New Orleans: Helping those who help themselves

By: Ken Kaighan

Posted: 4/20/07

There are numerous topics I tire of hearing on a constant basis. Global warming and the death of polar bears would be one. The "Bush lied, people died" meme would be another. But since I'm a U.S. boy and an architectural engineer, what really irks me are the barrage of reminders that parts of New Orleans still lay in ruins as remnants of a Hurricane Katrina landfall.

People are quick to condemn the local, state and federal governments for inept handling of the immediate aftermath of the crisis. Even if it was, what astounds me even more is how these same people are so willing to lay blame on the American populace as a whole. Take some of the paraphrased quotes from the locals in Louisiana, who cannot believe Americans gave more in charity to the 9/11 victims than those of Katrina.

Maybe here is where the difference is apparent: while on 9/11, the victims did nothing to invite their destruction, the victims of Katrina were already living six feet below sea level. And they wondered why their homes were flooded.

It's not like this is the first time in American history that a storm has ravaged a coastal city. The storm of 1900 buried Galveston, killing upwards of 12,000 people and causing $700 million worth of damage in today's dollars. Katrina is estimated to have killed 2,500 people at most, although the damage was far more costly. In fact, this country's history is riddled with stories of natural disasters striking populated areas.

Remember the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 that killed 3,000 and left hundreds of thousands homeless? What about the more recent quake in 1989 that interrupted a nationally televised baseball game and destroyed an elevated highway with people still on it? Then there are the countless numbers of tornadoes and dust storms across the Midwestern states that ruined countless towns, crops and lives.

Katrina might mark a particular first, though. It might be the first time a US city has been so decimated by a storm that it appeared unwilling to rebuild on its own or even lend a hand in the efforts of others.

In the first week after Galveston was nearly wiped off the face of the US map, they had restored their water and telegraph services. By the third week, things had improved to the point that the relief groups from neighboring Houston went home. The citizens of Galveston that survived were eager to rebuild their city and continue their lives. They instituted two great civil engineering projects to protect them in the future: building a great seawall to retain some of the waters and raising the natural grade of the city by as much as 11 feet. And this was in the era before governments were expected to provide the bulwark of funding.

In the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco, rebuilding plans were hatched quickly to salvage the hosting of the Pan-Pacific Exposition in 1915, which they did. Nearly five million dollars in charitable donations were pulled in, of which the US government provided only 20 percent. In nine short years, the local businesses and residents had rebuilt a large portion of their city, in part due to lax building code standards.

Contrast this with the current reactions of local residents and even fellow Americans to Katrina. A metropolitan area of nearly 1.4 million residents was flooded to the roofs of two-story houses. Nineteen months later and parts are still described as "ghost towns" and "graveyards." There have been no concerted efforts seen by the local citizens to rebuild their lives. On the contrary, for every heart-warming tale of a family attempting to rebuild its homes, you hear the stories of neighboring cities that counter those.

My wife and I recently made a trip to Houston to visit friends for their wedding. The husband, a residential contractor, told me some of the wonderfully idiotic tales of his local purchasers: people who blocked their weep holes with top soil and gardens and then wondered why their living rooms were flooding; buyers who run their high-efficiency air-conditioning systems while leaving windows open in the house, only to complain that the mechanical system isn't very "efficient" when pointing to their utility bills.

Then he started in on his greatest current pet peeve, and I paraphrase:

"And those lazy folks from New Orleans who are still living here off our good graces. It's been, what, well over a year now and they haven't gone back to rebuild a damn thing. You know they have the gall to tell me, 'It's not our job, that's the government's job to rebuild my home. You don't know what it's like to lose everything you own.' And I tell them, that's fair enough, I don't know. But you know what, you give me a year to work and live rent free and I can make back a large portion of what I lost. I always ask them, what have you done this past year with your life? The conversation ends after that."

And that's the reason the horror stories of Katrina bother me so much. First off, it's not the responsibility of the rest of the US to look after the well-being and reconstruction efforts of New Orleans. The primary responsibility is that of the people who lived there willingly, knowing that the breach of those 20 foot tall levees throughout the city would be the end of their neighborhood. Yet still, droves of Americans take their own vacation time to help build new houses in the area, donating time, materials and cash.

But more importantly is the general US public's inability to grasp the concept that reconstruction efforts on this grand scale take time. Nine years for San Francisco. Twenty-seven years for Galveston. Katrina caused multitudes more in monetary damages than these two combined. And here we are, 19 months later, and people have the nerve to say, "I can't believe it's still like this."

Ken Kaighan is a 2002 alumni and regular guest columnist. He can be reached through ed-op@thetriangle.org.