Building and Rebuilding Community by Design: New Orleans and the Legacy of Katrina
| Publication year | 2016 |
Building and Rebuilding Community by Design: New Orleans and the Legacy of Katrina
Ambassador James A. Joseph
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Thank you very much, Madame Provost. I want to start with offering congratulations on holding this gathering, and I particularly want to commend Professor John Marshall for organizing it, and all his colleagues who organized it with him. You have no better resource about the legacy of New Orleans than John.
The luncheon speech reminds me of an experience I had when I was in the Carter administration. I was in the South Pacific to swear in the newly elected governor, and I was invited to address the joint session of the legislature. Just before I was scheduled to speak, I leaned over to the speaker of the assembly and said, "Mr. Speaker, how long do I have to speak?" He said, "Mr. Undersecretary, you are our guest, you may speak as long as you wish. However, I must caution you that in about twenty-five to thirty minutes the lights are scheduled to go off across the island."
I know that this nice new building would not have that problem, but if you lend me your ear for about twenty-five to thirty minutes, I
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want to offer a few observations that come out of my experience as a former chair of the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation, and as one who was born and raised in Louisiana.
Psychiatrist and writer Scott Peck once wrote, "We build community out of crisis and we build community by accident, but we do not know how to build community by design." The problem with building community out of crisis, he argued, is that once the crisis is over, so usually is the spirit of community.
Nowhere has there been a better test of this hypothesis than in the ten years since Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast; displacing over one million people, damaging more than a million homes, and taking 1800 lives. While there are many ways to consider the lessons learned, my own reflection is through the lens of three distinct responses to the disaster: relief, recovery, and reform.
The most immediate response was relief. It was the period in which the disaster was most dramatic, the public attention most pervasive, and the public response most immediate. Survival was at stake, and there was an outpouring of public support to provide relief from suffering and to maintain order. At this stage, individuals and governments from around the world contributed millions of dollars. Nonprofit organizations and charities contributed thousands of volunteers. It was also a period in which we learned much about the relationship between leadership and context. This was a stage that required strong, authoritarian leadership to bring order to the chaos.
The next stage in the disaster response continuum was recovery, taking stock of what had happened, working together to return both private and public life to normalcy, and reinforcing the need for prevention and mitigation of future disaster. I returned to New Orleans several weeks ago along with people from around the world
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to honor the lives lost, celebrate the resilience of Louisiana's people, assess the recovery efforts, and engage in dialogue about the future.
Mitch Landrieu, the mayor of New Orleans, reported that through resolve, determination, and commitment, the city had not only come back, but it was being built better and stronger than before. Many claim that New Orleans has become a national model for urban resilience. 74,000 new jobs have been created by the tourism industry alone. Nine billion dollars has been dispersed to 130,000 pre-Katrina homeowners to help rebuild their homes. And it is reported that the levies are stronger and higher with the world's largest drainage pumping station. For those who wonder about the culinary legacy, pundits are reporting that the gumbo has not lost its flavor and even the crawfish seem to taste better.
I could go on and on about the recovery data that was provided by the city of New Orleans indicating that it is one of the fastest growing cities in the country, that the economy is growing and diversifying, and that the city has...
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