Speaker 1: Nigavlampad is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with Reason
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Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome.
Speaker 3: Welcome, Welcome home, everybody. It is a somber time as
Speaker 3: we remember twenty years ago the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina,
Speaker 3: which we all of course know, devastated New Orleans surrounding
Speaker 3: areas in Louisiana, and it casts a wide net of
Speaker 3: influence over what happened in other states, even from Mississippi
Speaker 3: to Texas, of course, so we want to honor that
Speaker 3: day today and get into a discussion about what that
Speaker 3: moment in time meant for us, how it shaped us,
Speaker 3: especially considering some of the devastating policies that are coming
Speaker 3: out of the Trump administration that will have a direct
Speaker 3: impact on FEMA. So before Angela and I get into
Speaker 3: the conversation, I just want to give a few facts
Speaker 3: about what happened and what Katrina meant for us. Angela
Speaker 3: and I know this is personal to you as well,
Speaker 3: because your family hills from Louisiana, so this is definitely
Speaker 3: deeply personal. This is a reminder Hurricane Kadrina happened in
Speaker 3: twenty two thousand and five, believe it or not. And
Speaker 3: it's amazing how fast time has flown by. It devastated
Speaker 3: New Orleans. It was just an awful thing that happened.
Speaker 3: It was nearly a thousand people died. Nine hundred and
Speaker 3: eighty six people died. Not everybody drowned. Only forty percent
Speaker 3: of those were Those deaths were due to drowning. Some
Speaker 3: people died from just injury and trauma. Some people died
Speaker 3: from heart conditions. Nearly half the people who died were
Speaker 3: over the age of seventy four, So you think about
Speaker 3: our elders who were there. The storm displaced more than
Speaker 3: a million people in the entire Gulf Coast region. Many
Speaker 3: people returned home, but up to six hundred thousand households
Speaker 3: were still displaced a month later. Some people never returned.
Speaker 3: Evacue sheltered about two hundred and seventy three thousand people.
Speaker 3: FEMA trailers housed about one hundred and fourteen thousand households.
Speaker 3: And there's a reason I'm saying that, because I want
Speaker 3: people to understand the function of FEMA. New Orleans population
Speaker 3: never really quite got back to where it was. It
Speaker 3: was at four hundred and eighty four thousand people and
Speaker 3: then the year later they lost almost half their population.
Speaker 3: They were around two hundred and thirty thousand people, and
Speaker 3: then ten years later they were at three hundred and
Speaker 3: eighty six thousand people, And that was eighty percent of
Speaker 3: what it was. The housing damage in New Orleans alone,
Speaker 3: one hundred and thirty four thousand housing units were damaged.
Speaker 3: Seventy percent of all occupied units suffered damage from Katrina.
Speaker 3: It was around one hundred and fifty billion dollars in
Speaker 3: damages and the recovery of funding. A lot of that
Speaker 3: came from the federal government. So that just puts I
Speaker 3: think some important framing. Angela. I don't know if you
Speaker 3: know this. I was actually on ground when Katrina happened.
Speaker 3: I was wearing a different hat. I was reporting between
Speaker 3: Houston and Louisiana. So I was literally driving back and
Speaker 3: forth with a crew covering the displaced children because children
Speaker 3: had gotten separated from their parents, and so there were
Speaker 3: times I'd have to tell the crew, even though we
Speaker 3: were there as journalists to bear witness and report, It's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: but we have a car, and these kids are trying
Speaker 3: to get to their parents, so we're going to make
Speaker 3: room for these kids in our car and take them back.
Speaker 3: And we're never supposed to be a part of the story,
Speaker 3: but that was a story that I ended up being
Speaker 3: a part of, and it was just devastating. Where were
Speaker 3: you in two thousand and five.
Speaker 4: Two thousand and five, I had just finished law school
Speaker 4: and I was moving to the nation's capital, or at
Speaker 4: least really silver Spring Tip, which you could relate to
Speaker 4: a little bit. And what is I think, really really
Speaker 4: fastating about what happened with Katrina is I feel like
Speaker 4: there's always this silver lining with our folks, and so
Speaker 4: with Katrina, what we saw was like the resilience of
Speaker 4: the black community, especially in the Lower ninth Ward, which
Speaker 4: was super susceptible based on the levees breaking and a
Speaker 4: lot of maybe folks don't remember that, but when the
Speaker 4: levees broke is really where the floods hit and really
Speaker 4: put our folks in harm's way.
