That is the introduction to a five-story venture, The Lens’ Embracing Katrina Narratives venture.

Final summer season, in July, a gaggle of influential New Orleanians gathered, with hopes of getting ready town for a nationwide highlight forward of Tremendous Bowl LIX.

Michael Hecht, the CEO Of Higher New Orleans Inc., who was tapped by Governor Jeff Landry to steer Tremendous Bowl preparation efforts, knowledgeable the group that the GNO Inc. “inside Tremendous Bowl crew” had taken a drive across the Decrease ninth Ward, testing beautification and infrastructure wants within the neighborhood.

The go to was made to “anticipate any options of the neighborhood which might be utilized by media to substantiate Katrina narrative,” Hecht had reported, in line with a slide presentation from the assembly.

The group, which dubbed itself the “Tremendous Gras Subcommittee,” included Orleans metropolis officers and representatives from the French Market Company, Downtown Growth District, and the Audubon Institute.

The assembly had a broad focus, starting from potholes to avenue flooding to dingy-looking surfaces. Town’s Division of Public Works up to date the committee on street resurfacing and sidewalk and catch basin repairs. The Sewage and Water Board ran by the leaking hearth hydrants on their to-do listing. And town’s Division of Property Administration mentioned a much-needed strain wash of Metropolis Corridor.

A lot of the efforts mentioned that day, in line with a slide presentation from the assembly, have been centered across the main vacationer hubs — the French Quarter and Central Enterprise District.

But it surely was the Decrease ninth Ward point out that reminded neighborhood residents concerning the inequities that also stay, almost 20 years after Katrina hit and levees broke, flooding the neighborhood to its rooftops. 

Why was Hecht’s crew straying so removed from the business hub of town? To be charitable, it appears potential that the crew was making an attempt to make sure that the pre-Tremendous Bowl investments in New Orleans have been made equitably. However that’s not inside the abstract given to the subcommittee that day. 

Hecht and different metropolis officers didn’t reply to questions from The Lens relating to what they meant by “Katrina narrative.” Nor did they determine the precise upgrades which have taken place within the Decrease 9 neighborhood forward of the Tremendous Bowl. When requested, neighbors may solely consider the Saturday litter cleanup on January 25, led by town of New Orleans, a crew of GNO Inc. employees, the rapper Juvenile and a few of his colleagues.

But, nonetheless at this time, resident Robert Inexperienced, 69, can stroll down any block within the Decrease 9 and describe the injury down there by Katrina and the breached federal levees, which submerged the neighborhood in 17 toes of water in some locations. Although the majority-Black neighborhood has come a great distance since Katrina hit on August 29, 2005, it’s, in some ways, the poster youngster of the inequitable restoration that adopted the 2005 storm.

On prime of an early suggestion to utterly abandon the Decrease 9 and different onerous hit neighborhoods, the state’s Highway Residence program that issued rebuilding grants massively shortchanged individuals in low-income neighborhoods just like the Decrease 9. A survey carried out in 2015, 10 years after the storm, discovered that 80 p.c of white New Orleanians felt town had “principally recovered.” Simply 37 p.c of Black residents felt the identical.

At present, many properties within the Decrease 9 stay vacant, many in disrepair. On some blocks, weeds that tower like timber have taken over empty tons. Strict zoning necessities could make it tough to rebuild on the neighborhood’s small commonplace lot sizes.

Had been the Tremendous Bowl planners involved about exposing these inequities to the world? That has lengthy been an uncomfortable native — and nationwide — dialog.

Inexperienced has watched all of it first-hand, each the triumphs of restoration and its pitfalls. Twenty years in the past, when Katrina hit town, he weathered the deluge within the Decrease 9 inside his household home, which got here off its piers and floated down on Tennessee Avenue.

To him, the pretense of ignoring the “Katrina narrative” appeared nonsensical. “There’s no manner you’ll be able to enter the Ninth Ward, higher or decrease, with out speaking about what occurred in Katrina,” Inexperienced mentioned. It’s not one thing you’ll be able to keep away from. It’s like going to Manhattan and ignoring that the Twin Towers got here down.”

To counter the “Tremendous Gras Subcommittee” narrative, Inexperienced and 4 of his neighbors instructed The Lens what Decrease 9 landmarks Tremendous Bowl guests ought to see – and what Katrina narratives go together with these landmarks.

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