Katrina: News and Opinion

[Coldwolf]

<span class="pr_headlines">Here's the Story of a Hurricane</span>[/b]</p>
Attribution (http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/apps/nl/newsletter2.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=917053)

<p class="pr_bodytext">In 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency ranked a major hurricane strike on New Orleans as "among the three likeliest, most catastrophic disasters (http://www.hurricane.lsu.edu/_in_the_news/houston.htm) facing this country," directly behind a terrorist strike on New York City. Yesterday, disaster struck. One of the (http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Katrina-Glance.html) strongest storms in recorded history (http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/WWL082805potential.e42013.html) rocked the Gulf Coast, bringing 145 mph (http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Katrina-Glance.html) winds and floods of up to 20 feet (http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Katrina-Glance.html). One million residents were evacuated (http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/?feed=TopNews&article=UPI-1-20050828-21485900-bc-us-katrina-evacuation-1stld.xml); at least 65 are confirmed dead (http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/08/30/katrina/index.html). Tens of thousands of homes were completely submerged. Mississippi's governor reported "catastrophic damage on all levels (http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050830/NEWS0110/508300401/1260)." Downtown New Orleans buildings were "imploding (http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/12505823.htm)," a fire chief said. Oil surged past $70 a barrel (http://today.reuters.com/business/newsarticle.aspx?type=tnBusinessNews&storyID=nSYD24230&imageid=2005-08-28T180944Z_01_WAS99_RTRIDSP_2_WEATHER-KATRINA.jpg&cap=National%20Oceanic%20and%20Atmospheric%20Admin istration%20satellite%20image%20of%20Hurricane%20K atrina%20in%20the%20Gulf%20of%20Mexico%20on%20Augu st%2028,%202005.%20Authorities%20in%20New%20Orlean s,%20Louisiana,%20ordered%20hundreds%20of%20thousa nds%20of%20residents%20to%20flee%20on%20Sunday%20a s%20Katrina%20strengthened%20into%20one%20of%20the %20strongest%20storms%20ever%20seen%20and%20barrel ed%20toward%20the%20vulnerable%20U.S.%20Gulf%20Coa st%20city.%20%20Katrina%20was%20a%20Category%205%2 0hurricane,%20with%20catastrophic%20winds%20of%201 75%20mph%20[284%20kph%29,%20just%20before%202%20p.m.%20EDT%20[1800%20GMT%29%20on%20Sunday,%20the%20U.S.%20Nation al%20Hurricane%20Center%20in%20Miami%20said.%20EDI TORIAL%20USE%20ONLY%20REUTERS/NOAA/Handout). New Orleanians were grimly asking each other, "So, where did you used to live? (http://wizbangblog.com/archives/006911.php)" (To donate to Red Cross disaster relief, click here (http://www.redcross.org/) or call 1-800-HELP-NOW). While it happened, President Bush decided to ... continue his vacation, stopping by the Pueblo El Mirage RV and Golf Resort (http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0829bushvisit-online.html) in El Mirage, California, to hawk his Medicare drug benefit plan. On Sunday, President Bush said, "I want to thank all the folks at the federal level and the state level and the local level who have taken this storm seriously (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/08/20050828-1.html).” He’s not one of them. Below, the Progress Report presents "How Not to Prepare for a Massive Hurricane," by President Bush, congressional conservatives, and their corporate special interest allies. 




<span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">SLASH SPENDING ON HURRICANE PREPAREDNESS IN NEW ORLEANS:</span>  Two months ago, President Bush took an ax to budget funds that would have helped New Orleans prepare for such a disaster. The New Orleans branch of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers suffered a "record $71.2 million (http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4200/is_20050606/ai_n14657367)" reduction in federal funding, a 44.2 percent reduction (http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4200/is_20050207/ai_n10176537) from its 2001 levels. Reports at the time said that thanks to the cuts, "major hurricane and flood protection projects will not be awarded (http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4200/is_20050606/ai_n14657367) to local engineering firms. ... Also, a study to determine ways to protect the region from a Category 5 hurricane has been shelved for now." (Too bad Louisiana isn't a swing state. In the aftermath of Hurricane Frances -- and the run-up to the 2004 election -- the Bush administration awarded $31 million in disaster relief (http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-05-17-fema-aid_x.htm?csp=34) to Florida residents who didn't even experience hurricane damage.)




<span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">DESTROY NATURAL HURRICANE PROTECTIONS:</span> The Gulf Coast wetlands form a "natural buffer (http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/wetlands/hurricane_print.html) that helps protect New Orleans from storms," slowing hurricanes down as they approach from sea. When he came into office, President Bush pledged to uphold the "no net loss (http://www.nrdc.org/bushrecord/articles/br_1218.asp)" wetland policy his father initiated. He didn't keep his word. Bush rolled back (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0115-04.htm) tough wetland policies set by the Clinton administration, ordering federal agencies "to stop protecting as many as 20 million acres of wetlands (http://www.nrdc.org/bushrecord/articles/br_1648.asp?t=t) and an untold number of waterways nationwide." Last year, four environmental groups issued a joint report showing that administration policies had allowed "developers to drain thousands of acres of wetlands (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57991-2004Aug11.html)." The result? New Orleans may be in even greater danger: "Studies show that if the wetlands keep vanishing over the next few decades, then you won't need a giant storm to devastate New Orleans -- a much weaker, more common kind of hurricane could destroy the city too (http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/wetlands/hurricane_print.html)." 


<span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">

GUT THE AGENCY TASKED WITH DEVELOPING HURRICANE RESPONSES:</span> Forward-thinking federal plans with titles like "Issues and Options in Flood Hazards Management," "Floods: A National Policy Concern," and "A Framework for Flood Hazards Management" would be particularly valuable in a time of increasingly intense hurricanes. Unfortunately, the agency that used (http://www.wws.princeton.edu/%7Eota/) to produce them -- the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) -- was gutted (http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=so05mooney) by Gingrich conservatives several years ago. As Chris Mooney (who presciently warned of the need to bulk up hurricane defenses in New Orleans last May (http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=10180)) noted yesterday, "If we ever return to science-based policymaking based on professionalism and expertise, rather than ideology (http://www.chriscmooney.com/blog.asp?Id=2097), an office like OTA would be very useful in studying how best to save a city like New Orleans -- and how Congress might consider appropriating money to achieve this end."

<span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">

SEND OUR FIRST RESPONDERS TO FIGHT A WAR OF CHOICE:</span> National Guard and Reserve soldiers are typically on the front lines responding to disasters like Katrina -- that is, if they're not fighting in Iraq. Roughly 35 percent of Louisiana's National Guard is currently deployed in Iraq (http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050830/NEWS01/508300352/1002/NEWS), where guardsmen and women make up about four of every 10 soldiers. Additionally, "Dozens of high water vehicles, humvees, refuelers and generators" used by the Louisiana Guard are also tied up abroad. "The National Guard needs that equipment back home to support the homeland security mission," Louisiana National Guard Lt. Colonel Pete Schneider told reporters earlier this month. "Recruitment is down dramatically (http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/news/nation/12275037.htm), mostly because prospective recruits are worried about deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan or another country," the AP reported recently. "I used to be able to get about eight people a month," said National Guard 1st Sgt. Derick Young, a New Orleans recruiter. "Now, I'm lucky if I can get one."




<span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">HELP FUEL GLOBAL WARMING:</span> Severe weather occurrences like hurricanes and heat waves already take hundreds of lives and cause millions in damages each year. As the Progress Report has noted (http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=914257&ct=1255293), data increasingly suggest that human-induced global warming is making these phenomena more dangerous and extreme than ever. "The hurricane that struck Louisiana yesterday was nicknamed Katrina by the National Weather Service," science author Ross Gelbspan writes. "Its real name is global warming (http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/08/30/katrinas_real_name/)." AP reported recently on a Massachusetts Institute of Technology analysis that shows that "major storms spinning in both the Atlantic and the Pacific ... have increased in duration and intensity by about 50 percent" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/31/AR2005073100363_pf.html) since the 1970s, trends that are "closely linked to increases in the average temperatures of the ocean surface and also correspond to increases in global average atmospheric temperatures during the same period." Yet just last week, as Katrina was gathering steam and looming over the Gulf, the Bush administration released new CAFE standards that actually encourage automakers (http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=914257&ct=1352241#3) to produce bigger, less fuel efficient vehicles, while preventing states (http://thinkprogress.org/2005/08/24/breaking-bush-secretly-undermines-state-efforts-to-curb-global-warming/) from taking strong, progressive action to reverse global warming.</p>

[TOT]

the damage there is just .... i don't know. beyond words i guess.
http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/sad3.gif

[megabytebige]

Hell why dont we blame everything on them George IT IS YOUR FAULT I AM FAT.

