TEN
YEARS POST KATRINA
Ten years post Katrina 08/29/2015. Here we are in Atlanta Ga. my wife and I and our daughter. Minus the townhouse and the headaches that it
brought after the Katrina destroyed it. Hurricane Isaac knock a hole in the
roof and the tenets that was renting had to move out, leaving us with a house
note and repairs which the new insurance post Katrina did not pay the full cost
for repair. The repairs were done with
much struggle by contractors hired by our new best friend in New Orleans and my
wife. The section 8 tenet came with her
issues and tore out the stairwell to take her washer and dry out and left us
with repairs which we could not make. By this time we had decide that it would
be in our best interest to sell this townhouse and focus on moving from
Woodland Hills Ca. to Georgia. We choose
Georgia because we wanted to be closer to our extended families. Only with the
kindness and patients of our close friends Linda and Bob were we able to put together
the funds to make that cross country move in October 2011.
Just after the arriving from Hawaii 2005 where we were on August
29 2005, celebrating my 50th birthday our flight was rerouted to
Jackson Mississippi and there we were housed by my wife’s mother. It’s from Starkville
Mississippi we started to try and get our lives back into some kind of
order. My wife and I began the never
ending ordeal of fighting with the insurance companies
about what they was now going to pay for while we was now homeless. The local community of Starkville was given
the use of a local church as a meeting, feeding and aid distribution sight. Our
friends and some family members gave us support and some financial help which
was what was needed most to move out of the temporary housing that FEMA was
funding at the local hotel for Katrina evacuees. We moved to the hotel for the privacy and
just room to gather our thoughts together, on which way forward. This was also the first time we had seen Halliburton
company personal in their red jumpsuits, most likely headed to the gulf cost as
part of the privet contractors used by FEMA to clean up and rebuild the gulf
cost. The Red Cross handed out some checks once in Starkville about $350 and
that was all the support from the Red Cross that we knowingly received.
We did get a couple offers of work in Starkville from the
local hospital but the wages were nowhere near the funds we needed to even try
to pay a house note, car note and other bills that were still coming due every
month. Once Ray Nagin open the city back
up we rented a U-Haul and drove the four and half hours down to east New
Orleans to see for ourselves the massive extent of the devastation and
destruction that wind and water could do. All of the major landmarks were
closed due to flood damage all the schools, all the home had some find of water
damage and light phone service was still out. There was only spotty cell phone
service. On our street the large oak tree was still standing but the neighbor’s
tree had fell into their yard. Our two neighbors across the street had started
repairs. My car was setting in the driveway just as we had left it August 23,
2005. But it had a brown water stain up
to the mid windshield and the interior was molding and my much love rust color
poncho was ruined. I backed the U-Haul
in and to our surprise the keys worked and we were able to open the door. What awaited
us was a surreal world where things, furniture was in awkward positions and in places
that did not make sense but only water
or something could have moved them into such positions. And then there was the things that was
unmoved it seemed, like the dining room table that was unmoved and all my cookbooks on them was dry and the china cabinet still standing and the china still in
place and not one piece broken. The
water line on the walls was about six feet pulse and the black mole had started
to creep up the wall and foul the air.
It was the mole smell that was in all of the stuff that was not
water damaged. Upstairs on the second floor it was dry but mole had started to
grow on everything up there and foul it with that moldy smell. So we just started
pulling thing out. We were just numbed by the level of destruction and lose we
were subjected to and witnesses. My wife
was upset and crying some but we was just taking in and inventorying the level
of loss and destruction we was now facing.
We stayed on the west bank with my wife’s cousin who had evacuated
and had returned back and had their home back up and she was working at Tulane
hospital. Charity Hospital laid off its entire staff and was forcing anyone who
wanted to remain a state worker to reapply under new rules [http://savecharityhospital.com/]. With no job and no home we could not return
back to East New Orleans to live. While in Starkville we had used the public library
to open up new email address that’s why mines remain fgminstarkville@yhaoo.com
today I’ve now added footholder1955@gmail.com thereafter.
As a person who feels that a government that forces you to
live under it rules and laws has expected amount of responsibility to the
people who are forced to live under its rules and laws. Before Katrina we had
organized a group called Advocate Louisiana for Public Health in New Orleans
with members from a peace group called C3, and was about to welcome the Physician
for National Health Care, Physicians for Single Payer. They had announced that
they would be holding their national convention in New Orleans that October of
2005 and we were going to use that occasion to further push our demand for Single
Payer Heath care for Louisiana. We had
succeed in get through the state legislators a resolution to support a study of
the feasibility of doing a study of doing a study on the befit of a Single
Payer Health Care system for Louisiana. That was done with the support and
forms we had held for the district and the candidates running for office in our
district and the candidate that wound had been put on record from the forms that
he would support a study of implementing a Single Payer Health Care system for Louisiana.
Rep Juan La Fonta gave us room to present our demand at a hearing of the health
and human service committee and carried our bill for this study. It passed and
we were not able to follow it up after Katrina.
The activist who help us with work on health care were
already involved in the antiwar work C 3 and saw the need to support or
original work at keeping Louisiana State University the administrators of Charity Hospital from
closing floor and clinics. Our meetings for ALPH were held at a local mosque
that gave us space and time
Once we arrive in Los Angeles from Starkville Mississippi,
we were given support by our friends and some local actives to get our story
out. There were a number of interviews
with Prof. Saul Sarabia of UCLA, Shantel Vachani UCLA school of Law, had an on
air interview with Margaret Prescod of
KPFK with Brad Ott. Brad Ott was still in New Orleans leading the work around
re-opening Charity Hospital and continued his education. Here is the outcome of his years of work.
Brad said most of the research in this article was from the work he had done
over pass six years, {http://www.thenation.com/article/why-was-new-orleanss-charity-hospital-allowed-die/
} here is another web site that you can follow the Charity Hospital situation
and read its history { http://savecharityhospital.com/ }. We also did an
interview with Debo Kotun who all put it on CD.
At every opportunity we made an effort to get the story out on what was
going on in New Orleans, Margaret Prescod also had a Women First Strict Event
and Brave New Films also had an event we were given space to speak. We were
given space and time at the KRST Unity Center for African Spirituality and meet
some local South Central community members that wanted to help and link up with
the people in New Orleans. While in New Orleans
I made contact with Leon Waters, commongroundrelief.org, People’s Hurricane
Relief Fund, and Community Labor United. Peoples Hurricane Relief Found held a people
tribunal and issued a finding they also made a major complaint about the Red
Cross not helping or giving out the millions of dollars it had collected.
There was a legislative effort from the Black Congressional
Black Caucus H.R. 4197 and S. 2319 in 2005 but it was not reintroduced 2006 by the congressional black caucus or than
Senator Obama. { http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/congressional-black-caucus-introduces-hurricane-katrina-relief-legislation-to-help-gulf-coast-residents-55279887.html
}. Senator Obama at that time refused to add the prevision about addressing the
poverty that Katrina exposited. Senator Obama also refused to reintroduce the
S.2319 in the 2006 congressional section.
The Bush, governor Kathleen Blanco, mayor Ray Nagin, the congressional
Black Caucus Senator and now President Obama let us all drown in this manmade disaster
called Katrina and I will never forget or forgive them for what fail to do and
in respect all the people who lost their lives and those that are still not
right.
This is one story of one Katrina survivor and not the whole
story, Freddie G. Monroe.
