We also met, worked with and heard the agonizing stories of many other people who are still suffering from the effects of the hurricane.   The trip left me physically and emotionally drained and mad as hell at the incompetence of FEMA and the lack of support provided by our government.  My report, written with Wendy Cohen and Lisa Kollins, fellow Mitzvah Corps members, follows.

            During the week of July 4, twenty-three Reform Jews from all over the country came together to provide disaster relief in New Orleans and Jackson, Mississippi as part of the Union of Reform Judaism’s Adult Mitzvah Corps. We overcame “philanthropic paralysis” that can come when faced with so much need in the world-Darfur, global warming, conflict in the Middle East, etc. - and took one very small step towards tikkun olam.

            We were warned about the wreckage we would see on the “gloom and doom” tour of New Orleans, but nothing prepared us for the block after block of debris, abandoned cars and overturned trees. It is eerily silent in these neighborhoods.  It’s summer time, yet there are no people, no children playing , no dogs.  The occasional upright home, seemingly unscathed, gave us a flash of hope, quickly dashed as we discovered thick black mold covered the walls. The mold ruins everything it touches.  Before houses can be rebuilt everything within the house must be removed--down to the studs.  Furniture, family pictures, toys are all ruined.  Throughout these neighborhoods concrete steps lead up to emptiness—the homes they once served are gone or moved far from them.

The small white FEMA trailers that dot the devastated landscape are small and insignificant. FEMA regulations prohibit it from providing disaster victims with anything that is “permanent” in nature.   Their trailers cannot withstand winds of greater that 25 mph and those living in them will be among the first evacuated in the event of another storm.  Who thought that almost one year following the hurricane people would still be living in temporary trailers?  Why are they?

Katrina is a crisis that continues.   Over 400,000 people have still not been able to return to their homes.  The stress of lost loved ones, homes, jobs, and employment, coupled with continued displacement has led to a mental health catastrophe.  The suicide rate is up.  Care givers are too few in number and those available to care for others, need care themselves.  Many residents are mentally paralyzed, unable to think about their futures.  The elderly suffer as nurses and community aides are in short supply.  Housing shortages have driven rents up by as much as 20 to 50%.  An estimated 250,000 automobiles were destroyed by the storm further limiting the ability of residents to get to jobs.

The media had led us to believe that primarily poor people were the most dramatically affected by the hurricane. The lower 9 th ward where many low-income families lived is destroyed and no government efforts have been made to rebuild what was a vibrant community. Regardless of economic class, race, or religion, virtually no one in New Orleans is unscarred. Other neighborhoods, some middle class, had significant devastation occur.  The middle class, with greater resources, has a better chance of reconstructing their homes, but judging from what we saw it will be years before their community heals.

            At the Gates of Prayer, one of four Reform synagogues in the New Orleans area, we received a status report on the Jewish community.  The rabbi showed us pictures of the sanctuary which looked like a mikvah after the storm.  Gates of Prayer, along with the other Reform and Conservative synagogues in New Orleans have finished most of the reconstruction of their buildings and about 80% of their congregants have returned.  Will the remaining 20% return?  It seems unlikely unless the economy along with the city is rebuilt. And “returned” doesn’t mean congregants are back in their own homes.  Almost the entire staff and executive committee members of the Reform congregation and the New Orleans Jewish Federation are living in temporary quarters, not their own homes.  The cantorial soloist and her two children have lived with another family for over eleven months.  Her son “lost” his bar mitzvah year; a small loss perhaps in the face of what other’s endured, but it is small losses like this that continue to afflict the people in the area long after the hurricane itself.   The cantor lives in a FEMA trailer in the shul parking lot. A rabbi lives on the second floor of his home, his kitchen a microwave oven and a dormitory refrigerator, his family still living outside the area. No one complains, they are just trying to cope – and with a sense of humor.  This year’s Purim Megillah reading substituted “Katrina” for Haman.

