Happy Katrina Day. [more inside]
posted by vapidave on Aug 29, 2009 - 16 comments

The Isleños are said to be a dying traditional American subculture. Descendants of Canary Island immigrants of Louisiana, the name Isleños was given to them to distinguish them from Spanish mainlanders, known as "peninsulares." But in Louisiana, the name evolved from a category to an identity. For a long time they were one of those rare subcultures that found a way to maintain a living tradition as the world around them modernised by carving out a livelihood as crabbers and 'shrimpers'. Then Katrina hit and the wetlands, which were central to the Isleños identity, essentially dissapeared. Despite the blow to their economy, they still have their songs and annual fiestas, evidence of a strong culture which binds their community together, and their rebuilding following Katrina demonstrated how strong that sense of identity and culture can be. So perhaps the Isleños shouldn't be written off just yet, then. After all, as Isleño Irvan Perez says, "This is home. Where else would we go?"
posted by Effigy2000 on Dec 7, 2008 - 7 comments

Salvador and Mabel Mangano, the owners of St. Rita’s nursing home in St. Bernard Parish, where 35 patients drowned in Hurricane Katrina’s flood waters, were found not guilty of negligent homicide and cruelty to the infirm charges tonight by a six-member jury. Read their story and decide for yourself if they're guilty.
posted by ColdChef on Sep 7, 2007 - 34 comments

Since when did we get cat 5 levees? Or a working flood plan? Behold the New Orleans Levee, where 'We don't hold anything back.'
posted by localroger on Aug 30, 2007 - 21 comments

Chess legend Jude Acers. In prison.
posted by The Deej on Aug 9, 2007 - 44 comments

"How do the tacos help gumbo?" Hold the tacos, New Orleans says. In yet another pig-ignorant move in Post-Katrina New Orleans, local politicians have decided to destroy the booming taco-truck business that is feeding the workers (and plenty of the locals) who are rebuilding the city. Blame racism, blame taxes, blame immigration politics: A hundred years ago this line of reasoning would have banned the muffulettas and poor-boys that those invading hordes of Sicilians were using to corrupt our youth.
posted by ColdChef on Jul 16, 2007 - 93 comments

The Best Laid Plans: The Story of How the Government Ignored Its Own Gulf Coast Hurricane Plans. A new report from CREW describes FEMA's plan to respond to a hurricane of Katrina’s magnitude and its subsequent failure to implement that plan. [Via C&L.]
posted by homunculus on Jun 28, 2007 - 33 comments

Google Maps has restored New Orleans to pre-Katrina The views Google Maps is now providing show the city as it was prior to the storm. It's not clear why.
posted by Kirth Gerson on Mar 30, 2007 - 67 comments

Last Chance. "It took the Mississippi River 6,000 years to build the Louisiana coast. It took man (and natural disasters) 75 years to destroy it. Experts agree we have 10 years to act before the problem is too big to solve." [Via First Draft.]
posted by homunculus on Mar 5, 2007 - 19 comments

Oops: Impostor scams Louisiana officials Burned by the yes men. A prankster poses as a HUD honcho and promises NOT to destroy perfectly good housing projects slated for demolition. later, the prankster explained: The New Orleans projects are sturdily constructed brick buildings that, nevertheless, are slated for demolition, he said. "Basically, the real reason, of course, is they want to develop New Orleans into something pleasing to tourists -- even more pleasing." Video here. Wikipedia has info on more of their exploits. My favorite was the bhopal fiasco.
posted by Tryptophan-5ht on Aug 29, 2006 - 19 comments

Wizbang sez that the levy in New Orleans that broke during Katrina was going to break even without a hurricane, and that the Corps of Engineers knew it and suppressed evidence of it until just recently.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste on Aug 28, 2006 - 72 comments

New Orleans City Ordinance #26031 --...those who have not been able to make the necessary repairs to their battered homes by August 29th risk having their property seized and bulldozed by the city.... Bush says today: Katrina Repair Will Take Time, but time's up for many New Orleans residents. (more here from ACORN, who has been trying to help save homes there)
posted by amberglow on Aug 23, 2006 - 62 comments