Give me a break i worked in the FAT systems of FEMA and other Disaster responce systems and they needed to be slimed if not cut. Most of these systems were and still are wastfull (sp?)prepare yea right more like sit around read the paper and when someone asked they pointed to the few that were working.

the bigest thing i find sicking it that people will take this time for political gains.

BTW before it is asked i left the job so i did not have to traval and that way i could watch my boys grow up. I could and have offered to help I am waiting to hear if they need my skills.

[Coldwolf]

Nope. (http://oakhurstforums.com/eve/forums?a=tpc&s=7666078441&f=5026059742&m=4581094811&r=4581094811#4581094811)

[Coldwolf]

You don't think its a political thing that the Bush administration cut funding to the Army Corp of Engineers? That 40% of the LA National Guard is stuck in Iraq while they are needed in Louisiana? That the needed deepwater rescue equiptment is stuck in a frigging desert half a world away?

Thats politics, and bad politics at that.

OOOOhhh...don't blame Bush...theres people dying. Its not his fault. Maybe not, but he sure as hell hasn't helped.

[Coldwolf]

Form the Ultra Conservative Manchester Union Leader attribution (http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_showa.html?article=59785)


Bush and Katrina:
A time for action, not aloofness


AS THE EXTENT of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation became clearer on Tuesday — millions without power, tens of thousands homeless, a death toll unknowable because rescue crews can’t reach some regions — President Bush carried on with his plans to speak in San Diego, as if nothing important had happened the day before.

Katrina already is measured as one of the worst storms in American history. And yet, President Bush decided that his plans to commemorate the 60th anniversary of VJ Day with a speech were more pressing than responding to the carnage.

A better leader would have flown straight to the disaster zone and announced the immediate mobilization of every available resource to rescue the stranded, find and bury the dead, and keep the survivors fed, clothed, sheltered and free of disease.

The cool, confident, intuitive leadership Bush exhibited in his first term, particularly in the months immediately following Sept. 11, 2001, has vanished. In its place is a diffident detachment unsuitable for the leader of a nation facing war, natural disaster and economic uncertainty.

Wherever the old George W. Bush went, we sure wish we had him back.

Even the conservatives think Bush is failing in this one

[Newcomer]

George does not react to quick, remember when he got word of the 9/11 attacks. He just sat there with a blank stare on his face. Did you really expect him to get on the ball any sooner with this. After all he had 9 more holes of golf to finish on the back nine that day the hurricane struck the coast and then it was off to San Diego for some nice sunny weather. http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/no.gif

[49er]

Didn't you know that we can control and manipulate the weather. Clinton let that one out of the bag when he was in office.

[Mibrew]

Originally posted by 49er:
Didn't you know that we can control and manipulate the weather. Clinton let that one out of the bag when he was in office.

Was that after or before his best buddy Gore invented the Internet http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/idea3.gif

[Mibrew]

Highlights of Federal Government Response
By The Associated Press

Wednesday, August 31, 2005
(08-31) 14:34 PDT , (AP) --


Highlights of the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina as of Wednesday:


_ The Federal Emergency Management Agency, the nation's disaster-relief agency, is providing medical assistance, search and rescue and support teams, supplies and equipment to the hurricane area.


_ The Coast Guard has rescued or assisted more than 1,250 people, and its ships and aircraft are supporting FEMA. About 4,000 Coast Guardsmen helping with relief efforts. It has activated three national strike teams to help in removal of hazardous materials.


_ The National Guard is providing support to civil authorities, providing generators, medical assistance and shelters and augmenting civilian law enforcement. There are about 11,000 Guardsmen now deployed in the region.


_ The Defense Department has established Joint Task Force Katrina, based in Camp Shelby, Miss., to act as the military's on-scene command in support of FEMA. It will provide rescue teams and medical evacuation units, a hospital ship and disaster-response equipment.


_ The Health and Human Services Department has declared a public health emergency in the region. It has sent medical supplies, hospital beds and public health officers and is helping to coordinate hospitalization efforts.


_ The Environmental Protection Agency has temporarily waived some anti-pollution standards for gasoline and diesel fuels in four affected states to avert fuel shortages.


_ The Energy Department agreed to loan oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to one company and is considering other loans.


_ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention experts are working with Louisiana state officials to implement a mosquito-abatement program.


_ The Transportation Department is helping ship supplies to the area. It is assisting with damage assessments and is supporting detour planning and critical transportation system repairs.


_ The Agriculture Department is providing food and assisting in setting up logistics staging areas, the distribution of food products and debris removal.


_ The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is providing technical assistance to recovery workers and utility employers engaged in power restoration. In addition, OSHA is contacting major power companies to the affected areas to provide safety briefings to employees at power-restoration staging areas and informing workers about hazards related to restoration and cleanup.


_ The Internal Revenue Service has announced special relief for taxpayers in the disaster area.


_ The Small Business Administration will position loan officers in federal and state disaster recovery centers.


The Homeland Security Department is coordinating the federal government's assistance effort.

[Coldwolf]

Originally posted by Mibrew:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by 49er:
Didn't you know that we can control and manipulate the weather. Clinton let that one out of the bag when he was in office.

Was that after or before his best buddy Gore invented the Internet http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/idea3.gif </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

ahuh ahuh... keep repeating the lies (http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp) . Bush said that makes them true.

[concerned]

Actually Gore never said he invented the internet. Like me he was there when it was invented. I was working at Stanford Research Institute when Doug Englebart, an engineer in what we called the blue Skies Lab gave a demonstration of the mouse he had invented and connected with another computer in San Francisco.

[Mibrew]

Come on...ya know I was joking....we'll I know C.W. knows it http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/yes.gif http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/tongue.gif

Concerned, a flash back...thx

It was Apple I think that started using Englebarts mouse, and it took off from there http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/cool4.gif

[Coldwolf]

Geez...Ok, ya know I want to blame Bush, But read this (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0509010170sep01,1,5853346.story?coll=chi-news-hed)anyhow. I t sheds some light on what the Army Corps of engineers was up against.

[Coldwolf]

Heres (http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/002331.html) another one. . My god. This is all just too painful. I can't imagine. Can you imagine being part of the Army Corps of engineers, knowing that there are ways to save the city, but being thwarted because the funds you need are diverted, and they the BIG ONE hits and you know that you knew what to do but couldn't.

[jakobscalpel]

You know, this does seem a little too soon. Facts are facts of course and I certainly don't like what I would view as misallocated funds. But the water is still pouring into NO, people are about to learn why typhoid and cholera are so feared, and the entire city needs to be evacuated for a month at minimum. The facts that are being pointed out will still be there after we've minimized the human toll. Until then, my suspicion is that more people are being turned off by this information than converted.

Also, NO got lucky in some ways (I know I know). The storm missed to the east. If it had been a direct hit, it wouldn't have mattered how much money had been spent on levees. That city was doomed from the moment its site was first chosen.

[Mibrew]

it is total hell for sure http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/yes.gif

But do they want to rebuild it?
below sea level??? http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/no.gif maybe its better they do not, and relocate it, this was a disaster waiting to happen http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/yes.gif

the whole thing is really sad, and when I saw all these looters breaking windows and entering businesses and stealing everything that wasnt nailed down, its terrible that they take advantage of there own city, now I'm talking about the people stealing TV's, appliances, not the people taking the food/water, because I would do the same thing to survive. http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/yes.gif

[Sandman]

I agree that it should not be rebuilt. I visited last year and it was a great city, but it just seems stupid to me that they would rebuild it. Although I'm sure people thought the same thing when they rebuilt San Francisco after the big quake and fire. Why rebuild when you know it will get torn down again one day?

If they don't rebuild, what about all of the people that own land there? Will the goverment give them land elsewhere and start a new city in the middle of the desert or something? Will New Orleans be a lake?

[SheilaMae]

I was going to say I couldn't remember the last time I sobbed watching the evening news, but I do...it was 9/11...and now coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. That's not to say nothing outside of US borders deeply touches my soul, but despite head knowlege of history and potential for disaster, I've always felt we were/are incredibly secure and if not able to prevent disaster - able to recover with lightning strike speed. A woman was in the store where I work yesterday whose son and other family live in Nawlins - she was grateful just to know they're all alive but they'd all lost their homes.
-Sheila

[oakhurstleaf]

I think New Orleans will rebuild. It's going to be long and difficult.

