I actually live on the Mississippi Gulf Coast in Gulfport. I will never forget the sounds, the destruction, or the smell of decaying bodies in the rubble that washed up to the train tracks north of highway 90.
I spent a year in Hattiesburg (back in the 80's) so when I got a chance to visit the area in 2004, I took it. Showed my son around Gulfport, visited the beach and the dolphins at the aquarium. When Katrina hit and I recognized so many places that got wiped out, man, it really hit home.
@JEFFwasHERE... Don't forget the Black Mold everywhere. The smell of death I got use to, but that black mold burns your lungs, and makes you sick on the stomach.
There were also 1,000 school buses - I'll repeat that - 1,000 buses - left sitting IDLE, instead of going in and getting people out! It was despicable the way the people were treated. I live in Houston and many Katrina victims came to Houston to start their lives over. It was the saddest thing I've ever seen.
Tragically Harvey came around to ring the PTSD bell. Forgive my ignorance, I'm not very aware how TX did with Harvey's mess. Did TX do a better job compared to LA? I know that the snow/ice stuff that happened to the grid was a pretty massive blunder.
@@fateunleashed9680 Harvey was horrible on Houston - sat over us for 9 days straight! Our city is built on a bayou, so everything was flooded. Roads impassible - SO many rescues. I was proud of my city the way people got their boats (my son included) and rescued people [and pets] from their homes. We lost 9 people from Harvey, and while terribly sad, it could have been so much worse.
Hi Kabir, The destruction was incredible! Everything was gone. No roads, electricity, gas, water(drinking water) or phones. Mud, snakes, stray dogs and cats and wreckage everywhere. I was hired by a private contractor to go down and help with the cleanup. Everything had to be brought in. Gasoline, diesel, food etc... The Superdome football stadium served as temporary housing for thousands. Many people left the city, never to return. Those applying for the grant money usually didn't have the documentation required to complete the applications. It was a mess! I had relatives there who had to leave, though fortunately their houses weren't destroyed. Some parts of the city, like the 9th and lower 9th wards were hit particularly hard. These were primarily black neighborhoods. Some of the rebuilding requirements were really weird. Some folks had to build their houses way up high above the ground, which cost so much that there wasn't enough money left to finish the rest of the house. It took so long to get anything done that some just gave up! It's still not the same down there.
My friend Jack (RIP) went to Texas to do insurance assessments for a company he and his father worked with. About four weeks later he returned home to find his house missing. He was afraid that it had been demolished while he was gone. The property belonged to his parents. So, he went to them to ask if they knew what had happened. That's when he learned that his mom and dad had it moved as well as it was being remodeled. Jack was the type of person who always had friends over. When you'd visit, the person next to you on the sofa could be from anywhere in the world. He would tell foreign students at the local campus that if they wanted to become more comfortable speaking English, they should come out and spend time with us. Not isolating themselves in the dorm with fellow foreign students.
Phone the homeowner? If they were still alive, they were strewn all over the states, mainly Texas. So, first you have to spend money to find them. If it worked like FEMA, you had to apply, get the work done paying for it yourself, then turn in the receipts and hope they will pay you back. In most cases that means you have to get a loan from somewhere else first without being able to prove you will be able to pay it back. And many documents were destroyed, so finding out who owned a home might be difficult. I was working for a school district north of Houston. Houston was flooded with evacuees. They had to figure out how to get their children registered in school with no records. No record of what grade they were in and no medical records to show what vaccines they had received. Equate that with loan and title records. And then there are rentals.
I was evacuated from my house in the 2020 Cameron Peak fire in Colorado and we were told to not forget to take deeds to houses, homeowners insurance papers, etc. If your house is ashes, it's really difficult to prove you're the owner. And sometimes in these natural disasters, city or county buildings that contain homeowner records are destroyed (not everything is necessarily stored electronically or can be accessed after a disaster). Evacuation was three weeks, thankfully my house was fine, our hero firefighters (as well as a random autumn snow), held the fire line and it didn't come down into the valley. Some folks lost houses or structures on their property, we just got really lucky.
I started with the RED Cross as a volunteer because of Katrina, In fact I was in the gulf coast region in a staff shelter when Hurricane Rita hit almost the same area weeks later, and many people, especially in Louisiana outside New Orleans who was impacted by Katrina, had their world turned upside down by Hurricane Rita. One big problem with the paperwork was that both records (at the court house, and in the homeowners home was destroyed), other forms of proof of living somewhere, like utility bills, etc were complicated by the owner or renter now having been evacuated to a shelter or hotel room in another state. As for the Disaster response organizations, corporations, and insurance companies that work hurricane/flood aftermaths, I noticed a lot of Hubris when the storms (this was the aftermath of two storms , every one forgets Hurricane Rita) first hit. Local, State, and National organizations who work major storms have processes, and business models we follow that we can adjust according to the magnitude of the storm. When we got on the ground it was nothing we were prepared to experience. We never had to evacuate an entire major American city before, we had to rewrite the procedures and processes almost everyday, and every time we did that added to the problems and stress the actual victims had to go through. I worked Katrina cases with the Red Cross up till 2007, when family issues caused me to leave the organization.
One of the ‘recovery’ measures I remember in the immediate aftermath of Katrina was an unlikely, very empathetic story of connections. The band at one of the late night programs (I can’t remember which one - SNL, the Tonight Show, Letterman?) realized that the many, many musicians in New Orleans not only suffered damages from the storm but were also unlikely to have any sort of job opportunities in the near future. So they arranged for some of those musicians to come sit in for the band in order to earn some (really good) money for a while. Too bad the many levels of government couldn’t match that level of immediacy. Peace …
I was lucky. I was renting so I only lost all of my personal possessions. When I was flown out of New Orleans to San Antonio, TX I had a shirt, pants, shoes, and glasses I was wearing as my sole possessions. But I did have my wallet with ID. Many people not only lost their homes but all of their personal documentation in the flooding. How do you prove you owned a home when you couldn't prove who you were.
I hope you are financially okay now. Big up to all yall that lived through that! I just remember the city that I lived in was suddenly flooded with New Orleanians.
Katrina also brought out the good in people. RESCUED BY THE CAJUN NAVY: HOW CITIZENS TURNED INTO SAVIORS 10 YEARS AGO. What started as a rescue effort after Hurricane Katrina, has since grown into an organized “navy” of volunteers, using their personal boats, equipment and resources. They even have organized training exercises. The Cajun Navy has been involved in rescue efforts not just in Louisiana (Hurricane Ida, flooding of Baton Rouge, Denham Springs, Lake Charles) but also in neighboring states - Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Mississippi. They also coordinate the distribution of supplies - water, food - to the affected residents. It’s all about neighbors helping neighbors
The Cajun Navy came & rescued me from my house in Houston during Hurricane Harvey. Will forever be grateful to those guys. Phil one of the navy members put my dog in his jacket with him to keep him dry on the ride to the shelter I’ll never forget the relief I felt knowing we may have lost almost everything but we were all safe
It hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast bad too. I live in Biloxi MS and we had a lot of damage especially the casinos. The casino I worked in was in 3 pieces scattered across the highway and one piece almost took out a church. It was originally a full size barge floating in the water and ended up across the highway. I did get back to work about a month after the storm but at a different casino. Our boss called in his best workers that he could rely on and put us to work getting that casino cleaned up and back in shape. Took us about a month to get it back and ready to open. I worked in that casino for 8 years until I got hurt on the job which put me out of work completely. I’m disabled now but I would love to be working again but I need a walker to help me walk and they would never hire somebody that’s disabled and can’t walk properly.
The government must ask for the person's income and home insurance policy. It is not going to give money to wealthy people who can afford to rebuild their own home. Moreover, if the homeowner is a convicted criminal, he or she is not allowed to receive governmental funding at all. I lived through Superstrom Sandy in NY and everyone needed to prove their wealth and need before a check was sent.
I appreciate you giving us some recognition. I was here at 35 yrs old and still here at 54. Lost everything. Including neighbors. Everyone i knew scattered all over the US. We've never been the same group of friends since. Thank you for showing this.❤❤❤
There was a lot of fraud going on as well. People filed claims that lived in other states. So it made it more difficult to determine who actually resided there. There was a lot of greasing palms.