Stress building in New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina anniversary could spark more problems Like many other New Orleanians nearly a year after Hurricane Katrina, John McCusker was experiencing the overwhelming stress of rebuilding his life. McCusker, a photographer who was part of The Times-Picayune's 2006 Pulitzer Prize-winning staff(reg. required, but worth it. Trust me.), was seen driving wildly through the city Tuesday, attracting the attention of police. He eventually was arrested, but not before he was subdued with a Taser and an officer fired twice at his vehicle. During the melee, he begged police to kill him. For some, it's still Katrina every day.
posted by ColdChef on Aug 10, 2006 - 141 comments

Transvestite Gang Pesters Magazine Street. "A house fell on my sister..." "That weeping sound of despair? That's just some chick trapped in an elevator." A Baptist Church burned, then destroyed. Mail delivered. Life in New Orleans nine months after Katrina.
posted by bukharin on Jun 29, 2006 - 16 comments

Flash flood! A New Orleans Times Picayune flash animation of exactly how, and where, and when the city of New Orleans and surrounding areas flooded during Hurricane Katrina. Here's the accompanying article. Even as a local, I had no idea how weak the levee systems were. And apparently still are. Here's some more info from a local grassroots group fighting for better levee protection.
posted by ab3 on May 18, 2006 - 18 comments

"The water, it came to your school. The gasoline, chemicals, sewage and blood came to your doorstep. It settled into the ground of this courtyard where we now gather." Chris Rose's commencement speech at Ursuline Academy in New Orleans.
posted by ColdChef on May 15, 2006 - 13 comments

Nueva Orleans Before Katrina, Hispanics accounted for 3 percent of New Orleans’ population, with just 1,900 Mexicans showing up in the 2004 Census. No one knows for certain how many new ones have arrived, but estimates put the number between 10,000 and 50,000.
posted by ColdChef on May 9, 2006 - 105 comments

"You drowned 1,200 people! I rebuke you." Politics as usual? Yes, if you're from Louisiana. Is it hot where you are? Well, at least your federal government didn't trick you into living in your car in 100 degree weather because they won't give you the keys to your trailer. Oh, but try not to get sick, because even though New Orleans is almost back to its Pre-Katrina size (1 million out of 1.3 million), half of the hospital space is gone. Only six weeks until hurricane season! Woot!
posted by ColdChef on Apr 19, 2006 - 37 comments

The 3rd Battle of New Orleans, a post-Katrina group weblog, visually debunks the notion that most of New Orleans is 10 feet below sea level and that not enough residents had flood insurance.
posted by turbodog on Apr 7, 2006 - 62 comments

Mascots helping Mascots High schools across America have witnessed the devastation brought about by several recent natural disasters, such as Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. An outpouring of sympathy and concern, and a desire to help, have come forth from high schools wanting to assist those in need. To enable schools to help other schools, the National Federation of State High School Associations has initiated a fundraising program called the Mascot Adoption Program.
posted by ColdChef on Mar 13, 2006 - 3 comments

"In dramatic and sometimes agonizing terms, federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees, put lives at risk in New Orleans' Superdome and overwhelm rescuers, according to confidential video footage."
posted by muckster on Mar 2, 2006 - 162 comments

Newsfilter: "France can take Treme. The king of Jordan can take the Lower Ninth Ward." Ray Nagin seeks international assistance after a certain superpower comes up short. [via Humid City]
posted by brundlefly on Feb 7, 2006 - 13 comments

Rebuilding New Orleans with science! [via 3qd]
posted by panoptican on Jan 6, 2006 - 7 comments

When the levees broke, he looked for was his camera and a boat. This Times-Picayune photographer tells his story of what happened next.
posted by Pacheco on Dec 13, 2005 - 2 comments

Big Eye in the Sky. A collection of absolutely incredible 360 degree panoramas by St. Paul photographer Ed Fink of the Twin Cities, Mt. Rushmore, the Post-Katrina Gulf Coast and more. He claims to be the first photographer in the world to do full spherical (180 x 360) panoramas from a helicopter. The effect is truly spectacular. Those with vertigo beware.
posted by panoptican on Dec 8, 2005 - 19 comments

"It's like putting Christmas lights up on your FEMA trailer."
posted by empath on Dec 1, 2005 - 41 comments

Bodies still being found in NOLA You know, it's hard to imagine anything worse than coming back to your home in New Orleans and finding it completely destroyed. But, tonight, as you're about to hear, there is something worse, much worse. Dozens of families have returned to what is left of their homes and found, lying amidst the mold and the wreckage, a body, forgotten, abandoned. Maybe it's their mother or their grandmother, sometimes even their missing child. More Here
posted by srboisvert on Nov 16, 2005 - 31 comments

