New Orleans: a City Historically at Risk

OHIO ACADEMY OF HISTORY NEWSLETTER SPRING 2011 “Diagram showing What’s Inside: the inundated District Sauvé’s Crevasse May 3rd New Orleans: A City Historically 1849. Facsimilie of an old at Risk 1 drawing.” From Report on the Social Statistics Call for Submissions for Fall of Cities, Compiled by 2011 Newsletter 1 George E. Waring, Jr., United States. Census 2011 Spring meeting information 3 Office, Part II, 1886. Courtesy of the University News and Announcements 4 of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas Quit Dreaming: The Religious at Austin. Right is Here to Stay 5 Amendments to the Constitution to be Voted on at the Spring Meeting 7 New Orleans: Big Changes at the Ohio Historical Society! 8 A City Historically at Risk Fall Meeting Minutes 9 Over its nearly three centuries of existence, Many of the old buildings that attract tourists New Orleans has had numerous nicknames: to the French Quarter are consequently Span- Financial Report 10 “The Gateway to the Mississippi Valley,” ish, not French, in design. After the Americans “The Paris of the United States,” “America’s gained control in 1803, the disasters seemingly Distinguished Historian Most Interesting City” and the “Crescent assumed a cyclical pattern. Each spring the Award Winner 11 City.” Two more recent designations have melting snow and ice in the Midwest swelled Executive Council and Officers 12 been “The City That Care Forgot” and “The the waters of the Mississippi River and Big Easy,” an apparent creation of the 1970s. threatened to inundate the city. Each summer, Nominations for Spring 2011 Both of the latter refer to the light-hearted increasing heat brought the danger of rampant Meeting 13 reputation of the city, its renown for good disease. food, hot music, historic places and loose In 1849, for instance, a cholera epidemic living. What happens in New Orleans may ravaged the community, killing three thousand. not stay there, but it is often fun and frequently Four years later, a yellow fever outbreak Call for Submissions for pretty wild. Thoughts of New Year’s Eve on carried away more than twelve thousand souls, Fall 2011 Newsletter Bourbon Street and “earning” beads during one in every fifteen residents. Local wags joked Mardi Gras come rapidly rushing to the fore. darkly that the absence of able-bodied work- Mayor Mitch Landrieu and the New men would soon force the dead to dig their own Orleans Convention Bureau and the Chamber graves. In 1878, another yellow fever epidemic The Ohio Academy of History requests of Commerce are quick to assure tourists devastated New Orleans and much of the Mis- news and announcements from mem- that the city is still open for business, but sissippi Valley, causing 20,000 deaths. Floods bers for the Fall 2011 Ohio Academy few Americans could ignore the devastation also took their toll. In 1849, the collapse of a caused by Hurricane Katrina six years ago. No levee near Carrollton, a suburb, sent a torrent of History newsletter. We are interest- rational human being could deny that the city of water surging toward the metropolis that ed in hearing about promotions, new suffered a major wound and, for a variety of ultimately inundated 220 city blocks. For more appointments, publications, conference reasons ranging from governmental incompe- than forty days, New Orleans was underwater. presentations, grants received, prizes tence to corruption to media fatigue, recovery On any given day, one thousand boats of has proceeded slowly. New Orleans suffered various sizes plied the town’s currents. The and awards, retirements, obituaries, damage unprecedented in the history of urban New Orleans Weekly Delta deemed the flood etc. Please send your department’s America. What most observers, however, do “one of the most destructive calamities which news and announcements to Dr. Martin not realize is that devastation is no stranger ever visited our city.” Authorities made to the citizens of New Orleans. Since its the Global Ballroom downtown a refuge Wainwright at mwainwright@uakron. founding, the cataclysmic woes of fire, flood and pitched sixty tents on the Place d’Armes edu by July 15, 2011. and pestilence have befallen the Crescent City. (present-day Jackson Square), but these During the late eighteenth century, uncon- measures could not accommodate all of trolled conflagrations upon two occasions the victims. Many who found their way to destroyed large sections of the colonial town. dry ground had no shelter. In 1927 the city 1 New Orleans: A City Historically at Risk (Continued) narrowly escaped the wrath of the great flood percent of the city’s residents lacked electricity, Schiro successfully lobbied Congress to obtain that destroyed the Lower Mississippi Valley. and over 200,000 homes had no telephone specific aid for New Orleanians. The Betsy In the twentieth century, medical science service. Several low-lying areas battled Act helped residents to rebuild and paved and technology brought some relief from