Katrina

Understanding New Orleans as it exists today is almost impossible without understanding the storm that nearly destroyed her 10 years ago. FEMA (The Federal Emergency Management Agency) described it as "the single most catastrophic natural disaster in US history." the total cost of the storm was estimated to be in the region of $108 billion, also making it the costliest hurricane in US history.

Over 1800 people lost their lives and many, many more lost everything they had ever owned. Private insurance companies paid an eye watering $41.1 billion on 1.7 million different claims for damage to vehicles, homes, and businesses in six states, with 60% of the losses occurring in Louisiana. The National Flood Insurance Program also paid a hefty $13 billion to claims in Louisiana. The more I learnt about the aftermath of the storm from locals, the more apparent it was that those who needed this money the most received the least from the government after the storm.  

More than one million people in the Gulf region were displaced by Katrina. At their peak hurricane relief shelters housed 273,000 people. Later, approximately 114,000 households were housed in FEMA trailers. Unfortunately, just to add further insult to injury, some of these FEMA trailers were contaminated with Formaldehyde, which caused severe irritation to eyes, skin and throats. To make matters worse, all the trailers could be opened by other keys so there was nowhere safe to keep your possessions. So if you were lucky enough to liberate your most prized possessions before the storm, it wasn't very long before they were liberated from you.

80% of the city flooded after levees failed and 70% of New Orleans' occupied housing, 134,000 units, was damaged in the storm. The population of New Orleans fell from 484,674 in April 2000 to 230,172 in July 2006, a decrease of over 50%. Although by 2014, the population had increased to an estimated 384,320, according to the US Census Bureau, putting New Orleans back on the list of the 50 most-populous cities that year, but still a fair distance behind its peak.

The statistics only really tell you part of the story. As soon as I arrived here I began asking people about their personal stories of loss and salvation. Most of the Uber drivers in the city are both black and native to the city. Each had their own tragic version of the horror experienced by people here during the storm.

"I lost everything I owned. My house, my car, furniture. Everything." Said Randy, a gentle and mild mannered man in his 50s.

"By the time the storm came, it was too late for us to get out of the city. So we ended up climbing onto the roof. My family and I waited there for five days and nights for rescue to arrive."

"Did you have any food or water?"

"Not a thayng. I thought we was gonna die up there. By the time a rescue boat come, we was so damn weak we could barely move. I lost damn near 40 pounds."

"Did you get any money back from the government?"

"Barely a thayng."

Not everyone was dealt such an unjust hand by the powers that be. The storm's hardest hit victims were in poor black neighbourhoods, however many of the more educated and better off folks made out like bandits from insurance and FEMA compensation funds. Much of the paperwork to receive compensation was complex, onerous and in many cases required legal assistance. This essentially meant that a disproportionate amount of compensation went to the people who needed it the least. This sense of injustice seemed to provoke little action to remedy it.  There are still thousands of people who lost absolutely everything and received next to nothing from the government to help get their lives back on track.

Unfortunately things didn't get much better for Randy and his family. Once they had been rescued they were taken to the Superdome where 14,000 other people were taking refuge. The scene he described sounded more like Sodom and Gomorrah than a federal rescue shelter. He and his family witnessed gang rapes, suicides, robberies, widespread disease and frequent brawls. There was no water purification equipment on site, nor any chemical toilets, antibiotics, or anti-diarrheals stored for a crisis. There were no designated medical staff at work in the evacuation center, no established sick bays within the Superdome, and very few cots available that hadn't been brought in by evacuees.

"The smell was so bad that people was throwing up all over the place. It was hell on earth."

Unfortunately this was only the beginning of his ordeal and a story echoed by almost every other black person I've spoken to who didn't make it out of the city. But things didn't get much better once his family were evacuated. Families that had been separated were scattered around the South. Some were even loaded on planes where the destination wasn't revealed until the plane had landed.

Unfortunately the cities and towns that took in the one million displaced refugees did not display the same neighborly affection as residents of New Orleans display to one another. You would have thought that these being refugees from the same country (and sometimes state) that people would have reached out to them with open arms and kind hearts. Quite the contrary, refugees were treated like vermin in places like Baton Rouge, Biloxi and all over Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. Even for those lucky enough to escape before the storm hit, very few had actually expected to be away for more than a week at most, and they had packed accordingly.

"We packed clothes for three days and didn't come back for three years." Said Chuck, who was 14 when the storm hit.

"We was like second class citizens in Baton Rouge. Kids from Norleas was always at the back of the class... local kids used to always be beatin' on us."

Huge riots broke out in Baton Rouge between locals and desperate refugees. The general consensus being that refugees were out to rob, rape and freeload off of the cities that were temporarily housing them. Many refugees ended up in camps as squalid and dangerous as the Superdome. Employment was almost impossible to get hold of and the government was woefully underprepared or unwilling to assist them.

In many ways, the storm helped reinforce the essential difference that locals here feel from the rest of America. It can feel more like a city state all unto it's own here. Even the city's uniquely crescent geography, the weaving Mississippi and the decaying Bayou that surrounds it bestows a mystical and ethereal nature that separates it from the real world around it. 

A quote from Tom Robbin's book Jitterbug Perfume encapsulates this sense almost perfectly.

"If New Orleans is not fully in the mainstream of culture, neither is it fully in the mainstream of time. Lacking a well-defined present, it lives somewhere between its past and its future, as if uncertain whether to advance or to retreat. Perhaps it is its perpetual ambivalence that is its secret charm."

If there can be any silver linings that resulted from Katrina (there are few), it's in the very fact that the city not only survived but was able to rebuild a good deal of what had been completely devastated. FEMA, to their credit, provided more than $15 billion to the four Gulf states for public works projects such as the repair and rebuilding of roads, schools, and buildings, in the 10 years since the storm, and $6.7 billion in recovery aid to more than one million people and households.

A swathe of new and more modern schools built after the storm helped lift the high school graduation rate to 73 percent from 54 percent prior to Katrina. Transportation systems were rebuilt and improved, and job-training programs in industries like high-tech manufacturing were also given much more funding.

In many ways the storm helped catapult the city into the 21st century and forced it to retreat from its past and face up to the ever changing modern world that surrounds it. It was a city that rested too heavily on its laurels and relied too heavily on fickle income from oil and tourism. 

Since Katrina the city has seen an influx of new talent as well as money. According to the FT, New Orleans has the fastest rate of small business growth of any city in America. People to longer turn their noses up at enterprising individuals and the city now attracts rafts of talented young thinkers and leaders, as well as some of the world's most talented artists and musicians.

The airport here is also about to begin two direct flights to Europe (Frankfurt, London). It's a city that is quietly aspiring to become a destination where people invest and to do business while being serenaded by swing bands under white Oaks, merrily gorging on some of the best food that America has to offer. I certainly look forward to being part of the story of a new and more dynamic New Orleans.

I just hope that changes to the city will be well managed well and that it won't lose the charms and people that help make it the most captivating and delighful city on earth.