20 Years After Katrina: Racism, Climate Injustice, and Unmet Needs in New Orleans

The Devastation and Displacement Post-Katrina

• 💔 Hurricane Katrina resulted in over 1,800 deaths and forced over a million people to evacuate, with a significant impact on New Orleans' Black residents.
• 📉 The city's population has decreased by approximately 120,000 since pre-Katrina, with a disproportionate loss of Black residents.
• 🏠 Overnight, 80% of the city's housing became unlivable, public housing infrastructure was shut down, and the city hospital closed.
• 📚 The entire school system staff was fired, and schools transitioned from school board control to a charter system.

Unfulfilled Promises and Misallocated Funds

• 💰 Despite over $140 billion in federal funding, the majority of aid did not reach the people most in need.
• 🤝 Significant funds were directed to private contractors like Kellogg Brown and Root and Halliburton, rather than directly to storm survivors.
• 🏠 The Louisiana Road Home Program, while assisting homeowners, largely excluded renters and the homeless, with white homeowners receiving substantially more aid than Black homeowners.
• ⏳ Years later, some allocated funds have still not been distributed due to mismanagement and other issues.

Criminalization and Media Neglect

• ⚠️ Storm survivors were criminalized, with Black individuals often described as looters while white individuals were seen as seeking food.
• 🚨 The National Guard was deployed with orders to "shoot to kill," and incidents like the Danziger Bridge attack, where police killed unarmed civilians, were initially ignored or misrepresented by the media.
• 📰 Historically, New Orleans media, including the Times-Picayune, failed to adequately investigate and report on issues within the Black community, particularly police violence.

Ongoing Injustice and Climate Vulnerability

• 📉 Despite the city's rich culture, residents face lower life expectancies, reduced income, and fewer educational opportunities.
• 🏭 Areas like "Cancer Alley" and coastal regions near oil and gas pipelines contribute to high cancer rates and significant land loss due to erosion, exacerbated by climate change.
• ⚠️ The current administration's actions, including cuts to FEMA, further increase vulnerability for states like Louisiana, which rely heavily on disaster assistance.

Erosion of Reforms and Increased Policing

• ⚖️ Victories won by organizers post-Katrina, such as shrinking the city jail and establishing police oversight, are being dismantled.
• ⛓️ The new governor is pushing to undo reforms related to policing and the prison industrial complex, leading to more arrests and criminalization.
• 🏘️ There are fewer affordable living options, and residents face a diminished social safety net and increased policing.

The Plight of Incarcerated Individuals

• 😥 Pre-Katrina, the New Orleans city jail was the largest in the country, holding thousands, with a high percentage arrested for non-violent offenses.
• 🌊 During the flood, many prisoners were left in dangerous conditions, and upon rescue, were transferred to maximum-security prisons, with some lost in the system for months.