From the newswire: The city of New Orleans
is attempting to destroy the homes of residents in the
Lower 9th Ward. This is in spite of a temporary
moratorium won by social justice groups against the
city which blocks attempts to bulldoze the homes of
Lower 9th Ward residents. The moratorium, which ends
on January 6th, 2006, is being circumvented by the
city through the unconstitutional use of eminent
domain. Local residents are working alongside
Common
Ground Collective, a grass-roots organization
working for the rights of displaced and neglected
victims of Hurricane Katrina, and are protesting the
action and calling on citizens everywhere to get
involved.
Brandon Darby, Common Ground's 9th Ward Organizer is
headlining the project to protect the rights of 9th
Ward residents. “These residents are living in
shelters across the country. FEMA is cutting them off
on February 7th. They have no where to go. The city is
trying to violate their constitutional rights and use
a twisted interpretation of eminent domain laws to
allow developers to grab this land from these
communities."
The Lower 9th Ward embodies the heart of a community
that evolved from African-American families over many
generations, and residents share a devotion and pride
in their homes and neighborhoods that is becoming more
and more scarce across the country. Unfortunately, the
area was also atypical in its neglect from the city.
[ Read
the full story]
New Orleans
Indymedia |
Common
Ground Collective website
The
Common Ground collective is asking people to visit
the New Orleans evacuees in their area and let them
know that efforts are being made to rebuild their
community.
Common Ground Collective is a community-run
organization offering solidarity and mutual aid to the
citizens of New Orleans and the surrounding areas.
Common Ground collective began days after Katrina hit,
establishing a community center in Algiers that offers
free water, food, cleaning supplies, internet access,
house repairs, legal support, housing advocacy, and a
free medical clinic. We also run a community radio
station and a mobile free clinic.
Efforts have begun to take shape in the 9th Ward of
New Orleans. We see that there was great inequality
before the storm in the 9th ward. We believe this
inequality continued during the storm, and we see that
this inequality is continuing now, after the storm.
Though the 9th ward has been abandoned by the city,
there are many people from all over the country
joining with residents to clean and rebuild the
community and keep it in the hands of those who live
there.
For a month now, Common Ground has been placing
information sheets on every door of the 9th Ward and
working with residents who are committed to staying. A
distribution center has been established, free medical
and legal clinics have taken place, and crews have
been picking up trash and helping clean homes.
It is our belief that the ninth ward community will
have more of a chance of surviving if the residents
return home, organize, help each other and know that
aid and relief are available for the long- term. We
need your help to let residents know that all of this
is happening in their community. This can be done by
printing out the flyer below and distributing it to
9th ward evacuees in your area.
For more information visit http://www.commongroundrelief.org
or contact common ground 9th ward coordinator, Brandon
Darby.
Common Ground 331 Atlantic Ave, New Orleans (504)
368-6897
While Houston "dodged the bullet" with Hurricane Rita,
East Texas and Louisiana were hard hit by high winds
and water. Houstonians T & K write about their
trip to Tyler county to bring supplies to friends who
have lost power, and published a 3 part series of
stories and photos of the damage to East Texas:
Part One -
Heading East
Part Two -
John and Torey
Part Three -
Rita
Information about the destruction in Louisiana and the
Gulf Coast following Rita can be found at
New Orleans
Indymedia
With many cars running out of gas before arriving at
their destinations, evacuation presents a risk of
being stranded on the side of the road during tropical
storm conditions. The counterflow lane-reversals may
provide some relief, but is being done exceedingly
cautiously and slowly.
Projections show Hurricane Rita making landfall
between Port O'Conner and Morgan City on the morning
of Saturday September 24. Rita has weakened a bit from
a category 5 to a
category 4 stormand may weaken slightly more
before reaching the coast. A mandatory evacuation has
been issued for Galveston and flood-prone areas of
Houston
(download Houston evacuation zones map) |
Read a press release form Mayor White. Most local
schools and universities have closed until the end of
the weekend. If you want government assistance to
evacuate call 311 or (713) 837-0311.
If you have information to share about what people in
downtown (not an evacuation area) have to contend with
in order to make their decision about leaving, please
add a comment
here.
City of Houston
Website
Lets keep each other informed! Please
publish reports to Houston IMC if you are able.
To offer or search for evacuee housing,
check here.
The south-bound lanes of I-45 have been opened to
north-bound traffic as of Thursday morning.
"Certainly some people do not want to move back, but
many of us do. We want to rebuild our city that we
love.
The
People’s Hurricane Fund - a grassroots, community
based group made up of New Orleans community
organizers and allies from around the US - has already
made one of their first demands a “right of return”
for the displaced of New Orleans."
