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Wed, 29 Oct 2008 15:35:26 -0400

Two Years After the Storm

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 13:41:11 -0500

Chief Steward Larry Warner had weathered a lot since he began driving for Greyhound in 1978. And then came Katrina.

On Aug. 31, 2005, Hurricane Katrina smashed into New Orleans like a bowling ball sending all 10 pins flying. A vast swath of the Crescent City was wiped away, from poorer neighborhoods like the Lower 9th Ward and St. Bernard Parish to posher communities like Eastover and Lake Forest Estates.

Human misconduct has since magnified a natural disaster into a catastrophe. In the two years since Katrina, followed a few weeks later by Hurricane Rita, ravaged Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama:

The Bush Administration has used reconstruction as a pretext to attack union rights and labor laws;
The Federal Emergency Management Ageny (FEMA) has demonstrated unprecedented incompetence;
Local business leaders and public agencies have failed to address human need; and
Scoundrels have swindled survivors of their meager insurance payments.

Of course, post-Katrina New Orleans is also filled with stories of heroism, generosity and survival, the strength of family and community bonds, and the power of working people facing adversity together.

“There’s no place like home,” said Cynthia Warner, who fled her Algiers neighborhood for shelter in Houston. Warner said she was devastated when she returned six weeks later. “It wasn’t just because of my house. The city was unbelievable. My cousin’s home just down the street lost its whole roof.”

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