Chapter 2: New Orleans East: Forgotten in the Flooding.

The purpose of this chapter is to highlight the current state of New Orleans East in terms of recovery after the storm. It will discuss what information the media produced in regards to the damage caused by Katrina in New Orleans East and the lasting impact the storm has had on the area. I will be drawing on personal experience and primary sources collected whilst on a research trip to the city which were then brought together and considered once I returned home. What follows is based not only on my research of the topic, but my personal ethnographic narrative which helped to formulate and shape a well-informed argument on an area of New Orleans not known about to those outside the local area. I will be using my experiences and photographic evidence to highlight how the Lower 9^th Ward was not the only poor neighbourhood to be devastated by Katrina and to show that to this day the east is yet to be rebuilt and restored. I will be making case studies of two of the more prominent landmarks, Pendleton Methodist Hospital and the Six Flags Amusement Park and how the lack of attention given to these places has had a negative impact on the community, as well as assessing possible reasons as to why the media has not covered the issues surrounding Pendleton and Six Flags.

The 9^th Ward is separated into three different areas; the Lower 9^th situated south and east of the Industrial Canal and the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, the Upper 9^th which is west of the canals, and Eastern New Orleans, which is east of the Industrial Canal and north of the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet also known as Mr Go as well as being in close proximity to Lake Pontchartrain. This map (figure 3, additional maps in appendix) displays the different Wards of New Orleans as well as the depth of flooding received, the 9^th Ward in yellow with the districts of Lake Kenilworth, Pines Village, Lake Forest East, Lake Forest West, Edgelake, Littlewoods, Plum Orchard, Bonita Park, Donna Villa, Camelot, and Village de L'Est closest to Lake Pontchartrain making up Eastern New Orleans.

Fig 3: Depth of flooding received by each ward.

When Katrina hit the city, the Mr Go situated in New Orleans east and the St Bernard wetlands, suffered from multiple breaches to the south and overtopping of the levees in the north caused by Lake Pontchartrain which led to the severe flooding of New Orleans East. In addition to this, Lakefront Airport an area within New Orleans East that is not within the primary levee protection zone was badly hit by Lake Pontchartrain’s strong storm surges.

Representation in the media of the areas within New Orleans that were hit the hardest by Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent flooding were not as accurate (meaning some areas were never mentioned or focused on) as they could have been or might have been expected. News media, on a national level focused primarily on the Lower 9^th Ward and frequently stated that it was the area affected most by the floods. For example, ABC News reported that “none suffered more than the lower ninth ward[1]”. However other regions, in particular Eastern New Orleans or New Orleans East as it is often referred to were equally damaged and in terms of recovery and reconstruction are far worse off than the Lower 9^th Ward which through media attention has received help from multiple sources, including celebrity Brad Pitt and his Make It Right Foundation[2] who are constructing FLOAT[3] houses, calling so because they are designed to withstand hurricanes and float during times of severe flooding whilst being cheap enough for low income families to afford. I am not arguing that the Make It Right Foundation and Brad Pit are wrong to be helping the Lower 9th, their work is a very positive thing and their results and efforts in the Lower 9^th Ward should be commended, what I want to concentrate on is the fact that other areas other than that one were hit and badly affected and should also receive the attention they deserve. There have been other projects to assist the lower 9^th ward in its rebuilding, including lowernine.org[4] and Lower 9^th Ward Neighbourhood Empowerment Network Association[5] (NENA) both volunteer and community based organisations as well as The Holy Cross Project in association with Global Green USA who give the following statement as their mission:

Help New Orleans rebuild green following Hurricane Katrina by building a sustainable neighborhood with affordable housing and a community center in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, one of the neighborhoods hardest hit by the devastating storm[6].

Volunteers have not just helped the area by giving their time to reconstruct the residents’ homes, but also their money to help improve the community in the long run. One such scheme is the Lower 9^th Ward Village, a non-profit organisation with the well-known saying ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ as their motto. They completed their initial campaign of building a community centre and have now started their second campaign of which they have $7,471 of the required $250,000[7].

