Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?
by: William Rivers Pitt,
t r u t h o u t : August 3, 2009
Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans,
And miss it each night and day?
I know I'm not wrong, the feeling's getting stronger,
The longer I stay away ...
- Louis Armstrong
The city of New Orleans will be on the minds of many in the coming days
and weeks. The four-year anniversary of the worst civil catastrophe in
American history - one of the worst such catastrophes in all of human
history - will soon be upon us. It was four years ago, the length of one
presidential term, that a storm came, and the seas rose, and the levees fell
and a city was, for all practical purposes, murdered right before our eyes.
Four years ago, it happened like this.
On August 23, 2005, Tropical Depression Twelve swallowed up the remains
of Tropical Depression Ten over the Bahamas and Puerto Rico and began moving
towards the United States. Two days later, the storm was designated a
hurricane and named Katrina. It made landfall in Florida and swung to the
south-southwest, gathering strength from the warm waters of the Gulf of
Mexico. A day later, the storm's track was recalibrated by the National
Hurricane Center, with the line pointing straight into the heart of the
Mississippi Delta. Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco declared a state of
emergency, and the Louisiana National Guard was mobilized.
By dawn the next day, Katrina had become a Category 3 hurricane.
Evacuations, at first voluntary and later mandatory, were ordered in the
parishes that lay across the path of the storm. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin
emphasized to residents of the Ninth Ward to get a head start on the
evacuation. Ten truckloads of water and meals were delivered to the
Superdome, enough to support 15,000 refugees for three days. That night,
George W. Bush was briefed by National Hurricane Center Director Max
Mayfield on the status of and potential danger posed by Katrina. Forty
minutes after midnight, Katrina became a Category 4 hurricane.
By 7:00 AM (CDT), Katrina had become a Category 5 hurricane, with
maximum sustained winds of 175 mph and gusts up to 215 mph. The storm was
expected to make landfall overnight, and New Orleans lay directly in its
path. Mayor Nagin ordered the mandatory evacuation of the city, and close to
30,000 people poured into the Superdome seeking shelter. George W. Bush
participated in a video conference with Max Mayfield and FEMA Director
Michael Brown, who warned Mr. Bush that the storm was more severe than
Andrew, was headed directly for New Orleans and the city's levees were in
grave danger of collapse. Brown emphatically described Katrina as "the big
one." Mr. Bush said exactly 40 words - one sentence promising support - and
stayed mute for the rest of the meeting.
That was Sunday, August 28, 2005, the last day the city of New Orleans
would exist as we have known it. At 6:10 AM (CDT) the next day, Katrina made
landfall in Louisiana.
By the end of that Monday, virtually the entire city of New Orleans was
under more than ten feet of water. Rooftops began to disappear under the
incoming tide. Levee after levee failed, an event later blamed on the
Louisiana Army Corps of Engineers, despite the fact that George W. Bush that
same year had stripped more than $70 million in funding for the maintenance
of those levees - virtually the entire Louisiana COE budget - to pay for his
ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Like a slow-motion nightmare, Americans watched the steady annihilation
of New Orleans unfold on television while Bush discussed immigration with
Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff, shared a birthday cake photo-op
with Sen. John McCain, promoted his Medicare Drug Benefit plan in Arizona
and California and went to bed without responding to Governor Blanco's
urgent plea for assistance. "Mr. President, we need your help," read the
message she had relayed to Bush that day. "We need everything you've got."
There would be no reply that day.
It was not until the middle of the next day that Director Chertoff
became aware that the New Orleans levees had failed and that the city was in
mortal peril. Mr. Bush played guitar on television with country star Mark
Willis next to split-screen images of bodies floating in the floodwaters and
scenes of residents "looting" stores, much of which was perpetrated by
stranded citizens seeking food and shelter. It had been three days since
tens of thousands of people had sought shelter in the Superdome, food and
water were running out, sanitary conditions were execrable, the heat became
overwhelming and people started dying like insects stuffed in a killing
bottle by a cruel, sadistic child. Residents trying to flee across the
bridge were turned back at gunpoint. The city of New Orleans finally
collapsed into chaos and drowned in salt water on national television.
A city still stands where New Orleans once was, and bears the same name,
but it is not the same city, and never will be again. The death toll will
never be known, because the river and the swamp and the sea took so many and
kept them, because those who were lost were mostly the unnumbered poor who
lacked the means to flee, because back in those days, we didn't do body
counts. Thousands upon thousands of the city's residents are still gone four
years later, either to the grave or to far-flung points on the compass,
evacuees with no way to return home and, in many cases, no homes to return
to. Most of the Ninth Ward still remains a sculpture of rubble and
destruction to this day.
What does it mean to miss New Orleans? It means knowing that one of the
most golden citadels of our shared history - a cradle of multiculturalism,
the birthplace of jazz, seed corn of so much that is America - was allowed
to die of neglect, disdain, racism, greed and simple stupidity right before
our eyes. A city stands where New Orleans once was, but it is not New
Orleans, not really. All that was the city, all that it gave this country,
and so many of the people who lived there, are gone forever.
Do not forget, do not let your children forget, what it means to miss
New Orleans.
***
Sunday, August 9 @ 2 pm
Sorrowfully and Jofully:
Homage to Soviet Yiddish Creativity
Annual Commemoration of Murdered Soviet Yiddish Writers featuring songs
performed by the Arbeter Ring Mit Gezang Yiddish Chorus, with the
participation of prominent readers in both Yiddish and English. Hershl
Hartman's narration and translations will be used.
As we have done for many years, a coalition of secular Jewish organizations
in the Los Angeles area will commemorate these events with a program on
Sunday, August 9. This unique afternoon program will be in Yiddish and
English.
Admission will be free and open to the public (donations accepted),
reservations not required. Light refreshments will be served.
This year's program is dedicated to the memory of Lilke Majzner Z"l, who
passed away July 17. Lilke was a towering presence in the Yiddish and
progressive communities, and her spirit and wisdom will be greatly missed.
The Arbeter Ring
(Workmen's Circle)
1525 S. Robertson Blvd. LA CA 90035
E-mail: circle@circlesocal.org
PH: 310.552.2007
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