New Orleans has so much culture, history, pride and strength....it'll be back and it'll be even better. That's what I think.

[Mibrew]

I dunno, now there saying maybe not to rebuild http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/shrug.gif but we'll see.

The Engineers are too confident http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/worried.gif

[electroman]

How come every time a few people get forced out of thatched roof huts in some mosquito infested third world country the U.S. gives them millions in disaster relief? When Iraq invaded Kuwait, the U.S. spent millions to get them back their country with all their oil fields and expensive cars while they fled like frightened school girls. Russia had a bad couple of years in the wheat fields - what did the U.S. do?
We gave them food and money (they still had nuclear weapons pointed at us at the time).
A hurricane wipes out the gulf coast and who is sending us any help? NOBODY!
Is it me, or is there something wrong with this picture.

[Coldwolf]

OK, I read the same kind of statment from someone else earlier...Wheres the help when we need it?...

UN offers help to US in aftermath of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation (http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=15645&Cr=disaster&Cr1=hurricane)

Jan Egeland
1 September 2005 – The top United Nations emergency relief official has offered the United States the world body’s help in “any way possibleâ€� following the loss of life and large-scale destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina along the country's Gulf Coast.

The offer was made in a letter from Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland to US Ambassador John Bolton.

Mr. Egeland has been encouraging donors to contribute to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) active in helping the hurricane victims. The UN Staff Unions in New York and Geneva are working to raise money for hurricane survivors.

Yesterday, Secretary-General Kofi Annan expressed his sympathy for Katrina’s victims. “I hope, in the coming weeks, all will be done to provide support for those who need it,â€� he said.

<center>*** *** ***</center>


Venezuela's Chavez Offers Hurricane Aid

By IAN JAMES, Associated Press Writer

Thursday, September 1, 2005




(09-01) 16:47 PDT CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) --

Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez is offering planeloads of soldiers and aid workers to help American victims of Hurricane Katrina, while at the same time taking aim at the U.S. government for its handling of the crisis.

Some critics on Thursday said Chavez, a leading voice for the Latin American left, seemed to be using the disaster to try to make the Bush administration look bad.

While confusion reigned in New Orleans, Chavez said the looting was to be expected under such circumstances.

"As more information comes out now, a terrible truth is becoming evident: That government doesn't have evacuation plans," Chavez said Wednesday night during a speech.

He called Bush "the king of vacations" and noted he had been at his Texas ranch and when the storm hit and didn't provide leadership. "There were many innocent people who left in the direction of the hurricane. No one told them where they should go."

A controversy erupted in another disaster situation in 1999 when Chavez turned down an offer for U.S. military engineers to come help reopen a main coastal highway following catastrophic floods and mudslides. He said Venezuela didn't need the Americans' help.

The U.S. government has yet to respond to Chavez's offer to send planeloads of aid, including 2,000 soldiers, firefighters, volunteers and other disaster specialists. Venezuela, the world's fifth largest oil exporter, also pledged $1 million in aid through its Citgo Petroleum Corp., plus fuel to help in hard-hit areas.

But Venezuelan commentator Ibsen Martinez, a frequent government critic, said the aid offer by Chavez seems to serve other intentions as well.

"He's trying to win a political game," Martinez said. "It's very astute."

Just as Chavez has been offering preferential oil deals to allies across the Americas, the aid offer and simultaneous criticism appear aimed at influencing international opinion and reinforcing support among the U.S. and Latin American left, Martinez said.

"I think he's speaking for the gallery. He's bragging," Martinez said, adding that sending aid to wealthier Americans could irritate some poor Venezuelans but that in general Chavez's remarks seemed aimed at putting forward a sympathetic face.

Venezuela is a leading supplier of fuel to the United States, though relations have been tense between Washington and Chavez, who says he is leading a "socialist" revolution and blames U.S. "imperialism" for many of the world's problems, from poverty to global warming.

Chavez's criticisms of the U.S. response to the disaster came two days after he met with the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who said he hoped their talks would help both sides cut down on "hostile rhetoric."

His government, meanwhile, has demanded U.S. authorities take legal action against conservative commentator Pat Robertson for suggesting on his TV program last week that Chavez should be assassinated because he poses a danger to the region. Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition of America and a prominent Bush supporter, later apologized for his remarks.

<center>*** *** ***</center>


Ontario offers aid to U.S. flood victims

Canadian Press

August 31, 2005


Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty

TORONTO -- Ontario is offering to help out flood victims in southern U.S. regions decimated by hurricane Katrina.

Premier Dalton McGuinty says he has asked the American ambassador to Canada how the province can assist in rescue and recovery efforts.

Relief efforts by Canadians in disaster zones are largely organized in Ottawa but McGuinty says he wants to know from David Wilkins what specifically Ontario can do.

McGuinty's decision to reach out came as opposition parties were criticizing the premier for not moving fast enough to offer help to flooded areas in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

At least 125 people have died in the flooding, and New Orleans is a swamp, with about 80 per cent of the city under water.

"I've placed a call (to Wilkins) and I'll be asking him specifically if there are any ways we might assist given the dire circumstances in which they find themselves," McGuinty said during a visit to a school in London, Ont.

Conservative Leader John Tory questioned whether the premier had acted fast enough to get Ontario medical and rescue staff down south given the extensive media coverage of the hurricane this week.

He urged McGuinty to "dispatch those people and get them on their way" because it might still take a few days before it's decided exactly how they can help.

"They can at least be there, parked 20 miles away, as opposed to sitting here in Toronto waiting to get organized," said Tory.

New Democrat Leader Howard Hampton also said the premier was taking too long in deciding to lend a hand.

"I'm disappointed you have been slow to react to this catastrophe," Hampton said.

"Make available all available emergency response resources -- including paramedics, police, firefighters, hydro crews, public health workers and emergency medical teams."

[Coldwolf]

Aid Offers Will Be Accepted From Countries

By BARRY SCHWEID
The Associated Press
Thursday, September 1, 2005; 7:09 PM

WASHINGTON -- In a turnabout, the United States is now on the receiving end of help from around the world as some two dozen countries offer post-hurricane assistance.

Venezuela, a target of frequent criticism by the Bush administration, offered humanitarian aid and fuel. Venezuela's Citgo Petroleum Corp. pledged a $1 million donation for hurricane aid.


The United Nations informed U.S. Ambassador John R. Bolton it was prepared to support the relief effort "in any way possible." Under Secretary-General Jan Egeland said his office had offered the services of the U.N.'s disaster assistance and coordination teams to the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon sent a letter to President Bush offering hundreds of doctors, nurses, technicians and other experts in trauma, natural disasters and public health.

"We also offer field hospitals, medical kits and equipment for temporary housing, reinforcement for hospitals, or any assistance that you may require," Sharon wrote.

He said the teams and equipment could be ready in 24 hours.

With offers from the four corners of the globe pouring in, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has decided "no offer that can help alleviate the suffering of the people in the afflicted area will be refused," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Thursday.

However, in Moscow, a Russian official said the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency had rejected a Russian offer to dispatch rescue teams and other aid.

On Tuesday, President Vladimir Putin sent condolences to Bush and said Russia was prepared to help if asked.

Boats, aircraft, tents, blankets, generators, cash assistance and medical teams have been offered to the U.S. government in Washington or in embassies overseas.

Offers have been received from Russia, Japan, Canada, France, Honduras, Germany, Venezuela, Jamaica, Australia, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Greece, Hungary, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Mexico, China, South Korea, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, NATO and the Organization of American States, the spokesman said.

Also, the Singapore embassy said the Southeast Asian country was sending three Chinook helicopters with 38 air force personnel from military exercises in Texas, to Louisiana to support relief efforts by the Texas National Guard.

President Chandrika Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka, in China on a state visit, sent messages of sympathy to Washington while her government contributed $25,000 through the American Red Cross.

Still, Bush told ABC-TV: "I'm not expecting much from foreign nations because we hadn't asked for it. I do expect a lot of sympathy and perhaps some will send cash dollars. But this country's going to rise up and take care of it."



"You know," he said, "we would love help, but we're going to take care of our own business as well, and there's no doubt in my mind we'll succeed. And there's no doubt in my mind, as I sit here talking to you, that New Orleans is going to rise up again as a great city."

