One Year ago this week, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans head on (August 29th), and two days later (August 31st), the 17th Street Canel levee breached causing the 9th Ward and 80% of the city of New Orleans to flood. Some 1,800 people died. Surely, some from the force of the hurricane—but most from waiting for the flood to subside, or from waiting to be evacuated in water up to (or above their) heads or trying to swim to safety or they parished in the sweltering heat waiting for buses that never came. One year ago this week, America witnessed the biggest butt-scratch by the federal government of any large-scale disaster in recent years. We watched the residents of New Orleans go from citizens to refugees to evacuees to stand-byees as all three levels of government (local, state and federal) did a major Three Stooges “Whoop, Whoop, Whoop.” Moe (Mayor Ray Nagin) banged on the heads of the federal and state officials to “get help down here fast;” Larry (Governor Blanco) ducked as Moe was taking slaps at the state’s slow response—because Nagin didn’t endorse her in the Governor’s race, and Curlie (President Bush) was his usual clue-less self, wondering why Moe was slapping him as the federal government took five days to send aid, food and evacuation help (when clearly from his perspective, “Brownie” [Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, Director, Michael Brown] was doing a “good job”). At that point, nobody was taking blame for what was obviously a lack of evacuation planning, and a lack of coordinated emergency response to a city in crisis. This butt-scratch was classic. The result was devastating. Nobody even wants to speculate how many lives were lost, due to the lack of an emergency preparedness plan. Then there were those outdated levees that, for 20 years, city and state officials knew would not hold if a category 5 hurricane hit. Well, it did and the outcome predicted became reality. The only thing that kept the levees from being rebuilt…money. The world got to see what happens when capitalist interests don’t keep up infrastructure needs. So, one year later—what lessons have we learned?

Not just from a city’s unreadiness to deal with a Hurricane Katrina but, what did we learn in dealing with the aftermath of such a disaster. There’s a plenty. Where do we start? How about with the city of New Orleans evacuation plan? Next time you tell poor people to evacuate, make sure you have a way for them to get out, and a place to go. Don’t leave them behind to die. Nuff said. How about FEMA’s assistance? You can barely find one person that is satisfied with FEMA’s response and the subsequent “assistance” displaced residents have received. Some of whom still have not found their loved ones, or even know if their loved ones are alive. Then there’s the FEMA checks, which somehow didn’t get to all who needed them—and when they got them, it wasn’t enough, or didn’t last long enough. Then there were the one way tickets out of town. Many New Orleans residents want to go back—but they can’t get back. How about giving them a ticket back to New Orleans? That’s a lesson. If you evacuate them out, evacuate them back. Or sustain them for as long as they’re displaced. Don’t stop giving living expenses while they’re displaced and then they can’t live in either place. That’s what FEMA’s done. Then, there’s the rebuilding effort.

What can we say (good) about the rebuilding effort? Other than that it is occurring. The slowness of the rebuilding effort has the media’s favorite “whippin’ boy,” Ray Nagin, under fire again. Nagin recently backed up a reporter who criticized the rebuilding efforts by comparing it with New York’s 9/11 rebuilding effort. As crass as Nagin’s response was, there is a big difference between rebuilding four square blocks and rebuilding 80% of a city. But that’s the reality of the New Orleans rebuilding effort filled with politics from trying to shrink the city’s footprint (meaning not rebuilding in the low land areas susceptible to flooding), to the regentrification politics that plague every urban city when prime land suddenly becomes “development ready.” Land grabbers have made it back to New Orleans before residents. Housing stock is at a premium. People can’t come back if there’s no place to live. The lesson here, is the chicken or the egg scenario. Which returns first to New Orleans, the housing or the people? If they return, where will they live? And if you build new homes first, will the returning residents be able to afford them? Classic dilemma. Plus, one year later—with a new hurricane up on New Orleans, the levees still don’t work. Why move back when the same catastrophes could re-occur at any given moment and the city has less capacity to handle a natural disaster and aid the citizenry than it a year ago. Another dilemma.

Then there’s recapturing the spirit of a culture legacy, the spirit of New Orleans. What’s the lesson here? The lesson is you can’t kill the spirit of New Orleans. The city held Mardi Gras this year to show that even a category 5 hurricane can’t kill their spirit. Spike Lee’s documentary, When The Levees Broke, documented some of this spirit, and sense of humor as New Orleanians danced, shouted and even satirized their situation. One t-shirt a couple was wearing captioned New Orleans lack of emergency preparedness. It read, “Katrina Evacuation Plan: Run, Motherf***er, Run.” Now, when you’ve lost everything, that’s a sense of humor. There’s a lesson in that. It’s good to know that, one year later, some people can laugh at a disparate situation. Because a year ago, watching our federal government at the height of its dysfunction, wasn’t a damn thing funny. The aftermath of Katrina was as painful as anything America had ever seen…since Birmingham.

And people still pained—still need help. But the butt-scratchin’ continues…

Anthony Asadullah Samad is a national columnist, managing director of the Urban Issues Forum and author of 50 Years After Brown: The State of Black Equality In America. He can be reached at AnthonySamad.com.