I remember exactly where I was. At a Giant Eagle grocery store, working in the host sun as a parking lot/cart mule. My back hurt, my brow was drenched in sweat and I had just gotten my chicken tender Mac and cheese lunch. I took a seat at a little table by myself, dead tired, thinking God my life is terrible, until I looked up at the TV screen. It was like something out of a movie. You couldn't see the streets and there were shots of people on their roofs waving these little make shift flags at the helicopters. Nowhere to go, just stuck there. It was a vulnerable position to be in and those people were fighting for their lives. Then I remember thinking my worries weren't that significant after all.
Kabir it's nice to see someone who has no clue about how stupid government is and how ineffective it is. To be fair to everyone there is a bidding period where companies put their bid in to work the contract. Lowest number wins. They don't set guidelines in place - they don't set penalties either. There is no incentive to do the job right.
@@Chris__1 No reason to stop there. Florida too! Houston and Galveston... As hurricanes go, Sandy wasn't that special... they get much worse and it decimated the NE, I'd clear out. Oh and why do people live in Oklahoma when you're just going to be flattened by a tornado. I don't know why anyone would live in tornado ally... or Dixie ally. If you live in California, you're just going to burn in a wildfire while waiting on an earthquake. While we're at it, everyone in Tacoma should evacuate for the inevitable eruption of Mt. Rainier.
I was 10 years old when Katrina happened. I remember the hurricane was talked about for a good while, I met a girl at the library in school and she told me that she lost everything in the storm, She’s from New Orleans. I didn’t know too much about hurricanes until Rita happened in September 2005, That was the first hurricane I ever experienced in my life, Hurricane Rita hit Houston.
Global warming did exacerbate the strength of the storm though. The warmer the planet (& in particular the waters of the Caribbean) the stronger the hurricanes. It's only going to get worse & we need to be prepared.
You have to remember, New Orleans is below sea level. So if a levy breaks their pumps can't keep up. If I was governor I would flat out move that city. It makes no sense for a city to be below sea level. I wouldn't live there. There's a lot of people not using common sense. We have people building houses on flood plains. Flood plains are areas beside rivers that flood if you get heavy rains or a hurricane comes through flood by nature. Yet they build houses on them , then complain when it floods. Duh! Huge lack of common sense.
Neither did 'Brownie'. So many elected officials just watched and did nothing. Remember those poor rural parish EMS people crying out for help and nobody came?
In Minneapolis, I've had the opportunity to speak with a couple different people who came from New Orleans after the hurricane & asked them how they liked Minnesota. They said they loved it, even in the snowy cold winter. I asked them if they planned on going back to New Orleans & they both said in so many words, "Not a chance in hell." Besides the threat of hurricanes, the heat & humidity is atrocious down there!
I can relate because I lived in Atlanta,Ga at the time. And they sent survivors to Atlanta and Houston TX. And many that I met said that they would never go back to NO. Even though I know Atlanta would be more welcoming than Minnesota because of the similar climate. But,The idea of not wanting to return to your hometown where you’ve been all of your life says a lot about what those people went through.
@Kim-427 They were able to find good jobs once they left New Orleans. That's a city built on tourism, and not much of anything else. There are other industries, but tourism drives the economy. Unless you're an owner, or management, tourism doesn't pay that well
I’ll never forget my 30 year old son standing in my living room with a dazed look on his face saying, “I just realized that everything I own is in my car.” A coworker’s mom was mia for nearly 3 weeks before being located. In 2024 New Orleans has not fully recovered.
I live in New Orleans. I didn’t get to come back home until October. We were thankful that the company my husband worked for had an office in Houston, they gave us all apartments and we didn’t miss a paycheck. Heartbroken for the ppl that had nothing and no place to go. I still live in New Orleans and this is always home.
I know people who moved and never went back because they were traumatized. I live an hour west of New Orleans and there were hundreds of people staying in hotels and shelters here. I can't believe it's been almost 20 years.
I just wanted a video at how badly the government treated the people . They literally waited for days for help. With a military might like America you'd think they would be able to rise up in this case. So sad😢 Great reaction and Peace out ✌️ ☮️
@RockinMamaT I got there 2 weeks after, and they still weren't letting us into the city of New Orleans. Before Rita hit, City, state, and Federal agencies were still too busy arguing whose responsibilities it was to do what. It wasn't until General Honore came down from the pentagon and took charge did things begin to move in some direction
@@tyreedillard I know my heart broke when it happened and what we were witnessing on TV but when I saw how the government screwed you at every turn. I was so upset 😡
I ran into a woman at Walmart when i was getting shock for my pool like 3 days ago, she was recommending different things for the pool, she said yeah, we had a pool until katrina destroyed it and everything else, caught me off guard, hadn't met anyone who had gone through it, even this much time later i had to say how sorry i was for her having to go through that.
This was the 1 st ever relieve for hurricane, no companies had to do this so it was a learning experience. Also the paper work was not just who owns the house, but what is your insurance going to pay, how much was your house worth prior to the disaster. The you need people to to process form, it’s time consuming work. And not every body has the paperwork. Also most business (insurance) in New Orleans was closed
I live in northern Louisiana so we don’t get hit hard the way the Gulf Coast does. Up here, we get the refugees from the coast. It was so bad bc of the evacuation that our civic center was opened to families and their pets. I have images burned in my head from those days. People were sleeping on cots, some had not been able to take baths right away, people were standing in lines for food that reminded me of bread lines from the Great Depression, people had nothing. People here in Monroe brought anything they could think of to try and help. I also worked at Walmart during this time and we had a big fish tank set up for people to put money in. The covers on top of the tanks were paper bags taped down and people who were coming in who lived in south LA and they would write notes of thank you for everything that was being done. First time I read the messages I broke down crying. From people trying to turn unrolled change into a few dollars, to grandparents taking care of grandchildren and trying to keep track of them to knowing what all these people went thru, those days will remain with me always. Oh and one final image will stay with me, seeing the clouds of Tropical Depression Katrina move north from the top floor of my college’s library while I was in class. That was the closest I got to the storm. It didn’t rain a drop here.
If I remember correctly (and I could be completely wrong in remembering) it took more time to get funds to New Orleans and Louisiana was in part due to the restructuring and rebuilding plans that the Governor sent to DC were very incomplete, how and where funds would go and how they would be used contradictory from one plan to the next and had to be redone numerous times. Then there were issues with FEMA leadership and communication. Mississippi's government structure did have more experience and more backing within the federal government than Louisiana as they had more experience dealing with natural disasters. Mississippi also applied for federal disaster status a few days before Louisiana and maybe 4 days before Katrina hit.The two that bothered me the most was Louisiana's government knew those levees would not hold in a storm stronger than a Category 3 and New Orleans major didn't issue a mandatory evacuation until 20 hours before Katrina made landfall.
My daughter lived in Gulfport. They lived in their house for 2 yrs with holes in the roof covered with tarps, before they got money to rebuild. By that time, they had to also gut the entire inside because of mold from the flooding😢I still to this day do not recognize anything when i visit. My kids just refer to where we use to go places before Katrina so i know what im seeing.😢
There were dead bodies floating all over the place. People had to be rescued of the roof of their homes. Boats and canoes rescuing people. President Bush asked the mayor of New Orleans to use idle school busses to evacuate the city but the mayor didn't do a thing.
This storm changed our LIVES!!! I left New Orleans the DAY before the hurricane. Most people didn't leave because we were told the year before about a disastrous hurricane...and it didn't even rain. It was sad!
6:40 There were huge mismanagements of by both state and federal agencies. This sadly happens with almost every major disaster. A huge problem as to why the weren't just compensating homeowners so they could simply move to another city and start over is that the plan was to put everyone on the honor system and give out free debit cards to EVERYONE so they could literally stay in hotels in other cities for 6+ months. Records have shown how these debit cards were simply wasted on prostitutes, strip clubs, and alcohol. This seriously harmed the people trying to get help.
