News

The flooding in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, August 29th, 2005.  The Lower Ninth Ward is to the left in the photo, which shows the breaches in the Industrial Canal levee wall

 

Report: Shrink N.O.’s ‘footprint’

New shelters, relocation among proposals

By ALLEN M. JOHNSON JR.

Advocate New Orleans bureau

Published: Apr 25, 2009 - Page: 1A

NEW ORLEANS — Addressing the most politically explosive issue in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina, a review of a national report Friday recommended that planners throughout the region “discourage” re-settlement in areas vulnerable to destructive flooding.

The 41-page review of an upcoming voluminous report by the National Academies, an advisory panel of scientists and engineers, also proposes the “voluntary relocation” of entire neighborhoods, “elevating” homes of remaining residents; buyouts, and improving local and regional shelters to make hurricane evacuations “less imposing.”

The panel further suggested creating a “smaller footprint” for redevelopment within a 350-mile long hurricane protection system of the metro area, including low-lying areas of Orleans , Jefferson , St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes.

“Although it can be a politically charged topic, the option of voluntarily relocating some structures and residents is one means to help improve safety and reduce flood damages,” the review states.

The science panel’s proposals were contained in a review of the final draft of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer’s Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force — also known as the IPET report.

A massive investigative study of why the city’s 350-mile hurricane protection system failed during Katrina, the final report may be released in May, IPET director Ed Link, a professor of engineering at the University of Maryland , said Friday.

In its review of 7,500-pages of interim IPET reports published through June 2008, the National Academies committee warned that many of the “lessons learned” from Katrina have not been “adequately implemented” in the metro area.

While post-Katrina repairs and fortifications to levees and floodwalls have reduced some dangers, the panel said, the risk of flooding “never can be fully eliminated … no matter how large or sturdy those structures may be.”

The scientists said a “smaller footprint” for the metro area, “especially in areas below sea level,” might create a more manageable and cost-effective flood protection system for the Greater New Orleans area.

“At the very least, pros and cons of a smaller footprint should be a topic for discussion and debate,” the report states. “Nevertheless, it appears that post-Katrina rebuilding activities are taking place largely according to the pre-Katrina (hurricane protection system) design without discussions of how a safer and more reliable design might be configured.”

The costs of rebuilding and strengthening 350 miles of levees, are “substantial,” the report states. The panel recommended consideration of a voluntary buyout program, which is already under study by the corps.

Higher-ground areas of the region, found closer to the natural Mississippi River levees, are “inherently” safer than “extensive” lower-lying areas of eastern New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish, the report states.

The panel recommends elevating homes in vulnerable areas where owners are “not amenable to relocations.”

Hundreds of people in Orleans and St. Bernard parishes died during Katrina. Tens of thousands lost their homes. More than 100,000 mostly black residents remain displaced from their old neighborhoods.

Shortly after Katrina, a national panel of urban planners recommended that the city rebuild along a smaller “footprint” of the “green-spacing” of the highly flood-prone neighborhoods.

However, many storm-stressed residents viewed the proposal as a “land grab” by developers. In the ensuing uproar, Mayor Ray Nagin — then facing re-election — backed away from “smaller footprint” plans.

“Because it’s such a political hot potato, the issue will be resolved through inertia,” said Tulane University historian Larry Powell, who has written extensively on the city’s post-Katrina reconstruction. “What is missing in all this (report) is any sense of what is equitable — what can be built and what should be built with finite resources. People were displaced as a result of (government) bureaucratic malfeasance. How do you deny them a right to return to their homes?”

The scientists’ proposal also came one day after a Tulane University-Democracy Now poll showed 57 percent of New Orleans voters (including 74 percent of black residents) disagreed with the statement: “Some areas of New Orleans destroyed by Hurricane Katrina should not be rebuilt as a residential area again.”

“African-Americans overwhelmingly, strongly and profoundly disagree with that statement,” national political strategist James Carville, who teaches political science at Tulane, said of the poll Thursday. “I would advise the next mayor not to deal with it in an insensitive way and to try to rebuild as much of the city as we possibly can.”

ITEP’s director, Link, said Friday that he agreed with the recommendations on neighborhood relocation.

“The bigger increase in risk is coming from more and more people moving into areas at-risk (for flooding) than changes in climatology,” Link said.

Local officials should protect public safety and property by discouraging development in the worst areas for storm-surge flooding, by land use and zoning regulations.

“Don’t allow people to develop those areas,” Link said. “It’s an issue that people and public officials need to put on top of the table and address it for the long term.”

