world traveller (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} jenkasjournal) wrote,@ 2005-10-11 23:45:00 |
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report from new orleans
7 october 2005
new orleans, louisiana
people keep asking me when i will be sending an update, when i will write my next journal.....i can't promise to write too much right now, but i want to at least ease everyone's fears a bit and share some info.
well.....in all the different projects and places i have worked, i don't think i have ever slept so little or worked so hard for so many hours each day. it is constant -- since the moment i got here -- just this gaping hole of need that we are all scrambling, just scrambling to fill. the emotional intensity of this disaster, combined with the gross neglect of the government, have combined themselves into a twisted look of blank anxious fear, shock and weary resignation -- this is the look shared by those who have lost everything in the storm, those who lost a child or a home or a friend.....and perhaps it is this look that weighs the experience more than any amount of heavy lifting or climbing or driving or organizing that i do each day. it is this look, the hurricane katrina look, that pierces me a dozen or more times each day as i work side by side with those who have lost everything in the storm to help rebuild their lives and the lives of their friends and neighbors.....
people who come down here to volunteer seem to sink into this 'black hole' once they arrive here -- calls are rare and the phone lines are difficult; updates sporadic and disjointed......those who are outside of this 'black hole' find themselves trying to sort through bits and pieces of informtion to get a full picture of what is going on......the mainstream media seems to have moved on to the next 'big story', and declared the disaster over.
meanwhile, the folks who evacuated and were shipped off all over the country are starting to trickle back to new orleans, seeing their homes (or what's left of them) for the first time.....showing up at our center with 'the look' on their face......and we load them up with supplies, talk and listen and give them some time to process......but the need is so great, it always feels like what we are doing is so small, so so small.....
what this whole thing has made more and more clear to me is the absolute inability of centralized authority structures to respond to crisis, and the absolute ability of humans to reach each other with compassion and solidarity, DESPITE the obstacles put in place by bureaucratic structures and organizations purporting to help. there have been some incredible coalitions -- surprising mutinies.....we've had national guard soldiers sneak supplies out of their warehouses so we could distribute them directly to people, we've had amtrak police sneak ice for our clinic from their stash, red cross volunteers who defected and joined our ranks.....so many many examples of people trying to get supplies to the people who need them -- even if they have to defy orders from above in order to do it. why do the organizations that are set up to distribute aid to people make it so difficult for the people to get it?? could it be a problem with the style of organization itself?
one of the people who founded the common ground clinic, who is also a good friend of mine, has said that she founded the clinic under the premise that the way we, as a movement, have been able to organize medical care during large convergences and protests could be applied to this emergency situation. the main focus of this style of organizing is that it is consensus-based, non-hierarchical, and that it places the patient in the position of being an empowered individual (even a hero of sorts, in this type of situation), and not a powerless victim to be tended to by an 'expert' doctor. this way of organizing the clinic has been wildly successful -- the common ground clinic has served hundreds of people a day for the last six weeks, while FEMA and red cross have just barely, over the last two weeks, begun to even offer anything in this area, let alone come close to serving the number of people, with the quality of care, as common ground clinic.
well, i suppose i will have more time to theorize about the efficacy of anarchist/decentralized models of organization during a time of crisis when and if i actually step back from this whole thing and examine it that way. as for now, i am simply doing it, living these decentralized, non-hierarchical ways of organizing relief in a crisis situation.
here's an article on what i did last night:
http://dc.indymedia.org/newswire/displa
and today i talked to three different people who had lost their mothers -- one man's mother was buried under the rubble of their home, and he has been living down the street under a tarp, wearing the same clothes since the hurricane.....he started to cry when he started talking about his mother buried under the mud.....
the audio is at http://neworleans.indymedia.org
then i went to the FEMA base camp for the city of new orleans......it made me feel sick to my stomach....we drove in the main entrance, telling the military guards that we were looking for a FEMA representative (we were, and still are, trying to get them to bring some port-a-johns near the 'welcome home' kitchen in washington square park). we got some vague directions from the soldiers and were waved inside to park. we then walked around this absolutely surreal scene of hundreds of enormous air-conditioned tents, each one with the potential of housing 250 people -- whole city blocks of trailers with hot showers......huge banks of laundry machines, portajohns lined up 50 at a time....a big recreation tent, air-conditioned, with a big-screen tv.....all of it for contractors and FEMA workers, NONE of it for the people of new orleans.
