Katrina’s Bigger Picture

This is the fourth in a series of five to help the Democratic Party, particularly its presidential hopefuls, to get the framework right, to broaden its lens through which it views Katrina, what’s stopping recovery, what will speed up a vibrant recovery, and how Katrina affords us the opportunity to transform the basic quality of life for all Americans.

Clearly, the Democratic debate on PBS hit a bit of a raw nerve with me. The debate question and candidates’ answers reflected the framework for our national discussion, which has been too narrow, too tiny when discussing who Hurricane Katrina impacted and what the impact was, as well as the solutions offered. So let’s put on a lens through which we can see Katrina’s bigger picture.

First, Hurricane Katrina itself destroyed the Mississippi Gulf Coast. However, the New Orleans disaster was another matter. As so aptly stated on Levees.org, “New Orleans was destroyed primarily by bad engineering and not bad weather.”

Moreover, “[r]esponsibility for the levee failures on August 29, 2005, in New Orleans rests squarely on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and on Congress. This means that the federal government bears primary responsibility for the flooding of metro New Orleans and the destruction of hundreds of thousands of homes and livelihoods.”

When Hurricane Katrina breached the levees in New Orleans, the floods indiscriminately drenched Republican and Democratic, wealthy, middle class, and low income homes and neighborhoods as well as every ethnic group in this international city. However, had the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers carried out its responsibilities, these New Orleans residents would have been spared this horrendous flood. To carry out their responsibilities, of course, requires financial resources as well as solid policy based on sound engineering and environmental principles.

The Washington Post reported

Bush repeatedly requested less money for programs to guard against catastrophic storms in New Orleans than many federal and state officials requested.

When disclosures like this came out in Katrina’s immediate aftermath, the Army Corps of Engineers defended the Bush Administration. "It was not a funding issue," said Carol Sanders, the chief spokeswoman for the corps. "It's an issue of the design capabilities of these projects." What a disingenuous though unsurprising answer since the Corps “worked closely with White House officials” on the responses to these tough, important questions regarding the Bush Administration’s responsibility in deliberately cutting the corps’ budget.

The Washington Post article continued.

Local and federal officials have long warned that funding shortages in the New Orleans area would have consequences. They sounded the alarm as recently as last summer [meaning 2005] when they complained that federal budget cuts had stopped major work on New Orleans east bank hurricane levees for the first time in 37 years. Al Naomi, the senior project manager for the Army Corps of Engineers, reported at the time that he was getting only half as much money as he needed and that much of the funding was being used to pay contractors for past work.

"When levees are below grade, as ours are in many spots right now, they're more vulnerable to waves pouring over them and degrading them," Naomi told the Times-Picayune of New Orleans. Walter Maestri, the emergency management chief in Jefferson Parish (county), at the time linked the funding shortfall to the cost of the Iraq war. "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay," he told the newspaper. Maestri added, "For us, this levee is part and parcel of homeland security because it helps protect us 365 days a year."

Indeed, if this city had had the kind of protection that the Netherlands has, my family members who live in the Big Easy would have had it easy after the storm. Here are pictures that demonstrate the difference between the levees in New Orleans and those in the Netherlands.

New Orleans Levees
Photos by National Geographic.

The repaired Industrial Canal levee wall in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward is green with new turf in July 2006 (top). The U.S. government says the city's levees are back at pre-Katrina conditions.A school bus sat stranded near a breach in the same levee on September 12, 2005 (bottom). The embankments were built to endure Category Three storms, yet several crumbled after Katrina's Category Three assault, perhaps as a result of poor design and construction.

Mario Tama / Getty Images file
Workers rebuild the levee along New
Orleans' Industrial Canal in the Lower
Ninth Ward

Netherlands Levees











Photo Credit: By Molly Moore -- The Washington Post Photo
Ted Sluyter, who organizes school tours of the Dutch sea defense system, says the calamitous 1953 flood bears clear parallels to the New Orleans disaster.

U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) led a 40 member delegation from Louisiana to the Netherlands to tour the world's largest levee system.

"When the unprecedented disasters of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the subsequent levee breaks struck Louisiana, the Netherlands was one of the first nations to come forward to offer their support," Sen. Landrieu said. "The Dutch know all too well the challenges we face, having lived for centuries under the threat from similar vulnerability themselves."

Protecting a world class city like New Orleans with a world class levee system like the Dutch have is what we need to do to protect this national treasure. A Netherlands-type of levee system will protect residents, neighborhoods, and businesses in New Orleans. That’s what homeland security is about. It is the smart, savvy, and environmentally sound thing to do. Plenty of good jobs and spin-off business will come from investing in this.

The wider view is that our nation will once again be demonstrating a commitment to investing in the best here at home for our own people, using information rooted in scientific fact.

The wider view still is something I learned from Levees.org. Twenty eight (28) states have at least 120 levees that are vulnerable to the same catastrophic failure New Orleans experienced. One hundred and twenty potential government-created environmental and economic disasters?! Holy Moly!

The spin off benefits of this kind of a levee system will be fantastic. What an awesome boon to our educational system alone with a renewed national commitment to math, science, and technology. Remember the seven-year old African American girl whom I had met at the Bay St. Louis library? She had proudly shared with me that she gets “A’s in math and science!”

With these kinds of projects in 120 areas across the country, little girls and boys in the surrounding areas would grow up with dreams of being engineers and scientists who work at world class facilities just down the street. This is a way we build great communities in which families can live, work, and play generation after generation after generation. What a concept, huh?!

