Katrina’s One–Year Anniversary Yields Harsh Retrospective

In speaking during a teleconference sponsored by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund (LCCREF) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) on August 22, Peterson rendered a dark portrait of what she faces as a disabled person in a job environment still devastated by the storm’s aftermath. “Sometimes I wonder why I came back,” she said of her return to New Orleans.

Peterson’s job prospects have evaporated. “For me they’re non-existing,” she said. Even with two degrees and constant contact with several employment agencies, she conceded, “I have found it very difficult.” Peterson also said, “People [are] still living in their cars.” She asked listeners to imagine just how much more difficult it is for someone with disability to find housing.

As the look-backs at Katrina mount approaching the August 29 anniversary, there is concern that, for the poor in New Orleans, the structural disparities of life will remain in place, simply rebuilt into the Big Easy’s political and economic landscape.

Wade Henderson, LCCR’s executive director, said that though “poverty is not unique to New Orleans,” Katrina showed how poverty can cut across racial, ethnic, and class lines. Henderson explained that though Katrina’s physical manifestation was through “wind and water,” at the heart of the tragedy was the failure of government at every level. According to Henderson, the LCCR, a coalition of close to 200 organizations, will press federal and state officials to redress the systemic issues that yielded a national catastrophe.

Todd Spriggins, an ex-Marine who had built a solid woodworking business before Katrina, has first-hand knowledge of how governmental policies can render even heroic efforts near worthless. He spoke of Katrina with intimacy. “She wiped out everything. I was left with five feet of water in my shop,” he said. Spriggins evacuated to Houston with his family. “I’m going to start looking for a job,” he told them, and was soon employed at a woodworking shop, rising quickly to foreman. He said he could have remained in Houston, but the lure to restart his own business in New Orleans, his hometown, was strong. He was unprepared for hurdles that the Small Business Administration placed before him.

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