Schleifstein can share plenty of examples of how the Times-Picayune’s coverage has helped the community move forward and held authorities accountable for improving hurricane preparedness and response, however—from articles that led to changes in the Road Home program to others that highlighted delay and mismanagement at the Army Corps of Engineers, which is charged with managing and maintaining the levee system around New Orleans.
The Times-Picayune has also devoted considerable resources to covering the coastal restoration efforts all along Louisiana’s Gulf coast. In 2007, it won Columbia University’s Oakes Award for environmental reporting for its multimedia series, “Last Chance: The fight to save a disappearing coast.” A year and half later, the paper followed up with a similar multimedia series, “Losing Louisiana,” about ongoing efforts to address erosion, subsidence, and other issues.
Tough, public-service reporting about progress and lapses in coastal restoration, hurricane recovery, and levee reconstruction efforts continues at the Times-Picayune. The Army Corps of Engineers has promised to meet a June 1, 2011 deadline for constructing a levee system capable of protecting the New Orleans metropolitan area against storms that have a 1 percent chance of happening in any given year, often referred to as a “100-year storm.” Such a storm would be a Category 2 or small Category 3 hurricane, Schleifstein said, and the Corps eventually wants to provide Category 5—the highest category of tropical storm— protection (Katrina made its Louisiana landfall as a strong Category 3).
“There’s literally not a week now that goes by without a story about some piece of the levee system because it’s, you know, $15 billion being spent over the next four years – it’s a helluva lot of different projects to say the least, and three of these are in the context of the largest-ever kind of projects,” Schleifstein said.
Nonetheless, despite the approval of some flood control projects, Schleifstein reported last week that delays in others have caused some concern that the Corps will not be able to meet next year’s deadline. In the meantime, the paper is planning a “big package of stories” for the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina in August.
“I think our coverage has certainly made a difference,” says Schleifstein. “In terms of hurricanes, I think that we’ve been helpful in continuing to emphasize the reality of living in an area of risk—that we will actually be at more risk than we were prior to Katrina until perhaps next year, because the levee system is not yet reconstructed.”
The Atlantic hurricane season begins June 1 and runs through November 30. The 2009 season was relatively mild, but 2010 is expected to be “somewhat more active” than average, according to early predictions from a team of meteorologists at Colorado State University.
The Environment News Service reported last week that, “According to two new studies by an Louisiana State University team, 80 percent of Louisiana coastal families have a well-developed hurricane response plan of their own but have little faith in the preparation developed at higher government levels.”
Hopefully, they have some faith in the Times-Picayune, which provides a plethora of well-organized resources, including a dedicated Hurricane News and Storm Tracking page on its Web site. (According to an article in the Houston Chroicle, forecasters have improved their ability to predict the tracks of hurricanes—setting accuracy records last season for the one-, two-, and three-day forecasts of a storm’s location—but not changes in their intensity.) There are also helpful topic pages that aggregate the paper’s coverage of hurricane recovery, hurricane protection, the Army Corps of Engineers, levees, and coastal restoration.
Finally, historians will smile on the fact that the paper collected its award winning coverage of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and 2006 into a single archive. Spend half an hour there and you will see why NYU called it some of the best journalism of the decade.
This is an amazing tribute for a paper of its size. The reporters put their lives on the line to try and keep us informed.
But until the outside media spends at least 10% of the time it spent right after Katrina, correcting the misinformation it put out then, NOLA will continue to struggle. Some of the major areas it has to make amends for so that mainstream America stops perpetuating myths and demonizing parts of New Orleans include the following:
Reports of murders and rapes at the Superdome, and helicopter shootings were grossly exaggerated. We inside believed those rumors as well. In fact there are no positive confirmations of any of these according to authorities later on. While there was some illegal activity and some bad apples, most people were helping one another and concerned about survival, but fear is a powerful emotion in controlling behavior and spreading rumors.
Most of the deaths and destruction in NOLA was caused by improperly built and improperly maintained levees. Katrina hit landfall as a Category 3 hurricane and untopped levees simply gave way. A Federal judge as well as an independent engineering study has placed the blame on the Army Corps of Engineers.
New Orleans citizens may have had more to fear from the local Police and Blackwater guards than their fellow citizens. The FBI and Justice Dept. continue to investigate cases in which there either have been confirmed coverups or potential coverups in the shootings of unarmed civilians.
80-90% of citizens did evacuate, which is considered a very high percentage by emergency evacuation/disaster experts. This was in spite of the Airport, Greyhound, and Amtrak stations all being closed a day prior to the evacuation order and 2 days prior to the storm. Why these premature closings even occurred has not been satisfactorily answered.
The risks associated with living in many other areas of the U.S. is greater than in New Orleans. Many other cities have a higher percentage of their townships below sea level. Many others are more vulnerable to flooding, fires, earthquakes, and other potential disasters.
Finally, very few Americans are aware that a video and transcripts were uncovered 6 months after Katrina that clearly show President Bush being forewarned by Gov. Blanco, the Head of the Hurricane Center, and the Head of FEMA that the levees might be breached and that this storm was very likely to be devastating. Bush seemed indifferent and days after Katrina stated that "no one could have foreseen the breach of the levees." This video showed him caught in a lie and fully warned.
Paul Harris
Author, "Diary From the Dome, Reflections on Fear and Privilege During Katrina"
#1 Posted by Paul Harris, CJR on Wed 7 Apr 2010 at 07:36 PM