On hurricane evacuations, the scientists report said more systematic studies, planning and communication is needed. Longer-term strategies, such as improved local and regional sheltering; and locating facilities for the sick and elderly away from high-hazard areas, should also be considered.

“There is always a risk,” Link said of hurricanes. “You need to know what it is and what to do about it.”

Link said are three types of maps in the IPET report that New Orleans area residents can view on the corps’ Web site: flood-depth charts; economic-risk maps and a “loss of life” map. The data is displayed by subbasins not by neighborhoods.

Link added a warning for anyone thinking of staying in the city for a hurricane: “Mother Nature always bats last.”

ON THE INTERNET:
http://www.mvn.uscae.army.mil/hps

http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/43677912.html

tile? we got tile...

From Debris Pile to New Homes
By KEN BELSON
New York Times, November 10, 2008

SECAUCUS, N.J.

SOMETIMES one person’s trash becomes another person’s treasure — even when they are separated by 1,300 miles.

That was certainly the case with the 60 tons of high-end tile that last month ended a three-year odyssey by traveling from this gritty industrial hub west of New York City to New Orleans, where residents will use them to rebuild homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

The journey of the tiles was made possible through persistence, generosity and good timing, and was an example of how building-supply companies, environmental groups and community activists can work together.

Their cooperation may also provide a template for ways to get building materials destined for the dump to people in need, and may prove timely for suppliers trying to shed excess inventory in a slowing construction market.

The trek to New Orleans began by chance at a Christmas party in 2005. Nancy Epstein, the chief executive of Artistic Tile, with seven stores and a distribution center in Secaucus, met Nancy Biberman, the president of the Women’s Housing and Economic Development Corporation, a nonprofit group known as Whedco that was building affordable housing in the South Bronx.











Laura Pedrick for The New York Times

TEAM EFFORT From left, Paul Eisemann, a contractor; Jon Cramer, an energy efficiency consultant; Debbie Grunbaum of Women’s Housing and Economic Development Corporation; and Gerard Esmail of Artistic Tile have collaborated to get leftover building materials to projects where they can be used instead of discarded.


Ms. Epstein offered to donate 120 tons of older and discontinued ceramic, concrete and porcelain tiles to Ms. Biberman for her 128 apartments. Unlike many commercial developers, Ms. Biberman did not need large quantities of similar tiles and could use Artistic’s variety of small lots. Artistic, meanwhile, could reduce its inventory taxes and avoid paying to dispose of the tiles.

“There is a cost to dumping it, and moving it around the warehouse has a cost, too, because it keeps you from putting in new product,” Ms. Epstein said. “There is a pride of ownership when the apartments are done nicely, so we donate whatever we can.”

Yet after Whedco placed tiles in bathrooms, kitchens and common areas this summer, 60 tons — worth about $250,000 — remained unused. Much of it sat outside Artistic’s warehouse on pallets, some in open boxes that exposed ceramic moldings, finished crowns and tiles costing up to $30 each. Another load sat so long in a trailer nearby that its legs had sunk into the asphalt.

Serendipity ensued in the form of Paul Eisemann, who refurbishes brownstones in Brooklyn and who volunteers in New Orleans, where he teaches home-building skills. With the hurricane debris largely cleared and the frames and walls of new homes going up, Mr. Eisemann and community leaders in New Orleans turned to outfitting bathrooms, kitchens and other rooms.

Back in Brooklyn, Mr. Eisemann had been speaking to Jon Cramer, an energy efficiency consultant, about how to get donated construction materials directly to communities along the Gulf Coast. Many nonprofit groups, like Habitat for Humanity’s ReStores, collect construction materials, but then resell them in stores to raise money.

“In New York, there’s so much overbuilding,” Mr. Eisemann said. “For the next three to five years, there’s going to be excess building materials that sometimes are more expensive to throw away than to donate.”

Their task was daunting. In New York, few warehouses had the space to store materials before they were shipped. Transportation costs were skyrocketing. They also had to verify that recipients would use the materials properly and promptly.

But Mr. Cramer persevered. He spoke to Justin Green, who runs Build It Green! NYC, a nonprofit group that sells salvaged construction materials. Mr. Green’s warehouse in Astoria, Queens, was packed, so he had to turn down an offer of tile from Whedco, which wanted to donate what remained from its construction.

Mr. Cramer and Mr. Eisemann seized the chance to put their plan to work. They learned from Artistic that more tile — enough to fill at least four tractor-trailers — was sitting in Secaucus, too.

