Liam Sweeny - New Orleans Diaries

New Orleans Diaries

As a volunteer in Baton Rouge, I kept a journal of the days events. As a scatterbrain, I appear to have misplaced it. I do, however, have a summation of my experiences. That's what is written on this page.

I also created a video journal of the city four months after Katrina. The videos on this page were filmed by me, the music was composed and recorded by me, and if you're wondering why I'd put video like this to music, I have two reasons for you;

A. New Orleans is arguably the birthplace of American music, with limited exceptions, and,

B. It's very, very, very depressing to hear the sound of dead quiet in what months before was a bustling metropolis.

January 20th, 2006

On August 29th, 2005, Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, obliterating low-lying areas from Louisiana to Alabama. In New Orleans, due to poor design and neglect, the levees and canals holding back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain were ill-equipped to handle the surge from the lake, brought about by the backswing of Katrina as the storm traveled north. The levees breached in numerous places, and so the city flooded, up to 25 feet in some areas. Weeks later, Hurricane Rita produced further devastation in southern Louisiana and Texas.

New Orleans currently resembles a very large Superfund site (Areas with that designation are toxic.) The flooding of the city was not typical of most flooding. New Orleans is below sea level, and geographically resembles a ‘bowl’. The water, once it entered the city, had no place to go, for weeks. As the water levels rose, cars leaked their gasoline, oil, brake fluid, transmission fluid, etc., adding many toxic chemicals to the mix. Add to this all of the chemical cleaning products in the kitchens and bathrooms of tens of thousands of homes. Add to this the specialty chemicals used by businesses. And a massive industrial oil spill in St. Bernard Parish; all of these toxic chemicals were dumped into a very large pool of stagnant water and allowed to mix.

Most buildings are infested with a toxic mold. There’s a possibility that this mold had it’s origins in the bottom of Lake Pontchartrain, or it could simply be a naturally occurring strain of mold; no one’s certain at this point. Survivors who were trapped in New Orleans; many of them have developed what has been referred to as ‘Katrina Cough’ – a dry, unproductive cough with a post-nasal drip. Its origin has yet to be determined.

Lake Pontchartrain consists of what’s known as “brackish water,” half salt-water, half fresh. It has a dark color. The dark water seen in news reports of New Orleans during the flood had just as much to do with it being brackish as it did being contaminated. However, Lake Pontchartrain is connected with the southern-Louisiana bayou system. Reports circulated about those trapped being eaten by alligators, though perhaps slightly exaggerated, are valid.

Katrina was indiscriminate. According to the Louisiana Department of Health & Hospitals, as of December 16th, 2005, 48% of identified victims were African American and 41% were white. Rich neighborhoods didn’t fare any better than poor neighborhoods.

Currently almost 2 million people are FEMA applicants as a result of the storm. The city of Baton Rouge, the capitol of Louisiana, doubled in population in just over two days. Houston, Texas added over three hundred-thousand in the same period. In fact, every major metropolitan area in the country has taken in anywhere from ten- to ten-thousand evacuees. If you live in a city, there are evacuees staying near you. This is causing, and will continue to cause, friction in the cities that have taken in substantial amounts of evacuees between the older residents and the new arrivals, who will compete for jobs in an already-stressed employment market.

The poor will have a difficult, if not impossible time returning to the neighborhoods they once called home. Many won’t be able to. Some won’t want to. The poor and the working-poor make up the fuel consumed by the fire of a city’s culture. The flavor of the poor is the flavor of the city. The migration of poor people from New Orleans will not make it, over the long term, free of poor people, but they won’t be the same people, and the culture will change.

On the other hand, those who relocate will feel isolated, as so many of them had hardly ever left their neighborhoods, and many of them had suffered medical- and/or psychological trauma as a result of their experience. Intense feelings of disempowerment and disenfranchisement will surface toward the federal government’s poor response during- and after Katrina.

The environmental situation is a nightmare. Tons of debris and the innards of homes in the process of being gutted remain in the city, most of it contaminated. This will all have to be removed, decontaminated and disposed of, but no specific plan has yet to be put forth in this regard. In addition, much of the water drained from the city was pumped into Lake Pontchartrain, with all of its contaminates.

Faith-based groups seem to be taking the lead in the relief effort. This is a good thing; they have the expertise in the areas pertaining to relief and recovery. But they need more assistance from the federal government, and New Orleans as a whole needs more attention from the American people.