MOSAIC NOLA:The Gentilly Project

Gone to the new Gentilly Project blog

2006-12-07T00:00:00.000-08:00

www.gentillyproject.blogspot.com

Conference Call 11/3/06

2006-11-02T05:11:00.000-08:00

Our regularly scheduled conference call will be happening tomorrow, Friday November 6th , at 8:30 AM Central.

Please email gentilly@mosaic-nola.org if you would like to attend and give feedback or suggestions.

Katrina Help in NOLA

2006-10-30T05:19:00.000-08:00

The Dartmouth College student organization Katrina Help (organized through the Tucker Foundation, which aids service-related projects) will be travelling down to New Orleans this December.

Their mission is to help attract more resources to New Orleans communities and help in the more effective allocation of resources, which includes working from the ground in Gentilly to identify neighborhood needs and map neighborhood recovery - in addition to completing short collaborative projects with local government and other non-profit agencies.

No Call Friday (NOTE CHANGE): DSCEJ Symposium in NOLA This Week!

2006-10-17T16:32:00.000-07:00

Regular Gentilly Project Conference Call attendees/invitees take note: there will not be a conference call this Friday morning.

The reason? The "Race, Place and the Environment" symposium, of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, will be taking place from Thursday until Saturday morning this week.
Quintus will be leading his workshop from 10:45 AM to Noon on Saturday for those who are interested!

More info about the Sympsium can be found at
http://www.dscej.org/symposium/symposium.htm

...Conferences of the Gentilly Project will resume as usual NEXT Friday. 10/27/06.

Holy Cross School moves to Gentilly

2006-10-10T15:00:00.000-07:00

Click here. This is a pretty big boost to Gentilly. Quite a number of residents and others have been working hard on this as part of an larger effort to improve the recovery conditions for Gentilly

Regular Conference Tomorrow (Friday)

2006-09-28T05:50:00.000-07:00

At 8:30 AM Friday there will be another conference.

We are continuing our focus from Tuesday.

If you would like to participate please email gentilly@mosaic-nola.org

Conference Call Tues 9/26 7 PM Central

2006-09-25T20:00:00.000-07:00

These are the neighborhoods and blocks we would like to focus on right now.

Gentilly Heights East: Elysian Fields, from Carnot to Mandolin (approx. 25 residences)

Mirabeau: King, between Paris and Pratt (approx. 29 residences)

St. Roch Bend: Abundance, between Elysian Fields and Music. (approx. 32 residences)

Tuesday 7pm Central Time -- Conference Call

2006-09-18T14:06:00.000-07:00

Gentilly has 21 neighborhoods. There are color-coded properties in about half. How soon can we have all neighborhoods included?

If you'd like to take part in the next project conference call, email gentilly@dartmouth.edu

If you'd like to suggest items for the conference call agenda, please add below as a comment.

Updates on the Gentilly Project website

2006-09-14T08:55:00.000-07:00

Mosaic-NOLA.org has updated. There is now more information about the project on the website, including the color coding system used to demarcate restoration, and how to get involved with the project.

If you would like to participate as a Block Captain or have any questions please contact gentilly@dartmouth.edu.

New Site Map on Gentilly Project Site

2006-09-12T11:39:00.000-07:00

In an effort to streamline the navigation at mosaic-nola.org and to make the site more user-friendly, I have added a Site Map to the site. It should make it easier to understand what the Gentilly Project is about and how to contribute.

The new "To Participate" link will also include information with background on the mapping of Gentilly neighborhoods, as well as instructions with examples, for site visitors who would like to participate.

Weekly Conference Calls: Friday, Tuesday

2006-09-11T11:17:00.000-07:00

On Friday September 15, we are going to have another Gentilly Project conference call. The purpose continues to be how we communicate to, and involve, more people in the rebuilding of Gentilly.

Scheduled Conference Date: Friday, September 15, 2006
Scheduled Start Time: 8:30 AM Central Time
Scheduled End Time: 9:25 AM Central Time

Next week, on Tuesday September 19, we will have our first evening call, so that those who cannot participate during normal business hours will have the chance to convene.

To participate: email gentilly@dartmouth.edu

Conference Call This Friday

2006-09-04T07:28:00.000-07:00

On Friday September 8, we are going to have a Gentilly Project conference call. The call's purpose is to discuss how we communicate to and involve more people (beyond property owners and residents) in the rebuilding of Gentilly.

There are currently two agenda items.
1. Creation of a public calendar of Gentilly-relevant dates through October 15
2. Progress on the collection-distribution of the color-code map.

Scheduled Conference Date: Friday, September 08, 2006
Scheduled Start Time: 8:30 AM Central Time
Scheduled End Time: 9:25 AM Central Time

To participate: email gentilly@dartmouth.edu

Dillard students join the Gentilly Project

2006-06-13T10:32:00.000-07:00

Last weekend about six Dillard University students joined our project. It took them only about four hours to code 350 homes.

In the project, we've produced a public web-based map, generated by community volunteers, that identifies levels of recovery progress with a simple color-coding system: red (blighted property), yellow (property with signs of cleaning or gutting), blue (property that is occupied or exhibits major reconstruction); or green (demolished property or vacant lot).

I am very excited about the progress the Dillard students made this past weekend.

Timeline Maps of Post-Katrina Deluge

2006-05-14T14:33:00.000-07:00

Today nola.com has an animated slide show which shows the levee breaches and flooding of the city, down to the hour and minute. Many people outside New Orleans don't have a sense of what got flooded where, so maps help explain it all.

I think this animation shows, in particular, how the deluge wasn't confined to those who were most economically vulnerable before Katrina. I run into people all the time who don't realize the Lower Ninth Ward was filled with houses, not housing projects, and that people of various racial and economic backgrounds died in their attics or drowned in their houses.

Click here for slide show of how the deluge of New Orleans happened. It's a quick viewing.

I like maps

2006-05-06T08:09:00.000-07:00

Two lab assistants from the Geography department, Tina and Katie, stayed late yesterday with me to prepare maps of Gentilly for my trip to New Orleans tomorrow.

I've noticed the past couple weeks how important it is to show a physical map of Gentilly, when I introduce this project. It makes what we are doing in Gentilly more concrete, even though the maps are real images. The Gentilly maps we produced and printed is a virtual representation - showing icons and labels indicating streets, schools, churchs, and cemetaries - yet it provides a useful prop to discuss what we are doing.

We made several copies, and I plan to leave them behind for keepsakes of those that I plan to meet with on Monday. And I may bring one with me to Washington D.C. on Tuesday.

Gentilly Charrette starts on Thursday

2006-04-17T16:23:00.000-07:00

When I was in New Orleans a week ago, I kept hearing a new word about town. Charrette.

People from different parts of the city were talking about them. In essence, charrettes are an intense design process over a period of days to perform detailed community planning with public input. Gentilly is having a charrette starting this Thursday. Public meetings are at the St. Leo the Great Church @ 7-9pm on Thursday 4/20, Saturday 4/22, and Tuesday 4/25. Here's the full schedule.

How do we reconcile the rebuilding process with the approaching hurricane season?

Needed: Gentilly Street Addresses

2006-04-14T17:43:00.000-07:00

We're looking for an electronic dataset that contains street addresses of all the Gentilly properties. There are ways to do this piecemeal, but we have (over?) 17,000 addresses to obtain.

The Properties Database of City of New Orleans website gives all the addresses in the city, if you input a particular street name. But that requires us to identify and input every street name in Gentilly...

We do have street addresses of some of the Gentilly block captains. It's a start...

I met with students Cary and Anath here at Dartmouth this afternoon. They had lots of ideas on this and other things on how to make it easier for others to contribute. Also met/spoke with someone from the GCIA Infrastructure committee. Earlier this morning, I submitted a proposal to Dillard University on how its students may participate in the Gentilly mapping process as part of their required service project.

Ounce of Prevention, Pound of Cure

2006-04-12T23:40:00.000-07:00

The wait is over. FEMA has issued new floodplain maps for New Orleans. The new guidelines require that many heavily damaged houses be raised at least three feet above ground.

As I watch these decisions get reported, I am struck by the "pound of cure" quality to them. New guidelines needed to be set to resolve the uncertainty of rebuilding. The new floodplain maps are very good from a personal and commercial investment perspective. However, I think the public conversations fall short of how we might protect both life and property.

Without a systematic program to rebuild marshes and wetlands in southern Louisiana, the country will invest significantly more in pumbs and levees for New Orleans. According to every specialist I've ever heard on the subject, emphasizing levees as the solution will *not* protect New Orleans. Pumps and levees are the most expensive solutions of last resort, behind the "ounce of prevention" created by expanded marshes and wetlands.

I'm glad that the new floodplain maps are out, but I am astounded that public decisions (and news reporting) perpetuate the most expensive solutions that put the burden on local indivduals and businesses.

Grassroots mobilization in tiny pieces

2006-04-12T09:14:00.000-07:00

I got back from New Orleans yesterday. After a guest lecture on this project in the class of my research colleague Professor Xun Shi, we had a project meeting. Currently, the project includes three students (Ben, Rose, and Leon), and in the meeting Ben gave us an overview of how he has augmented the online map of Gentilly. One of the things he has done is prepare a suggestions website for visitors to comment on the map.

The critical activity for this week is to start assembling the complete list of properties for Gentilly. My estimate is that are ~17,000 households in Gentilly, so addressing the whole area is a hugh project. The city of New Orleans has a properties database, but it would take a long time to get data, relying on what the database provides and how it provides it. Consequently, we're just focused on tiny pieces to get started to mark our progress.

In order to keep track of Gentilly developments on a regular basis, we will need to work with numerous block captains, much more than are available at present. Articulating a plan to do that is high on the agenda too....

Your comments and suggestions are always welcome. It's going to take a lot of brains and hands-on effort to work this through. It will take a little bit from everybody rather than the heroic efforts of a few, if this is going to work.

Active weekend and more

2006-04-10T05:54:00.000-07:00

I'm still in New Orleans this morning. It was exciting (and promising) to attend the general meeting of the Gentilly Civic Improvement Association on Saturday, as well as to meet with many of the neighborhood's block captains. The GCIA is conducting a survey of residents and preparing for a "charrette" next week. My understanding is that a charrette is a process of gathering, assembling, and refining community inputs for neighborhood development. I never heard this word when I was in New Orleans a couple months ago. Now, I hear it quite a bit, because charrettes seem to be happening now in different parts of the city.

Gentilly

2006-04-08T07:43:00.000-07:00

I'm in New Orleans now, and this morning I'm headed to the Gentilly district, where I plan to meet with members and block captains of the Gentilly Civic Improvement Association.

For the last several months, I've been focused on Gentilly as the central focus on this project, as the place in which to test open-source tools and collaboration methods for disaster recovery.

Today, I'm exploring with residents:

1. The setup of a Gentilly text-message system

2. Creation of a Gentilly photo project that will post neighborhood photos and community impressions on the Internet

3. Procedures for collecting up-to-date local information on Gentilly's recovery

It will be a very busy day : )

Hotspot in New York!!

2006-04-07T10:21:00.000-07:00

Apologies in advance to those expecting an inside tip on a hot place to be in NYC.

