What Mardi Gras means

This essay explores the mystery, history, and importance of New Orleans' Mardi Gras celebration.

read more from the Times Picayune

Restrictions in recovery bill

Governor Blanco expressed concern with restrictions attached to the financial aid the state will receive to help rebuild southeastern Louisiana.

read more from the Times Picayune

1 in 3 lost everything

A Gallup poll of returned New Orleans residents has been released. The results include:
--1 in 3 residents lost everything
--6 in 10 suffered serious financial losses
--African-American residents were more profoundly affected than whites

more from Gallup

State of emergency to hasten levee repairs

Louisiana politicians are not the only ones worried about the speed of levee repairs. Gov. Schwarzenegger of CA has declared a state of emergency, which he says will allow faster movement toward repairing the state's eroding levee systems.

from the SF Chronicle

from the Washington Post

Powell on levees

Donald Powell, the Bush administration's chief advisor on Gulf Coast recovery, is emphasizing that wetlands restoration in critical to ensure that levees will protect residents.

read more from Forbes

Rebuilding health care

Mike Leavitt, the head of the US Dept of Health and Human Services, is suggesting that we could rebuild Louisiana's Health Care system and make it a model for the world.
Washington Post

Differences between NRDC and agencies

The National Resource Defense Council and government agencies differ over the safety of sediment deposited by floodwaters that covered New Orleans after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Washington Post via MSNBC
Times Picayune
EPA's information
LA Dept of Env Quality portal
NRDC maps of EPA data
NRDC analyis of EPA data
link to NRDC's own data

RAND corporation

The RAND Corporation has a number of resources on the topic of Natural Disasters and Preparedness. Some of these include articles and reports on the effects of hurricanes in the Gulf South.

go there

Community preparedness meeting

A Forum on Catastrophe Prepardedness, sponsored and organized by the California Commission of Health and Safety and Worker's Compensation, will be held in San Francisco in April

more from RAND

Delta subsidence slower than thought

KERRN researcher Torbjorn Tornqvist presented evidence at the meetings of the AAAS in St. Louis this week that the basement rock under southeast Louisian is subsiding at a rate of 0.6mm per year. This information is crucial in determining our overall rate of subsidence, and evaluating the effects of rising sea levels.

read more

Warnings for the Corps

A review committee of the American Society of Civil Engineers says that the Army Corps must make some drastic changes in the levees and the way it manages them.

read more

Lenders understanding

Lenders in the region are being flexible with homeowners with mortgages on damaged homes. They would rather work with their customers than foreclose.

Times Picaune

Latest rebuilding plan

There are several news accounts of Louisiana's latest rebuilding plans, which includes money for buyouts or renovation.

Reuters via the Washington Post

AP via the Chicago Tribune

NY Times

BBC

Times Picayune

Ecotopia

This news column discusses the opportunity New Orleans has to make itself a healthier and wealthier place as it rebuilds. It includes comments from local Louisiana researchers.

from San Diego

Levee models

This report discusses studies on model levees that can be used to plan designs for New Orleans' levees.

read more

Sacramento levee repairs will cost $270million

The levees in the delta region near Sacramento CA are old and in need of repair. Officials there knew the system needed work, but are surprised by the large cost, and are now seeking ways of coming up with the money.

from the Sacramento Bee

Oversight of levees

An outside engineering group is saying that the Army Corps of Engineers should not just look for new levee designs, but new organizational strategies to oversee and implement.

from the NT Times

Post hurricane anxiety

State health workers are seeing a rise in stress-related illness and deaths in the region. In addition, the number of deaths is up over last year, in spite of a much lower population and murder rate.

from the Washington Post

Development Raises Flood Risk Across U.S.

ST. LOUIS -- Concentrated development in flood-prone parts of Missouri, California and other states has significantly raised the risk of New Orleans-style flooding as people snap up new homes even in areas recently deluged, researchers said Saturday.

Around St. Louis, where the Mississippi River lapped at the steps of the Gateway Arch during the 1993 flood, more than 14,000 acres of flood plain have been developed since then. That has reduced the region's ability to store water during future floods and potentially put more people in harm's way, said Adolphus Busch IV, a scion of the Anheuser-Busch brewing family who is chairman of the Great Rivers Habitat Alliance.

Click here to read the LA Times article in its entirety

Field Trips Go Into the Breach

"Stop No. 1 is at Mirabeau Avenue and the London Avenue Canal. According to the NOVA website, the breach at this site occurred at about 9:30 a.m. on Aug. 29 as Hurricane Katrina was almost directly east of New Orleans. ..."

And so begins a field trip of the worst disaster in the history of the United States. For the last 10 years, Stephen Nelson, associate professor of earth and environmental sciences, has taught a course entitled "Natural Disasters"; never has his source material been so vivid or so close to home. Within the first two weeks of school, Nelson conducted five student field trips to the locations of several of the levee breaches. He also presented material from his field trip guidebook to students in a freshman TIDES class.

Tulane University Magazine - News

Where power and food is

Those who live in the city know that many parts of it are without power, and that stores and restaurants have yet to open in much of our area. This graphic comes from the New York Times, which has a webpage consolidating all their stories about Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath

NY Times' Katrina pages

$4.2 billion from federal government

The Bush Administration has announced that it is asking for money to support a plan to buyout or rebuild homes in Louisiana that were damaged by Katrina.

read more

PTSD in the city

There is concern that many of the city's residents may be suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Tulane University, at the request of the state of Louisiana, came up with a plan for treating this potential health crisis, but the plan has yet to receive funding.

read more from Reuters

Wynton Marsalis on New Orleans

In this article Wynton Marsalis describes very deftly why New Orleans will come back, somehow, someway.

read the article

JazzFest lineup announced

The lineup for this spring's JazzFest has been announced, and more local musicians than ever will be performing. In addition to locals Fats Domino and Irma Thomas, there will be appearances by Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello (performing with Allen Toussaint), Keith Urban, Dave Matthews and Paul Simon.

