tv PBS News Hour Weekend PBS August 29, 2015 5:30pm-6:01pm PDT
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captioning sponsored by wnet >> sreenivasan: on this edition for saturday, august 29: on the tenth anniversary of hurricane katrina, the continued impact of the storm on those who left new orleans. >> my family has been in new orleans for generations. it wasn't until katrina that everyone sort of separated. some folks are in mississippi, some are in alabama, florida, you know. everyone scattered about a bit. >> sreenivasan: how the federal emergency management agency, fema, has changed in the last decade. and a legendary new orleans restaurant, rebuilt. >> i had a whole lot of help. and i'm so blessed because a lot of people didn't have that help. >> sreenivasan: next on pbs newshour weekend. >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by:
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corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we are your retirement company. additional support is provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. from the tisch wnet studios at lincoln center in new york, hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: good evening, and thank you for joining us. in new orleans today, sorrow and a celebration of resilience. the city is marking the tenth anniversary of hurricane katrina, one of the deadliest storms in u.s. history. at a service this morning, elected officials paid tribute to the lives lost and laid a wreath at a memorial for unclaimed and unidentified victims. today, there were parades around the city, including in the lower
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ninth ward, the low-income neighborhood that suffered some of the worst flooding from katrina. the category-three hurricane made landfall ten years ago today, breaching the levees of new orleans and leaving 80% of the city under water. katrina caused more than $100 billion in property damage in the gulf coast region. 700,000 residents were displaced, and 300,000 lost their homes. according to the federal government, the storm caused 1,200 deaths, most in louisiana and more than 200 in mississippi. some estimates put the toll as high as 1,800 lives. we will have much more on katrina in a moment. texas authorities are searching for the suspect in last night's fatal shooting of a sheriff's deputy at a houston gas station. while he was filling up his patrol car, 47-year-old darren goforth was shot several times in what police call "an unprovoked, execution-style killing." the suspect is described as a man in his 20s with a dark complexion who ambushed goforth and drove away in a pickup
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truck. hungary is detaining four alleged human smugglers for abandoning a truck filled with refugees by a highway in austria. the truck was found this week with 71 dead bodies inside. three bulgarians and an afghan citizen could be held in custody for a month as the investigation continues. so, for this year, 140,000 migrants have sought refuge in hungary. many from syria cross by boat to greece and overland through the balkans. police in thailand are now holding a suspect in the bombing near a hindu shrine in bangkok two weeks ago. police say the suspect is 28 years old and not from thailand, but did not name him or his country of origin. authorities say they found bomb- making equipment and fake passports in the suspect's apartment, where he was arrested today. the backpack bomb left at the erawan shrine killed 20 people on august 17. in lebanon today, thousands of protesters filled the streets of downtown beirut, calling the government corrupt and incompetent. the movement, called "you stink," has grown as uncollected garbage in the capital has piled up for a month.
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lebanon has been without a president for more than a year and has not held legislative elections in six years. protesters are calling for a resolution to the garbage crisis and new parliamentary elections. a spokeswoman for "you stink" says its activities will escalate if the government does not respond by tuesday. >> sreenivasan: hurricane katrina displaced 400,000 residents of new orleans. they went to cities like baton rouge, houston, san antonio, atlanta and birmingham, and many thousands never went back to live. for the past decade, filmmaker rennick soholt has followed the lives of five families who fled for his forthcoming documentary" forced change." in tonight's "signature segment": two of those katrina migrants share their stories in their own words. ♪ >> my name is lorne laurant. i'm 46 years old.