Speaker 5: The second silver lining was.
Speaker 4: A man or is a man by the name of
Speaker 4: Russell Honore is a retired lieutenant general in the United
Speaker 4: States Army and he was he was appointed to be
Speaker 4: the joint commander, I believe for the Katrina recovery efforts,
Speaker 4: and so he I remember seeing this man the Joint
Speaker 4: Task Force, Katrina Commander, I remember seeing this man with
Speaker 4: this thick New Orleans accent. Like of course, before there
Speaker 4: is Chad with Boseman is black panther. There was Russell
Speaker 4: Honore and one to see his compassion. After we knew
Speaker 4: that George Bush just flew over the damage, surveilling the
Speaker 4: damage but not really touching the people. Russell Honore did, well,
Speaker 4: Dad on the ground.
Speaker 3: So the Dutch can go get another lower for sure.
Speaker 3: You can make that happen. I can make it happen
Speaker 3: to you.
Speaker 4: One other thing, Tiff, And speaking of the children, I
Speaker 4: was dealing with children who are a little bit older.
Speaker 4: I was just starting my job at NAFIO, the National
Speaker 4: Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education, And you talk
Speaker 4: about black people baptizing, you buy fire. My first assignment
Speaker 4: was to get on the train to New York where
Speaker 4: we were having a press conference with folks like Kevin
Speaker 4: Powell and Jeff Johnson and Rakia La Mumba and several others. Wesley,
Speaker 4: I can't think of his last name. Don't mean I
Speaker 4: love you any less, Wesley, But on what recovery efforts
Speaker 4: would look like, particularly for the HBCU community, and so
Speaker 4: we were going through all of the damage at Dillard,
Speaker 4: at Suno, at Xavier, and how our schools.
Speaker 5: Would be able to recover.
Speaker 4: Of course, to your point, there was also damage a
Speaker 4: schools in other areas, not just in New Orleans, not
Speaker 4: just in Louisiana, and we knew that the federal government
Speaker 4: was going to wrestle with how it was going to
Speaker 4: help these schools recover.
Speaker 5: So that was a part of my first assignment.
Speaker 4: So I ended up having to touch it not only
Speaker 4: through the family Wave but also through my new job
Speaker 4: responding to the crisis that Katrina was.
Speaker 5: So it is devastating.
Speaker 4: I remember Kanye West going on air on that telethon
Speaker 4: and surprising hell out of the host and he was like,
Speaker 4: George Bush, don't care about black.
Speaker 3: Actually, before you say that, let's actually because that's a
Speaker 3: moment Angela that really defined that time for a lot
Speaker 3: of us. And of course you remember the telethon and
Speaker 3: this famous or infamous moment that had all of us
Speaker 3: standing still in front of our television.
Speaker 2: Let's take a look the destruction of the spirit of
Speaker 2: the people of southern Louisiana, Mississippi made up being the
Speaker 2: most tragic loss of.
Speaker 5: All doesn't care about black people.
Speaker 3: That was old Kanye Wes we miss.
Speaker 4: And I think too though, TI what I think we
Speaker 4: know to be true, especially given where we are now
Speaker 4: and even the episode we had UH this week George
Speaker 4: Bush was a fill in the blank for any number
Speaker 4: of presidents and any number of administrations, and it resonated
Speaker 4: so deeply because we've felt it since the beginning of time.
Speaker 4: I think what is in question now is what has
Speaker 4: changed in the way that we would respond, the way
Speaker 4: the federal government would respond to a crisis, man made
Speaker 4: disaster or a natural disaster that hits black folks. And
Speaker 4: I don't know that a lot has changed. That's a
Speaker 4: question that I would have actually for Wressell Honore Well.
