A True History of the Johnstown Flood Study - Goodman Theatre

More documents

Recommendations

Info

New Orleans and Johnstown: Preventable Disasters BY BRAD BRUBAKER “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” — George Santayana, writer and philosopher It has been almost five years since Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, causing 1,800 deaths according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Although the hurricane hit Mississippi the hardest, New Orleans and neighboring St. Bernard Parish were flooded when their protective levees meant to hold back water broke. What is most striking about Rebecca Gilman’s A True History of the Johnstown Flood is the alarming number of similarities between the Johnstown Flood and the flood in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. What mistakes were repeated in New Orleans more than a century after Johnstown flooded? Gilman’s play gives an excellent background on the Johnstown Flood, as does the previous article in the study guide. National Geographic created this timeline of the 2005 flooding in New Orleans: • Aug. 25: Hurricane Katrina makes landfall in Florida. • Aug. 26: The hurricane gains momentum in the Gulf of Mexico. Meteorologists predict the hurricane will hit land again, causing severe damage to the Gulf Coast. Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco declares a state of emergency. A house in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward after Hurricane Katrina. Photo courtesy of Willa J. Taylor. • Aug. 27: Dismissing pressure to call for a mandatory evacuation, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin calls for a voluntary evacuation. • Aug. 28: At 11 a.m. Nagin issues the first mandatory evacuation in New Orleans’ history. While many in the city stay put anticipating the storm will blow over, many who are unable to leave the city go to shelters, most notably the Superdome. Meanwhile, those attempting to evacuate are stuck in traffic for hours. The National Weather Service predicts the storm surge will breach the levees. • Aug. 29: Katrina hits land in the early morning. Although the hurricane does not hit New Orleans directly, the first levee in the city is breached. • Aug. 30: Multiple levees fail, leaving 80 percent of New Orleans underwater while 100 percent of neighboring St. Bernard Parish is submerged. Estimates of the number of residents still in the city are as high as 100,000. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the federal agency that heads disaster response, requires first responders to go through it before providing aid. 8 These marks were left on New Orleans homes by search and rescue teams. They note the date the home was seacrhed, the name of the search team, and list any hazards or reported dead in the home. Photo courtesy of Brad Brubaker. • Aug. 31: The first groups of people are evacuated from the Superdome, which serves as a shelter for 20,000 people. Because of reported widespread looting, rescue teams are ordered to refocus their efforts to policing. Water levels stop rising. • Sept. 1: Many shelters report a shortage or total lack of water and food.
• Sept. 2: Congress approves a $10.5 million plan for disaster relief. Many African-American leaders say the delayed response is because the affected neighborhoods are predominantly black and poor. • Sept. 4: The last of the people at the Superdome are evacuated, although some survivors remain at other shelters. • Sept 6: Army Corps of Engineers begins pumping water out of the flooded city. Estimates report fewer than 10,000 people remaining in the city. The most important similarity to note about the floods in Johnstown and New Orleans is that even though the increase in water was the result of severe storms, the flooding was the result of human error and negligence. In New Orleans, the failure of the levees and flood walls has been attributed to the Army Corp of Engineers, the organization that has headed anti-flood planning in the U.S. since the 1920s. Errors in design were not the only problem. The original plans for flood protection in New Orleans, drawn up in 1965 after Hurricane Betsy, gave a timeline of completion within 13 years. Forty years later, the construction was still far from finished. In Johnstown, the dam did not receive its needed upkeep by the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. Other similarities can be found in the events leading up to the floods. In both cities, flood warnings were commonplace. Because the aforementioned negligence was unknown to citizens and to some authority figures, no one took the severe warnings for these disasters seriously until it was too late. Even if the warnings had come earlier, evacuation for many residents was simply not an option because of the costs associated with it. The aftermath of the floods also tells the sad story of history repeating itself. Government aid to the disasters was delayed, resulting in more lost lives. Staging areas were short on food, water and supplies for days on end. Just over two weeks after the flood in New Orleans, FEMA Director Michael Brown resigned because of these critical failures. (Later, it was learned he had no past experience in emergency response.) Media coverage dwelled on drastically exaggerated looting activity targeting minority groups as the perpetrators. And although the American Red Cross became a powerful force in disaster response, some insurance companies such as Allstate refused to pay flood insurance claims to victims in New Orleans. In both cases, a lack of resolution remains because no one was ever held accountable for these preventable disasters. Former business district in New Orleans’ neighbor, St. Bernard Parish, damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Photo courtesy of Brad Brubaker. 9
Page 1 and 2: A True History of the Johnstown Flo
Page 3 and 4: Drowning in Money: The Johnstown Fl
Page 5 and 6: floors, preparing to wait out the h
Page 7: had. But soon, with the waters abat
Page 11 and 12: How Can I Help? BY BRAD BRUBAKER Wh
Page 13 and 14: Another important role art plays in
Page 15 and 16: evacuations, deal with the elderly
Page 17 and 18: Most recently, the world felt the i
Page 19 and 20: The Beginnings of the American Red
Page 21 and 22: critics for its design and was adve
Page 23 and 24: shoring up levees and building pump
Page 25 and 26: Understanding Serfdom BY BRAD BRUBA
Page 27 and 28: Acting, Melodrama and the Johnstown
Page 29 and 30: A Family Affair: Famous Acting Fami
Page 31 and 32: In free-market capitalism, even a m
Page 33 and 34: were compelled to share the stories
Page 35 and 36: Carla Gugino, Pablo Schreiber, Bria
Page 37: Writing Your Response Letter After

A True History of the Johnstown Flood Study - Goodman Theatre

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?