Mitchell Scholars Lend a Hand in New Orleans

See photos from New Orleans

Twenty-seven Mitchell Scholars gathered in New Orleans at the end of the year to learn about recovery efforts in the city and to spend a day helping out.

Traveling from the airport to center city takes you past the Superdome, which inevitably evokes memories of the place where 20,000 took refuge from Hurricane Katrina. The August 2005 disaster claimed over 1800 lives and left a path of destruction and dislocation in its wake. But on this sunny day, all was back to normal at the Superdome where the Saints were playing the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Well, not quite normal, as the Saints suffered a rare loss in overtime.

The Mitchells were interested in New Orleans for a variety of reasons. Many are in medicine so were interested in the health care situation. Engineers were interested in infrastructure reconstruction. Others were interested in city management, poverty, and education. Many were living abroad when Katrina occurred and said they had always felt a step removed from a national event that they could only observe from a distance. Class of '03 Mitchell, Mark Tosso, felt right at home as he has, over the years, led groups on more than 10 trips from New Jersey to New Orleans to help with the recovery.

The group gathering began with a night at the legendary Tipitina's for the Cajun/Zydeco Dance Fest.

The first day began with a meeting with Walter Isaacson. Walter, the CEO of the Aspen Institute and Vice Chairman of the Louisiana Recovery Authority, graciously invited us to his apartment on Jackson Square. A New Orleans native, he is the author of several books and previously served as Chairman and CEO of CNN and as Editor of Time Magazine. He was able offer his unique insights into the recovery efforts. He discussed how, unlike many east coast cities, New Orleans has a history of being an integrated city (economically as well as racially) and emphasized the importance of retaining that character as the city rebuilds. He discussed the controversies over deciding what should and should not be rebuilt and the upsides and downsides of the Authority's work. On the one hand, they were concerned with the city's reputation of corruption and wanted to assure that monies disbursed would be free of the taint of corruption. That was achieved. The downside was that this decision resulted in an inevitably slow pace of spending. Instead of telling people where they could not live, incentives were offered to encourage people to move from devastated areas. Those in the Lower 9th Ward, for example, would receive the pre-Katrina market value of their homes plus 20% if they moved to higher ground. Walter favored a neighborhood-by-neighborhood approach to rebuilding – as opposed to a city-wide plan – and that is what has come to pass. Except for the Lower 9th Ward and Gentilly, 90% of the city is back.

Health care delivery remains a problem. During the years that Huey Long was Governor (late 1920s, early 1930s), the city built public hospitals, which provided excellent care for all, regardless of one’s ability to pay. Charity Hospital was destroyed by the storm and its aftermath, and current health care discussions will have an impact on public hospitals. Walter also discussed the opportunities to create environmentally friendly buildings and the trade-offs involved in making something LEED compliant versus preservation. He felt there is a balance to be struck and would not want to just tear everything down to rebuild LEED compliant buildings at the loss of New Orleans traditional and unique architecture. He discussed innovations in public education that offer a silver lining. New Orleans no longer has one central school system – 66% of public schools are charter schools – this requires schools to be pioneering in order to attract students. School days run from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., 11 months of the year; this is a proven method of increasing student successes. One of three in New Orleans students are taught by Teach for America corps members, and there have been 10-12 point gains in reading and math scores.

When he talked about some of the problems arising where housing was constructed on marshland, it reminded me of similar problems in Ireland with recent flooding there. There was housing blight pre-Katrina. A typical problem is that when someone dies, successive generations never bother to get a clear title to the property, so when it comes to tearing down derelict dwellings, it may be a challenge to identify the true owner. Also, many homes are built on concrete slabs. It will cost a developer $5000 just to break up the foundation after razing a property for redevelopment.

David Cody, formerly with the Office of Recovery Management, took the group on a tour of the city’s neighborhoods. First stop was the city’s oldest cemetery, founded in 1798. People are buried in crypts above ground, in part a remnant of European tradition and also because the water table doesn’t permit in-ground burials. New Orleans, unlike much of the rest of America, is a place where death is freely and easily discussed and signs of voodoo influences could be seen in the cemetery.