Speaker 3: I think one thing we do know that has changed,
Speaker 3: and that is the way that the Trump administration has
Speaker 3: been gutting FEMA. Just this week, twenty one FEMA employees
Speaker 3: have been put on administration or administrative leave for being whistleblowers. Essentially,
Speaker 3: they penned an open letter criticizing the administration for gutting
Speaker 3: their budgets. They called out HS Department of Homeland Security
Speaker 3: Secretary Christy Nome, who is an expert in puppy killing.
Speaker 3: By the way, she wants approval over any expenditures of
Speaker 3: more than one hundred thousand dollars. Now, we just talked
Speaker 3: to you about how much relief went to Katrina. And
Speaker 3: my concern about this Angela is that they will start
Speaker 3: to use the budget of the federal government. They will
Speaker 3: dangle these funds before people in exchange for their loyalty.
Speaker 3: And if you happen to live in a district that
Speaker 3: didn't overwhelmingly vote for Donald Trump, or in a district
Speaker 3: of a member of Congress, he doesn't like or respect
Speaker 3: that he is willing to leave people hanging in the balance.
Speaker 3: We all remember this hideous, infamous moment when Donald Trump
Speaker 3: was throwing paper towels at the people after a hurricane
Speaker 3: hit Puerto Rico. So this is what we're facing right now.
Speaker 3: And I think when you think about black and brown folks,
Speaker 3: folks and tribal territories, it's going to be really, really challenging.
Speaker 3: So I'm this is yet another thing that I'm nervous about,
Speaker 3: and I think we all should be nervous about it.
Speaker 3: And of course, our our good brother Van Newkirk, who
Speaker 3: covers climate change and is an editor at the Atlantic
Speaker 3: would definitely want us to say the change in climate
Speaker 3: invites more hurricanes and more natural disasters, more wildfires that
Speaker 3: we're saying, so it feels like we could be headed
Speaker 3: towards a very post apocalyptic society described by the amazing
Speaker 3: luminary Octavia Butler in some of her fiction writing, that
Speaker 3: seems to be coming true all around us. What I
Speaker 3: will say about that moment in time twenty years ago,
Speaker 3: aside from how quickly time passes, is it put a
Speaker 3: spotlight on what black folks already knew, and that is
Speaker 3: our suffering is never taken as seriously as white folks suffering.
Speaker 3: Another testimony out of that is our good sister Latasha Brown,
Speaker 3: who I just adore. Nobody called Latasha and nobody said, hey,
Speaker 3: we need help. Latasha just saw people suffering and sprang
Speaker 3: into action and was transporting water. And she said that
Speaker 3: was one of the hardest lessons she learned. Moving water
Speaker 3: is hard work. She was just trying to get two
Speaker 3: people to offer them relief. And so just a testament
Speaker 3: to the mothers of community. You know, the people who
Speaker 3: respond and black men and black women who step up
Speaker 3: and when we need help, and our community is so important.
Speaker 3: That is how we've always survived, and I hope we
Speaker 3: can maintain that. Do you feel like we still have
Speaker 3: that sense of community right now because some of the
Speaker 3: younger people, I don't know, but you tell me if
Speaker 3: I'm wrong.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think, especially in crisis.
Speaker 4: But I do worry because of the like the nature
Speaker 4: of social media, if people still feel the same type
Speaker 4: of human connection. I think there's something in within us
Speaker 4: in crisis where we just know what to do, like
Speaker 4: we're not gonna walk by and watch somebody being harmed,
Speaker 4: regardless of you know, your age, especially if you was
Speaker 4: raised right, you know, you got some good sense about you.
Speaker 5: I think.
Speaker 4: You know one other thing that I think about New
Speaker 4: Orleans that is deeply spiritual and has become a second
Speaker 4: home for me. It's actually where our friend Brittany got married.
Speaker 4: It's Studio B. Studio B that's run by our friend
Speaker 4: B Mike or Brendan Mike go. And that was a
Speaker 4: place that also was born out of Katrina. B. Mike
Speaker 4: used to go and paint like on places there were
Speaker 4: dilapidated and you know there was just one wall standing left,
Speaker 4: but there were these inspirational posts. And there's one thing
Speaker 4: in particular in Studio B that says we are still here.
