The sheer amount of perseverance shown by New Orleans residents in the face of disasters – first Hurricane Katrina, then the great economic recession, and now the Gulf of Mexico’s Deep Water Horizon oil spill – demonstrates how unique and precious this city is to the greater United States. No other US city has known such repeated devastation, or has demonstrated such noble resistance to defeat, such an immense capacity to endure. Although the city and its residents have not been broken by the continued assaults, many are still picking up the pieces. People are hopeful, but scars from the hurricane are still visible, and the recent oil spill disaster adds to the damage and anxiety.
New Orleans Residents, Five Years After Katrina
Kaiser Family Foundation has conducted three surveys of New Orleans residents since Hurricane Katrina hit five years ago, to track attitudes on recovery and to understand the challenges faced by residents. Findings from the most recent KFF survey, “New Orleans Five Years After the Storm: A New Disaster Amid Recovery,” were released on August 13th, 2010, and paints a conflicted picture, both hopeful and discouraging.
Seven in ten NOLA residents believe the recovery and rebuilding effort is going in the right direction, up from 56% in 2008. In regards to their personal situation, however, nearly one in three report that their day-to-day lives are still very or somewhat disrupted due to Hurricane Katrina, although this number is down from 41% in 2008 and 46% in 2006. Three-quarters of New Orleans residents assert that, in spite of the challenges they continue to face, they feel positive about the city’s future, and this optimism is shared across gender, race, age, and income groups. This reflects much hopefulness, despite the fact that 59% of respondents believe the city has not mostly recovered from Hurricane Katrina, and 70% maintain that most Americans have forgotten about the challenges facing New Orleans.
The oil spill threw a wrench in recovery efforts and added a thick layer of anxiety to the lives of NOLA residents, with 84% reporting it will affect the local environment and 82% believing it will affect the New Orleans economy “a great deal” or “quite a bit.” Half believe the oil spill will cause more damage than Hurricane Katrina, with 40% asserting the opposite. Concern over the oil spill rivals apprehension around crime, with 40% of respondents maintaining that “controlling crime and assuring public safety” and “dealing with the effects of the Gulf Coast Oil Spill” should be the top priorities for the city. In an open ended question, however, crime overwhelmingly won out as the city’s biggest problem, with 41% of respondents, compared to 12% offering the Gulf Coast Oil Spill, illustrating an astonishing level of accordance for an open ended question. More than half of respondents are at least somewhat worried about becoming the victim of a violent crime, and this concern is exacerbated by the pervasive distrust of the police department, especially among African American respondents. Sixty-four percent of African Americans in New Orleans believe they can trust the police to do what is right “only some of the time” or “almost never”.
Anxiety over other issues differs by race as well. Approximately six in ten African American households in New Orleans earn below 200% of the federal poverty level, and are more likely to report having fallen behind paying rent or mortgage (31%, compared to 8% of whites) and to report having problems paying for food (also 31%, compared to 8% of whites).
Worry has an iron grip on the lives of New Orleans’ African American residents, with the percent saying they are “very worried” about each of the following issues:
Data from Kaiser Family Foundation
The recovery is also perceived differently by African Americans than by whites, with:
- 42% of African Americans – compared to 16% of whites – saying their lives are still disrupted
- 66% of African Americans – compared to 49% of whites – asserting the belief that New Orleans has not recovered
- 42% of African Americans – compared to 28% of whites – maintaining that the city is a worse place to live now
- 44% of African Americans – compared to 73% of whites – saying their neighborhood has enough places where they can buy groceries
- 28% of African Americans – compared to 55% of whites – reporting that their neighborhood has enough places where their children can play outside.
On a positive note, fewer African Americans perceive racial bias in the recovery process. When asked if African Americans in the greater New Orleans area are being given worse treatment and opportunities in the rebuilding process than whites, African Americans that agreed has shrunk from 55% in 2006, to 46% in 2008, to 30% in 2010. A majority of respondents (59%) believe the city is divided over issues such as race and income, though a large majority (78%) asserts the belief that the racial and ethnic diversity of New Orleans is generally a good thing.
The Impact of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
A recent survey, “Impact on Children and Families of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill” conducted by the Nation Center for Disaster Preparedness in collaboration with Marist Poll, was released on August 3, 2010. This survey, focusing on coastal residents (living within ten miles of the coast) in Louisiana and Mississippi, wanted to assess the potential long-term impact of the spill as it transitioned from the “acute phase” to the “chronic phase.”
- Nearly 43% of respondents had been exposed to the oil spill, either through involvement with oil cleanup, having come in contact with the oil spill or cleanup activities, or whose property had been lost or damaged as a result of the spill or cleanup
- 35% of respondents with children reported that their child had physical health effects (respiratory symptoms, skin irritations believed to be related to the oil spill) or mental health effects (sadness, depression, nervousness, fear, trouble sleeping, or behavioral issues) as a result of the oil spill
- One in five respondents report decreased income, and 8% have lost a job as a result of the oil spill; over a quarter of respondents believe they may move from the Gulf due to the oil spill
