Your Community Connection since 1994
Including Inglewood Airport Area • Baldwin Hills • Crenshaw/LA • Ladera Heights VOL. 24, No. 35
August 27, 2015
Hurricane Katrina: Then and Now
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en years ago, Hurricane Katrina ripped through the Gulf Coast region, killing nearly 2,000 and displacing more than 250,000 others from Louisiana to Florida. Millions watched it on television, helpless, as those caught in the storm climbed on top of roofs and waited to be rescued. Countless others drowned. Katrina is among the costliest disasters in U.S. history and the costliest hurricane on record, according to the National Weather Service. To this day racial, political and socioeconomic disparities still impact the lives of those in hardest hit New Orleans. So just how far has New Orleans come since the hurricane 10 years ago? Many say the division has never been wider. “You’re going to hear a lot of folks say things are so much better, the economy is so improved, and other people are going to say it is so much worse,” said Allison Plyer at the New Orleansbased think tank The Data
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Brad Pitt Center. “And both those realities are true.” It is not uncommon for people to talk about a renaissance and about those who didn’t recover in the same breath. “The “new” New Orleans is whiter and more expensive to live in. African-American neighborhoods across the city
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still struggle, especially the chronically neglected Lower 9th Ward, a bastion of black homeownership before the flood walls failed. And the homicide rate is rising again,” The New Orleans Advocate reports. Former New Orleans Saint, Joe Horn, recalled his experience when the storm
Joe Horn hit: “Katrina hit while we were still in California, and we saw the incredible images on TV. The actual storm was nothing compared to the flood damage caused after the levees broke. When those four levees were breached, people were like (Continued on page 10)
Welcome Back Students!
On The Inside: • News
Schools Get $10M Grant for Noise Relief
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By Thomas Bunn
he first day of a new school year is always exhilarating. I remember the Sunday night before, laying out my new outfit, packing my backpack with fresh pens and pencils, and looking forward to reconnecting with friends to share stories about the summer we had. For some of us, we spent the summer together, (Continued on page 2)
COMING SOON THE BEST OF INGLEWOOD
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tudents at Inglewood schools will get long awaited noise relief through an approved grant from Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA). Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) officials have announced that the Inglewood Unified School District will receive its first funding installment of $10 million for the District’s Classroom Noise Mitigation Program. The grant will help bring improvements to reduce noise from planes flying overhead at Los Angeles International Airport. This action follows an announcement earlier this year that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had approved LAWA’s use
of $44.4 million for sound insulation in the school district with Passenger Facility Charge (PFC) funds. The PFC Program allows the collection of fees of up to $4.50 for every enplaned passenger at commercial airports controlled by public agencies. Airports may use these fees to fund FAAapproved projects such as noise reduction, enhancing safety, security, and the like. PFCs can only be collected for an FAA-approved program for an established amount and time period. (Continued on page 7)