This month marks 20 years since Hurricane Katrina devastated the southeastern United States, causing at least 1,392 deaths and an estimated USD 125 billion in damages, much of it concentrated in the Louisiana city of New Orleans. This year, Louisiana-based organizers are launching a grassroots campaign to demand that New Orleans utilize USD 600 million dollars in unused public funds for long-awaited repairs.

In 2015, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) gave New Orleans nearly USD 2 billion for post-Katrina infrastructure repairs, but USD 600 million still hasn’t been used, according to organizers.

Organizers with the Party for Socialism and Liberation held a press conference on Friday, August 22, which was hit with a sudden rainfall. “Behind me, the streets are already taking on water,” said Jade Woods, with the PSL. “I can guarantee you that for the rest of the day, the city will be dealing with the problems from this minor rainstorm. Just from this alone, we can see that New Orleans is not equipped to handle the kind of weather that is coming with hurricanes, and other extreme weather events.”

Other organizations endorsing the “Cut the Check” efforts include Unión Migrante, Common Ground Relief, the New Orleans Palestinian Youth Movement, Critical Mass NOLA, Sunrise Movement New Orleans, and Indivisible NOLA. Individuals endorsing include several candidates for New Orleans City Council: Rev. Gregory Manning, Bob Murrell, and Danyelle Christmas, as well as Ricky Twiggs Jr., a candidate for mayor.

Organizers are demanding that the city of New Orleans spend the USD 600 million on “infrastructure for the people”, which includes “improving the city’s storm water management system so that we’re not experiencing catastrophic flooding every time there’s a hurricane, but even every time there’s significant rainfall,” says PSL organizer and environmental educator Cecilia Paz.

“That would include upgrading the city’s drainage system, adding more green infrastructure to the city in the form of green spaces, which sequesters millions of gallons of storm water, and keeping the levies and the floodgates up to date, so that we don’t see another event like Katrina, where the levies broke,” Paz emphasized.

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