Mr. Eisemann contacted Mary Croom-Fontenot, executive director of All Congregations Together, an alliance of religious groups in New Orleans that has rebuilt 142 homes with volunteer labor and donations. Her group, along with Lowernine.org, another nonprofit group in New Orleans focused on rebuilding homes, was excited about the prospect of getting high-quality tile.

“Once people get the walls done and the electrical and plumbing, many run out of money for the flooring, the bathrooms,” she said. “So our hope is to help them with one more piece, to make their house a home with this grade-A, top-of-the-line tile.”

Still, the tiles were two days’ drive from their ultimate home. So Mr. Eisemann called the Rev. Scott Sammler-Michael, minister of the Accotink Unitarian Universalist Church in Burke, Va., where he runs the TUUL-Belt Ministry, a volunteer program.

Mr. Sammler-Michael had taken some congregants to New Orleans to help in the rebuilding effort. His group offered $3,000 to pay for one tractor-trailer load of tile to be shipped to Louisiana. Before he could write a check, a New Jersey trucking company that did not want its name publicized agreed to haul the first load without charge. Two trailers picked up the tile in October.

To ready the tiles for shipping, three workers at Artistic’s distribution center spent three days repacking the first 47,600 pounds of tile. The tiles were sorted, crated and shrink-wrapped and filled a couple of dozen pallets. “We want to make sure it goes to a good place,” said Gerard Esmail, the operations manager of Artistic’s warehouse.

Mr. Eisemann and Mr. Cramer are now focused on making sure the remaining two-thirds of the tiles end up in New Orleans.

“It seems like it’s been a really long haul, making hundreds of phone calls and e-mails and putting details together,” Mr. Eisemann said. “But big dreams cost the same amount of money as small ones, so dream big.”

our friend amy!

reprinted from the Coshocton(OH)Tribune


Pictured are Junior Foster, Amy Taylor and Russ Sternglass from Ithaca, N.Y. Russ and Amy are just enjoying a break, and a bit of sunshine, at Junior's before heading to the dump with a load of debris. Junior and his wife were able to get back into their home this year.



COSHOCTON -Amy Taylor of Coshocton spent a week in November volunteering in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans.


This was Taylor's second trip to the area. Her first experience was in March of 2007 when she spent time there with a group of chefs cooking and doing relief work.

Taylor works at Auer Ace Hardware, but is also a pastry chef with her own business, la petit chef. She volunteered this November with the Lower Nine Organization, which assists homeowners with the rebuilding process that is still ongoing from the hurricane damage in 2005.

"Lower Nine provides all the labor at no charge," said Taylor. "The homeowners are only responsible for the material costs. There are many long-term volunteers working with the organization and several who come and go like we did."

Taylor said that most of the homes need to be reduced down to the frame in order to remove all the water damage. The homes in this particular area were the hardest hit since most of them were completely covered with water.

"This is a very historic neighborhood," said Taylor. "Many of the people don't have the money to come back to their damaged homes. Only 17 percent of the people have been able to return to the Lower Nine area."

Taylor spent most of her time during this trip hauling away debris on several different work sites.

"We would get our assignments each morning from the crew leader," she said. "There were usually three to seven people working at each site."

She said that the Lower Nine organization has 40 to 60 homes on the waiting list for repairs. The Bette Midler Family Foundation pays for licensed plumbers and electricians to do the plumbing and electrical work on the homes.

Taylor recalled her first trip to the area in 2007 with 15 chefs from all over the country.

"Our group leader told us then that we would never be able to forget the place once we left and he predicted that many of us would return," she said. "Two of the chefs are now living there. There's just no place like New Orleans. It sucks you in and you feel you need to be there and help."

Taylor said that if you visit the tourist sites of New Orleans you may not be aware of the extreme amount of work that is left to be done in the neighborhood areas. Many people are not able to rebuild their homes and many of the jobs they once had are no longer there. Many of the lots have just been leveled.

"Yet the residents are determined and so thankful for the help they are getting," expressed Taylor. "It's amazing to see the joy these people have in where they live - even if it is a FEMA trailer sitting in front of their house as they wait for the day when their home can be rebuilt. There is a man named Darrin who had spent four days on a roof during the storm before he was rescued. He is now a long-term volunteer for Lower Nine. He lives in a little one-room camper trailer next to the headquarters and works as a site manager to help rebuild his neighborhood."

Taylor feels that her work in New Orleans is a kind of 'pay it forward' thing.