Historically, the United States provides assistance to other countries experiencing earthquakes, floods and other disasters.

Germany, which was rebuilt after World War II largely by the U.S. Marshall Plan, offered its help in a telephone call to Rice.

"The German Government is prepared to do all that is humanly possible," the German embassy said. In his call, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer assured Rice of Germany's solidarity with its American friends in a difficult time, the embassy said.

Israeli Ambassador Daniel Ayalon called Wednesday at the State Department to offer condolences and assistance. Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. aid, about $2.2 billion a year.

"The hearts and prayers of Israel's people are with the people of the United States and the many millions who are suffering in the regional devastation resulting from hurricane Katrina," the Israeli embassy said in a statement.

[Coldwolf]

Japan (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1217776.cms)

Japan offers 500,000 dollars for hurricane victimsAdd to Clippings

PTI[ FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 02, 2005 11:39:50 AM ]
Citibank NRI Offer
TOKYO: Japan said on Friday it will offer up to 500,000 dollars in aid and supplies to the United States to recover from Hurricane Katrina, with the private sector also pitching in more than 5.5 million dollars.
"Japan will provide financial aid of 200,000 dollars to the American Red Cross, which is putting together the largest operation to save the victims," said Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda, the government spokesman.
Japan is also preparing emergency aid supplies such as tents, blankets, power generators and water tanks worth up to 300,000 dollars which can be sent if the US government requests, the foreign ministry said... Japanese automakers, for which the United States is a vital market, joined the aid effort after the massive hurricane. Japan's largest automaker Toyota Motor said it will contribute five million dollars for hurricane relief. Second-ranked Nissan said it will provide 500,000 dollars and 50 pickups and sport utility vehicles. Honda said it was ready to offer power generators and motors for relief operations and was setting up a fund-raising program to help the hurricane's victims.

[Coldwolf]

Canada (http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=36668f15-cba3-40e3-82c3-fc962a79649d)

OTTAWA (CP) - Canada will send the United States any help needed in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, Prime Minister Paul Martin told President George W. Bush on Thursday.

"If you need help, just ask and we'll be there," he told Bush in a 15-minute phone call that was to have been a sharp discussion of the softwood lumber dispute but instead became a call of sympathy and condolence. Martin said Bush didn't ask for help, but predicted he will.

"They're in the process of trying to put all the co-ordination together and they're going to take us up on it," the prime minister said in Edmonton.

"They're trying to determine their needs right now."

White House spokesman Scott McLellan said a number of countries have offered aid.

"We are open to all offers of assistance from other nations, and I would expect that we would take people up on offers of assistance when it's necessary."

The Canadian military put troops on standby and prepared to load a ship with gear and equipment that could be useful in the aftermath of the great storm that wrecked much of the American Gulf Coast and devastated New Orleans.

The Canadian Red Cross was sending a team of 100 to 200 experienced disaster workers to bolster the American Red Cross staff in the region.

Martin, attending provincial centennial celebrations in Edmonton, told a sympathetic crowd of his talk with Bush.

"I expressed our condolences and our sympathies and I confirmed Canada stands with those who have suffered so much in Katrina's wake.

"I said on your behalf that, if you need help, just ask and we'll be there, now and in the weeks and months ahead. That we will do whatever we can for as long as it takes to help our neighbour and our friend deal with this terrible, terrible tragedy."

Gen. Rick Hillier, chief of the Canadian defence staff, said he spoke with his American counterpart, Gen. Dick Myers, to offer assistance.

He said Myers thanked him, but said the Pentagon is still analyzing what is needed.

Hillier said the military's Disaster Assistance Response Team or DART, which can provide medical care, power and clean water, could head south on 48 hours notice.

He said Canada could provide transport planes or helicopters, electrical generators, water purification systems, small boats for navigating the waterways of the region and engineering equipment and expertise.

He said his staff are planning to load a selection of such gear about a warship to be ready in the event Washington asks for help.

It's best to be prepared, he said.

"We want to help. We believe that's what being friends and allies is all about."

In September 1992, after hurricane Andrew struck Florida, a Canadian naval supply ship was sent in with more than 250 people who helped in rebuilding.

Suzanne Charest of the Canadian Red Cross said a team of 100 - perhaps as many as 200 - volunteers is being assembled for relief work.

"We're recruiting only from our existing pool of experienced people," she said.

The workers will help with the logistics of moving and supporting relief workers. They will assist with family services among the homeless and displaced and in feeding people in some of the 270 shelters being run by the American Red Cross.

"They are providing 500,000 hot meals a day in conjunction with the Southern Baptists," Charest said.

The Red Cross is also collecting cash donations for the relief work.

She said the American Red Cross estimated its operations will cost more than $130 million.

"That's without having done a full assessment."

Foreign Affairs says people who wish to send help should contribute to a reputable aid agency, such as the Red Cross.

Canada has also offered to open up its national emergency stockpiles if needed. They contain portable hospital units, complete with beds, blankets and pharmaceuticals.

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty has spoken to David Wilkins, the American ambassador, to offer help.

The province's health ministry has offered an emergency medical team and various hydro operations have offered teams skilled in restoring power. Hundreds of thousands are without electricity in the region.
© The Canadian Press 2005

[Coldwolf]

Now can I start talking poo about Bush again?

[Yosemite_Wolf]

Coldwolf... you can talk about bush anytime (he gets a Capital B as soon as sh*thead gets a capital S). just make sure you do good bashing http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/happy.gif

[Coldwolf]

I changed the title of the thread. It was needed.

[Coldwolf]

Its Friday. relief is just now starting to reach the people. My God.

[Coldwolf]

Americans would do well to <a href="http://www.sploid.com/news/2005/09/01/fema-directing-donations-to-rev-pat-robertson-123509.php">heed
the warnings</a> about where
you send your donations for the victims of "Katrina." Be sure your donations
are
going
to help the victims of the hurricane! It seems pretty weird to me that
the very man, <a href="http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Pat-Robertson">Pat
Robertson</a>, who said, "God allowed September 11 to happen"
and "what we need is for somebody to place a small nuke at Foggy Bottom,"

would be at <a href="http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=18473">the
top of FEMA'S list</a> of suggested charitable organizations,
hiding under the name of "Operation Blessing"!</p>

[TOT]

i wouldn't trust FEMA now if my life depended on it. unfortunately, lives are depending on it...

i would go there now if i would be of any use. i just can't imagine. http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/no.gif

[Coldwolf]

FEMA. Federal Emergency Management Agency.
You would think that the agency tasked with being prepared for an emergency would have a ******* plan of how to respond to an emergency. Not trying to make it up as they go along.

[Coldwolf]

I copied this from Buzzflash. Its worth reading. Maybe not agreeing with all of it, or even any of it. But at least read it. All in Bold is my doing.

Incompetence, Lying and the Betrayal of a Nation: It's Deja Vu All Over Again -- And More Death and Chaos from "The Master of Disaster," George W. Bush

A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL

Our thoughts are with the victims of Hurricane Katrina -- and with those who suffered needlessly because of the incompetence of the Bush Administration. Not one FEMA or National Guard or Military shipment came to the rescue of thousands of people at the New Orleans Convention Center for four days, where some died of thirst and lack of medical attention. Not one helicopter, not one truckload of food, not one medic.

The head of FEMA also said that he didn't know there were people stranded at the Superdome until Thursday, even though this was broadcast widely and covered in the newspapers all week.

What does this say about Bush's wasteful use of billions of our tax dollars allegedly on "homeland security." This could have been a terrorist attack. The Busheviks weren't prepared at all, even after days of warning about the storm. With a terrorist attack, they wouldn't have even seen it coming, so their incompetence would have been even worse in not responding, which is hard to imagine.

This is inexcusable. If Bush is a man of God, God must have his head in his hands today, cursing his doltish, feckless self-anointed follower. People have been dying in American streets because the American government can't get water or food to them, even though reporters could get into the city.

What does this say about how we must be conducting the war in Iraq, if we can't even get any water or food to 10,000 people over four days? And they were in a dry area of New Orleans. We know the New Orleans Convention Center. We jogged past it just two weeks ago. There are plenty of areas large enough for helicopters to land, but people died as Bush played guitar and mouthed platitudes -- and nothing was done to relieve them.

If they were all blonde white women, you know this wouldn't have happened. But maybe it would have, because this administration is utterly, irredeemably incompetent. They exist solely as a PR machine with a partisan agenda of enriching their supporters and dismantling the American government as we know it.