Beth El, New Orleans’ only Orthodox synagogue, (and Lakeview, the middle class neighborhood surrounding it,) was destroyed. All eight of its Torahs sustained water damage and were buried.  The congregation has lost it’s building, its Torahs, even its yarzheit records. Volunteers scour cemeteries taking digital pictures of cemetery stones, hoping to reconstruct the records.  

The Reform Jewish congregation in Baton Rouge, who worked day and night assisting Katrina evacuees, experienced their own synagogue roof collapse from Hurricane Rita (so far their insurer has refused to pay the $500,000 needed to rebuild the sanctuary, arguing that the damage was caused by flooding, rather than the hurricane winds and rain.)

            What we saw and the personal stories of rescue and loss that we heard every day, strengthened our resolve to work hard to help rebuild. The work was varied.  In New Orleans, at the St. Augustine Church, the oldest African-American Catholic parish in the U.S., we scrubbed and cleaned, helping the church to pass health inspection as a food distribution center. In Jackson, Mississippi we helped two organizations by picking up and delivering needed items, sorting donations, answering phone calls, and serving food at a soup kitchen. Although Jackson itself had not sustained much storm damage, the influx of evacuees--the city more than doubled its population in the months following Katrina-- has strained the social service system. Our help was greatly appreciated, but much more is needed.

            We left the program with two overwhelming impressions – the first was disillusionment with our government and its agencies.  Over and over we heard New Orleans residents refer to all the damage brought on by Katrina as “a man-made disaster.”  Man-made, what did they mean?  The Army Corp of Engineers now acknowledges that the levees were not built to specification, that graft and corruption weakened their ability to hold back the waters. Questionable decisions to evacuate personnel at pumping stations in New Orleans lead to much of the severe flooding the area experienced.  Throughout the week, we heard one disappointing tale after another about the inadequacies, lack of compassion and general incompetence of FEMA and the government.  The bureaucratic mistakes and slow responses can be directly linked – without question – to drowning deaths, crimes and crises in New Orleans, and increased (unnecessary) destruction to homes and infrastructure throughout the region.  Equally distressing are the struggles homeowners are facing with the insurance and mortgage companies, neither of which seems willing to accept their responsibility and fulfill legitimate claims.  Congress recently passed a large appropriations bill, promising a tremendous amount of money to affected citizens – and then went on summer recess before actually writing any checks.

            The second major impression from the week was of a tremendous admiration for the inspiring work of individuals, churches/synagogues and private agencies.  These were groups of people who saw a dire need and stepped up to fill it – without a middleman, without a mandate from above, without prior experience in disaster management.  There were people who rented trucks and brought water to the convention center in New Orleans in the days immediately following the storm, while government officials were on television denying that evacuees were gathered there.  We met people who put out a call to their neighbors and were able to fill giant U-hauls with diapers and drinks within hours, and who then drove those trucks south to shelters overwhelmed by the sheer number of desperate people at their doors.  The rabbis from the congregation in Baton Rouge simply called each one of their members to ask them how many evacuees they could house – and the only congregants who said “no” already had extra friends or family staying with them.  

Unfortunately generous, even heroic efforts by volunteers and private donations will not rebuild the area without an extensive government response.  The rabbi from one of the Reform Jewish congregations in New Orleans urged us to consider the situation in this way.  When we watch a disaster unfold on television, he explained, we tend to see the people affected as being different from us.  He reminded us that facing a natural disaster is something communities everywhere may deal with – earthquakes in California, hurricanes in the South and occasionally in the Northeast, tornadoes in the Midwest – and the governmental response to Katrina and Rita is indicative of what the government response will be in our own cities if something should happen.  He asked us to advocate for them – to pressure our own congressmen and senators to visit the region and provide funds to rebuild – since we never know when it may be our turn to ask for help.  It is a sobering thought to consider.

We encourage Jews nationwide to engage in any of the following: urging Congressional representatives to visit the region; contributing to SOS New Orleans (www.urj.org/relief/sos/); joining a Mitzvah Corps (www.urj.org/csa/mitzvahcorps); working with Nechama’s volunteer workers’ program (www.nechama.org/); or, adopting a needy Gulf region family (www.hands.ms).