The Long Road Back Signal Noise in the Post-Katrina Context

Abstract

claiming more than 1,600 lives (Franklin 2006; McMillan 2006). In the wake of this catastrophic destruction, hopeful signs of community resilience appeared. Within days of the storm, many residents along the Mississippi Gulf Coast had come home and begun to rebuild. Soon after floodwaters had receded from devastated St. Bernard Parish, district officials announced they would reopen a school by November 14 and pledged to serve any child who returned to the community. In New Orleans East, members of the Vietnamese American community organized to gut, clean, and re-store their homes and businesses, despite being told by city officials that it was unlikely they would be allowed to rebuild. Impressive as these and other efforts were, however, one cannot help but ask why, despite the community resilience visible in some areas, the overall pace of recovery has been so desperately slow. At the present writing—eighteen months after the storm—entire communities and neighborhoods still feel like ghost towns. If not for the advancing mold growing inside wrecked homes, many neighborhoods would look as though the hurricane passed through only a week earlier. This situation is certainly the case in poor, pre-Emily Chamlee-Wright is a professor of economics at Beloit College and a senior affiliated scholar with