The extent of the damage caused by flooding in New Orleans East is not as well documented as the Lower 9^th but it was considerable and even when visiting the district in 2012/2013 it is still very much visible. One of the most noticeable aspects was that while some of the homes have been rebuilt or repaired, approximately one third still remain abandoned, the primary reason for this being that there is no incentive for the residents to move back as the area is lacking in amenities and services such as healthcare, grocery stores or cinemas that help create and expand a community. The Greater New Orleans Community Data Centre keeps a record of the population statistics for each sub-district of New Orleans East and every single one of the six areas have suffered a decrease in population from 2000 to 2010 with some areas losing as many as 13,000 people[8]. In order to better understand the reasons for these decreases in population I will now use my chosen case studies which are examples of the lack of services I mentioned prior. Both studies also work as showcases for why the residents of New Orleans East feel ignored and forgotten about, although this neglect is something that will be looked at in greater detail in chapter three with regards to the city government’s economic decisions. 

Case Study 1: Pendleton Methodist Hospital and the Closure of Charity Hospital.

One key amenity that neighbourhoods require is a health service and in this area of New Orleans, the hospital Pendleton Methodist was closed after Katrina and to this day has still not been reopened which could be part of the reason former residents have not returned. It was this lack of a fundamental service and the desolate look of the area when visiting that provoked me to write about the east and to question why it is not more widely known of the issues residents are facing. If those currently in the area have an emergency then they have to travel approximately ten miles to the nearest hospital.  Prior to the storm New Orleans East was home to Pendleton Methodist, but was left empty afterwards due to extensive flood damage. Residents and the local council have been lobbying for years for a community hospital and only in January 2013 was there a groundbreaking ceremony to announce the construction of a new facility due for completion in the fall of 2013. At the ceremony were many of the city’s most prominent figures including the Archbishop Gregory Aymond who was quoted by New Orleans weekly publication, Gambit as saying that “a community becomes stable when it has good health care”[9] implying that the area has not been stable since Katrina yet there has been little mention amongst non-local media beyond announcement of the building work starting. The lack of reportage could be down to the fact that New Orleans East does not have appeal for tourists or those outside of the immediate area and therefore it does not warrant outside media attention, the lack of a hospital in the east has no effect on for example, the 1.2 million people[10] who descend on the French Quarter every year for Mardi Gras.

Media did publish news stories on one hospital in New Orleans, but it was not the Pendleton Methodist, instead it was the new University Medical Centre being built by Louisiana State University and Tulane University after the closure of Charity Hospital. Charity Hospital first opened in 1939 on Tulane Avenue in Lower Mid-City and for 175 years provided healthcare as well as medical training for those who could not usually afford it. Prior to Katrina the hospital’s patients were comprised of mostly African-Americans and of the 75% of African-Americans using the facility over two thirds of them were officially classed as low income[11]. The decision to build the new medical facility, University Medical Center has led to a feeling of injustice and discrimination against those most vulnerable in New Orleans as resident and news reporter for the New York Times, Adam Nossiter highlights whilst quoting a guard of Charity Hospital:

The only sound was from a security guard's television set. She had seen it all: gunshot victims, stabbing victims, rape victims, enraged arrestees, inmates, as well as legions of the uninsured."We had all that going on here," said the guard, Donna Jennings. "Now, we have nothing. This is just about where the average person came. Now, I don't know. Where are all the gunshot victims going to go[12]?"

 This feeling is something that media have caught hold of because scandal and a potentially racist government sells well, something that Nossiter has himself used in the past to create news[13], although it isn’t always the exact truth as resident Karen Gadbois says: “"[Race] becomes a player in the story but I'm not quite sure that it's always the player in the story that he makes it out to be[14]." However, this particular implication of racism and discrimination in regards to the closure of Charity is perpetuated successfully because the decision to close the hospital was made by the state government, despite a team of medical professionals and soldiers from the 82^nd Airborne Division fully cleaning and restoring the building so it could be reopened as soon as possible. Governor Kathleen Blanco claimed to not remember a conversation with Lt. Gen. Russel Honore in which she said “Well general, we're not going to open it, we're working on a different plan[15]” leading some to believe that those in charge of the city and those with the most money invested in the city used Katrina as an excuse to build the new medical center.

