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Zusatztext 72105528 Informationen zum Autor Tom Wooten is coauthor of No One Had a Tongue to Speak . Since graduating from Harvard in 2008 and moving to New Orleans, he has worked as a researcher for the Harvard Kennedy School, as a neighborhood volunteer coordinator, and as a fifth- and sixth-grade writing teacher. Klappentext "It was heartbreaking! but we couldn't give up. I just said! 'Well! I've got to get in and do it.'"-Phil Harris! eight-decade-long resident of Hollygrove As floodwaters drained in the weeks following Hurricane Katrina! New Orleans residents came to a difficult realization. Their city was about to undertake the largest disaster recovery in American history! yet they faced a profound leadership vacuum: members of every tier of government! from the municipal to the federal level! had fallen down on the job. We Shall Not Be Moved tells the absorbing story of the community leaders who stepped into this void to rebuild the city they loved. From a Vietnamese Catholic priest who immediately knows when two of his six thousand parishioners go missing to a single mother from the Lower Ninth Ward who instructs the likes of Jimmy Carter and Brad Pitt! these intrepid local organizers show that a city's fate rests on the backs of its citizens. On their watch! New Orleans neighborhoods become small governments. These leaders organize their neighbors to ward off demolition threats! write comprehensive recovery plans! found community schools! open volunteer centers! raise funds to rebuild fire stations and libraries! and convince tens of thousands of skeptical residents to return home. Focusing on recovery efforts in five New Orleans neighborhoods-Broadmoor! Hollygrove! Lakeview! the Lower Ninth Ward! and Village de l'Est-Tom Wooten presents vivid narratives through the eyes and voices of residents rebuilding their homes! telling a story of resilience as entertaining as it is instructive. The unprecedented community mobilization underway in New Orleans is a silver lining of Hurricane Katrina's legacy. By shedding light on this rebirth! We Shall Not Be Moved shows how residents! remarkably! turned a profound national failure into a story of hope. From chapter 1, “Very Much at Home” It was late afternoon on Sunday, August 29, 2005. Terry Miranda, a white man in his late fifties, craned his neck to peer out the rear windshield as the storm that had sent his city into exile churned on the horizon over the Gulf of Mexico. The storm’s first fast-moving outer bands had already set upon the westbound traffic that inched forward on Interstate 10, turning the sky above the cars every hue of gray. Leveling his gaze to the horizon, back toward his home, Terry was struck to see that the distant sky was nearly black. Katrina was casting a dark, slowly advancing shadow across the earth. Bolts of lightning—far too distant to be accompanied by claps of thunder—leapt through the darkness to the ground. The storm posed the cars on this stretch of highway no serious danger. It would be hours before the worst of its winds and waves would surge ashore, and the traffic was already well to the west of the area forecast to bear the brunt of the damage. Still, a shudder ran through Terry’s spine as he turned his attention away from the dark sky. Beside him, Terry’s sister sat at the wheel, clutching it tightly and keeping her eyes fixed on the taillights ahead. The faces Terry beheld in the myriad car windows around them were etched with tension. In his nearly six decades of life in New Orleans, Terry had seen his share of hurricanes, but no other storm had spooked his city this way. At 9:30 a.m., Mayor Ray Nagin had ordered the first mandatory evacuation in New Orleans history. Shortly thereafter, the normally stoic National Weather Service released an uncharacteristically desperate bulletin, warning of “devastating d...
