BP Chairman Tony Hayward

In the recent movie “Brooklyn’s Finest”, actor Don Cheadle, as an undercover cop, tells his superiors that he “wants his life back”. When I first watched this scene, I couldn’t help but be distracted from the storyline and think of someone named Tony Hayward. This post is long overdue.

Did the BP CEO watch this movie before the oil spill, and had it leave a profound effect on his persona? Or is it just a eerily ironic, stupid statement made by someone who had and still HAS a lush albeit complicated life?

That life he never lost will continue on in all its pompous, plush glory, even if he is replaced and no longer running BP, while those who so much depended on nature destroyed by Mr Want My Life Back’s business must continue a struggle to recover their lives. And in the midst of hurricane season, worry about complications from more than just a possible hurricane. We want our lives back, too, and many are still rebuilding from the devastation of hurricanes Katrina & Rita.

A fitting life for Mr Want My Life Back would be a US government imposed life on the waters of the Gulf Coast, where as much as he claims to care about the people, he can work side by side with the cleanup workers, and eventually the fishermen, shrimpers, and others in the seafood industry, to EARN his life back.[

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM) announced today that the Governor’s request for an extension of the temporary housing unit (THU) program has been granted for eligible Hurricane Ike survivors. The program, previously extended to July 9, 2010, will now end January 7, 2011.

“While the majority of temporary housing unit occupants in this program have transitioned to more permanent, long-term housing, there are a few that need a little more time,” said State Coordinating Officer Ben Patterson. “We are confident that this second extension will help the remaining occupants of FEMA-supplied units complete their recovery.”

In response to Hurricane Ike, a total of 3,701 temporary housing units (mobile homes and park models) were provided to Texas residents. Currently 149 units remain occupied.

“The majority of our remaining occupants are working to rebuild or repair their homes” added FEMA Hurricane Ike Recovery Manager Brad Harris. “Remaining families may continue to live in the units as long as they remain eligible and can show that they are making progress toward their permanent housing.”

FEMA continues to provide eligible applicants the opportunity to purchase their temporary housing unit through a sales program. To date, 1,062 occupants have chosen to buy their unit.

FEMA will also continue to work with the state, tribal nations, local governments and voluntary organizations to facilitate donations of units that can be used for the sole purpose of providing temporary housing to eligible applicants.

Additionally, at the State of Texas’ request, FEMA has reopened the temporary rental assistance program. Applicants may be authorized to receive a one-time Temporary Housing award for two month’s rent to facilitate their transition from the FEMA-provided THU into interim housing (subject to program rules for maximum assistance). For those applicants who are moving from the THU because their home is being constructed under a Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) project, the Recovery Manager may, on a case-by-case basis, authorize one additional month of rental assistance if, due to unforeseen contractor delays in repairing or reconstructing the dwelling, the applicant will have to remain out of the dwelling for more than 60 days.

NEW ORLEANS, June 1, 2010 /PRNewswire/ — Hurricane Katrina’s deluge was Biblical. When it hit Louisiana and Mississippi the morning of August 29, 2005, the storm caused fearsome destruction. Then the disaster grew worse. The levees – the man-made walls built to protect New Orleans from the water surrounding it – failed. Their collapse flooded 80 percent of the city. By the time the waters receded and the survivors regrouped, Katrina, and then Hurricane Rita, had claimed more than 1,400 lives and the dreams of hundreds of thousands.

“Hurricane Katrina was a watershed in American history,” says historian Doug Brinkley. “Never before did we watch the near total devastation of a major American city as it happened. The response and rebuilding challenged us as a nation. New Orleans and the Gulf Coast have come back renewed. The story of what happened five years ago must be remembered.”

On October 26, 2010, the Louisiana State Museum in New Orleans will remember the devastation and showcase the renewal with a new exhibit years in the making. Living with Hurricanes: Katrina and Beyond is a $7.5 million exhibit opening on the ground floor of the historic Presbytere in the French Quarter’s Jackson Square. The 6,700 square-foot installation tells the stories of real people caught in the hurricane’s wrath. It tells of their rescue, recovery, rebuilding and renewal in a way certain to move both those who survived the storms of 2005 and those who watched the events unfold on TV.

