Hurricance Katrina Experiences
Phyllis Raabe
The week before Katrina, Aug. 22-26, 2005, was the first week of Fall semester classes at the University of New Orleans. That Friday afternoon, I finished teaching my 3 Fall courses (Soc. of Families, Social Stratification, and Women and Work), and that evening my partner, Bill, and I joined friends in Slidell for dinner. We began to realize that Katrina was heading for the New Orleans area. By Sat. evening I had decided to evacuate, and Sun. morning I drove to join friends in Meridian, Miss., taking with me some food, flashlights, raingear, and some clothes—enough for a few days. Bill elected to stay in New Orleans at his home along Bayou St. John.
I was able to communicate with Bill through Monday morning via his cell phone, but after cell phones no longer operated, we lost contact. Meridian experienced heavy winds, and electricity was lost in our area Sunday evening. Fortunately, we had a battery-operated TV and radio. Many trees fell—some on homes—but not on the house of our hostess. Without air conditioning, it was hot, and we were concerned about ice for refrigeration, our lack of outside communication with family and friends (although the land-line phone continued to function), and our blocked roads (due to fallen trees). However, we were in a relatively good situation, and our friendships enabled camaraderie and social support through the frightening winds and as we learned the awful news about New Orleans flooding.
Because so much of New Orleans was flooded, and a mandatory evacuation was in place, we could not return to the city. I decided to drive to stay with other friends in Alpharetta outside Atlanta. En route, the transmission in my car went out. Since it was a fairly old car, I decided not to invest in another transmission and left my car in Pell City, Ala. My Atlanta friends “rescued me”—driving to pick me up and bring me to their home. I had only a little money with me, and limited access to money. I lacked employment and a car. I had only a few clothes and shoes with me. My work materials—for research and teaching—were all back in New Orleans. But, I was very fortunate to have the support of relatives and friends, and at this point, especially my hosts in Alpharetta.
My sons, who live in Washington, DC and Philadelphia, were in touch with me, and they were trying to help me locate Bill. Bill’s son said that he had received a message from his Dad saying that he was okay the Wednesday after Katrina. Finally, on Sunday, a week after Katrina, Bill phoned. He had been evacuated at gunpoint by helicopter to the airport, and from there by bus, to Baton Rouge. During the hurricane, he had experienced severe winds and wind damage to his home and to others around him. Soon after the hurricane, he heard and saw looters coming by—mostly targeting the stores on Carrollton Ave. The flooding that later occurred left him and several other homes near him on a sort of peninsula, and although his basement flooded, his house did not. He aided the evacuations of elderly residents from a large apartment building nearby, and the apartment building shared water and MREs (“Meals Ready to Eat”) with him. Tap water was contaminated: unfit for drinking or bathing. He saw dead bodies float by in Bayou St. John. After arriving in Baton Rouge, Bill was able to stay with friends we knew from church, and the Episcopal Disaster Relief Fund paid for his airfare to Atlanta. After several days in Alpharetta, Bill and I flew to Washington, DC, having gratefully accepted the invitation of my former college roommate and her husband to use a vacant basement apartment in their house in Bethesda, MD.
When I arrived in Alpharetta, GA, I tried to call FEMA to register for disaster relief. The phone line was always busy. I then tried the internet. I attempted several times to register on-line, and when I got to a certain page, the computer froze. I surmised that it was due to web site overload. Finally, I rushed as quickly as I could to get past that page and was successful in completing my application. However, later, when I read the print copy I received from FEMA, I saw that there were errors—perhaps because I was rushing. (One striking error was that the form indicated my primary language as Spanish: not the case for me!) I feared that some of these errors would prevent my receiving aid, and in fact, received a letter from FEMA saying I was ineligible. I tried to correct my application on-line, but there was no provision to do so. I tried phoning, and always I couldn’t get through. Finally, I faxed FEMA a sheet that specified the errors I had made and the corrections. Somehow through all this, I did manage to obtain the $2,000-assistance FEMA was giving individuals for Katrina disaster relief.
