NEW ORLEANS - More than 80 Brown students, traveling either in student groups or independently, joined hundreds of others here for their spring breaks, helping to rebuild a city that is still struggling to return to some sense of normalcy more than seven months after Hurricane Katrina.
Residents and visitors alike here complain about the media's coverage of the storm. They charge that the media extensively covers New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward, which was the most heavily damaged area during the storm, but neglects other neighborhoods that, though having a greater chance of recovering, were also significantly flooded. The Lower Ninth Ward does indeed make for great TV footage - the area is like a ghost town. Every house is significantly damaged, many are destroyed and quite a few were washed completely off their foundations. Images of the primarily poor, black population of the Ninth Ward, contrasted with those of the undamaged mansions of the Garden District, present a sobering picture of racial and socioeconomic inequity.
But several residents were quick to point out that 80 percent of New Orleans was flooded. Large sections of the city have a "bathtub ring" that indicates how high floodwaters rose, and trash and debris abound. Residents said if the media showed more images of New Orleans East, a heavily damaged upper-middle class black suburb, or of the Lakeview neighborhood, a mixed-race, mixed-class area that was flooded when the levees broke, people would share their view that, as several residents and volunteers put it, Katrina was "an equal-opportunity storm."
Kevin Lander, a Tulane University student, told an audience at a March 27 panel of students and residents affected by Katrina that misperceptions about New Orleans' condition are particularly problematic because of the potential electoral effects. A mayoral election is scheduled for April 22, but many of the voters are living away from the city and will have to vote as absentees. Misleading coverage, Lander said, could cause voters to choose candidates based on inaccurate information.
Residents are also extremely angry at their government. "Katrina didn't flood New Orleans - government failure did," said John McCusker, a photographer for the New Orleans Times-Picayune walking along the London Avenue Canal last week.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which built the faulty levees, is a frequent target for residents' irritation. Touring neighborhoods adjacent to the levees, it is clear that almost no houses suffered significant hurricane damage, but almost all had significant flood damage.
People here are also angry about the Federal Emergency Management Agency's slow response to the disaster, and they remain frustrated over what they see as bureaucracy run amok. "Imagine going to the driver's license office every day," McCusker said.
Residents charge that because of the media's focus on the Lower Ninth Ward, people around the country believe the rest of the city is fine.
Clearly, it is not.
The city faces a health crisis, with hospitals treating huge numbers of uninsured patients, sometimes cutting into their endowments to do so. Charity Hospital, New Orleans' only Level 1 trauma center, is closed permanently, with trauma patients being treated at a converted shopping mall.
The city faces an education crisis, with Dillard University operating out of rented space in a downtown hotel and Tulane and Loyola universities making drastic budget cuts. The University of New Orleans has some of its faculty living in a trailer park outside its Lakeview campus. The city's infamously troubled public school system has been quietly replaced by a charter system that has enjoyed some success, but as one resident said, "Schools in Orleans Parish were so bad before, I think they only could have gotten better."
The city also faces a housing crisis, with thousands of former residents living across Louisiana and the United States as well as in a tent city called the Emergency Community, located in neighboring St. Bernard Parish. With so many houses being gutted, rent is skyrocketing. According to McCusker, a two-bedroom house in the city costs him nearly $1,500 per month.
And yet, for all of the Big Easy's problems, it retains much of its unique flavor. The city's famous French Quarter was undamaged, and people still dance in the streets to some of the world's best jazz and blues. Po'boy sandwiches, boiled crawfish, benets and other Crescent City fare is still available, though one must take note of operating hours - many businesses cannot stay open late because of a shortage of low-wage laborers.
"You know what I miss? Guys playing dominoes on the neutral ground," said local electrician Brian Deubler, referring to the city's wide, grassy medians. "Those guys were so set-up that they had BBQ pits out there."
Moving forward"New Orleans remains a terrible knot of indecision," Lander said, pointing out the disagreements over when, where, how and if to rebuild.
