Special Coverage: Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina

Coverage of Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath.

Shock and Tasers in New Orleans

Naomi Klein, Huffington Post. December 22, 2007.
The shameless exploitation of poor New Orleans residents to privatize public infrastructure is being enforced by violence and tasers.

Bush Wildfires Response Can't Atone For Katrina Blunder

Earl Ofari Hutchinson, AlterNet. October 25, 2007.
Too bad Bush didn't race aid to the Gulf Coast as quickly as he did to Southern California.

From the Bayou to Baghdad: Mission Not Accomplished

Amy Goodman, King Features Syndicate. September 5, 2007.
Bush flew from the bayou to Baghdad as a People's Hurricane tribunal in New Orleans put every level of government on trial. What was the verdict?

After Katrina -- Poverty Is Still America's Shame

Earl Ofari Hutchinson, New America Media. August 29, 2007.
The naked face of poverty that shocked the world two years ago remains just as naked and shameful two years later. And Bush and the Democrats are to blame for it.

Hurricane Katrina: Who's to Blame for this Unnatural Disaster

Ari Kelman, The Nation. August 29, 2007.
A batch of new books on Hurricane Katrina investigate who is responsible for the tragedy.

What New Orleans Looks Like Two Years Later [VIDEO]

Robert Greenwald, Brave New Films. August 29, 2007.
Tens of thousands of families in the Gulf Coast region are still without homes, and there is something very specific you can do to help.

In the Lawless Post-Katrina Cleanup, Construction Companies Are Preying on Workers

Brian Beutler, Media Consortium. July 16, 2007.
After Hurricane Katrina pummeled the Gulf Coast, construction companies have squeezed billions out of federal contracts with few labor regulations and almost no oversight, allowing outrageous worker abuses to occur.

Dying for a Home: Toxic Trailers Are Making Katrina Refugees Ill

Amanda Spake, The Nation. February 15, 2007.
FEMA-supplied trailers for displaced Gulf Coast residents have been found to emit formaldehyde vapors, causing serious health problems.

Katrina's Victims Of Ideology

Isaiah J. Poole, TomPaine.com. September 12, 2006.
Conservatives' contempt for government is at the root of the failed response to the hurricane.

Don't Let Insurers Shirk Their Duty

Nomi Prins, AlterNet. August 31, 2006.
New laws must prevent abuse by companies that are squirming out of paying Katrina victims.

An Unhappy Anniversary

The Progress Report. August 30, 2006.
The financial, emotional, and human costs of Hurricane Katrina have been absolutely staggering -- and they aren't subsiding yet.

When Government Shrugs: Lessons of Katrina

Adolph L. Reed Jr., The Progressive. August 29, 2006.
Public policies designed to serve the narrow interests of business and the affluent are the ultimate cause of New Orleans' devastation.

The GOP Has More to Rebuild Than New Orleans

Earl Ofari Hutchinson, AlterNet. August 28, 2006.
A crushing majority of blacks still blame Bush's bungled Katrina response not on incompetence, but on racism.

Blowin' in the Mississippi Wind

Chad Heeter, Tomdispatch.com. May 22, 2006.
How has FEMA 'prepared' Gulf Coast residents for storm season 2006? By doing next to nothing, of course.

New Orleans: Repeating Its Mistakes?

Mia White, AlterNet. May 19, 2006.
On the eve of New Orleans' mayoral runoff, we must ensure that the area's displaced retain a voice in who will be their city's next leader.

Recovering from Another Great Disaster

Mason Gaffney, Dollars and Sense. April 18, 2006.
How is it possible that San Francisco survived after the 1906 earthquake and fire, when a top economist says New Orleans cannot?

Who Is Killing New Orleans?

Mike Davis, The Nation. April 4, 2006.
Despite promises of a substantive debate on urban poverty, plans to reconstruct New Orleans are falling into the hands of a white elite.

The Sweetness of the Smoking Gun

Toby Barlow, Huffington Post. March 3, 2006.
There's President Bush, on video for the world to see, offering hollow assurances that we were prepared for Hurricane Katrina.

Fifty Dollars and a Dream

Billie Mizell, AlterNet. March 2, 2006.
In Katrina's aftermath in New Orleans, an unlikely group of four men -- white and black, old and young -- came together to form a relief collective unlike any other.

Masking New Orleans

Fatima Shaik, In These Times. February 28, 2006.
On the first post-Katrina Mardi Gras, the festivities just disguise the fact that New Orleans is a hollower, whiter, and richer place than it was a year ago.

Remembering New Orleans

Kristina Rizga, WireTap. February 27, 2006.
Six months after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, some resident-writers look back on the good, the bad and everything in between.

Excerpt: These Streets Are Ours

Ashley Nelson, Ebony Bolding, WireTap. February 27, 2006.
A new series of books, written by young people in some of New Orleans' poorest neighborhoods, chronicles life in the Big Easy prior to Hurricane Katrina.

Hurricane Katrina's Emotional Hangover

Maria Luisa Tucker, AlterNet. February 6, 2006.
Passionate opposition to New Orleans' proposed rebuilding plan has hundreds of survivors trekking to D.C. to voice their objections.

Haunted by Katrina

Dani McClain, WireTap. February 4, 2006.
An uprooted family from the Gulf region tries to make sense of New York and cope with the emotional and psychological effects of forced migration.