Anyone who continues to allow this man to continue to remain in power in his state of bumbling, arrogant delusion betrays America. If he were a black female Democrat, he would have been impeached for allowing 9/11 to happen, or for any number of lies, transgressions and failures since then

And he lies with such brazen abandonment that it defies belief. He told Diane Sawyer that no one could have predicted the levees might have burst, when his administration cut back funding to prevent just such an occurrence. Why? In order to give a tax break to the rich and to spend billions of dollars on a failed war in Iraq. The Bush administration had been warned countless times that the levees were vulnerable. And shouldn't the Bush administration have also considered that they were potential terrorist targets?

Either Bush is a pathological liar or so ignorant that he shouldn't be a stock clerk at a Wal-Mart, let alone President.

His lie of ignorance about the levees was an eerie repetition of the excuse that Condoleezza Rice used after 9/11 when asked why the Bush administration didn't prevent the attacks. She mendaciously claimed that they were never warned of or thought about hijacked planes being flown into buildings, despite a trail of government and journalistic reports indicating that Al-Qaeda was considering just such an action.

Furthermore, BuzzFlash challenged the mainstream media to ask Ms. Rice why she and Bush ignored an August 2001 report that was entitled with the words that Al-Qaeda was planning hijackings in the United States. Because whatever Ms. Rice's dubious claim of not knowing about widely covered plans for Al-Qaeda to hijack planes and fly them into buildings, she and Bush were specifically warned about plans for the general hijacking of planes by terrorists about a month before 9/11 and -- as we have editorialized again and again on BuzzFlash -- they did nothing, nada, zilch, to prevent such hijackings. In fact, Bush went once again on a month-long vacation to Crawford

So here's the issue about 9/11 in a nutshell that no one ever held Rice and Bush accountable for. They did nothing to prevent terrorist hijackings, even though they were warned about them prior to September 11th. If they had successfully tried to prevent hijackings, they would have prevented the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center buildings. It is that simple, because they were hijackings too. But they did nothing, nothing at all.

And now again, we had Bush on vacation, as if he was just an observer, like we are, to a disaster about which he took no action to remedy or prevent the worst case scenario. In fact, he cut funding for protecting the people of New Orleans, and then, even though warned about Hurricane Katrina, did nothing to prepare for dealing with the aftermath of saving lives. Countless people have died not only from the storm, but from negligence in helping them in the aftermath of the storm.

This man should not be in the White House. He should be in jail for crimes committed against the citizens of America.

Only the black caucus, once again, appears to rise to the occasion of doing something rare in America nowadays: holding Bush accountable for his failed lack of leadership and breakdown in protecting the basic security of American citizens.

The white Democratic senatorial candidates (including Biden and Clinton) wallow in their timidity and fear of assuming the mantle of leadership. They mistake supporting Bush's manufactured image of national security leadership with supporting the actuality of protecting the American people, which Bush fails to do at every inept step he takes.

If a Democrat can't stand up for trying to really protect the American public from terrorist attacks and the after-effects of disasters than what do they offer that is different than the incompetence of Bush? If Joe Biden really believes that the Iraq war is a worthy cause, then he is selling the security interests of the United States short, as is Hillary Clinton.

The acquiescence of the Democratic leadership to the conventional wisdom that they have to appear to be "tough" on national security is terminally flawed. To be tough on national security and to truly protect Americans requires a lambasting of the failures of the Bush Administration's foreign policies -- including the nightmare of the Iraq War -- and a corrupt, incestuous, partisan, ineffective Department of Homeland Security. We aren't talking about politics as usual; we are talking about protecting the American people, really protecting them, and not just playing a political game.

Talking tough is not enough, Mr. Biden. You have to talk smart and act smart and level with the American public. You have to redefine the debate to bring it back to the truth. You have to be impassioned about our Constitution and protecting our democracy and our lives, not politically calculating.

And you can't get sidetracked by the "moral values" sucker punch. Is chronically lying to Americans moral? Is letting thousands of people die in an unnecessary war moral? Is slandering men and women who patriotically stand up for America and tell the truth, is that moral? Is leading an assault on government services to the citizens and communities of America moral? Is enriching the already fabulously wealthy at the expense of the working class, middle class, and poor moral?

Is allowing people to die of thirst on the streets of New Orleans moral?

A famous Jewish sage, Hillel, told us, “It’s not incumbent upon you to finish the task, but just because you can’t necessarily finish it is not an excuse for you not to even make the attempt." Wishy-washy Democrats who fear public opinion, instead of trying to inform and lead the public, never even start the task.

For the sake of the future of the United States of America, democracy and our lives, they must start to make the attempt.

Or we are all doomed to be like the helpless citizens of New Orleans, left adrift for days by a ship of fools governing the ship of state.

A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL

[Newcomer]

Got this story today

Note the year - Houston Chronicle 12/01/01

KEEPING ITS HEAD ABOVE WATER
New Orleans faces doomsday scenario

By ERIC BERGER
Copyright 2001 Houston Chronicle Science Writer



New Orleans is sinking.
And its main buffer from a hurricane, the protective Mississippi River delta, is quickly eroding away, leaving the historic city perilously close to disaster.
So vulnerable, in fact, that earlier this year the Federal Emergency Management Agency ranked the potential damage to New Orleans as among the
three likeliest, most castastrophic disasters facing this country.
The other two? A massive earthquake in San Francisco, and, almost prophetically, a terrorist attack on New York City.
The New Orleans hurricane scenario may be the deadliest of all.
In the face of an approaching storm, scientists say, the city's less-than-adequate evacuation routes would strand 250,000 people or more,
and probably kill one of 10 left behind as the city drowned under 20 feet of water. Thousands of refugees could land in Houston.
Economically, the toll would be shattering.
Southern Louisiana produces one-third of the country's seafood, one-fifth of its oil and one-quarter of its natural gas. The city's tourism, lifeblood of the French Quarter, would cease to exist. The Big Easy might never recover.
And, given New Orleans' precarious perch, some academics wonder if it should be rebuilt at all.
It's been 36 years since Hurricane Betsy buried New Orleans 8 feet deep. Since then a deteriorating ecosystem and increased development have left the city in an ever more precarious position. Yet the problem went
unaddressed for decades by a laissez-faire government, experts said.
"To some extent, I think we've been lulled to sleep," said Marc Levitan, director of Louisiana State University's hurricane center.
Hurricane season ended Friday, and for the second straight year no hurricanes hit the United States. But the season nonetheless continued a long-term trend of more active seasons, forecasters said. Tropical Storm
Allison became this country's most destructive tropical storm ever.
Yet despite the damage Allison wrought upon Houston, dropping more than 3 feet of water in some areas, a few days later much of the city returned to normal as bloated bayous drained into the Gulf of Mexico.
The same storm dumped a mere 5 inches on New Orleans, nearly overwhelming the city's pump system. If an Allison-type storm were to strike New Orleans, or a Category 3 storm or greater with at least 111 mph winds, the results would be cataclysmic, New Orleans planners said.
"Any significant water that comes into this city is a dangerous threat,"
Walter Maestri, Jefferson Parish emergency management director, told Scientific American for an October article.
"Even though I have to plan for it, I don't even want to think about the loss of life a huge hurricane would cause."
New Orleans is essentially a bowl ringed by levees that protect the city from the Mississippi River to its south and Lake Pontchartrain to the north. The bottom of the bowl is 14 feet below sea level, and efforts to
keep it dry are only digging a deeper hole.
During routine rainfalls the city's dozens of pumps push water uphill into the lake. This, in turn, draws water from the ground, further drying the ground and sinking it deeper, a problem known as subsidence.
This problem also faces Houston as water wells have sucked the ground dry.
Houston's solution is a plan to convert to surface drinking water. For New Orleans, eliminating pumping during a rainfall is not an option, so the city continues to sink.
A big storm, scientists said, would likely block four of five evacuation routes long before it hit. Those left behind would have no power or
transportation, and little food or medicine, and no prospects for a return to normal any time soon.
"The bowl would be full," Levitan said. "There's simply no place for the water to drain."
Estimates for pumping the city dry after a huge storm vary from six to 16 weeks. Hundreds of thousands would be homeless, their residences destroyed.
The only solution, scientists, politicians and other Louisiana officials agree, is to take large-scale steps to minimize the risks, such as
rebuilding the protective delta.
Every two miles of marsh between New Orleans and the Gulf reduces a storm surge -- which in some cases is 20 feet or higher -- by half a foot.
In 1990, the Breaux Act, named for its author, Sen. John Breaux, D-La., created a task force of several federal agencies to address the severe
wetlands loss in coastal Louisiana. The act has brought about $40 million a year for wetland restoration projects, but it hasn't been enough.
"It's kind of been like trying to give aspirin to a cancer patient," said Len Bahr, director of Louisiana Gov. Mike Foster's coastal activities
office.
The state loses about 25 square miles of land a year, the equivalent of about one football field every 15 minutes. The fishing industry, without
marshes, swamps and fertile wetlands, could lose a projected $37 billion by the year 2050.
University of New Orleans researchers studied the impact of Breaux Act projects on the vanishing wetlands and estimated that only 2 percent of the loss has been averted. Clearly, Bahr said, there is a need for something
much bigger. There is some evidence this finally may be happening.
A consortium of local, state and federal agencies is studying a $2 billion to $3 billion plan to divert sediment from the Mississippi River back into the delta. Because the river is leveed all the way to the Gulf, where sediment is dumped into deep water, nothing is left to replenish the receding delta.
Other possible projects include restoration of barrier reefs and perhaps a large gate to prevent Lake Pontchartrain from overflowing and drowning the city.
All are multibillion-dollar projects. A plan to restore the Florida Everglades attracted $4 billion in federal funding, but the state had to
match it dollar for dollar. In Louisiana, so far, there's only been a willingness to match 15 or 25 cents.
"Our state still looks for a 100 percent federal bailout, but that's just not going to happen," said University of New Orleans geologist Shea
Penland, a delta expert.
"We have an image and credibility problem. We have to convince our country that they need to take us seriously, that they can trust us to do a science-based restoration program."

