Katrina: Two Years Later

( – promoted by pico)

Rather than write another diary on the second anniversary of Katrina, I thought I’d provide a set of resources for people who are interested in reading more, and from a diverse set of viewpoints.  These are newspapers, political blogs, and personal stories, and together they help fill in the giant web of impact that Katrina had on this country, and the distance we’ve come since, and the distance we still need to go.

Naturally, “Two Years Later” is the banner headline at nola.com, a site whose combination of Times-Picayune reporters and informal bloggers helped rocket it to premier place for Katrina coverage during and after the storm.  The mood here is generally upbeat, with articles like “Generosity Banishes Katrina Despair“.  My own stomping grounds held a meeting with speakers who vowed to shut down the MRGO, a shipping inlet that had devastated local marshland and given Katrina’s surge an easy route to attack the parish.

More interesting, though, are the comments left by people telling their own stories of survival and rebuilding.  The city still faces massive problems, especially when it comes to racial and class issues, the insanely high murder rate, and the directionless local government.  But things are getting better in small ways, around the city.

The traditional media is also “celebrating” with some commemorative stories. CNN notes that the coast is “still struggling“, and MSNBC bizarrely puts Bush at the center of their coverage, while the always-dependable BBC has a multimedia presentation with photographs and interviews. 

At DailyKos there’s a slew of diaries today, but I’d especially recommend mlharges’ graphical display of flooding and casualties, Where They Were Found – The Data Tells The Story, and a first-time diary by a New Orleans Councilwoman, New Orleans: Mission NOT Accomplished, which details the difficulties that we face today.  Katrina-related diaries (see here and here) are all over the site this week.

Of bloggers writing locally, be sure to check out A.M in the Morning, written by a woman who returned to the city earlier this year to dedicate herself both to the rebuilding effort and to political advocacy.  Cotton Mouth tackles the efforts along the Mississippi Gulf Coast, while Katrinacrat and Yatpundit (I love those names!) post on Louisiana issues.

In less-exciting news, I’m infuriated by this post (it appears on a couple of blogs) that’s so disconnected from reality that it makes a mockery of all the real issues that these areas face.  We all have a tendency to want to spice up our arguments with powerful rhetoric, but when that powerful rhetoric overtakes the facts, we’re headed down the wrong path.