A former Charity hospital doctor, Dr. James Moises is one New Orleanian who agrees the government took advantage of the disaster, "It was their orchestrated plan. It was, 'How can we manipulate the disaster for institutional gains?[16]'" It is not just the government in office at the time of Katrina that has heightened feelings of injustice though as current Louisiana Governor, Bobby Jindal is greatly anticipating the new hospital because of his commitment to economic growth and medical research and teaching which does not leave space for public healthcare. Times Picayune writer Bill Barrow made the following statement in regards to Gov. Jindal and his administration in his article ‘Charity Hospital: The Times Picayune covers 175 years of New Orleans history’: “So insistent are Jindal aides that the state is not building a “Charity successor,” they do not even concede that UMC is a “public” hospital[17].”

The national magazine, The Nation ran an article in 2011 entitled ‘Why Was New Orleans‘s Charity Hospital Allowed To Die[18]?’ which while highlighting the economic scandal behind the closure of Charity also leads readers to believe that both African-Americans and low income households, those already affected the most by Katrina are now going to suffer more hardship with a lack of available healthcare because of a government that cares more about money than its citizens. Roberta Brandes Gratz for The Nation posed this opinion on the controversial closing of Charity Hospital:

The abandonment of the old Charity Hospital stands as a potent symbol of the many disappointments and betrayals experienced by the residents of New Orleans after Katrina. The loss has been a huge blow to the poor African-American community Charity served—an outcome that is all the more tragic, critics say, because it didn’t have to happen.

This is a sentiment shared by the Save Charity Hospital campaigners who believe that the local authorities and the government cannot be trusted and that the new hospital is marginalising the African-American community. As webmaster of savecharityhospital.com argues:

The decision to hastily shutter Charity Hospital is striking in its brazen disregard for the consequences on those that were already marginalized in society and only further victimized by the levee failure and the incapable federal response[19].

To make statements like this though fails to recognise that while 88% of those within living distance of University Medical Center are minorities and could feel as though they are being discriminated against, New Orleans as a whole is a minority city with 60.2% of the population identifying themselves as black on the 2010 census, making this minority group a majority in the city. What this could mean for the city on a wider scale is that there is an ever growing sense of suspicion and mistrust towards local government, especially so amongst New Orleans east’s least affluent who have had no local medical care since 2005 yet the city and LSU are building a state of the art medical centre in New Orleans proper and therefore the steep population decline is not surprising. However, even with access to healthcare New Orleans east still fails to show itself to be a neighbourhood worth living in as it is void of shopping facilities or entertainment such as theatres, giving people little reason to return or stay in the area. Whilst this information is known to those residents who are faced with everyday views of derelict buildings on every street, it is not known to anyone who has not visited or is not familiar with New Orleans which also highlights the importance of my personal ethnographic research.   

Case Study Two: Six Flags Amusement Park, symbolic of the neglect in New Orleans East.

Whilst an amusement park is not as essential to a community and certainly is not as necessary as a hospital, the abandoned Six Flag is significant because it acts as a constant reminder of Katrina to those who live there and is symbolic of how the neighbourhood as a whole has been forgotten and left to rot, as it was neither reopened or demolished after it was badly flooded with up to 7 feet of water when the park’s drainage pumps failed.

Six Flags is still in the process of settling claims with its insurers due to substantial damage caused by Hurricane Katrina. As a result, Six Flags New Orleans will remain closed for the 2007 season. We know that it is still a difficult time for the residents of New Orleans, and we remain committed to working with the city in support of the recovery efforts[20].

Fig 4: Six Flags Amusement Park Dormant.

