Project Katrina

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) official who for the past two years led the agency’s troubled Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts will retire Thursday.

Gil Jamieson, whose tenure as administrator of Gulf Coast recovery included controversies over formaldehyde in FEMA trailers and funding delays, will be temporarily replaced by James Stark. Stark currently leads FEMA’s Louisiana recovery offices.

The change was announced in a Dec. 21 memorandum from FEMA Administrator R. David Paulison that was distributed to all FEMA employees.

Harry Shearer has a wonderful (even if depressing) post at the Huffington Post you should take a look at:

New Orleanians get no shortage of hortatory messages about self-reliance from other parts of the nation they thought they belonged to. So Sunday’s Times-Picayune sends the message right back. Here’s a story full of as many touchstones of self-reliance as one can bear—a Charity Hospital nurse, a widow who raised nine children, children who came to her aid when the floods struck, children who rebuilt their own home and rental properties with no government assistance. Read the journey.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has hired a new director of public affairs to replace Pat Philbin who was in charge during now "famous" fake news conference in October of this year. Jonathan Thompson, who was a deputy assistant defense secretary for public affairs, strategy and operations, will be FEMA’s new director of external affairs.

Well this is good news when there isn’t a lot to report. NASA has announced that Lockheed Martin will build the Orion crew module and Boeing will build the $1.13 billion upper stage of the Ares I launch rocket and the rocket’s $799.5 million navigation and control system in NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility (located in the Eastern part of New Orleans). From the Associated Press:

The route to the moon and perhaps to Mars now goes through New Orleans—and the detour couldn’t come at a better time in the city’s struggle to rebuild its shattered economy after Hurricane Katrina.

With thousands of houses still in ruins and its population reduced by almost 170,000, a boost is on the way for New Orleans in the form of high-wage jobs and contracts for next-generation space systems at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility.

Before the storm, New Orleans’ economy thrived on low-wage tourism. But the $156 million payroll at Michoud—some salaries are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars—generates paychecks significantly above the city’s median annual income of about $27,000.

This is just good news across the board. Not only jobs, but high-tech and high-paying jobs. I wish there were more Federal agencies looking for locate jobs in the New Orleans metro area.

U.S. Senators Mary Landrieu, Claire McCaskill and Barack Obama lauded Congress’ passage of their proposal to launch an investigation into reports that housing trailers contaminated with formaldehyde were provided to Hurricane Katrina victims.

This provision, which is contained in the Omnibus Appropriations package soon to be signed into law, will initiate a long overdue investigation into why the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) failed to prevent the contamination or investigate the allegations.

This exact provision was originally offered in July 2007 as an amendment to the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations bill.

It is disconcerting that FEMA moved victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita into trailers with unacceptable amounts of formaldehyde, said Senator Landrieu. It is yet another example of the agency’s ineptitude. It is essential that we move forward with testing the trailers to determine how many are affected and what is necessary to move trailer residents into safe alternative housing. The language we secured in the omnibus spending bill takes this vital step to ensure that those affected by the hurricanes are being housed in a safe environment.

We pay taxes so that federal government protects us during national emergencies, not to put us further in danger, McCaskill said. Not only did FEMA fail Gulf Coast residents before Katrina hit, they knowingly continued to put their lives at risk nearly two years after the fact by allowing residents to live in trailers containing toxic fumes. I’m pleased that legislation will be signed into law that will help get to the bottom of this life-threatening decision so that we can prevent it from happening again.

The Bush Administration’s response after Hurricane Katrina was a catastrophic failure, said Senator Obama. Instead of deploying the resources required to save lives and rebuild communities, the Administration consistently cut corners and buried the truth. Lives were put at risk, and countless Americans were left homeless and without the help they needed to rebuild. We must get to the bottom of reports that this Administration may have knowingly provided contaminated trailers to those who lost their homes after this disaster. At the very least, we owe the victims of Katrina answers, and we will continue to fight to finally get them the help they have long deserved.

This provision requires the U.S. Inspector General to:

• Investigate FEMA’s policies and processes regarding formaldehyde in trailers purchased by the agency to house Katrina victims;
• Collect and respond to health and safety concerns of trailer occupants; and determine whether FEMA adequately notified occupants of potential health and safety concerns and whether FEMA has proper controls and processes in place to deal with health and safety concerns of those living in trailers following disasters; and
• Report to Congress on its findings.

