Atlantica - 01.02.2006, Side 45

The Superdome, 13 weeks after Katrina.
When the levees broke in New
Orleans in early September 2005
following Hurricane Katrina, American
history seemed to be repeating itself.
Before this, one of the greatest natu-
ral disasters on American soil was the
Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. The
flood immediately killed 247 people,
displaced one million more, and is
viewed as a key contributor to the great
migration out of the south to cities like
Detroit and Chicago in the 1930s.
American popular culture is loaded
with images and phrases from the Great
Mississippi Flood, which, by forcing
emigration from the Mississippi Delta,
introduced blues music to the world.
Much of the music written in the wake
of the disaster directly addresses the
racial discrimination by the federal and
local governments towards blacks dur-
ing the flood and its evacuation.
But this has largely been forgotten.
Few Led Zeppelin fans realize that
“When the Levee Breaks” was an angry
rebuttal by blues singers Kansas Joe
McKoy and Memphis Minnie in the
1930s to leaders’ failures to evacuate the
poorest of the South.
The story is hauntingly familiar to
what unfolded last year in New Orleans.
The fact that it has happened before
makes the events that much more trag-
ic; the outrage that much more justi-
fied.
In November, slow as the cleanup
was going, I began organizing a trip to
New Orleans and the Mississippi Delta
to see the heart of the musical and
literary culture of America. The fact
that some of the most vital culture in
modern history came out of a similar
circumstance gave me hope. I wondered
if people affected by Katrina felt there
was at least the possibility of something
good growing out of the disaster.
In early December, I received a press
release issued by a hotel chain that
included the Executive Order demand-
ing that hurricane refugees leave New
Orleans area hotels. Without a full
understanding of the situation, I booked
rooms for myself and a photographer
and set off, exactly 13 weeks after the
area had been hit by the greatest natural
disaster in the history of the US.
HIGHER GROUND
Driving into New Orleans on Interstate
10, it’s hard to believe the hurricane
hit over three months ago, and not
yesterday.
Bart Cameron takes a tour through
Southern culture after the storm.
Photos by Gúndi.

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