“Suffering through the PTSD of Laura, it has been a nightmare in a way,” she said. “You want to lay in bed forever and feel the pain and grief of something like this but the world doesn’t stop because a hurricane destroyed your town.”  

Laura, a category 4 hurricane, hit parts of Louisiana in August, leaving many homeless killed 77  people in Louisiana, Texas, Haiti and Dominican Republic. It decimated at least 10,000 homes and damaged over 130,000 structures. The disaster caused the state billions  in agricultural and farming losses and destroyed industries like timber and fisheries. Hurricane Delta then struck in October adding to the destruction. 

Months later people in Lake Charles, Louisiana are still struggling to string together the pieces of their lives. Roofs are still covered with tarps, foundations of homes are infected with mold, people are still living in trailers and tents and debris on the streets.  Six weeks later, flooding caused by Delta weakened the already damaged structures.  

“Driving through Calcasieu and Beauregard Parishes, your heart swells way up into your throat in pain for your family, friends, and neighbors,” said Debbie Barras Arnold, a local from one of the hardest hit areas. “It is going to be years before we rise from the ashes.”

Louisiana is a state prone to hurricanes. In 2005, hurricanes Katrina and  Rita left many broken and in pain. Most believe that the damage caused by hurricanes Laura and Delta has been just as devastating.

“A lot of the people I have spoken to, said that Laura was way worse than Rita,” said Rebecca Dickinson Reed, a mother of two who had evacuated for Hurricaine Rita. “We stayed for Laura and that was the scariest thing I have ever been through…shingles ripping off, water pouring into my childhood home. The ceiling fell in the bathroom, the moment I walked in.” 

Survivors in Lake Charles said they have been deserted by local media and have been on their own. 

“We were flabbergasted at the lack of news coverage from Laura,” said Reed. “My husband knows people that live an hour away and they had no idea of the amount of devastation that we had here, until my husband sent them pictures of what we were going through.” 

In the aftermath of these disasters, most of the people were depending on the assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the government. But residents said the lack of empathy and negligence  on their part has been appalling. 

“Never once after Laura or Delta did I see a rescue officer or a policeman, no Red Cross, nothing,” said Beth LaBeau whose post had gotten a lot of traction after she shared a heartbreaking account of the night Delta had struck.  

LaBeau said that her post had received thousands of responses and people from California and Africa had sent help but she never heard back from any government official. 

“My calls to the Mayor were ignored,” she said. “The Governor never responded. Calls to local news ignored. Families were living in tents. There was no water, no toilet.”

But on the afternoon of Aug 29, President Trump  visited the disaster-struck areas of Louisiana with FEMA Administrator Pete Gaynor. Following Laura,  Trump approved a disaster declaration specifically for Louisiana with provisions of over $207 million for individual and housing assistance and around $2 million for public disaster assistance. 

According to FEMA’s press release  Hurricane Delta survivors can apply for assistance to make their current homes habitable. Assistance can also be granted for the replacement of essential household items, medical and dental expenses, and funeral and burial costs of the affectees.  FEMA also provided suggestions on rebuilding homes to provide maximum disaster resistance. The agency also has a helpline so  victims  can reach out to their community education and outreach specialists for guidance.  

Soldiers from the Louisiana National Guard respond immediately after Hurricane Laura destroyed much of Lake Charles. They performed route clearance, and search and rescue missions. Photo by Josiah Pugh

While talking to the press last month, Nic Hunter, Mayor of Lake Charles, said that the city needs the help of American people to speed up the recovery process. 

“We have residents in Lake Charles who are having to deal with the wind damage from Laura and having to gut out the homes because of Delta,” he said. Hunter said that they are pleading to volunteer groups and faith based organizations to step in. 

But residents said it was not enough.

