Alive in Truth: Oral Histories from Katrina survivors

This website is dedicated to New Orleans and Katrina survivors. There's a great deal of information on here, including oral histories from people who lived through Katrina. Some of them have disabilities.

I read a few of them. One disabled man said that he was able to get up on his roof during Katrina with his pet and waited the storm out. By the time the storm was over, everything he owned was ruined. A neighbor assisted him afterwards getting to an area where he could get help and he moved to Austin Texas without anything.

People in Austin helped him get a mobility scooter and the basics : a bed, chair, table, etc. and he remains there, hoping that his son will join him some day. He doesn't want to return to New Orleans.

A male street performer spoke about how TV coverage is sometimes limited to showing the fixed up areas where businesses have reopened in the French Quarter, but that four or five blocks away it is bedlam. He speaks of cleaning out Burger King after the storm wearing a gas mask due to the stench. He said one problem that is happening is employers can't find people to hire yet people lack transportation and access to records employers want to hire them. There seems to be an endless circle of problems that keep progress from happening because the regular rules of business either aren't waived or made flexible to help get people back on track, yet people lack the help they need to meet the usual requirements.

One thing I know- getting mired down in bureaucracy at a time when growth is essential isn't the answer. I'm reading in the paper that New Orleans has a 46% higher death rate now and newscasters are saying doctors had to leave because their equipment was ruined so there isn't enough medical care. Medical records were lost, leading to poor care. On and on and on.

A lack of basic necessities like housing, employment, medical care amidst the ghoulish reminders of a landscape that still bears the scars of the storm - these are situations that face many.

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Did you know:

In New Orleans, La., a city of about 484,000 people, 23.2 percent of residents are people with disabilities. There were 102,122 people with disabilities five years of age and older who lived in New Orleans.

via ablenews.com

U of Delaware student - New Orleans teachers have no resources for special needs students

[visual description: A young African American girl peeks out of the glass doors of a yellow school bus while perched on the steps of the bus.}

Students recently went down to the post-Katrina area in the Recovery District to offer hands on help to educators during their Winter session service learning sojourn.

"The UD groups were associated with the John McDonogh Senior High School in the Recovery School District.

The high school needed volunteer help in a variety of areas, Alvarez said. There were no records or transcripts. Students were self-placed in the classroom. Another issue involved student ablilties in reading and writing, with some students unable to read or write a complete sentence. “The teachers were on their own,” she said. “There were no resources for special needs or special education students.”

I found this information on the U of Delaware website in an article about the students' service learning experiences.

However, the impact of Katrina on education needs to be brought into focus so that even more citizens (and educators )around the country can assist recovery efforts. Children who fall through the gaps leaving them unable to read and write will feel the impact of Katrina in ways that can be avoided by action now.