Combining eyewitness accounts, historical context, immersive environments and in-depth scientific exploration, Katrina and Beyond enables visitors to understand the 2005 storms’ impact on Louisiana, the Gulf Coast and the nation. It is a story of how a culture – the rich, variegated world of New Orleans and coastal Louisiana – has learned to live with the fragility of its environment and how the storms of 2005 gave rise to a new vision for the region.

Designed by the Boston-based firm ExperienceDesign that worked with the Museum’s historians, curators and exhibit designers, Living with Hurricanes consists of a powerful and moving series of galleries – each telling one aspect of the story using artifacts and rich media – sound, video and computer graphics.

“Museums have become places for interactive learning,” says Museum Director Sam Rykels. “The galleries in Living with Hurricanes are designed to convey what happened to visitors of all ages and all backgrounds incorporating everything from survivors’ personal mementos to their thoughts and feelings.”

Gallery One illustrates Louisiana’s history with water, from the Mississippi River’s benefits to the threats of coastal storm surges and floods. Visitors will move through the “Evacuation Corridor,” overhearing residents’ voices as they weigh their options as Katrina approaches. A state of the art “Storm Theater” shows Katrina’s full fury with moving and dramatic footage of the hurricane’s onslaught.

Gallery Two takes visitors past a leaking floodwall and into an attic and onto a roof where they can view the flooded city surrounding them. They’ll hear a firsthand account of a St. Bernard Parish family’s rescue and view artifacts, histories and photographs.

Throughout the galleries are compelling artifacts ranging from music legend Fats Domino’s baby grand piano found in his flooded Ninth Ward house to a Coast Guard rescue basket to seats from the Louisiana Superdome. The objects serve as touchstones in recalling the days after the storm.

The forensics of Katrina unfold in Gallery Three where science and innovative displays come together. A large interactive table map shows the paths of Katrina and Rita and the sequence of floods that inundated the region. Visitors discover how the levees failed with digital animation. Additional displays illustrate the realities of eroding wetlands, disaster management, engineering and the science of predicting and tracking hurricanes.

The Fourth Gallery celebrates recovery and promotes preparedness, showcases the ingenuity of Louisianans in rebuilding their lives and communities. The gallery will be updated regularly to reflect advancements in flood protection and coastal restoration and new strategies for living with hurricanes.

“Visitors will leave knowing the power of hope,” says Louisiana Lt. Governor Scott Angelle. “Even in the darkest hours just after the storm Louisianans were already drawing up plans to make their home a better place than it was before. Now, five years after, there’s a true rebirth in our state.”

Founded in 1906 with a mission to collect, preserve, interpret and present the state’s rich history and diverse cultures, the Louisiana State Museum’s collection now totals more than 450,000 artifacts and works of art. These provide an authentic experience of Louisiana to visitors from around the world while enhancing the quality of life for residents. The Museum is part of the Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism.

The exhibit will be located at The Presbytere on Jackson Square, New Orleans. Hours are 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. For more information, please call 800.568.6968 or visit http://www.KatrinaAndBeyond.com

Derrick Tabb, the Rebirth Brass Band drummer, is generating buzz for his “Roots of Music” mentoring program, which brings instruments, tutoring, and music education to New Orleans area kids, some still traumatized by the effects of Hurricane Katrina.

Derrick is in the top ten nominated for the annual CNN Heroes Award. He faces some tough competition ranging from a Miami nurse/breast cancer survivor who operates a mobile mammography van providing free screenings to a Filipino teenager fighting to give his peers alternatives to gangs through education.