we never did manage to find an actual FEMA representative to ask our question to, but we did talk to a couple guys who were staying there, who told us that the tents were pretty empty, not many people staying there.....and that "we don't combine with the evacuees -- we have our camp here, as workers, and they have their camps".....and when i tried to explain my experience with people who had lost their homes -- how we had to literally drive two sisters to LAKE CHARLES three hours away, because there were no shelters any closer, everything was either shut down or full. they could house thousands of people there at this FEMA base camp, thousands of new orleans citizens could live there while they rebuilt and cleaned their homes in the city. but instead, due to the arrogance of a government bureaucracy that insists they are separate from the 'evacuees', and cannot possibly see themselves mixing with them and working side by side on the cleanup, these people are left homeless.......like the poor man i talked to earlier in the day, living under a tarp with his mother buried under the mud of their house......why can't he live in their tents???? oh it makes me so sad and mad to see so much desperate need, and then just blocks away to see this huge abundance of resources not being used.
I have seen no FEMA center that is actually providing any aid for people -- I have been to this main FEMA base camp and three others in new orleans, and each of them have signs saying "No public services available at this site/Authorized personnel only".
it's so different from how we are working at the common ground collective, or at Mama Dee's in the city, or the other community places that people are starting up -- where neighbors are helping neighbors, people just helping each other.......if an elder needs their roof tarped, or a tree removed from their house, we send a team over to work on it -- but then maybe that elder helps us out, by driving one of our volunteers somewhere in their vehicle or picking up supplies for us. we help each other -- it's so different when we are all human together, instead of a militarized, razor-wired, fenced-in compound like the FEMA camp that keeps out the people in need and keeps the contractors and workers inside.
the communities we are helping do still need many things -- including volunteers for the cleanup effort, clearing out black mold and debris from flooded areas (some of which has been left untouched for the last six weeks. check http://www.commongroundrelief.org for a list of needs. we also need volunteers to help us with legal research -- if you are interested in donating a hew hours of internet time, send me an email. One other thing people can do from afar is to go to http://www.extendthedeadline.org and sending a message to FEMA to extend their deadline for hurricane survivors to apply for emergency aid (it has been near impossible for people to get through on the one phone line FEMA provided to apply for the aid, and FEMA has cut off the deadline to apply).
7 october 2005
new orleans, louisiana
people keep asking me when i will be sending an update, when i will write my next journal.....i can't promise to write too much right now, but i want to at least ease everyone's fears a bit and share some info.
well.....in all the different projects and places i have worked, i don't think i have ever slept so little or worked so hard for so many hours each day. it is constant -- since the moment i got here -- just this gaping hole of need that we are all scrambling, just scrambling to fill. the emotional intensity of this disaster, combined with the gross neglect of the government, have combined themselves into a twisted look of blank anxious fear, shock and weary resignation -- this is the look shared by those who have lost everything in the storm, those who lost a child or a home or a friend.....and perhaps it is this look that weighs the experience more than any amount of heavy lifting or climbing or driving or organizing that i do each day. it is this look, the hurricane katrina look, that pierces me a dozen or more times each day as i work side by side with those who have lost everything in the storm to help rebuild their lives and the lives of their friends and neighbors.....
people who come down here to volunteer seem to sink into this 'black hole' once they arrive here -- calls are rare and the phone lines are difficult; updates sporadic and disjointed......those who are outside of this 'black hole' find themselves trying to sort through bits and pieces of informtion to get a full picture of what is going on......the mainstream media seems to have moved on to the next 'big story', and declared the disaster over.
meanwhile, the folks who evacuated and were shipped off all over the country are starting to trickle back to new orleans, seeing their homes (or what's left of them) for the first time.....showing up at our center with 'the look' on their face......and we load them up with supplies, talk and listen and give them some time to process......but the need is so great, it always feels like what we are doing is so small, so so small.....
what this whole thing has made more and more clear to me is the absolute inability of centralized authority structures to respond to crisis, and the absolute ability of humans to reach each other with compassion and solidarity, DESPITE the obstacles put in place by bureaucratic structures and organizations purporting to help. there have been some incredible coalitions -- surprising mutinies.....we've had national guard soldiers sneak supplies out of their warehouses so we could distribute them directly to people, we've had amtrak police sneak ice for our clinic from their stash, red cross volunteers who defected and joined our ranks.....so many many examples of people trying to get supplies to the people who need them -- even if they have to defy orders from above in order to do it. why do the organizations that are set up to distribute aid to people make it so difficult for the people to get it?? could it be a problem with the style of organization itself?
