Two United States bishops have said the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina marks a call to “renew our commitment to racial equity and justice in every sector of public life”. Source: NCR Online.
Washington Auxiliary Bishop Roy Campbell, chair of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Subcommittee on African American Affairs, and retired Chicago Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Perry, chair of the USCCB’s Ad Hoc Committee Against Racism, issued a joint statement last week reflecting on the tragedy.
The hurricane, one of the five deadliest in US history, struck the nation’s Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005.
Katrina made multiple landfalls, inflicting what the US National Weather Service called “staggering” damage and loss of life, particularly in Louisiana and Mississippi. A total of 1833 were killed by the storm, which at the time caused some $US108 billion dollars in damage, according to NWS.
New Orleans was ravaged by the storm, with at least 80 per cent of the city flooded by August 31, 2005, NWS noted on its website.
Compounding the damage were key failures in governmental response, and in their statement, Bishop Campbell and Bishop Perry said that “despite the scale of devastation, it took days before the federal government responded with aid”.
More broadly, they observed, Hurricane Katrina “threw into stark focus the deep racial and socio-economic disparities across various sectors, including environmental justice, systemic housing inequality, and disaster response.”
The bishops pointed out that “some of the most catastrophic damage occurred in neighbourhoods like the Ninth Ward, a predominantly Black neighbourhood, which was under so much water that many of the residents had to take refuge in their attics and on their rooftops to avoid the rising tides.
“Today, we pray with those who still suffer from the loss of family and friends and whose very identities were affected,” the bishops said.
The hurricane and the response missteps “revealed the fragility of our cities to natural disasters and the reality of poverty among the most vulnerable in our country,” the bishops noted.
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Hurricane Katrina 20th anniversary a call to racial equity, justice, say bishops (By Gina Christian, NCR Online)
