Tsunami relief workers shocked by 9th Ward tour, say they expected more signs of recovery

Tsunami relief workers shocked by 9th Ward tour, say they expected more signs of recovery

05:10 PM CDT on Friday, June 23, 2006

Bill Capo / WWL-TV Eyewitness News Reporter

Two leaders of the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights who have spent the last 18-months helping victims of last year’s Tsunami took a walk through the Lower Ninth Ward Friday.

Their reaction was one of shock, because they said they expected to see more signs of recovery from Hurricane Katrina.

“We think of America as being this fabulous, powerful superpower, and it’s exactly like Third World situations,” said Tom Kerr.

“In my personal opinion, I think you should have done much, much faster. It should be much better than what I have seen today,” said Samsook Boonyabancha.

For months, they have been exchanging emails on the recovery process with the New Orleans based National Policy and Advisory Council on Homelessness. Friday, they got to see Katrina’s devastation first hand, and heard residents talk about the long, hard road to recovery.

"The fact that the relief and the support for people who live here is so minimal even though there is so much money in this country, it's really shocking," said Kerr.

Their conclusion: hurricane victims face far more red tape from government and private industry than do the survivors of the tsunami.

"We just sit together and we decide what we like to do together, and we find funding supporting the people, then we start to do it right away. It is much easier that way. Here your lives depend on the government’s plan, depends on the insurance company, and you keep waiting, and waiting, and waiting," said Boonyabancha.

Later this summer, a group from New Orleans east and the Lower Ninth Ward will travel to Indonesia to see what they can learn about the recovery efforts from the tsunami in some of the world's poorest countries.

"So I think it is important that we look at those models, what's happened in Asia, and try to take those lessons of self help, mutual aid and volunteerism, and how that might apply back to New Orleans," said Brad Paul, with the National Council on Homelessness.