Common Ground: Live From The Big Easy

February 2006

Live From The Big Easy

By Baruch Zeichner

I arrived in Louisiana in October. The effects of hurricanes Katrina and Rita in New Orleans were more devastating than I imagined. It’s the end of December now, and I’ve spent the last two months volunteering at the Common Ground Health Clinic, a free clinic on the westbank of the Mississippi. (The Common Ground Collective and Health Clinic have no affiliation with this magazine.) Started by street medics, it was the first clinic to open in New Orleans after Katrina and is part of the Common Ground Collective (commongroundrelief.org) which was established by local community organizers in the hurricane’s wake. More than 8000 people have been served at the clinic, since it opened in a space donated by a local mosque. The clinic is staffed by volunteers who have come from all over the US and abroad. The volunteers, who work from a few days to a few months, include medics, nurses, doctors, medical and nursing students, physical therapists, mental health practitioners, massage therapists, herbalists, and acupuncturists.

I’m doing mostly, mental health counseling, massage therapy and oversight of the clinic’s mental health component. I’ve listened to hundreds of peoples’ stories about surviving Katrina. Most are stories of loss. I’ve seen and felt the essence of the human condition, from pain and suffering, to faith and the joy that comes from just being alive. I’ve met people who have lost family members and homes built by their great-grandparents. Visitors to the clinic talk about the loss of jobs, friends, and community. Many share the hard recognition that federal, state, and city officials have betrayed the people. Starting with the excruciatingly slow response to evacuate people, and progressing to blatant disregard for those who were abandoned without food, water or medical care in the sweltering heat of late August and early September. There were stories of pallets of food and water kept under guard and not distributed to people who needed them. Thousands of people were trapped on interstate overpasses while National Guard helicopters flew overhead, but no food or water were dropped for them.

Many of the displaced residents are choosing not to return to New Orleans for a multitude of reasons. I’ve heard people say they can’t bear to come back and be reminded of their losses. I’ve heard others say that, in the places they’ve been relocated to, they were surprised to discover a welcome absence of the government and police corruption and racism they lived with in New Orleans.

During my stay here, I’ve seen black people stopped in their cars, on foot, on bicycles, and pulled off their porches by white police who are belligerent and accusatory. These people were just going about their business. I’ve met people whose landlords have doubled or tripled their rents in the wake of Katrina. Louisiana law permits eviction with a five-day notice. As a result, many people have been made homeless by greedy landlords. While this has been going on, New Orleans has closed homeless shelters and the Charity Hospital (the one hospital where a person with no insurance could receive treatment). They even tried to close the free food kitchen set up by The Rainbow Family.

I’ve kept a dairy and blog to record what’s been happening. Here are my impressions from Thursday 1, December 2005:

“Today was the first day residents of the lower Ninth Ward, a heavily flooded section of New Orleans, were allowed back to their neighborhoods to see what was left. In most cases, nothing remained. Contrary to corporate media representations, many of these people owned their homes. This area was mainly populated by professionals: doctors, lawyers, and teachers — economically stable people living in homes that had belonged to their families for generations. It is another example of institutionalized racial stereotyping in the U.S.

Common Ground had a mobile clinic at the police checkpoint that provided entry to the neighborhood. There were hundreds of people returning to see their homes for the first time after the storm. A phalanx of police and National Guard wearing M-16’s on shoulder straps directed traffic. Our clinic was staffed by a doctor, a physician’s assistant, two medical students, two nurses, a street medic, a multi-talented “non professional” and myself. I did intake. People came to us for tetanus shots, hepatitis B vaccine, flu shots, blood pressure checks, and diabetes tests. From 10 AM to 2 PM we saw about 70 people.

As people returned to the checkpoint after seeing the wreckage of their homes , most were in shock, unable to concentrate, dazed, and stunned. A few managed to be positive, and some were absolutely beaming with gladness just to be alive. A few were finding friends and neighbors, and that was beautiful to witness. There was a woman screaming to her friend whom she had just spotted across the parking lot; four older women were all smiles at being reunited and were taking pictures of each other in pairs. All these people have lost everything — every memento, every bit of physical connection to their lives other than their bodies and the clothes on their backs.”

New Orleans is an ongoing disaster, with the destruction of tens of thousands of homes and livelihoods. Meanwhile politicians seem more concerned with being re-elected than with serving the people. I believe that similar large-scale disasters will happen in other US cities as long as our national government is run by corporations, corrupt politicians are their spokespersons, and the population is largely duped by commercial media, government propaganda, and the dictatorship of fixed elections.

Baruch Zeichner is a nomadic activist, psychotherapist, bodyworker and permaculturist. He can be reached at: www.walterzeichner.com/Blog/index.html

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