Page 3
November 2007
The AC Phoenix
T
Hurricane Katrina: Two
years in the life of a child
By Marian Wright Edelman
Two years ago, on August
29, Hurricane Katrina struck the
Gulf coasts of Louisiana and Missis
sippi, displacing hundreds of thou
sands.
Black communities that had
been economically depressed before
zone, from roads and bridges to
schools and water systems. Our goal
is to get the work done quickly.”
There is little semblance be
tween the President’s pledge and ac
tions taken over the past two years.
Depressed, even suicidal parents and
children are
still packed
like sardines in
cramped,
flimsy, often
unsafe trailers
in camps next
to nowhere.
The edueation
infrastructure
is far from be
ing repaired,
with many
school age
children not in
Lower 9th Ward resident Priscilla Perkins holds up a cross as she school Only
rings a bell in memory other grandfather, Georp Perkins on the ^ j public
steps what once was his home at Rene and Derbigny streets in the u i • xt
Orleans were
open in December 2006, 43 percent
Lower 9th Ward. Her grandfather died during Hurricane Katrina.
the hurricane were hardest hit. It is a
national scandal that many children
are still plagued by the trauma of
their horrific experiences of survival
in the aftermath of the storm.
Katrina's Children: Still Waiting, an
update of the 2006 Children’s De
fense Fund report, Katrina’s Chil
dren: A Call to Conscience and Ac
tion, prepared in March of 2007,
found that about 100,000 children
still do not live where they did when
the hurricane struck. Tens of thou
sands of children suffer from disori
entation and isolation. Children liv
ing in the most flood-damaged areas
of New Orleans still have severely
limited access to health and mental
health care, and the schools they
attend are understaffed and poorly
equipped. The story of New Orleans
is illustrative of the broad unmet
needs throughout much of the re
gion.
After the hurricane passed,
on September 15, 2005, President
George W. Bush addressed the na
tion from Jackson Square in New
Orleans. He committed to helping
“the citizens of the Gulf Coast to
overcome this disaster, put their
lives back together, and rebuild their
communities.” He also said,
“Federal funds will cover the great
majority of the costs of repairing
public infrastructure in the disaster
of the pre-Katrina number. Thou
sands of children did not attend
school for months after the hurricane
hit. During this past spring semester,
300 students attempting to enroll in
school were waitlisted. It has been
reported that the New Orleans school
system currently faces a shortfall of
at least 500 teachers this school year.
There aren’t enough textbooks and
supplies to go around. While the gov
ernment fails to fulfill promises, un
told numbers of children are falling
farther and farther behind.
Two years ago, the President
promised to address the Gulf Coast’s
health care emergency, saying, “To
relieve the burden on local health
care facilities in the region, we’re
sending extra doctors and nurses to
these areas.” That didn’t happen.
Katrina’s children have been hung
out to dry without mental health and
health coverage, and the President is
now threatening to veto a modest
State Children’s Health Insurance
Program (SCHIP) reauthorization bill
that would serve only about three to
four million of America’s nine mil
lion uninsured children. And neither
the House nor the Senate SCHIP bill
guarantees the mental health cover
age that Katrina’s children desper
ately need. Before the hurricane,
there were 3,200 physicians in Or
leans Parish and surrounding par
ishes. Our updated report found only
about 1,200 physicians now.
The impact and implications
of this massive national child and
family abandonment are profound.
Huge numbers of child disaster survi
vors have experienced and will con
tinue to experience serious emotional
and behavioral difficulties, including
feeling sad or depressed, being nerv
ous or afraid, and having problems
sleeping or getting along with others.
Yet, in the City of New Orleans to
day there are fewer than 15 child
psychiatrists, and many of them are
in private practice and do not serve
poor children.
New Orleans pediatrician
Gary Peck, a board member of the
American Academy of Pediatrics,
says the 180 pediatricians in the city
before Katrina have dropped to 140.
That means many children in low-
A prayer is said on the N. Claiborne bridge before a wreath is thrown in the industrial
canal in memoiy of those who lost their lives during Hurricane Katrina
income families have much less ac
cess to primary care. Consider what
that means to parents trying to en
sure that their children stay on
schedule to receive the more than 20
immunizations shots recommended
between birth and two.
Any two-year period can
seem to be a lifetime for a child and
can have a lifetime effect on his or
her development. The neglect and
abandonment of Katrina’s children
over the last two years is an outrage.
Shame on the President for failing to
make good on his promises to re
build communities savaged by Hur
ricane Katrina. And shame on our
community of we do not continue to
make a mighty noise until he keeps
his broken promises.
(Marian Wright Edelman is
president of the Children's Defense
Fund and its Action Council whose
Leave No Child Behind mission is to
ensure every child a Healthy Start, a
Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe
Start, and a Moral Start in life and
successful passage to adulthood
with the help of caring families and
communities.
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