris lying where it was swept to almost 1 year ago, still sitting there, not moved... decaying. The further back I went, the less damage, but I had to walk a good 10 - 20 blocks in some areas... and even at the 20th block, the damage is really really bad - like everything inside the house is washed out to the yard - kinda bad.

The stench is minimal but evident. No more dead bodies thank goodness... I don't think I can go through what I went through with the tsunami anymore. It's all too much. I've decided that post disaster work - like reconstruction and recovery is all I can handle. The event itself hurts me and depresses me much too much and I have to learn to protect a bit of my sanity otherwise I'll go mental with the images and smells and touch of the oil slick that I'm constantly finding under my boots. There's asbestos everywhere!

If u go out at night outside of the french quarters, u get arrested for breaking curfew. The NOPD have their own rules. Since the national guard has arrive, crime has reduced by about 30%... so I fear for my life 30% less than before. I just don’t go outdoors at night. There is no power in most neighbourhoods and no running water. Almost every neighbourhood we drive through is empty. It's the eeriest feeling I have ever felt. It's almost too much to take in and swallow. I'm impressed by people's ability to stay positive, smile, and still sing. The New Orleans vibe is alive and well. It's a pity the government has literally forgotten about these people. They tell me to keep telling their stories so that someone will listen and someone will help them rebuild their lives. Most people are trying to do it on their own. But for many, it's difficult to negotiate in a developed country with regulations and laws and rules that hinder rather than assist. FEMA is shit. I hate to say it, but it is. Insurance companies are dogs. They advised most of these people not to take out flood insurance because they are in Non-flood areas... according to the so called 'experts'. I'm never calling myself an expert in anything. I learn from these people. I'm humbled by their resilience. Their ability to just get on with life. There are some who have given up. I understand why. I probably would too. I don't think I'd be as strong.

As I cruise the streets, all I see is complete wasteland... suburb after suburb... broken down signs, entire malls empty and gutted. The most spectacular and perhaps most heart warming observation and verification (through some officials) is that the major companies - MacDonalds, Burger King, Athletes Foot, WalMart, etc... have all decided not to reopen. So you have these empty lots of huge department stores just sitting there, empty and destroyed and next to them, tiny local businesses setting up next door that are thriving! It's great!!!! Rejuvenation of the local businesses... power back to the local and money back to the people, where it belongs.

I was invited to the Vietnamese youth group last night taken in by the East Village community. I'll be living with them for the next 10 days helping them organise a social event on Sunday and also helping them articulate the problem they have with the government landfill that they are trying to transplant next to this neighbourhood. It will be a toxic dump in their backyard. We call it NIMBY - Not In My Back Yard - it's a community action term to motivate them to take action and voice up against it.

Then, I've organised to work with Common Ground Relief (google it - and the viet community... u can find them) food distribution centre where they distribute food and other items to the people in the Lower 9th Ward. I'm working in exchange for talking to crew to do my research on resilience, livelihoods, informal social networks, social capital - in short - how amazing people can be in the face of crisis.

Then I'm going to hang out with the people from the Bayou's for a few days in between to see how their lives have changed and what the future holds...

Then, I'm gonna help my 2 friends gut their homes over the next few w'ends cos they have to be done by the 31st of August otherwise they are fined over $60,0000 (US) +++ for other 'violations of the city'. It's ludicrous... I swear... the government has literally abandoned these people. They don't give a shit. So I'm gonna help them out and cook up a massive BBQ and literally chuck some shrimps on... It's my way of saying Thanks to the communities that have invited me into their lives and their, well, sorta homes... and let me live the way they live, albeit for a little while.

I think I'm doing the right thing. I still don't think I'm doing enough at all. I fell like I'm invading people's space here, but the more I get involved, the more they invite me in. It's southern hospitality. They are beautiful wonderful amazing people. It's not me that's amazing, not at all... I'm just doing what comes naturally, what feels right for me. There's nothing amazing or out of the ordinary about this at all, it's just my nature. I'm not being a martyr about it either. I don't expect anything from these people and they have literally welcomed me with open arms after 7 days of being here. I'm humbled and intrigued, I'm also taken by their generosity, given they have literally lost everything. THe pics I sent u of inside a house was a friend's place. She just got married... lost every memory she has of her life up until now. It put me back into my box... that's for sure.

There is so much work to do here.

More later... hope u are all well... here are some pics so u can get a feel of Katrina... almost 1 year later.