HURRICANE KATRINA 10 YEARS LATER
In the months following the hurricane and its aftermath, Michael Slate traveled to New Orleans to bring back the voices and stories of those who lived through it all. Now, as we mark the anniversary of Katrina, we revisit what happened through those recorded interviews. It's a powerful hour of radio, and an important way to mark the anniversary. Hurricane Katrina and all that happened to the mainly Black people of New Orleans during and ever since that storm hit the city, was a defining moment for the US.
When the storm came ashore in 2005, close to 100,000 people were left to try to survive on their own in New Orleans. Thousands died as a result. Those who survived the storm itself faced extreme conditions: no clean water, no food, people stranded on rooftops or locked in prisons, more people dying and bodies floating in the flood waters.
Abandoned people fought together to survive in life-threatening conditions. People around the country saw this happening and were outraged, and many tried to help. Yet, at every turn, they were met by the armed repression of the military, the police, and racist vigilantes. It was a colossal natural disaster that turned into a crime against humanity and one that laid bare the deep oppression -- and yes, hatred -- that this system has for Black people.
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Hurricane Katrina & The Crimes of a Genocidal System
August 24, 2015, Revolution Newspaper
On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit the city of New Orleans. This was one of the five deadliest hurricanes in the history of the United States. But what followed was far worse.
Hurricane Katrina was a ferocious storm. It brought terrible destruction to the Gulf Coast from central Florida to Texas. The greatest destruction, suffering, and death occurred in New Orleans. The suffering was not, overwhelmingly, a result of the storm itself. The problem was that levees that were supposed to hold back the sea in New Orleans had essentially been abandoned by the government and were no match for the storm surge that followed the hurricane. 1,833 people on the Gulf Coast died as a result of the storm and its aftermath. In New Orleans, 134,000 housing units—70 percent of the total—were damaged.
Read more at REVCOM.US
Obama & The System's WHITEwash of Post-Katrina New Orleans
August 31, 2015, Revolution Newspaper
Ten years after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, Barack Obama gave a major speech in the Lower 9th Ward neighborhood in New Orleans. He crowed about the supposed triumph and greatness of America and what he claimed was incredible “progress” in New Orleans. In reality, his speech was a WHITE-wash of this system’s crimes in the wake of the flooding that followed the hurricane. And Obama painted a whole genocidal agenda that has been in effect in a concentrated way in New Orleans as “real progress.”\
Read more at REVCOM.US
Ten great albums inspired by Katrina:
- After the Levees Broke – Marva Wright
- People of the Ninth – Kali Z. Fasteau/ Kidd Jordan
- City That Care Forgot (Bonus Track Version) – Dr. John
- Sippiana Hericane – Dr. John
- All Washed Up (They Say) – Dr. John
- When the Levee Breaks (featuring Bonerama) – Nicole Atkins
- King of the Second Line- Dr. Michael White
- A Tale of God’s Will (A Requiem for Katrina) – Terrence Blanchard
- Katrina – Greatest Blues Hits – James Blood Ulmer
Hearne: Katrina Ballads – Nathan Koci
PHOTOGRAPHY BY Li ONESTO
www.lionesto.net