New Orleans Voices: Denise and Richard

Alive in Truth. January 28, 2006.
Two evacuated New Orleans residents, now living in Austin, Texas, remember the horror of Katrina and its nightmarish after-effects.

A New Year in New Orleans

Wayne Emilien, Campus Progress. January 25, 2006.
New Orleans has become home to opportunism. But for natives, it has yet to become home again.

(More) Loss and Displacement in New Orleans

Jordan Flaherty, Jennifer Vitry, AlterNet. January 12, 2006.
The 1,400 working-class households in this housing project are returning to find their homes destroyed not only by Katrina, but by thieves.

A Hurricane of Differences

Glen Ford, Peter Gamble, The Black Commentator. January 10, 2006.
African Americans and whites perceived the government's failed response to Katrina in drastically different ways.

'They' Destroyed New Orleans

Kenneth Cooper, AlterNet. December 24, 2005.
When it comes to explaining why the levees broke, many otherwise reasonable New Orleanians are quick to believe in conspiracy theories.

New Orleans Stories: Mary Elizabeth B.

Alive in Truth. December 17, 2005.
In the immediate aftermath of the hurricane, one woman's story of suffering, survival and eventual rescue.

Goodbye, New Orleans

Mike Tidwell, OrionOnline.org. December 9, 2005.
The Bush administration has given New Orleans a quiet kiss of death with its final Katrina budget package. If we can't rebuild it right, we may as well kiss it goodbye.

New Orleans Neighborhoods Struggling to Rebuild

Jessica Azulay, The NewStandard. November 26, 2005.
FEMA has so far been unable or unwilling to provide trailers to many who need somewhere to live while they rebuild their homes and lives.

From Hurricane To Homelessness

Zachary Slobig, Berkeley Daily Planet. November 23, 2005.
The clock is ticking for evacuees of Hurricane Katrina, with a Dec. 1 FEMA deadline approaching that will end the payment program subsidizing their transitional accommodations.

Personal Voices: An Unnatural Disaster

Emma Dixon, AlterNet. November 19, 2005.
Persistent institutional racism not only made recovery from Hurricane Katrina more difficult, it created the conditions that allowed the horrors to happen.

Police Still Harassing New Orleans Relief Workers

Jessica Azulay. November 17, 2005.
The arrest and alleged abuse of an activist is just the latest incident for local relief workers, who have complained of harassment since the early days after Katrina.

New Orleans Stories: Don

Alive in Truth. November 14, 2005.
A local artist recalls the eight days he spent in a boat rescuing people (340) and pets (12 dogs, eight cats and two birds), post-Katrina.

What To Take From the Flood

Kristin Van Tassel, AlterNet. November 10, 2005.
Hurricane Katrina and other recent natural disasters remind us that our technology cannot always save us -- but our neighbors just might.

Rebuilding a New New Orleans

Sarah Kraybill, Grist.org. November 5, 2005.
A collection of environmental, political, and academic leaders share their unique visions for reconstructing the Big Easy post-Katrina.

How Katrina Keeps on Hurting

Neil Peirce, Stateline.org. November 1, 2005.
The flood waters have receded and residents are rebuilding their lives, but the Bush Administration's failure to take charge of the reconstruction will leave deep scars across the nation.

Katrina: Rumors, Lies, and Racist Fantasies

Slavoj Zizek, In These Times. October 31, 2005.
A look at the frenzy of fantasies and rumors that the media reported as facts while New Orleans flooded.

New Orleans Voices: Clarice B.

Alive in Truth. October 29, 2005.
The first-person account of one woman's situation in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Gentrifying Diversity

Mike Davis, Mother Jones Online. October 28, 2005.
Hurricane Katrina may prove to be the biggest 'urban-renewal' project black America has seen.

Katrina: The Movement

Makani Themba-Nixon, AlterNet. October 27, 2005.
The silver lining of the misery of Hurrican Katrina is that communities are coming together to fight back.

Missing the Katrina Moment

Susan J. Douglas, In These Times. October 26, 2005.
The Democratic leadership seems somehow unable to grasp the huge gap in outrage between them and their base.

Katrina Reveals America's Other Poor

Daniel B. Wood, Christian Science Monitor. October 25, 2005.
Congress may waste a golden opportunity to address the nation's long-term poverty problems by cutting back social services to pay for the reconstruction effort.

Katrina: How Quickly They Forget

The Progress Report. October 22, 2005.
America remains completely unprepared for natural disasters -- after Bush promised to make 'emergency planning a national priority.'

Compassion For the Few

Howard Karger, AlterNet. October 21, 2005.
It's nice of the federal government to exempt hurricane victims from the harshest part of the new bankruptcy law -- but what about other debtors?

DIY Disaster Relief

Andrew Gumbel, LA CityBeat. October 20, 2005.
The government has proven it has no plan for disaster relief -- not in Louisiana, not in L.A. or New York, not anywhere.

A Better New Orleans is Possible

Van Jones, AlterNet. October 19, 2005.
Will the reconstruction effort for the city be politics as usual, or can we rebuild it as a model city and beacon for possibility?

Framing Katrina

George Lakoff, John Halpin, The American Prospect. October 18, 2005.
With millions of Americans displaced, injured or dead in the disaster's aftermath, America watched modern conservative ideology -- less government, lower taxes, a strong defense -- crumble.

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