Minor Wisdom

The Kelo backlash and the recovery

In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court held, in Kelo v. City of New London, that the U.S. Constitution does not prohibit a state from expropriating private land for “economic development,” e.g. a Wal-Mart. In reaction, Louisiana (like many other states) amended its state constitution to prohibit such an expropriation.

Louisiana’s amendments may have the unintended consequence of impeding New Orleans’ recovery from Katrina. For instance, they may prevent the state or the city from expropriating a blighted property burdened with tax liens, and turning the property over to, say, Habitat for Humanity. For an informative analysis of this potential problem, read this post on by Craig Williams on May It Please the Court.

A flood is a flood, regardless of its cause.

This morning, the Louisiana Supreme Court issued a decision holding that a flood exclusion in a commercial-property policy applies to damage caused any flood, regardless of whether the flood damage resulted from human negligence (that is, negligence by the Corps of Engineers). This decision reverses the Louisiana Fourth Circuit’s decision rendered last November in the case, and is consistent with the U.S. Fifth Circuit' s decision last August that decided the same legal issue.

A city loses a piece of its soul

The L.A. Times reports:

New Orleans’ black population dropped 57% a year after Hurricane Katrina, while the white population declined 36%, according to an analysis by three demographers of new U.S. census data that confirm the disaster’s disproportionate impact on the city’s racial composition. Billed as the “first full picture” of the mass migration after the hurricane, the analysis also found that New Orleanians displaced to Houston and other cities were more likely to be black, uneducated and poor. By contrast, those who relocated to the city’s suburbs were more likely to be white, educated and well off.

Though many New Orleans leaders had lamented the uneven toll on black citizens when the levees broke and flooded much of the city, demographer William H. Gray of the Brookings Institution, one of the study’s authors, said it was still surprising to see the data show it in such stark terms.

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1 Dead in Attic (2d ed.)

If you want to read a first-hand account of the harrowing days in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, then get yourself Chris Rose’s new book, 1 Dead in Attic. Chris is a columnist for the  Times-Picayune, New Orleans’ daily newspaper—he also happens to be my neighbor, one block up Magazine Street. His post-Katrina columns made him a runner-up for a Pulitzer. This book is a collection of those columns.

Actually this book is the second, expanded edition. The first edition, released in early 2006, was self-published—it sold 60,000 copies. This edition, much thicker than the first, is published by an outfit called Simon & Schuster.

When the levee breaks

Here’s a video montage of the Flood of 2005, set to Led Zeppelin’s performance of When the Levee Breaks. The photos are haunting, and the soundtrack is proof that LZ was a pretty good blues band. (Hat tip to Texas Appellate Law Blog.)

New Orleans’ diaspora

The New York Times has a heart-breaking story about the working poor who don’t have the means to return to New Orleans.¹ As the story relates, FEMA has located many of them in rural areas, miles and miles from any potential employment — not good when you don’t own a car.

To those of us who have managed to return: let’s not forget these people, our neighbors who, for now, can’t come home. Let’s pray for the changes that will make their homecoming possible, and let’s agitate to make them happen.

__________

¹Hat tip to God’s Politics.

47% harder to live

We all know that since Katrina, New Orleans has been a hard place to live. Now some researchers have quantified how much harder. According to this study by Dr. Kevin U. Stephens Sr. and others, the death rate in post-K New Orleans is up 47%. The primary culprit: lack of health care.

We are not okay.

Today the Kaiser Family Foundation released the results of a house-to-house survey of people living in Orleans, Jefferson, Plaquemines and St. Bernard Parishes documents the impact of Hurricane Katrina and the failure to respond quickly and effectively to it on the economic well-being, physical and mental health, and personal lives of the people of the New Orleans area. The result: 81% of respondents have seen the quality of their lives deteriorate in at least one of seven critical aspects of their lives. More than 55% of respondents in the four-parish area and 67% of respondent in New Orleans reported problems in more than one area. The particulars:

1. 52% in the four-parish area (and 66% in Orleans) reported deterioration in their economic well-being in Katrina’s wake.
2. 37% of area residents reported severe disruption to personal life, such as being forced out of their homes for a substantial period of time or losing a loved one. [About 99% of New Orleanians were forced out of their homes for a minimum of 6 weeks.]
3. 36% reported reduced access to health care.
4. 23% reported that Katrina-related stress affected their marriages, relationships or alcohol use.
5. 19% reported that their physical health has declined.
6. 17% reported that they lost a job or had a lower-paying job than they did pre-Katrina.
7. 16% reported that their mental health deteriorated.

Me, I’ll admit to numbers 2, 3, 4 (increased alcohol use), and 7 (judging by number of visits to a psychiatrist and a therapist). And that comes from someone who’s been relatively blessed.

Croatoan

More than 500 years ago, the only trace of the lost colony of Roanoke was the word “Croatoan,” carved into a tree in the center of the abandoned settlement. Today, in another abandoned settlement — Tennessee Street in the Lower Ninth Ward — you can find “Croatoan” marked on dead oak trees. (Hat tip to Suspect Device.)

How it goes for the relatively well off in New Orleans

As I’ve written before, my wife and I have been pretty lucky with this Katrina thing, compared to most of our fellow Orleanians. This week furnishes a fine example: we’ve had a contractor at our house repairing our interior storm damage. The biggest item was the big hole in our bedroom ceiling, formerly covered with plastic sheeting, now gone. There were also various other spots of water damage that have been repaired. Still to do: repainting the bedroom ceiling, the kitchen ceiling, and other repaired spots. Also, we will get rid of the shabby shag carpet upstairs (partially damaged by water intrusion) and re-paint the wooden floors there.

I consider myself lucky because my house, though ugly in spots, has been livable and comfortable since late 2005. Also I had minimal damage compared to most of the city (i.e. no flooding), I haven’t had to fight my insurance company, and in any event I have the cash to make the repairs happen. Nevertheless, it’s taken from October 2005 until April 2007 to complete the repairs. Why? Not enough contractors. The city-wide damage is so massive that it takes someone like me, with money to get the job done, 1½ years to get a relatively small amount of damage fixed.

If you want to know why the recovery is so slow, I can assure you of this: it’s not due to a lack of will on our part. The problem is lack of resources. Trying to repair the damage with the resources available is like trying to fill a lake with a garden hose.