I'm on layover at JFK airport, on my way to New Orleans again. It turns out that the terminal of jetBlue Airways has free(!) wireless hotspots, so here I am. Thank you, jetBlue : )

It's been a loooong time since I have blogged about the Mosaic Project. Since January. As someone who understands the significance of blogging regularly, I've felt bad on many occasions the past few months during my absence.

Online communication on this blog is the only signal of project activity, for those who don't have personal contact with me. I'm sure many visitors to the blog in recent weeks and mnoth have (understandably) concluded that the Mosaic Project is dead. Far from it. It's still here, lots of progress has been made, and there's more coming.

Now, after a busy winter, I'm finally back to share some of it online. I'm looking forward to tell you about the impacts that the project is making: how others have contributed, specific ways that you can help us in the coming weeks, and what this current trip that I'm making to New Orleans is about.

Talk to you soon, Quintus

On the twelfth day..

2006-01-05T20:43:00.000-08:00

Early next week, I am meeting with my faculty partners on campus to discuss possible next steps.

Although the immediate project is about New Orleans, the broad issue for me is how to facilitate widespread coordination without bureaucratic controls. There are a great variety of public problems that strain the planning and resources of federal/local governments (e.g., (e.g., emergency preparation and response, homeland security), and I think such problems are well suited to organizing that exhibits some "openness" to motivated participants. But that's my perspective from an organization/management theory perspective.

What will my colleagues see about this from the perspectives of Geography and Environmental Justice?

On the eleventh day..

2006-01-04T20:56:00.000-08:00

Some good news... this project has received a small internal research grant from Dartmouth College. It's not just the money to continue that's good. The College's Provost Barry Scherr supports the project's key features:

- Collaboration a faculty member from Dillard University in New Orleans (Beverly Wright)

- Interdisciplinary collaboration at Dartmouth, among a faculty member in engineering (me), a faculty member from Geography (Xun Shi), and a couple of faculty members from Environmental Studies (Darren Ranco, Michael Dorsey).

- A plan to create a prototype for future systems that enable private citizens and NGOs to participate more readily in open-sourced projects.

With the internal grant, we can prepare a larger grant to continue this work, making this research-inspired educational project into a functioning research project.

On the tenth day..

2006-01-03T19:10:00.000-08:00

This week, the Rude Pundit shares his recent visit to New Orleans.

And today on its front page (left column), the Wall Street Journal provides a good summary of Environmental Justice issues in Post-Katrina New Orleans.

___________________________

How can residents displaced by Katrina determine if it's safe to return to their homes, and when? And who ultimately should decide?

Here in St. Bernard Parish, neither federal nor state nor local officials have provided residents with any clear answers. Parish leaders and residents say they expected the federal Environmental Protection Agency to manage the cleanup process and determine when the neighborhood was safe. But the EPA hasn't provided guidance on the long-term safety of the area, and says that it's not up to it to decide whether the community should be resettled.

Thus far, all major decisions about whether to let people back in have been made by St. Bernard officials, who have little expertise in assessing pollution levels. They are eager, however, to see residents return. So the Hopkinses and hundreds of other families have been cleaning up themselves. Many simply assumed that if it was unsafe, authorities would stop them.

-- Betsy McKay "Katrina Oil Spill Clouds Future of Battered Suburb," Wall Street Journal print edition (1/3/06)

On the ninth day..

2006-01-02T20:41:00.000-08:00

Brown University has interesting Katrina research funded by the National Science Foundation. I hope to learn more from the principal investigator later this week, but I gather that the research project will study and report on the demographic shifts happening in the Gulf Coast post-Katrina.

There will be a lot to watch in the coming months, particularly in New Orleans. After Katrina, there was a bit of increase in the suburbs that weren't affected by the flooding. And it reported yesterday that the city's repopulation is occuring faster than expected. There's even stirring in the Lakeview housing market (e.g., one owner sold his flood-damaged house for another house in the area that was less flood damaged). However, housing activity isn't as apparent in the predominantly black areas of the city: Gentilly, New Orleans East, 9th ward...

Repopulation is driven by housing. If the areas least affected by flooding were predominantly white and there's stirring in predominantly white Lakeview and demolition for rebuilding in predominantly white St. Bernard's Parish - the fears of a New Orleans with much fewer African-Americans are being realized. Then again, I'm receiving first-hand accounts of clean-ups in African-American neighborhoods too. Specifically in Gentilly and New Orleans East, in the parts that have neighborhood associations.

Must housing patterns of the city be discussed in black and white racial terms? The way a long-time resident described it to me today, most New Orleans neighborhoods aren't exactly "diverse" - except maybe around Tulane University or the Algiers area. Historically, there's been a housing pattern of segregation between white and black, so that's the starting point of the post-Katrina housing patterns.

I wonder too : where do the Vietnamese residents of New Orleans fit in the picture? Where are they post-Katrina?

On the eighth day..

2006-01-01T15:40:00.000-08:00

"Above all, we resolve to be grateful for what Katrina spared, respectful of what was lost and dedicated to making this place we love even better than it was." -- Time-Picayune editorial board (January 1, 2006)

Happy New Year

On the seventh day..

2005-12-31T11:57:00.000-08:00

Investigators have long suspected engineering mistakes were at the heart of the levee and floodwall breaches. Not only did the structures fail before they reached design capacity, but documents show the designs were not appropriate for the weak soils and the depth of the canals, investigators said. Yet discovering why skilled engineers at reputable firms came up with obviously faulty designs, and how those mistakes were missed in the corps' lengthy review process, has stumped investigators. - Times-Picayune (Friday Dec 30, 2005). Also see here.

It's my engineering education. As I study management and organizations as a profession, there remains a desire to get to the empirical realities first -- what can we know objectively as fact? However, socially speaking, getting to the facts has many filters and complications. And when facts are uncovered, there are more issues: Who will organize them and in what way? Who will get to see them? To what extent should the facts be summarized or deliver raw? Unfortunately, quite a bit works again the public learning (and remembering) what the facts are.

When public reactions to facts quickly become partisan bickering, it's a waste. Fortunately from what I've seen, the people who were most disrupted by Katrina aren't so easily distracted into the partisan exchanges. Usually I find them looking instead for trusted and credible information, so that they can make household decisions.

On the sixth day...

2005-12-30T19:11:00.000-08:00

The early months of 2006, we'll likely focus on Gentilly area of New Orleans, home to Dillard University. Particularly zip code 70122. It's in a general area that has a mix of damaged and undamaged areas. Level of devastation not so complete, such that cleanup progress and gaps can be measured effectively. And it includes a significant middle-class population and is racially diverse.

During the holidays, returning residents and others have made progress cleaning up there already. Some are remaining behind in FEMA trailers to keep watch over their blocks, in areas that are most desolate.

The goal is to develop a system that follows the area's environmental and clean-up progress and communicates this information to local and distant residents. Perhaps such a system would have broader applicablility, as a kind of mobilization infrastructure.

On the fifth day...

2005-12-29T20:02:00.000-08:00

Today I was on a conference call for an interagency task force, one organized to focus on Katrina's environmental justice issues. There are a lot of federal agencies, programs, and departments related in some way to Katrina recovery. So many that it takes much work for them to coordinate with each other. Add in the other roles and departments at the state level. Then those of at the local level. Then community groups. That was the scope of the conference call.

On the call, I was fielding questions about the research proposal I'm developing with Dr. Beverly Wright of Dillard University. The project's goal is to develop a communications intrastructure that will inform on the environmental and housing isssus essential for repopulation decisions by returning and displaced NOLA families and others. Based on some of my studies of an Internet-enabled grassroots political campaign, this project further advances the notion of "open-sourced" organizing beyond software and content development. The proposed system will rely on GIS data applications and the social networks of returning residents, local volunteers, and others.

As usual, I spent some time answering the frequently asked question: "If you are developing a tool that's online, how will you reach people who don't have access to the Internet?" Later in the day, I received a good anecdote to help answer it. I was speaking to Rhonda, a displaced New Orleans resident in North Carolina who occasionally has Internet access. She apparently wasn't a heavy user of the Internet pre-Katrina, but she is now because she finds information she can pass on to others. She described receiving a cell phone call from someone physically situated in New Orleans. He didn't have Internet access, so he called her to look something up for him.

Most people have no idea how effective (or not) their organization's use of the Internet is. Years after the Internet started becoming "mainstream," it's still not too widely transparent who is visiting a website and how often. Even the most quiet website might be getting more traffic than you think, from people whom you might not expect. Including those whom you believe aren't getting access to the Internet.

On the fourth day...

2005-12-28T16:53:00.000-08:00

When reporting the shared uncertainty that New Orleanians have about recovery, an article today sums up the key issues quite well:

The future of New Orleans teeters on choices made by families.....The sum of their private deliberations will determine the size of the reconstituted city, reset its racial balance and dictate its politics.

Ron Martinez, 49, an architect...weighs the risks of bringing his wife and two children back....he cannot make an informed decision. "I flat don't know what to do right now....A lot of things that are out of my control have to happen before I say I am rebuilding my house."

"If we had waited for the city and the federal government to do everything for us, we would be waiting for a good long while." - Adrianne LeBlanc,school principal [on her decision in the days after Katrina that any long-term closing was unacceptable]

"Your upper-class white neighborhoods are first in line and we are very last." -- Kesa Williams, accountant

___________________________

Thousands of families from New Orleans are pretty much on their own. Left to make private decisions about a variety of things they can't reasonably get information about, and grossly lacking in the resources to fix the problems they encounter.

Only those in the best shape economically have some chance to dig themselves out. However, even upper-class families with ruined houses are on the brink. In the most damaged neighborhoods, what good will it be to recover your own house if your neighbors do not? By default, the recovery of family homes will need to be neighborhood efforts.

Jimmy from New Orleans suggested to me today the need for Block Captains. Makes sense. Recovery would go a lot smoother on a block if there was a captain to keep track of the block's needs and share information about common problem. According to Jimmy, block captains apparently worked well in rebuilding London faster than expected after World War II .

On the third day...

2005-12-27T19:32:00.000-08:00

Today I prepared a description of a proposed activity that will help map out recovery gaps and progress in New Orleans by neighborhood.

There are many kinds of personal and grassroots recovery actions in New Orleans, and perhaps these different things can be made more transparent. That way, the activities can be less scattered, different efforts can be coordinated, and others may be inspired by what they see happening and offer additional help.

It helps me to talk to different kinds of people to sort these plans out, and when doing so I do get a general sense of mood about the city's recovery. What I'm hearing today isn't too good. The mood seems very sad. One person described it me as a "continuing state of disequilibrium, unpredictability, and unreality."

An infrastructure for communication looms very large as something that's needed for the recovery effort. I'm hearing anecdotes of people in different locations who are feeling disconnected and looking for updates of what's really going on and where things are really headed.

Fortunately, the project's contact center is ready now, and there is sufficient breadth and numbers on the project email list to continue making an impact beyond the Internet. The limiting factor is a series of events and programs to drive the communication. And a series of events and programs requires articulation of a public mission for January and February...