This is a vital development. In 2005 FEMA supplied more than 120,000 trailers to Gulf Coast residents. Thousands and thousands are still living in them with formaldehyde levels that are dangerous to their health. But to this point we don’t know how dangerous. Maybe we will in the near future.

Naomi Klein, the author of The Shock Doctrine has a must read post at the Huffington Post. She writes in part:

Readers of The Shock Doctrine know that one of the most shameless examples of disaster capitalism has been the attempt to exploit the disastrous flooding of New Orleans to close down that city’s public housing projects, some of the only affordable units in the city. Most of the buildings sustained minimal flood damage, but they happen to occupy valuable land that make for perfect condo developments and hotels.

The final showdown over New Orleans public housing is playing out in dramatic fashion right now. The conflict is a classic example of the "triple shock" formula at the core of the doctrine.

• First came the shock of the original disaster: the flood and the traumatic evacuation.
• Next came the "economic shock therapy": using the window of opportunity opened up by the first shock to push through a rapid-fire attack on the city’s public services and spaces, most notably it’s homes, schools and hospitals.
• Now we see that as residents of New Orleans try to resist these attacks, they are being met with a third shock: the shock of the police baton and the Taser gun, used on the bodies of protestors outside New Orleans City Hall yesterday.

Democracy Now! has been covering this fight all week, with amazing reports from filmmakers Jacquie Soohen and Rick Rowley (Rick was arrested in the crackdown). Watch residents react to the bulldozing of their homes here. And footage from yesterday’s police crackdown and Tasering of protestors inside and outside city hall here.

So there you have it. I don’t have any words to express my anger.

You read that headline correctly, New Orleans police tasered and used pepper spray on residents outside City Hall today who were seeking to block the demolition of their housing. From Democracy Now:

The New Orleans City Council has unanimously voted to move ahead with the demolition of 4,500 units of public housing. Under the plan, the city’s four largest public housing developments will be razed and replaced with mixed-income housing. Hundreds of people were turned away from the City Council meeting. Police shot protesters with pepper spray and tasers.

Democracy Now as links to articles, audio, and video of what occurred.

The majority of Hurricane Katrina survivors who developed mental disorders after the disaster are not receiving the mental health services they need, and many who were receiving mental health care prior to the hurricane were not able to continue with treatment, according to an NIMH-funded study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Philip Wang, M.D., Dr.P.H. the director of the NIMH Division of Services and Intervention Research, and colleagues conducted telephone surveys in early 2006 with 1,043 adults who had been affected by the hurricane in Alabama, Mississippi and the New Orleans metropolitan area.

Respondents were asked if they had a diagnosed mental disorder, such as depression or anxiety, prior to the hurricane for which they received professional treatment. Those who did not have a pre-existing disorder were asked if they had developed and been treated for a mental disorder since the hurricane struck. Treatment included medication and/or psychotherapy from mental health professionals, general medical providers, religious or spiritual advisors, or complementary and alternative medicine professionals.

Nineteen percent of people surveyed said they had developed a mental disorder after the hurricane. Among them, only 18.5 percent were receiving any treatment. Among the 21 percent of respondents who said they had been in treatment for a mental disorder prior to the hurricane, 23 percent were having difficulty maintaining treatment after the storm, and were receiving reduced treatment or no treatment at all.

Respondents with pre-hurricane mental disorders cited loss of financial resources, such as unemployment and loss of insurance, as a significant barrier to maintaining treatment. In addition, they noted that many mental health care facilities and personnel were lost after the hurricane, especially in the New Orleans area.

Those who were identified as having a post-hurricane mental disorder commonly indicated they felt no need to seek treatment. The majority of the respondents who did get treatment after the hurricane received it from general medical providers. Many of these respondents received medication, but few had access to psychotherapy.

Wang and colleagues conclude that future disaster management plans should anticipate the mental health care needs of people with pre-existing disorders who need to maintain treatment, as well as survivors who may be vulnerable to emotional difficulties and mental disorders triggered by the disaster itself.