Considering that Six Flags is a well-known brand of amusement park with seventeen parks around the United States, one in Canada and another in Mexico, the confusion and controversy surrounding the rebuilding and the future of the New Orleans Park was not at all well documented beyond local media. The park was the least profitable of the Six Flags venues before Katrina and after the flood the damage was appraised at $32.5 million, which ultimately led to it being abandoned as it wasn’t considered a good investment or worth rebuilding. A sentiment repeated by Dennis Speigel, the president of International Theme Park Services in an article run by The Times Picayune in 2009, "It was an ill-conceived concept in the wrong location and it just should not have been built. It's just one of those things you ought to bury it and let it go[21]." What the Times Picayune does not mention is that Spiegel was still working as an advisor to Six Flags at one of their parks in Texas meaning he could have had his own reasons for saying what he did, especially as this article was written whilst Six Flags was still under contract to lease the New Orleans site. However in a news bulletin entitled Lost Landmarks by New Orleans based television channel WDSU 6, it was said the park had been a financial success for the two years it was open and that it had provided a lot of jobs for the younger people in the area. An opinion that was backed by Mayor Ray Nagin who at the time still thought a theme park in that location would work to regenerate the area, councilman Arnie Fielkow also expressed this saying it would be a “catalyst that would spur other economic development projects in New Orleans east[22]. “

Incidentally twelve days after the article was published the city of New Orleans asked Six Flags to vacate and fined them $3 million and the park has continued to remain dormant since. This still failed to make much impact in non-local media, The Atlantic posted photos of the park as it was in 2010 with a brief comment on Six Flags vacating even though it had been a year since the lease was terminated, and did not mention the impact the abandoned park would have on the local area or that it was in a once well populated neighbourhood, the writer Julie Dermansky says the park was on the “eastern edge of the city[23]”.  If the park had been based in a more central location or within New Orleans proper then the media attention would more than likely have been detailed and extensive as it is the area that attracts tourists and their money. It has to be considered that this article was only posted because it was five years to the day that Katrina had hit at time of publication as well as the fact Dermansky was based in New Orleans at the time.

To try and come to a conclusive answer as to why New Orleans East has been left to fight for itself is a difficult task. There is one theory behind the idea of a bias media which is put forward by American political theorist and activist, Noam Chomsky in his book Manufacturing Consent. Chomsky is of the opinion that the media no longer looks out for the best interest of the public but favours certain agendas: “the "societal purpose" of the media is to inculcate and defend the economic, social, and political agenda of privileged groups that dominate the domestic society and the state[24].” He argues that the media now uses a number of framing devices to perpetuate negative stereotypes, “reify the image of minorities as criminals and welfare leeches[25].” If this is the case then the reason media reported that New Orleans had recovered and has not focused on the east is because to show the rest of the world the poor condition and blight of some neighbourhoods eight years after the storm would have a negative impact on the economy to the point where some tourists and businesses may decide to go elsewhere. It would also not be in the local government’s or even the state government’s best interest for the lack of recovery and rebuilding to be public knowledge, especially as in the immediate aftermath the federal government was blamed for the poor response yet with eight years to respond local government is only now giving New Orleans East a hospital. If the media is there to defend the agenda of those in power, then Ray Nagin and his administration are to blame for a lack of reportage on areas still decimated. However, the aim of this chapter was to highlight the east which I have done and discuss how the media has largely ignored it, chapter three will discuss the economic decisions made in the aftermath of Katrina, including Nagin’s illegal actions of giving tax breaks and taking bribes which has contributed to the prolonged delay rebuilding.

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[1] Hopper, J. (2010). Katrina at Five: The Lower Ninth Ward. Available at: http://abcnews.go.com/WN/katrina-lower-ninth-ward/story?id=11488921. Last accessed 20th January 2013.

[2] Make It Right. (2012). Rebuilding Better: New Orleans. Available at: http://makeitright.org/. Last accessed 21st January 2013.

[3] ArchDaily. 2012. The FLOAT House - Make it Right/Morphosis Architects. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.archdaily.com/259629/make-it-right-house-morphosis-architects/. [Accessed 24 January 13].

