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HURRICANES KATRINA and RITA CHANGES THE GULF COAST FOREVER AND ECORPS IS THERE!


ECORPS teams were among the FIRST to enter the City of New Orleans, Red Cross was in Houston and and FEMA was no where in site. ECorps ex-military teams entered the city on boats from the Gulf side up the Mississippi and provided aid to stranded residents of New Orleans while they waited for FEMA and other assistance. NO TV CAMERAS WERE CALLED JUST DEDICATED ASSISTANCE TO THOSE IN NEED. NO PHOTO OPS WERE SOUGHT TO RAISE FUNDS.


Hurricane Katrina presented a major national healthcare crisis that went mostly unreported national media, it was deemed "too explosive" to cover. Healthcare professionals sounded the alarm on deaf ears. Thousands of HIV and AIDS patients from Katrina affected area are afraid of seeking help in their new locations across the nation for few of being discriminated against! Red Tape Continued to hindered Relief to the most neediest areas of Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama. Millions were displaced to cities all over the USA and carried a crisis with them. Now, a decade later the untold story of the Katrina/Rita Healthcare migration goes largely unreported except in scholarly papers.  

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(The following news report could have been written in 2010 as oppose to 2006, since the social and health problems named therein are still plaguing Katrina/Rita Survivors across the United States. The media has moved on and so have the minds of the citizens to the next disaster and heart pulling crisis. This as thousands of USA citizens are still homeless and displaced across the nation. The Help USA First Foundation and its Institute for Health Research continues to keep this need in the minds of donors and the media.)


Katrina Has Prompt a New Black Migration!


By Adam Tanner (Summarized)


HOUSTON (Reuters) - If refugees end up building new lives away from New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina may prompt the largest U.S. black resettlement since the 20th century's Great Migration lured southern blacks to the North in a search for jobs and better lives. Interviews with refugees in Houston, which is expecting many thousands of evacuees to remain, suggest that thousands of blacks who lost everything and had no insurance will end up living in Texas or other U.S. states.


Officials say it will take many months and maybe even years before the birthplace of jazz is rebuilt.

"We advise people that this city has been destroyed," New Orleans Deputy Police Chief Warren Riley told reporters on Monday. "We are simply asking people not to come back to this city right now."

Many evacuees like Percy Molere, 26, who worked in a hotel in New Orleans' famed French quarter, say they cannot keep their lives on hold for very long.


"If it took a month, I'd go back, but a year, I don't want to wait that long," said Molere. "Hopefully we're going to stay in Houston just to stay out of New Orleans" for the time being. Experts caution that it is too soon to clearly predict the long-term impact of the devastation of New Orleans, a city of less than half a million people more than two-thirds of whom are black. But one scenario would be massive resettlement elsewhere. (Molere, is still displaced from her home in 2010, the Ninth Ward has NOT been rebuilt.)


"You've got 300,000, 400,000 people, many of them low income without a lot of means, who are not going to have the ability to wait out a year or two or three years for the region to rebuild," said Barack Obama, the only black member of the U.S. Senate.


MIGRATION TRENDS: Part of the migration trend will be set by what federal, state and local agencies do to help refugees rebuild their lives. "What I do think should be focused on now is what is the Congress is going to do when they get back," former President Bill Clinton said in Houston on Monday. "How are we going to find jobs for these people, where are they really going to live, do they need some cash right away?" "They feel lost."


THE GREATEST NEED NOW IS SURVIVAL BUT THE GREATEST NEED FOR MONTHS AND YEARS TO COME WILL BE HOUSING FOR THE VICTIMS WHOSE HOMES MAY NEVER BE HABITABLE AGAIN AND NO RESOURCES TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT…."DISEASES OF UNKNOWN MAGNITUDE START TO AFFECT SURVIVORS. MILITARY, POLICE, VOLUNTEERS, WATER IS TOXIC AND LATER THE DUST WILL BE TOO", says CDC official.

In 2005 then President Bush made the following plea which the Help USA First Foundation repeat 5 years later to our Neighbors...Please DONATE to help the USA First!!


"... It is also essential for the many organizations of our country to reach out to your fellow citizens in the Gulf area. So I have asked USA Freedom Corps to create an information clearinghouse, available at USAfreedomcorps.gov, so that families anywhere in the country can find opportunities to help families in the region or a school can support a school. And I challenge existing organizations — churches, Scout troops or labor union locals — to get in touch with their counterparts in Mississippi, Louisiana or Alabama, and learn what they can do to help. In this great national enterprise, important work can be done by everyone, and everyone should find their role and do their part. " President George W. Bush, 2005 in New Orleans.

Above are the NEW Homes of Verified Katrina survivors former residents of New Orleans, living tents to survive in January 2010, 5 years later in a major west coast city. Housing, employment, health care and psychological assistance are still needed by Katrina Survivors.

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