Its truly astounding trying to get help that is suppose to be easy to acess. EVERY organization that boasts they are there to help people - red flag! The hoops you have to jump through, and through and thtough its so hidious that by the time you get to the end of the process, they tell you they no longer have money, or somehow you dont qualify. Its just horriable
10:20....that poor woman knows her house isn't worth a damn thing, but what else can she do? NOBODY is buying in that area. There's very little to no retail shops or groceries. The government abandoned some of those Wards. And what paperwork? Just imagine every damn document you could think of, and then imagine a few more. Home title or loan documents, tax documents, employment verification documents, bank documents, credit history, Social security cards, state IDs, etc etc etc. Ya know, all those things that get destroyed when your house is under water.
I lost a House to Hurricane Hugo on Folly Beach, SC. 303 West Artic was Eaten by Hurricane Hugo, NOTHING WAS LEFT. I lost a House in 1999 to Hurricane Floyd when a 200 year old oak fell on it. I lost a roof and a Car Port to a Hurricane that just brushed Charleston in 2018. ~~Trying to reason with the Hurricane seasn~~, Jimmy Buffet
Who does a person call when any natural disaster (wind, flood, volcano, earth quake, fire, etc.) destroys personal property? If insured, then insurance is supposed to pay (although I have seen several circumstances where it has failed to do so for various reasons). Government funds are more often intended for community infrastructure, not personal property. They complicated these matters by trying to divert funds no matter how well intended. Even in a system free of corruption, making things more complicated is likely to be more burdensome than helpful.
I'm from there and thank God, we left before it hit. I think that was over 20 years ago! We still continue to get hurricanes to this day but we are better equipped nowadays than we was back then. We always taking procedures in case of heavy storms.
New Orleans sits below sea level. The Army Corps of Engineers build a bunch of levees to keep the water back, but nothing Man has ever built is a match for nature if nature decided to get serious. If the Engineers has wanted to build those levees an additional 10 feet higher before even knowing that a Katrina sized storm was in the cards, it would not have mattered. That's because they would have still been in court after being sued to stop the construction. That is how America works these days and has worked for going on 50 years. Everytime the government comes up with a fact based, sensible solution to an actual problem some group will file suit to stop it. Nothing was going to stop Katrina because we are too stupid to look forward. Kabir, our government gives out contracts on a lowest bid basis for the most part. I will give you a personal lowest bid experience to give you a clue. I used to be a high school baseball coach. Every year we sold, at cost, a package that consisted of a baseball cap, practice T-shirt, game socks, and sleeves. These items were basically not items that could be recycled like a uniform. Back then, the package costs $25. One year, the head coach changed suppliers because he was able to get the package for $20. Turns out the caps were the wrong shade of brown and gold, the lettering on the practice T-shirts were off center, and the sleeves ran one size too small. Our government is notorious for going with the lowest bid and we having to take it in the shorts.
I went to New Orleans a few years before Katrina and then again in 2010. I loved the city before Katrina - absolutely awesome. In 2010 (5 years later) it was still lacking so much of what it was before Katrina. There were areas you could still see the water marks; before, there were so many restaurants that the food was always good because bad restaurants couldn't survive but after the food was hit and miss; the energy was very low. I need to go back since it has been 14 years. Hopefully it is back to what it used to be by now.
The hardest hit areas were black and low income. Those places are where the levees were not maintained. So, of course, they chose rich, white people to rebuild. I left the Upper Ninth Ward in 2017. The Lower 9th Ward had not recovered. I expect it will be gentrified now that the levees have been rebuilt.
There is a song called "Help is on the Way" by Rise Against which is about Katrina and the BP Oil Spill ... should check out the video to the song as well.
Sadly in poor neighborhoods, people could not prove they owned a house…city hall flooded , tax records were gone.. that’s the proof.. proof of ownership !!!! I know I tried to help people.. no bank records, never change mortgage into their name still in dead grandmother’s name etc
Kabir, the fact that it took a year to get federal funding is not surprising. I live on the southeast coast of NC. We’ve had several devastating hurricanes but our state officials are as slimy as the Feds so we always got prompt help. Katrina was a national embarrassment because the government in power at the time seemed to not care about black people, who live in New Orleans in higher concentrations than neighboring coastal cities in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. Kanye is a moron but he was right when he went on national TV and said “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” Kathleen Blanco was not a great governor for LA, I think this NYT piece is a little too generous to her. But she was also up against a rock and a hard place.
Hurricane Floyd dropped to a tropical depression by the time it reached NJ. But it still did major damage as the water causeway between Saddle Brook and Lodi broke at several spots causing immense flooding. Another causeway in Passaic also toppled. The damage was extreme. And many contractors went to work rebuilding. Only it was found out many were unqualified for the work and left projects in shambles. One area of Rochelle Park had several dozen rebuilt homes no one could live in as they found the area was previously an illegal dumping site for oil and other toxins.
Sometimes these natural disasters allow maggots to come in and take advantage of people--with long-term impact. These 'people' often overshadow the thousands of good things done by people/companies to help people in real time. In these events, we do see the best of people come out. But the people you are talking about--that is where there needs to be real teeth in the law to hold these scumbags accountable. ALong the same lines as those businesses that would price-gauge people for essentials, gas, hotels, whatever.
@@lizetteolsen3218 you are right: 5 bad apples can seriously tarnish a whole bale. And, in many municipalities in disaster prone areas, those that are supposed to enforce laws to protect homeowners often work in conjunction with those who break the law to steal from those same homeowners.
New Orleans is special and has its own unique culture. Sadly, there will be more Katrina like hurricanes to hit New Orleans because about 65% of New Orleans is at or below sea level, some of it is 12 feet below sea level. With global warning comes worse storms and rising waters. eventually New Orleans might no longer exist.
Suggestion...Spike Lee made 2 documentary series about Katrina. They're titled "When the Levees Broke" (2005) & "If God is Willing and Da Creek don't Rise" (2010/11). He interviews various citizens of the greater New Orleans area & Mississippi. Spike then goes back to New Orleans 5 years after Katrina. Very, very eye opening. You should watch if you want an honest view from the people that survived the storm.
Just because you lost your home, you still had to prove you lost your home to get money…otherwise anybody would say hey I lost my house give me money..
Kabir, while I never supported Blanco she wasn’t to blame for the flooding. Much of New Orleans is below sea level and the infrastructure had been struggling for decades - still is. No one - NO ONE - foresaw a storm surge from the lake. And the federal government also had no good plan for dealing with a cleanup on this magnitude. How do you prove ownership when the courthouse records have been destroyed along with your personal information.
There’s Sandy money still floating around the wrong places while entire towns are waiting for the funds to rebuild. Katrina should have been a lesson for any response to a natural disaster.
The lack of response to Hurricane Katrina was what made me loose trust in our government. Corpses in the streets, people stranded… Who shows up to help? Mexico and Canada. People were put on buses (they were forced to leave their pets to die) not knowing where they were being taken all over the country. Families were separated which took them months to find each other.
I remember older people refusing to evacuate without their beloved pets. Then there was that ridiculous animal rescue without any documentation. Pets wound up in shelters on opposite sides of the country--requiring people to provide documentation that the animal was their pet.
Had to stop halfway through cause I was remembering all of this and making myself mad before work. Lol. Blanco could have avoided most of these problems but she didn't. And yes it was all corruption and capitalism. We got royally screwed and they just didn't care as long as it meant money in their pockets 😢
So the Government should just completely pay for you to fix your house that's in a known flood zone because you didn't maintain enough insurance on your home? And pay for the price you 'could' have got but not what you actually paid for it 10 years ago?
