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June 23, 2008 - The Times-Picayune
Planners craft storm evacuation plans for Hispanics
By Andrew Vanacore
A burgeoning Hispanic population has helped rebuild New Orleans during the past two and a half years. Now officials are coming to grips with the challenge of moving and finding safe refuge for that population should another hurricane threaten.
Since Hurricane Katrina hit, as many 14,000 Hispanic immigrants have arrived in New Orleans to provide muscle and skills for the recovery effort. Now civic groups as well as government officials say overcoming cultural and language barriers between emergency officials and Spanish speakers -- especially the undocumented -- has taken on new urgency.
Emergency managers have long taken steps to get the word out to residents who don't use English as their first language, but advocates for Hispanic residents say officials this year have stepped up their efforts.
"They saw where they need to kick it up a notch," said Maria Jose Bermudez, a community liaison for Catholic Charities.
Emergency officials from Orleans and Jefferson Parish, which has the area's largest Hispanic population, met recently with Spanish broadcast stations and Catholic Charities to fine-tune storm response measures.
Radio is considered the best means of communicating with Hispanic residents and officials agreed to open up a direct line of information to the stations -- WFNO and KGLA -- if evacuations are necessary. The heads of emergency agencies in both parishes did several on-air interviews with the stations for the first time this year. Jefferson Parish has built a team of Spanish-speaking volunteers who can assist at evacuation staging points, and New Orleans hopes to do the same.
Officials even floated the idea of a separate evacuation site for Spanish-speaking citizens, although as yet there is no formal plan for such.
Many Hispanic citizens may be slow to respond to emergency directives. For example, workers concerned that they could be deported may not place their faith in government officials even if they need help out of the city, Bermudez, said.
She added that many Spanish speakers come from countries where the population is accustomed to riding out natural disasters without government help.
"There, you sit and wait," she said. "Already we hear people say, 'Oh no, I'm staying right here.'"
Lt. Col. Jerry Sneed, director of the New Orleans Office of Emergency Preparedness, was joined by Deano Bonano, emergency response chief for Jefferson Parish, in emphasizing that no undocumented worker will be turned away or face deportation at evacuation centers or shelters.
"We will not require at our locations any type of visa or green card," Bonano said.
This storm season isn't the first time officials have looked to improve bilingual communications, but efforts have been redoubled since Katrina.
Last year, Jefferson Parish enlisted the Latin-American Civic Association of Louisiana to provide seven Spanish-speaking volunteers for its evacuation staging sites.
The Red Cross has included Spanish and Vietnamese inserts in its evacuation maps since 2006, said Kay Wilkins, head of the organization's southeastern Louisiana chapter. Wilkins said that since Katrina, the Red Cross has cooperated with the Hispanic Forum, a recovery organization to distribute its emergency preparedness material at Latino events, instead of relying mostly on government to get the word out.
Pinning down the number of residents who actually need bilingual services is difficult. A 2006 study put the number of newly arrived Hispanic immigrants working in the New Orleans area between 10,000 and 14,000. Phuong Pham, an assistant professor of international development at Tulane University who helped author the study, said the population fluctuates with demand for construction work.
A Census Bureau survey in 2006 estimated the total Hispanic population in New Orleans at roughly 9,000 and 35,000 in Jefferson Parish. About 15,000 residents in Orleans and 53,000 in Jefferson spoke some language other than English at home, the census survey found.
Even with the increased attention given the issue, most agree adapting emergency procedures for the Spanish speakers is still a work in progress.
Bermudez, of Catholic Charities, is not convinced the area has enough bilingual volunteers to give Hispanic residents instructions at evacuation sites.
Program directors at KGLA, the oldest Spanish radio station in the area, said they were glad to meet with New Orleans officials but are waiting to see if they follow through on their promises.
New Orleans has a Spanish speaker on its emergency management staff, but Jorge Fuentes, program director at KGLA's Spanish television channel, says he hasn't met him. The station also is waiting for evacuation maps printed in Spanish that could be used on-air.
"Since the hurricane season has already started, we should have received more information," he said.
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