Louisianans in dire need in Hurricane Ida’s wake

Editor’s note: The People’s Tribune’s Bob Lee recently interviewed Belden “Noonie Man” Batiste, a New Orleans activist and mayoral candidate, about the situation in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Ida. Below are excerpts from Batiste’s comments during the interview.

I’m a musician, and I’ve been a community activist since the age of 14. I have been organizing in New Orleans for a long time. I had just decided to run for mayor of the city when the storm came. I was running against our mayor, who is LaToya Cantrell, and I was running against her because of criminal neglect, poor leadership and broken promises. I [also] ran for Congress [earlier this year].

We went through Katrina 16 years ago and here we go again, and it looks like the City of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana learned nothing from Katrina, you know? And so people are in dire need. You got pregnant women that haven’t eaten in days. You got people that’s in nursing homes and buildings with no generators, no nothing; at night time, they gotta use the bathroom and they’re urinating on their selves.

Our grids and Entergy [the electricity supplier in New Orleans] failed in the water [and the whole city lost power]. In 2018, we told them not to build this power plant. So they gave this plant billions of dollars and that plant has failed too. And so, so we are in trouble in New Orleans. We in dire need down here and we need help. And people don’t have gas. You got people robbing people, they looting, breaking into the stores, they’re robbing senior citizens, stealing all kinds of stuff.

The mayor had no plan. Our political leaders had no plan. And the state of Louisiana, they took people from different parts of Louisiana and forced them to be in this facility. And they just throwed them in on the floor, had them laying in feces, pee and all that. So this state agency dealt with this independent contractor, he did it before and it destroyed the people, you know? So this contractor got [these people from nursing homes and moved them to these warehouses] and then the state had to move them out these warehouses because the man who had the contract [did such a poor job]. He shouldn’t have no contracts. And if you look up the story he had the seniors living, sleeping in feces and pee all on the floor. [At least seven people died.] Those people should go to jail for that. And so this man did it before, so my question is how you give him a contract again? And we’ve got seniors that’s missing. They throwed these seniors in these warehouses and people can’t even find their mommas and their grandmas.

People are trying to bring stuff in from other parts of the city, but the government is trying to bring them through a lot of red tape, you know? So we got to go to like Hattiesburg to get things. Some people have gone as far as Florida just to get gas, to run their generators, you know, or to have gas to move around in the city. We got like 200 gas cans and we go to the gas stations in Mississippi and different parts to get gas, to bring back to people just to start their cars. Just for gas, we just spent almost $20,000.

And even though the president is in town, FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] ain’t moving quick enough, FEMA’s still denying a lot of people. People from New Orleans who are in different cities are being throwed out the hotels because they had reservations or FEMA’s not paying people, and people ran out of money. Some people only live check to check, some people get their checks on the first or the third, and they don’t have no money. And you wouldn’t believe this—Entergy is sending people notices to pay their bills or they are going to turn their lights off, but their lights are already turned off! And so Entergy is telling them they want to be paid and the people going to have to pay for Hurricane Ida and all that.

People are suffering. People are living underneath the bridge, once it gets dark. People need food to eat. We are fighting with the city officials to get them food and some of the places they are giving them food that dogs won’t eat. So me and a lot of community organizers are putting out money….and we just cook it for them and making sure they have food and all that. And we are organizing the neighborhoods to get together. We were getting ready for the mayoral election on Oct. 9, …but this is not about a campaign. I can care less about that. I want to help the people.

And many stores are not opening. People are fending for food, basically. People are trying to find resources and the government has not helped them yet. But I must say Congressman Troy Carter, and Mr. Cedric Richmond [assistant to President Biden] and the councilmember at large, Helena Moreno, [are doing a great job].

Troy Carter got FEMA to rewrite it because the insurance companies are saying by the mayor not calling a mandatory evacuation, they’re not going to pay off, but the president, Troy and Cedric got the president to tell the insurance companies do the right thing. Some people are in hotels where they are charging them $800 for a hotel. Some people are paying Airbnbs and they were $700 for like, a couple of weeks, but then it went up to $3000.

And they went up on the generators—some was $300, $1,000. They had 10 pieces of chicken for like $6.99, and now they charging the people $20.99. And the gas stations are charging on your credit card—some lady they charged $1,600 and she only got $100 worth of gas. They’re price gouging every day.

People are coming back home, but they’re still in need. The trash hasn’t been picked up. We are in a pandemic, and that’s causing a pandemic, because you got maggots, you got trash lying around. So what we are trying to do is go door to door. But you know, we have limited resources because the people that should be getting the resources, like the community people and the people that’s been fighting, the mayor has no communication with them.

And then imagine you trying to go to an ATM and you get money and they robbing you. They robbing them in the nursing homes, they stealing people’s cars, they’re looting the stores, they’re doing everything, you know? And so it’s really, it’s really heartbreaking.