A total of 28 nominees from around the world are in the running, championing community causes, homelessness, health, and the environment, and more. Cast your vote for Katrina survivor Derrick Tabb here:

As Hurricane Ida reminds us, where we choose to work, pray, play and to call home can be a perilous area, even in November.

Along the awe-inspiring coast of the Gulf of Mexico, millions of Americans enjoy pleasures like coastal breezes, outstanding food, fishing, boating, and many other unique amenities of life.

But (the word that’s always in the back of our minds), no matter where you choose to live, there always will loom the possibility of disaster albiet catastrophe.

The unexpected fire, unprecedented blizzard, unparalelled earthquake, or the monumental flood just hasn’t happened yet.

Emergency experts say the key to survival is preparation. And, as Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav, Ike and others before have taught us, prayer, vigilance, preserverance, and resilency are just as important. Some folks have it, and some don’t.

I’m not knocking those waiting for the next disaster so that they can give up on the place they were born, or who no longer want to call the Gulf Coast home. But (the word again), for some of us – NO, we’re not leaving – at least not until the next mandatory evacuation followed by the predicted doomsday scenario, when the forces of nature force us out.

Just a reminder that the Academy Award-nominated, Sundance Film Festival Best Documentary “Trouble The Water” was released on DVD a few weeks ago, on August 25.

This remarkable piece of work is unlike any other Katrina-themed documentary ever made, and is raw, inspiring, surrealistic, and subtly sensational, but that’s only a part of what makes it one of the best documentaries of any kind produced in recent memory. It’s so good, I watched it twice already.

Anyone connected through Hurricanes Katrina and Rita should make it a point to see this movie, if you haven’t already (apologies to Kim, Scott, Tia, Carl and even Brian for taking so long to spread the word). Register and leave your opinions below.

The DVD is on sale at most major disc outlets. It’s also available for rent or sale from New Orleans DVD at its DVD machines in Laplace and Harvey, LA. Watch the trailer here:

A couple of reporters for the non-profit website ProPublica.org looked into the Katrina-era incidents involving Dr Anna Pou at Memorial Medical Center and shootings by self-proclaimed vigilantes, and share their views in this video from Bloggingheads.tv:

Even though the President didn’t make it to the Gulf Coast for Katrina’s anniversary this year, we all know he deserves a vacation. And even during vacation, he sent a message. Watch it here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/32607347#32607347

The Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) has announced they will open the Housing Choice Voucher Program (Section Eight) waiting list from September 6 to September 12, 2009.

Applications can be picked up from the following branches of the New Orleans Public Library:

• MAIN BRANCH NEW ORLEANS PUBLIC LIBRARY—219 LOYOLA AV
• ALGIERS REGIONAL BRANCH LIBRARY—3014 HOLIDAY DR
• ALVAR BRANCH LIBRARY—913 ALVAR ST
• CHILDREN’S RESOURCE CENTER—913 NAPOLEON AV
• CITA DENNIS HUBBELL BRANCH LIBRARY—725 PELICAN AV
• ROSA KELLER BRANCH LIBRARY—4300 S. BROAD ST
• LAKEVIEW BRANCH LIBRARY—6317 ARGONNE BLVD
• LATTER BRANCH LIBRARY—5120 ST. CHARLES AV
• MARTIN LUTHER KING BRANCH LIBRARY—1611 CAFFIN AV
• MID CITY BRANCH LIBRARY—330 N. CARROLLTON AV
• NIX BRANCH LIBRARY—1401 S. CARROLLTON AV

The agency also claims applications can be downloaded from their website, www.hano.org, but alas, several Katrina survivors reported there is no appplication download link available.

The application will also be published on the Times-Picayune on August 23, 26, or 29, 2009, or the Louisiana Weekly on August 27, 2009.

