Statement by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney On the 2-Year Anniversary of Katrina August 28, 2007

           

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Statement by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney
On the 2-Year Anniversary of Katrina
August 28, 2007

            New Orleans isn’t a city forgotten, it’s a city deliberately abandoned.  Not by our country’s good citizens – who well remember the painful images of people stranded on rooftops and at the convention center, but by the leaders of our federal government.  Two years after an 18-foot wall of water followed the howling winds of Hurricane Katrina into the city, the levees haven’t been repaired, the cleanup hasn’t been completed, no significant affordable housing has been restored, and 213,000 of the city’s people haven’t been able to return to their neighborhoods or their jobs. 

            The problem, which extends into the entire Gulf Coast region, is a lack of federal commitment at the top.  In March when he visited the city, President Bush claimed $110 billion in federal funds had been sent to New Orleans.  Actually, less than $59 billion had been allocated to the entire state of Louisiana and as of this week, according to The New York Times, only $6.7 billion has been spent in the state, just $3.39 billion of that in New Orleans.

            Over the past two years, thousands of volunteers have streamed into New Orleans.  Hundreds of thousands of individuals have donated money, food and clothing.  More have opened up their homes and communities to evacuees.  Non-profit organizations have taken on projects ranging from emergency housing to tourism development.  Our own AFL-CIO Gulf Coast Revitalization Program is deep into $1 billion worth of strategies to produce new housing, fund economic development projects, create thousands of new jobs, train workers to fill those jobs and guarantee the right-of-return for all former public housing tenants.

            Even so, crime is on the increase and 45 public schools remain closed in Orleans Parish alone.  Half the hospitals are still shuttered.  The city is down more than 100,000 jobs.  And the Lower Ninth Ward remains as it was the day after the flood waters receded: A ravaged war zone whose refugees aren’t able to return.

            The restoration of New Orleans is a loaded train that requires a powerful engine to pull it.  Only our federal government has the engine to do it, but so far, it hasn’t left the yard except for public relations junkets.  Every day, New Orleans grows into a more shameful chapter in our nation’s history, a bigger symbol of federal leadership incompetence and neglect.