|
by Ross Peizer
Communications Intern
Alternative Spring Break
Give us your feedback!
Making Old News New
As the body of this article was being posted, Peizer attended a forum in which journalists discussed how “disaster fatigue” is causing Americans to turn off to news about New Orleans and disasters in general.
This started a conversation among a small group of TSNE staff about what to do when a social justice issue becomes “old news.” How does a nonprofit keep its message fresh and its supporters vigorous when an issue is no longer – or never will be – headline news?
As Peizer says, Katrina is a story that doesn’t go away, because it remains potent and relevant, and New Orleans continues to be plagued by a host of challenges.
But the first step for all of us in the nonprofit world is making sure that people are still responding to our stories over the long haul, and not too “fatigued.”
Tell us what has worked for you and your organization.
Send an email to info@tsne.org, so we can share your response with other nonprofit staff across the region in our TSNe-Bulletin.
|
 This year instead of going to Mexico to soak up the sun or going home to sleep for my spring break, I decided to go on a Hillel-run alternative spring break trip to New Orleans to do community service in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. I traveled with nine other Jewish students from Boston University to join the other 200+ Jewish students from colleges around the country to spend the week getting a firsthand experience of the largest natural disaster to ever hit America.
What We Did
Hillel teamed up with the National Relief Network to help arrange worksites and transportation. We also used Operation Blessing’s facilities, which were large enough to accommodate over 200 people. The work we did involved “gutting” homes that have not been lived in since Katrina struck. We took out everything from couches and dressers to knocking down the walls and ceilings to the bare studs because this is what needed to be done in order for the homeowner to get an insurance quote. More than that, we gave hope to people who don’t have any.
In our orientation at Operation Blessing one of the employees told us about how one woman they worked for told them after they were done that she had been seriously thinking about ending her own life but that now she has a reason to live. A huge problem now in New Orleans is the suicide rate and the amount of psychological problems due to the aftermath of Katrina.
Not only was it our job to go down to the Gulf Coast and volunteer, but to bring back the stories we heard and share them with others who do not know firsthand what the situation is like. This article is meant to do just that by sharing what I learned in New Orleans over my spring break.
 Government Action or Lack Thereof
The government response to Katrina at the local, state and federal levels was less than adequate and continues to be. It has been over 18 months since Katrina struck and thousands of homes are still boarded up, half of New Orleans' population has yet to come back and some areas just got plumbing and electricity back this past December.
In a discussion with Scott Cowan, president of Tulane University, he said, “The government was overwhelmed because a natural disaster of this magnitude has never occurred before.” Cowan was not supporting the current administration, citing that if the United States had not been at war with Iraq, thousands of troops who were sent out a couple days before the storm would have been there to help in the relief work. Nevertheless, New Orleans is being rebuilt by volunteers, not the government.
The Levees
The Category Five hurricane itself caused terrible destruction but not actual flooding. It was after the storm when the levees broke that the flooding began. The levees broke from poor design due to construction not matching plans, levees not high enough to withstand the storms for which they were designed and man-made weaknesses in the hurricane protection system.
For example, at two points along the London Avenue Canal and one point along the 17th Street Canal, concrete walls atop earthen beams were simply pushed aside by the pressure of the water backing into the canals from Lake Pontchartrain. The evidence suggests that too-shallow pilings were driven into soft, peaty soils, allowing water to undermine the levees from below.
Disappearing Wetlands
New Orleans is a fishbowl. Large portions of the city were built below water level. Therefore it is naturally going to have problems with flooding, which is why homes have always been built on stilts or bricks roughly three feet above the ground so water can flow underneath without damaging their homes.
The wetlands are New Orleans’ natural barrier in a storm, slowing down a storm’s surge before hitting the city. The problem is that the wetlands have been disappearing at astonishing rates. This is in large part due to channels like the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet – a 66 mile man-made channel that connects the New Orleans inner harbor to the Gulf Coast that was created through the wetlands.
These channels have polluted the wetlands and are responsible for destroying large chunks of them. Katrina’s impact was intensified because the wetlands were not there to act as the natural barrier. The wetlands need to be replaced or else even a small storm will hit hard. There is currently a petition to close the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet so the remaining wetlands are preserved.
A Unique Culture
Despite being in New Orleans for only a week, I really fell in love with the city. New Orleans is rich with culture. I will never forget our bus driver J.W. who would blast spirited music by a local group called the Rebirth Brass Band. As I would look out the window at the pure depression of thousands of homes, offices and stores still boarded up and uninhabitable, I couldn’t help but ask myself, can this really be America?
It doesn’t feel like the America of the north I grew up in (Seattle and Boston) because it’s so different–which is what makes New Orleans so special. I encourage you to take any form of action for New Orleans, whether it is donating, supporting a bill or act in favor of New Orleans or going and volunteering yourself. There is still a ton of work to be done to rebuild The Big Easy.
Want to be kept up-to-date on our latest articles? Sign up for the TSNe-Bulletin, a monthly e-Newsletter providing tips and ideas to help you strengthen your nonprofit’s impact with and for the communities you serve.
| 