Through the lens of the Katrina travesty, we have learned that we need to reform our national priorities to invest in world class levees in over half the states in our nation. We have also learned of another national problem requiring a national solution. Insurance carriers are jacking up premium costs or not covering homeowners here in Katrina Land . . . and all across the country.

Broadening Katrina’s Lens:
A five Part Series
Part 1: Broadening Katrina's Lens
Part 2: Recovery’s Two Major Impediments: $$$ and the “F” word
Part 3: The "F" Word: FEMA
Part 4: Katrina’s Bigger Picture
Part 5: Katrina’s Karmic Payback: Insurance Reform

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Hurricane center chief reassigned amid criticism from staff

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

MIAMI --The new director of the National Hurricane Center was temporarily reassigned Monday, amid calls from about half his staff that he be ousted for undermining the public's confidence in the center's forecasts.

Director Bill Proenza will be replaced by Deputy Director Ed Rappaport, said center spokesman Dennis Feltgen.

Proenza replaced veteran center head Max Mayfield in January. More than 20 of Proenza's nearly 50 employees had urged his dismissal, claiming he damaged public confidence in their forecasts by repeatedly and publicly criticizing the federal government for not providing enough funding, particularly to replace an aging weather satellite.

Staff members say Proenza misrepresented the problem with the satellite and they were worried the consequences would actually hurt their forecasting abilities.

Reached Monday, Rappaport said he would not comment on his appointment. A spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees the center, did not immediately return a call seeking comment. ###

Published on July 9, 2007 in Sun Herald, Los Angeles Times, and Houston Chronicle.

See related blog entry: White House Muzzling Hurricane Center Director

National Hurricane Center Director Bill Proenza has been the loudest voice calling for a replacement of an aging satellite.

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The “F” word: FEMA

Fix
Everything
My
Ass


I first saw this as a bumper sticker on the window of a BIG truck on Hwy 90, Waveland, Miss. A big thank you to Commonscribe over at Daily Kos for this photo.

This is the third in a series of five to help the Democratic Party, particularly its presidential hopefuls, to get the framework right, to broaden its lens through which it views Katrina, what’s stopping recovery, what will speed up a vibrant recovery, and how Katrina affords us the opportunity to transform the basic quality of life for all Americans. ________________________________________________________________

All of the FEMA shenanigans have been unnecessary and avoidable. Unfortunate for us, Mr. Compassionless Conservative Bush apparently has a sadistic side to himself which he plays out in public, on the public, and at the public’s expense. FEMA is a case in point.

Hypocritical Leadership
The White House that is hell bent on handing no bid multi-billion dollar contracts to the largest Bush-Cheney campaign contributors (i.e. Halliburton) has insisted that in the days after Katrina, the ravaged areas impacted should have gone through a traditional bidding process complete with re-bidding when the cost became pricey. Bush’s “do as I say, not as I do” perspective joins his “you’re on your own” Republican version of government. Hypocrisy is no way to run a government.

Bush’s administration insists that the towns and cities of Mississippi and Louisiana paid too much money to remove Katrina’s debris. We’re sure that our cities did pay too much. Private industry price gouging the American public is everywhere. Been to the gas pump lately?

Nevertheless, Bush’s FEMA is questioning whether the federal government will reimburse these Katrina ravaged cities and towns. We’re not talking chump change, either. FEMA owes these cities and towns millions and millions of dollars for disaster clean up costs. The Washington Post reported the following.

St. Bernard Parish, La., just outside New Orleans, is among the communities waiting for a check. FEMA paid the parish about $100 million for debris removal but still owes about $70 million, said David Peralta, the parish's chief administrative officer. St. Bernard also is waiting for $30 million in reimbursement for sewer repairs, Peralta said.

Peralta said FEMA has "kind of implied" that it is looking into whether the parish paid reasonable rates. Peralta defended the Katrina contracts, saying officials tried to solicit competitive bids without delaying the work.

"We didn't have a whole lot of choices in those first few days," he said.

It’s a toss up on whether the Bush Administration’s hypocrisy or compassionless actions are more galling.

Promises, Promises
FEMA promised cities and counties money to repair sewers and drains, pave streets and rebuild schools. Bush’s FEMA has been reneging on its word. What a shock, huh?! On Good Morning America, Bush stated "I hope people don't play politics at this time of a natural disaster the likes of which this country has never seen." Yeah, well, if actions speak louder than words, the actions of Bush’s FEMA are screeching loudly, indeed.

Let’s look at what FEMA has been doing to Hancock County, Miss., the county where I was born and raised and from which I am now blogging and podcasting. Speaking on the floor of the House of Representatives, Gulf Coast Congressman Gene Taylor (D-MS) described Hancock County as a place “where 90% of the residents lost everything, or at least substantial damage to their home.” [See the video.] Like everywhere else in Katrina Land, any and all assistance is immensely appreciated.

So when FEMA promised the county $33 million to rebuild a school, this was terrific news! For over 22 months, FEMA repeatedly reassured the county that the money was theirs, and the county complied with the agency’s requirements. The county board of supervisors, families, and community depend on that school getting up and running as soon as possible.

The Sea Coast Echo reported, “Repeatedly over the past 22 months, FEMA officials said in public meetings the school board could build the schools.” Then, just as the county was about to break ground, Bush’s FEMA reneged on the deal pulling the $33 million rug out from under everyone.

