From New Orleans to New England by Emily LaFond of Blunt Youth Radio
Today is the one year anniversary of the earthquake in Haiti that has claimed somewhere over 200,000 lives. 2010 also saw the Pakistan floods, which left over 20 million people without homes. The beginning of 2011 has now also seen a lot of pain and sorrow, both from people-made violence and natural disasters.
It takes both the land and its inhabitants decades to recover from a natural disaster and the YouthCast feature this week was made five years ago, in response to the recovery from Hurricane Katrina.
Tyrel and Tevin Wooten lived their whole lives in the Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans. For two weeks after Hurricane Katrina, the Wooten family was constantly threatened. Police pointed guns at their step-father, Patrick. Looters broke into the family home. They lived without power in 120 degree heat. Finally, authorities picked the family up and put them on a plane. Thirty minutes into the flight, the pilot announced their destination: Otis Air Force Base on Cape Cod. Randomly relocated to a much colder, much more rural area, the Wootens decided to put down roots in Massachusetts.
This non-linear and non-narrated piece is called “From New Orleans to New England†by Emily LaFond of the Blunt Youth Radio Project. A reviewer on PRX suggests that its structure mimics qoute the disjointed and utter confusion that came as a result of Hurricane Katrina. See for yourself!
Podcast: Download (0.0KB)
On the image above: A Mess in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina via News Muse on Flickr
Some more youth-produced stories about overcoming problems after a natural disaster
- Students come up with an engineering solution for dealing with seasonal floods in Zambia: Floating School from the COP16 Youth Voices from Africa
- Moving out of state and moving on after Hurricane Andrew hits Florida: The Hurricane by Daniel Whaley of Youth Radio Vermont
- Another Katrina survivor makes a decision that will honor his mother who did not make it: 21 Year Old Katrina Survivor Signs Up for the U.S. Army by Adeline Goss of Brown Student Radio
Intro music in this week's episode is "So Smooth" by Deal The Villain / CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Outro music is "Faith's Witness" also by Deal The Villain / CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
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January 13th, 2011 at 10:21 am
My heart goes out to the Wooten family. As a Calif. tourist stuck in the Superdome their story is especially poignant. In reality, with all the Justice Dept. investigations and inquiries we are discovering that New Orleans citizens may have had more to fear after Katrina from their own Police than their fellow citizens.
Paul Harris
Author, "Diary From the Dome, Reflections on Fear and Privilege During Katrina"