The Gulf Coast one year later: Indices of a social disaster

The wretched state of New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast region devastated by Hurricane Katrina one year ago today is a testament to the indifference, incompetence and brutality of the American ruling elite.

Virtually nothing has been done to clean up, let alone rebuild, working class districts reduced to rubble by the storm. Thousands of the city’s ruined houses remain untouched. City officials have indicated that, after Tuesday, they may simply order that flood-damaged houses be bulldozed.

More than 1,800 people died in the Katrina disaster and no one knows how many corpses remain decomposing in shattered houses. Dead bodies continue to be discovered.

There is no plan in place, twelve months after the storm, to rebuild New Orleans or other affected portions of the Gulf Coast, or make whole the hundreds of thousands of residents who were displaced and dispersed across the country. The Bush administration washes its hands of any responsibility, while state and local officials point the finger at Washington and at one another.

With the exception of the tourist districts and more affluent areas, New Orleans has been left to rot by the federal, state and local governments. The federal aid that has been provided has gone overwhelmingly to the financial elite and wealthy social layers. The mass of working class victims of the storm have received little or nothing.

The so-called rebuilding efforts have been little more than government-subsidized boondoggles for speculators, profiteers and corporate cronies of the Bush administration. Newsweek magazine accurately termed the official recovery drive “mostly an opportunity for Southern companies owned by GOP campaign contributors to make some money in New Orleans.” One of the first measures enacted, even before the creation of the so-called “Gulf Opportunity Zone,” was the slashing of wages for workers involved in reconstruction efforts.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2006/aug2006/katr-a29.shtml