At the End of our Ropes

Unless you’ve spent some time down here on the Gulf Coast, you’re unlikely to really understand the people that live down here. Hard scrabble is way of life. Historically, we’ve had systemic attacks on our people, our culture and our environment. The hostility runs pretty deep down here because the history of maltreatment runs pretty deep. There are several historical events that you really need to understand to understand the people of Southeastern Louisiana and the surrounding areas.

The first historical event to understand is the purposeful flooding of St Bernard Parish, Plaquemines Parish, and the lower ninth ward during the 1927 floods to protect the city’s financiers. These are the same areas that were devastated by the hurricane superhighway MRGO during Hurricane Katrina and the landfall of Hurricane Betsy in 1965.

As the flood approached New Orleans, Louisiana, about 30 tons of dynamite were set off on the levee at Caernarvon, Louisiana and sent 250,000 ft³/s (7,000 m³/s) of water pouring through. This was intended to prevent New Orleans from experiencing serious damage, but flooded much of St. Bernard Parish and all of Plaquemines Parish’s east bank. As it turned out, the destruction of the Caernarvon levee was unnecessary; several major levee breaks well upstream of New Orleans, including one the day after the demolitions, made it impossible for flood waters to seriously threaten the city.

By August 1927, the flood subsided. During the disaster, 700,000 people were displaced, including 330,000 blacks who were moved to 154 relief camps. Over 13,000 evacuees near Greenville, Mississippi, were gathered from area farms and evacuated to the crest of the unbroken Greenville Levee, and stranded there for days without food or clean water, while boats arrived to evacuate white women and children. The Greenville Levee was 8 feet wide and approximately 5 miles long.

The destruction of the levees then is so real to folks that it’s not unusual to hear community memories confuse three events down here of three different generations.  That would be the 1927 flood, Hurricane Betsy, and Hurricanes Katrina/Rita. I remember hearing my then boyfriend (pushing 60 now) who was born and raised here in the ninth ward saying ‘they’ve’ been trying to land grab in the lower nine for ever.  Now, any one that’s crossed the industrial canal can see–post-Hurricane Katrina–that side of the IC is a dead zone and there really are no businesses or thriving neighborhoods any more. (I can see both the levees industrial canal and the Mississippi from my house. I live within blocks of both.) Still, the legends persist during each storm that some one is blowing up the levees.

There is definitely a strong racial memory in this story even though a huge portion of the dislocated folks where actually poor and white.  This is because the treatment of all communities impacted by flooding of those areas was so noticeably different.  The treatment of whites and blacks in the post 1927  flooding event was amazingly different.  The food and housing given to the black community at the time was barely adequate.  There’s a community memory on this that is long-lasting and deep.

A good resource on this even is the book “Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America”.  I also recall seeing a public TV program around the 75th anniversary of the event.  I’ll continue to look for the link. I haven’t found it yet.

Another historical event that you have to consider is the systemic eradication of the Cajun/Creole culture down here when children who spoke French or some form of patois in their homes were basically beaten into using English at their schools. For awhile, Cajun culture was driven back deep into the swamps. Again, I have older friends that can remember these events like they were yesterday. (This would be from around the 1940s and 1950s.) I’d also like to mention that this is not exactly so much a racial eradication as it a cultural or class attack because there is a history of racial mixing down here.  It is not unusual to see folks with European, African, and Native American ancestors that identify with the Cajun or the Creole culture.

Cajuns recount endless stories of how they were prohibited from using French on public school grounds. Apparently the educators used the excuse that the French being spoken in the Cajun homes was an illiterate French. In fact, few of the hundreds of thousands of French-speakers could either read or write the language. The same is true today.

The reason state and parish school systems decided not to build on the French language tradition is not known. Perhaps they decided there was no future in Americans learning to speak a second language. Perhaps they felt they did not have the resources to deal with bilingual education. Perhaps, because of the extremely high rate of illiteracy in Louisiana, they decided their major missionary effort should be directed toward teaching the English language.

In any event, the negative reaction to French in the public education system had its effect, but not the total effect many desired. Students generally held to the no-French rule while on the school grounds, but once home, they returned to their native French tongue as the method of communication. Thus, English became a second, learned language to them, a “foreign” tongue.

Still, the culture down here thrives and we (in the Gulf coast) are now recognized as having created original forms of American Music–jazz, blues, rock and roll, as well as the only premier American cuisine.  We’ve very much developed a “live and  let live” approach to life because if you had a very narrow outlook on life here, there are very few places you can move to and be protected from the ‘other’.