Images of the Lower 9th Ward by Trent Reznor.
posted by setanor on Nov 1, 2005 - 55 comments

Katrina Ushers in Return of Big Government We have a larger govt now (people working for the govt) than we have ever had. We have now the Patriot Act, overseeing much of our activities. We have intelligence agencies doing lord knows what domestically, and security checks etc. Now we learn that Big govt is back? Where had it been before the storm?
posted by Postroad on Sep 15, 2005 - 43 comments

After The Flood Surprising stories from survivors in New Orleans. We give people who were in the storm more time than daily news coverage can to tell their stories and talk about what they're thinking. This leads to a number of ideas that haven't made it into the regular news coverage. The most recent episode of This American Life is now up on their website--This American Life is one of the best programs on public radio and this was one of their best episodes ever. It is well worth a listen.
posted by y2karl on Sep 13, 2005 - 24 comments

After the Storm Sometime this weekend, you may be able to hear one of the best expressions of New Orleans’ role in music and culture available in any mass media. It's American Routes, a weekly show carried on many US public radio affiliates. Programmed and hosted by folklorist and UNO professor of folklore and culture Nick Spitzer, the show normally broadcasts from a studio in the heart of the French Quarter, but has found a temporary home on a Creole/Cajun French/English public radio station in Lafayette. Spitzer told the NYT that he began planning the music for this week’s show as he was fleeing the flooding city in his car, playing Fats Domino’s “Walking to New Orleans." This week’s show highlights New Orleans’ recovery from disasters past, emphasizing the city’s role as the greatest single wellspring of American music. The Crescent City, after all, has either birthed or nurtured everything from jazz, R & B, cajun and the related black-influenced zydeco, soul, blues, gospel, and rock and roll.) With an encyclopedic knowledge of American vernacular music, an utterly democratic spirit, and an unmistakeable respect and love for American musical forms and the people who create them, Spitzer has stepped forward several times this week to serve as a compassionate and optimistic spokesman for the irrepressible creative spirit of a suffering city and a culture in diaspora.
posted by Miko on Sep 10, 2005 - 19 comments

Michael Brown, head of FEMA is relieved of duties. After a rocky week and increasing doubts about his background and experience (like a padded resume), Brown gets pulled from FEMA duty. Pretty surprising to see, given that the "CEO President" proclaimed "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job" just a few days ago.
posted by mathowie on Sep 9, 2005 - 216 comments

Yes, it's another Katrina post - sorry, but... this is a great photo essay from with New Orleans before, during and after Katrina. Besides some really interesting photography, it goes some way to showing just why people didn't leave before, or immediately after the hurricane - the sense of normality is astounding, given what we know now...
posted by benzo8 on Sep 9, 2005 - 104 comments

Losing New Orleans: Four months before it happened, I described for a New York editor, in detail and with stunning accuracy, the tragedy that is now unfolding in New Orleans.
In April, I e-mailed the editor my proposal. Two weeks later, she sent her response. As much as I hate saying this,” she wrote, “the only way for this book to actually work is if New Orleans had already sunk.” I’d like to know what “transportation security” meant to Mr. Hutchinson, if it did not include the concept of evacuating a stricken city, or protecting its great port, or safeguarding the third of our nation’s fuel that enters by way of New Orleans?
If I, a reporter in Little Rock, with nothing more than Internet access, a car and a telephone, could predict, almost hour-by-hour, the horror that Katrina would unleash, what were Hutchinson and his cronies at Homeland Security doing with all the assets at their disposal and nearly $40 billion in funding?
posted by thisisdrew on Sep 8, 2005 - 71 comments

Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky, California paramedics give an eye witness account of their experience of Katrina in New Orleans
posted by threehundredandsixty on Sep 8, 2005 - 50 comments

Beyond Incompetence Reading the news after the Katrina Hurricane and the lack-of-response disaster, a pattern began to emerge. Mainstream media compilation - Collective Bellaciao via xymphora, which has several other uniquely critical posts on Katrina
posted by ism on Sep 7, 2005 - 29 comments

BEHIND THE CURTAIN.... George Bush's photo-op tour of New Orleans yesterday has apparently driven Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu over the edge. Today she blasted FEMA for its feeble response to Hurricane Katrina and Bush for his phony, stage managed promises of action:
posted by Postroad on Sep 5, 2005 - 133 comments