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we are in georgetown, texas. i never would've imagined that, you know, we would be here in texas, of all places, you know. i work at a restaurant, the roaring fork. i do miss new orleans, all the time. all the old places that i hung out with, all the childhood friends that i met, you know. because basically here i just, i have my wife, i have the kids, but there are still a lot of memories and family in new orleans. i am split between two places. for me, new orleans is my-- it's my heart. my family has been in new orleans for generations. it wasn't until katrina that everyone sort of separated. some folks are in mississippi, some are in alabama, florida. you know, everyone's scattered about a bit. at the time, i was working for
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both house of blues and for, you know, the u.s. postal service. and i was doing well, you know. made great money. we were able to take our trips, our vacations, you know. and, i mean, it was just, it was a good time. and when i think back to then, i don't remember really wanting or needing anything, you know what i'm saying? it's like-- it seemed like everything was perfect. we had the babies; it was just a happy life back then, you know? well, i mean, we're happy still, but it's not the same happy, you know? jesus, follow this man. i remember my last day. my last day was, what? a saturday. lovee was calling me on the phone, freaking out because the storm was coming. calling me, "leave work, leave work, leave work." so, i mean, i made sure that i got off pretty early, came home, packed up very lightly, very lightly. i mean, literally all i took was, like, two pairs of jeans,
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two t-shirts and some flip flops. that was it, and we left. home sweet home, baby. oh, this was the living room. the water wasn't very high-- we got maybe a foot in here-- but you can see all the walls. just got the bathrooms done. new walls, new floors, all this was just done, like, a couple of months ago. this is nasty. this is nasty.
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i don't want to touch this stuff. there's papers in the drawers here that i got to get, like, important papers that lovee got from my dad. all right, cool. yep, this is his ring. yep, she'd definitely want that. tristan was like, "bring back my books, bring back my toys." there's really not much more we can take. i mean, his school supplies, he can use those later on. i was just glad my wife ain't here. she'd break down in tears. like, for the past couple of days, couple of weeks, i'd just miss home.
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i'd just miss coming home to my house. i miss walking inside and plopping down in front of the television, you know, and i just miss home. you know, bringing the kids out in the backyard to play on the swing set, you know. just the small things. but there's no way in the world that, you know, we're going to go through gutting it out. no, we're pretty much done here. it's been almost ten years since katrina, and i'd say that my life is-- my life is still pretty difficult. my wife and i, for a long time, were dealing with post-traumatic stress, and, you know, we'd snap at each other and argue and just didn't understand why we felt the way that we felt. katrina, to me, it was sort of like our 9/11. it just shook us to the core.
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>> my name is janna firmin, and i live in pearl river, louisiana, now. i right now live with my daughter marly, and my son noah and my boyfriend sean. i've been here for about two and a half years. i really feel like this apartment in pearl river, it's-- it's a grounding spot. and this is honestly the first time that i'd felt that since katrina. i really like the peacefulness of pearl river. i really like the quietness and the serenity. it's a big change from the city. it's still empty in a lot of ways because, you know, the life that i knew is no more, and i miss that and it hurts a lot. god's given me a whole lot of second chances, so i really
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appreciate just the simple things, like a quiet cup of coffee in the morning with a simple book in the evening. shortly before katrina, my dad died. and then katrina happened, and then everything that i knew, you know-- school, work, house, family-- like, it was just completely annihilated. i feel like i was blindsided. everything changed. everything was just ripped away in an instant. my house was only about a block away from where the levee had broke on the 17th street canal. i lived in my house with my little girl marly, who's seven; and my little boy russell, who's two. and i took basically a backpack of clothes for me and the kids and i left. if there's anything to bring, back out. okay, this is where we kind of have to get in.
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this is what i heard, anyway; this is where you have to get in. oh, my god. wow. oh, my jeezum. look at my room! you can't even get in it. holy-- holy, holy lord. oh, man. >> oh, my god. your bathroom's soaked. damn. >> oh, my gracious. i can't even bel-- begin. there's no way i'm going in there. wow. wow. >> i can't even get in here. let me get out of your way. >> okay.
