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Teaching Irene: Learning from Katrina |
Daniel Wolff is a writer and documentary film producer based in the Valley. With Jonathan Demme, he co-produced Right to Return: New Home Movies from New Orleans and New Orleans: Been in the Storm Too Long for Tavis Smiley on PBS. Wolff’ s latest book, The Fight for Home: How (Parts of) New Orleans Came Back is scheduled for publication in 2012 by Bloomsbury USA.
Daniel, a long-time education activist whose children attended public schools in Nyack, has presented at THV institutes so we asked him how teachers might approach Irene. Here’s what he said.
 "If I were talking to teachers about teaching the storm, I think I'd concentrate on before and after.
"That is, in Katrina and I suspect in Irene, many of the areas hardest hit tend to be those that were neglected beforehand.
"Who lives in your town's flood plain? Poor people. So when the hurricane comes, they get the worst of it. What does that tell us?
"If a class were to go back and look at why the, say, trailer park is located by the banks of the river that flooded, it might be an interesting study. There are a million examples.
"In Mamaroneck, for instance, the region that regularly floods is called the Flats. Used to be majority black population, nowadays majority Latino. Is that a coincidence?
"Related question: why are the industrial sections of a town so often in low-lying areas? What goes with this approach is an investigation of pre-destination: I think anyone looking would find that authorities knew where the floods would be worse, who would be hit worse. Often there're studies going back decades predicting who will be flooded out. Yet solutions haven't been found. Why and how is this possible?
"The after part is to look at how we respond to the damage. For instance:
- What areas get rebuilt and why?
- Who has access to emergency (and regular) health care?
- If over-building is part of what helped the flooding, what zoning changes are being proposed to remedy that? And, if new zoning displaces people how are they helped to relocate?
"Katrina (and Irene) are, of course, natural events, but how we understand them and realign ourselves afterwards is an indicator of how the society views itself. A class could do a simple study of which communities got power back when and see if there are any conclusions to be drawn from that."
Daniel also writes frequently about music. Last year he spoke at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on how music is helping to rebuild New Orleans. See it here.
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