From: "Wesley Shrum" <shrum@xxxxxxx>
To: <plenary@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: "'Rick Duque'" <rduque1@xxxxxxx>
Subject: [WSIS CS-Plenary] Hurricane Katrina, one week later
Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2005 08:16:48 -0500
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This is Wesley Shrum, from Louisiana. I'm a professor of sociology at
Louisiana State University and I'm organizing the "Past, Present, and
Future" event just before the summit in November. I know many of
you from
the PrepComs and the Geneva summit. With luck, I will still see you in
Tunis.
I have not seen anything on this list about Katrina, but I have not
had much
opportunity to keep up this past week. Things are bad, and there's
not much
anyone can do from afar, but I'd like to get this out somehow, and
I'm not
on many listservs.
From the emails I've received, I guess everyone knows what
happened. But
I'd like you to know some things, because the media--not all, but
some--sometimes make it seem like we are a bunch of looting animals
here in
Louisiana. Some may remember, back at PrepCom 2 before Geneva, I
was the
semi-official CRIS videographer. And today two of us are going
down to
Plaquemines, south of New Orleans in the swamps, to film there. But I
wanted to tell you about what we found on Monday, partly to counter
some of
what you might be reading or seeing.
On Sept 5, one week after Katrina, our group of ten from the
Department of
Sociology here in Baton Rouge did some video ethnography. We
conducted
interviews in the parking lot with approximately 50 displaced
persons at a
central Baton Rouge location. Afterwards, we met for a couple of
hours, to
abstract a consensus view of what we had learned. It is important
to keep
in mind that we spoke with individuals with some mobility (own car,
other's
car, bus) that had been displaced by Hurricane Katrina and we have
not yet
interviewed those living in collective shelters.
--The vast majority are from the New Orleans metropolitan area
(including
Kenner, Metairie, Chalmette, but not the New Orleans North Shore or
Plaquemines). The vast majority of displaced persons are staying
in private
homes.
--The further one goes away from hurricane areas, the more, the
better, and
the quicker is the assistance (people came back to Baton Rouge
because they
want to be closer to home, even in spite of reduced assistance).
--Crime and fear of crime was universally unobserved or
insignificant, both
for early and late evacuees.
--Blacks are more committed to returning home to New Orleans than
whites,
who express more reservations about returning (note, this does not
take into
account social class).
--Displaced people have received assistance from (in order of
importance),
family, friends, and strangers. Churches have helped. Public
(government)
assistance was not just negligible-no member of the team recalled any
instance of government assistance reported by this group of
individuals (in
the rare cases where help was requested, it was not provided).
--Most people consider themselves to be very lucky, doing well, or
doing
reasonably well given the circumstances. They are not requesting
assistance
(beyond that they are receiving, and some of the most fortunate
have their
own means). But the minority of persons who are not doing well
DESPERATELY
NEED HELP.
--The main concerns are financial, for a place to stay, and
education for
their children.
Put simply, depending on how long before they move back (if they
do), people
are worried that they will wear out their residential welcome.
Summarized by Wesley Shrum, 5 September 2005
http://worldsci.net world summit side event
http://4sonline.org society for social studies of science
http://worldsci.net/global science, internet, & development
project
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