An Unnatural Disaster: the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina by Member Scholars of the Center for Progressive Reform
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An Unnatural Disaster: The Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina by Member Scholars of the Center for Progressive Reform A Center for Progressive Reform Publication September 2005 Introduction In the post-Katrina period, it is vital that those investigating the failure of our emergency management The extent of the human tragedy produced by Hurricane systems and institutions focus on the right questions. To Katrina has nearly overwhelmed our ability to the extent that the inquiries focus solely on examples of comprehend it. In the days immediately following the individual incompetence, however, there is ample reason hurricane, as the full scope of the tragedy revealed itself, to worry that they will not. Focusing on incompetence Americans began responding as they so often have in as the root cause of the problems risks ignoring the the past, with courage in the face of adversity, financial underlying conditions that made it easier, perhaps even generosity, acts of heroism great and small, and inevitable, for those public servants to fail. Indeed, the compassion and personal sacrifice. reaction to Katrina may be like the initial reaction to a Amid the outpouring of support for the evacuees and traffic accident in which a momentarily careless driver the commitments to rebuild, we have also witnessed a crashes into a tree at a curve in the road. Of course, the gathering storm of criticism. It is clear even at this early driver bears responsibility, but it may also be the case stage that the Hurricane Katrina tragedy is not a “wake- up call,” as some have described it; rather, it is a consequence This report is a collaborative effort of the following member of past wake-up calls unheeded. By any reasonable scholars and staff of the Center for Progressive Reform: measure, government failed the people of New Orleans. David M. Driesen, Syracuse University College of Law; Hurricane Katrina was a natural disaster of enormous Alyson Flournoy, University of Florida Levin College of proportion, but its tragic consequences have been made Law; Sheila Foster, Fordham Law School; Eileen Gauna, even worse by an unnatural disaster – the failure of our Southwestern University School of Law; Robert L. government adequately to anticipate, prepare for, and Glicksman, University of Kansas School of Law; Carmen respond to the devastation that the hurricane brought. G. Gonzalez, Seattle University School of Law; David J. Gottlieb, University of Kansas School of Law; Donald T. One very powerful message of the ideology that now Hornstein, University of North Carolina School of Law; dominates both the executive and legislative branches Douglas A. Kysar, Cornell Law School; Thomas O. of the federal government is that actions have McGarity, University of Texas Law School; Catherine A. consequences. The Katrina tragedy has demonstrated O’Neill, Seattle University School of Law; Clifford that inaction also has serious consequences. When a Rechtschaffen, Golden Gate University School of Law; society fails to protect its most vulnerable citizens – its Christopher Schroeder, Duke University School of Law; children, its struggling single mothers, its sick and its Sidney Shapiro, Wake Forest University School of Law; elderly – from the forces of nature and a winner-take-all Rena Steinzor, University of Maryland School of Law; system of economic rewards, consequences inevitably Joseph P. Tomain, The University of Cincinnatti College of ensue. These consequences are often hidden, either Law; Robert R.M. Verchick, Loyola University, New because the connection between governmental inaction Orleans; and Karen Sokol, CPR Policy Analyst. and human suffering is difficult to establish or because those who suffer the most are themselves at the margins For further information about the authors, please see page 43. of society. CPR Publication #512 Page 1 The Center for Progressive Reform that the transportation engineers who designed the road to bear – for preserving wetlands, eliminating the legacy with too little banking or too flimsy a guardrail of hazardous wastes discarded in our communities, contributed to the severity of the accident, as might the anticipating large-scale disasters and taking the politicians who decided that their favorite pork barrel appropriate steps to prepare for them, reacting quickly projects or their desires to give tax cuts to the well-to-do and flexibly with large-scale rescue and recovery were more important than funding the transportation operations after such disasters, having systems in place budget so that the road could be fixed. to coordinate governmental responses, and above all, for recognizing that the needs of the least powerful and New Orleans sat in the path of Katrina like a stretch of poorest among us are the special responsibility of road with too little banking and with no one having taken government. responsibility for its repair. In this case, the government failures that preceded Katrina and made it worse seem The proper response to Hurricane Katrina is action at to span a wide range of environmental, natural resource, every level of public life to restore the critical protections disaster-planning, and emergency-response functions for and safety nets that only government can provide for which we rely upon government. Identifying those the people. Government is the means through which systematic and programmatic contributors to the Katrina society has always sought to meet its larger responsibilities disaster will give us the information we need to demand to individuals who cannot adequately protect themselves that government do better. For too long, government without some assistance, and to protect the values that has been neglecting responsibilities that we count on it bring us together as a people. In examining the manifest failure of government laid bare in Katrina’s wake, it is vital that we examine the extent to which the enormity Table of Contents of the disaster was a product of poor policies and decisions, and equally critical that we initiate policy Introduction . 1 changes and reforms that will enable government to Executive Summary . 3 accomplish the tasks that Americans expect and demand Historical Roots of the Disaster . 10 of it before and after such events. Wetlands Policy . 10 This report analyzes key policy decisions, as well as actions Broken Levees . 12 and inaction under health, safety, and environmental laws, that could have better protected New Orleans from the Toxics in the Air and Water . 17 effects of Katrina before the hurricane and those that Implications for Energy Policy . 21 could have improved the emergency response in its wake. Emergency Response Planning In the area of public health, safety, and the environment, and Implementation . 23 the paper explores the implementation of wetlands law Failures in Evacuation Planning . 23 and policy, bad decisions regarding the construction and maintenance of the levee system designed to protect New Institutional Weaknesses Orleans, pollution prevention and clean-up laws, and and Failures in Implementation . 28 energy policy. In the area of emergency response, it The Two Americas . 34 reviews policy decisions related to evacuation, shelter, Who Was Most Vulnerable . 34 rescue, and relocation. It concludes by examining the Race, Class, and Justice . 36 overriding issue of how and why poor policy-making and short-sighted planning guaranteed that Katrina visited Moving Forward . 40 disproportionate suffering on New Orleanians who were The Conservative Vision . 40 poor and African-American. The Progressive Vision . 41 Some have begun to argue that the failures of government Notes . 44 counsel a course of reducing the responsibilities of government by waiving environmental and worker protections, shielding wrongdoers from liability, and Page 2 An Unnatural Disaster relying even more on the private sector. But using the Executive Summary Katrina disaster as an excuse to enact simplistic prescriptions for reducing governmental protections, In the weeks since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf limiting governmental accountability, and enriching Coast, much attention has been paid to the manifest favored business constituencies would be a serious failure of government rescue efforts. The searing images mistake. on Americans’ television screens, persisting for days after the storm had passed, demanded as much. But as cleanup Almost a century ago, tragedies like the great Galveston and rebuilding commence, a broader view is in order, Hurricane of 1900, which killed 6,000 people without one focused less on the apparent incompetence and warning, and the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist fire, which unpreparedness of the government officials charged with killed 146 immigrant female workers locked in a burning managing such emergencies, and more on the failures of building, made it impossible for the privileged few to policy-making and resource allocation leading up to the hide the consequences of a laissez-faire economy. The disaster. An examination of those failures leads to a progressive movement offered an alternative that stressed simple conclusion: the hurricane could not have been a positive role for government in fulfilling society’s prevented, and some flooding may have been inevitable, responsibilities to its citizens. Today, government must but at least some, and perhaps much, of the damage again play an active role in protecting its citizens from visited upon New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina could the visibly powerful forces of nature and from the less have been