Completed applications will only be accepted by mail at the following address and must be postmarked no later than September 12, 2009 and mailed to:

SMART, INC
ATTN: HOUSING AUTHORITY OF NEW ORLEANS
P. O. BOX 57346
NEW ORLEANS LA 70157-7346
The forms can also be emailed to: hanowaitlist@smartinc1.com

No hand delivered applications will be accepted at HANO’s offices and applications postmarked or emailed before 9/06/09 or AFTER 9/12/09 WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED

HANO will conduct a lottery to determine an applicant’s place on the waiting list, and they will be notified by mail of their position on the list.

Remember, applications should NOT be mailed before September 6.

Also on Saturday, May 16, 2009, from 6:00 PM – 9:30 PM the Charmaine Neville Band headlines the ‘Inaugural Shindig’ for grassroots nonprofit Save Our Schools NOLA. This “COMMUNITY CELEBRATION OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS” will be held at the Federal Reserve Bank Ballroom (The Security Center), 147 Carondelet Street in New Orleans.

For more info visit sosnola.org

Saturday, May 16th, 2009 from 4 – 6 pm at the Community Book Center, 2523 Bayou Road in New Orleans, the International School for Bottom Up Organizing (ISBO), a nonprofit dedicated to training organizers around the globe, will be hosting a free lecture and book signing event for their new publication, “The Bottom Will Rise and Create a New World”.

As a fundraising event, the book will be available for a donation of $15 which will go to support young organizers from countries such as Columbia, Venezuela, Mexico, and Bolivia attend the next session of the School in July of 2009.

Many of the writings in the book come from the direct experiences of bottom up organizing in New Orleans post-Katrina by the People’s Organizing Committee and the New Orleans Survivor Council.

For more info contact co-author Kim Nunez at 504 305 9653. For more information about ISBO please visit www.peoplesorganizing.org.

I qualified for an elevation grant from Road Home.  Likely it w

can never happen due to subdivision restrictions, by-laws

covenants.  Does anybody know if elevation grant money

must be spent on elevating the dwelling or can it be spent

on other house repairs suffered from the hurricane?

These last few weeks have been painful. Besides a “computer arm” (a cousin of tennis elbow, I guess) not being able to write about all the Katrina-related news that’s been popping up, and watching our economy suffer has been painful, too. And then to watch our government try to bail out Wall Street was enough to cause more pain.

To get back on track, some things are better NOT left alone, and hurricane recovery is never far from the mind of anyone who’s rebuilding. Just because Hurricane Katrina is not at the top of the media food chain doesn’t mean the issues are not just as important now as they were three years ago.

As recently as Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, issues known to exist in the aftermath of Katrina are apparently still stumbling blocks for hurricane survivors.

Things like unfit Red Cross shelters, hotel room shortages, re-entry problems, housing, FEMA problems, and the expense of evacuating are among the issues that still haunt hurricane survivors.

As another hurricane season winds to a close, let’s not let our guard down. Because the pain (or the karma) could come back to haunt us, also.

Certain guests at Daniel Yeh’s hotel in Galveston after Hurricane Katrina had rooms paid for by FEMA, and Yeh probably thought he’d latched onto an easy way to guaranteed guests and payments. Problem was, the guests weren’t really guests or Katrina evacuees, or the rooms were unoccupied, or were even occupied with paying guests.

Yeh, 55, of Sugarland, Texas, an owner of the Flagship Hotel (a Galveston landmark which sits on piers over Gulf of Mexico waters and suffered damages from Hurricane Ike) was sentenced to 30 months in prison and ordered to pay $30,000 in fines on September 26 because of his scheme.

Yeh has already repaid about $232,000 to the government in restitution, not long after search warrants were served on him in December, 2005. He had faced a maximum of five years in prison without parole and fines of up to $250,000. His sentencing originally had been set for Feb. 1, 2008.

His attorneys had filed a defense motion for a lower sentence because of a claim that diminished mental capacity due to a brain tumor caused him to hatch the scheme. The federal judge rightfully called the medical testimony comparable to “Alice in Wonderland”.

A 39-count 2006 indictment alleged that between October 1, 2005, and December 15, 2005, Yeh knowingly devised a scheme to defraud the federal disaster relief programs of at least $232,000.