"FEMA has changed the rules in the middle of the game. Every single step in the process involved reps from MEMA [Mississippi Emergency Management Agency] and FEMA. It was our understanding from them that we could build above the ABFE [Advisory Base Flood Elevation]."

School District Attorney Mark Alexander

Sea Coast Echo

These and other financial horror stories are happening on Bush’s watch. Appropriate leadership from the White House would solve this FEMA issue. Alas, we don’t have that. We have Bush and Cheney.

Mr. Compassionless Vetoed Katrina Financial Relief

When he vetoed the Iraq Accountability Act, Bush also vetoed money for Katrina relief including waiving the 10% matching requirement that was putting a great deal of unnecessary burden on the towns and cities in the Katrina-ravaged area.

Cities, towns, and counties didn’t have an extra 10% hanging around to match the federal monies needed to rebuild. Bush should have automatically waived the requirement like was done for New York after 9/11. He did not. Thankfully, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) included the waiver in the Iraq Accountability Act. When Bush vetoed that legislation, the good Democratic leaders attached the waiver to another bill which Bush finally signed.

H-E-L-L-O?! Anybody there?!
At the celebration of the new bridge, I believe it was Bay St. Louis Mayor Eddie Favre who said that the foot of the bridge was the only place in the Bay-Waveland area where there was some cell phone coverage. (See bridge photos below.)

Paul J. Richards/Agence France-Press Getty Images.
New York Times
A seven-minute dash across the bay bridgebecame a 45-minute commute around it.









Photos from U.S. Surface Transportation Board
Bay Bridge after Katrina. Because the Bush Administration had no emergency communication system in place, the only cell phone reception was at the foot of this bridge. Image from Waveland and Bay St. Louis After Katrina.

Because the Bush Administration had no emergency communication system in place, the only cell phone reception was at the foot of this bridge.

He told the story of walking to the foot of the bridge where others had also arrived to try to talk with their family and friends across the country to let them know they were ok.

He overheard a man tell his brother, “no, mom didn’t make it. She died in the storm.” The story chokes me up even as I write this deeply personal and sad story, one that is surely to goodness shared by others, too many others.

Can you imagine the horror of going through the storm, losing loved ones in the hurricane’s wrath, and having to walk through miles and miles of debris to get to the one place where it was rumored that cell phones work? Then, calling family and friends to talk of the deeply personal tragedy and to do so without the privacy we normally expect with personal news of this nature? The only comfort, perhaps, was that everyone was in the same boat, no pun intended.

Where was the nation’s emergency communication system?! This isn’t leadership. This is the result of the absence of leadership. Another of George Bush’s FEMA and homeland security failures. Bush already skimps on protecting our ports, railroads, nuclear facilities, and the like. Skimping on developing a national emergency communication system is par for the course from a guy who didn't get into the White House in a forthright manner in the first place.

So when FEMA got here, what did they do to facilitate these good people in getting all the help FEMA had to offer? Their idea was to somehow set up shop where folks could come to them and they would provide phone numbers to call FEMA and web addresses to apply for FEMA assistance.

Never mind that folks had no electricity, no phone lines, and, of course, no Internet access. Whether computers had survived the devastation was another matter altogether and another area in which Bush’s brilliant folks had no concern or care on the impact to American families. Oh, yeah, remember that the cars had been submerged in the salt water pushed ashore. Transportation was scarce.

Since these federal fools couldn’t look around and see the obvious, Congressman Taylor’s office suggested that rather than waiting for folks to walk for hours on end to get to where FEMA set up a make shift station, that these bureaucrats travel by foot with a pad of paper and a pen and from each person impacted take down the information that they themselves could then input on behalf of the survivors whenever the feds were able to finally get to computers that worked.

I don’t know whether Bush’s agency actually listened to such obviously solid advice. What I do know is that if this is the best and the brightest our federal government can provide in an emergency, we're in bigger trouble than I thought.

FEMA to Katrina Survivors: About that Money We Sent You . . .
FEMA claims that it overpaid some Katrina survivors and began demanding survivors repay the money to the federal government. The checks ranged from $2,000 to $ 26,200. FEMA said that folks whose insurance companies eventually provided some daily expense money were ineligible for the federal money.

Ocean Springs resident Leslie Keller said she cannot afford to repay the $2,500 she was given for rental assistance. She said FEMA originally told her she didn't qualify for the money because she was living in a FEMA trailer. But because she was still paying a mortgage on her destroyed home, she said, FEMA relented.

"Then six months later, they said I had to give it back," said Keller, a 45-year-old mother of three who attends school during the day and works at night.

"I can understand going after the ones that fraudulently (received money)," she said. "But as far as the people who accepted aid and then FEMA says it's the wrong type of aid, it's not right."

Thankfully, a federal judge in New Orleans ordered Bush’s agency to stop.

Although FEMA gives aid recipients a chance to appeal, "the process, if it can be navigated at all, takes months," U.S. District Judge Helen Berrigan wrote in her order.

"In the meantime, the defendants appear to treat the plaintiffs' and their prospects of homelessness and despair and stress of such added worries as if it were gnats to be brushed away, while the defendants busy themselves with creating more bureaucratic regulations."

What a blatant example of Bush’s utter betrayal with all of his blubbering about compassionate government. Cruel and compassionless are more apt adjectives. The FEMA nightmares continue on Bush’s watch from the formaldehyde-filled FEMA trailers to an inept debris removal process that may be creating contaminated water. (See my pieces titled Coffee, Tea, Contaminated Water? and Formaldehyde-Filled FEMA trailers.)

