Volunteers the Only Helpful Presence in Parts of Post-Katrina Louisiana

Fifteen months after Hurricane Katrina devastated stretches of the Louisiana coastline, there is little evidence of governmental action. While residents give FEMA credit for removal of substantial amounts of debris, in terms of new housing in the area, most of it has been built by the residents themselves and volunteers from around the country. In response to a call for help put out by local churches, many adults and high school and college students from thirty-eight of the fifty states have traveled down to Louisiana for a week or more to help build homes for those displaced by the storm. Habitat for Humanity alone plans to build a hundred houses a year over the next three years in Slidell, Louisiana, a bedroom community north of New Orleans virtually annihilated by the storm.

But that’s just a fraction of the needs of Louisiana’s residents. It’s predicted that over 50,000 homes will eventually have to be demolished in the region; many of the businesses and institutions that once supplied jobs to the residents have yet to be reestablished; and restoration of the wetlands, a necessity, according to environmental experts, in order to offer protection against future storms, hasn’t begun. If the current situation is an accurate predictor of the future, much of what is still needed, in terms of housing, business restoration, and environmental restoration, may also have to be accomplished by volunteers.