Oxfam America Blog

Natalie Bergeron, a lifelong bayou resident, has been delivering mail down in Cocodrie, Louisiana, for 30 years. She knows just about everybody in the water-logged town, which was battered by wind from Hurricane Gustav and then swamped by the storm surge from Hurricane Ike. And what she knows about them—and plenty of others along the road from Bourg through Chauvin and into Cocodrie—is worrying her.

“Not only do we have poor people trying to live, we’ve lost four factories in Chauvin. One was a huge shrimp processing factory. Gustav tore it apart,” she said over the phone as she ate her lunch. It was 2 p.m., and the first occasion she’d found that day for a meal break. Things have been busy at Bayou Grace, the community services organization in Chauvin where Bergeron works, since the storms swept through, knocking out water and power supplies. Bayou Grace is one of the local organizations Oxfam America partners with.

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Three years ago in Biloxi, Miississippi, Oxfam America made an unusual grant following Hurricane Katrina. We gave Hands On, a group that mobilizes volunteers to undertake cleanup and rebuilding, money to purchase a mini excavator.

FEMA had claimed that it could not deliver desperately needed trailers to those who’d lost their houses until their yards were cleared of debris. Fifty Hands On volunteers were working from dawn until dusk cutting trees and moving rubble to facilitate this.  The addition of the excavator eased their work considerably, speeding the cleanup and denying FEMA an excuse for delays in delivery of the trailers.
In the days following Katrina, Oxfam America worked with Bill Stallworth, the city councilor for East Biloxi, to set up a coordination center that would serve as the focal point of those arriving to help with relief and reconstruction.

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The atmosphere in the Gumbo Shop, a long-established restaurant in New Orleans’ French Quarter, was celebratory. And so it should be. The city, so traumatized by Hurricane Katrina three years ago had, despite dire predictions, been spared the wrath of Hurricane Gustav, which had veered westward before making landfall. The whole city had evacuated, but now people were coming back, and getting on with their lives again.

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For Sharon Hanshaw, this is not just a table, it’s a piece of her family history. Photo by Lily Rodrguez/Oxfam America

I knew that Biloxi, Mississippi, was one of the US cities hit hardest by Hurricane Katrina. But I was surprised to see so many signs of the storm still lingering today—especially in lower-income East Biloxi, where many people still lack permanent housing. A lot of local businesses stand empty, and despite some growth, you can sense that the community is still struggling to heal itself. Read the rest of this entry »