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this is-- like, i honestly thought i was going to be able to get my dresser and, like, grab a couple of things off that i had left back here, like a little tiny jewelry box and whatnot. wait, look. here's the jewelry box that i wanted to get. i don't think i'll be wearing any of that jewelry anymore. yeah, my daddy got me that jewelry box before he passed away. too bad i didn't take it with me, huh. here's another jewelry box that was on my dresser. woo. okay. >> if you fall, i'm not picking you up. >> man, i just-- i'm so-- i can't take this stuff because it's just too toxic. i would love to, but i can't. i can't do it. even though it's just material stuff, it is a loss. it's almost like a death. it's a huge loss that you have to filter and deal with, and it's really weird. it's hard to process all of this stuff. i have to admit, this is way worse than i thought it was going to be. like, i knew it was going to be
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really bad, but wow. i left town with a box of pictures, a couple of poetry books, and that's pretty much it. so, i lost every else. good gracious. stuff that i had hanging on my wall is in my bathtub. shoes are in my bathtub. >> ( inaudible ) pictures anyway. >> wow. katrina is definitely still haunting. it really is. but i'm not sure if it will ever completely go away because it was very much like a death, the death of an entire city almost, and everything that i knew. yeah, i'm still-- i still don't think, ten years later, that i've learned to deal with it. >> sreenivasan: how hurricane katrina prompted changes in the laws about evacuating pets in natural disasters. >> one of the really remarkable things that came out of the
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storm was just how much people realized how much everybody cared so much for their animals. >> sreenivasan: find out more at www.pbs.org/newshour. >> sreenivasan: in the aftermath of hurricane katrina, the federal emergency management agency, fema, was widely blamed for a lack of preparedness and an inadequate response. fema was slow to deliver food and supplies and housed displaced residents in toxic trailers. university of delaware professor rick sylves studies fema and joins me now to discuss its changes during the past decade. i think the question most people are going to wonder is has fema improved? and if so, how? >> yes, they do extremely good jobs on relatively small-scale disasters. they've done a tremendously good job in enhancing the capacity of state and local government
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emergency management. if anything, the field of emergency management that's growing even academically across the country owes its origins to fema, and we need to thank that agency for that. in addition, few other countries have fema-like emergency management organizations. even the most developed don't come close to providing, through agencies like fema, the range of post-disaster assistance that this country provides. >> sreenivasan: at the same time, this is still housed inside the department of homeland security? >> yes. i think this has been a predicament ever since that-- ever since it was folded into department of homeland security in 2002. one of the problems is that homeland security's mission is to counter terrorism. and fema's job is to provide, really, disaster assistance and provide for prepare understandness for disasters. and clearly there are terrorism
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duties that legitimately fall to fema. but, unfortunately, when they take on these duties, they also have-- they take on requirements of state secrecy that make the agency much less transparent than it probably should be, particularly given its civilian responsibilities and disaster circumstances. >> sreenivasan: what about the money? has the budget for fema increased or for preparedness around the country in case another hurricane katrina or a superstorm sandy happen? >> the money has increased significantly. there is a president's disaster fund that is the main receptacle for monies to be dispensed not only to fema but to a great many other federal agencies that are called into action during periods of disaster. but you still find when you have a catastrophic disaster, even the generous infuse of new funds into those account isn't enough to meet the spending demands. i think for katrina, $61 billion
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of federal money. superstorm sandy, $48 billion. and these numbers aren't fixed. they continue to go up over time for both of those disasters. when we have catastrophic disasters, there's a significant financial burden imposed on the national taxpayer and the federal government as a consequence. >> sreenivasan: all right professor rick sylves from the university of delaware. thank you for joining us. >> thank you, i appreciate it. >> sreenivasan: when hurricane katrina struck, leah chase was the chef and co-owner of the legendary new orleans restaurant dooky chase's, a landmark in the city's oldest black neighborhood. chase, who was then 82 years old, saw her business, her home and virtually everything she owned wash away, but she resolved to start over. louisiana public broadcasting has tracked chase's comeback for ten years and recently sat down
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with her. l.p.b.'s shauna sanford has the story. >> reporter: 92-year-old leah chase has served up creole cuisine at her restaurant, dooky chase, for nearly 70 years. but ten years ago, hurricane katrina destroyed her livelihood. >> nobody knew what to do. 80% of the city under water, what you gonna do? where you gonna go? what's your next move? you don't know. so, it was frightening. >> reporter: for decades, dooky chase-- named after her father- in-law-- was the restaurant in new orleans' historically black" treme" district, serving po' boy sandwiches, gumbo, greens, fried chicken and seafood. >> i went to dooky chase's to get something to eat. >> ray charles-- this was ray's place. we used to stay open 'itil 4:00 in the morning. and then, you see, we'd get all the musicians when they get off. lena horne always liked her fried chicken. sarah vaughan was a sweetheart, and she liked stuffed crabs. well, you see, my husband was a
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musician, and he knew all i did was feed those people when they came through. >> reporter: in the segregated south, chase's was a safe place for civil rights activists to meet. >> people came before integration because if they had to meet with black people, they either met in church or they met here. you know, sometimes you can do a lot over food. in new orleans, we do a lot over food. >> reporter: katrina was the worst storm the city and chase experienced in 40 years. >> in 1965, when we had bessie, i saw that down there; it was terrible. but that was one section. this time, there was water all over. i had never in my life seen anything like this. before the hurricane came, we were working hard, really working hard. and here comes katrina, and now
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overnight you have no place. >> reporter: chase, her children and her sister lost their homes. buildings across the street from the restaurant were boarded up. chase decided to stay and rebuild. >> but people say, "what you going back for? what's there to do?" you know, we had to build this city back. i had nowhere else to live. thank goodness they gave me a trailer. at least i had a place to sleep. you know, the trailer wasn't the best thing in the world, but, you know, i came through the depression, honey, so, you know, anything is good. i can lay my head anywhere as long as i had shelter over it. >> reporter: after taking on five feet of water, the restaurant closed for two years. it never crossed chase's mind not to reopen. but it cost $500,000, and insurance covered only part of the tab. donations covered the rest. >> the biggest challenge was getting this work done.