-- Jordan Flaherty (a union organizer and an editor of
Left Turn Magazine (www.leftturn.org). He is not
planning on moving out of New Orleans.)
From Indybay:
On September 9th, Bradley from
Santa Cruz
Indymedia and two other west coast IMCistas
(including
Portland) arrived in Houston, Texas to help
provide independent media coverage from Houston and
other communities. Their first stop was the Astrodome
and surrounding buildings.
There are about 10,000 people now living in these
buildings, which are now being called "Dome City." The
scene in the Astrodome is almost unreal. There are
thousands of people sleeping in close proximity. Many
people are trying to get in contact with loved ones,
but there does not seem to be a practical way to
facilitate this. There seems to be very little
organization, plenty of unanswered questions and
almost no information about what the future holds for
Hurricane Katrina survivors. Some clothing and food is
being provided to people, however the food is very low
in nutritional value and much of the clothing is
inadequate. Many people here have health conditions
which are not being cared to. For example, many folks
are diabetic, yet most of the food being offered is
full of sugar, such as donuts and twinkies.
One man said he was able to drive his family out of
New Orleans before the Hurricane struck. He had been
at Astrodome in Houston for about a week. He was happy
that he was able to leave New Orleans with his family,
but was now almost out of money and was unsure of what
was going to happen next. He was waiting in line for a
Red Cross Debit Credit worth $2,000. He waited in line
yesterday for this debit card, but then FEMA and the
Red Cross stopped handing out cards. Many people
waited in line and had nothing to show for their time
spent waiting. People do not know what the future may
hold... that people do not know what tomorrow
holds.... that people do not know what will happen
today... the people have no idea what will happen with
the line they are again waiting in.
Photos:
1 |
2 | Audio:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6
The West Coast IMC crew has moved east and are now in
New Orleans,
where they continue to write and publish media [ Creativity,
Solidarity and Mutual Aid in Algiers, New Orleans].
You don't have to be from the West Coast to
publish to Indymedia. Thousands of Houstonians
have volunteered in many different ways to show
solidarity with survivors of Katrina. Every one of us
is a reporter!
It has been less than 2 weeks since Hurricane Katrina
hit the Gulf Coast, many people are still trappen in
their homes, New Orleans is still flooded, and already
companies are finding ways to profit off of the
destruction in the Gulf Coast.
Houston based
Halliburton, well known locally for
profiteering in Iraq, has already
recived a contract from the US Navy to reconstruct
Navy bases in Mississippi. US Vice President and
former CEO of Halliburton recently visited the
Gulfport Mississippi, where some of these contracts
for millions of dollars are to be carried out. Jeremy
Scahill from Democracy Now!
points out: ... what's more significant and
what people are not focusing on is that Kellogg Brown
& Root is also now traveling throughout the region
assessing damage to, for instance, the pumps in New
Orleans and the infrastructure of the city. They have
already begun providing services for some five hundred
Department of Homeland Security personnel. They have
set up a camp for the Mississippi Power Company. And
so they're setting up these same kinds of camps that
we see in Guantanamo and Iraq and elsewhere to service
the rebuilding of the Gulf area here of the South.
Besides Halliburton, many other companies are cashing
in on the disaster in the Gulf.
Kali Dalton describes being recruited by a job
agency under the pretense of helping people in New
Orleans only to be shipped to Biloxi Mississippi and
forced to work cleaning up casinos. "the area was
under martial law, so we were not permitted to leave
the area of a parking lot between 6pm and 6am. If we
did, we would run the risk of being shot. That may be
understandable, but it contributed heavily to the
prison-camp atmosphere of the work site. Not only were
they not providing us with transportation home, as
they'd promised; we were not even allowed to walk
away."
Many are concerned that the reconstruction of New
Orleans will be rebuilt
as a sort of Disneyland for tourists and the wealthy.
Community organizations displaced from New Orleans are
strongly voicing opposition to this "reconstruction"
of New Orleans. "We will not stand idly by while
this disaster is used as an opportunity to replace our
homes with newly built mansions and condos in a
gentrified New Orleans"
declares Comunity Labor United.
Efforts to start a
low power fm
radio station inside the Astrodome were thwarted today
by a Harris County Bureaucrat named RW Royal, Incident
Commander of the Joint Information Committee (JIC).
The Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) had on Sunday
approved an application made by Austin Airwaves for 3
micro-radio stations, to be set up inside the
Astrodome and other emergency shelters in Houston to
disseminate information to survivors of Hurricane
Katrina. On Wednesday, after days of stalling from
many different levels of government bureaucracy,
including radio activists lining up the purchase of
10.000 radios, Harris County authorities denied the
request.