one of the people who founded the common ground clinic, who is also a good friend of mine, has said that she founded the clinic under the premise that the way we, as a movement, have been able to organize medical care during large convergences and protests could be applied to this emergency situation. the main focus of this style of organizing is that it is consensus-based, non-hierarchical, and that it places the patient in the position of being an empowered individual (even a hero of sorts, in this type of situation), and not a powerless victim to be tended to by an 'expert' doctor. this way of organizing the clinic has been wildly successful -- the common ground clinic has served hundreds of people a day for the last six weeks, while FEMA and red cross have just barely, over the last two weeks, begun to even offer anything in this area, let alone come close to serving the number of people, with the quality of care, as common ground clinic.
well, i suppose i will have more time to theorize about the efficacy of anarchist/decentralized models of organization during a time of crisis when and if i actually step back from this whole thing and examine it that way. as for now, i am simply doing it, living these decentralized, non-hierarchical ways of organizing relief in a crisis situation.
here's an article on what i did last night:
http://dc.indymedia.org/newswire/displa
and today i talked to three different people who had lost their mothers -- one man's mother was buried under the rubble of their home, and he has been living down the street under a tarp, wearing the same clothes since the hurricane.....he started to cry when he started talking about his mother buried under the mud.....
the audio is at http://neworleans.indymedia.org
then i went to the FEMA base camp for the city of new orleans......it made me feel sick to my stomach....we drove in the main entrance, telling the military guards that we were looking for a FEMA representative (we were, and still are, trying to get them to bring some port-a-johns near the 'welcome home' kitchen in washington square park). we got some vague directions from the soldiers and were waved inside to park. we then walked around this absolutely surreal scene of hundreds of enormous air-conditioned tents, each one with the potential of housing 250 people -- whole city blocks of trailers with hot showers......huge banks of laundry machines, portajohns lined up 50 at a time....a big recreation tent, air-conditioned, with a big-screen tv.....all of it for contractors and FEMA workers, NONE of it for the people of new orleans.
we never did manage to find an actual FEMA representative to ask our question to, but we did talk to a couple guys who were staying there, who told us that the tents were pretty empty, not many people staying there.....and that "we don't combine with the evacuees -- we have our camp here, as workers, and they have their camps".....and when i tried to explain my experience with people who had lost their homes -- how we had to literally drive two sisters to LAKE CHARLES three hours away, because there were no shelters any closer, everything was either shut down or full. they could house thousands of people there at this FEMA base camp, thousands of new orleans citizens could live there while they rebuilt and cleaned their homes in the city. but instead, due to the arrogance of a government bureaucracy that insists they are separate from the 'evacuees', and cannot possibly see themselves mixing with them and working side by side on the cleanup, these people are left homeless.......like the poor man i talked to earlier in the day, living under a tarp with his mother buried under the mud of their house......why can't he live in their tents???? oh it makes me so sad and mad to see so much desperate need, and then just blocks away to see this huge abundance of resources not being used.
I have seen no FEMA center that is actually providing any aid for people -- I have been to this main FEMA base camp and three others in new orleans, and each of them have signs saying "No public services available at this site/Authorized personnel only".
it's so different from how we are working at the common ground collective, or at Mama Dee's in the city, or the other community places that people are starting up -- where neighbors are helping neighbors, people just helping each other.......if an elder needs their roof tarped, or a tree removed from their house, we send a team over to work on it -- but then maybe that elder helps us out, by driving one of our volunteers somewhere in their vehicle or picking up supplies for us. we help each other -- it's so different when we are all human together, instead of a militarized, razor-wired, fenced-in compound like the FEMA camp that keeps out the people in need and keeps the contractors and workers inside.
the communities we are helping do still need many things -- including volunteers for the cleanup effort, clearing out black mold and debris from flooded areas (some of which has been left untouched for the last six weeks. check http://www.commongroundrelief.org for a list of needs. we also need volunteers to help us with legal research -- if you are interested in donating a hew hours of internet time, send me an email. One other thing people can do from afar is to go to http://www.extendthedeadline.org and sending a message to FEMA to extend their deadline for hurricane survivors to apply for emergency aid (it has been near impossible for people to get through on the one phone line FEMA provided to apply for the aid, and FEMA has cut off the deadline to apply).
