On August 30, 2005, my life and that of my fellow New Orleanians was changed forever.
That's not the day Hurricane Katrina struck our jewel of a city, but the day after. Most of us woke up that morning and shed tears of relief and thanks that we had somehow survived another brush with disaster.
Then the levees broke. This destruction was preventable. For years we've had a plan to upgrade the levees to withstand a Category 5 hurricane. However, rather than providing the $2.5 billion needed to accomplish this, the federal government slashed funding for southeast Louisiana hurricane protection in each of the last five years. Instead, we will now spend tens of billions of dollars to rebuild the city. How do we make sure we spend it wisely?
As president of a major nonprofit organization, the Committee for a Better New Orleans/Metropolitan Area Committee (CBNO/MAC), I have tried to maintain my sanity throughout this strange, sad time by thinking about this task—even at 4:00 a.m., when my mind starts racing even before I realize I am awake.
CBNO/MAC will be central to the planning and management of many aspects of the restoration effort.
Every segment of the community is represented on our Board and Task Forces, so we can bring all voices and viewpoints to the table, make sure all possibilities are explored, and all people are heard. Our proven strategies and capacities are essential to lifting New Orleans from the waters of destruction; our Task Forces bring together vast expertise on the critical issues the city will face.
First, we must focus not just on rebuilding New Orleans but reinventing it: stronger, safer, better. Inherent in any disaster is opportunity, and the best way to honor those who suffered and perished in this disaster is to seize the opportunity to the fullest.
Second, we must recognize that we are rebuilding the city for all Americans: for the vast grain farms of the Midwest whose produce is shipped through our port; for the 25% of the nation's oil supply that flows through our refineries and pipelines; for the huge seafood industry that brings oysters, shrimp and blackened redfish to America's tables.
Every bit as important, we must rebuild it for its culture. Jazz and blues, Creole cuisine, Mardi Gras, historic architecture, Old World ambience enlivened with Third World spice—as Garrison Keilor said, "New Orleans is where puritan America goes to unbutton the top button and shimmy and shake." America without New Orleans would be a place diminished.
So where do we begin?
We start with the infrastructure, protecting the huge investment that the nation is about to make. This means strengthening the levees to achieve maximum protection. It means turning the drainage canals into giant underground conduits that cannot breach. It means looking at the latest technologies for rebuilding the power, water and sewer systems. It means establishing new, stronger building codes.
It also means looking at the most flood-prone areas of the city, and asking whether we should rebuild there at all. New Orleans is built for 600,000 people. With the deaths and departures— many evacuees, especially the poor who have no homes or jobs to come back to, will never return—we will have a population of no more than 400,000.
So, it may be wise to turn the lowest areas into parks, or wildlife preserves, or other non-habitation land uses, and construct them in ways that provide additional buffers against future storm surges. We simply must maximize our protection against future storms—because whatever we build, they will come. Then we must turn to our economy.
New Orleans has had a poverty-based economic system for half a century. Our poverty rate of approximately 27% has remained unchanged for decades. Ironically, Hurricane Katrina probably cut that rate in half, because the poorest of the poor are not coming back.
So we must make sure that we do not backslide. We must emphasize those aspects of tourism that provide economic opportunity, offering business support to our cultural creators and management training to base-level employees. The reconstruction itself will create thousands of jobs; we must train our citizens in every aspect of the building trades.
We must also focus on asset-building, particularly home ownership—a proven method for lifting people out of poverty. Federal housing funds should not be used to create cheap rental units, but to build affordable homes that families can acquire and use as the bedrock for a better future.
We must find, among the ruins, new industries and economic opportunities that will permanently enhance the quality of life of all our citizens.
I could go on at length about how we resurrect New Orleans, how we raise from the devastation a new place that will be one of the world's great cities, but for now there is only so much time and space. So I will close with this promise: we will build a better New Orleans. Y'all come visit.
Keith Twitchell '77 is President of CBNO/MAC. Individuals interested in supporting the work of CBNO/MAC in rebuilding New Orleans may contact Keith Twitchell at keithgct@aol.com.
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