You see that's the you 5:46 problem. New Orleans has operated in such a ....haitian way, as far as recording who lives where. Who owns what. Nobody really stays nowhere. If that make sense. It doesn't happen in any other city except the Caribbean...third world. That's why the Americans government didn't rush to rescue us. I was here 5 days... because New Orleans was 60% black, 40% white, latino,, Vietnamese and other. It's no longer that. More 50% black, 😮 white, 15% lations, 15% Vietnamese/asian...i don't think they would bother again because we're leftist, Democrats OR MA 5:46
They talked me into a $40,000 loan to replace my furnishings I lost in Katrina . I had no idea I would have a heart attack and lose my job, I did. I'm no longer able to work because of heart disease, AIDS, kidney disease. However the federal government still demands the $170.00 payment every 27th of every month. I do get SSDI $1400.00/mo before I pay my rent, prem... I'm so sad to
The reason it takes so long to set things up is that the corruption has to be set up first. We're taking lots of money. You put it in a bank and it generates interest. You gotta delay payouts to accumulate interest. Millions of $ out of nowhere. Remember, this is the state that gave millions to a retired football player so he could build an arena at his University. Relief money supposed to go to the poorest people in the state.
Kabir, I have lost track of how many times that I've told you to become educated and fully aware of how racist the country is along with the policies. In this Katrina case, you have to understand that Louisiana is another southern state that is still segregated and the powers that be are racist. Its a lineage that goes way back. This is something that you need to understand if you do decide to go to a southern state. It can be very dangerous for you as a black man. The knuckle dragging troglodytes could even make things difficult for your wife because they do not like seeing white women with black men. You should thin about this whenever you watch videos about "the cheapest places to live". Especially places like the as the south, the Midwest, the Dakotas, and pretty much any rural area in the country These places are not for us "melaninated" folks.
The rescue response sucked so bad Anderson Cooper from CNN became famous. If you have time doc mentioned in another comment or one you pick bc i have not seen anything so bungled except Puerto Rico...
How interesting. I was thinking just that. He became so angry talking to everyday people throughout the coastal damage and NOLA, that I thought he really came into his own. Too true, the damage, impact, and response in PR has not had any real attention.
I would not go that far. To be fair, NOLA is not fully rebuilt. It is a much smaller city and population than it was. There are whole swaths of neighborhoods that are not rebuit or repaired. Supposedly, the dams and levees are repaired, but I know I would not trust that.
Prior to Katrina most records recording home and property ownership were kept on paper or old computers. After being underwater for months and subject to heat and mold for up to a year, those records were gone. This became a big problem for showing ownership when homes had been passed down for generations but no formal paperwork was done showing the change in ownership. Homeowners had to find death records and birth certificates to prove they were decendants of the original-named homeowner (succession). This paperwork was asked for when the city itself did not have those records but expected the average citizens to have grabbed those items while climbing to the roof to avoid drowning.
My First Day as a Working adult, I was supposed to be a Lifeguard at Seabrook Island Club in South Carolina. It was a day after Hurricane David had hit the Island. I showed up at personal. They gave me a Shovel and told be that under the 14 foot high Sand Dune was an Olympic Size Pool.... Start Digging... Rick Charleston SC
Houston, Texas became the base of Gulf coast oil, as New Orleans was too corrupt for even oil men. The funds to maintain and build levees were diverted. The evacuation plans did not take “emergency” in account. Blanco and the mayor were famously incompetent, and the mayor ended up in prison for corruption.
@tomhalla426 Before Katrina, it would have been political suicide for any local or state politician to put fourth a bill to raise taxes to improve the Leviees around New Orleans.
My brother was one of the service workers for cable company that volunteered to go down there to help out the other cable companies get everything connected again and there were a lot of roads still flooded or blocked off and he said you can smell death in the air.
The plan you mentioned about calling people and finding out if they still own the property, that makes perfect sense. Sadly, our county doesn't do things if it makes sense. How shameful another state got more money because of political connections. The political garbage we have had year after after is killing our country.
This is what happens when a private company is hired to administer a public program. All they care about is profit. This is late-stage capitalism. It's hell.
And yet, the mayor of New Orleans was charged with stealing millions and working special deals with companies to pay him to then get the right to build in the city. In 2014, Nagin was convicted on twenty of twenty-one charges of wire fraud, bribery, and money laundering related to bribes from city contractors before and after Katrina and was sentenced to ten years in federal prison. Then in 2023 Mayor La Toya Cantrell had this, Alleged affair: Cantrell and her bodyguard, NOPD officer Jeffrey Vappie, had an affair, according to accusations by Vappie's wife in divorce filings. So yes this is a very corrupt area with a long history of mishandling money. (In California, they just lose millions without any idea where it went).
Living in Florida and having lived through dozens of hurricanes, starting with Andrew (while living in Homestead) and having to be rescued in a raft during Irma (while living in Jacksonville), they don’t just give out money without documentation. Way too much fraud. People taking money and moving away leaving the house in ruins or taking the money and not having the work done. Not only that, construction companies charge a fortune after these storms. They gouge consumers at the worst times of their lives. It’s sad all the way around.
I live in Louisiana. We were blessed and only lost power and some food. We were eating the army rations they were passing out. Actually, they were not that terrible. We were blessed. Others lost EVERYTHING! The stories of people having their children and grandchildren swept out of their arms are horrific! Louisiana politics is very corrupt. Blanco was a terrible governor! New Orleans politicians and state politicians were misusing and pocketing a lot of that money. A lot was wasted right out on stupid crap. There are still sections of New Orleans today that have never been rebuilt. One of the huge blows to the city was the loss of Big Charity Hospital. It was a wonderful hospital that helped many who were in need. It was never rebuilt.
I will never forget watching was was happening in New Orleans on TV. It was a complete nightmare. Some people finally started getting bused over here to Houston, Texas. I saw on the news that volunteers were needed at the Convention center downtown. When I got there I was assigned to an old woman named Adaline Lemon. I thought that was the most New Orleans name ever. She had been through hell. Her house flooded, and she had swim out, with only a zip-lock bag with her medications and diabetes injections. She had been in her wet clothes for 4 days. That poor, sweet woman smelled so bad. There was very organized clothing and shoe donations on tables, and I helped her find her sizes. She was very picky, and that actually made it fun. I took to her to the portable showers that had been brought in. I told her I had to throw away the clothes that she came in wearing. She didn't like that but there was no where to wash and dry them. I sat with her while she ate, we talked. I got her settled in a cot so she could get a good night's sleep, and I told her I had to go home. I told her I would come see her tomorrow , and she made me promise. I came back and was told they had enough volunteers. I never saw her again. She said she was going to take a bus up to Washington state where a relative lived. I hope she made it.
Kabir, you have to see the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew in Florida that happened I think in 91. The rebuild was a shit show and many people got taken advantage of.
I totally agree with your assessment of this catastrophe Kabir. Seems it should have been cui and dry as to what to do. Such a shame, those poor people.
Our government moves slower than glaciers!! It's embarrassing and criminal, to say the least. 🙁🙁🙁
Unless they want money from you.
@@Boodieman72 so ttue!!🤘🤘🤘
I actually live on the Mississippi Gulf Coast in Gulfport. I will never forget the sounds, the destruction, or the smell of decaying bodies in the rubble that washed up to the train tracks north of highway 90.
I spent a year in Hattiesburg (back in the 80's) so when I got a chance to visit the area in 2004, I took it. Showed my son around Gulfport, visited the beach and the dolphins at the aquarium. When Katrina hit and I recognized so many places that got wiped out, man, it really hit home.
@JEFFwasHERE... Don't forget the Black Mold everywhere. The smell of death I got use to, but that black mold burns your lungs, and makes you sick on the stomach.
There were also 1,000 school buses - I'll repeat that - 1,000 buses - left sitting IDLE, instead of going in and getting people out! It was despicable the way the people were treated. I live in Houston and many Katrina victims came to Houston to start their lives over. It was the saddest thing I've ever seen.
Tragically Harvey came around to ring the PTSD bell. Forgive my ignorance, I'm not very aware how TX did with Harvey's mess. Did TX do a better job compared to LA? I know that the snow/ice stuff that happened to the grid was a pretty massive blunder.
@@fateunleashed9680 Harvey was horrible on Houston - sat over us for 9 days straight! Our city is built on a bayou, so everything was flooded. Roads impassible - SO many rescues. I was proud of my city the way people got their boats (my son included) and rescued people [and pets] from their homes. We lost 9 people from Harvey, and while terribly sad, it could have been so much worse.