NY Times
Times Picayune

House report

The House of Representatives has released its report on the government's response to hurricane Katrina. The report is 520pp and in color, so be sure you have enough bandwidth to download it.

download the report

Do you know what it means?

Thursday Feb 16th at the Saturn Bar, authors will read from their essays in the book "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?" The anthology of essays and art, published by Chin Music Press, is 'structured in the style of a jazz funeral.' In addition to readings there will be food from the "Home Cooking" chapter. Ten dollars of the $18.50 cover price will go to Rebuilding Together New Orleans. Call (504) 813-2818 for more information. The event is scheduled for 6-9pm.

Rebuilding Together New Orleans
Chin Music Press

Wetlands losses underestimated

The USGS reports that wetlands losses due to last year's hurricanes had been underestimated, and that southeast Louisiana lost 182 square miles of marshland.

read more

Restaurants lead the comeback

The NY Times reports that New Orleans' restaurants are leading the city's economic recovery.

read more

SUNO holds classes

Over 2000 students returned to classes at SUNO's temporary campus. Enrollment is approximately half what it was last year, but above expectations.

read more

Highlights of house investigation

The AP has summarized the results of the congressional investigation into the preparation for and response to hurricane Katrina.

NY Newsday

Thinking big

At a conference in Lafayette engineers and other planners discussed high-tech ways the Gulf Coast could be protected from seawater inundation during hurricanes.

from the Times-Picayune

Articles on New Orleans

The Nation has a page with links to its articles on New Orleans since the hurricane. The articles on plans for rebuilding and for preserving the city's culture are open-access.

go to The Nation

Buyout plan developed

Local leaders in southeast Louisiana parishes have developed a plan that would buyout or offer renovation grants of up to $150000 to homeowners with storm-damaged homes. The plan now needs state and federal approval.

read more

LRA approved

The LA legislature has approved Blanco's plans for the Louisiana Recovery Authority, and passed the legislation required for the agency to function.

read more

Lessons from Katrina

Michael Chertoff says that FEMA has learned from last year's hurricanes, and announces changes in disaster management, including satellite tracking of relief shipments.

more from the Los Angeles Times

SSRC on Katrina

The Social Science Research Council has a series of articles focusing on "Understanding Katrina." Among the authors are some of KERRN's members.

view the articles

Getty Foundation

The Getty Foundation is donating $2million to visual arts organizations in New Orleans to help them recover from Hurricane Katrina.

read more

Green rebuilding

As a result of a meeting in Atlanta, some principles of green re-building in New Orleans have been established.

view the guidelines

Katrina Goes to Class

How do you measure the environmental health of a city after a disaster? And once you have the data, how do you talk about it? "Those are questions we are answering every day in my classes," says Amy Vinturella.

She is a research assistant professor of environmental health sciences at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. Vinturella was part of a team of environmental health professors, led by chair of environmental health sciences Maureen Lichtveld, who analyzed data and developed environmental health messages about New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

read the entire article at Tulane's "The New Wave" publication

FEMA and floodmaps

FEMA has announced that rebuilding efforts must be in line with floodmaps in order to use their grant funds. The floodmaps, originally promised for January, are now expected to released by FEMA in mid-March.

more from the Times Picayune

Marathon

The 41st Mardi Gras Marathon was held Sunday, and the route took runners through both devastated and relatively untouched neighborhoods. Many writers have seen this event as a metaphor for the recovery of the region.

Washington Post

Times Picayune

Aiming at Katrina

Tulane is sponsoring a series of panel discussions on the impacts of the hurricane. Participants include:
-Douglas Brinkley, director of the Theodore Roosevelt Center for American Civilization at Tulane and author of the soon-to-be-released book, The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
-Dan Milham, chief meteorologist at WDSU-TV, with details on the storm itself.
-Col. Terry Ebbert, director of Homeland Security for the City of New Orleans, presenting the city's disaster plans.
-Gregory Breerwood, deputy district engineer with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, to discuss the history of the levee system.
-R. King Milling, chairman of the Governor's Advisory Commission on Coastal Restoration and Conservation.

details

Termites and levees

An expert on formosan termites wants to find out if the exotic and destructive insects had any role in levee failure.

Gnawing question

Water and wetlands

The academic journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution has a recent article about global problems relating to wetlands and water quality.

read the article

Redevelopment authority

The Bureau for Government Research, a government watchdog group, has tentatively endorsed the concept of an independent board to oversee redevelopment.

more from the Times Picayune

Dire projection

This article from the BBC, featuring UNO geologist Shea Penland, paints a dark future for the New Orleans. Pointing to unmitigated wetland losses and subsidence, it claims that protecting the region with levees is unrealisitic.

BBC Horizon

GAO report on hurricane response

The Government Accounting Office cites two primary problems with the hurricane response. The first is the lack of a single person in charge, a person with access to the president. The second is the lack of a prior plan, which made all efforts reactive. The GAO says this evaluation is preliminary, and that they expect to publish at least 30 reports on this topic in the coming year.

GAO report

Housing design competition

Tulane's School of Architecture and the national magazine 'Architectural Record' are sponsoring a design competition for the New New Orleans home.

read more