After Katrina

Full coverage of the New Orleans disaster and its aftermath

Photo: AP/Wide World Photos

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Why Are They Making New Orleans a Ghost Town?
By Bill Quigley
The longer the poor and working class stay away, the more likely it is they’ll never return.
October 31, 2005

Hard Questions About the Big Easy
By Paul Rogat Loeb
The New Orleans disaster could yet change American politics—but only if we keep talking about it
October 31, 2005

Mother Jones Radio: America’s Least Wanted
Does the government want the poor back in New Orleans?
October 30, 2005

Gentrifying Disaster
By Mike Davis
In New Orleans: Ethnic Cleansing, GOP-Style
October 25, 2005

Hurricane Anything!
Cartoon by Mark Fiore
Thanks to hurricanes, you can do anything!
October 19, 2005

The Other Hurricane
By Mike Davis
Has the Age of Chaos begun?
October 7, 2005

Bayou Farewell
Mike Tidwell Interviewed By Erik Kancler
The Louisiana Bayou has been sinking for years, and now it’s almost gone—taking New Orleans and Cajun culture with it.
October 3, 2005

The Mysteries of New Orleans
By Mike Davis and Anthony Fontenot
Twenty-five Questions about the Murder of the Big Easy
September 28, 2005

A Category-Five Q&A from “Pond Zero”
By Bill Santiago
My exclusive interview with an anonymous high-ranking senior official
September 28, 2005

Katrina and Deficits: Right Topic, Wrong Questions
By Gene Sperling
What about the much worse fiscal damage done by Bush’s economic policies?
September 22, 2005

A Failed State
By JoAnn Wypijewski
With government unmasked as a hollow giant, and both parties equally accommodated to poverty in the midst of plenty, is it any wonder people look to God?
September 18, 2005

Corporations of the Whirlwind
By Tom Engelhardt and Nick Turse
The Bush-friendly companies that ate Iraq are preparing to do the same in New Orleans.
September 14, 2005

No Exit
By Alison Stein Wellner
Disaster evacuation plans throughout the US assume that people own a car. Too bad for the 23 million Americans who don’t.
September 13, 2005

We’re not counting on the government to take care of us anymore
By David Enders
Following Hurricane Katrina evacuees out of New Orleans.
September 12, 2005

A Moral Moment
By Al Gore
The Bible says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” The Bush administration has no vision. So the people perish.
September 12, 2005

Mother Jones Radio: Katrina’s Lessons
What has the political saga around Hurricane Katrina taught politicians, the media, and American citizens?
September 11, 2005

Katrina’s Children
By Richard D. Kahlenberg
Kids displaced by the hurricane shouldn’t be dumped into failing schools.
September 9, 2005

Choose to Make a Difference
By Arthur I. Blaustein
The disaster in New Orleans makes at least one thing clear — the importance of serving our communities and being there for one another.
September 8, 2005

Surviving New Orleans
By David Enders
Residents still stranded in the city — many of them poor, many of them minorities — find ways to scrape by.
September 7, 2005

Whoopsi Gras!
Cartoon by Mark Fiore
It’s a Carnival of Ineptitude. Come See the Parade!
September 7, 2005

Sucker’s Bets for the New Century
By Bill McKibben
The U.S. After Katrina
September 7, 2005

New Orleans: Iraq in America
By Tom Engelhardt
The Perfect Storm and the Feral City
September 5, 2005

Mother Jones Radio: Why Was Katrina’s Impact So Huge?
Despite what President Bush says, a disaster on the Gulf Coast has been predicted for years.
September 4, 2005

9/11 in New Orleans
By Paul Rogat Loeb
This time, will we draw the right lessons from a tragic disaster?
September 2, 2005

Did New Orleans Catastrophe Have to Happen?

By Will Bunch
Times-Picayune Had Repeatedly Raised Federal Spending Issues
September 1, 2005

Katrina’s Real Name
By Ross Gelbspan
It’s Global Warming
August 30, 2005

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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