Hi Kabir, The destruction was incredible! Everything was gone. No roads, electricity, gas, water(drinking water) or phones. Mud, snakes, stray dogs and cats and wreckage everywhere. I was hired by a private contractor to go down and help with the cleanup. Everything had to be brought in. Gasoline, diesel, food etc... The Superdome football stadium served as temporary housing for thousands. Many people left the city, never to return. Those applying for the grant money usually didn't have the documentation required to complete the applications. It was a mess! I had relatives there who had to leave, though fortunately their houses weren't destroyed. Some parts of the city, like the 9th and lower 9th wards were hit particularly hard. These were primarily black neighborhoods. Some of the rebuilding requirements were really weird. Some folks had to build their houses way up high above the ground, which cost so much that there wasn't enough money left to finish the rest of the house. It took so long to get anything done that some just gave up! It's still not the same down there.
One of the most well known hurricanes but it wasn’t for a good reason that’s for sure.
Thx for the reaction Kabir.
Keep it up :)
My friend Jack (RIP) went to Texas to do insurance assessments for a company he and his father worked with. About four weeks later he returned home to find his house missing. He was afraid that it had been demolished while he was gone. The property belonged to his parents. So, he went to them to ask if they knew what had happened.
That's when he learned that his mom and dad had it moved as well as it was being remodeled.
Jack was the type of person who always had friends over.
When you'd visit, the person next to you on the sofa could be from anywhere in the world. He would tell foreign students at the local campus that if they wanted to become more comfortable speaking English, they should come out and spend time with us. Not isolating themselves in the dorm with fellow foreign students.
Phone the homeowner? If they were still alive, they were strewn all over the states, mainly Texas. So, first you have to spend money to find them. If it worked like FEMA, you had to apply, get the work done paying for it yourself, then turn in the receipts and hope they will pay you back. In most cases that means you have to get a loan from somewhere else first without being able to prove you will be able to pay it back.
And many documents were destroyed, so finding out who owned a home might be difficult.
I was working for a school district north of Houston. Houston was flooded with evacuees. They had to figure out how to get their children registered in school with no records. No record of what grade they were in and no medical records to show what vaccines they had received.
Equate that with loan and title records. And then there are rentals.
I was evacuated from my house in the 2020 Cameron Peak fire in Colorado and we were told to not forget to take deeds to houses, homeowners insurance papers, etc. If your house is ashes, it's really difficult to prove you're the owner. And sometimes in these natural disasters, city or county buildings that contain homeowner records are destroyed (not everything is necessarily stored electronically or can be accessed after a disaster). Evacuation was three weeks, thankfully my house was fine, our hero firefighters (as well as a random autumn snow), held the fire line and it didn't come down into the valley. Some folks lost houses or structures on their property, we just got really lucky.
I started with the RED Cross as a volunteer because of Katrina, In fact I was in the gulf coast region in a staff shelter when Hurricane Rita hit almost the same area weeks later, and many people, especially in Louisiana outside New Orleans who was impacted by Katrina, had their world turned upside down by Hurricane Rita. One big problem with the paperwork was that both records (at the court house, and in the homeowners home was destroyed), other forms of proof of living somewhere, like utility bills, etc were complicated by the owner or renter now having been evacuated to a shelter or hotel room in another state. As for the Disaster response organizations, corporations, and insurance companies that work hurricane/flood aftermaths, I noticed a lot of Hubris when the storms (this was the aftermath of two storms , every one forgets Hurricane Rita) first hit. Local, State, and National organizations who work major storms have processes, and business models we follow that we can adjust according to the magnitude of the storm. When we got on the ground it was nothing we were prepared to experience. We never had to evacuate an entire major American city before, we had to rewrite the procedures and processes almost everyday, and every time we did that added to the problems and stress the actual victims had to go through. I worked Katrina cases with the Red Cross up till 2007, when family issues caused me to leave the organization.
One of the ‘recovery’ measures I remember in the immediate aftermath of Katrina was an unlikely, very empathetic story of connections. The band at one of the late night programs (I can’t remember which one - SNL, the Tonight Show, Letterman?) realized that the many, many musicians in New Orleans not only suffered damages from the storm but were also unlikely to have any sort of job opportunities in the near future. So they arranged for some of those musicians to come sit in for the band in order to earn some (really good) money for a while. Too bad the many levels of government couldn’t match that level of immediacy. Peace …
I was lucky. I was renting so I only lost all of my personal possessions. When I was flown out of New Orleans to San Antonio, TX I had a shirt, pants, shoes, and glasses I was wearing as my sole possessions. But I did have my wallet with ID. Many people not only lost their homes but all of their personal documentation in the flooding. How do you prove you owned a home when you couldn't prove who you were.
I hope you are financially okay now. Big up to all yall that lived through that! I just remember the city that I lived in was suddenly flooded with New Orleanians.
Katrina also brought out the good in people. RESCUED BY THE CAJUN NAVY: HOW CITIZENS TURNED INTO SAVIORS 10 YEARS AGO. What started as a rescue effort after Hurricane Katrina, has since grown into an organized “navy” of volunteers, using their personal boats, equipment and resources. They even have organized training exercises. The Cajun Navy has been involved in rescue efforts not just in Louisiana (Hurricane Ida, flooding of Baton Rouge, Denham Springs, Lake Charles) but also in neighboring states - Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Mississippi. They also coordinate the distribution of supplies - water, food - to the affected residents. It’s all about neighbors helping neighbors
The Cajun Navy came & rescued me from my house in Houston during Hurricane Harvey. Will forever be grateful to those guys. Phil one of the navy members put my dog in his jacket with him to keep him dry on the ride to the shelter I’ll never forget the relief I felt knowing we may have lost almost everything but we were all safe
It hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast bad too. I live in Biloxi MS and we had a lot of damage especially the casinos. The casino I worked in was in 3 pieces scattered across the highway and one piece almost took out a church. It was originally a full size barge floating in the water and ended up across the highway. I did get back to work about a month after the storm but at a different casino. Our boss called in his best workers that he could rely on and put us to work getting that casino cleaned up and back in shape. Took us about a month to get it back and ready to open. I worked in that casino for 8 years until I got hurt on the job which put me out of work completely. I’m disabled now but I would love to be working again but I need a walker to help me walk and they would never hire somebody that’s disabled and can’t walk properly.
The government must ask for the person's income and home insurance policy. It is not going to give money to wealthy people who can afford to rebuild their own home. Moreover, if the homeowner is a convicted criminal, he or she is not allowed to receive governmental funding at all.
I lived through Superstrom Sandy in NY and everyone needed to prove their wealth and need before a check was sent.
I highly recommend the following YT video: "Hurricane Katrina: Big Easy to Big Empty by Greg Palast"
This is the real story.
I appreciate you giving us some recognition. I was here at 35 yrs old and still here at 54. Lost everything. Including neighbors. Everyone i knew scattered all over the US. We've never been the same group of friends since. Thank you for showing this.❤❤❤
There was a lot of fraud going on as well. People filed claims that lived in other states. So it made it more difficult to determine who actually resided there. There was a lot of greasing palms.
I remember exactly where I was. At a Giant Eagle grocery store, working in the host sun as a parking lot/cart mule. My back hurt, my brow was drenched in sweat and I had just gotten my chicken tender Mac and cheese lunch. I took a seat at a little table by myself, dead tired, thinking God my life is terrible, until I looked up at the TV screen.
It was like something out of a movie. You couldn't see the streets and there were shots of people on their roofs waving these little make shift flags at the helicopters. Nowhere to go, just stuck there. It was a vulnerable position to be in and those people were fighting for their lives. Then I remember thinking my worries weren't that significant after all.
Kabir it's nice to see someone who has no clue about how stupid government is and how ineffective it is. To be fair to everyone there is a bidding period where companies put their bid in to work the contract. Lowest number wins. They don't set guidelines in place - they don't set penalties either. There is no incentive to do the job right.
This is why you shouldn't build below sea level.
I still don't understand why people live in Louisiana that whole state is going to be under water in 10 years.
