The Disaster After the Disaster: Hurricane Katrina and Its Aftermath

The Storm This Time: A Personal Account of the Natural and Unnatural Disaster in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina

by David Helvarg

I’m flying to New Orleans and the Gulf region by way of Ronald Reagan (Washington, D.C.) and George Bush (Houston) airports to see how “less government” functions in the face of a coastal catastrophe. Actually, given that it’s three weeks since Hurricane Katrina made landfall, we already know the answer. There was a complete failure in terms of precautionary actions, preparation and response. MORE>>

Disaster Profiteering: The Flood of Crony Contracting Following Hurricane Katrina

by Charlie Cray

After Hurricane Katrina came ashore, President Bush promised relief for those in the Gulf region affected by the storm. But the relief he has been most generous in delivering has been to contractors. That at least is the view of a growing number of government watchdogs and congressional critics, who say a series of exemptions to competitive bidding and other procurement requirements adopted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Army Corps of Engineers has effectively turned the Gulf region reconstruction and cleanup contracts into a feeding frenzy for “disaster profiteers” — a network of crony contractors for whom the $200 billion cleanup and reconstruction promises to be a significant windfall.

They say FEMA’s no-bid and limited-bid contracts are of such magnitude that they will give prime contractors an advantage that will last far beyond the initial emergency phase, and put local contractors at a distinct disadvantage. By the end of September, there were ominous signs that the same pattern of “fundamentally flawed contracting strategies” described by congressional investigators as the cause of the epidemic of waste and corruption witnessed in Iraq was beginning to repeat itself in Louisiana and Mississippi. Many of the same companies involved in Iraq — Fluor, Bechtel, CH2M Hill and Halliburton — are now poised to clean up at home. MORE>>

The Human Engineering of Catastrophe: Coastal Maldevelopment and Katrina's Wrath

An Interview with Mark Davis

Mark Davis is the executive director of the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana. After Hurricane Katrina hit, the Coalition released a statement noting that it “has long worked to sound the alarm that this catastrophe was looming and that it could be avoided or at least better prepared for. Now that it has occurred we are working harder than ever to make sure it never happens again.” MORE>>

The Soul of New Orleans: Asseting Rights of Low- and Moderate-Income Families in Hurricane Reconstruction

An Interview with Tanya Harris

Tanya Harris is a displaced resident of the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans, and a staff member of ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) the nation’s largest community organization of low- and moderate-income families. ACORN is based in New Orleans. Harris is helping organize the ACORN Katrina Survivors Association, which has the aim of asserting the rights of low- and moderate-income families in New Orleans reconstruction. MORE>>