On the second day

2005-12-26T08:27:00.000-08:00

In his recent blog post, Clayton Cubitt describes the kind of thing that's now happening in multiple locations:

Often the best way to solve an insurmountable problem is to start with an attainable goal. With that philosophy, a grassroots coalition of volunteers from Walton County, Florida, started the "One House at a Time" project. Working with their local Habitat for Humanity affiliate, the group adopted the town of Pearlington and recently completed the first of many temporary houses. The coalition's goal is to raise money and build 200 houses in Hancock County.

Residents and volunteers are starting to take back flood-ruined neighborhoods in the Gulf Coast, concentrating block-by-block and house-by-house. This kind of grassroots organizing appeals to my head.

The core event of Cubitt's post - Miss Suzie and Mr Josh getting married - touches my heart. Recovery is more than logical planning. It is more than dealing with what our senses are telling us. It is more than what our prior experience tells us is possible.

Recovery is also love for one another. It is the restoration of hope in one person or one family. It is faith in the revival of communities, when standing in the midst of destruction.

A lot can happen with unexpected speed when effective organizing has this kind of love, hope, and faith operating in tandem.

Twelve Days of Christmas (Post-Katrina New Orleans)

2005-12-25T06:47:00.000-08:00

A couple weeks ago, I had been talking to Monisha, who's back in New Orleans, about that famous song - The Twelve Days of Christmas. We imagined what the lyrics for this song might be if modified for Post-Katrina New Orleans.

Back then, I thought that the twelve days ended with Christmas, but it turns out it was the other way around. Christmas Day is the beginning. The twelve days end with the night of January 5, the Eve of Epiphany.

So Monisha and I weren't able to brainstorm any lyrics for our imagined "Twelve Days" for New Orleans. But someone else had (see comments). The lyrics had me with the first day's reference to Entergy.

Spencer Bohren played the song at Snug Harbor during his Christmas show, and he apparently got the words from Sylvia Patterson right before. I don't know whether she wrote the lyrics herself or received them from elsewhere...

Enjoy. And have a Merry Christmas.

What Christmas?

2005-12-24T15:01:00.000-08:00

"I don't even care about Christmas now," said Ashira Francis, who lost her rented eastern New Orleans home and everything in it to Katrina. "Once I get into a house I can worry about that." -- 'WHAT CHRISTMAS?' Times-Picayune (Steve Ritea)

I hope Ashira Francis, wherever she is right now, has at least a moment of holiday spirit, stripped away of the frenzy, the spending, and the obligations we take on for the season.

I pray that all of our differences the night before Christmas might fade away, as each of us seeks (and finds?) a peace in spirit. A window of peace and silence that comes when the world shuts down, so that caring for ourselves and others comes first before everything else.

Into Christmas Day

2005-12-23T19:30:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I heard from a Dartmouth alumus in New Orleans. He saw an article written about Mosaic in the local New Orleans newspaper Time Picayune. I was delighted to hear from him. He's been in the city most of the time since Katrina, and he and other IT professionals have been helping bring businesses and employees together and generally helping form virtual communities.

The day before that I met Dr. Beverley Wright of Dillard Univeristy, who's the director of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice. We began discussion of a small near-term research grant to contribute towards New Orleans repopulation issues. Talking to her took me back to my feeling immediately after seeing the city in New Orleans in November, and she's come independently to the same sentiment. It's time to clean up the city. This must be a growing sentiment, because returning residents and other volunteers are beginning to do this in more organized ways.

Even the mass demolition project in St. Bernard's Parish (which I read about this morning) suggests an undercurent of residents taking action, in ways that fit the circumstances of their particular blocks and neighborhoods.

Rebuilding and recovery is beginning to emerge "from the bottom up."

The Bridge to Gretna: Tonight on 60 Minutes

2005-12-18T06:04:00.000-08:00

Tonight Ed Bradley at 60 Minutes tackles September's incident on the bridge connecting New Orleans to Gretna, Louisiana. Sunday, Dec. 18, CBS at 7PM Eastern/Pacific (6pm Central).

Thousands of evacuees, mostly black, were taking one of the few routes out of the city. They were lacking food, water, and shelter. The Gretna police officers, mostly or all white, used force to stop the evacuees from crossing the bridge. Was this a case of racism or the story of a town government trying to protect its citizenry?

On the one hand, simple racial explanations and stereotypes can stand in the way of understanding what's really going on. On the other, racism can be too quickly dismissed as an explanation.

Ed Bradley has a good chance of getting the balance right. As black professionals in predominantly white occupations, we must constantly reconcile racism with colorblindness. We're never recognized for it. It can make white people uncomfortable when we admit having it. It's a professional skill that's translatable to other social situations, but it isn't much appreciated. We can't realistically put it on a resume and be compensated for it.

Yet, getting right the dynamics of racism and colorblindness is needed. Race remains a potentially significant factor in our interactions. It doesn't always have to be a factor. It isn't the only factor to consider. It can be one in a collection of factors working together. Given its practice and mutating forms in the history of the United States, it shouldn't be easily dismissed or ignored.

I'm glad that Ed Bradley is addressing this tonight. On the road to New Orleans recovery, this is a bridge that must be crossed.

Paths to Permanent Return

2005-12-17T04:52:00.000-08:00

A lack of leadership in New Orleans recovery is often described in a particular way.

The New York Times editorial, Death of an American City (12/11/05), describes it as a need to produce "a comprehensive plan for putting New Orleans back together."

In yesterday's New Orleans Time-Picayune, displaced resident Bernadette Porche puts it this way : "I'd love to go home, but it's the uncertainty of the rebuilding process...we have no real plan."

The greatest uncertainty is about the level of hurricane protection. The recent proposal to increased funding for levee protection is providing hope for lots of people as an important start, if not tangled up by other Congressional matters.

At the same time, there are families and businesses who want to see commitments for Category-5 level protection before they return. The new plan, which is builds on the Army Corps of Engineers existing plan, focuses on Category-3 protection.

Ivor van Heerden, director of the LSU Hurricane Center, adds another layer to many of the existing proposals: "in terms of the overall needs of southeast Louisiana, those are little more than Band-Aids." He suggests that restoring the existing levee design can't meet Category-3 protection. Surges generally associated with a Category 1 storm caused two of the levee breaches in New Orleans.

What can be done to invite a more serious commiment to hurricane protection?

'Tis The Season

2005-12-12T08:18:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I'm hearing organizers for Katrina recovery putting off planning into January, because "everyone is taking time off for the holidays and won't be paying attention."

I reject that. This holiday season is the best time. There's no better extended time for us to gather with our families and others to address the greater good.

Just try approaching me in January with the proposal of something new. Most likely I'll be like most everyone else. Too busy with returning to work to think beyond the next day. Do you want to develop options for Katrina recovery? Now is the time.

Is The City Safe? Sample Alot In Many Places

2005-12-09T18:16:00.000-08:00

I met this morning with Darren Ranco, a professor of Environmental Studies and Native American Studies, at Dartmouth College, and I'm delighted that he's agreed to be a Mosaic advisor of environmental sampling issues.

Professor Ranco is one of Dartmouth's specialists in environmental justice issues, and one of his core research areas is community monitoring of the environment, something sorely needed to understand the ongoing safety and health situation in New Orleans.

New Orleans already has groups like the Louisiana Bucket Brigade that help citizens test air samples in their communities, with EPA-approved tools. Supporting groups like this and developing new community groups enables more frequent and comprehensive environmental testing of the city.

The EPA obviously has a critical role to play. What we can do as private citizens is significantly augment the EPA's professsional efforts, helping conduct environmental sampling in New Orleans that is much more significant in scope.

Just like astronomy. There are professional astronomers (i.e., professors and researchers) who study the stars, and there are communities of amateur astronomers who play a critical role in making observations. There are more amateur astronomers than professional astronomers, and so the "amateurs" sometimes make very important discoveries. Their motivation to help drives them to become very capable, and there are more of them looking!!

Mosaic: An Information Clearinghouse?

2005-12-08T19:59:00.000-08:00

The best "information clearinghouse" is people talking to each other, particularly when we're all trying to make sense out of non-routine events like the flooding of New Orleans. That why I think among the best clearinghouses of information are the nola.com forums or craigslist.

Or just about any gathering of people who are concerned about New Orleans and its residents. If the gathering is large enough and has people who have different bits of information, everyone attending comes away a lot more informed.

Lately, I've been thinking of Mosaic as an operations center. I see it today as a crossroads for all the different people who'd like to see more action in recovery. As families are being put out of temporary housing in the coming weeks, those who are action-oriented need a means of congregation, irrespective of their locations and the organizations they belong to.

If you want updates or have plans and meetings in the works for evacuees and returning NOLA residents, sign up and keep visiting.

Welcome Anny!

2005-12-07T08:30:00.000-08:00

I'd like to welcome Anny to the project. She's a Masters of Enginneering Management student here at Dartmouth, and this month she's helping administer the Mosaic Operations Center.

New Orleanians are all over the country. When you want to share events or announcements related to the city's evacuees or returned residents , email Anny (anny@mosaic-nola.org). Or post them here, and she'll retrieve them for our calendar.

Our blog roll - the right side bar - has been pretty bare the past couple months. Anny will be adding to the roll this week. If you have or know of a blog that addresses Katrina and the Gulf Coast/New Orleans, email them to Anny (anny@mosaic-nola.org).

Much thanks to Greg Greene for providing a whole list of bloggers from the Gulf coast/New Orleans area. Mobilization for New Orleans requires developing new relationships, whether it's in person or online. I'm delighted to have more bloggers a click way on this site.

Levees Are Not Enough

2005-12-06T16:15:00.000-08:00

For New Orleans to withstand future hurricanes, coastal wetlands will have to be restored. Levees alone won't do it.

Even before Katrina, it was known that Louisiana has been losing dozens of acres of coast **every day**. As these wetlands erode, New Orleans becomes more vulnerable to every hurricane that approaches. Storm surges on the city are higher as the coast erodes. Wetlands reduce the burden on the city's leves.

So is stopping coast erosion hopeless? No. Louisiana's costal wetlands can be rebuild. Already there is a plan that explains how to do it (Coast 2050). It was completed a year ago and was produced by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and state and local agencies.

The solution is on the shelf. Estimated cost is $15 billion over several decades. Apparently, the nation spends more in Iraq in one week!

Here's the executive summary.

Why We Can't Wait

2005-12-05T07:46:00.000-08:00

The Mosaic Project will be continuing through the holiday season, focusing on the front line issue of New Orleans repopulation: environmental protection, health and safety.

A long-term emphasis on New Orleans recovery has stolen urgency and public direction on what can be done today, and so the aim this holiday season is provide up-to-date information on several issues:

Reconstruction and fortification of levees

Identification of plans to redevelop Louisiana's coastal wetlands

Sampling of the city's physical environment to ensure the health and safety of returning residents, reconstruction workers, and volunteers.

This information, organized to provide situational awareness within New Orleans districts and neighborhoods, provides a critical role in allocating resources for resident return and recovery. And in atracting resources too.

Many people don't give to worthy causes all the time, out of concern of where their contribution will be most effective. Providing ongoing transparency on this, with respect to New Orleans, is sorely needed.