Awakening our American Ingenuity to See the Bigger Picture
As Bush sleeps comfortably in a White House that I believe should be the residence of President Al Gore, families and businesses in and around New Orleans and all along the Mississippi Gulf Coast suffer needlessly.

In spite of the miserable state of affairs in this region, I see folks everywhere who are taking whatever emotional, mental, and physical resources they can muster up to carry on day-to-day in a set of circumstances that are unfathomable, yet Bush and Cheney have allowed to linger and expand in the most unconscionable of ways. It doesn’t have to be this way.

A little bit of compassion coupled with genuine American ingenuity and good old fashioned elbow grease and out of these worst of times can come a renewed commitment to work diligently and consistently to the America in our hearts and in our dreams both inside and outside of Katrina Land.

Through the lens of Katrina, we can see a much bigger picture, if we look for it.

Broadening Katrina’s Lens:
A five Part Series
Part 1: Broadening Katrina's Lens
Part 2: Recovery’s Two Major Impediments: $$$ and the “F” word
Part 3: The "F" Word: FEMA
Part 4: Katrina’s Bigger Picture
Part 5: Katrina’s Karmic Payback: Insurance Reform
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Flash Animations: Before and After Katrina Pictures

The Sun-Herald's flash animations of Before and After Katrina Pictures of homes and businesses along the three Mississippi coastline counties: Hancock, Harrison, and Jackson. Also included are photos from counties and cities inland from the Gulf Coast. Dramatic. Breath taking. Imagine these to be your homes and businesses.

Then, imagine your home owner's insurance company telling you that it won't pay a penny on the wind coverage for which you've been loyally and faithfully paying your premiums.

Then, imagine yourself standing in front of the rubble you had called home just the day before. Some "helpful" FEMA bureaucrat comes up to you and gives you a FEMA phone number and website address . . . that you cannot use because Bush's Administration has not installed an emergency communication system for times just like these--real emergencies. The bureaucrat doesn't apologize for the obviously insensitive, out-of-touch assignment that he or she is carrying out on behalf of Bush's FEMA .

What a waste of time and money that could have been used to carrying out what everyday Americans--regardless of political party or religion or color of hair, regardless of education or employment status or age or whathaveyou--expect when a major catastrophe like Hurricane Katrina comes barrelling uninvited into our lives.

Welcome to post-Katrina Land!

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Recovery’s Two Major Impediments: $$$ and the “F” word

This is the second in a series of five to help the Democratic Party, particularly its presidential hopefuls, to get the framework right, to broaden its lens through which it views Katrina, what’s stopping recovery, what will speed up a vibrant recovery, and how Katrina affords us the opportunity to transform the basic quality of life for all Americans.

Our recovery has two speeds: s-l-o-w and s—l—o—w—e--r. One reason is a lack of money both from the insurance companies and from FEMA. Today, we’ll talk about money and the insurance industry.

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about the other reason for this unacceptably s-l-o-w recovery: the abysmal lack of appropriate and innovative leadership from those sitting in our White House. Hands down, there is no better example of this than Bush’s FEMA. But we’ll just have to wait ‘til tomorrow to skewer that subject.

Money
Money would solve nearly all of the problems we face in reviving our lives, jobs, communities, cities, and region and to do so in innovative ways so that we protect the wetlands throughout the region while implementing a world class environmentally sound levee system like that in the Netherlands.

Money will help us to recover in a way that adopts the best of the best practices for everything from low income housing to public education. Rather than the painfully s-l-o-w way experienced since Bush finally decided to end his infamous month long vacation a few days after Katrina ravaged the area, money will infuse the area with much needed cash . . . and infuse the area with a much needed emotional and psychological lift in spirits.

We need money to rebuild the infrastructure of our cities for things like roads, firehouses, school buildings, drains, street signs, stop lights, stop signs, and light posts. We need money to rebuild public buildings such as court houses, city halls, and other government offices Katrina destroyed.

Businesses need money to rebuild their buildings and replace the contents inside of those buildings.

Families need money to rebuild their homes whether those homes were in the 9th Ward at one end of the economic spectrum or in Lakeview, a New Orleans neighborhood at the other end of the economic spectrum. Families need money for their homes located in Slidell, Louisiana, which is just east of New Orleans or Long Beach, Gulfport, Biloxi, Ocean Springs, and Pascagoula, Miss., on the far east of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Money is needed to completely rebuild the towns of Pearlington, Waveland, Bay St. Louis, and Pass Christian, Miss.,— each of which Katrina wiped clean and which comprise Katrina’s ground zero. (Yes, Katrina’s ground zero was in Mississippi, about 60 miles or so east of New Orleans.)

Money will help the Katrina region retain the dignity of its residents be they a disabled veteran, a senior citizen, a working class laborer, a computer geek, hair dresser, janitor, teacher, nurse, doctor, realtor, oil rig worker, etc. and so forth.

A major bottleneck for getting money to where it needs to go rests with Bush’s FEMA and the insurance companies. We certainly pay plenty enough taxes to expect FEMA to be here pronto stat when we need the agency to help communities, businesses, and families get back on their feet. We don’t expect amateur hour or some version of “Whose job is it anyway?” to be played.

We expect insurance companies to own up to their financial obligation and promptly pay on the wind insurance policies when its customers appropriately submit claims. We need that kind of confidence in our financial markets. Insurance companies are part of our financial security be it for our health, car, life, or home.