[Coldwolf]

Originally posted by megabytebige:
Hell why dont we blame everything on them George IT IS YOUR FAULT I AM FAT.

Give me a break i worked in the FAT systems of FEMA and other Disaster responce systems and they needed to be slimed if not cut. Most of these systems were and still are wastfull (sp?)prepare yea right more like sit around read the paper and when someone asked they pointed to the few that were working.

the bigest thing i find sicking it that people will take this time for political gains.

BTW before it is asked i left the job so i did not have to traval and that way i could watch my boys grow up. I could and have offered to help I am waiting to hear if they need my skills.

Mega, I'm going to respond. And you either read it or not. At this poing I don't f****** care.

You said you worked for FEMA. A FAT system. I have to say that FEMA should have been off their FAT asses and developing a plan to deal with disaster. FEMA reported that a hurricane hitting New Oreleans was one of the top 3 worst possible scenarios. So why was no plan in place? Why did it take 4 days for any relief to arrive?

You said I shouldn't blame the Bush administration. Why the hell not? They are the ones that cut funding to FEMA. They are the ones that cut funding to the Army Corps of Engineers, who said they needed to reinforce the levees. They are the ones that sent almost half of Louisanas National Guard units and 90% of their equipment to Iraq.

Political gains! Good God. No! The hell with political gains. People are dying because Bush is an incompetent fool, and his F****** WAR Has cost New Orleans hundreds of lives. Don't accuse me of posting for political gain. I get nothing.

Republicans Democrats Independents Greens. Your leadership is neeeded. We need leaders in our country, because right now, this ship of the Union is adrift with the villiage idiot at the helm.

[Coldwolf]

<b style="font-size:14px">NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- As his city skidded deeper into chaos, New Orleans' embattled mayor accused federal officials of dragging their feet while people are dying in deplorable conditions.[/b]</p>

Mayor Ray Nagin's voice cracked with anger and anguish Thursday night in an interview with New Orleans radio station WWL-AM. (Hear the mayor tell feds to 'get off their asses' -- 12:09. (java_script:cnnVideo['play','/video/us/2005/09/02/wwl.nagin.intv.affl','2005/09/09');))</p>

"We're getting reports and calls that [are] breaking my heart from people saying, 'I've been in my attic. I can't take it anymore. The water is up to my neck. I don't think I can hold out.' And that's happening as we speak." (Transcript of radio interview with Nagin (/2005/US/09/02/nagin.transcript/index.html))</p>

Nagin said the time has long passed for federal authorities to act on their promises. </p>

"You mean to tell me that a place where you probably have thousands of people that have died and thousands more that are dying every day, that we can't figure out a way to authorize the resources that we need? Come on man," he said. </p>

"I need reinforcements," he pleaded. "I need troops, man. I need 500 buses, man. This is a national disaster. (Hear Nagin's angry demand for more troops -- 1:00 (java_script:cnnVideo['play','/video/us/2005/09/02/sot.nagin.lack.of.response.affl');))</p>

"I've talked directly with the president," he said. "I've talked to the head of the homeland security. I've talked to everybody under the sun."</p>

After scheduled visits to devastated areas in Alabama and Mississippi, President Bush was expected to fly over the hurricane-ravaged city on Friday. </p>

As he left the White House, Bush said, "The results are not acceptable. I'm headed down there right now."</p>

He said he was "looking forward" to thanking people involved in disaster-relief efforts and assuring victims that short-term and long-term help is on the way.</p>

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Thursday that he thinks the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other federal agencies have done a "magnificent job" under difficult circumstances, citing their "courage" and "ingenuity."</p>

Insisting that aid is coming as fast as possible, Chertoff said, "You can't fly helicopters in a hurricane. You can't drive trucks in a hurricane."</p>

FEMA Director Michael Brown told CNN on Friday, "My heart breaks. What we're doing, we're ramping up." (See video of CNN asking why FEMA is clueless about conditions -- 2:11 (java_script:cnnVideo['play','/video/bestoftv/2005/09/02/soledad.fema.brown.katrina.cnn','/bestoftv');) )</p>

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said she hoped the amount of needed aid would begin arriving Friday.</p>

"I'm not going to stand here and play the blame game," Blanco said. "We have a problem. Let's get to the problem."</p>

The tempers of those waiting for food, water and relief from relentless heat continued to boil Friday as they waited for help to arrive, some in shocking conditions that were only getting worse. At least one large explosion rocked the city early Friday. </p>

In the radio interview, Nagin's frustration was palpable. </p>

"I've been out there man. I flew in these helicopters, been in the crowds talking to people crying, don't know where their relatives are. I've done it all man, and I'll tell you man, I keep hearing that it's coming. This is coming, that is coming. And my answer to that today is BS, where is the beef? Because there is no beef in this city. "</p>

Nagin said, "Get every Greyhound bus in the country and get them moving."</p>

Nagin called for a moratorium on press conferences "until the resources are in this city." </p>

"They're feeding the people a line of bull, and they are spinning and people are dying," he said. </p>

"I don't know whether it's the governor's problem, or it's the president's problem, but somebody needs to get ... on a plane and sit down, the two of them, and figure this out right now," Nagin said.</p>

"They thinking small, man, and this is a major, major deal," he said.</p>

"Get off your asses and let's do something."</p>

The mayor said except for a few "knuckleheads," the looting is the result of desperate people just trying to find food and water to survive. </p>

Nagin blamed the outbreak of crime and violence on drug addicts who are cut off from their drug supplies and wandering the city "looking to take the edge off their jones." </p>

Nagin is in his first term as mayor. He was sworn in May 2002. A Democrat, he was a popular reform candidate who promised to clean up the city's political corruption. He's a former cable company executive.</p>

[Coldwolf]

Hurricane was sign of divine wrath, fundamentalists say
Fri 2 Sep 2005 6:10 PM ET

By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON, Sept 2 (Reuters) - As religious and political leaders offered prayers for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, some Christian fundamentalists suggested the storm was the work of an angry God bent on punishing a sinful nation.

In news releases and Internet chat rooms, some fundamentalists said the hurricane was sent to punish New Orleans, a city known for Mardi Gras and other raucous festivals.

Others said the disaster, which may have killed thousands in Louisiana and Mississippi, was revenge for the United States' support of the removal of Jewish settlers in the Gaza Strip.

"Whenever this country encourages Israel to give up any part of their rightful God-given land we have suffered the consequences," wrote a discussion-board participant on the Web site of the Christian Broadcasting Network.

A Philadelphia group called Repent America said the hurricane was sent by God to prevent an annual gay-pride festival that was due to take place this weekend.

"We must not forget that the citizens of New Orleans tolerated and welcomed the wickedness in their city for so long," said Repent America director Michael Marcavage. "May this act of God cause us all to think about what we tolerate in our city limits."

