Still learning from Katrina

Opinion: August 26, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

By Darryl Lorenzo Wellington

McClatchy-Tribune

Monday will mark the sixth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina — one of the worst disasters in U.S. history. “Katrina” has been officially retired from the active list of hurricane names, but we should not rest easy until we have absorbed the tragedy’s greater lessons.

In the wake of Katrina, community leaders across the country insisted that two principles should guide the rebuilding process. First, that the devastation of much of the Gulf Coast was man-made. New Orleans only received Category 2 hurricane winds. The destruction was due to breaches in the levees built by the Army Corps of Engineers, which should have been — but were not — strong enough to stand up against a Category 3 hurricane.

Second, in bringing back dispersed New Orleanians, community leaders said, all homeowners should receive rebuilding grants based on the cost of rebuilding rather than prestorm property values.

But the advice wasn’t listened to. Instead, the restoration of the city became entwined in lawsuits and complex legal maneuverings that continue to this day. In the six years since Katrina, two court cases have become particularly emblematic.

In 2009, after protracted legal battles, a group of homeowners prevailed in a lawsuit against the Army Corp of Engineers. In a blistering decision, a federal court charged the corps with blatant negligence. Judge Stanwood Duval Jr. wrote, “It is the court’s opinion that the negligence of the corps, in this instance by failing to maintain levees properly, was not policy, but insouciance, myopia and shortsightedness.” The decision, which has created the possibility of hundreds of millions of dollars in settlement funds to residents of the disaster areas, is tied up in appeals. But for the moment, the moral responsibility of the Army Corp of Engineers has been legally established.

And in 2010, a housing rights advocacy group received good news in a suit contending that grants to homeowners had a discriminatory impact on thousands of African-Americans who were more likely than whites to receive inadequate reimbursement, based on lower property values. This distorted the restoration of New Orleans, the organization contended, discouraging black homeowners and leaving many minority neighborhoods blighted.

A judge’s decision supported the group’s argument, resulting in a discrimination settlement belatedly reached last month. But given that six years have passed, the settlement money cannot undo all the damage done. None of the money, for instance, will be used to assist homeowners who have already accepted grants dispensed at discriminatory rates, even if they have taken loans or dipped into retirement funds to make up the difference.

Darryl Lorenzo Wellington is a writer for Progressive Media Project, a source of liberal commentary on domestic and international issues; it is affiliated with The Progressive magazine. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.