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i thought i could never get it done, but i had a whole lot of help. and i'm so blessed because a lot of people didn't have that help. >> reporter: most days, you can find her in the kitchen at 8:00 in the morning. if you have the energy, she says, you are supposed to work and make a difference. >> you learn what's important. you learn how to live, how to live with one another. you learn how to do things when you have to do them. >> sreenivasan: among mrs. chase's admirers is president barack obama. during his visit to new orleans' treme neighborhood this week, the president gave chase a warm greeting. he sampled her gumbo and fried chicken back in 2008 but did not have time to eat there this time. chase told the newshour she plans to ship some creole cuisine to the white house. >> this is pbs newshour weekend, saturday.
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>> sreenivasan: once again, we take a look at the changing nature of work in the new economy. this week, the national labor relations board made a ruling that could play an important role, stating that an employer is legally responsible for employees even when they are hired through subcontractors or by their independently-owned franchises. many of those workers are low- wage, part-time or temporary. joining me now is reporter melanie trottman of the "wall street journal." so what's at the core of this case here? >> how much control does a company have over the workers in question? so mcdonald's, for example. do they control the wages and working conditions at an independently owned store in iowa? it used to be that you had to have direct control to be considered a joint employer. that meant you would co-determine things like wages and working conditions. well now the board says even indirect control, you reserve the right to have control over the workers. >> sreenivasan: what are the
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ripple effects here? does that mean mcdonald's corp is responsible for the wages or whether or not these employees can unionize? >> well, what it means is a mcdonald's corp or a company that subsubcontracts workers could be drawn into collective bargaining talks with workers at a restaurant or workers at a temporary staffing company who want to unionize. and the rationale is unions say, look, these companies affect the wages and working conditions of these workers, and so the companies need to be at the table for us to bargain effectively for the worker. >> sreenivasan: this has got to be getting some push-back from the business community, saying, "it's going to be harder for me to employ people. it's going to be harder for me to negotiate every time." >> what they're saying is, "this is going to undermine the efficiency of contracting and franchising. we is the our businesses up this way to have flexibility and, you know, this could result in less flexibility. it could raise our costs. it could cause major problems." >> sreenivasan: melanie trottman from the "wall street
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journal," thanks so much. >> thanks for having me. >> sreenivasan: finally, the united nations has confirmed the destruction of an ancient temple in palmyra using satellite imagery. this imagine shows the temple two months ago before isis claimed to blow blowit up. this image shows the site two days ago with all of the columns gone. the temple was nearly 2,000 years old. that's it for this edition of pbs newshour weekend. i'm hari sreenivasan. thanks for watching. captioning sponsored by wnet captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org
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>> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we are your retirement company. additional support is provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.
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announcer: sponsored in part by the mandell and madeleine berman foundation. additional funding provided by siena usa, alks and associates, and piera laurino. narrator: australian superstar tenor alfio has achieved critical acclaim and wild popularity across the globe. now making his highly anticipated national debut in america, it's alfio in concert. ♪
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