"I would hope that if we ever needed help in our community we would have volunteers come here," she said. "We had a little taste of what that is like back in September with the wind and power outages."

She expressed her appreciation for her boss, Tom Edwards, at Auer Ace Hardware for working around her schedule so she could spend time in New Orleans.

"He is also helping me purchase a professional chain saw to donate to the Lower Nine organization," she said. "I'm taking donations toward this purchase. I figure if 30 or 40 people donated just $5 I would be able to purchase the saw and have it delivered as a holiday surprise."

Taylor said that she has often felt there was something she was supposed to do with her life. When she was contacted in the spring of 2007 by the French Culinary Institute to volunteer in New Orleans, it was definitely out of her comfort zone to go off by herself and volunteer like that.

"I'm so glad I did and grateful to my husband for taking care of things here while I was gone," she said. "When you volunteer like that you realize that 'it's not about you.' There's a lot of life in that city and I hope to be able to return again within six months. It's my passion help this city come back."

Taylor said she would encourage anyone who wants to go to New Orleans to volunteer or donate to the project to contact her for information. She can be reached at 623-8107."

For more information about the Lower Nine organization, go to www.lowernine.org.

news from orrie king about the auction

Dear Auction Participants, Attendees, and Friends,

Thank you so much to everyone that participated in last week's "Rebuilding New Orleans" fundraiser and silent auction! It was a great success and we appreciate all of your support! I would like to especially thank ALL of the artists, John from the Union Gallery, Amy from amymade.com, Jim from Vestry Wines, Brooklyn Brewery, and to everyone that bid on the work!!

We still have some of the photographs available for purchase. I have received multiple requests to extend the sale, with the remainder of the work, for those of you who were unable to make it to the Union Gallery for the auction and hanging exhibition last week. Please make a note that we have updated the blog www.helpforlowerninephotoauction.blogspot.com with the status of both the work that sold and that which is still available, along with the minimum auction prices and corresponding personal statements by each artist. Please be sure to VIEW ALL WORK (25 images total), scrolling through "older posts" in the blog. The prints are beautifully rich c-prints, signed by the artists, and most are part of limited editions.

Remember 100% of the proceeds will be given to lowernine.org and each purchaser will receive a 501(c)(3) receipt equal to the amount given. To purchase, or for any comments, questions, or further information, please contact me directly at orrie@orrieking.com.

Give the gift of art for the holidays, for yourself, friends, and family - this is a unique opportunity to buy original art by these nationally recognized artists, from an outstanding collection of work, available at incredibly reasonable auction prices (and did I mention tax deductible?) and for a GREAT cause - we want to sell!!

Thank you!

Sincerely,
Orrie King (photographer and curator)

www.orrieking.com
www.helpforlowerninephotoauction.blogspot.com

good news, of a sort...

The following comes from the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center.

Life in New Orleans post-Katrina certainly can be rough. We still have years of rebuilding ahead of us, and now we're in the midst of an economic crisis. But looking at the numbers we see much to be grateful for this Thanksgiving.



While the country is losing jobs by the hundreds of thousands, in New Orleans we've gained jobs - 8,000 in the last year to be specific. During that same time Milwaukee lost 10,000 jobs, and Tampa lost 23,000. Atlanta lost 34,000 jobs and in Los Angeles 53,000 disappeared.



This has kept the New Orleans unemployment rate low - only 5.3 percent compared with the national rate of 6 percent in September. Many cities have it much worse than we do. Atlanta's unemployment is 6.5 percent and Chicago's is 6.3. Los Angeles and Las Vegas have even higher unemployment rates - 7.3 and 7.4 percent. And Detroit's is a whopping 8.3 percent.



Did you realize that most of the funny mortgages behind the national foreclosure crisis were sold in 2005 and 2006? That's right. We can be thankful to Katrina for this one. Recently released data from HUD estimates the foreclosure rate in the New Orleans area is 3.3 percent compared to 4.8 nationwide. Atlanta has a 5.1 percent foreclosure rate and Cleveland's is 7.5. Miami is suffering from a 9 percent foreclosure rate and Las Vegas from 9.2.



In closing, we offer up our humble gratitude that things here in New Orleans aren't as bad as they could be, and that New Orleans may prove to be a pretty safe place to weather this economic storm.



Sincerely,



The Data Center team

(Joy Bonaguro, Charlotte Cunliffe, Elaine Ortiz, Allison Plyer, Denice Ross, and Melissa Schigoda)

new video

New work by our friends Kieron Bryan and Luke Farrington, featuring lowernine.org project manager Matt Grigsby (he's the handsome guy in the beginning)!

