Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29, 2005, causing billions of dollars of damage and a death toll in the thousands. (Photo courtesy of Dan Anderson)

by Stacy M. Brown
Special to the NNPA from The Washington Informer

The tornado which devastated an Oklahoma town last month has once again sparked debate about emergency preparedness, particularly in the African American community where disaster readiness hasn’t always been a priority.

“We’ve seen the effects of September 11, Hurricane Katrina, and other disasters. We’ve also seen the effects they have had, especially on Black people,” said Cindy Vaughn, a Prince George’s County resident.

“However, we (African Americans) tend not to pay too much attention to these things and that’s one of the main reasons why we’re not always prepared when natural disasters and other tragedies strike,” she said.

The attitude toward preparedness among America’s Black population remains nonchalant despite frequent disaster occurrences and rising death tolls, according to several studies.

by Maya Rhodan
NNPA Washington Correspondent

WASHINGTON (NNPA) – When Samuel Cephas was a child, he recalls his mother, preaching the importance of a solid education.
“Everything was about education,” Cephas says of his Cuban-born mom. The youngest of four, he remembers taking his schoolwork seriously—from the private school he attended while living in the South Bronx in New York, to the Catholic school and summer programs he enrolled in after his family moved to Connecticut.

Education was his priority.

It was almost natural, then, after his mother died in the late 90s, for Cephas to set out and start a business that allowed him to instill the value of education to children of his heritage in Hartford, Conn.

He began by focusing on American Indian children. Cephas is half Native American, who represent about 1 percent of the population of Hartford, but lived mainly in the inner city.

“When I look at Natives, we were the last of the last,” Cephas says.