these flooding. In the Ninth Ward, a levee breach on the way for federal flood insurance. Philip C. calamities. Walter Reed’s discovery that the the Industrial Canal sent water crashing into a Ciaccio, Ninth Ward councilman and mosquito was the vector for yellow fever led neighborhood of mainly working-class people, the mayor’s political foe, acknowledged that to the prevention and treatment of that disease. black and white. The flooding continued into Schiro subsequently channeled municipal and In 1905 New Orleans suffered its last yellow adjacent St. Bernard Parish. Many sections federal funds into his district because the need fever epidemic. Improved sanitation and of the city resembled vast inland seas with was so great. The mayor’s effort ultimately inoculations, furthermore, spelled the end people clinging desperately to rooftops. One fostered the emergence of independent African of other horrible illnesses. In 1928 Congress observer estimated that there were 65,000 American black political organizations that passed a flood control act that provided refugees. would profoundly affect the future. Until his $325,000,000 for the construction of spillways As Mayor Victor H. Schiro and his staff death, Victor Schiro proudly accepted the title, and levees that would regulate the flow toured the city to assess damage and to the “Hurricane Mayor.” of the Mississippi River. address problems, the chief executive made Hurricane Betsy, of course, was not Medical knowledge and federal dollars, two important decisions. The first was to quell Katrina. In 1965, the damage that the city however, could not subdue the elements; crazy rumors. The mayor resolved this matter sustained was paltry in comparison to the hurricanes still vexed the Crescent City. The in an unintentionally humorous way. During devastation that Katrina wrought. In August first recorded storm befell Spanish explorers a television interview, Schiro advised citizens 2005, eighty percent of the city was under- near the mouth of the Mississippi River and not to believe any false rumors “unless they water and 500,000 residents were scattered to damaged their ships on October 23, 1527. In came from him.” His second decision was a the winds. Those who stayed behind were in 1722, four years after the founding of New more sober realization that city government dire straits. Damage to transportation routes Orleans, a hurricane destroyed the St. Louis could not cope with the crisis. The mayor and communications was unprecedented. The church, the area hospital and numerous dwell- declared, “This is the most serious thing that government, with its ponderous bureaucracy, ings, convincing many observers that the site has ever happened to us. There has been noth- became a hindrance, not an aid as it had been was unfit for the colonial capital. While ing comparable in my lifetime.” Schiro called in Vic Schiro’s time. detection and tracking of the dreaded tropical the White House. One former resident has recently pro- cyclones improved during the twentieth With the Louisiana congressional delega- claimed that the city is dead, worthy of an century, modern meteorology still provided tion’s powerful backing, the mayor convinced obituary, but the Crescent City’s demise, like no means to control them. President Lyndon B. Johnson to come to that of Mark Twain, has been greatly exag- On September 29, 1915, for example, New Orleans. LBJ at first begged off, vowing gerated. Today’s New Orleans has shared one a fierce hurricane struck New Orleans. The to send his best man. Senator Russell Long vital quality with its earlier versions. It keeps violence of the storm caused five million retorted, “We aren’t…interested in your best coming back. As the words on a makeshift dollars in damage and called into question man.” Johnson originally planned to fly into sign propped alongside a flooded building the reliability of the ten-foot levees that the city, make a speech and depart. Schiro, announced in proper Crescent City vernacu- supposedly protected the city. 275 people in however, convinced the president to visit lar, “Dawlin,’ the Big Easy will rise again.” the region died, a number that included many the Ninth Ward and view the flooded areas Amid the elements of despair, there are citizens who refused to evacuate low-lying personally. The experience moved Johnson. indications of hope. The FEMA trailers are on areas despite adequate warning of the impend- He told the diminutive Schiro, “Little Mayor, the way out. The tourist industry is rebound- ing storm. In August 1947, a storm with a this is horrible. I’ve never seen anything like ing. The number of tourists is not so great, but diameter of twenty-five miles passed directly it in my life.” LBJ promised to place federal the amount that they are spending is. Despite over the city. Adjacent Jefferson Parish was resources at the city’s disposal and stated, numerous delays, individuals have taken it under six feet of water.

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