So I’m out here, day-to-day, knocking on doors, taking my own resources and trying to get them food, trying to get them diapers. But there’s only so many people you can help. I’m trying to get a water and ice. And I got some people coming in on Saturday with two trailers and we are going to be getting generators and all that out. And we we’ve been trying to get the gas companies to give free gas to the gas stations, because we got a gas shortage. So we try to get gas just to give it out free, because people don’t have money.

And so, and so we’ve tried to organize neighborhoods where everybody’s helping everybody. I got people calling me for me to go check on their mommas and their daddies, and I’m trying to do it, but I’m only one person, but I got other people I’m getting on to help. We have a five o’clock meeting today to clean up some of the parks, to clean up some of the places where we could get generators and start feeding them. I know a guy named Mark Lawes who runs a restaurant called the Half Shell. And so he’s out here helping me. He has opened his restaurant, he’s helping me cook for people and get them something good in their bodies to eat. Some of these people haven’t eaten in four days, five days, you know? And so I’m organizing restaurants. …The world needs to know, our public officials in New Orleans, starting with the mayor not calling a mandatory evacuation, have failed the people.

And, if I had to compare this to Katrina, besides the water Katrina brought in, this is worse than Katrina.

What I would like to see the local officials doing is getting with the community leaders that’s doing the work and getting them the resources. Our politicians got to do a better job of dealing with Entergy and with the Sewerage and Water Board, because the Sewerage and Water Board, you wouldn’t believe what they did—all the urine and all the waste, they dumped all that in the Mississippi River. So even if you get water, you got to boil it because they throwed all that waste in the Mississippi River. So now people’s bodies might be contaminated. And I want to see our federal officials doing right by the people. And when I say people I’m talking about black, white, all races of people, cause everybody’s suffering, they ain’t discriminating.

And our federal government got to do a better job. They haven’t called meetings for community leaders or members. They’re not talking to them. The people that’s doing the work are people in the community groups and volunteers just like Katrina, you know? And so I think the government should start getting the resources here and making sure the resources and the money are being used because billions of dollars have come here and our energy system failed, and what I’m saying is they were supposed to have it up to standing and guess what—it was all rusty. So that means they did no work, meaning the money went in their pocket. We need to have forensic audits. Where has the money gone? And making sure that people are getting the money and then using the money right.

Because when Katrina came 16 years ago, the Ninth ward, New Orleans east, was still like a third world country. So they didn’t just get hit—it was like a double whammy. And the federal people took all the money and nobody held them accountable for it. You know, some people need to go to jail cause it’s criminal what they did to these elders, and nobody is being held accountable for it. And so I think our federal people need to get water, need to get the resources. FEMA needs to get off their ass and get here and get people resources in the state of Louisiana now. Because if they don’t, a lot of people are about to die from heat strokes; we’ve got little children living underneath the bridge, sleeping on the ground. People’s houses have caved in and they can’t even go back in their houses. And FEMA telling them they couldn’t do nothing until Troy got on them, but they still ain’t doing that fast enough. They look like they’re discriminating—the people that need the money can’t get the money.

The people are living hard, but people are binding together, to come together. But you know, there should be ice water in every neighborhood. They should have a spot set up everywhere where people can go get resources. And so a lot of it is just red tape and smoke screen through the government. Now Walmart is about to send some trailers down here, but they didn’t even want to deal with the government. It’s just that I know somebody, so they bringing it down here.

We need the government to step up to the plate and do the right thing. People need help. People need everything.

Imagine being a child and you haven’t eaten in three or four days; that child can get sick. People have been rushed to the hospital because of the heat and different things. And certain protocols should have happened. They knew the storm was coming a week or two weeks ahead of time. And they did nothing. Then when the storm came, they claimed they had buses and all these resources, but they lied.

They put the Superdome lights on, but people can’t go in the Superdome. People can’t go to the convention center. And they say they’ll never open that again. So why are you worrying about putting lights there—put lights where people need them. Help the seniors. Let’s go door to door. All they gotta do is give me the resources and let me organize the people.

You got some people that’s on breathing machines, everything, you know, and the hospitals are overworked. We got a pandemic. Covid is going on and some of the hospitals are diagnosing the people with Covid because they get $20,000 a head [for Covid patients] and some people don’t even have Covid, you know? So we got a pandemic going too. And so what if you got a pandemic going and here you can’t use the water and you don’t got light and you can’t keep clothes clean, and clean masks?

The hospitals were already overworked [because of Covid] and with Ida it’s a double whammy, because you got people going there with heat strokes. You got people getting sick, you got seniors that have been in a house, some of them having strokes and all that. And I think they should dispatch more military workers, Red Cross. We haven’t seen them. I heard they coming. We just need all the help we can get and not just in New Orleans, but across Louisiana.