"Sonny's Corner" will be a regular column in Prairie Fire, featuring commentary on civil rights and justice issues. Our friend and Omaha colleague, Joseph P. "Sonny" Foster, died suddenly at age 54 in the autumn of 2006. He left an uncompleted agenda, as did many of our civil rights and justice mentors and heroes. We shall attempt to move forward on that unfinished agenda through this column.

Two Nebraskans recently returned from the Bayou Country. Their reflections are being presented in "Sonny's Corner," our monthly series on civil rights and justice issues, because Prairie Fire takes the position that Katrina is overwhelmingly a story that falls into that category. We believe that to call Katrina primarily a public works story is fundamentally flawed thinking. Thousands of Katrina victims were living on the edge of a survival economy. They were supported by a complex web of neighborhoods relying on a unique gumbo of family, church, climate and geography. They were invisible to all but themselves. Katrina tore that asunder. The roles that brick and mortar and the US Army Corps of Engineers are playing are only a tiny slice of the solutions needed to resolve the hurricane's survivors' unimaginable and horrific plight. Read on and care. Resolve to do something. -Publisher

“New Orleans is open for business,” was the buzz phrase that many were repeating before we departed for a relief trip to New Orleans. It was nearly a full two years after Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent floodwaters, but the call to assist still came out loud and clear. The Times Picayune published an article while we were there that exclaimed that, though the French Quarter was back in operation and tourism was almost back to full steam, it was important to remember that the lives of everyday, ordinary residents of the New Orleans metropolitan community were decidedly not returning to normal, and it would take years and billions of dollars before they did. It would also take the interest and dedication of Americans like my group and me to exact lasting change to systematic problems that continue to be the obstacle to relief, rebuilding and moving on.

We participated in this rebuilding effort with a group from the Green Mountain United Methodist Church from the suburbs of Denver, Colo. We were part of a group of many—upwards of 75 volunteers from across the country and all walks of life. Most, like us, came for a week. We came, like many before and after us, representing faith groups and other non-government agencies. We were based out of the Kenner United Methodist Church, and while our work was primarily finish work on people’s homes at first, at the end of our stay we also were busily mucking out and performing demolition on houses that had not been opened since they were searched immediately after the storm.

As we were walking through our assigned neighborhood in Metarie, Jefferson Parish in the east bank suburbs of New Orleans during the first full day of our relief work, we remarked to one another almost in unison that “it was like a ghost town.” Even in this once sleepy lower-to-middle-income hamlet, the devastation from the storm of the century was expansive, and not just in obvious structural damage. Certainly the additional damage from the floods was inescapable as the stench of dank, old mold passed through one’s sinuses. It was like a ghost town; after all, the ghosts, both literal in the sense of the dead and figurative in the sense of a broken system, were there. Residents here perished, in some cases unnecessarily, and the dead remained unburied for days unnecessarily. The bureaucratic malaise and delays in aid cost lives, money and the reputation of the federal government.

We saw the now well-known profile of FEMA trailers, block after block, suburb after suburb, parish after parish. We knew that these were not like their empty, unused cousins stored near Hope, Ark. These trailers were occupied by real people: people with children and, in some cases, by several generations. Some residents of the neighborhood were lucky enough to stay with relatives or others in different parts of Louisiana or around the country, but most remained in this overflowing, inadequate housing. Neighborhoods now resembled the tent cities of the Depression era. Parents and grandparents were left to put on a brave face for the young people in their lives, while children were expected to continue striving to learn in an environment where several members of the same family lived in a small camper.

We toured much of the city, seeing the now infamous lower Ninth Ward and touring the section where the levees broke; and, almost always, my reaction was quite simple: We were there to not only rebuild people’s homes; we were there to aid in rebuilding people’s lives. I’d like to say that we succeeded, but I’m afraid we did not. And this country will not succeed in rebuilding the lives and homes in New Orleans until there is a serious discussion, not only about the response to the storm but the country’s attitude toward poverty, race and social justice. The storm seems to have been merely a catalyst to reignite the discussion on these important topics, much like the race riots of the 1960s ignited the debate on civil rights. The storm and its victims, mostly proud albeit poor residents of this truly American city, were and are players in this most important revival of the debate. From the angry chants of “Help us… Help us” in the hours, days and weeks after the storm to the steady resolve and dignity that continues to move a majority of residents toward rebuilding—with the defiance of a person whose home has just been destroyed and his government did not respond—we need to recognize that we are on the cusp of seriously addressing these issues to ensure that this never happens again, and we need to seize the day.

This isn’t just about money, and this isn’t just about streamlining bureaucracies to better ensure that emergency relief is better delivered and that adequate levees and flood control are in place. To this Midwesterner, who had never seen devastation on this scale, it was about an “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore” moment. It is about recognizing the base humanity in people, regardless of race or social status, and saying enough is enough. It is about people from Nebraska, Colorado and other “removed places” in this country standing up and saying, never again will we have dead Americans on the streets of a once great American city for days on end; never again will we have women, children and the elderly victimized in a place like the Superdome that was supposed to serve as a sanctuary from the storm; never again will we idly stand by while our government—local, state and federal—wastes valuable time reacting to an inevitable event—in Louisiana or anywhere else. We need to recognize that there is a cosmic lottery for these events, and while no one is immune from disaster, there are those who will find relief sooner than those who, unfairly, are more easily victimized. We need to recognize that much of the reinvestment from insurance companies, real estate speculators and those who claim to have a grand scheme for re-establishment of the coastal wetlands may not have the best in mind for those residents who remain. We need to recognize that many of these residents are God-fearing, community-minded individuals who love their homes, love their culture and love their lives. They have hopes, dreams and desires. In many ways, they are no different than you or I. In fact, they are us.

In short, we need to answer the call to cherish the notion that the human spirit is resilient, but requires equality under the law for individuals to recover from disaster; for if we do not, our sense of community, our sense of country and this experiment in government of, by and for the people ceases to exist.

That’s what I want, and I know that is what Sonny would want. Let’s get started. Let’s remember our neighbors.

The writer, a native Nebraskan from Gering, joined the Green Mountain United Methodist Church in a rebuilding effort in New Orleans in March 2007. He will be returning.

Related: Sonny's Corner - Floods and all that