Some of the hardest-hit victims left in deadly Hurricane Ida's wake are Louisiana residents already devastated by the pandemic.
The National Guard deployed floating bridges in Jefferson Parish, while some parts of the state may not see power until the end of the month.Months into the pandemic, she faced eviction from her New Orleans apartment. She lost her job at a banquet hall. She suffered two strokes. And she struggled to help her 5-year-old grandson keep up with schoolwork at home.
“It’s like I’ve got to start all over again,” Blunt said, sobbing as she surveyed the first floor of her apartment, where she sleeps now that the bedroom is uninhabitable. “Every time I get a step ahead, I get pushed back down. And I’m tired. I don’t see no way out.” And that, the advocates say, is what happened during Ida. In Louisiana, where 17 storms that caused at least $1 billion in damage have hit since 2000, nonprofits see some of the most dire need and the starkest divide along socioeconomics lines.
“Housing is a foundational issue for all of these catastrophes, whether that be COVID, economic crisis, criminal justice, or education,” Morris said. “Our failure to address racial bias, gender bias and poverty bias in housing impedes all of those things. There is nowhere that is more clear than in our government’s response to disasters. And this one is no different.”
Morris wants to get Kemp and her 25-year-old son, Alvin, moved elsewhere permanently. In the meantime, Morris suggested a cooling center. “There’s nothing that we can do to get around the process,” Wiggins said. “We have the available units, but we paused processing applications when the storm hit.”Like many in Louisiana, Blunt has survived her share of storms — starting with her birth, during the fallout of Hurricane Camille in 1969. As she tells it, her pregnant mother had been moved to a naval medical ship to give birth. Today, Blunt can chuckle over the coincidence of her grandson’s name, Kamille.
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