Abstract The disaster in New Orleans after Katrina was unnatural and man-made. Flooding in the New Orleans metropolitan area largely resulted from breached levees and flood walls (Gabe, Falk, McCarthy and Mason, 2005). Quite often the scale of a disaster's impact, as in the case of Hurricane Katrina, has more to do with the political economy of the country, region, and state than with the hurricane's category strength (Jackson, 2005). Similarly, measures to prevent or contain the effects of disaster vulnerability are not equally provided to all. Typically, flood-control investments provide location-specific benefits—with the greatest benefits going to populations who live or own assets in the protected area. Katrina has been described as one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history. Ten months after the storm, FEMA had spent $3.6 billion to remove 98.6 million cubic yards of debris due to Katrina (Jordan, 2006). What has been cleaned up, what gets left behind, and where the waste is disposed appear to be linked more to political science and sociology than to toxicology, epidemiology, and hydrology.
As reconstruction and rebuilding move forward in New Orleans and the Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama Gulf Coast region, it is clear that the lethargic and inept emergency response after Hurricane Katrina was a disaster that overshadowed the deadly storm itself. Yet there is a "second disaster" in the making—driven by racism, classism, elitism, paternalism, and old-fashioned greed. If these issues are not adequately addressed, there will be a second disaster that will result in the permanent systematic de-population of New Orleans' African-American communities. This presentation examines the government's response to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in NO and the extent to which race is a factor.