Georgia Unemployment Insurance offices in the Atlanta area made a special effort to aid Katrina evacuees obtain Disaster Unemployment Insurance. I went to one of these offices, and was able to complete an application. Because I was in transit from Atlanta to Bethesda, I did not get to phone-in the following weekend to register on the automated system for benefits. Because I had not done this, each time I phoned, I was told that I needed to speak to someone in the Louisiana Interstate Unemployment Office. This proved to be impossible: consistently over many weeks, the phone lines always were busy. As a result, although I had received paperwork confirming my unemployment insurance eligibility and a debit card to use, I never have been able to access this assistance. More recently, I contacted the Maryland Unemployment Insurance office and have sought their aid in obtaining the six weeks of assistance that I did not receive. Whether this will be successful remains to be seen.
I am personally and sociologically interested in the issue of the policy implementation problems my experiences with FEMA and Disaster Unemployment Insurance illustrate. Many U.S. public policies exist to help alleviate social problems, however, if they actually do not work, the policies are only symbolic rather than real. Then, ineffective social policies themselves become a social problem.
Return to New Orleans, Oct. 12-17, 2005:
A Tale of Two Cities: Normalization and Devastation
Phyllis Raabe
On a beautiful sunny Oct. 12, I returned to New Orleans for the first time since Katrina. I felt anxious but also excited to finally see the condition of my house, neighborhood, and city. Driving in from the Airport on Airline Highway and then Earhart Expressway, my sons and I noticed extensive Katrina wind damage. Before turning onto Carrollton Ave. we started to see the high water marks from flooding on the buildings—and to see the piles of debris of wood, trash bags, and discarded refrigerators. We also smelled the foul odor of the mold and decayed food from these refrigerators and accumulated trash. Still, as we drove on Carrollton toward the river, traffic increased, more people were visible, and signs of flooding lessened. Driving through Audubon Park, we found the Park reassuringly normal although much less shaded due to the loss of many oak tree branches. The area around Nashville Ave. and Magazine St., showed more signs of life including an open gas station and coffee shop. Our Nashville Ave. home was fortunate in having only two roof problems: signs of a leaking ceiling in one bedroom and a blown-off section of a shed roof. We also were fortunate in having electricity, gas, telephone service, and after running the water for a while, adequate water for washing. Walking around our neighborhood, it seemed that at least half of the houses had occupants. As the days passed, work crews removed refrigerators and trash, and the air became fragrant with the scents of blooming flowers. National guard patrols in humvees periodically came by providing a sense of security. Every day, more restaurants, stores, and other enterprises were opening on the riverside of St. Charles Ave. in the crescent area of the city from Audubon Park to the French Quarter. Neighborhoods were becoming normal.
Busy with our home’s clean-up and repair tasks, it was not until Sunday Oct. 16th that we traveled outside the “normalizing” area of New Orleans. It was another beautiful sunny day, but as we moved onto the lake side of St. Charles Ave., we entered into another New Orleans—a city of devastation. In addition to wind damage, high water marks on houses and flooded cars indicated extensive flooding. These Uptown and Midcity neighborhoods seemed empty of life—few cars, few people, little signs of activity. Some areas along Bayou St. John, Esplanade Avenue, and City Park Ave. seemed better off, but islands surrounded by empty destruction. City Park itself looked wounded but still green and alive, however neighborhoods to the east of it were devastated. Going even further to the east, we felt overwhelmed by the scope of the devastation along the way and in the New Orleans East section. The realization that so much—probably most—of New Orleans is muddy, broken, and largely empty led me to feel sad and almost nauseous.
Currently, New Orleans is two cities: one normalizing with growing vitalization, the other, devastated, quiet, waiting. Gov. Blanco has said that the city will rebuild, but that it will not be the same. Its reconstruction and future are unfolding, and the length of time that it will take for the devastated areas and nature of the reconstructions are questions to be answered. While the scope of the empty, devastated neighborhoods was depressing, still the beautiful New Orleans sunny days and moonlit nights seemed to signal hope and promise.