From Charlotte, North Carolina

2005-12-04T07:12:00.000-08:00

I received this email a few days ago, and I'm reprinting this here with the author's permission

Hello, my name is Rhonda Flowers and I am a New Orleans native relocated to Charlotte, North Carolina. I hope something can be done and the election scheduled for February is postponed. We are interested in returning to our homes someday. However, we still would like the right to vote on issues that benefit our city while away from home.

I hope a creative way can be done to stop the election or allow those away to vote. Changes need to be made to better our city. If we are not allowed to vote those necessary changes needed to help African American communities in the city will not take place.

It's not that we have thrown our city away we had no choice in leaving our homes. There are about 3,000 residents from New Orleans here in Charlotte. We do not hear about most of the important information going on in our city which causes a problem. If this election will take place I beg our leaders to send out information via mailings, internet, television, etc. so our voices can be heard and our votes counted.

If we are not allowed to vote the city will never be the same and benefit low-income African-Americans. We should still have the right to vote in our city and our voice should be heard. Thank you. Be Blessed.

Louisiana's Secretary of State has said on Friday that the city's local elections should be postponed from February 4. Governor Blanco makes the final determination. The recommendation is that elections take place no later than September 30.

The Salvation Army hosts a monthly meeting for evacuees in Charlotte, NC. The next meeting is this Thursday, December 8 at 515 Clanton Road, starting at 6pm.

City of NOLA Launches Free WiFi

2005-11-30T06:11:00.000-08:00

Similar projects elsewhere have been stalled by stiff opposition from telephone and cable television companies aimed at discouraging competition from public agencies - CNN.com (11/29/05)

Today the free Internet covers the French Quarter and the central business district. The mayor says it'll cover the rest of the city in a year.

NOLA's available services are pretty extreme. Some areas have free wireless Internet. Others don't have electricity back yet. I think it'd help to have these differences displayed and updated on a virtual map of the city.

First New Orleans Public School Reopens

2005-11-29T05:58:00.000-08:00

"Now that the schools are beginning to reopen I think we will see more people coming back to the city. They want to come back. This is their home." - Christine Mitchell, school principal of Ben Franklin Elementary School

Yesterday Ben Franklin Elementary became the first public school to re-open in New Orleans. When I personally began to see the greater significance of re-opening schools ASAP (only a week ago!), I thought opening any Orleans parish school by January would be an achievement, based on early feedback that I received on Mosaic actionable step#3.

Now there is one school open. From now through the month of December, the Mosaic website and this blog will be used to document the progress on the recovery steps.

It's the nature of any news headline to catch your eye and be sensational. What I'm going to do through December is use the Mosaic project to organize information around the recovery steps, with emphasis on maintaining relevant qualifications underneath the headlines. For instance:

1. Ben Franklin Elementary is located in the Uptown district, which was not heavily damaged.

2. It is a magnet school dedicated to math and science, and one of the top-performing public schools in New Orleans.

3. The school is "culturally diverse."

4. The school is now open to students of all abilities. Prior to Katrina, the school only accepted students with "high test scores and strong educational backgrounds."

To the extent that details about recovery progress are maintained in a coherent way, it's much easier to coordinate ourselves with respect to our seperate efforts.

Whats going on!?

2005-11-28T16:16:00.000-08:00

People really don’t know what’s going on down in New Orleans. I had someone ask me the other day: “Is all the water gone in New Orleans yet?” I was not upset, nor did I feel like she was entirely responsible for not knowing. In my opinion the media, government and even American population (at large) have stepped back from the Katrina rebuilding process. It seems like because it’s no longer “headline news” it is not important enough to make a priority in information the people about the status of New Orleans. Not only is it the necessary, but on some levels it’s the media’s responsibility to keep the American people informed about something as important as what is going on down in New Orleans. If we can’t even count on our media to inform, us then whom can we count on?

Learning From the Dutch

2005-11-28T13:57:00.000-08:00

In 1953 1,835 people died in horrible floods caused by massive North Sea storms in the Netherlands. Since then the Dutch initiated a 33 year 14.7 billion dollar project aimed at protecting their country, which lies on average 8 feet below sea level. This project, which was completed in 1986, created robust systems of barriers, dams, and levees intended to protect the coastal communities. One of the most important additions to the Netherlands defense system was the creation of wetlands that provided a natural protection from surging waters. The Dutch spend an average of $1.5 billion dollars per year on flood defense which would equal the USA spending approximately $30 million dollars per year if a population based comparison was made. This is over seven times more than is actually spent by the US Army Corps of Engineers on such activities ($4 million). Much can be learned from the parallels in this situation and full advantage should be taken. New Orleans’ officials and Dutch leaders have been in contact and we can only hope that a consulting relationship is created.

Reopened Schools and New Orelans Recovery

2005-11-27T08:10:00.000-08:00

I used to think - as recently as a week ago - that opening schools was a background issue in New Orleans recovery. That was before seeing the city last week, and feeling the impact of this calamity for families.

Actionable step for NOLA Recovery #3: Opening temporary schools in Orleans Parish in January 2006, so that returning families can bring their children home and the process of creating an improved school system can begin.

There's a lot going on already with this issue. I haven't heard anyone defend New Orleans public schools and their pre-Katrina performance. There's a sense that rebuilding presents an opportunity to create better schools. Louisiana's governor will be taking over the city's low performing schools, which is most them, and the plan involves a creation of charter schools to replace public schools (I presume because there's more federal and other monies to create charter schools than for typical public schools).

What I'd like to do is post a timetable of opening schools in New Orleans, particularly in the flood-damaged areas of Orleans Parish and St. Bernard's Parish. I'm thinking particularly of the working-class families of the city. How can we expect them to return if schools for their children aren't open? Who is out there advocating for the opening of schools for these families by January?

It's hopeful to hear about schools of any kind opening in New Orleans - charter schools, Catholic schools, etc. However, I am also curious to know where the opening schools are located, and what socio-economic groups are being served. How can volunteers lend their support to rebuilding the city's education system if it's not clear where precisely the needs are?

Every New Orleans House In A Database

2005-11-26T19:51:00.000-08:00

Now, inspectors with laptops are identifying ruined houses. “Every house in New Orleans is loaded into this database,” explains Centineo [Safety and Permits director for the city of New Orleans]. The reports are sent instantly to a computer at city hall, where the database is linked to aerial images of every address, both before and after. - 60 Minutes (Nov 20, 2005), CBS transcripts.

One obstacle to addressing New Orleans recovery is that the "needs problem" is so messy and uncertain to most of us. If each house in a flood-damaged neighborhood is identified and can have its status updated on a virtual map, it would provide a bounded series of targets to focus the recovery efforts of various government agencies, business contractors, non-profit organizations, and private citizens.

I get bullish about New Orleans to the extent that the recovery needs are concrete and can be broken down to managable pieces that all of us can see. Visual displays that organize the house data by neighborhood and street are a step in that direction (see Actionable Step #6)

Actionable Steps for New Orleans Recovery

2005-11-25T15:52:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday November 19 in Baton Rouge, a summit was held in Baton Rouge to develop actionable steps for recovery following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. To guide the summit process, I developed a definition of actionable steps with Monisha Sujan. Ideally, actionable steps will have SPICE (i.e., be social, personal, immediate, concrete, and effective).

Here is a list of actionable steps, informed by the summit participants and Mosaic participants. A key value of the Mosaic Project is that its users are its co-developers. Consequently, the steps will be updated based on user comments and feedback.

Leadership Defined: Start with a Timetable

2005-11-24T19:31:00.000-08:00

Even before going to Louisiana last week, I was learning of the growing public outcry for leadership in the recovery efforts. As I was preparing definitions of actionable steps for the Rights Recovery summit in Baton Rouge last Saturday, timing and immediacy became for me an explicit and necessary ingredient for leadership.

Whenever you hear plans about recovery, ask about a timetable. If someone wants to take a leadership role in recovery, work with them to develop a timetable.

Here's a short timetable that I operate under:

1. It is approximately 7 months until the start of the 2006 hurricane season. I think all recovery efforts should be viewed in context of the allocation of resources for short-term hurricane protection.

2. It is approximately 5 weeks until schools need to be opened - if there is intention for families to return to particular districts. If there aren't schools opened in Orleans Parish, for example, it becomes yet another barrier for families with children to return. Without schools in January, many families would not consider coming back until September 2006.

3. Starting for the next 5 weeks, a window will be open for private citizens around the country to help with recovery efforts. Unlike no other time during the calendar year, there are private citizens who will have discretionary time to volunteer their professional and non-professional skills for recovery efforts. Faith-based organizations as well as colleges and universities already have plans underway.

Best wishes for this holiday.

What A Family Needs To Return

2005-11-23T11:10:00.000-08:00

As I saw New Orleans on Sunday, I was struck by the sheer enormity of it. There were so many neighborhoods full of houses that were flood damaged and empty. There were many thousands of vacated houses, in numerous silent neighborhoods throughout the city of New Orleans. And this kind of damage I'm told stretches out passed the city many miles throughout the Gulf Coast towns of Mississipi.

But there was something bounded about the devastation that I saw, despite how extensive it was. In the numerous silent neighborhoods, you can still count the houses. Although I can't comprehend how many rows of flood-damaged houses there must be in the city, I know that specific damaged neighborhoods can be readily identified. I know that each house in one of these neighborhoods can be counted, and that somewhere out there is a family that owns that house.

If any one family wants to return and reclaim their house, the physical and economic burden is immense -- too slow and too costly if they had to do it all themselves. Any of one of us would be paralyzed if faced with the situation. There's too little information about what to do, and getting information about what to do (and how to do it and getting help to do it) involves time and money that most family-units don't have.

But if there's a silver lining to this, I think that thousands of other families face a similar set of problems. That means that as a larger community of concerned citizens around the country, we might help groups of households in a neighborhood return if we can provide the physical and economic assistance at a focused geographic location, within the devasted New Orleans grid.

There are faith-based organizations that have been doing this for particular households for weeks, as other kinds of service and charitable organizations. Could this be extended more broadly and systematically?

Return from Louisiana

2005-11-22T09:34:00.000-08:00

I returned from Baton Rouge last night. On Saturday November 19, the MOSAIC project had co-hosted the Rights, Recovery & Renaissance summit with the Louisiana NAACP at the Southern University Law Center. On Sunday, I went to New Orleans and spent the afternoon with parents of a current Dartmouth student, and I was taken on a tour of the city.

Throughout the Thanksgiving weekend, I'll be posting here about the trip. It made a big difference seeing New Orleans for myself (thank you, Renee!). Those who know me understand that I hardly ever take off my "organization sensibility." As I was seeing the city, I couldn't help but process how recovery of the city - and the recovery of New Orleans families - might be organized.

I'll post some of these ideas here every day through Monday, as well as some of the actions that I'm taking to move them along. I never know exactly what students in my class will discover and do as it relates to this project, so there might be additional content on the MOSAIC website too in the coming days.

The big takeaway from my trip: What would you do for a New Orleans family? I'll explain what I mean during this holiday weekend.

FEMA at it Again!

