August 2007 will mark the two-year anniversary of the ravaging of the Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina. When the storm hit, there was virtually no response from the government to evacuate the region. Over 1,500 lives were lost in the weeks that followed. The storm exposed the racism so prevalent under capitalism.
Following the tragedy, the federal government proved it was just as unwilling to rebuild and prevent future devastation
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One of the areas hardest hit was New Orleans. More than 80 percent of the city was flooded. Its majority African American population has suffered greatly since then. Hundreds of thousands fled; many have yet to return to the city.
Rebuilding efforts remain dismal even at the most basic levels. The levees themselves, clearly unreliable prior to Katrina, are still insufficient. This is increasingly worrisome since hurricane season began in early June.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is currently in charge of levee renovation. The Corps put the levees through a computer analysis, which put the risk of flooding at 1:100. In other words, homeowners with 30-year mortgages have more than a 25 percent chance of experiencing a serious flood that could level their houses.
The levees are currently in pre-Katrina conditions—no better; no worse. This means that the risk of flooding, as happened in Katrina’s aftermath, remains unchanged. It is estimated that the levees will not be able to protect the city from a category five hurricane until at least 2011.
The infrastructure of New Orleans was especially devastated by the flooding. Roads were crushed under the immense weight of tons water rushing through city streets. Virtually none of the destroyed roads have been repaired.
At the governmental level, finger pointing demonstrates the lackadaisical attitude the bourgeoisie has towards rebuilding.
New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin blamed the Federal Emergency Management Agency for rejecting requests to fix the streets. In response, FEMA said that the city must produce information on the necessary repairs by July 31. To date, the city has turned over repair information on just 10 streets.
New Orleans’ death rate jumps
Perhaps the most disturbing trend in New Orleans following the disaster has been the colossal spike in its death rate. The mortality rate among people who lived in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina made landfall in August 2005 increased by 47 percent during the first six months of 2006 compared with the rate in the years before the hurricane, according to a study published in the July issue of the American Medical Association’s journal “Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness.”
The study found the deterioration of the healthcare infrastructure at fault for the increased death toll. New Orleans lost half of its hospital beds and seven out of 22 hospitals to Katrina. Half of the city’s doctors—nearly 4,500 people—were also displaced, causing a huge deficiency in the healthcare system.
According to the study, “It is suggested that a destroyed or poorly recovered public health infrastructure, which normally would be able to identify health problems and protect the health of a population, has in fact contributed to excess mortality.” (Dmphp.org, July 2007)
Labor and rebuilding
Aid to cover the difficulties of rebuilding also is moving at a snail’s pace. In late June, the Louisiana Recovery Authority
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Labor in the Gulf Coast region is more valuable than ever as there is an increasing need of workers to rebuild. Yet, the rights and wages of workers in the region are being hacked away.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that 400,000 jobs had been lost due to Katrina. Many of the unemployed began looking for work and homes in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Atlanta and other Southern cities.
Meanwhile, the major corporations from outside of the most affected areas received 90 percent of the post-Katrina reconstruction contracts. The corporations paid out-of-state subcontractors that, in turn, hired undocumented workers at low wages. This forced many documented workers to look for work in other nearby cities, causing an increase in competition for service jobs in those cities.
The bourgeois media have written many articles about the handover of rebuilding efforts to the private sector, praising the private dollar for its “charity.” But workers do not need charity from capitalist bosses. It was the working class that unified to save stranded families and individuals during the flooding.
The last two years are an example of the complete inability of capitalism to provide for workers’ needs. Capitalism’s unending drive for profits, which also manifested in attacks on working-class people in the Gulf Coast, has been showcased for the world to see.
There is an alternative. In 2004, socialist Cuba evacuated over 1.5 million people when a hurricane battered its coast. Cuba has done this numerous times before and since then with only a fraction of the resources held by the U.S. capitalist class.
Cuba even prepared 1,500 doctors to help with the rescue efforts in the Gulf Coast after Katrina. The offer was rejected by President Bush.
It did not matter that people were in desperate need of medical attention and there were no doctors to be found, just as it does not matter now that half of New Orleans’ doctors have left the city for good.
Capitalists have no interest in workers’ safety, welfare or development. They only want to provide the essential necessities to sustain a cheap labor force.
Unemployed and displaced workers should be put to work to rebuild the city without predatory capitalist owners reaping profits for individual gain. All the money being funneled into the imperialist Iraq war should go to the reconstruction of New Orleans and the greater Gulf Coast.
These practical solutions are against the foundations of capitalism. This is why the efforts to rebuild New Orleans must be part of the overall struggle to reorganize the vast resources of society.