Speaker 5: And it's just a declaration.
Speaker 4: That like, no matter what comes our way, like there
Speaker 4: is something in us that says we are going to
Speaker 4: remain in spite of everything. And I think that even
Speaker 4: like the folks who were able to financially sacrifice even
Speaker 4: when it was difficult to get back to New Orleans,
Speaker 4: they banked on us not coming back. They you know,
Speaker 4: were eagerly awaiting the opportunity to take over the ninth Ward.
Speaker 4: And even though it has changed significantly, I don't have
Speaker 4: the exact stats on how much the Ninth Word has
Speaker 4: been gentrified, but what we know is that it does
Speaker 4: not look the same as it did pre Katrina. And nonetheless,
Speaker 4: the black folks that moved moved to Houston, a good
Speaker 4: number then moved back to New Orleans to say we're
Speaker 4: still here. Yeah.
Speaker 3: You know, another thing I discovered at that time when
Speaker 3: I was on ground covering is the huge Vietnamese community
Speaker 3: which live in the ninth Ward and surrounding areas, and
Speaker 3: how they relied on their community and they were able
Speaker 3: to build back. I was able to go for a
Speaker 3: part of the five year anniversary after Katrina. I was
Speaker 3: with Busy News at the time and took a crew
Speaker 3: down there and was able to see there were people
Speaker 3: still living in some of the trailers. But I was
Speaker 3: able to talk to some of the Vietnamese community there
Speaker 3: about how they built back and how they had to
Speaker 3: habitate in these multi generational homes and what they did
Speaker 3: so look New Orleans means so much to Black people
Speaker 3: outside of the connection to Haiti and just the rich
Speaker 3: culture there. It's I am glad to see it function today,
Speaker 3: but I continue to worry because it is like a bowl,
Speaker 3: you know, it is shaped like a bowl, and should
Speaker 3: the levies break again, should another natural disaster there happen
Speaker 3: under this administration, I don't think we're ready to meet
Speaker 3: the moment. But I am just grateful that people, the
Speaker 3: people who were able to return, returned, and that people
Speaker 3: were so unwilling to just seize their homes and their neighborhoods.
Speaker 3: So the people who stayed, we're with you and thinking
Speaker 3: of you today. And the people who didn't survive, we
Speaker 3: honor what you went through while people sat around and
Speaker 3: watched and did nothing.
Speaker 4: And that's the thing we don't have to surrender to that.
Speaker 4: What we know is in our power now is to
Speaker 4: have demands. Even when you raised earlier tiff about how
Speaker 4: this government now sees to dismantle FEMA. I mean, we
Speaker 4: had conversations at the Sea ABC Institute's policy conference just
Speaker 4: a couple of weeks ago about what is happening with
Speaker 4: FEMA and how dangerous that is to Black America. So
Speaker 4: we have to think about how we will respond to
Speaker 4: crisis if they're not there. And there's an incredible woman,
Speaker 4: we should have her on the pod actually at some point.
Speaker 4: Her name is Valencia Gunder out of Miami, Judath Brown.
Speaker 4: Diana's actually connected us and she is doing incredible work
Speaker 4: to get people. The same folks who canvas and knockdoors
Speaker 4: during campaigns, she trains them to be first responders in disaster.
Speaker 4: And that's the kind of networking we need to be
Speaker 4: building in this moment where we don't know how much
Speaker 4: the government will be willing to respond what happens if
Speaker 4: we are trained, you know, get paramedic training and all
Speaker 4: the other things, so we can actually respond in crisis.
Speaker 4: We can knock on a door, we can actually help
Speaker 4: to save a life. So shout out to Valencia also,
Speaker 4: and just.
Speaker 3: Shout out to us building infrastructure. You know, it's proven
Speaker 3: that we cannot rely on this administration, this government, So
Speaker 3: how do we That's something for us. We don't have
Speaker 3: the answer, but that's something for us to think about.
Speaker 3: How do we build infrastructure and safety, like in addition
Speaker 3: to buying generators, Like what is your backup plan if
Speaker 3: you can't if your cell phones go down? How are
Speaker 3: you you know, do you have an emergency meeting spot?