JayVon Muhammad, the CEO of South West Louisiana (SWLA) Center for Health Services,  said such disasters expose and unveil the staggering racial and ethnic inequalities. The clinic where she stayed the night of Laura is located in a low-income area of Lake Charles that mostly consists of Black residents. While Muhammad has home owner’s insurance,most of the local residents do not, and can’t afford to rebuild. 

With the second wave of COVID-19  knocking on doors, temperature dropping by the minute and holiday season around the corner, the challenges of residents multiply manifold. 

The coronavirus pandemic has also slowed down the process of recovery and rebuilding in most areas. 

“Because of COVID, it has been very hard to get the help that we need,” said resident and mother, Sarah Reed Laird. “Contractors don’t want to come out and look at your house because of COVID, FEMA inspectors don’t want to visit, because of COVID.” 

Many survivors have been forced to relocate to dangerous areas.

“I am on SSI once a month,” said Alyissa Thomas, 19  and a mother of two toddlers. “We are currently in an apartment in Lafayette, where there’s shooting almost every night.” 

This holiday season will be particularly grim for many of the survivors. 

“It is depressing to drive around Lake Charles,” Reed said. ”The landscape of my city is forever changed.” 

There has been a silver lining even in this adversity. Despite the inevitable challenges of sanitation, scarcity of clean drinking water, and power outages to juggle with, resilience has prevailed and brought the community together. 

Muhammad said that three days after Laura, people brought food from their refrigerators and the town had a collective barbeque. Later, the neighborhood had received funds and more help arrived. 

“Houston Mayor’s office sent four to five huge trucks with supplies days later,” she said. “We’ve handed over 40,000 boxes with food and necessities since the disasters and fed over 16,000 hot meals since the two hurricanes hit.”  

The repair and relief work is still underway. ‘SWLA Hurricane Aftermath 2020’ is a Facebook community of over 120,000 members, created for them to share their stories of triumph and seek help. Many other fundraisers collect donations for the communities too.  

“God bless the Church groups that have stepped up to help in all the ways they could,” said Lena Leger, another survivor. “There are still shoes to fill but I’m sure we will get there. I just wish it could be sooner. It has been three months and that’s a long time to live in a tent in Louisiana.” 

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The largest economic stimulus package in modern U.S. history includes direct payments of $1,200 to many individual Americans, including those who earn up to $75,000, and an additional $500 per child.

“I just signed the CARES Act, the single biggest economic relief package in American History – twice as large as any relief bill ever enacted,” said Trump this afternoon on Twitter. “At $2.2 trillion dollars, this bill will deliver urgently-needed relief for our nation’s families, workers, and businesses.”

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act secures $100 billion for healthcare workers on the front lines of the crisis and provides $150 billion for state and local governments. The package also allocates $58 billion to aid airlines, which have been hit hard by travel bans and general fears of flying.

The bipartisan legislation includes $377 billion in loans for small businesses and $250 billion towards unemployment insurance, with $600 checks per week for four months for unemployed workers. Self-employed workers will be newly eligible for unemployment benefits. 

The act establishes a $500 billion government lending program to businesses hit hard by the outbreak. The law prohibits taxpayer-backed loans from going to businesses owned by President Donald Trump, members of his administration or members of Congress. 

The package allocates $25 billion for food assistance, including $16 billion for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and secured $24 billion for the U.S. Department of Agriculture to stabilize the farm economy. 

 The U.S. reported 85,356 cases of Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel virus, with 1,246 deaths, as of Friday afternoon, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The U.S. has reported more cases of the coronavirus than any other country, surpassing China and Italy.

The House of Representatives earlier today passed the bill by voice vote, after Republican Representative Thomas Massie tried to block the legislation by forcing a recorded vote, which would have required legislators to log their position individually. 

“They (Democratic senators) transformed a Republican corporate-focused bill into a Democratic workers-first focus,” said House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi this afternoon on the House floor. “We are able to dramatically expand unemployment insurance and defeated attempts on the Senate’s side to claw back the $600 per week added benefit that would provide essential relief.”

