Why the Lower Ninth Ward Looks Like the Hurricane Just Hit

[eridani]

http://www.thenation.com/article/why-the-lower-ninth-ward-looks-like-the-hurricane-just-hit/

At the northern border of the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans. Modest single-family homes used to line both sides of the street, before Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. Today, it’s all but empty. Irvin, a 79-year-old widower with two bad knees, has no neighbors between him and the bayou. Facing in the other direction, Irvin stares into a similar solitude: There’s a falling-down house two lots away and a small Baptist church at the end of his block, but otherwise Irvin—a man often called the “mayor of the Lower Ninth Ward,” even by the city’s current mayor—lives here alone. One block over, on Tricou Street, there are six occupied homes, a veritable metropolis in this corner of the community. In whatever direction Irvin points his red truck, he traverses entire blocks choked with vegetation, devoid of both houses and people.

 Ten years have passed since a series of catastrophic 
levee breaches caused the Lower Ninth Ward, along with most of New Orleans, to flood. The city, state, and federal governments have invested more than $600 million in the Lower Ninth, a relatively compact community that measures 20 by 25 blocks. Foundations have contributed tens of millions of dollars to the area. Brad Pitt alone has raised nearly $50 million through the Make It Right Foundation. Tens of thousands of volunteers have done work in the community. All of which raises the question: Why do large stretches of the Lower Ninth still look as if the levees failed only a year ago?

Simple economics has played a big part. Prior to Katrina, the Lower Ninth—a community sometimes referred to as “Backatown”—was home to many of the housekeepers, kitchen workers, and others who kept the tourism industry going in New Orleans. Another large share of its people were retirees who, like Irvin, lived on a fixed income. The average resident survived on $16,000 a year, and more than one in every three residents lived below the poverty line.

[Live and Learn]

1. K&R Really worth a read. What happened in New Orleans was a travesty that should scare us all. nt

[Fairgo]

2. because that's where the poor people lived.

That's New Orleans, cap. Corruption and the Levee board loaded the gun. Katrina pulled the trigger. But what never gets press was how families and communities came together, the innumerable acts of small heroism that started with just getting up every morning.

[brer cat]

3. The powers that be

wrote it off from day one, and enough lies and misinformation were spread (instead of dollars) to make sure it happened.

"Yet 10 years after the storm, the rest of the Lower Ninth has only 36 percent of its pre-Katrina population. Maybe the miracle is that there’s even a Lower Ninth Ward to speak of today, Irvin says: 'They never wanted us to come back.'"