In the Shadow of Statues by Mitch Landrieu

Author:Mitch Landrieu
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2018-03-20T04:00:00+00:00

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When my father was mayor in the 1970s, he had 6,000 city employees. Nagin had as many as 6,300 in 2005 before Katrina; he was forced to lay off thousands after the flood. Sales tax revenues had crashed, leaving scant budget for salaries. Whatever Nagin’s state in the hotel room that day, he had recovered to handle himself with the media and project a sense of control. I am not saying this cynically, or tongue in cheek. Many people I knew lost houses, cars, in many cases their savings in order to fund home or business rebuilding against what insurance covered; all of that took a heavy emotional and sometimes psychological toll. Countless people told me that prescriptions for antidepressant medications had skyrocketed in New Orleans. Those weeks and months were a nightmare I never want to experience again.

In the months after the storm, I turned the Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism into an emergency recovery agency. With whole areas of New Orleans off the grid, and some neighborhoods in several feet of water for weeks after Katrina, I allocated space in the lieutenant governor’s suite of rooms for the New Orleans City Council to meet privately and conduct public business as needed. My assistants threw in efforts to help people with flooded homes find temporary housing.

In the weeks it took to drain the city, Mayor Nagin and his team were overwhelmed. At the state level, it soon became clear that we were going to be investing in one of the toughest recoveries in American history. The extent of damage was mind-boggling enough; but the loss of political trust by the people was an open wound. Major foundations and nonprofits wanted to put fuel into the recovery, but City Hall under Nagin was ill equipped to send proposals with targeted needs, captured in clear prose, with well-developed budgets. The wasted opportunity made for long delays in rebuilding. I learned of one official in a major federal agency who had authority over a budget and who personally asked Nagin for a proposal, which he waved off, saying, “We’re not able to handle that yet.” Many of the foundations over time decided not to work directly with City Hall, and instead only with outside nonprofits and community groups. As lieutenant governor, I began engaging with them myself to preserve lines of cooperation and communication for when City Hall could handle it.

The Bush administration, Nagin, and Blanco were each plagued by distrust and dysfunction. The lack of coordination, agreement, and a unified strategy left Bush in a state of relative indifference, as he became obsessed with the Iraq war, while Nagin was counting on the White House to provide a great inflow of relief funds. As he waited, Nagin formed the Bring New Orleans Back Commission, relying heavily on Joe Canizaro, the downtown developer for whom my dad had once worked. Canizaro invited the Urban Land Institute, an organization of developers, architects, and planners, to draft a plan for rebuilding the city.

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