If we are going to insure what is clearly the greatest financial asset for most American families—our homes, then we must have insurance entities in whose hands we have complete confidence and on which we can depend–just like a good neighbor.

The way that insurance companies have turned their backs on the very customers who have paid the premiums that created the industry’s $108 billion profit in 2005 and 2006, they ought to be ashamed of themselves. Their greed is downright sinful, and the means by which the companies attained their wealth seems criminal. As a result of failing to pay on the legitimate wind claims, families and businesses cannot return to their homes, livelihoods, communities. What’s happening here is not unique except in its scope.

Private insurance companies are raising rates to astronomical levels for significantly less coverage for commercial and residential policies. They are also choosing to stop writing new policies not just here along the Gulf Coast but also all over the country from the West Coast to the Mid-West to the East Coast.

The private companies have not just failed us but also are deliberately abandoning American families and businesses everywhere just as it did in the 60’s with regard to flood insurance. The private sector simply begged off of it. That is the reason that the federal government stepped up to the plate and began its flood insurance program in 1968. And so it is again with Gulf Coast Congressman Gene Taylor’s proposed Multiple Perils Insurance Act of 2007 to include windstorms, floods and other purposes in the Federal Government’s Flood Insurance Program. The insurance industry’s insatiable insanity demands we act quickly to protect our families, our homes, and our businesses.

The Insurance Industry’s Insatiable Insanity

Insurance Company Documents

Nationwide on 9/4/2005: “if loss is caused by both flood and wind there is no coverage.”

State Farm instructions to adjusters on 9/13/2005: “where wind acts concurrently with flooding to cause damage to the insured property, coverage for the loss exists only under flood coverage.”

The documents from which the above excerpts have been taken, certainly appear to indicate that the insurance companies have deliberately directed its workers to refuse to pay legitimate claims from its policyholders. No wonder we need to pass the Multiple Insurance Act of 2007! (For more information on these documents, read Wind? Water? More like a bunch of hot air!)

When these private companies refuse to own up to their financial responsibilities, who do these companies stiff with their financial tab? That’s right! The federal government’s flood insurance program and policy holders like you and me.

The federal government contracts with the private insurers to adjust the claims for the federal insurance program. The private companies send the bills to Uncle Sam’s insurance program for payment. That sounds all fine and dandy until something like Katrina hits and the insurance industry ends up in a position where it determines whether to pay the full amount of wind damages for which it is fully responsible or to shift its own costs to the U.S. taxpayers through pushing off claims to Uncle Sam’s federal flood insurance program.

This is an obvious conflict of interest that Gulf Coast Congressman Taylor proposes to remedy with passage of the Multiple Perils Insurance Act of 2007. The amount of damages not covered by the flood insurance are born by the policy holders themselves. There are two reasons for this. First, for those permitted to buy flood insurance, the policy severely limits coverage and whenever damages exceeded the limits, those costs were then shifted to the policyholders themselves.

Secondly, many businesses and homeowners were prohibited from buying flood insurance because their homes and/or businesses were not in a flood zone. So when an insurance carrier wrongfully (and deliberately) asserts that the damage came from flooding and not from wind, the policyholder is left to finance the damages.

We can participate in stopping these financial shenanigans. We can do our usual political hell raising to make this a legislative reality for our families and businesses all across the country. Call or email your congressional representative to voice your support for Taylor’s Multiple Perils Insurance Act of 2007. The bill will be discussed in the next few weeks when the Flood Insurance Program comes up for reauthorization. Click on the hyperlink to go to a page with a sample email and phone script you are free to use as you desire. There is also a link to find your representative’s contact information. Just let your fingers do the walking.

Congress Dems and the Katrina Task Force
As far as I’m concerned, Congressman Taylor is THE Congressional Democratic expert taking the lead on Katrina recovery. When the Democratic Caucus created a Katrina Task Force right after the hurricane hit, Taylor stepped up to the plate to chair it. The task force has issued an 18 page report of legislative recommendations. Katrina and Beyond: Recommendations for Legislative Action which included the following.

1. Investigate the Katrina claims practice of insurance companies that contract with the National Flood Insurance Program.
   
2. Repeal the federal antitrust exemption as it relates to price-fixing, bid-rigging, or market allocation in the market for property insurance.
   
3. Establish all-perils disaster insurance coverage backed by the federal government.
   
4. Rebuild levees and flood controls to higher standards.
   
5. Relieve FEMA of its recovery mission and reassign those responsibilities to the appropriate federal agencies.
   
6. Reform FEMA contract procedures to eliminate cost-plus noncompetitive contracts.

These are practical steps to remove the barriers to returning home and rebuilding communities and cities after natural disasters such as Katrina.

The staff of NPR and the Democratic presidential hopefuls would do well to call Taylor’s office to talk with even the most junior member on staff whom I am certain can cite chapter and verse of what is wrong and how to solve the problems. Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) who was raised and has strong family roots in New Orleans, is also a strong leader in Katrina recovery. Her office is surely to goodness another fabulous resource that researchers should tap for real-time information and solutions that address problems stemming from Katrina.

Preventing Collusion in the Insurance Industry
Closing the insurance industry’s loophole on anti-trust laws is another solution to the problems we’ve uncovered down here. The goal is to make it so that the insurance companies cannot engage in such things as price fixing or bid-rigging. At present, they are only one of two industries allowed to engage in any of these things and to do so with impunity as far as the law is concerned.