Besides an impending election, people are hesitant to move back into their neighborhoods because they don't know if their community will be revitalized. Several residents said they keep in touch with neighbors, who are spread across the country, via e-mail, and most are hopeful that they can rebuild.
"It's not any more irrational to rebuild here than to rebuild after an earthquake in San Francisco or a wildfire in California," McCusker said.
However, in the Lower Ninth Ward, fresh signs that read "Don't bulldoze" adorn destroyed houses as part of a campaign by the volunteer group Common Ground to help residents keep their houses. However, many residents and volunteers who toured the Ninth Ward, including some working for Common Ground, expressed the sentiment that houses will almost certainly have to be demolished.
In the meantime, many residents have taken it upon themselves to bring their city back. Partly out of a lasting distrust of government and a frustration at navigating bureaucracy, a culture of individualism appears to be emerging in the Big Easy.
"I think we will definitely end up with more of an entrepreneurial culture," Lander said.
"When things got done, it was because of individuals," Deubler said.
McCusker also spoke of forsaking the top-down governance to which residents might have become accustomed before Katrina. After the storm, physicians and police officers commandeered Wal-Mart stores and drug stores for supplies. Now, neighbors are helping to gut each other's houses and are jumpstarting their children's education by starting charter schools, he said.
The latent distrust, government indecision and emerging spirit of individualism have provided an opportunity for dozens of volunteer organizations to assist in the city's reconstruction.
One ubiquitous group is Common Ground, which has garnered a reputation among residents as an exemplar of the rising spirit of individualism. Started by three residents with $50, this grassroots effort was providing aid to victims in some areas days before the government did. It has started clinics, opened the Emergency Community and campaigned for rebuilding heavily damaged areas.
"The Emergency Community is sort of run by hippies. It happens quite a lot that hippies come and save the day," Jay Alcazar, a Loyola student, told the panel audience.
The group has lately become somewhat controversial for flouting local authorities' reconstruction ideas and government disaster relief procedures, but there is little doubt that, on the whole, people here appreciate its assistance.
While he thinks Common Ground has been an extraordinary help in the short-term, Lander said the group will eventually have to work alongside the government as New Orleans plans for the future.
Brown's contributionFrom Brown, the Swearer Center for Public Service sent 20 students to gut houses and learn about the city through various cultural and educational events. The Bear Necessities, Brown Habitat for Humanity, Hillel, College Hill for Christ and others also traveled to New Orleans for the break, some with the assistance of a $5 million donation from the late Sidney Frank '42 for Brown's Katrina relief efforts. Additionally, at least five students traveled independently, looking to help out where needed.
Students slept on church floors, in tents and in warehouses. "The work was hard and fulfilling, but also very frustrating because, as much as we did, there was still so much left to be done," said Juli Thorstenn '09, who worked with Habitat.
While an exact number of student volunteers was not available, Brown students were so abundant that on at least three occasions one volunteer group reported running into another on the streets.
People here are extremely appreciative of the huge numbers of students in New Orleans for their spring breaks. Police officers stopped a van full of Brown volunteers for running a red light, but let them off without even a warning after discovering why they were in New Orleans. One cab driver refused to be paid for his services after ferrying a group of Habitat for Humanity volunteers across the city.
As New Orleans residents slowly rebuild their city, they have adopted a dark sense of humor about their numerous plights. T-shirts that read, "Want hurricane relief? Go FEMA yourself!" and "Make levees, not war!" attempt to disguise the growing concern about this year's hurricane season, which begins June 1. As much as residents rail against their government, they also acknowledge that they need federal and state authorities to work quickly to reconstruct the levees that keep water from flooding into the Crescent City. To what extent the levees will be repaired by summer remains unclear.
Meanwhile, New Orleans residents are working, hoping and waiting. Deubler, the electrician, quietly put it best: "I used to coach sports, but now most of the ball parks are trailer parks. I've had to downsize my business - I'm just watching the time go by."