Evangelical leaders like Jerry Falwell and Christian Broadcasting Network founder Pat Robertson urged their followers to pray for the victims and contribute to relief efforts, but made no public statements about the reason for the hurricane.

But Franklin Graham, who heads the evangelical charity Samaritan's Purse, said on the Fox News Channel on Thursday night that the mayhem and looting in New Orleans could be traced to a lack of religious instruction.

"This happens in our country when we have taken God out of our schools and God out of our, out of society. We don't have a moral standard," he said.

Political leaders urged prayer as well.

"God is responsible for this and in his own time he will reveal why," said Illinois Democratic Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. at a news conference.

American Christians have often seen the hand of God behind natural disasters, religious experts said.

Probably half of the U.S. population believes that a divine power sends judgment through hurricanes, floods and natural disasters, said John Green, a senior fellow with the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, a Washington think tank.

"The basic idea that God is in charge and he expects people to behave and he isn't happy when they don't -- that's a very common idea," Green said.

A small number of Christians believe that the United States needs to support Israel in order to bring about the return of Christ, said William Lawrence, dean of the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

"Those who hold such a view would tend to see any cataclysmic act as a sign of punishment, but much more responsible theologians would argue that that's far too mechanical a notion of the way God operates," he said.


ATTRIBUTION (http://today.reuters.com/News/CrisesArticle.aspx?storyId=N02564666)

[Dodgergirl]

http://www.snopes.com/politics/katrina/moore.asp

[Coldwolf]

Olbermann, Limbaugh, Sharpton and the GOP Mindset

Keith Olbermann just had an extraordinary exchange between himself and Al Sharpton.

The subject was the conditions in New Orleans, looting, and the question of where support is.

Olbermann remarked that he had heard Rush Limbaugh earlier today saying that those that were still in New Orleans deserved what they had gotten, as they had chosen to live there. Olbermann went so far as to call him, "that Limbaugh". Denouncing the inherent inconsiderate nature of such a statement.

But Sharpton made the point that struck me.

The Right, as embodied by Limbaugh, Frist, Bush, Hastert, DeLay. They would move heaven and earth to save the life of one White Woman in Florida to combat the very idea of euthanasia (which technically it was not). A woman that a decade earlier had lost her ability to so much as ask for help, much less have coherent thoughts about the quality of her own life.

And they would sit on their *** and watch as tens of thousands of poor men, women, children, babies, and elderly bake in the New Orleans heat surrounded by water, sewage, gasoline and an abandoned city, now devoid of anyone with the means to have escaped ahead of the storm.

This is the culture of life. The culture of life wants to save brain dead white women and unborn children. The culture of life wants you to watch endless non-news about the disappearance of one white teenager in Aruba. The culture of life wants you to support your nation as it kills tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians in its Quixotic quest against a non-threat. The culture of life wants a zero-tolerance for looters policy to sound authoritative as babies die of dehydration. The culture of life expects you to take care of yourself, and if you can't, then it is your own fault for getting into that situation in the first place. **** off. You had your shot. Station in life, where you hang your hat, and whether you have the $40 at the end of the month to pay for the overpriced gasoline to get out of that home in time is all up to you.

Always I have argued with Republican friends--the reasonable ones--that not everyone was dealt the same cards on their original Birth Day. Not everyone has been given the same gifts by God, friends, family, or luck. Always those Republican friends believe that they deserve where they have gotten in life, and that no one, including the government, should be asking for their hard-earned cash to help the less affluent. It is always the fault of the lesser-affluent themselves. Circumstances are irrelevant in all cases and constitute class warfare if the question is raised.

Bull****.

But that's their thing. That's how they see the world. They earned everything they got. Their parents might have given them a nudge, but nothing more. Get a ******* clue.

Bush came away from his mega vacation one day early...Wednesday. Hastert doesn't know why we should rebuild. Condie Rice went to the show on Broadway.

All of these people support the Culter of Life. But none seem to support American Culture. New Orleans, as much as any city, represents distinctly American Culture. A melting-pot of language, music and revelry unlike any other. But it is desperately poor. Over 50% of the children in the state live below the poverty level. But no matter. Mostly black folk down there. They shouldn't have lived there in the first place. They should have gotten out while they had the chance. It's their own fault.

Michael Chertoff was interviewed on NPR this afternoon. He was asked if he had heard of thousands of people at the Convention Center in New Orleans, without water or food or sanitation. Elderly dying. Little girls being raped. Mr. Chertoff was eloquent in his cluelessness. Completely unaware of what had been on the television all day long on both MSNBC and CNN. Unaware that he, at the top of the agency charged with bringing relief to the affected areas, had not been informed of something every American with a remote already knew. That the situation there was desperate. That people needed help. And that noone seemed to be providing it. The man in charge was not in charge at all, folks. It took the Bush Administration 4 years since 9/11... 4 years of chasing ghosts and old demons in Iraq to not do a ******* thing about stateside preparedness. To gut the national guard's responsiveness by sending so many of them overseas. To cut funding for the levee system that allowed Lake Ponchartrain to roll into the city. To put someone in charge of Homeland Security and FEMA that is eloquent, but so impossibly incompetent that he is incapable of establishing a staff capable of letting him know the worst of a situation so large.

Mr. Chertoff said, that he had not heard of such things. That you couldn't believe every rumor from the streets of the area. That he wasn't in a position to argue about what the NPR Reporters had witnessed.

Get the people to our staging areas, he stated, and they can get water there.

Thanks, asshole.

I almost cried last night. A little girl was with her grandfather, their late model sedan stalled in hip deep water. She was standing on what I think was the highway divider next to the car. Soaked. Crying. Her grandfather, dismayed and dazed behind her. Both of them looked at the car, but it was the begging of the young girl that got me. She couldn't have been more than 2 years older than my daughter. And there she was, in the middle of a lake that wasn't there the day before, in the middle of a city that had been destroyed, begging and pleading for the people filming her, and those they were with, to help them. They just needed a push. To higher ground.

And there she stayed, as the vehicle the camera rode in pulled away.

ATTRIBUTION (http://progprog.blogspot.com/2005/09/olbermann-limbaugh-sharpton-and-gop.html)

[Coldwolf]

September 2, 2005
Senators Call Hurricane Response "Immense Failure"
By REUTERS

Filed at 6:45 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two key U.S. senators said on Friday they will open a bipartisan investigation into what they described as an ``immense failure'' of the government response to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who heads the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, and Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, the panel's top Democrat, said they plan to begin an oversight investigation next week when the full Senate returns from a summer recess.

``We intend to demand answers as to how this immense failure occurred, but our immediate focus must and will be on what Congress can do to help the rescue and emergency operations that are ongoing,'' the senators said in a joint statement.

``It is also our responsibility to investigate the lack of preparedness and inadequate response to this terrible storm,'' they said, adding that it was ``increasingly clear that serious shortcomings in preparedness and response have hampered relief efforts at a critical time.''

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, called for the investigation saying he hoped the lessons learned would improve the government's response to future disasters.

The Bush administration's handling of the disaster that wreaked havoc in the Gulf Coast and spilled a devastating flood into New Orleans has come under sharp criticism.

As President George W. Bush toured the disaster area, Louisiana Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu said the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which the Bush administration placed under the Department of Homeland Security, failed to deploy enough resources to the area quickly.

She called on Bush to appoint a Cabinet-level official to direct the national response to the calamity.

``There was a time when FEMA understood that the correct approach to a crisis was to deploy to the affected area as many resources as possible as fast as possible,'' Landrieu said. ''Unfortunately that no longer seems to be their approach.''

Congress sent Bush a $10.5 billion emergency spending bill on Friday to cover some of the initial costs of the recovery effort and lawmakers have promised much more.

[concerned]

Even the director of FEMA criticized the response of FEMA. The overall government response was very poor. Then there is Bush saying New Orleans will be built back bigger and better than ever. Why?

[Summer]

My heart is breaking for New Orleans and the people there and I'm mad as hell at you know who! http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/no.gif

[Coldwolf]

Years ago, when I was a newlywed young man, my family faced a crisis. It wasn't huge, by national standards, but to my wife and I, it was staggering. My mother in law, a woman I had only met once, and who had been estranged from my wife for years, died. I was notified by my commanding officer of the death, since her family had no other way to reach us. I was notified on a Monday.
What, you might ask is my point?

