Say Something Real
By Michelle Bryant
Michelle Bryant
Katrina is 20 years old…let that sink in for a minute. Excuse my intimacy and lack of including the word Hurricane in front of her name, but she honestly feels like an old friend. I cut my teeth in the Wisconsin State Legislature working with the initial group of New Orleans residents who were brought to the state, after they had lost everything on that fateful August day, 2005. However, I don’t know that many of us appreciated how the devastating Category 5 storm would impact the nation’s politics.
Hurricane Katrina was a defining period in American history. It’s devastation, particularly in African-American neighborhoods, exposed deep structural and racial inequities in disaster response policies. Two decades later, everything and nothing have changed. Confused? Let me explain.
The storm surge from Katrina caused extensive flooding that left 80% of New Orleans underwater, due to levee failures. The levees, which were both earthen and man-made concrete floodwalls, were intended to hold back water and prevent flooding. We quickly learned that a combination of design flaws, inadequate construction, and the sheer force of Hurricane Katrina’s storm surge were too much for the levees.
When it was all said and done, 1,833 deaths, 100,000 destroyed homes, and an estimated $161 billion in damage made Katrina one of the deadliest hurricanes in U.S. history. Couple the structural deficits with a healthy dose of bias/racism in access to life-saving services, resources, and response, and it is easy to see how the recovery has been slow and incomplete. Stories of Black people being shot at while trying to escape the flooding, denied access to safer ground in affluent communities, negative and dehumanizing media coverage that played into stereotypes, and racial slurs hurled at those fleeing the water’s wrath were both substantiated and detrimental.
In fact, during NBC’s “Concert for Hurricane Relief” telethon, famed rapper Kanye West said “I hate the way they portray us in the media. If you see a Black family, it says they’re looting. If you see a White family, it says they’re looking for food.” West, then uttered the now famous line “George Bush doesn’t care about Black people.” Then U.S. President, Bush’s response was lackluster and unbothered.
The massive damage, denial of insurance claims, devaluing of Black homeowner properties, gentrification, and inadequate response from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), thousands of African-Americans were evacuated to other states and never returned to New Orleans. Wisconsin, and other Midwest states, were a significant area of relocation for evacuees. Hence, my first legislative assignment was working in the 4th Senate district.
I think about those I encountered at the Tommy Thompson Center, often. I became friends with some of the evacuees who made Milwaukee home. I’ve frequented their businesses and cheered as they became fully integrated into the community. I also shared West’s observations then and continue to believe them today. Absorbing the coverage and commentary regarding the Texas flooding, the differences are not lost on me. Maybe twenty years brought growth, awareness, and education about how we respond as media, elected officials, and a nation to the human side of disasters and the agencies that aid them.
I remember that FEMA dropped many balls during their response to Hurricane Katrina to include slow mobilization of personnel, supplies, and resources. I still couldn’t imagine not having them show up at all. The Trump Administration’s efforts to dismantle FEMA are unimaginable given what was faced in 2005 and every subsequent disaster since then. But just like that, the agency is on the chopping block. I guess what they say is true,” change is slow, until it isn’t.