2005-11-17T06:31:00.000-08:00

Acting FEMA director David Paulison is being criticized for attempting to impose a Dec. 1 eviction date for the estimated 41,700 families relocated to hotels with the exception of Louisiana and Mississippi. Families within the states of Louisianan and Mississippi have until Jan. 7 to be evacuated. With 19,158 evacuated families in the city of Huston alone, people like Huston mayor Bill White are expecting mass homelessness and overcrowded homeless shelters. This eviction deadline is being criticized for its short sightedness and almost apathetic attitude towards those struggling to find housing. This is a depressing situation and should bring shame to this so-called wealthy nation. With oil companies registering record profits and thousands of Americans being left out in the cold there is something wrong with our priorities as a nation.

"The Big Easy" will stay easy on Sundays

2005-11-13T18:22:00.000-08:00

Well there is still good news for New Orleans but there is also bad news. The good news is their football Saints will remain in New Orleans through next year. The bad news is it will still be under the same ownership. With fans already disgusted with the way the Saints current owner has treated them, (threatening to move the New Orleans Saints) I’m not sure the Saints will even have a significant fan base for next year. Fans are very hurt and have vilified the owner to the point that they are refusing to attend games so he doesn’t get anymore of their money. It will be lonely for the Saints players, I just hope they understand why.

why can't we do this?

2005-11-09T10:29:00.000-08:00

I was just down in South Carolina from Thursday to Sunday. It was a relief to say the least. I had a lot of fun, but in the back of my mind I had an idea that I would see or talk to someone who had been in NO. Sure enough I did. I asked them what they had done or what they had been doing in the way of relief and he said: Everything, giving out food helping rebuild houses, clearing out rubbish...etc. Just hearing those things made me feel much better about the situation in NO because it was clear that there are things being done in relief for Katrina victims. I asked him what he thought the victims need down there and basically, the most essential need is manpower. Yes they will need money and food and clothes etc, but most important is the ability to be able to put their lives back together by reestablishing tier space. That doesn't seem that hard to do, why cant it be done?

Spotlight on Housing Effort

2005-11-07T17:43:00.001-08:00

Grant Wagner and Xianghui Weng, both Mosaic team members, are spearheading the housing portion of this Mosaic project. Their website, "Mosaic-Housing", has several interesting links that help evacuees searching for a place to stay, as well as interested volunteers trying to find a way to help with this problem. The links attempt to serve the following purposes:

Provide evacuees with access to a database that provides various searchable housing options organized by region, keywords, ect.

Provide volunteers with up to date information pertaining to the types of housing needs that exist in the NOLA area.

Connect willing volunteers with evacuees through a database that matches needs with capabilities.

Also in the works are links, which describe what stage each area of NOLA is at in terms of rebuilding (demolition, foundation, electric), and a database that provides a comprehensive list of all Mosaic project housing contacts. Recently the housing group has been in contact with a non-profit profit organization COVER Home Repair, run by Simon Dennis, which is attempting to send a group of volunteers to the gulf coast and aid in the rebirth. Grant and Xianghui are making great progress and should see some tangible results in the near future with the incorporation of the COVER Home Repair organization.

Rights, Recovery & Renaissance

2005-11-07T09:56:00.000-08:00

In the near term, the MOSAIC community is focused on a summit on November 19 entitled Rights, Recovery & Renaissance, which is taking place in Baton Rouge. The focus of the summit is bringing together diverse constituencies to develop near-term actionable steps that concerned citizens can do to help those affected by the Hurricanes Katrina/Rita.

The summit is providing a physical forum which is situated in the Gulf Coast and has a policy and action emphasis. I know that a confrontational, ideological and partisan emphasis is exciting to many, but this summit is presenting an important alternative that, I believe, will be more exciting and productive to the widest group of people.

If you know anyone on the ground in the affected regions, you know that people there feel an urgent need to get the recovery moving.

Apparently there's a note on my house from FEMA

2005-11-02T21:44:00.000-08:00

A couple of good friends (well actually work colleagues who have bent over backwards and inside out to help me and my family after Katrina - now lifelong friends!) just returned from my house in N.O. I got a report and first photos of the house. Though my father has returned, he has kept from me the realities of the damage. I am so grateful for these friends.
We had the chance to laugh today when they also reported a note on the front porch of our duplex, a form, I guess that said FEMA would not be doing any further repairs on my house because "construction had already begun." The sign cited repairs to the exposed tar-paper on the roof. Scrawled across the note was a long hand response: "I put bricks on the tar paper to keep it from blowing away! FEMA go stick your thumb in a levee."
I don't know who wrote that. My father? Our neighbors? What strikes me is the dialogue. 99 Theses on the door about why the federal government won't help and grafitti in response and defiance. It seems awfully passive, not to engage face-to-face. But could Martin Luther have marched into the Vatican for a chat? I think not. Would a conversation with the local bishop have rendered better results than theses upon the door? No, a public post is more open source, open dialogue and in some ways more provoking.
I have very little to offer these days about the direction our government and society are heading. Too much? Too little? Improvement? Disintegration? Yet, as long as our private thoughts and public sentiments can be closely aligned, there is promise for progress.

What Good is a Drug Store with no Customers?

2005-10-31T07:46:00.000-08:00

Despite all of the CIA leak coverage and Supreme Court Justice controversy New Orleans made the CNN headlines again today. Repair work of a Walgreen’s Drug Store in the Uptown District destroyed in the flood was the subject of the most recent news coverage. Last week the New Orleans coverage entailed little more than the re-opening of a famous coffee shop in the French Quarter. The fact that the media is limiting its coverage to efforts focused on the more prosperous areas of NO seems to indicate that the repairs necessary at the more poverty stricken residential areas are being ignored. With all of the short-term concerns mentioned in Prof. Jett’s 10/27 post regarding residential housing needs, the media seems to be more interested in the glamorous aspects of repair. Who is steering the eyes of the media and how can we influence them?

Where is America

2005-10-30T20:27:00.000-08:00

You know what's sad about this whole Katrina situation is the response of the general public. I mean it’s as if Americans have given up, save those who are directly affected and those who are in closer proximity etc. I talk to people about it all the time and I can't find anyone who really has a genuine concern or intention to make it better. It’s like all people want to do is have candle lit vigils, and talk about doing something. At some point awareness and concern are pointless. I feel sometimes the only way people (who don’t really feel connected to the struggle which is Katrina) will begin to help is if the opportunities are brought to their doorsteps for them to either accept or reject. Expecting people who are not connected to Katrina emotionally (or more), to take any sort of initiative in bettering the situation is a little bit much.

Today's Housing Issues in New Orleans

2005-10-27T03:40:00.001-07:00

"They're focused over there," she said, gesturing toward the relative bustle of the city's French Quarter and Uptown district, where restaurants have opened and residents have returned. "They should be here, where we need help." - Reuters News today, quoting Mabel Howard, 77-year-old grandmother, resident of New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward.

Even among those who care about what happened to New Orleans residents, I've seen a tendency to think too much in the long run. The most critical period is in weeks and months, not in years. I've heard a joke where one economist, who is very theoretical and pays little attention to world, makes an observation about what is going to happen, based on what his models tell him. He says to a public audience: "In the long run, the economy will all be for the better." Almost immediately, someone in the crowd calls out: "In the long run, we will all be dead! Tell us about now."

Right now in New Orleans, judges will soon be capping evictions to 1000 per day so that they have a chance to process them. I appreciate that there's an urgency to "get back to normal" quickly, but how can the rights of owners be balanced with the rights of renters (renters who in this case might have no knowledge of the coming proceedings, or might be unable to return based on where they have been displaced). Must this be legal combat between the interests of owners versus the interest of renters?

Obviously, governments shouldn't do everything, but they can provide an environment where addressable problems (like those of Mabel Howard) might be solved. And governments can intervene such that we aren't reduced to raw legal combat - which typically benefits those who have relative to those who don't. Some suffering and legal disputes are inevitable following catastrophes like Katrina, but a whole lot more happens than necessary when various branches of governments don't balance efficiency and compassion.

And FEMA is apparently going to end its Katrina-related temporary housing programs on December 1. Housing issues are now, not the long run.

been thinking

2005-10-25T13:45:00.000-07:00

I hope this guy was just playing devils advocate!

I still don't believe it!!!

2005-10-25T10:57:00.000-07:00

I don't know if I should be starting something like this though, because until now our blogs have been constructive and in many was encouraging. But I have to because this time I'm frustrated. I've already had a very colorful morning, and I have not been handling my emotions very well. However, one way or another, conversation about the rebuilding of New Orleans came up while I caught up on the latest news. I commented on the lack of togetherness in the rebuilding process and made a stabbing comment about the commitments and priorities of our President, suggesting that he be impeached. Yes it was an emotional inference, but it's definitely not the first time I've heard someone recommend that regarding President Bush anyway. Nevertheless, I sparked a harsh reaction from one of the persons sitting in the student center going something to the effect that:
There is no point in tapping heavily into the nations budget to rebuild New Orleans, because there has been enough money sunk into Katrina already anyway. Half of the population displaced in Katrina were not even significant contributors to the nations well being anyway, and that they've done enough sucking from the nipple of the nation anyway. He suggested that we were doing enough by simply having them in shelters and meeting the essential needs of them for now but it would be senseless to put rebuilding New Orleans any higher on his list of priorities right now. Most of those people were probably on welfare anyway so we are taking care of them now as we were before Katrina hit.
You can't even imagine how furious I was after hearing someone say like that. What a racist, provocative and jabbing remark to make. And after having the day I've been having already I felt so justified to just break his neck then and there. However, I gathered myself and said that people all over the world see America as the land of opportunity; we set the standard for human rights, liberties, and justice and if we don't do something about our own people in a time of crisis then our purpose as a nation among nations is obsolete. We have a commitment to our people fist regardless I they are white or not, and they all contribute to this country even if you recognize it or not. It's sad that someone like you would see as much as you do and comprehend less than a newborn baby. If it weren't for the fact that I'm a Dartmouth student AT Dartmouth College I would have thrown all intellect aside and bashed your face in for a comment like that. And here's the best part...then I walked away. I was proud of myself because I am not used to doing this, especially given the day I had been having. I don't ever want to revisit this day.

Can New Orleans Be Re-Built Cost Effectively Yet Hurricane Proof?

2005-10-25T07:11:00.000-07:00

One can notice on the news that there seems to be minimal property damage in the Naples, FL area after the significant Hurricane Wilma winds ripped through yesterday. Naples is home to some of the most expensive real estate in the nation and was recently rebuilt up to a new “Hurricane-Proof” code post Hurricane Andrew in the early 1990’s. Is the lack of property damage due to these new expensive building codes or were Wilma’s 120 MPH winds just not as damaging as one might think. If we wish to rebuild New Orleans so that another direct hurricane hit will not destroy the city once again will real estate prices soar pushing out its former low-income residents? How do we balance solid, well-engineered housing with affordability, is it even possible?

