as if we needed reminding even after 10 years how terrible Katrina really was and what a colossal Fiasco we are going to die out here did do not see somebody out here right now the horror show at the super doome close to 25,000 people were trapped there for days in the Heat and stink we need to feed our babies we need to give our babies some water somebody resue us thousands more baked on overpasses along the interstate this man jumped to his death cuz he just couldn't take it no more more than 1,800 people died
across the Gulf Coast how could this be happening in the United States of America who seemed more out of touch President Bush or FEMA director Mike Brown and brownie you're doing a heck of a job New Orleans Mayor Ray nean let loose on a radio broadcast now get off your asses and let's do something and let's fix the biggest damn crisis in the history of this country 80% of New Orleans was flooded billions and billions of gallons of water swept over the city not so much because of the storm itself but because the levies gave
way the flood walls broke being there in those first months it felt like am I witnessing the death of a great American city Gary rivlin covered Katrina for the New York Times his new book Katrina After the flood has just been published by CBS owned Simon and Schuster people talk about Katrina being an equal opportunity storm didn't it make a difference if you were black or white rich or poor but it wasn't exactly an equal storm if you were a black homeowner you were more than three times more likely to have lost your home in
the flooding than if you're a white homeowner and just like it wasn't an equal opportunity storm it has not been an equal opportunity recovery this was one of the first things I saw when I came into Lake View for the first time and there was a mount 10 stories high of debris and I just remember pulling to the side stunned and I just began to weep Connie udo's house a few blocks away looked like this after Katrina when the water finally drained away what had been her middle class overwhelmingly white neighborhood looked like this we
were fortunate because my home is Triplex because we lived on the second and third floor we didn't lose everything after moving six times Udo her husband and two children dared to go home in January 2006 4 months after the storm it was a very sad place to be as long as I was in my house I was okay when I walked outside I would feel myself just kind of slide and got to the point where I told my husband I don't think I can do this and so he said you know I think you have
to find a purpose a few months later the former tennis teacher had become a combination Angie's List and Mr Clean a whirlwind running the Saint Paul's homecoming Center her job connecting people to resour es marshalling volunteers to get her Lake View neighbors back in their houses I realized we were in in a fight for our life to save our neighborhood to save our city how did you go about this assault on the Storm do do not wait for the government that became our mot people would say well I'm going to wait for this I'm going
to wait for my the government's going to do this right I was like no I don't think so the government didn't even show up when we were stranded at the dome for 5 days why do you think they're going to show up to help gut our schools and churches and businesses and why do you think that we need to do this this was one of our success stories actually and they did con udo's organization and others there are reminders of Katrina the high water line is immortalized at Starbucks but Lake View is back a supermarket
opened in 2010 the St Paul's homecoming Center has moved [Music] on in New Orleans happy or sad you dance to the music and yesterday on the actual anniversary of Katrina people danced in the Lower Ninth Ward where the most most damage was done this is what it looks like still almost entirely African-American before the storm only 37% of its pre-katrina residents have returned Brad pits make it right in other Charities have built hundreds of homes but thousands were destroyed the closest thing to a grocery store opened last year more on that that later and this
was the front door someone else's roof was on top of Betty Bell's house when the retired social worker finally was allowed back for a look a month after Katrina the city demolished it you know I just try to be strong and not let it really affect me too much cuz I don't want to run my blood sugar up her insurance settlement nowhere nearly enough to rebuild the bank took most of it to pay off her mortgage anyway this was the bathroom construction is about to start on Betty Bell's lot but it's taken 10 years of
fighting and the intervention of a local advocacy group to get her barely enough money for a house onethird the size of her old one it's not what I had but you know at least I'm getting something and it took a long time to get to this to this pointed for Bell the problem was Road home Louisiana's nearly 10 billion federally funded program intended to bridge the gap to provide homeowners enough money to rebuild for many many Katrina victims it ended up a bureaucratic nightmare a symbol of incompetence but for residents of African American neighborhoods such
as the Lower Ninth Ward it was a symbol of something else discrimination Road home based its payment formula on the value of a property before Katrina in New Orleans historically homes in African-American neighborhoods have been valued significantly lower than similar homes in white neighborhoods never mind that construction costs are the same regardless it was just a fundamental flaw in the program in fact it's not just me saying that a federal judge ended up concluding that the Road home program did in fact discriminate against black homeowners it's not that they were not made aware that it
was not a good policy uh myself and others personally uh appealed to the powers to be to not use that policy one of the city's most prominent africanamerican leaders Alden McDonald heads Liberty Bank and Trust Company after Katrina his headquarters his branches and his own home were all devastated but he managed to keep the bank open we're Louisiana made Louisiana proud at Liberty Bank and has in the past 10 years built it into one of the largest minority owned banks in the United States but this speaks volumes the Liberty Bank building in africanamerican New Orleans
East marooned surrounded by what was a million square foot mall before Katrina when I take a look at what happened and what didn't happen you could see that the ability of money uh helped communities to rebuild faster bigger and to do things that perhaps the African-American Community with less wealth was not able to do we're ready nearly 10 years after Katrina we're no longer recovering we're not rebuilding now we're creating the current mayor Mitch Landrew likes to talk about a new New Orleans all you have to do is look around the super doome rebuilt a
new state-of-the-art hospital new schools a new $4.5 billion do flood protection system reduces it doesn't eliminate the risk of catastrophic flooding the tourists have returned but nearly 100,000 African-American New Orleans gone the new New Orleans looks familiar but may never quite be The Big Easy [Music] again only in the w