Speaker 3: How are you gonna transport yourself if there are the
Speaker 3: gas stations are crowded, you need to get out of town.
Speaker 3: All those kind of things are things that we should
Speaker 3: definitely start thinking about. So I don't know, guys, it's uh.
Speaker 3: I wish that we could say that was a horrible
Speaker 3: time and thank goodness that's in our past. But I
Speaker 3: anticipate that more challenging times lie ahead. So this is
Speaker 3: definitely something for us all to consider. And if you haven't,
Speaker 3: I encourage you to go back and watch. We did
Speaker 3: an episode with a black survivalist I think she called
Speaker 3: herself afro Vivalists. To go back and listen to that
Speaker 3: episode of Native lamdpod because she gave some really great
Speaker 3: information about things we can do to prepare for the
Speaker 3: fall of society. She told come, yes, yeah, Well one
Speaker 3: of her rules is you have to have the school
Speaker 3: supply to live on the land that she that she
Speaker 3: has prepared for herself, and you have to have two
Speaker 3: years fool supplies for you and everybody who's with you.
Speaker 3: So this is a real ship happening, and we need
Speaker 3: to start thinking about these things and taking them seriously.
Speaker 3: So just something to think about. But shout out to
Speaker 3: New Orleans and thank you to the ancestors for gifting
Speaker 3: us Angela who hails from whose family hails from the area.
Speaker 3: And that's another thing I didn't know, Angela the pathways
Speaker 3: because we're so used to that Chicago Mississippi Corridor and
Speaker 3: the northeast. So the Louisiana Pathway to the Pacific Northwest
Speaker 3: is something that I was not overly familiar with. Just
Speaker 3: somewhere black folks fled.
Speaker 5: Yeah, California and Oregon and Washington State.
Speaker 3: Sure, yeah, so what a rich history. Well, we wanted
Speaker 3: to be sure to honor this day. We thank you
Speaker 3: guys for joining us in transparency. We were going to
Speaker 3: be joined by General Russell Honore who was spread a
Speaker 3: bit thin, so unfortunately we did not get to have him,
Speaker 3: but we look forward to having him on a future
Speaker 3: episode of Native Lamppod. Sadly, there will be many opportunities
Speaker 3: for us to chat with him, especially as we look
Speaker 3: to how to prepare ourselves for these type of emergency disasters.
Speaker 3: And Andrew had another appointment that he had to get
Speaker 3: to one of his kids, so that's why he's not
Speaker 3: joining us. But we thank you guys for listening to
Speaker 3: Angela and I and again, please, if you like what
Speaker 3: you hear, like, subscribe, share, tell a friend, and be
Speaker 3: sure to listen to our main episode, which also dropped
Speaker 3: this week. And you are more than welcome to go
Speaker 3: back and listen to old episodes. We do a lot
Speaker 3: of evergreen content that is still very relevant today, so
Speaker 3: take a look, poke around our YouTube page, poke around
Speaker 3: some older episodes, and take a listen and let us
Speaker 3: know what you think. We also encourage you to continue
Speaker 3: to send to us in your videos, questions, comments, even
Speaker 3: when you disagree, We love to hear from you. We
Speaker 3: say welcome home for a reason because those yes when
Speaker 3: they disagree, Yeah yeah, I like it because it represents
Speaker 3: another perspective, you know, and I don't think any of
Speaker 3: us are not humble enough or we can't hear something
Speaker 3: and you know, share, just share the space with you.
Speaker 3: Even if we're saying, well you misheard or let me
Speaker 3: fact check, we still appreciate that you took the time
Speaker 3: to weigh in. So all all folks are welcome home. Yes,
Speaker 3: and whatever questions and comments that you have, So thanks
Speaker 3: for sending in those videos. Well that wraps it up.
Speaker 3: I think thanks for tuning in shared the episode. I
Speaker 3: am Tiffany Cross here with Angela Rai and keep in
Speaker 3: mind what's happening today with FEMA as you reflect on
Speaker 3: what happened twenty years ago. We will leave you. For
Speaker 3: those of you watching us, we will leave you with
Speaker 3: these images. Welcome home, y'all.
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