A Sad Aftermath of Katrina: Destruction Amplified By Human Error

2005-10-24T07:55:00.000-07:00

Originally written for and posted at Blog for America

Three Independent Investigation into New Orleans’ hurricane protection system reveals a human role in all three of the major floodwall failures that left 100,000 homes underwater and Louisiana's approximately 1,000 hurricane deaths. The evidence presented implicates design flaws in the failures of two floodwalls near Lake Pontchartrain, designed and built by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers to aid their mission of protecting the city from hurricanes, which collapsed when weakened soils beneath them became saturated and began to slide. The findings suggest that the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, also built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, helped amplify and intensify Katrina's initial surge, contributing to a third floodwall collapse on the east side of town.
The independent investigators believe the floodwalls themselves were the problem in the cases of the 17th Street and London Avenue canals, the two canals near Lake Pontchartrain. The floodwalls were built on bad soil. As early as the 1980’s, trouble was detected 20 feet below the when soil tests revealed a thick layer of peat--spongy, organic soil that is soft and highly compressible when dry but very weak when saturated with water. Nothing was done then. And in 1994, a now-defunct a New Orleans firm involved in levee construction claimed that floodwall sections were failing to line up properly because of unstable soils in court documents. An administrative law judge dismissed the complaint on technical grounds without specifically addressing the allegations about weak soils.
The Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, a larger dirt-moving project than the Panama Canal created in the 1960’s, acts as a navigation shortcut to the Port of New Orleans and important to the large port industry lobby. It’s potentially negative impact was know prior to Hurricane Katrina. Three months before Katrina, Hassan Mashriqui, a storm surge expert at LSU's Hurricane Center, told a room of emergency managers that the outlet was a "critical and fundamental flaw" in the Corps' hurricane defenses, a "Trojan Horse" that could amplify storm surges 20 to 40 percent as the outlet amounted to a funnel that would accelerate and enlarge any storm surges headed for the city's levees. Using a supercomputer model after Katrina, Mashriqui concluded:

"Without MRGO [Mississippi River Gulf Outlet], the flooding would have been much less…The levees might have overtopped, but they wouldn't have been washed away."

When a federal agency, like the US Army Corp of Engineers, is responsible for ensuring the citizenries protection from natural disasters, it is vital that they don’t create non-natural disasters.

As if it wasn't bad enough already!!!

2005-10-22T21:09:00.000-07:00

As if people of New Orleans didn't have it bad enough, now there are rumors that the New Orleans Saints will officially be moved to San Antonio next season. This not only affects the city economically, but it’s a direct reflection of how much New Orleans means to the USA. If New Orleans loses their football team, they will be losing a lot more than just Sunday Extravaganzas. They will loose a huge source of the economy, which is directly connected to the city’s spirit and culture. Why are people taking away from New Orleans when we should be giving to them? Commissioner Paul Tagliabue is doing nothing, to ensure the New Orleans saints will remain in New Orleans next year. This is pathetic and for once I wish Americans wouldn’t think in terms of money first.

A Sad Aftermath of Katrina: Death in streets took a back seat to dinner

2005-10-21T07:59:00.000-07:00

Originally Posted At and Written For Blog For America

A Chronicle of FEMA’s Internal Interactions on the Evening of Aug. 31, 2005 (2 days Post-Katrina)

Marty Bahamonde, New England FEMA regional director and FEMA’s only body in the Superdown, e-mailed Michael Brown, then FEMA director and point person in Baton Rouge, to tell him that thousands of evacuees were gathering in the streets with no food or water and that "estimates are many will die within hours." He continues, "Sir, I know that you know the situation is past critical…The sooner we can get the medical patients out, the sooner we can get them out."

Micheal Brown’s press secretary, Sharon Worthy, emailed her colleagues

“He [Micheal Brown]needs much more that 20 or 30 minutes [to eat dinner]. Restaurants are getting busy. We now have traffic to encounter to get to and from a location of his choise, followed by wait service from the restaurant staff, eating, etc. Thank you."

Bahamonde messaged a co-worker

”OH MY GOD!!!!!!! I just ate an MRE [military rations] and crapped in the hallway of the Superdome along with 30,000 other close friends so I understand her concern about busy restaurants."

This chronicle demonstrates why my disgust does not have appropriate words. I can only support the sentiment expressed by Bahamonde in an email on September 3rd.

”The leadership from top down in our agency is unprepared and out of touch. ... I am horrified at some of the cluelessness and self concern that persists”

A Sad Aftermath of Katrina: The Demographics of Return

2005-10-20T08:37:00.000-07:00

Originally Written for and Posted at Blog for America

“Class, Color May Guide Repopulation of New Orleans” reads the headline of a front-page Washington Post article.

The Post presents evidence of the revival of two of the worst hit neighborhoods in New Orleans—Lakeview and the Lower Ninth Ward. The destruction was similar. The demographics were not.

New Orleans’ newspaper, the Times-Picayune, deemed Lakeview, decimated, using the headline "Homes Are Sludge Pits With Little to Salvage.” The similar destruction of the Lower Ninth Ward has been broadcast across America. These neighborhoods both saw Katrina’s horrific wrath.

However, the demographics of Lakeview and the Lower Ninth Ward are markedly different. Lakeview is 94 percent white; the Lower Ninth Ward is 98 percent black. 49 percent of Lakeview’s residents have a college degree; only 6 percent of the residents of the Lower Ninth Ward have a college degree. In Lakeview, 66 percent of children go to private school and in the Lower Ninth Ward, more than 33 percent of residents live in poverty.

Lakeview is now seeing signs of revival. The water is on and the smell of bleach, which kills mold, is strong. The thwack of crowbars and the whine of chain saws fill the air. Insurance adjusters have begun making rounds and the residents are home.

The Lower Ninth Ward still sits mostly empty as residents must leave by dusk and planners have raised the possibility of turning it into a flood-plain park.

This evidence logically leads to the Post’s headline, “Class, Color May Guide Repopulation of New Orleans” and the fear that New Orleans will be “whiter, richer and more homogeneous.” These are facts that I intuitively know—one that corresponds to the racial tensions and segregation present in pre-Katrina New Orleans and one that I’ve seen exaggerated by the anti-poor people policies of the current Republican administration. However, the documentation of this scenario in 2005 as an almost fait accompli by one of America’s largest and most national newspapers is, in a word, sad.

A Sad Aftermath of Katrina: Joblessness

2005-10-18T13:18:00.000-07:00

281,745 Louisiana residents have filed for unemployment benefits in the seven weeks, citing the storms as the cause for unemployment, in the seven weeks since Katrina hit. This figure represents 14 percent of the workers in the state or 47 percent of all the workers in the seven-parish New Orleans region. In short, unemployment is widespread.
While Katrina has created jobs—primarily manual work in the construction, manufacturing, anything in the building trades, these jobs to do not present a viable option to many those left jobless.

But for many professionals, the work just isn't there right now with so many businesses still not functioning. Also, many people can't return to work because their homes are uninhabitable.

Making matters worse, the safety net is tenuous.
Louisiana’s Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund threatens to be drained bare.
And the US Congress has yet to pass legislation to extend unemployment benefits to those left jobless by America’s worst natural disaster. Two bills are before Congress. One proposal would extend jobless benefits to 39 weeks instead of the current 26, with the federal government picking up the tab for the additional weeks. A second proposal would reimburse $400 million the state's unemployment compensation fund.
Let’s ensure Katrina’s victims have a safety net and lobby Congress to take action.

Starting all over again

2005-10-18T11:59:00.000-07:00

After listening to Marc Morial's speech, I found it thought provoking to say the least. However, during the Q and A session I began to wonder about the role each of the different help efforts. With the needs of the Evacuee changing somewhat spontaneously maybe the most effective relief efforts will be to establish a way to rebuild the city as well as the economic status of the Victims. Not simply donating money, food and clothes, but doing more to establish the victims. In other words if you are not already housing an Evacuee and their family then maybe the next best thing is to facilitate them moving back down to New Orleans. Giving them priority in the job market. Yes it is somewhat idealistic, but I believe at some point, Katrina Evacuees will want to return to their former lives in New Orleans. Morial's speech illustrates ways of doing this, and if anything should at least be given meaningful consideration.

Latin America Also Suffers with Katrina

2005-10-18T11:55:00.000-07:00

Hurricane Katrina left millions of people without homes, possessions, jobs, and much more. However, we tend to forget the effect Hurricane Katrina had on the international community. I am from Panama, and I constantly hear about the consequences Katrina has left on Panama. The following translated exert is from La Prensa, a Panamanian newspaper:

“The passing of Hurricane Katrina has evoked an energy crisis generalized by insufficient gas in the region and our dependency as an importing country; therefore, we need to immediately examine the energy savings solution (National Hydrocarbon Policy) proposed by the National Government National Hydrocarbon several weeks ago. The production and refinement stoppage of oil in the Gulf of Mexico has a direct effect on the prices of gasoline and diesel that are imported to Panama.” [1]

This passage does not give you the overall outlook of what is going on, but currently in Panama, the following is going down:

1. Public transportation is increasing the fee from 25 cents to 40 cents, which does not seem that much here in the US, but the minimum wage in Panama is around $300 a month.
2. Because of the transportation increase, hundreds of high school and college students are protesting almost daily to maintain the current fare. (Pictures at www.prensa.com)
3. “La canasta basica” or the basic food items have constantly increased in costs because of increase in transportation costs.
[1]De Icaza, Fransico. El impacto de Katrina y las políticas alternas de energía
http://mensual.prensa.com/mensual/contenido/2005/09/17/hoy/opinion/340796.html

Other Social Issues will get their Attention

2005-10-17T22:51:00.000-07:00

Most of us are familiar with the racial tension that has resulted due to the government's poor response to Katrina - I wonder what degree of attention will result from some other issues that have bubbled to the surface after this terrible crisis. These can't go unnoticed. As a society, we also have to deal with these controversies, either socially or through legislation:

*Euthanasia - New Orleans doctors were faced with the terrible decision of whether or not to put patients out of their misery when necessary supplies and expertise could not be brought into hospitals

*Price gouging - Not nearly enough has been done do prevent gas stations from charging $5/gal. in Alabama. After Ivan, some lowlifes were trying to charge naive elderly and foreigners $20,000 (!!!) to chop up trees that landed on their homes. Do something, W! Increase the penalties for price gougers, increase the efforts to find them; evacuees can get sandwiches without your help.

*Real estate opportunists - some are trying to buy up underpriced property from desperate or naive sellers who need to get money quick. I've read articles about plans to turn what were people's neighborhoods into commercial property or overpriced highrise apartments.

If you have any more issues to add to this, please do so. The more awareness about these, the better.

Away from apathy - Marc Morial makes sense

2005-10-17T15:05:00.000-07:00

I wonder if the apathy is in part the answer to avoiding facing the issues that are before us. I find much of the reality too painful. I already feel as though the bureaucracy has taken over and I am powerless to make a difference. Apathy is soothing in this case.
If you have not seen Marc Morial's speech you should listen. It will help you feel again. He asks us to face the "super catastrophe" of Katrina. He also asserts a Katrina Bill of Rights: Rights to reconnect, vote, return, rebuild, work. Listening to Marc, and the detailed and thoughtful approach he presents, pulled me back in. There is much to be done and much that can be done.

Will New Orleans Soul be Lost Forever?

2005-10-17T14:00:00.000-07:00

The soul of New Orleans lied in its black middle/lower class population. They lived near or at the poverty level and rented their homes. Now insurance agencies are claiming that many families will not be covered for any of their losses. Will the re-birth of New Orleans take on an entirely new shape? Will economic boundaries prevent the poor inhabitants of these small but vital communities from returning to their homes? With an extreme loss of jobs in the New Orleans area people must migrate elsewhere to find work. How can jobs be established in NO to draw its former population back in and ensure that the culture remains intact? These small communities need strong political support to prevent the city from being re-built in a manner that does not facilitate New Orleans historic incubation of Black middle class Americans.