Let’s think about this a minute. Here at Katrina’s ground zero in Bay St. Louis, Miss., we’re in the middle of casino country. Can you imagine how many customers casinos would have here or in Vegas if they rigged everything and wouldn’t pay out the winners? Casinos don’t engage in this behavior, because the industry is regulated like crazy, as it should be. We need insurance reform to protect American families and businesses in both the property and casualty and health care insurance arenas. Insurance reform is a bread-and-butter issue for families and small businesses that the Democratic Party should immediately embrace and aggressively push.

The Senate’s Democratic Leaders have put together legislation (S.618) to strip the insurance companies of its 62-year old exemption from the nation’s anti-trust laws. U.S. Senators Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Trent Lott (R-MS) are among its four co-sponsors. To close the loophole, click here for delightfully fun political hell raising activities. Turning up the heat is as easy as cutting and pasting into an email and reading a script into your phone. It’s hot as you-know-what down here in Katrinaville. Let’s help Washington DC feel the heat.

Between the increase in health care costs and increases in insuring our homes—in those areas of the country where we can still purchase it, this bread-and-butter issue is ripe for the Democratic Party to embrace and run on to expand its control of Congress and to recapture the White House. One or both of these areas impact each American some way or another. It’s certainly an issue that hits home with most folks, as long as we articulate our framework in a way that is smart, savvy, and sophisticatedly simple.

Broadening Katrina’s Lens: A five Part Series
Part 1: Broadening Katrina's Lens
Part 2: Recovery’s Two Major Impediments: $$$ and the “F” word
Part 3: The "F" Word: FEMA
Part 4: Katrina’s Bigger Picture
Part 5: Katrina’s Karmic Payback: Insurance Reform

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Broadening Katrina's Lens

This is the first in a series to help the Democratic Party, particularly its presidential hopefuls, to get the framework right, to broaden its lens through which it views Katrina, what’s stopping recovery, what will speed up a vibrant recovery, and how Katrina affords us to transform the basic quality of life for all Americans.

Last week’s Democratic presidential debate really rubbed me the wrong way. From the question posed to the answers given, everyone just marched right along with a recitation of the media’s “one-size-fits-all” frame for discussing who Hurricane Katrina impacted, what that impact was, and a bevy of insufficient solutions offered as a result of this faulty way of viewing this catastrophe.

The one-size-fits-all approach goes something like this.

1. Katrina = New Orleans = levees.
   
2. Problems stemming from Katrina are the same for New Orleans, the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and the areas Katrina impacted that were as far as 200 miles inland from the Gulf Coast.
   
3. Katrina impacted mostly the most poor among us, and they were primarily located in the 9th Ward of New Orleans, Louisiana.
   
4. The ineptitude stemming from the Bush White House and FEMA comes out of a racist lens alone.
   
5. Solutions for the city of New Orleans and its levees will solve all the problems stemming from Katrina, which really are about Bush’s immense callous ineptitude about poor people who could not leave New Orleans before Katrina.
   
6. Talking about Katrina recovery in New Orleans is shorthand for talking about, addressing, understanding, and solving the multitude of issues regarding recovery for everything inside and outside of New Orleans.

Do these ring a bell? Of course, they do. The media played these images and talked only of New Orleans and the levees over and over again until they became seared in our brains. The framework became installed. Katrina = New Orleans = levees = racist/classist betrayal. Unfortunately, these are all, indeed, true, but the picture is incomplete and encourages otherwise intelligent individuals to ask questions that miss the mark and offer solutions that are insufficient to address all of the problems we face.

Let’s take last week’s debate as an example. NPR’s Michel Martin asked the following question to the Democratic presidential hopefuls.

Would you support a federal law guaranteeing the right to return to New Orleans and other gulf regions devastated by hurricane Katrina based on the United Nations human rights standards governing the internal displacement of citizens?

What?! Are you kidding me?! Invoking the United Nations? Look. What we need to invoke is the infamous phrase from the movie “Jerry McGuire”: Show me the Money! Show me the Money!

While Ms. Martin’s question was well-meaning, the question itself as well as the answers the Democratic hopefuls provided displayed an appalling ignorance of what is stopping cities from rebuilding their communities, hindering businesses from reopening their doors, and preventing people from returning to their homes, jobs, schools, places of worship, and lives.

Had the staff of NPR or the Democratic Presidential hopefuls been research savvy, they would have learned that Congressman Gene Taylor and U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu have put forth some incredible legislative initiatives to address real problems with real solutions such as expanding the flood insurance program to include all natural perils (H.R 920) and to close the anti-trust loop that has permitted the insurance companies to collude with each other legally (S.618).

Perhaps someone will forward various Democratic presidential campaign staffers this specific series or just turn them on to A.M. in the Morning!

God help us all. The Democrats have to get the framework right. We know that the ReTHUGlicans will be completely clueless—and care less about being clueless.

As Democrats, we agree that the preparation for Katrina and the recovery efforts in her aftermath are microcosms of and metaphors for the appalling absence of White House leadership since George W. Bush and Dick Cheney stole the 2000 presidential election and moved into our Oval Office in January of 2001. On that end of the analysis, we have agreement.

However, flushing out the specifics of the microcosms and metaphors requires more than sound bites that fit nicely with the overall theme of a candidate’s campaign or one’s political perspective on poverty, the environment, race, the Bush Administration, etc.

