I’m in Louisiana, in the flood zone. Katrina was here, in many ways is still here. Now Rita is in the gulf, gaining strength. I’m sending this early because I can’t predict where I’ll be Thursday and I doubt I’ll have time to write. While the tragedy of New Orleans has been well reported, there are stories not being told about Katrina. One is about the areas outside New Orleans, another is the question of who pays and who profits when disaster strikes.
I’ve been down in Plaquemines Parish, in far southeastern Louisiana. (A parish in Louisiana is what other states call a county.) Plaquemines is comprised of two narrow stretches of land on either side of the lowest reaches of the Mississippi River. Plaquemines Parish has paid a low price in death. According to the sheriff’s department Monday, only three residents died in Katrina; all three had refused to evacuate. Both citizens and the parish government are well acquainted with hurricanes, they are prudent in their preparations. Lives were saved, but the lower 40 miles of the parish are – for all intents and purposes – gone. A 30-foot storm surge swept over the levees and the communities along the river. Houses, schools, businesses and churches were leveled. Those that remain standing were soaked through with seawater and left coated with an oily scum.
The boats of Plaquemines’s fishing fleet are smashed, sunk or scattered. The worst consequence is the oil. Plaquemines has numerous transfer points for oil pumped in the gulf and sent ashore in pipelines. Pipelines and oil tanks ruptured in the storm, sending millions of gallons into local marshes and oyster and shrimping grounds. Fishermen I spoke with said the fishing grounds may be closed for years. The Dallas Morning News estimated that the total oil spilled in Louisiana by Katrina may rival the 11 million gallons spilled by the Exxon Valdez in 1989; MSNBC reports 44 oil spills in southeast Louisiana.
Continue reading
Apocalypse Here
Mid-day Wednesday I was relieving myself against the wall of someone’s house in St. Bernard’s Parish, Louisiana. I was not expressing my displeasure with the homeowner; I have no idea who the homeowner is. Nor is that kind of behavior typical for me. A month after Hurricane Katrina, there wasn’t a working toilet within 20 miles of where I was standing, so the normal rules of polite society are not in effect. Traffic laws are out, too. Traffic lights don’t work; if a divided highway is blocked on one side, just go the wrong way on the other. Here, driving society is more polite, people wave each other on and few take advantage of another driver.
September 11, 2001 is the disaster against which all disasters are now measured. I was at ground zero in October 2001. The emotions were overwhelming, but New York was, for the most part, still New York. New Orleans, one month on, is not New Orleans. One can drive for ten or 15 miles and see great swaths of urban America desecrated, deserted and debris-strewn. At night the darkened skyline is barely visible by the light of the stars. A few residents are filtering back from the Katrina diaspora. Most will be dispersing again, heading for higher ground, hoping to never go through this again.
We were chased away from both the Murphy and Chalmette oil refineries by security guards as we documented activities there. At Chalmette (a subsidiary of ExxonMobil) a security guard in a white pickup truck with “Homeland Security” in orange spray paint on the side told us, “Exxon doesn’t allow any photos of the refinery to be taken, even if it’s in the background.” At least he was honest about who calls the shots in Louisiana.
Continue reading »