Not Propogating Apathy

2005-10-16T05:11:00.000-07:00

This post was submitted by Mustafa Abdur-Rahim:

I was talking the other day to a friend who is an evacuee from Tulane. He wasn't too stressed out about his situation, and he didn't express a lot of feeling about New Orleans or its people. Granted his home is in California, but I feel he is separating himself from Hurricane Katrina as just one of his life's experiences. It didn't seem to him like a big challenge to overcome. I wonder if the same will happen to people who were really tied to New Orleans, the people who actually lived there. This wouldn't be good at all. If people who evacuated from Katrina don't feel like those who are wanting to help, then they might simply give up and join so many of us in our apathy.

Quiet Emergencies

2005-10-13T19:44:00.000-07:00

Recently I've heard the concerns that people are "moving on" from Katrina relief. Could it be that the public doesn't have a clear sense anymore of what the needs are and how best they can help? It was easier to do when numerous media organizations were focusing on one crisis.

I was at the Tucker Foundation here at Dartmouth this morning, and Todd Kilburn pointed out a useful distinction to me: loud versus quiet emergencies. The loud emergencies are when a crisis gets lots of attention. Eventually these emergencies "go quiet" as they receive less public attention. It turns out there are specialists who know a lot about these distinctions. Seems to me like it takes a different kind of system to engage the public when a crisis like Katrina/Rita go quiet.

Steps We Are Taking

2005-10-12T07:30:00.000-07:00

In yesterday's class, I talked about open-source development, Howard Dean's "open-sourced" grassroots campaign, and the grassroots-volunteer efforts to serve the needs of hurricane evacuees (what do these volunteers do that large bureaucratic organizations won't do?).

Afterwards, I broke the class into three groups to brainstorm how we might involve persons outside the class as co-participants in our project. Everyone in my class has an engineering background. There were lots of innovative yet plausible ideas. Maybe one thing we can do is find a way to share these ideas with you, in their formative stages.

The essence of what we are doing: helping cultivate places (or communities) where we can give and receive information about where to focus our efforts on behalf of the displaced people of New Orleans, many of whom are still scattered regionally and nationally. And yes, this does mean doings stuff off the Internet...

Where is Mother Theresa when we need her?

2005-10-11T14:25:00.000-07:00

The New York Times, in an article entitled, "Liberal Hopes Ebb in Post-Storm Poverty Debate" is a perfect illustration of the shell game going on among the nation's leadership. Jason DeParle gets all the sound bites I have been hearing too:
"We can't raise taxes now when the economy is hit so hard by Katrina."
"The programs we would cut to pay for Katrina are broken anyway." Then he goes on to list the various responses from helpless Democratic leaders. We are in a morass again.
Is it really so political to help the poor? I did not know that I had to be liberal to be compassionate. I thought economic prosperity was a conservative value, too.
I am not convinced we as a nation have to divide over this issue. Perhaps it is not an issue that can be solved at the federal level.
Maybe this is a "Mother Theresa" problem. By that I mean that the possible solution is to start with our own voices speaking about what we see that disturbs us, articulating what we feel is wrong, and inviting others to conversation. Then with those thoughts articulated, act on them in local, tangible and personal ways. Instead of getting caught up in the politics, offer one person help. People locally can start to organize around individual people, acting out of a spiritual personal connection to people in need -- like Macy Gray or Michael Moore did in their way -- by just listening to someone's story, by helping someone network to find a job, by feeding someone physically and spiritually.
I think the liberal are losing the war because they don't know how to fight the battle. There is still time left before daylight to change the plan of attack. It's poverty and hopelessness and isolation the liberals need to fight. Not the conservatives in Congress.
I have reached out to the Rebirth Brass Band and the New Birth Brass Band, both from New Orleans. Both from the areas of the city most affected. I have asked them how we might help them and help their communities. One story. One song at a time. No federal funding necessary.

Policing the Police?

2005-10-10T12:07:00.000-07:00

What does the brutal beating of a 64 year old African-American man, by three burnt out White police officers tell us about the current state of law enforcement in New Orleans? How can we expect to rebuild a city that is currently being run by law enforcement members who are being accused of looting and other crimes themselves?

SF

Shelter Closures on Saturday Oct 15

2005-10-09T15:45:00.000-07:00

Before Hurricane Rita hit, President Bush set a October 15 deadline to move Katrina evacuees out of shelters. It doesn't get much press coverage, but the deadline still stands. I couldn't find many recent articles written about this, but a USA Today article published last Wednesday has some key items:

"We're still going to shoot for that target" says R. David Paulison, acting FEMA director

FEMA has been trying to set up transitional housing for evacuees but has run into problems... The agency's plan to set up 30,000 temporary homes every two weeks also has fallen flat.

FEMA hasn't been able to secure enough public land for evacuees. And when land is made available, Paulison said, the agency has to put in water and sewer lines, electrical power and other basic services before it can allow people to move in. Paulison acknowledged the slow pace of setting up such temporary housing: "It's very frustrating."

There's a need for A LOT of temporary housing.

Per Request

2005-10-08T17:18:00.000-07:00

This Forbes article from early September talks about www.scipionus.com - a site where users can annotate a Google Map with information about specific locations in New Orleans. Since Hurricane Rita, wider regions of Texas & Louisiana have been added too.

Can You Spare A Fiber-Optic Cable?

2005-10-08T06:42:00.000-07:00

"The two miles closest to the Gulf and Biloxi Bay are incomprehensibly clobbered. Half a mile from the shore, literally nothing but trees and trash remains. Inland farther, many homes appear intact from the outside. Inside, those people who chose to stay or who have already returned sift through knee high mud and debris. It is not uncommon to hear people report that they literally have nothing left but the clothes they left with." -- NickTaranto, Dartmouth student (10/6 email update and photo from Biloxi, MS)

Nick Taranto is scouting ahead for a winter-break relief effort in Biloxi by Dartmouth students. After talking with people from many organizations there, the consensus is it is "far too early to begin planning a rigid trip for December." As Nick later explained to me by phone, volunteers will surely be needed but it is unclear what the exact needs will be then. He sees needs on the ground there changing daily(!).

Nick says there's a need now for a 8000-foot, multi-grade G-strand fiber-optic cable. Can you find one? If so, leave a message at 603-646-9156

New Orleanians - They Need You In October

2005-10-07T03:46:00.000-07:00

This project has always had an emphasis on people from the start: how can we help others respond and work together - to address the community needs of evacuees wherever they are displaced? A good part of it is communication, so here we are. Thanks to MT for emailing me the audio report yesterday. Perhaps we should all talk more about the displaced as "New Orleanians" instead of just as "evacuees" (credit for image above: Steve Inskeep, NPR)

In the news, immediate action is still needed more than many people think. As the interim FEMA chief was questioned by Congress yesterday, the Boston Globe reports on where things are headed for New Orleanians who are displaced.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, noted that hundreds of thousands of hurricane victims remain in hotel rooms and emergency shelters -- despite more than $2 billion already spent by FEMA for 120,000 temporary trailers and mobile homes. Only 109 Louisiana families have been put in those homes, while tens of thousands of state residents remain in shelters, she said.

So far, FEMA has spent $1.3 billion to help Katrina victims find homes, and 600,000 have registered for the rental program. But victims still in shelters face an Oct. 15 deadline, set by President Bush, to find more stable housing -- including apartments, trailers and in some cases, hotels. Meanwhile, FEMA is weighing whether to extend a program that reimburses the American Red Cross for the cost of hotel rooms for victims. That program is set to expire Oct. 24.

Is you think the critical times are months away, think again. Small acts by you now will save lots of misery and lots of cost (which we will all have to bear) later. What tiny thing can you do today? If you can't do anything today, post an idea in the comments area below -- an idea that another person (not a group, not an organization, not the government) can do. Or click on the envelope icon below -- forward this message to someone you care about.

Perceptions of Evacuees

2005-10-06T10:59:00.000-07:00

What is the perception of Hurricane Katrina’s evacuees? Through countless articles, I have found the following perceptions:
· Regarding the influxes of evacuees into Houston, a survey found that twenty-eight percent of the Houston’s residents said that the influx “would be good for the area, and 31 percent said it would be bad.”[1]
· All the evacuees are poor, African American people, when in reality there are thousands of Caucasian, Asian, and Hispanic refugees that are living truly different evacuee experiences.
· The evacuees were stubborn and wanted to “wait out the storm.”
· “We're not used to feeling like we've got to be in prison. We're evacuees, not prisoners,” said Ricky Valentine, an Evacuee relocated to Los Angeles.[2]
Obviously, these are not all of the perceptions, but rather a brief few that really have caught my attention. Regardless of whether the evacuees are White, Black, Pink, Rich, Poor, Happy, or Sad, we still need to see how to give them some sort of help. It doesn’t always need to be money. It can be with clothing, volunteering, or just letting them know they are not alone.
[1] Poll shows split on impact of Katrina evacuees By MATT STILES Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
[2] Katrina Challenge for LA Mission by Mathew Wells. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4257198.stm

Current Condition of Evacuees?

2005-10-06T06:37:00.000-07:00

It seems like everywhere you look there is some form of information pertaining to the current condition of Katrina evacuees at one location or another. They are looking for jobs in Texas or fighting to recieve Medicaid back in Louisiana. Does anyone know of a more centralized source of information that breaks evacuee status down by state or region?

SF

Why a MOSAIC blog?

2005-10-05T04:03:00.000-07:00

The point of the MOSAIC blog is to have running threads of posts and visitor comments every day. It's not here for finished ideas. It's more for ideas and daily conversation. If you have something to say about reviving the NOLA spirit and its community (in all of its diversity), please do so. Questions or comments don't have to be on-topic to the post.

Ideas, weblinks, and next steps that you submit here will be tracked, organized, and posted in a separate public website - with the project plan and to-do lists - so we can focus here on the talk of community revival for New Orleans - and what you can do to help achieve it.