For example, continually boiling down the problems New Orleans faces only to repairing levees and the challenges in the 9th Ward alone misses the bigger picture and important elements for recovery in that city, in the Gulf Coast region, and in the nation.

By broadening our minds to take in the fullness of what encompasses the problems we face here, we can then see the great opportunities to recover this area far quicker and to make dramatic changes that will fundamentally improve the quality of our lives regardless of where we live. After all, every family wants to protect its greatest asset—home. When we fix what’s wrong with the recovery efforts here in Katrina Land, we’ll be protecting everyone’s home from sea to shining sea.

To do this, we must begin with a framework that works for Louisiana and Mississippi, for those inside of New Orleans and those outside of it, for those that Katrina directly impacted and for those that future natural disasters—tornado, flood, blizzard, mudslide, earthquake—will impact.

What’s wrong with our recovery has everything to do with the crisis in confidence we feel in our federal government, the White House, as well as our insurance corporations that are supposed to provide financial security for our family’s biggest investment: our home. Remedies for what ails the recovery efforts have already been introduced in Congress. Additional remedies will also come from the innumerable court cases that the Scruggs Katrina Group, The Merlin Group, and other lawyers who are successful in attaining a fair deal for their clients through dragging the insurance carriers to court for a bit of American justice.

In the meantime, it is important that we understand fully the true impediments to our recovery so that we can push our federal lawmakers to make changes that make a real difference for those inside and outside of the Katrina ravaged region of our nation.


Broadening Katrina’s Lens: A five Part Series

Part 1: Broadening Katrina's Lens
Part 2: Recovery’s Two Major Impediments: $$$ and the “F” word
Part 3: The "F" Word: FEMA
Part 4: Katrina’s Bigger Picture
Part 5: Katrina’s Karmic Payback: Insurance Reform

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A Southern Moonlit Sauna Has Me Thinking of Bush and Jesus

With the beauty of Saturday night’s moon beaming brightly upon the water, hundreds of people gathered at the Bay St. Louis Yacht Club to listen to the deliciously divine music of Deacon John, a New Orleans legend playing all the favorites going back some fifty years. I couldn’t believe how hot it was or that sweat was running down my legs! A young friend informed me, “That isn’t sweat. It’s the humidity stuck to your legs.” I guess it’s been a while since I went dancing under the moonlight with humidity in the night air making life almost unbearable were it not for Deacon John’s music.

I immediately thought, “Thank GAWD I wore shorts and a t-shirt.” Looking around, I saw sweat poring of off everyone. Thus the reason for the HUGE four to five foot fans under the tent where the band played and the rest of us danced. Now, if you thought this was some uptight-dressed-to-the-nines-with-diamond-jewels kind of crowd, you’d have been wrong as wrong could be. At best, everyone wore picnic attire, the same thing many of us had worn earlier that day when we went to the annual Crab Festival at Our Lady Academy, the Catholic all girl high school I attended.

I bought myself a shrimp po-boy—a New Orleans specialty—and sat down at a table filled with folks I didn’t know. Like me, they were enjoying the divinely mouth-watering delicacies for which our region is so well-known. Across from me was a couple who had lost a 5,000 square foot home in Katrina. What did their insurance carrier offer for the damages? $19,000. What a jaw dropper!

Being smart business people, they had tried to get flood insurance and were denied it because they didn’t live in a flood zone. This insurance nightmare pushed this couple into joining one of the Scruggs Katrina lawsuits.

After we finished our meal and concluded our discussion, we parted knowing that we’d be seeing each other at THE event of the weekend: dancing to Deacon John that night. Indeed, we ran into each other soon after the gig began to crank up. Music and dancing are a strong part of our cultural history here which can be most easily understood when taking into consideration the fact that many families, like my own, are originally from New Orleans. Our heat and humidity are other similarities to the birthplace of Jazz.

The South’s Natural Sauna
Saturday night, I voluntarily re-experienced the “Southern Sauna,” as my brother Michael called the horrendous humidity with which we grew up. Of course, being out under the moonlight dancing with my friends was pleasurable play time. I was just out having a good time as sweat ran down the back of my t-shirt and the humidity grabbed a hold of my legs then rolled right down. At least, I could go over to a fan and cool off occasionally. Eventually, I would return to my car with air conditioning which I would drive to my mother’s home that was also air conditioned. I could jump into the shower. These are choices that most of us take for granted.

Two years ago when Katrina hit, electricity and safe-water were near non-existent commodities. My older brother Rosie told me that he would put water in jugs and sit them out in the sun to warm up all day. That way he would have relatively warm water for an evening wash up. Because the water source wasn’t safe for weeks after the storm, he’d put bleach in the jugs to kill the germs.

Rosie said he noticed that those who failed to put bleach in their water ended up with sores on their bodies. And the weather was more scorching than it is at this point in the summer. As I think and write about these things, I cannot imagine the turmoil and nightmare that family, friends, and strangers all lived through in those months, particularly with the horrendous weather.

The worst weather comes in August and September, the two months in which hurricanes tend to hit the Gulf Coast region. Hurricane Betsy hit New Orleans on September 9th, 1965. Camille hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast August 17th, 1969, and Katrina hit on August 29th, 2005, devastating my beloved Gulf Coast and breaching the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers’ levees which flooded our New Orleans.

Sister cities: New Orleans and Baghdad?
I have often thought that the destruction, betrayal, and their accompanying mental toll along the Gulf Coast and in New Orleans resembles that experienced in war-torn areas of the world.The other day, I came across an excerpt in a Daily Kos Diary of an Iraqi blogger writing about his experience in New Orleans. I thought his words particularly insightful.