The following article appeared in the Inside/Out section of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, October 25th, 2008



With the plumbing work wrapping up thanks to help from lowernine.org, Greta Gladney hopes to be back in her Jourdan Avenue home by the end of the year.
Danny Bourque / The Times-Picayune Archive


NOTE: Greta Gladney's home-repair project was stalled while she waited for a plumber to give her a bid and get to work. Then, one day, help arrived out of the blue.

Back in August, Greta Gladney thought it would be no more than two weeks before the plumber recommended by a friend would give her a contract to sign and then begin working in her Holy Cross home.

But one delay led to another, and weeks turned into months as she waited and prodded. Then she received a phone call that changed everything and super-charged her languishing renovation.

"I got a call from lowernine.org telling me they finally had a licensed plumber available to work on my house," she said. "All I would have to do is pay for materials."

The nonprofit was founded in early 2007 to help residents of the Lower 9th Ward get back into their homes. It began as an all-volunteer initiative but has since branched out into providing skilled, licensed labor for needs like electrical, plumbing and heating and air conditioning installation. Labor is free, and residents buy the necessary materials.

"Sometime, maybe eight or nine months ago, I was talking to a lowernine.org staff member at the St. Claude Farmers Market one Saturday. She was interested in community-supported agriculture, just like I am, but one thing led to another and soon we were talking about my house," Gladney said. "She told me about the resident services program and said I should come by their office and file an application for assistance."

The nonprofit operates out of a house it refurbished on El Dorado Street in Holy Cross, not far from Gladney's Jourdan Avenue home. She found the office, submitted an application and then forgot about it.

"To be honest, I just didn't think about it much after that, because I knew they had a long waiting list of people needing help. So I just moved forward on my own," she said.

Gladney gutted her house, painted the outside, reframed areas of the interior that she wanted to reconfigure and installed new wiring. But the project stalled when she had trouble connecting with her preferred plumber. As it turns out, maybe the delay wasn't so bad after all.

"I was aggravated at the time, but now I am really glad the original plumber kept delaying, or the work would have already been done by the time I got the call," she said. "Cyril knocked it out in just 10 days for a tiny fraction of what I would have spent."

Cyril Mungal of Semper Fi Plumbing -- a former Marine -- was dispatched by lowernine.org to work with Gladney.

"They called on a Wednesday, and by Friday I had met with Cyril and signed a contract," she said. "The very first time we met, he showed me his license and insurance, something I usually have had to ask for from other people over and over."

Mungal started work three days after the contract was signed. In just eight working days, Gladney said, he replaced the cracked cast-iron drain pipe, ran new water lines for the shower and moved the toilet and the sink upstairs.

"Downstairs, he roughed in for the walk-in shower in the rear room and everything in the kitchen," she said. "He even ran the gas line for the stove."

By the end of this week, Gladney expected to have had Mungal's work inspected so that she could move on to the next step of installing the heating and air conditioning system, something else lowernine.org has offered to help with.

"We were supposed to talk it over this week, but I don't expect any hold-ups. Everything has gone so smoothly with them," she said. Gladney said the staff at the nonprofit is still accepting assistance applications from those who lived in the Lower 9th Ward before Katrina, and she has been spreading word to neighbors who need help.

"A lot of folks aren't aware, but they need to be, because it will help them get back home," she said.

Not all work was suspended on Jourdan Avenue while the plumber drama played out. In fact, Gladney's friend and adviser, James Williams, made sure that key framing and carpentry items were complete, so that there would be no delays in closing the walls once all rough-ins are complete.

"When James and I met over there in August, we agreed that the closet and the study off of my bedroom upstairs really needed to be reconfigured," she said. "The framer who had done the work had framed it so that the window let light into the closet rather than the study. James switched things around for me, and he also leveled the floor downstairs in the rear room off the kitchen, the one that sloped because it used to be an outdoor porch."

Gladney said her dream is to be back home by the end of the year. It would be an ambitious timetable, but she said she thinks it's doable. Whatever the outcome, Gladney said recent developments have left her musing over life's ironies.

"I pushed and pushed and pushed to get that original plumber to the house," Gladney said. "Yet it was when I stopped pushing that what I needed fell into my lap. It seems that's the way a lot of things have gone on this project."

For more information or assistance from Lowernine.org, call 504.278.1240 or visit www.lowernine.org.

Stephanie Bruno can be reached at housewatcher@hotmail.com.