In October 2005, Yeh gave a desk clerk about 30 names to put into the hotel’s reservation system at the “FEMA rate” of $84.99 a night. He then picked up the room cards for the rooms and started billing FEMA. An investigation found a number of those people were Yeh’s employees, relatives and friends and were not hurricane evacuees

Yeh pled guilty in 2007 and admitted he submitted a false claim to FEMA for Room 701 at the Flagship from Oct. 28 through Nov. 11, 2005. Based on that claim, FEMA paid the hotel $1,189.

The investigation started when agents got a tip saying the hotel records showed it as full when, in fact, a significant number of rooms were unoccupied. Federal agents say they interviewed a man whose name was listed on Yeh’s claims as the guest, but the man (a contractor who submitted bids in 2004 and 2005 for remodeling jobs at the Flagship and another hotel Yeh is associated with) said he didn’t have a room at the Flagship then.

As part of the alleged scheme, Yeh took over the job of billing the federal lodging programs online after Hurricane Rita, filing false claims for reimbursement for rooms in the names of hotel employees who had stayed at the Flagship free as part of their employment arrangement; rooms in the name of supposed hurricane evacuees on dates when the rooms were occupied by paying hotel guests with different names; rooms occupied by friends, relatives, and employees of his wife’s business, who were recruited to stay at the hotel, but were not evacuees; rooms in the names of supposed hurricane evacuees who never had rooms; rooms in the name of supposed hurricane evacuees on dates when those rooms were unoccupied; and for multiple rooms in the names of a single guest when, in fact, the guest didn’t occupy as many rooms.

Yeh has been free on bond and a date hasn’t yet been set for him to report to prison.

You have to wonder how many other hotels took advantage of the system back then. And that corruption is shamefully greater than that done by any Katrina evacuee or undeserving individual.

Anyone suspecting criminal activity involving disaster assistance programs can make an anonymous report by calling the toll-free Hurricane Relief Fraud Hotline, 1-866-720-5721 or 1-800-CALL-FBI, 24 hours a day, seven days a week until further notice.

Information can also be emailed to the inspector general at dhsoighotline@dhs.gov or sent by snail mail, with as many details as possible, to:
Department of Homeland Security
Washington, DC. 20528
Attn: Office of Inspector General, Hotline

Katrina and Rita survivors in Houston had planned a special day on September 13, But Houston had a problem: Hurricane Ike arrived. And it wasn’t to be a hurricane party, but a show of thanks.

“Thank You, Houston” which had been planned for September 13 as a commemoration of the hospitality Houstonians showed Katrina and Rita survivors in 2005, is set to celebrate Gulf Coast traditions through music, food and survivors’ stories. Because of Hurricane Ike, the original program was changed to reflect Houstonians’ recent support for their neighbors.

The event takes place today from 6:30 – 9 pm at Discovery Green, just outside the George R. Brown Convention Center, where thousands of Katrina survivors were welcomed and housed in September 2005 and many first responders to Hurricane Ike worked throughout last week.

In the park’s Houston Public Library Express, a video version of a photo/audio exhibition, “Who we Are” , will be playing. In addition, you can check out headsets loaded with podcasts featuring recorded stories of thanks and gratitude from Katrina and Rita survivors.

KPFT 90.1 FM will be on hand to record Hurricane Ike narratives. Service organizations and computer access/support will be available. Members of the public are encouraged to bring non-perishable “ready-to-eat” food items for the Houston Food Bank, to assist with their hurricane relief efforts.

At 7pm, the music starts, featuring Al “Carnival Time” Johnson as well as the Voodoo Brass Band, comprised of N.O. and H-Town-bred members.

“Thank You, Houston” is sponsored by the Surviving Katrina and Rita in Houston project, Houston Institute for Culture and Discovery Green, and funded in part with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the United Way of the Texas Gulf Coast, Discovery Green, Houston Arts Alliance and the Houston Endowment.