New Orleans Isn't Very Different from Baghdad!
What shocked me the most in this trip was how the city looked like Baghdad. New Orleans looked like Baghdad after the war in 1991; I swear I kid you not. The devastation, empty houses, the people returning to their life in the city, the "rituals" people practice before they completely come back, the bumps in the streets and the smell of destruction (it has a distinctive smell people. Yes it does.)

I arrived to New Orleans Thursday. On the way to the hotel, I saw the same thing I saw on tv two years ago, destroyed buildings. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Two years later and the scene is the same? Where are we? A government that spent hundreds of billions of dollars on wars overseas is not capable of dealing with a crisis on its own soil! A crisis that all what it needed was money!

Priorities, Hearts, and Money
I grew up with a saying that my mother would recite. It went something like this. “Show me where you spend you money, and I’ll show you where your priorities are.” Other times it would end with “I’ll show you where your heart is.”

When it comes to the priorities and heart of George W. Bush, his White House, and his cronies in the corporate insurance industry, evidence abound. Plenty of taxpayers’ money and resources for his big time campaign contributors even if fraud is committed in padding his contributor’s pocketbook. Nothing much for the rest of us, including his Republican supporters in the Katrina ravaged region.

On the floor of the House of Representatives, Gulf Coast Democratic Congressman Gene Taylor showcased these fraudulent-riddled priorities with regard to Katrina recovery. Specifically, Taylor discussed FEMA trailers that were

“delivered by a friend of the president by the name of Riley Bechtel, a major contributor to Bush administration. He got $16,000 to haul a trailer the last 70 miles from Purvis, Miss., down to the Gulf Coast , hook it up to a garden hose, hook it up to a sewer tap, and plug it in. 16,000.” [Watch the video.]

Clearly, Bush’s priorities are heartless.

Families remain in the toxic formaldehyde-FEMA trailers. Grants remain unpaid. Insurance companies refuse to pay appropriately on claims without the force of attorneys, refuse to provide insurance at reasonable rates, and/or refuse to write policies anymore. Bush has turned a deaf ear refusing to respond appropriately to the heartfelt prayers of the families in need of real leadership in Katrina Land.

Bush and Jesus
My return to the annual fair that the Catholic elementary school of my youth had put on this weekend has me thinking. At Mass and Catholic school, I learned about charity and service to others. More than anything, though, I learned about taking one's responsibilities seriously. Truly, God forbid if I didn’t follow through on some responsibility. I have no idea what would have happened had I been a slacker like George W. Bush. All I know is that I was taught to be responsible. Like many of you across the country, I learned this at home, at school, and at my family’s place of worship.

When it comes to the many responsibilities that Bush neglects especially here in Katrina Land, I’d like to ask Mr. “I’m the nation’s Preacher-in-Chief” one question. What responsibilities would Jesus neglect?

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Insurance Lawsuits and Legislation in the News

July 2007

1. Summary of H.R. 920, the Multiple Peril Insurance Act From the Office of Rep. Gene Taylor July 15, 2007
2. Important Development on the Multiple Peril Insurance Bill Office of Congressman Gene Taylor July 15, 2007
3. Leaning On Insurers Times Picayune July 17, 2007
4. RAND Report on Post Katrina Commercial Wind Insurance Developments July 18, 2007
5. Barbour sides with Taylor's insurance bill Sun Herald July 18, 2007
6. Insurance: Catastrophic coverage the answer? Clarion Ledger July 20, 2007
7. Important Development on the Multiple Peril Insurance Bill Congressman Gene Taylor’s Website July 21, 2007
8. Insurance: Catastrophic coverage the answer? Clarion Ledger July 21, 2007
9. Taylor, insurers lock horns over bill Sun Herald July 18, 2007
10. House panel votes to add wind coverage Mobile Press Register July 27, 2007
11. Taylor's Crusade Wins One Sun Herald July 25, 2007
12. Rising insurance prices leaving many in a bind The Atmore Advance July 23, 2007

Lawsuits
June 2007

1. Scruggs Katrina Group File RICO Suit Against State Farm Press Release from Scruggs Katrina Group July 20. 2007
   

2. 
   

Lawsuits

1. Scruggs' Statement Responding to State Farm’s Latest Salvo Scruggs Katrina Group Website July 18, 2007
2. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
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Hundreds wait Saturday on Road Home closings

Hundreds of people waited in line at the Marriott in Metairie to close on their Road Home grants Saturday, June 30, 2007. The line snaked through the hotel, out the front door and around the building.
John McCusker / Times-Picayune

Hundreds of Road Home applicants found themselves in a winding line outside a Metairie hotel Saturday, waiting out an apparent bottleneck in a marathon effort by a state contractor to close 900 grants in a single day.

Raymond L. Dorch of New Orleans waits in line outside of the Marriott in Metairie to close on his Road Home grant Saturday, June 30, 2007. Hundreds of people waited in a line which snaked through the hotel, out the front door and around the building.

STAFF PHOTO BY JOHN MCCUSKER

Read the article in the New Orleans Times Picayune.

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Illegal immigration's impact felt locally

Issue has two sides on Coast
By JOSHUA NORMAN
jdnorman@sunherald.com

The same week major immigration reform died in Congress, illegal immigration came to the forefront on the Coast in a tragic way.

Read the rest of the story in Mississippi Gulf Coast's Sun Herald.

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