The Senate unanimously approved the legislation late Wednesday night after tense days of negotiations between Democrats, Republicans and White House aises. The Senate has struck down two previous stimulus bills, as Democrats pushed to make several changes to the legislation. 

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said on Wednesday during a White House press briefing that the stimulus package could keep the U.S. economy afloat for three months and mentioned the government expects to issue direct payments to citizens within three weeks of the bill being signed into law.

The post Trump signs $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

As Puerto Rico continues to feel the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, New Yorkers with ties to the island are experiencing a mounting sense of desperation, not knowing how to help, and in many cases, unable to contact their loved ones at all.

“It’s so desperate. We are all anxious,” said Puerto-Rican born New York resident Juan Recondo at a demonstration to rally support for the island yesterday. “My wife is crying all the time and I completely understand — she hasn’t spoken to her brother for more than a week.”

Recondo, like many of his fellow demonstrators, feels paralyzed in the wake of the storm’s destruction. At least 16 people have died, and millions are without power, clean water and gas, according to a CNN report.

“There’s no way we can help,” Recondo said. “Our hands are tied. This is the only way, trying to get involved in this type of movement.”

Juan Recondo attends a rally in support of the people of Puerto Rico in Lower Manhattan yesterday. Photo by Amy Zahn

Recondo, along with over a hundred other protesters, gathered in Lower Manhattan to call for more aid to be sent to Puerto Rico and to condemn what they see as a slow response to the disaster by the U.S. government.

“I haven’t heard from my family at all, my whole family,” said protester Anthony Zayas, wrapped in a Puerto Rican flag. Aside from his mother, who lives in New Jersey, Zayas’ entire family is in Puerto Rico.

The state of New York is home to over a million people who identify as Puerto Rican, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the largest number in any state. There are over 5 million Puerto Ricans on the mainland U.S. in total, making them one of the largest Latino groups in the country, second only to Mexicans.

“People are praising Trump, but you know what? He did it too late. It should have been done immediately,” Zayas said, referring to Donald Trump’s temporary waiver of the Jones Act last week, eight days after the storm hit. “We’re American citizens, too.”

The Jones Act, passed in 1920, requires all ships transporting goods between U.S. ports to be built by Americans, and primarily manned by them. Trump lifted it for 10 days to facilitate shipments to the storm-ravaged island.

But despite the difficulties of assisting 3.4 million people — the population of Puerto Rico — there are ways to tailor relief efforts to be as helpful as possible, or at least avoid making things worse unintentionally.

According to Tony Morain, communications director for Direct Relief, a nonprofit that provides medications to hospitals and other health centers in disaster areas, it’s important for people to be mindful about the kinds of supplies they send.

In natural disasters, he said, it’s common for a shortage of truck drivers to combine with an influx of supplies trying to reach an area, creating a bottleneck in aid transport. After the Haiti earthquake in 2010, Morain explained that well-meaning people sent nonessential items like stuffed animals and toys, which can clog up ports and slow the distribution of life-saving supplies.

Morain also advised against sending winter clothes, since Puerto Rico has been experiencing high temperatures. Water, food, gas and medicine are the essentials, he said.

As far as longer term help goes, Morain thinks awareness is Puerto Rico’s best bet at recovery.

“Keep this in the news,” he said. “It’s always the case that first people talk about the wind speed of the storm, and then they show palm trees swaying, and then things go dark for a bit because there’s no communication, and then we start hearing stories about how devastating the first response search and rescue is … and then it becomes communities that have been forgotten.”

Robert Perez waits for a pro-Puerto Rico rally to start in Lower Manhattan yesterday. Photo by Amy Zahn

Puerto Rican Americans like protester Robert Perez, whose aunt and sister are stuck on the island, are unlikely to forget anytime soon, and he hopes the government won’t either.

“After the pressure’s put on the government, maybe Mr. Trump will do something,” he said.

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