@@Chris__1 No reason to stop there. Florida too! Houston and Galveston... As hurricanes go, Sandy wasn't that special... they get much worse and it decimated the NE, I'd clear out.
Oh and why do people live in Oklahoma when you're just going to be flattened by a tornado. I don't know why anyone would live in tornado ally... or Dixie ally. If you live in California, you're just going to burn in a wildfire while waiting on an earthquake. While we're at it, everyone in Tacoma should evacuate for the inevitable eruption of Mt. Rainier.
I was 10 years old when Katrina happened. I remember the hurricane was talked about for a good while, I met a girl at the library in school and she told me that she lost everything in the storm, She’s from New Orleans. I didn’t know too much about hurricanes until Rita happened in September 2005, That was the first hurricane I ever experienced in my life, Hurricane Rita hit Houston.
Remember, it was the engineers fault who considered the dams to be good enough for a hurrican. It was NOT the "climate", it was selfish humans.
Global warming did exacerbate the strength of the storm though. The warmer the planet (& in particular the waters of the Caribbean) the stronger the hurricanes. It's only going to get worse & we need to be prepared.
You have to remember, New Orleans is below sea level. So if a levy breaks their pumps can't keep up. If I was governor I would flat out move that city. It makes no sense for a city to be below sea level. I wouldn't live there. There's a lot of people not using common sense. We have people building houses on flood plains. Flood plains are areas beside rivers that flood if you get heavy rains or a hurricane comes through flood by nature. Yet they build houses on them , then complain when it floods. Duh! Huge lack of common sense.
Kabir , government is never as simple as it should be .
The governor did nothing for over a week.
Neither did 'Brownie'. So many elected officials just watched and did nothing. Remember those poor rural parish EMS people crying out for help and nobody came?
In Minneapolis, I've had the opportunity to speak with a couple different people who came from New Orleans after the hurricane & asked them how they liked Minnesota. They said they loved it, even in the snowy cold winter. I asked them if they planned on going back to New Orleans & they both said in so many words, "Not a chance in hell." Besides the threat of hurricanes, the heat & humidity is atrocious down there!
I can relate because I lived in Atlanta,Ga at the time. And they sent survivors to Atlanta and Houston TX. And many that I met said that they would never go back to NO. Even though I know Atlanta would be more welcoming than Minnesota because of the similar climate. But,The idea of not wanting to return to your hometown where you’ve been all of your life says a lot about what those people went through.
@Kim-427 They were able to find good jobs once they left New Orleans. That's a city built on tourism, and not much of anything else. There are other industries, but tourism drives the economy. Unless you're an owner, or management, tourism doesn't pay that well
I’ll never forget my 30 year old son standing in my living room with a dazed look on his face saying, “I just realized that everything I own is in my car.” A coworker’s mom was mia for nearly 3 weeks before being located. In 2024 New Orleans has not fully recovered.
Love these Retro Report reactions. More please!
I live in New Orleans. I didn’t get to come back home until October. We were thankful that the company my husband worked for had an office in Houston, they gave us all apartments and we didn’t miss a paycheck. Heartbroken for the ppl that had nothing and no place to go. I still live in New Orleans and this is always home.
In the US we have a saying "working at the speed of government" because the govt usually works slowly
I was there on a roof it was rough but most people helped one another through it all, about 1500 or so died.
Glad you and yours were rescued and survived.
I know people who moved and never went back because they were traumatized. I live an hour west of New Orleans and there were hundreds of people staying in hotels and shelters here. I can't believe it's been almost 20 years.
I just wanted a video at how badly the government treated the people . They literally waited for days for help. With a military might like America you'd think they would be able to rise up in this case. So sad😢 Great reaction and Peace out ✌️ ☮️
@RockinMamaT I got there 2 weeks after, and they still weren't letting us into the city of New Orleans. Before Rita hit, City, state, and Federal agencies were still too busy arguing whose responsibilities it was to do what. It wasn't until General Honore came down from the pentagon and took charge did things begin to move in some direction
@@tyreedillard I know my heart broke when it happened and what we were witnessing on TV but when I saw how the government screwed you at every turn. I was so upset 😡
Our government is largely ineffective.
Large Hurricanes Spawn HUNDREDS of Tornadoes.
Hugo spawned over TWO HUNDRED TORNADOES!
Rick
Charleston SC
I ran into a woman at Walmart when i was getting shock for my pool like 3 days ago, she was recommending different things for the pool, she said yeah, we had a pool until katrina destroyed it and everything else, caught me off guard, hadn't met anyone who had gone through it, even this much time later i had to say how sorry i was for her having to go through that.
This was the 1 st ever relieve for hurricane, no companies had to do this so it was a learning experience. Also the paper work was not just who owns the house, but what is your insurance going to pay, how much was your house worth prior to the disaster. The you need people to to process form, it’s time consuming work. And not every body has the paperwork. Also most business (insurance) in New Orleans was closed
New Orleans is built in the bottom of a bowl . That is the reason it floods in storms .
I live in northern Louisiana so we don’t get hit hard the way the Gulf Coast does. Up here, we get the refugees from the coast. It was so bad bc of the evacuation that our civic center was opened to families and their pets. I have images burned in my head from those days. People were sleeping on cots, some had not been able to take baths right away, people were standing in lines for food that reminded me of bread lines from the Great Depression, people had nothing. People here in Monroe brought anything they could think of to try and help. I also worked at Walmart during this time and we had a big fish tank set up for people to put money in. The covers on top of the tanks were paper bags taped down and people who were coming in who lived in south LA and they would write notes of thank you for everything that was being done. First time I read the messages I broke down crying.
From people trying to turn unrolled change into a few dollars, to grandparents taking care of grandchildren and trying to keep track of them to knowing what all these people went thru, those days will remain with me always. Oh and one final image will stay with me, seeing the clouds of Tropical Depression Katrina move north from the top floor of my college’s library while I was in class. That was the closest I got to the storm. It didn’t rain a drop here.
If I remember correctly (and I could be completely wrong in remembering) it took more time to get funds to New Orleans and Louisiana was in part due to the restructuring and rebuilding plans that the Governor sent to DC were very incomplete, how and where funds would go and how they would be used contradictory from one plan to the next and had to be redone numerous times. Then there were issues with FEMA leadership and communication. Mississippi's government structure did have more experience and more backing within the federal government than Louisiana as they had more experience dealing with natural disasters. Mississippi also applied for federal disaster status a few days before Louisiana and maybe 4 days before Katrina hit.The two that bothered me the most was Louisiana's government knew those levees would not hold in a storm stronger than a Category 3 and New Orleans major didn't issue a mandatory evacuation until 20 hours before Katrina made landfall.
My daughter lived in Gulfport. They lived in their house for 2 yrs with holes in the roof covered with tarps, before they got money to rebuild. By that time, they had to also gut the entire inside because of mold from the flooding😢I still to this day do not recognize anything when i visit. My kids just refer to where we use to go places before Katrina so i know what im seeing.😢
There were dead bodies floating all over the place.
People had to be rescued of the roof of their homes. Boats and canoes rescuing people. President Bush asked the mayor of New Orleans to use idle school busses to evacuate the city but the mayor didn't do a thing.
This storm changed our LIVES!!! I left New Orleans the DAY before the hurricane. Most people didn't leave because we were told the year before about a disastrous hurricane...and it didn't even rain. It was sad!
6:40 There were huge mismanagements of by both state and federal agencies. This sadly happens with almost every major disaster. A huge problem as to why the weren't just compensating homeowners so they could simply move to another city and start over is that the plan was to put everyone on the honor system and give out free debit cards to EVERYONE so they could literally stay in hotels in other cities for 6+ months. Records have shown how these debit cards were simply wasted on prostitutes, strip clubs, and alcohol. This seriously harmed the people trying to get help.
Its truly astounding trying to get help that is suppose to be easy to acess. EVERY organization that boasts they are there to help people - red flag! The hoops you have to jump through, and through and thtough its so hidious that by the time you get to the end of the process, they tell you they no longer have money, or somehow you dont qualify. Its just horriable
10:20....that poor woman knows her house isn't worth a damn thing, but what else can she do? NOBODY is buying in that area. There's very little to no retail shops or groceries. The government abandoned some of those Wards.
