I've debated whether this is a Campfire topic or belonged here, but I'll put it here. Did anyone else catch the documentary on PBS last night called A Village Called Versailles ?

I had no idea that there was a sizable, tight-knit Vietnamese community in New Orleans East. Considering the many hours of CNN and many news articles I had read regarding Katrina and NOLA, this fact never came to my attention. From the documentary, it appears that this neighborhood was just as devastated as the scenes we've all seen from the Lower Ninth Ward--businesses and homes just a total mess.

Katrina is not really talked about specifically much, but members here are familiar with the physical toll that it took on the city. To me, it was sad but also incredibly uplifting to see this community of people pull together and basically rebuild from scratch. The older generation had already lost everything in the Vietnam war, and here they were, facing the same loss, trauma, disruption and dislocation again as they were forced to flee and ended up in "camps" throughout the South. But they returned, and they rebuilt. If not for themselves, for their children, and their children's children.

I just mention this film because it is sort of the opposite of a lot of the more extreme survivalist or apocalyptic websites. It's an alternative way to think about how we can best get through crises like a Katrina. Instead of talking about hunkering down in your personal bunker with all your supplies and black rifles around you, setting up firing lines and barbed wire, fighting off all comers, here is a story of people who survive and even thrive through cooperation and shared sacrifice. I have long advocated community and cooperation as the key to getting through calamity and moving on, rather than the "rugged individualism" and often pro-violence bias and paranoia that is more popular on the Internet, like the obvious interest/obsession with guns for SHTF situations by many out on the web or the frequent mention of "looting" and how to "keep what's mine".

There's one scene that choked me up a bit. Immediately in the aftermath of Katrina, some residents went back to try and start putting the pieces together. There was no power, water, or any utilities. But they had to eat, and they made do with what they had. There's one brief scene were you see someone using a folding metal chair as a stove, with a pot of food on the seat and this guy lighting a fire underneath. It really reminded me of the resiliency of people and how an indomitable will is more important than "gear".

Anyway, if there are more broadcasts of this film, I would encourage everyone to see it. There are lot's of different themes you can get out of it, and I've only touched (barely) on this survival aspect of this remarkable community of people. It's also sort of a blue print for the rest of us. In a way, we're living through a financial/economic Katrina right now, but in slow motion. Personally, I feel like we're just in the eye of the storm, that the storm isn't truly gone yet. Granted, many of us may not live in communities with the same shared history, language, culture, etc. as the residents of Versailles, but it doesn't mean that we can't try to foster tighter knit, more mutually cooperative communities where we live, too.

I think the resilience of character, as well as having come from a background of austerity, aided those people in recovering. Rather than waiting around for an outside entity to do something, they have come together and did for themselves, improvising with what they have on hand.
In all of my studies, searching and reading of real survival situations around the world, the one thing that has always come to be to be the universal truth about who survives is one with determination, ingenuity and resolve to continue.
Human beings are very adaptable.
I often wonder how long those "chairborne commandos" who stockpile MREs and AR-15s will fare should their little bunker become destroyed as a result of natural or manmade disaster.
From my years of researching the topic, very few survival situations ever require more than a minimal use of firearms, especially against hostile humans. There are much more important factors to consider, such as proper sanitation and food procurement, processing and storage.
But above all, a close community, used to relying upon each other, is very hard to replace.

most new comers to the country do/did about the same thing.think New York City 1900's.it's when people lose the sense of who they are and just "bland" into the general background of society that they feel the need to go to extremes,in all sorts of ways.

Its a clash of cultures too. Other communities, particularly those that are largely a migrant population, tend to be closer than, say, communities that are not. In larger cities, there are still sections where there are large ethnic population. This brings them closer, through culture. Whereas, in mixed communities, there is less mingling-likely due to different cultures. We all take comfort in the familiar-this extends to our micro communities.
Also, as was said above, I think those coming from an impoverished nation, or at least the impoverished part of another country, have a larger sense of self-worth, and more of an adaptive attitude-simply because thats what they need to survive.
Mind you, these are my opinions only, but I am interested now in perhaps the demographics on how different sub-cultures within the Katrina disaster area fared-who left, who stayed, what level of damage was done to their area, what sort of help they received, how they dealt with it day in, day out.

It appeared in the documentary that the Vietnamese were reaching out to and slowly befriending their fellow New Orleans East residents, mostly African American. You even saw quite a large number of African Americans at mass at the one large Vietnamese church.

I was just reading this news clip. Unlike Versailles, sounds like the Lower Ninth Ward--or at least sizable sections of it--are stuck essentially in the same shape as in the days and weeks right after Katrina swept through. Although from a risk management viewpoint, it might be best if the Lower Ninth Ward was not rebuilt in case another hurricane hits, it's sad that this long-standing community was torn apart and is still scattered into the wind. (And I'm not implying that this sad state is completely the fault of the residents of the Lower Ninth Ward. There are plenty of stories of roadblocks--literally and figuratively--in the way of residents returning and rebuilding.)