Not really a return to civilization

2005-10-04T15:03:00.000-07:00

I'm Monisha Sujan and I'm a New Orleanian. I'm currently in Burlington, Vermont. In later posts, I can delve into my story (a very fortunate one). However, today, I want to share the list of items a friend is taking with him when he returns home to New Orleans.

food for one month, mostly canned, boxed, jarred, dried and easy to eatw/out much fuss
18 gal. drinking water in gallons
15 gal. washing water in 5-gallons
1250 generator w/ 19 gal. gas--not enough to power fridge, AC, etc, but torun power tools, charge phones, computers, etc. and watch Big TVoccasionally
battery-operated little tv, radio, CD player5 gal. bleach, dilutable to 30 gallon solution
1 case Lysol spray
6 pair heavy-duty rubber gloves
3 pair work gloves
2 pair rain boots
2 pair steeltoe work boots
lots of old, throwaway clothes, along with regular clothes
50 aos safety dust masks
3 closed respirators
3 pair safety goggles
tools of all sorts, from muck shovels to caroebter's and electrician'stools, most of which I evacuated with
2 rolls duct tape
150 heavy-duty trash bags
20 rolls paper towels
20 rolls toilet paper
2 tubs baby wipes
paper plates, bowls, plasticware for 50 (sorry for the ecomurder, butwashing dishes will be a luxury until the city water is solved)
hand sanitizer/cleaner
lots of first aid, including bandages, alcohol, neosporin, antibiotics, etc.(already got hep A/B and tetnus shots)
Listerine, toothpaste, soap, shampoo
ziploc bags all sizes, 2 rolls aluminum foil
90 ea. D and AA batteries
1 1/2 cases wine, mostly reds
3 cases beer, mostly lagers
I bottle Irish
I bottle Kentucky
1 bottle Patron coffee tequila
5 half-pints Jim Beam (said to be very good bribes for National Guardpatrols when you're caught after curfew)
3 cartons Camel Filters
2 bags Bugler with papers
3 lbs coffee (and cans of evaporated milk--yuck)
candles, battery-operated mini-flourescents, maglites, million-candlepowerspot
1 pump shotgun w/ alternating loads triple-ought and double-ought fourpatch kit and 12-volt air pump (friend B says he's patched TWENTY flats inthe past 3 weeks, mostly from roofing nails in the road)

Not really a return to civilization

Why Is This Called MOSAIC?

2005-10-03T06:25:00.000-07:00

When I hear the word "mosaic," I think about the craft of pulling together lots of diverse pieces into a whole, but in a way that exhibits structure.

This comes into play when thinking about the New Orleans community. Anyone who knows the city well understands the bad that goes with the good. It was a very segregated place racially and economically. Can a restoration bring the various fragments of the city together, or will some pieces (those who are most poor and/or African-American) get expelled out. In response to Katrina, are we even appreciating the diversity of New Orleans as city? There was a pretty vibrant Vietnamese community in the New Orleans area....what happened to them? If we think in terms of a mosaic to describe the diversity that was - and could stiill be - in the city, the cultural richness that is New Orleans' history can be maintained.

As an organizational theorist, I also think of "mosaic" in terms of structures to mobilize the independent efforts to support evacuees. Hundreds of thousands of evacuees with individual needs are out there, and large bureaucratic structures will fall short. If we rely on them, the responses will be too slow, will have too narrow a perception of needs, and will be too expensive. It is too difficult for bureaucratic structures to keep up with the variety of changing needs. A more complex structure is needed that is more organic, fluid, and network like. Yet this structure must show coherence with its diversity. A 'mosaic' like structure is needed to give root to the volunteer potential that exists on behalf of evacuees.

That's what we are building here at Dartmouth: a mosaic structure. Building it right will require the participation from a lot of people who live in different places and come from different walks of life. We're working on that. Being online is only a part of the project. It can't be the whole.

To-Do List For Community Revival

2005-10-02T08:45:00.000-07:00

The goal of this project is to create an open organization committed to helping New Orleans evacuees take steps towards community revival. An open organization is one where any motivated participant can contribute irrespective of personal identity, organizational membership, or geographic location.

The project originated from a recognition I made a few weeks ago. Because of the news coverage, the suffering of the people of New Orleans reached millions of people and touched them in a personal way. Many kinds of feelings were generated - shock, anger, disappointment, shame... Many also felt a strong need to help in some way. As I watched so many people donate money and goods, I also saw that we were all capable of doing more. Based on what I knew from my own research on open organizations, I had ideas on how to realize the untapped volunteer potential. Further, I realized that making this a term-length project in my management course would be the most original and unique learning experience that I could offer my students about how organizations work, and about many organizations will look like in the future.

Based on conversations with people who had been displaced, as well as others who have been in direct contact with displaced people, a theme began to emerge: Mobilization for Community Revival. As I spoke with many other people and received comments and feedback, I discovered the value of having a plan to translate this theme into actions. This plan consists of three major steps "to do."

The first of these steps is currently articulated as follows: Create detailed (but clear) representations of who evacuees are, where they are located, and the districts that they come from - available in forms that are most easily accessed and capable of dissemination - so that others will appreciate the diversity of evacuee needs and dispel simple characterizations and assumptions of who evacuees are and what they need.

Katrina-related Help and Communication

2005-10-01T11:01:00.000-07:00

I think one of the most signifcant (yet underreported) things about getting help to the New Olreans area is lack of phone access. The local area code - 504 - has had problems for WEEKS. It's ok if you have that area code and call out. Not so good if you're calling in. And I can't believe this problem has gone on for weeks. I can't believe it's not talked about much as part of the relief efforts. Part of the sense of disconnection that I've heard New Orleans evacuees describe is not knowing what's happening back in the city. This communications failure feeds into it. How much more assistance could be deployed if phones from the local area code worked? And it has been weeks since Katrina has struck. Cell phones from the New Orleans area code appear to have this problem even when the phone owner is from a distant place, far away from the Gulf Coast damage.

Personal Lifelines to Katrina Evacuees

2005-09-30T19:13:00.000-07:00

Today I was on the phone with Shelley, a New Hampshire resident who runs a group called SOS Helpers. She has a friend in Houston who goes to the Astrodome and identifies the needs of particular evacuee families. Once the friend identifies the family, goods and services, Shelley sends express shipments and/or arranges for other help. Who says that you can't reach evacuees from a distance...and she does it more with the phone and commerical shipping services than with the Internet.

Shelley had a lot to say about evacuees, how they are perceived, and the kinds of things that they need. Hope to talk to her more about this, and report it here in some form.

A Teach-In, But Lasting All Quarter Long

2005-09-28T16:28:00.000-07:00

Teach-ins are events held on college campuses, during a societal moment that could be an awakening of consciousness. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita are providing such a moment, and I'm sure that teach-ins related to the destruction of these hurricanes are being organized for students at different colleges nationwide. But why are they just for students? And why must the "teach-in" just last for a day?

I've designed this course-length project (MOSAIC) to be an awakening. My students will walk away from my course thinking differently about organizations, and about the kinds of impact they can make in the lives of others through organizing. And they will contribute to a mission that is greater than themselves: mobilization for community revival. It is an awesome task, but it can be tamed by taking it in pieces and working with others. That's the lesson worth practicing and learning.

But it makes little sense to me to confine this experience to members of my class, so this project is intended to be open. This is such an awesome task, it will take many more people outside the class to make a difference. It will take the participation of other students outside the class, as well as the participation of Dartmouth employees. In Thursday's class, we are also brainstorming ways to facilitate YOUR participation -- those reading this who are physically distant from us here in Hanover, NH.

Post-Katrina: Mobilization for Community Revival

2005-09-27T06:27:00.000-07:00

In the Thayer School of Engineering (where I teach), there's a course calledn ENGS "Engines" 21 which introduces undergraduates to engineering . In the course, students are presented with a general theme like Survival or Energy, and their task is to work in small groups to identify a particular target group, assess their needs within the theme, and develop a solution to those needs.

This MOSAIC project is a similar kind of thing for Thayer's Masters of Engineering Management (M.E.M.) students. My students have engineering degrees from Dartmouth and a variety of other schools. In additon, many have completed their first year of the MEM program and have therefore completed courses in marketing, optimization, operations, and finance. Some of my students have also completed courses at the Tuck School of Business, which I can see directly outside my office window.

The theme of this project is Mobilization for Community Revival. I've provided some initial guidelines and structure: this project will be done in the spirit of open-source software development (e.g., the Linux operating system) and the "open-source" political efforts that have emerged in recent years (e.g., the grassroots presidential campaign of Howard Dean).

Any motivated person can particpate - including YOU. Our task is to provide a structure to help you participate, drawing upon as large a pool of talent, social networks, and other resources as we can tap into. All so that we can make a difference for those who have lost so much since Hurricane Katrina. Today is Day 6 of the project. Our second class of the quarter is today.

Displaced students from New Orleans

2005-09-26T13:26:00.000-07:00

Many colleges and universities have welcomed displaced students from New Orleans, giving the students an opportunity to continue their studies. According to a recent graduate of Brown University that I know, a number of these students have used Facebook to reintegrate themselves quickly into a new community. You can change your campus affiliation from Tulane to New York University, and there you are: a whole new world of "virtual neighbors."

But what of the natives of New Orleans who live around the country? I met a Dartmouth student last week who evacuated with her parents. Now she's back on campus. She's not the kind of displaced student that we talk about at colleges and universities, but she's displaced too.

How Can Your Katrina Contribution Not Get Lost?

2005-09-25T10:42:00.000-07:00

How did Mandy Hotchkiss of Vermont come to organize a fundraiser this afternoon - with barbecue, silent auction, and local musicians - to benefit a Louisiana town damaged by Hurricane Katrina?

The name of the town (Grand Isle, Louisiana) surely caught her attention, because she lived in a county of the same name in Vermont. There was also the need to do something personal, something more than contributing to a large national organization. Hotchkiss observed: "...that's in a lot of people's mind these days: 'How can we do something and not get it lost?' "

In the coming weeks, members of my class will be developing a system to allow informal coordination among those who want to do something personal to help evacuees. There are obviously lots of needs to be addressed. Our focus is community, representation, and voice for those who have been displaced from their homes in New Orleans.

All the students in my class are very capable masters degree students with engineering backgrounds and interests in business. The critical challenge is for them to *not* build this system themselves. The emphasis instead is to actively seek and find the contributions (activities, services, solutions) of others, bringing attention to them online and providing an evolving map of what others are already doing to bring community, representation, and voice to the displaced people of New Orleans.

MOSAIC - the short description

2005-09-23T09:10:00.001-07:00

One of the many values of teaching is that it ensures we as faculty members become better explainers : )

Based on comments and questions from my students, a more succinct and direct description of this task is needed. How about this?

The task is to invent an open organization committed to helping New Orleans evacuees take steps to community reunion and revival. (An open organization is one where any motivated participant can contribute irrespective of personal identity, organizational membership, or geographic location -- my own definition based on research investigations of the phenomenon).

Local Gatherings Are Happening: Let's Make Them Visible Online

2005-09-23T05:27:00.000-07:00

The mission of Mosaic is to find and connect the different kinds of people who want to organize the displaced into local groups, so that they can identify and express their own needs for themselves.

There are many efforts out there already. They come in many different forms: cultural, political, and social. Many Black churches, for example, have taken in groups of evacuees. There are organizations like ACORN that generally focus on organizing low and middle income families. The NAACP chapter in Louisiana has called for the organization of "shelter committees." Also, numerous families evacuated together before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. And there are many social gatherings turning up all over the country, either organized by evacuees or some combination of evacuees and local people who want to support them. New Orleans Network is a website that lists a number of these events.

Most of these local gatherings just happen, and many people never hear about them. Posting something about these events online, as well as who is planning and organizing such events, can begin a process of seeing more widespread local gatherings for evacuees, wherever they may happen to be. There are all sorts of ideas and successes out there that might inspire others to do something.

More than a dozen students at Dartmouth have joined my Organizations course, which started yesterday. As part of the course, they will be working together to offer organizational and other assistance to those who are setting up local gatherings for evacuees. If you would like to accept our help, please email: mosaic@dartmouth.edu