Angry hurricane evacuees sue feds

The majority of celebrants ignored evacuees’ request for support of their demands for justice, which include proper housing, access to information concerning resources, help with transportation, job referrals, quality family care, no discrimination, full accountability and the money and resources the federal government promised.

One broadcast news reporter summed up the callous attitude of the general public in one short question: “What do you say to people who say, ‘Gee, it’s been three months; they (evacuees) should have jobs by now,” she asked.

The answer is: Evacuees are neither looking for a handout nor for anyone to take care of them. What they are looking for is the U.S. government to accept responsibility for the “man-made” disaster that forced the evacuation of thousands: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the New Orleans Levee Board, a state-appointed body, fiddled while New Orleans’ levees crumbled. They’d known for years that the levees could blow at any time.

What has also been underreported is that the majority of evacuees are taxpaying Americans, who worked and paid more than their share of local, state and federal taxes.

Seeking justice in the courts

The recent spate of legal actions around the poor treatment of evacuees – from attempts to evict thousands to demands for equal justice and compensation comparable to that received by others, for example, 9-11 victims – is typical of the fighting spirit of southerners, especially Black southerners, who do not tolerate injustice.

Hurricane evacuees in the Bay Area and elsewhere aren’t taking the shoddy treatment lying down. Now into court come 13 plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit filed Nov. 10 in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

The legal team consists of attorneys from the San Francisco-based Equal Justice Society, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law based in Washington, D.C., and Schulte, Roth & Zabel LLP, a New York law firm. John K. Pierre, Southern University law professor, is the local counsel on the lawsuit. Attorney Steve Ronfeldt of the Public Interest Law Project in Oakland and attorney Eva Patterson, president and CEO of the Equal Justice Society, also worked on the complaint.

The lawsuit, the first filed against FEMA regarding its response to Katrina, says the agency violated – and continues to violate – federal law by failing to provide timely aid to victims of Hurricane Katrina living in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

“There is no excuse for this failure by FEMA or for its refusal to fulfill its mandate,” said John C. Brittian of the Lawyers Committee. “Without judicial oversight, there is little chance that the victimization will cease or that FEMA will come through with the services it is legally obligated to provide.”

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