And what paperwork? Just imagine every damn document you could think of, and then imagine a few more. Home title or loan documents, tax documents, employment verification documents, bank documents, credit history, Social security cards, state IDs, etc etc etc. Ya know, all those things that get destroyed when your house is under water.
I lost a House to Hurricane Hugo on Folly Beach, SC. 303 West Artic was Eaten by Hurricane Hugo, NOTHING WAS LEFT.
I lost a House in 1999 to Hurricane Floyd when a 200 year old oak fell on it.
I lost a roof and a Car Port to a Hurricane that just brushed Charleston in 2018.
~~Trying to reason with the Hurricane seasn~~, Jimmy Buffet
Politicians have to get their cut first, of course
Who does a person call when any natural disaster (wind, flood, volcano, earth quake, fire, etc.) destroys personal property? If insured, then insurance is supposed to pay (although I have seen several circumstances where it has failed to do so for various reasons). Government funds are more often intended for community infrastructure, not personal property. They complicated these matters by trying to divert funds no matter how well intended. Even in a system free of corruption, making things more complicated is likely to be more burdensome than helpful.
Corruption runs wild in the US.
I'm from there and thank God, we left before it hit. I think that was over 20 years ago! We still continue to get hurricanes to this day but we are better equipped nowadays than we was back then. We always taking procedures in case of heavy storms.
You need to watch the benefit concert where Kanye said, "George Bush doesn't care about black people" on live tv lol
Corp of Engineers (US Army) dikes failed. Mayor failed evacuation. Hurricane not responsible.
New Orleans sits below sea level. The Army Corps of Engineers build a bunch of levees to keep the water back, but nothing Man has ever built is a match for nature if nature decided to get serious. If the Engineers has wanted to build those levees an additional 10 feet higher before even knowing that a Katrina sized storm was in the cards, it would not have mattered. That's because they would have still been in court after being sued to stop the construction. That is how America works these days and has worked for going on 50 years. Everytime the government comes up with a fact based, sensible solution to an actual problem some group will file suit to stop it. Nothing was going to stop Katrina because we are too stupid to look forward.
Kabir, our government gives out contracts on a lowest bid basis for the most part. I will give you a personal lowest bid experience to give you a clue. I used to be a high school baseball coach. Every year we sold, at cost, a package that consisted of a baseball cap, practice T-shirt, game socks, and sleeves. These items were basically not items that could be recycled like a uniform. Back then, the package costs $25. One year, the head coach changed suppliers because he was able to get the package for $20. Turns out the caps were the wrong shade of brown and gold, the lettering on the practice T-shirts were off center, and the sleeves ran one size too small. Our government is notorious for going with the lowest bid and we having to take it in the shorts.
Plus, the levees were not maintained. Another example of failed imagination. Mother Nature does not negotiate.
I made so much money after Sandy I bought my 1st home. The work was so overwhelming. There's no way to manage it
I went to New Orleans a few years before Katrina and then again in 2010. I loved the city before Katrina - absolutely awesome. In 2010 (5 years later) it was still lacking so much of what it was before Katrina. There were areas you could still see the water marks; before, there were so many restaurants that the food was always good because bad restaurants couldn't survive but after the food was hit and miss; the energy was very low. I need to go back since it has been 14 years. Hopefully it is back to what it used to be by now.
As a New Orleanian, it’s still not back to what it use to be especially in the East and lower 9th ward.
@@nolalilmama That's sad. It was my favorite city. So much energy, fun and amazing food.
The hardest hit areas were black and low income. Those places are where the levees were not maintained.
So, of course, they chose rich, white people to rebuild.
I left the Upper Ninth Ward in 2017. The Lower 9th Ward had not recovered.
I expect it will be gentrified now that the levees have been rebuilt.
There is a song called "Help is on the Way" by Rise Against which is about Katrina and the BP Oil Spill ... should check out the video to the song as well.
Sadly in poor neighborhoods, people could not prove they owned a house…city hall flooded , tax records were gone.. that’s the proof.. proof of ownership !!!! I know I tried to help people.. no bank records, never change mortgage into their name still in dead grandmother’s name etc
the federal government said this company could handle these claims
Kabir, the fact that it took a year to get federal funding is not surprising.
I live on the southeast coast of NC. We’ve had several devastating hurricanes but our state officials are as slimy as the Feds so we always got prompt help.
Katrina was a national embarrassment because the government in power at the time seemed to not care about black people, who live in New Orleans in higher concentrations than neighboring coastal cities in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.
Kanye is a moron but he was right when he went on national TV and said “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”
Kathleen Blanco was not a great governor for LA, I think this NYT piece is a little too generous to her. But she was also up against a rock and a hard place.
Hurricane Floyd dropped to a tropical depression by the time it reached NJ. But it still did major damage as the water causeway between Saddle Brook and Lodi broke at several spots causing immense flooding. Another causeway in Passaic also toppled. The damage was extreme. And many contractors went to work rebuilding. Only it was found out many were unqualified for the work and left projects in shambles. One area of Rochelle Park had several dozen rebuilt homes no one could live in as they found the area was previously an illegal dumping site for oil and other toxins.
Sometimes these natural disasters allow maggots to come in and take advantage of people--with long-term impact. These 'people' often overshadow the thousands of good things done by people/companies to help people in real time. In these events, we do see the best of people come out. But the people you are talking about--that is where there needs to be real teeth in the law to hold these scumbags accountable. ALong the same lines as those businesses that would price-gauge people for essentials, gas, hotels, whatever.
@@lizetteolsen3218 you are right: 5 bad apples can seriously tarnish a whole bale. And, in many municipalities in disaster prone areas, those that are supposed to enforce laws to protect homeowners often work in conjunction with those who break the law to steal from those same homeowners.
New Orleans is special and has its own unique culture. Sadly, there will be more Katrina like hurricanes to hit New Orleans because about 65% of New Orleans is at or below sea level, some of it is 12 feet below sea level. With global warning comes worse storms and rising waters. eventually New Orleans might no longer exist.
Suggestion...Spike Lee made 2 documentary series about Katrina. They're titled "When the Levees Broke" (2005) & "If God is Willing and Da Creek don't Rise" (2010/11). He interviews various citizens of the greater New Orleans area & Mississippi. Spike then goes back to New Orleans 5 years after Katrina. Very, very eye opening. You should watch if you want an honest view from the people that survived the storm.
Just because you lost your home, you still had to prove you lost your home to get money…otherwise anybody would say hey I lost my house give me money..
Kabir, while I never supported Blanco she wasn’t to blame for the flooding. Much of New Orleans is below sea level and the infrastructure had been struggling for decades - still is. No one - NO ONE - foresaw a storm surge from the lake. And the federal government also had no good plan for dealing with a cleanup on this magnitude.
How do you prove ownership when the courthouse records have been destroyed along with your personal information.
There’s Sandy money still floating around the wrong places while entire towns are waiting for the funds to rebuild. Katrina should have been a lesson for any response to a natural disaster.
The lack of response to Hurricane Katrina was what made me loose trust in our government. Corpses in the streets, people stranded… Who shows up to help? Mexico and Canada. People were put on buses (they were forced to leave their pets to die) not knowing where they were being taken all over the country. Families were separated which took them months to find each other.
I remember older people refusing to evacuate without their beloved pets. Then there was that ridiculous animal rescue without any documentation. Pets wound up in shelters on opposite sides of the country--requiring people to provide documentation that the animal was their pet.
Agreed that the government response was horrible, but if possible, move away from that area as it is below sea level and prone to hurricane damage
You ever seen the movie "War Dogs"? You bid first, figure it out later if you win... its all greed!
Had to stop halfway through cause I was remembering all of this and making myself mad before work. Lol.