This project has received national support from radio
activists, service providers, as well as approval from
survivors of Katrina. It has also received national
media coverage, including from
Democracy Now!
( read
or listen to the story)
Jacob Applebaum writes:
The people on the ground I spoke with personally
asked me why I was there. I told them that I was with
a group helping to bring emergency radio information
to them. Broadast from right inside the dome. Those
people were overjoyed to hear that they would get a
radio station with emergency information, with
information on job interviews, food, housing, lost
children, found person, clothing and other important
information. It breaks my heart.
Why has this man denied this? Why is the government
going out of its way to stop us from helping people?
Everyone seems to have an opinion on what has happened
in the aftermath of Katrina, here are some voices from
New Orleans on the topic:
Jordan Flaherty:
Notes from inside New Orleans |
Don't Let New Orleans Die
I just left New Orleans a couple hours ago. I
traveled from the apartment I was staying in by boat
to a helicopter to a refugee camp. If anyone wants to
examine the attitude of federal and state officials
towards the victims of hurricane Katrina, I advise you
to visit one of the refugee camps
Malik Rahim (pictured):
This is Criminal |
Interview with radioActive sanDiego
It's criminal. From what you're hearing, the people
trapped in New Orleans are nothing but looters. We're
told we should be more "neighborly." But nobody talked
about being neighborly until after the people who
could afford to leave -- left.
Community Labor United:
Demands Action, Accountability and starts A People’s
Hurricane fund
The people of New Orleans will not go quietly into
the night, scattering across this country to become
homeless in countless other cities while federal
relief funds are funneled into rebuilding casinos,
hotels, chemical plants and the wealthy white
districts of New Orleans like the French Quarter and
the Garden District. We will not stand idly by while
this disaster is used as an opportunity to replace our
homes with newly built mansions and condos in a
gentrified New Orleans.
Local zine in PDF of reports by Jordan Flaherty and
Malik Rahim
 How
to Help Katrina Victims from Space City
From the newswire: help needed NOW
at the Astrodome and Reliant (read
article |
info for volunteers)
After suffering through 4 days of flooding and heat
without food and water, busloads of exhausted,
stressed refugees are still arriving in Houston, to be
housed at the Astrodome, (
see interviews),
at nearby Reliant Center, and possibly at George
R. Brown. At least there's fruit & water: back in New
Orleans, messages from a hospital
"no water" as of Wed. night
Priorities of a corporate empire: Needing
billions to spread misery in Iraq, Bush
cut $20-$40 million needed to strengthen levees --
a 2004 project that was 80% complete. Needing troops,
he sent 35% of Louisiana's National Guard. Then he
pushed to privatize disaster services including
the
N.O. disaster plan, and
disabled FEMA.
The result? Even though FEMA had rated a New
Orleans hurricane hit as
1 of the 3 most likely, most catastrophic
disasters 4 years ago, it was incapable of a thorough
or speedy evacuation. Residents had to escape the city
on their own, or not at all. Left behind: the
sickest, oldest, poorest, youngest. Thousands are
believed to have drowned, some trapped in attics as
flood waters rose for 2 days.
Houston Indymedia Coverage: Video:
1 |
2 |
3
Reports from New Orleans:
1 |
2 |
3
Comentary from the Newswire:
Katrina open letter to radical/progressive community
(From Houston) |
In Praise of Looting |
American Genocide in New Orleans |
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagins Message AUDIO |
RCP:People Didn't Have to Die
NY IMC Article |
Refugees to Astrodome | Breaking news from
New Orleans
Indymedia |
How to help: Housing:
Activist Housing Board,
Craigs
List, Donate:
Red Cross |
Second Harvest
Benefits: Saturday Sept. 3rd
SOS Radio Katrina Relief Benefit @ The Candy Lady
4812 Alameda |
Sept. 10th @ Last Concert Cafe
Last updated: Warning: filemtime(): Stat
failed for /local/cache/center_column_production.html (errno=2
- No such file or directory) in /usr/home/houston3/local/include/index_center.inc
on line 34 Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 -0800imc-houston
(top) |
Lower
9th Ward Citizens fight Demolition
Mutual
Support in New Orleans: The Common Ground Collective
Reports
from East Texas after Rita
Evacution:
More dangerous than the hurricane
Hunkered
Down
Hurricane
Rita Heading for Southwest Louisiana and Upper Texas
Coast
An
Alternative to Giving to the Red Cross
West
Coast IMCistas Report From Houston
Like
Vultures to Carrion: Corporate profiteering in the
Gulf Coast
Astrodome
Radio Denied by Harris County Bureaucrat
Voices
from New Orleans
Superdome
Refugees in Astrodome