Is the former Republican mayor of New Orleans really blameless? Not by a long shot. From lefty blog Lenin's Tomb, which points to evidence that New Orleans officials "never put plans into place" to evacuate the poorest of the poor. [thanks, Aknaton]
posted by mediareport on Sep 4, 2005 - 70 comments

"The guy who runs this building I'm in, emergency management, he's responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, "Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?" And he said, "Yeah, Mama, somebody's coming to get you. Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody's coming to get you on Friday." And she drowned Friday night. She drowned Friday night." Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish in New Orleans damns FEMA on Tim Russett this morning. (WMV clip)
posted by madamjujujive on Sep 4, 2005 - 202 comments

Why some people stayed behind in New Orleans Wealth buys many things, not the least of which is safety and connections. What role does the society have in looking after all the poor? Should it have a role and if so, why? What could these people have done to help themselves? Why did it only take a few days for society to fall apart?
posted by Brandon Blatcher on Sep 4, 2005 - 21 comments

Post-Katrina satellite images are now available on Google Maps. Click 'satellite' to see the before. Here's Superdome. Here's Highway 610 disappearing into the water, abandoned cars littering it. via Google Sightseeing.
posted by Kattullus on Sep 3, 2005 - 15 comments

"Little Somalia" is how The Army Times has characterized post-Katrina New Orleans. And this isn't about race?
posted by brookish on Sep 3, 2005 - 35 comments

Do You Know What It Means to Lose New Orleans? WHAT do people really know about New Orleans? Do they take away with them an awareness that it has always been not only a great white metropolis but also a great black city, a city where African-Americans have come together again and again to form the strongest African-American culture in the land?
posted by Postroad on Sep 3, 2005 - 39 comments

The Matrix shatters before the eyes of the nation (sorry, WMP link) -- and on Fox News! For those old enough to remember, it's so significant that Geraldo Rivera says of conditions in the New Orleans Convention Center, "it's like Willowbrook in there." (Rivera became famous in 1972 by exposing the horrendous conditions in a home for the mentally retarded called Willowbrook; finally, after decades of degrading himself, he remembers what his job is.) And Slate's Jack Shafer on "the rebellion of the talking heads" -- the refusal of reporters on the ground in New Orleans to regurgitate the official spin. [via TalkLeft]
posted by digaman on Sep 3, 2005 - 100 comments

The Louisiana Superdome. The moment that thin white membrane flew off the roof to drown, the structure in the center of the storm became a metaphor. That sad, weathered, beaten, and war-torn roof represents the city and its plight.
posted by Jazznoisehere on Sep 3, 2005 - 16 comments

Innovative Emergency Management So this private company got the contract to develop the plan last year. The original release: the Baton Rouge-based emergency management and homeland security consultant, will lead the development of a catastrophic hurricane disaster plan for Southeast Louisiana and the City of New Orleans under a more than half a million dollar contract with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security/Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Now all press releases regarding it have been pulled from their website post-Katrina.
posted by amberglow on Sep 3, 2005 - 21 comments

CNN of all places has a great overview of the BS coming out of washington about Katrina - "security is really good", the bodies in the convention center are "rumors" - versus reports from the ground. Fantasy land.
posted by brookish on Sep 2, 2005 - 89 comments

Early reports on cultural institutions in Katrina's path. From The American Association of Museums.
posted by R. Mutt on Sep 2, 2005 - 12 comments

Longtime Mefi member chuq offers a tiny respite from the misery with his report on the survival of many of Louisiana's beloved musicians, including the good news that Fats Domino was rescued from his roof. More coverage here and here. (more)
posted by madamjujujive on Sep 2, 2005 - 38 comments

FEMA Director Mike Brown fired from prior job at Arabian Horse Association. Why is NOLA relief so unbelievably slow in arriving? Could the leadership of FEMA have anything to do with it? The current head of FEMA (Fedral Emergency Management Agency) "resigned" from his former post as head of an Arabian horse owners association under a cloud of litigation. He then moved on to FEMA as legal counsel for former FEMA head Joe Allbaugh, an old college buddy. When Allbaugh left, Brown took over. Nice how buddies can help each other, isn't it? Can anyone guess who Bush & Co will force to take the rap for the crisis of New Orleans? (via Daily Kos)
posted by mooncrow on Sep 2, 2005 - 107 comments