• Home
  • Archive
  • Media Kit
  • Contact Us
  • March 24, 2023

The Madison Times

The Paper That's More Than Black and White

  • News
    • Local News
    • National News
    • International News
    • Sports News
    • Education News
  • Columns
    • Columnists
    • Editorials
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Life Lessons with Alex Gee
  • Events
  • Health
  • Finance
  • Lifestyle
  • Classifieds
  • Community
    • Middle Spread
  • Milwaukee

10 Years Later, Hurricane Katrina’s Impact Still Devastating On New Orleans’ Black Residents

August 28, 2015

by Curtis Bunn, Urban News Service

black-residents-band-brass-trumpets-trombone-jazz-new-orleans-hurricane-katrinaNew Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu took to the road to declare his city is “no longer recovering, no longer rebuilding” a decade after Hurricane Katrina devastated it in one of America’s worst natural disasters, but some refuse to buy that speech.

For many African Americans who watched their city submerged in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico for nearly a week in 2005, Landrieu’s message rings hollow.

Donya Richardson, a 41-yearold retail employee, moved from New Orleans to Atlanta in advance of the storm. She returned to her old neighborhood three times – each time leaving in tears.

She lived with her then 6-yearold daughter in the Ninth Ward, one of the low-lying, predominantly African-American areas hardest hit by the Category 5 storm that claimed 1,833 lives and left 705 people missing. The levees, built to contain a Category 3 hurricane, collapsed, and 80 percent of the city drowned under its enormity.

“I went back about a month after everything settled down. I cried because the neighborhood was a wreck. I mean, a wreck,” she said “The destruction seemed unreal. It looked like a bulldozer just came through and tore up everything in sight. There was nothing left to salvage. I broke down because I had a life in that place.”

Richardson returned in 2011. “I was excited because downtown looked the same, if not better,” she said. “You would have never guessed Katrina came through there. Then I got to the Ninth Ward and my heart just sank. It wasn’t as bad as that first time, but it still looked like a hurricane had been through there. It made me cry.”

She returned again in spring. “I was praying to see rebuilt houses, more families—signs that real change had been made. But I saw only a little. Not enough. So many houses are just ruined and still ruined. But in other places in New Orleans, places that were hit just as hard, you can never tell anything happened.” Richardson is not alone in her observations. A wide gap exists along racial lines about attitudes regarding New Orleans’ recovery, according to a survey by Louisiana State University with 41 percent of whites said living in New Orleans improved since the hurricane clean up, while less than 20 percent of African Americans feel things are better.

‘We are unique’

building-new-orleans-hurricane-katrina“We don’t talk the way anybody else talks, we don’t dance the way anybody else [dances],” Landrieu said while touring Atlanta. “They don’t eat the way we eat. They don’t hug the way we hug. They don’t love the (same) way. It’s just different. And it’s wonderful. I love Houston. Houston’s one of the great cities in the world. I love Atlanta. But you know what? New Orleans does not want to be Houston or Atlanta. What we want to be is the best version of our real selves, because we are unique.”

Unique does not mean better for many Africa Americans living in the Ninth Ward, where homeowners either walked away from their destroyed properties or relocated to Houston, Atlanta and other cities. Many failed to receive enough insurance money, if any, to repair the vast destruction.

The city did receive $70 billion in federal aid for $150 billion in damages but a tour of the city revealed what neighborhoods were left on the sidelines.

“When you have that kind of gap (in monetary aid),” Landrieu conceded, “not everyone gets everything all the time.”
The mayor pointed to the refurbishing of the Mercedes Benz Super Dome—where 30,000 mostly African Americans endured six days of unseemly conditions as the city drowned—the many rebuilt neighborhoods and the overall growth in population of the city as evidence of progress.

“Y’all can come on home,” Landrieu said while touring Houston.

“But come home to what?” Anderson asked. “New Orleans is in my heart, in my blood. That will never change. But it’s not like it was the best place for jobs before the hurricane. And with our neighborhoods—not to say that we have to live where we always lived—but our neighborhoods just haven’t gotten the attention it deserves.”

New Orleans will make headlines again during the 10-year anniversary. President Obama plans a visit and so does former President George W. Bush, who was roundly criticized by many, including filmmaker Spike Lee, whose 2007 documentary on the aftermath of Katrina, When The Levees Broke, won two Emmys.

On his tour, in a speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C, Landrieu called New Orleans “one of the world’s most remarkable stories of tragedy and triumph, resurrection and redemption.”

New Orleans will celebrate the city’s rebirth on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina with parades featuring Mardi Gras Indians, and brass bands marching through Uptown and downtown New Orleans on August 29. The event is promoted as the Katrina 10 Commemorative Parade, created to be “a cultural showcase that celebrates New Orleans, its resilience and the incredible spirit of its people,” said Flozell Daniels Jr., president and CEO of the Foundation for Louisiana.

But many on the eastside and in the Ninth Ward will not see reason to celebrate. They are still drowning in tears.

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print

Popular Interests In This Article: Curtis Bunn, Donya Richardson, Hurricane Katrina, Mitch Landrieu, New Orleans

Read More - Related Articles

  • Educate Me Foundation Working To Grow The Number Of Black Teachers For Black Students Across The Country
  • Indianapolis’ Oaks Schools Use Student Diversity to Teach and Learn
  • What Do Black Women Want? Cigars!
  • Left, Right Seek to Halt $4.2 Billion in Asset-Seizure Abuse
  • Prison Phone Rates Generate Billions for Companies – and Cause Stress for Black Families





Connect With Us

Become Our Fan On Facebook
Find Us On Facebook


Follow Us On Twitter
Follow Us On Twitter

Editorials

Karma Chavez
Amanda Zhang
Julianne Malveaux
Benjamin Chavis
George Curry

Journalists

Jacklin Bolduan
Brianna Rae
Aarushi Agni
Rob Franklin
Claire Miller

Topics

Brown Girl Green $
Young Gifted & Black
Universally Speaking
Ask Progress
Civil Rights

Topics

Police Shooting
Police Brutality
Black Lives Matter
NAACP
Racism

Politicians

Barack Obama
Hillary Clinton
Gwen Moore
Paul Soglin
Scott Walker

Contact Us

The Madison Times
313 West Beltline Hwy
Suite 132
Madison, WI 53713
608-270-9470

Copyright © 2023 Courier Communications. All Rights Reserved.
We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our website. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, click here.