11.945 Spring 2006 Katrina Practicum Session 3: 2/14/06: New Orleans Context\Timeline of Events Reflective Practice Exercise: Groups should perform the exercise and report back. Presentations of small group work in Session 6. Concrete work on environmental work will dovetail with the work that Tulane students are doing. Professor Phil Thompson is coordinating the same way on neighborhood planning projects. PART 1: New Orleans Context: This presentation is an ongoing project that we will need to add to. Most images available right now are post-Katrina. This selection avoided images of destroyed houses, and avoided the French Quarter in order to show a bit of what you might see if you went to New Orleans. Background Information/Pre-Katrina Map 1: New Orleans is in the south east corner of the state. A lot of New Orleans is living in Baton Rouge. Many people are driving back and forth every day. Map 2: Canal systems come down from Lake Pontchartrain. New Orleans is between the lake and the Mississippi River. Map 3: Aerial Photograph Map 4: All directions are oriented toward the river or towards the lake. People refer to places as upriver/downriver, lakeside/riverside. This map shows the city according to this orientation. Map 5: Tremé is right by the French Quarter and near the Central Business District. This map shows all of the different neighborhoods. Lakeview, Lower Ninth, East New Orleans were the most destroyed. Map 6: Close up on Tremé. The freeway splits the neighborhood in 2 parts. This is the course focus area. Photos: Fauberg-Marigny/Bywater: Shotgun house, Creole cottage, MansionsTulane Avenue: Runs from the river out to the airport. Mardi Gras Float: The culture of crews and social and pleasure clubs putting on parades all over the city starting 10-14 days before Mardi Gras. Jazz Funeral Procession: funerals sometimes turn into big parades. St. Charles Avenue, which turns into Bourbon Street. Post Katrina Images: Map 1: Canal Breaches Map 2: Community Data Center map of extent of the flood. No part of the city was untouched by the flooding. Aerial View: Central Business District Uptown. This is the view out of the window of the office I worked in on the 54th floor. The skyline is dotted with blue tarps that agencies are putting on peoples roofs that are damaged (but not everybody’s). Superdome roof has been replaced (feeling that people were trying to erase what happened in the Superdome). Oretha Castle Boulevard: Nice homes would exist next to vacant lots, next to buildings that are falling apart even before the flooding. This was one of the nice qualities of New Orleans, and it is important to keep in mind that some abandoned buildings are not due to Katrina. Bywater backyard. Warren Easton School: on Canal Street in Mid-city. Waterline of flood is visible. City Park: The largest park in NO. One of largest parks in the country. Part of it is the swamp. Many of the trees have come down since the storm. “Temporary Housing” Trailers parked outside peoples houses while they work on them. Not a lot of space for trailers. People Lafitte Housing Projects: boarded up. Not reopened yet. Some public housing has been reopened. Some FEMA trailers in the backgrounds (not for the residents). Closed all housing projects, not necessarily due to damage, more for management issues. Esplanade Avenue: splits French Quarter and Fauberg-Marigny. Moonwalk: named for Moon Landry, whose son is running for mayor. French market in background. Looking down toward Bywater Photos from Times Picayune:Mardi Gras Prep: Zulu Social Club held funeral for victims of Katrina. French Quarter: People decorating for Mardi Gras all over the city. There is some sense outside of New Orleans that the people there don’t have the right to hold Mardi Gras. PART 2: Phil Thompson: Chronology; Discussion; “Our Role as Planners” NOAA warned: this may be one of the most active hurricane seasons on record. It was known that infrastructure to control the waters of the lake and river were built on the assumption that any storm greater than a Category 3 would be unlikely to happen. August 27th - A hurricane watch for LA was issued. - Mandatory evacuation orders were issued for certain areas. August 28th - Gov. Blanco issued a letter to Bush, noting that Katrina’s damage would be catastrophic and beyond the capacity of state and local government to handle. - The governor asked for specific assistance from FEMA, and for the Federal government to declare an expedited state of emergency. Monday, August 29th - Katrina touched down. - FEMA Dir. Michael Brown said, “We’ve planned for this kind of disaster for many years because we’ve always known about the New Orleans situation.” - President Bush assured New Orleans that the Federal Government would be there to provide assistance. Immediate Aftermath: - 20,000 people ended up in Super Dome. o Superdome electricity and air conditioning stopped working and the toilets wouldn’t flush. o It was a public-sanitation nightmare. - Many ended up in Convention Center. Short-term Aftermath: - State of Texas reported that 240,000 people sought refuge in Texas and applied for assistance (a few weeks later). - Perhaps 200,000 people ended up in Baton Rouge.- On September 8th, the NYTimes reported that only 40% of homes in New Orleans had flood insurance. Many people lost everything during the storm. Excerpts from assorted news articles: - Doctor down from Pittsburgh. A bunch of dead bodies put in temporary morgue. Half the people were put in there alive but in bad shape, but left in there to die. Most of them only needed water or something fairly simple. He went to the director of the center from FEMA. Would not allow the doctor to treat anyone because he hadn’t signed a release form and they didn’t have any for him to sign.” - Bretna police department shot over the heads of people trying to escape to safety over the high water in Bretna. At the time there was a lot of resistance to having the poor N.O. residents come into their communities; a lot of it has to do with issues of race, and those actions are now coming under litigation. - Joe Conazarro: As a practical matter, these poor folks don’t have the resources to come back to our city, just as they didn’t have resources to get out” Housing HUD announced that they were going to give housing vouchers; after a meeting with the White