"As a researcher who has closely observed, personally experienced local struggles," says the writer, Bethany Garfield, "it’s with a heavy heart that I say that investigations into the state of our city’s protective plans and systems will likely garner the following conclusion: New Orleans isn’t ready for much of anything.."
Emails show that state officials considered creating a shelter in a barge moored in Industrial Canal — and that prominent local developers knew about the shelter long before some city officials.
After an insinuation made by a Super Bowl planning committee, reporters from The Lens asked Lower 9 residents what Super Bowl visitors should see, plotted the points on a map, and documented the Katrina narratives that go with each landmark.
A jury found that the defendants didn’t violate Joy Banner’s right to free speech or the Louisiana Open Meetings Law. But testimony revealed a hatred the Parish President harbors against the co-founders of The Descendants Project.
Joy Banner of The Descendants Project brought the lawsuit after the Parish Council chairman threatened her with prosecution and imprisonment for speaking during the public comment period of a 2023 meeting.
Louisiana secured the bill’s largest project authorization, for St. Tammany Flood Risk Management. New Orleans scored authorization for a study about salt water in the river.
“We have much work to do,” Hunter writes, “to ensure that an anti-terrorist component is part of the planning process for every special event that attracts thousands – Mardi Gras, festivals and holiday celebrations, even our Sunday second-line parades.”
The leader of the governor’s temporary shelter says they are fully staffed and genuinely ready to move people into permanent housing. But it is several miles from the Superdome and is seen by critics as a way to warehouse homeless people away from Super Bowl crowds.
As advocates and lawyers file suit against the state, asking a judge to bar the reclassification of drugs used for medication abortion, women seeking IUDs and needing prenatal care say that they are also feeling the effects of the new law.