Many homes in the city are still shuttered and the doors are marked with “FEMA crosses” -- numbers which indicate when rescuers got to the house, who the rescuers were, and how many were found dead in the house. The Lower 9th Ward was the most devastated -- previously populated by 19,000, there are now only 2,000 inhabitants. The neighborhood was predominantly African American, and owner-occupied. Land was cheap, and hence affordable, for buyers.

Thanks to The Edge of U2 for some early planning advice for our trip. He introduced us to Quint Davis, the producer and director of the New Orleans Jazz Festival. The Edge has made his own contributions to the recovery. He co-founded a charity to restore the region’s musical culture by replacing instruments that had been lost to the disaster. Initial plans were just to provide replacement instruments to those professional musicians who had been affected by the storms but the mission expanded to provide instruments to churches and schools. The Mitchells visited the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and Foundation offices where Don Marshall discussed arts as part of the city’s economic development – an issue regularly discussed now with regards to Ireland. The festival attracts over 450,000 visitors over seven days and pumps $300 million into the local economy. Don talked about music education in the community, efforts to return music to the schools and carrying on the musical tradition of the city.

Later that day, the group met with LaToya Cantrell, the inspiring president of the Broadmoor Improvement Association (BIA). The Mitchells would spend the next day helping unpack supplies so the newly built Broadmoor Wilson School would be ready for students to move into in January. Broadmoor is a diverse neighborhood in New Orleans with 7232 residents – 68% are African American, 25% white, 3% Latino and .6% Asian. La Toya is from Los Angeles, but after attending college at Xavier, she was so impressed by the potential of the people of the city that she never left. Following Katrina, there were recommendations made to Mayor Ray Nagin that seven neighborhoods should not restored. Broadmoor was on that list. Cantrell and her neighbors objected and set to work to revive their neighborhood and have it removed from that list. Today, about 60% of redevelopment in the neighborhood has been achieved through many public/private partnerships. Pre-Katrina, Broadmoor educational performance was low and now it is above average.

The evening, seems every evening, included the consumption of beignets and café au lait at Café du Monde.

On our second day, the Mitchells went to work to help the BIA prepare to re-open the Andrew H. Wilson Elementary School, which underwent major renovations since Katrina. The entire day was spent unpacking all the boxes for the classrooms so the students may return in January. It was a rewarding day spent with LaToya and Principal Sheila Thomas. We have no doubt that the students are going to be blown away by their new school, we were. With the kind of community commitment we saw in Broadmoor, we’re confident it will only go from strength to strength.

The final evening was spent at Jacques-Imo’s café, followed by great music by the Rebirth Brass Band at the Maple Leaf.

The few days provided a great way for Mitchells to reconnect, meet other Mitchells who were in Ireland in different years, and participate in a service project that fits in with the ethos of the scholarship program. We hope to have many more such gatherings in future.

If you’re interested in learning more about the recovery of New Orleans, check these sites:

Times-Picayune interactive map – check this out!

Dan Baum’s 2007 blog & New Yorker articles from NOLA Please pay particular attention to the entry from 2 April 2007 “Yakkety-Yak”

Michael Lewis’s piece for the NYT magazine, "Wading toward Home"

Broadmoor Improvement Association

Kennedy School partnership with Broadmoor Improvement Association

Broadmoor Recovery Plan , City of New Orleans

on Wilson School

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10228892"

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14058820

http://outside.in/broadmoor-new-orleans-la/andrew-h-wilson-elementary-school

http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18016/plans_for_andrew_h_wilson_elementary_school_released.html

Paul Tough’s August 2008 NYT magazine piece on NOLA schools

The last chapter of Walter Isaacson’s recent book, American Sketches, discusses revitalization in New Orleans since Katrina. Also 5 Questions for Walter Isaacson (USA Today, August 6, 2006), identifies six principles for rebuilding New Orleans while preserving its unique character in Go Southeast, Young Man (New York Times; June 8, 2006), and hopes that the rich heritage of New Orleans will be remembered as the city is rebuilt in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, "How to Bring the Magic Back" (Time, Sept. 12, 2005)

Doug Brinkley, The Great Deluge, non-fiction chronicles the week that Katrina hit and NOLA went underwater.

Dave Eggers, Zeitoun, non-fiction, an incredible immigrant story set in the chaos of post-Katrina NOLA.