As hurricane season rages on, advocates push for solutions now
9th November 2020 · 0 Comments
By Meghan Holmes
Contributing Writer
As 2020’s devastating hurricane season continues into November, aid groups are struggling to provide disaster relief across Louisiana, with hurricanes Laura and Beta impacting hundreds of thousands of people in the west and central parts of the state as well as Zeta recently passing directly over New Orleans.
With scientists increasingly connecting storm intensity and precipitation rates to rising ocean temperatures, severe hurricanes are likely to continue in the coming decades. Advocacy groups like the Foundation for Louisiana are encouraging residents and elected officials to embrace solutions now – centering underserved, poor and rural communities who are hardest hit by disasters.
“Basically, we rely on finding folks that are closest to the ‘problem’ and let them be part of the solution, and let us know where we should be directing our resources,” said Caressa Chester, Coastal and Climate program officer with the Foundation for Louisiana. “We have already been doing work with vulnerable communities in places impacted by the petrochemical industry, and we know unsafe conditions can be exacerbated by a disaster like a hurricane, so we open a dialogue with people in these communities, in places like St. James and St. John parish, and we really couldn’t do the work without their knowledge.”
An added difficulty in serving Louisianans this hurricane season has been COVID-19, also disproportionately impacting underserved communities and particularly communities of color.
“These issues are interlocking, because many of the Black and Indigenous communities being impacted by the pandemic also don’t have access to health care, and live in areas with increased air pollution. That’s why it’s so important to center their voices in recovery efforts,” said Asti Davis, Climate Justice Network Engagement Manager with the Foundation for Louisiana.
Founded as the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation in the days following Hurricane Katrina, Foundation for Louisiana has been doing disaster relief work ever since, and has also expanded its mission, providing partnerships and funding for a host of initiatives that support grass roots organizations and engage directly with underserved communities.
“We sit in a very unique space, being a minority-run organization,” Davis said. “The way that we operate, in listening to the community, we hear a lot from our partners that so many people don’t listen to communities. If you’re giving money to organizations that are well-resourced, but not touching the community, or doing the work that needs to be done there, then how successful will it be?”
Davis oversees a program called LEAD, Leadership Education and Advocacy Development, in which community leaders learn how to talk about environmental issues with local officials.
“They may not see themselves as environmental leaders, but they know things are going on around us and they want to learn,” she said. Participants spend four weeks learning advocacy techniques and policy teachings and, to date, more than 125 people have graduated from ten different parishes. “People want to hear information from others who look like them and share their experiences, so it’s been really empowering for our grantees, who can now run that program and have their own cohorts and graduating classes after they have participated,” Davis said.
A core part of FFL’s mission is also reclaiming narratives around health, the environment and Black populations, and repurposing these narratives to elevate the experience of the Black community. “We think about the narrative around Cancer Alley, around Death Alley, and reclaiming that,” Chester said. “What does it mean to be living in that area? Nationally, people hear that there are thousands of jobs coming with new development, but how many of those jobs are going to the Black communities who live there and are disproportionately impacted? We want to break down narratives and get to the truth.”
Recently, FFL funded a billboard in St. James that says: “Formosa, Go Home,” part of their work with Sharon Lavigne and RISE St. James to stop the construction of a 13-plant industrial facility that would double greenhouse gas emissions in the parish.
“The billboard is the community taking the narrative into their own hands, and saying what they want,” Chester said. On November 4, the Corps of Engineers suspended a federal permit for the facility – marking a victory for opponents of the project, although potentially temporarily, over the Taiwanese corporation.
In coming months, FFL will also establish a participatory grant-making body within their climate justice program, inviting grantees to be part of the funding process. “It’s meant to shift the power dynamic of what it means to be a funder,” Chester said, “and bring the people who need support into funding decisions, deepening our understanding of environmental justice needs in Louisiana.”
This article originally published in the November 9, 2020 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