Blanco could have avoided most of these problems but she didn't. And yes it was all corruption and capitalism. We got royally screwed and they just didn't care as long as it meant money in their pockets 😢
Thats the problem with america government contracts dont bid they are hand to thier donor and friends
Yes La Governor did ever thing she could
See federal government not state government
So the Government should just completely pay for you to fix your house that's in a known flood zone because you didn't maintain enough insurance on your home? And pay for the price you 'could' have got but not what you actually paid for it 10 years ago?
You see that's the you 5:46 problem. New Orleans has operated in such a ....haitian way, as far as recording who lives where. Who owns what. Nobody really stays nowhere. If that make sense. It doesn't happen in any other city except the Caribbean...third world. That's why the Americans government didn't rush to rescue us. I was here 5 days... because New Orleans was 60% black, 40% white, latino,, Vietnamese and other. It's no longer that. More 50% black, 😮 white, 15% lations, 15% Vietnamese/asian...i don't think they would bother again because we're leftist, Democrats OR MA 5:46
They talked me into a $40,000 loan to replace my furnishings I lost in Katrina . I had no idea I would have a heart attack and lose my job, I did. I'm no longer able to work because of heart disease, AIDS, kidney disease. However the federal government still demands the $170.00 payment every 27th of every month. I do get SSDI $1400.00/mo before I pay my rent, prem... I'm so sad to
Spoiler alert: money was wasted and pockets were lined.
The reason it takes so long to set things up is that the corruption has to be set up first. We're taking lots of money. You put it in a bank and it generates interest. You gotta delay payouts to accumulate interest. Millions of $ out of nowhere.
Remember, this is the state that gave millions to a retired football player so he could build an arena at his University. Relief money supposed to go to the poorest people in the state.
Kabir, I have lost track of how many times that I've told you to become educated and fully aware of how racist the country is along with the policies.
In this Katrina case, you have to understand that Louisiana is another southern state that is still segregated and the powers that be are racist. Its a lineage that goes way back.
This is something that you need to understand if you do decide to go to a southern state. It can be very dangerous for you as a black man. The knuckle dragging troglodytes could even make things difficult for your wife because they do not like seeing white women with black men.
You should thin about this whenever you watch videos about "the cheapest places to live". Especially places like the as the south, the Midwest, the Dakotas, and pretty much any rural area in the country These places are not for us "melaninated" folks.
What a crock of bs
The rescue response sucked so bad Anderson Cooper from CNN became famous. If you have time doc mentioned in another comment or one you pick bc i have not seen anything so bungled except Puerto Rico...
How interesting. I was thinking just that. He became so angry talking to everyday people throughout the coastal damage and NOLA, that I thought he really came into his own. Too true, the damage, impact, and response in PR has not had any real attention.
They should have NEVER rebuilt New Orleans. It’ll happen again and ppl will cry again.
I would not go that far. To be fair, NOLA is not fully rebuilt. It is a much smaller city and population than it was. There are whole swaths of neighborhoods that are not rebuit or repaired. Supposedly, the dams and levees are repaired, but I know I would not trust that.
Delayed because the victims were mostly black 😒
Prior to Katrina most records recording home and property ownership were kept on paper or old computers. After being underwater for months and subject to heat and mold for up to a year, those records were gone. This became a big problem for showing ownership when homes had been passed down for generations but no formal paperwork was done showing the change in ownership. Homeowners had to find death records and birth certificates to prove they were decendants of the original-named homeowner (succession). This paperwork was asked for when the city itself did not have those records but expected the average citizens to have grabbed those items while climbing to the roof to avoid drowning.
New Orleans still hasn’t recovered from this since. There’s areas where it’s empty and damage is obviously visible.
New Orlando?
My First Day as a Working adult, I was supposed to be a Lifeguard at Seabrook Island Club in South Carolina.
It was a day after Hurricane David had hit the Island. I showed up at personal. They gave me a Shovel and told be that under the 14 foot high Sand Dune was an Olympic Size Pool.... Start Digging...
Rick
Charleston SC
Houston, Texas became the base of Gulf coast oil, as New Orleans was too corrupt for even oil men. The funds to maintain and build levees were diverted. The evacuation plans did not take “emergency” in account. Blanco and the mayor were famously incompetent, and the mayor ended up in prison for corruption.
@tomhalla426 Before Katrina, it would have been political suicide for any local or state politician to put fourth a bill to raise taxes to improve the Leviees around New Orleans.
for ICf it's all about the $$$. bet they got their millions
New Orleans sits below sea level. Therefore-re, when the levees are breached, water pours in and stays a while. It is a beautiful city to visit.
My brother was one of the service workers for cable company that volunteered to go down there to help out the other cable companies get everything connected again and there were a lot of roads still flooded or blocked off and he said you can smell death in the air.
The plan you mentioned about calling people and finding out if they still own the property, that makes perfect sense. Sadly, our county doesn't do things if it makes sense. How shameful another state got more money because of political connections. The political garbage we have had year after after is killing our country.
This is what happens when a private company is hired to administer a public program. All they care about is profit. This is late-stage capitalism. It's hell.
And yet, the mayor of New Orleans was charged with stealing millions and working special deals with companies to pay him to then get the right to build in the city. In 2014, Nagin was convicted on twenty of twenty-one charges of wire fraud, bribery, and money laundering related to bribes from city contractors before and after Katrina and was sentenced to ten years in federal prison. Then in 2023 Mayor La Toya Cantrell had this, Alleged affair: Cantrell and her bodyguard, NOPD officer Jeffrey Vappie, had an affair, according to accusations by Vappie's wife in divorce filings. So yes this is a very corrupt area with a long history of mishandling money. (In California, they just lose millions without any idea where it went).
Living in Florida and having lived through dozens of hurricanes, starting with Andrew (while living in Homestead) and having to be rescued in a raft during Irma (while living in Jacksonville), they don’t just give out money without documentation. Way too much fraud. People taking money and moving away leaving the house in ruins or taking the money and not having the work done. Not only that, construction companies charge a fortune after these storms. They gouge consumers at the worst times of their lives. It’s sad all the way around.
I live in Louisiana. We were blessed and only lost power and some food. We were eating the army rations they were passing out. Actually, they were not that terrible. We were blessed. Others lost EVERYTHING! The stories of people having their children and grandchildren swept out of their arms are horrific! Louisiana politics is very corrupt. Blanco was a terrible governor! New Orleans politicians and state politicians were misusing and pocketing a lot of that money. A lot was wasted right out on stupid crap. There are still sections of New Orleans today that have never been rebuilt. One of the huge blows to the city was the loss of Big Charity Hospital. It was a wonderful hospital that helped many who were in need. It was never rebuilt.
I will never forget watching was was happening in New Orleans on TV. It was a complete nightmare. Some people finally started getting bused over here to Houston, Texas. I saw on the news that volunteers were needed at the Convention center downtown. When I got there I was assigned to an old woman named Adaline Lemon. I thought that was the most New Orleans name ever. She had been through hell. Her house flooded, and she had swim out, with only a zip-lock bag with her medications and diabetes injections. She had been in her wet clothes for 4 days. That poor, sweet woman smelled so bad. There was very organized clothing and shoe donations on tables, and I helped her find her sizes. She was very picky, and that actually made it fun. I took to her to the portable showers that had been brought in. I told her I had to throw away the clothes that she came in wearing. She didn't like that but there was no where to wash and dry them. I sat with her while she ate, we talked. I got her settled in a cot so she could get a good night's sleep, and I told her I had to go home. I told her I would come see her tomorrow , and she made me promise. I came back and was told they had enough volunteers. I never saw her again. She said she was going to take a bus up to Washington state where a relative lived. I hope she made it.
Kabir, you have to see the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew in Florida that happened I think in 91. The rebuild was a shit show and many people got taken advantage of.
As a new subscriber..I couldn't wait to see your reaction..❤from Louisiana⚜️
I would think that some had a hard time proving.They own the property since they lost everything.
Kabir you are using logic and common sense. The government doesn't. You will never understand them or their actions.
I totally agree with your assessment of this catastrophe Kabir. Seems it should have been cui and dry as to what to do. Such a shame, those poor people.
it took awhile to drain the water … some neighborhoods were so contaminated, that they could not be rebuilt