by Cassidy Duckett

It has been four years since Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the Gulf Coast. Teenagers have lived their entire high school lives in that time. The Olympics have happened. A new president was elected.

Yet, in New Orleans, the passage of 1,461 days has made little to no difference for many areas. Houses are still in ruins from flooding; churches and schools have yet to reopen, instead standing as empty buildings that represent lives that will never be the same. Professor Andrew Curtis of the Department of Geography visits New Orleans about every two months. “It’s a shame what’s going on,” Curtis says as he clicks through a slideshow of his most recent trips. The images flashing across the screen are of houses on stilts, windows covered with wood marked with graffiti, and FEMA trailers sitting in the midst of rubble. The scene looks identical to the pictures the nation saw in the weeks after the storm hit. Unfortunately, the situation is not much different now for large sections of New Orleans and the St. Bernard Parish.

As the storm grew stronger over the gulf, those who had the means to evacuate attempted to do so. When the levees broke, however, those left behind were forced to abandon their flooded homes and communities to save their lives. The houses, churches, and schools that were left behind remain empty, as the population is reluctant to come back without infrastructure, and vice versa. Many former residents of New Orleans have not returned because of this lack in both basic services and the social fabric that was so important to the city before the storm. Roads are dotted with dangerous potholes that are not being fixed. The subtropical climate means that many abandoned neighborhoods are drowned for a second time under a sea of vegetation. Many buildings remain broken, their doors and windows missing. Partly because of this blight, crime rates in the city have shot up, the growing presence of gangs fighting over sparsely populated neighborhoods forming yet one more impediment to return. Former residents have settled into new communities and are unlikely to return to the neighborhoods they knew that are now wrought with crime and debris. Even those who have returned have begun to question their decision.

So who is to blame? The poor handling of the situation by the Bush administration is an easy target. However, it has been four years and a new president sits in the White House. The blame is not so easily pinpointed now. “The mayor was blaming the governor, the governor was blaming the president, the people in the city were blaming everyone. The scale was just too huge; it overtook any meaningful response,” Professor Curtis adds.

No one entity was prepared for the disaster that happened in the summer of 2005. As various levels of government scrambled to fix it, the logistics fell through the cracks, which has left New Orleans dotted with tiny FEMA trailers and abandoned homes. The complexity of the situation in terms of social, political, and economic implications has dumbfounded every governing force.

That is why, it seems, the rebirth of New Orleans must happen with the help of non-profit organizations working independently. Brad Pitt’s organization, Make It Right, has been building eco-friendly homes in the Lower 9^th Ward. Their theory that it is better to build in a cluster rather than renovate homes across large spans of space has so far proven successful. Rather than moving back to isolated homes in damaged areas, families have an opportunity to begin again in a neighborhood. In addition, Professor Curtis’ work with Louisiana State University has helped make maps of homes being rebuilt versus abandoned sections so that groups can better understand the vastness of the problem.

However, Professor Curtis laments that overall, for many once thriving neighborhoods little has changed since the storm. Indeed, some areas have worsened, and it seems as though the money and attention are just not there to fix it. This does not mean the people of New Orleans are weak. Curtis writes in his book, GIS, Human Geography, and Disasters, “And yet, through it all, through the incredible hardship and daily suffering we are constantly amazed by their resolve—to never give up. That is why we continue to go back and do all we can.”

And because of this resolve to never give up, we cannot let it continue this way any longer, as it has been four years and counting. We must not forget, because the people of New Orleans will never forget.