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Gulf Oil Tsunami Update (Twitter bomb the MSM so they’ll ANCHORS away)

I wanted to share with you the latest news that we’re getting locally as I know that it doesn’t appear to be getting out of the region. Now that more data is reaching the scientific community, the news down here is getting more grim. Of course, most of the scientists studying the Gulf are Gulf residents themselves.

Jackson State Scientist , Dr. Remata Redd, who studies and teaches tropical meteorology is concerned about something I’ve thought possible now that hurricane season is beginning. He believes that the Gulf Oil Spill can only spread when surface winds push the oil. One of my bigger fears has always been that the oil will eventually work it’s way up the Mississippi and get into drinking water supplies for our various coastal communities as well as New Orleans, itself.

“Direction and intensity is important as to which direction the oil is moving,” Reddy said.

He said if a tropical storm were to form in the Gulf, there could major ecological problems for residents along the Gulf Coast. If a storm were to travel to the east of the oil spill, the concentration of the oil would head to the center of the Gulf, he said. If the storm would travel to the west of the oil spill, the bulk would be thrust up against the Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama coastlines, Reddy said.

“No one can tell me how much oil is below the surface and if a hurricane comes, the hurricane will stir it up and in the form of tidal surge,” said Jefferson Parish Emergency Management Director Deano Bonano. “There’s no boom, no plan in place to protect us.”

And some say it doesn’t have to be as severe as a hurricane to cause severe damage. Leaders in St. Bernard Parish are fearful of the possibility of wind, water and oil pushing inland.

“A tropical storm could lift oil and contaminated water to the marsh and to the eastern and residential areas as well,” said St. Bernard Parish President Craig Taffaro.

Also, local sources (WDSU NEW ORLEANS) are reporting that BP is ignoring the EPA and continuing to use the same toxic dispersant we’ve discussed before. Having this reach potable water supplies worries me tremendously. I’m warning all my friends with small children to consider switching to pure spring water.

BP PLC is continuing to spray a toxic chemical dispersant to break up the Gulf oil spill, even though a deadline to stop use of the chemical has passed.The Environmental Protection Agency directed BP last week to find an alternative to a dispersant, called Corexit 9500, that has been identified as a “moderate” human health hazard. The product can cause eye, skin or respiratory irritation with prolonged exposure.

Every day on the local news we are regaled with maps of oil spill movements instead of wind currents aloft. We see maps and maps that show closings of fishing, shrimping and oyster areas. This has been going on here for well over a month and I have to admit I’m beginning to feel a siege mentality. It takes up nearly all the local news and most of the weather broadcasting. Meanwhile, if BP is responsible for the cleanup and catastrophe down here, why am I reading this at our WWLTV website?

Congress is getting ready to quadruple — to 32 cents a barrel — a tax on oil used to help finance cleanups. The increase would raise nearly $11 billion over the next decade.

The tax is levied on oil produced in the U.S. or imported from foreign countries. The revenue goes to a fund managed by the Coast Guard to help pay to clean up spills in waterways, such as the Gulf of Mexico.

If you haven’t seen the slideshow at WDSU called “Officials Clean Critters, Crude on Coast”, I urge you to go there and see our heartbreak for yourself. WWLT has a special set of pictures that show the damage the oil is doing to Pelicans and their nesting areas in Plaquesmines Parish. Here are some more galleries from nola.com which is the website for the New Orleans Times Picayune. I’ve seriously meant to write about other things–including Financial Regulation–but it’s very hard for me at the moment. I walk the dog and I smell the stuff. I see helicopters over head all the time again; much like during the Hurricane Katrina aftermath. You can’t watch TV down here at all without seeing ad after ad of trial lawyers looking for clients and then there’s the relentless news and weather updates. We’re in a state of emergency. I don’t feel like any one at the White House really gets this.

I’m not sure what it’s going to take to get a serious plan and response to this crisis. We’ve seen no major news anchors down here. Not even the Jim Cantore from the Weather Channel has shown up so I feel like so many folks don’t know what kind of a situation is developing here in Southern Louisiana. I’m thinking we should twitter bomb them to get some better news coverage. I don’t know what else to do. Certainly, they can’t block the major TV news anchors from seeing the damage. Even BP chief Tony Haward has been here.

The chief executive of BP PLC walked the oil-stained sands of a closed Louisiana beach as workers in white coveralls and yellow boots tended to equipment being used to keep away crude gushing into the Gulf of Mexico.

CEO Tony Hayward talked with the workers Monday at Fourchon Beach while the crews tended to booms meant to soak up the oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Reporters were kept at a distance.

So, here’s my plea!!! Twitter bomb the news outlets! Post something to their facebook pages!!! Let them know that we need some major coverage down here because the Federal Government is just giving speeches and the Coast Guard is letting BP make all the decisions! Thank you!!!