[4] lowernine.org. 2013. About. [ONLINE] Available at: http://lowernine.org/wordpress/about-2/. [Accessed 25 January 13].

[5] NENA. 2006. Reclaim, Rebuild, Return. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.9thwardnena.org/home. [Accessed 24 January 13].

[6] Global Green USA. 2011. Holy Cross Project in New Orleans. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.globalgreen.org/articles/global/68. [Accessed 24 January 13].

[7] Lower 9th Ward Village. 2011. Together, lets make it happen! Lower Ninth Ward Village. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.lower9thwardvillage.org/new/. [Accessed 24 January 13].

[8] GNOCDC. (2011). New Orleans East Area. Available at: http://www.gnocdc.org/. Last accessed 21st January 2013.

[9] Maldonado, C. (2013). Photos: Groundbreaking ceremony for New Orleans East Hospital. Available at: http://www.bestofneworleans.com/blogofneworleans/archives/2013/01/11/photos-groundbreaking-ceremony-for-new-orleans-east-hospital. Last accessed 21st January 2013.

[10] The Expeditioner. 2011. Fat Tuesday 2011: Mardi Gras By The Numbers. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.theexpeditioner.com/2011/03/08/fat-tuesday-2011-mardi-gras-by-the-numbers/. [Accessed 31 January 13].

[11] Save Charity Hospital. 2013. Racial & Economic Justice. [ONLINE] Available at: http://savecharityhospital.com/racial-and-economic-justice. [Accessed 31 January 13].

[12] The New York Times. 2005. Dispute Over Historic Hospital for the Poor Pits Doctors Against the State. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/17/national/nationalspecial/17charity.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0. [Accessed 31 January 13].

[13] Adam Nossiter was accused of racism when he wrote an article saying that African Americans were most to blame for violence committed against Hispanics as well as profiling Karen Gadbois when she helped to uncover misuse of federal funds by a charity organisation.

[14] American Journalism Review. 2009. Farewell to New Orleans. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.ajr.org/article.asp?id=4778. [Accessed 31 January 13].

[15] The Guardian. 2009. Honore: Ex-La. governor halted hospital reopening. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/8607619. [Accessed 31 January 13].

[16] The Times Picayune. 2009. Honore: Ex-La. governor halted hospital reopening. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.nola.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/national-14/1247602932182830.xml&storylist=hurricane. [Accessed 24 January 13].

[17] Barrow, B. 2012. Charity Hospital: The Times Picayune covers 175 years of New Orleans history. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.nola.com/175years/index.ssf/2012/02/charity_hospital_the_times-pic.html. [Accessed 24 January 13].

[18] Gratz, R. (2011). Why Was New Orleans's Charity Hospital Allowed To Die?. Available at: http://www.thenation.com/article/160241/why-was-new-orleanss-charity-hospital-allowed-die?page=0,0. Last accessed 21st January 2013.

[19] Ackerman, E. (2013). Racial & Economic Justice. Available at: http://savecharityhospital.com/racial-and-economic-justice. Last accessed 21st January 2013.

[20] Statement from Six Flags that remained on its official website for three years until it was taken down.

[21] White, J. 2009. The failures of the Jazzland and Six Flags theme parks have not quelled dreams for another eastern New Orleans complex. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.nola.com/business/index.ssf/2009/09/the_failures_of_the_jazzland_a.html. [Accessed 23 January 13].

[22] White, J. 2009. The failures of the Jazzland and Six Flags theme parks have not quelled dreams for another eastern New Orleans complex.

[23] Dermansky, J. 2010. Six Flags New Orleans: 5 Years Later. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/08/six-flags-new-orleans-5-years-later/62196/. [Accessed 23 January 13].

[24] Noam, Chomsky and Edward Herman., Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988)

[25] Voorhees, C.W., Vick J., Perkins, D.D., ‘Came Hell and High Water: The Intersection of Hurricane Katrina, the News Media, Race and Poverty,’ Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, no. 17 (2007) pp. 418.