My point is, that I was a Navy E-3, very low ranked, and very poor. I was living in a substandard cottage with my wife and baby. Yet we mobilized, left Virginia by Greyhound and reached California on Friday morning. The funeral was on Saturday.
I did what I had to for my family, for her family that I didn't know.

Now maybe my analogy is faulty, but dammit, why has it taken the same length of time for the Federal government to respond? My heart aches for those people, and FEMA says there were bumps in the road.

Those bumps in the road are the bodies of the people that died because this goddam administration cannot respond to the needs of the people.

They can invade and conquer a country half a world away in 3 days, but they can't airdrop a damn bottle of water and a happymeal to its own citizens within 5 days.

[Summer]

http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/applause.gif Oh Coldwolf, this is so very true. I am just not understanding what is happening. Has the world gone mad?

[megabytebige]

Ok let me try and respond FEMA is fat, but the planing part is laid on state Goverment FEMA can mobilaze any (yes ANY) part of the US Goverment. They cannot act until the state requests help and can only give them what they ask for. With this said disaster delectoritons(SP?) were asked for and granted 1-2 days before. but what help was requested just money, food, troops, water, this i dont know and i am sure will come out in time.

From what i have heard,
FEMA at that point started moving equipment and supplies then, here is where the porblem comes in, with the brod range of the affected area two of FEMAs closest wharehouses were distroyed along with the equipment that was pre-staging. The othere wherhouses were and still are moblized trucks take time to get there.

I do not think the time it has taken is acceptable but lets blame the people who should have been prepared the STATE officals. They should have been able to help thier own for at least two days. Have you tried to move an army befor? FEMA is moving in an army of people but with so much of the area afected they have to land miles away and find ways to traval in destroyed areas. I know many of the people that have been deployed quick emails from them say it is nothing like they have ever seen before, and I along with them have seen alot Gaum, SF, LA, NY are just a few.

It has been reported, by I belive CNN and FOX that the funds cut from the Army Corps of Engineers was slated for other parts of the levie system so I am not sure if the funds would have helped or not wont argue this point.

Sorry people are dying because of other incompetent fools, Bush may be one of them but I do belive the bucketof blamies is full of people most being at state and local levels Bush is not GOD and cannot control these people they (the FEDS) can only do what is asked of them. I think they should do more but then we would be arguing that the rights of the state were being trampled on.

As for the troops being in Iraq well this point is moot to me because we will not agree on the war anyway but if all things were perfect and everyone thought this war was just then this would not even be brought up in this fasion. so I dont see the point.

CW i was and am not attacking you, I dont care what you post it is your oppion and I give you that. I just think we should be more concernd with helping these people insted of casting blame. I do read your posts and you have changed my outlook on a couple of issues so I belive your personal attack was in poor tast.

I still cannot see why here in the US people are still dieing almost a week later, and why it is being allowed. I dont know complety who to blame but I will demand thier heads after this is all over this I belive we can agree on and if someone can show me a shortfall of GB then his head will be the first on my list.

[Coldwolf]

Mega,I apologize for what seemed like a personal attack. It wasn't meant to be. But truely, it no longer matters to me who reads what I write. I blame the Bush administration, because they deserve the blame. I also blame the House and Senate, both sides of the aisle, for letting the Bush administration get away with sacrificing our country to Republican greed. I blame those Americans that re-elected the Moron, because they should have known better.

[Summer]

Mega,I apologize for what seemed like a personal attack. It wasn't meant to be. But truely, it no longer matters to me who reads what I write. I blame the Bush administration, because they deserve the blame. I also blame the House and Senate, both sides of the aisle, for letting the Bush administration get away with sacrificing our country to Republican greed. I blame those Americans that re-elected the Moron, because they should have known better.
http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/applause.gif

[Coldwolf]

Please take the time to read this article. (http://www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/2004-09-28/cover_story.html) It shows how FEMA changed after Bush took office.

Bush's first budget director, Mitch Daniels, spelled out the philosophy in remarks at an April 2001 conference: "The general idea -- that the business of government is not to provide services, but to make sure that they are provided -- seems self-evident to me," he said.

In a May 15, 2001, appearance before a Senate appropriations subcommittee, Allbaugh signaled that the new, stripped-down approach would be applied at FEMA as well. "Many are concerned that federal disaster assistance may have evolved into both an oversized entitlement program and a disincentive to effective state and local risk management," he said. "Expectations of when the federal government should be involved and the degree of involvement may have ballooned beyond what is an appropriate level."
As a result, says a disaster program administrator who insists on anonymity, "We have to compete for our jobs -- we have to prove that we can do it cheaper than a contractor." And when it comes to handling disasters, the FEMA employee stresses, cheaper is not necessarily better, and the new outsourcing requirements sometimes slow the agency's operations.

William Waugh, a disaster expert at Georgia State University who has written training programs for FEMA, warns that the rise of a "consultant culture" has not served emergency programs well. "It's part of a widespread problem of government contracting out capabilities," he says. "Pretty soon governments can't do things because they've given up those capabilities to the private sector. And private corporations don't necessarily maintain those capabilities."

[Summer]

I read it. Crazy.

[BGW]

Perspective it's all about how you choose to see things.....and then you get an email like this one:

on August 31, 2005
Hi, everybody!
I wanted to thank y'all for your thoughts and prayers
post hurricane.

My Dad is a "refugee" in the Superdome, but I haven't
talked to him since Monday. They'll be sending him to
Houston soon. Sister Rachelle evacuated with Scott to
Austin and will pick Dad up as soon as he gets there.
Bro is safe and sound in Montana, Sister Dale in St.
Louis, and Mama O in NY.

This is my first week of grad school for art therapy
at the School of Visual Arts in NYC. We made some art
today and I painted the Dome with waves and confusion.
It was dark. I wish I could be in the Superdome
leading art therapy with the people, some sort of
creative, supportive emotional outlet.

This is a scary and sad time, y'all. I'm sorry that
this isn't a personalized message. it's been tough
corresponding with friends because I don't know the
details. I can't get in touch with my dad.

Our dog, J.B. Fletcher, otherwise known as "Fletch,"
is stranded at home. When they evacuated New Orleans,
they wouldn't let anyone bring pets. Fletch has got
enough food and water till Saturday. So if anyone's in
New Orleans and wants to be a part of the Mission:
Save Fletcher... Even if you KNOW a friend of a
friend who's in the Garden District, please go to
1818 Prytania, Apartment #6.
It's an apartment complex and #6 is on the second
floor. There's a key to the apartment under the mat
by the apartment door. Break the door down, smash a
window and get Fletch! He's a really cute Rasta' dog,
don't worry, he won't bite!

Mrs. Chisolhm, a dear friend of the family, who
helped raise us O'Neill children, did not evacuate and
stayed in her house. She is in her 70s, a strong
woman, and we're hoping that someone got her out. She
lives in Bayou St. John, where flooding happens often.
Please keep her in your prayers.

Friends are asking, "What can I do?"
I'm telling people now, if you want to help, donate to
Red Cross. They're doing a lot to recover and rebuild
our city. It's a great town, y'all. home of jazz,
good southern cooking and the best hospitality in the
world....don't forget, this is where Britney Spears
comes from! ha!
mucho love to you all.
xoxo,
Rory


Or this one I received this morning:

Life in refuge sucks. I have a job interview in Princeton New Jersey next week. I have to buy EVERYTHING. All I brought up to Tennesee when we left New Orleans are two pairs of levi's and a casual skirt, a pair of sandals, some blouses and slippers. THAT'S IT. I'm going to purchase a suit for the interview and a casual outfit for the trip. I'm also going to have to purchase LUGGAGE. I have tons of luggage holed up in my closet. Sigh... At least I have the interview.

Shanna
(Shanna managed to get out and get Chattanooga Sunday afternoon.

And, then just a few minutes ago, this came in:

Update from Rory:

Hello, friends and fam.

Good news: Fletcher is safe!
A woman who lives in the Garden District, near Dad, is taking care of him.
She has a great back yard and is giving him food and water everyday.
Mission: Save Fletcher is completed. Hooray!

Follow-up: Dad hasn't been heard from since Monday a.m. His cell phone is
dead. I'm pretty sure he brought enough food/water for him to last through
Saturday. He's pretty resourceful. The fam thinks he's still in the
Superdome waiting for transportation out of town. I'll let everyone know as
soon as I hear from him. Keep praying. One of the hardest things is not
being able to contact friends/fam.

It's been pretty nuts recognizing neighborhoods I grew up submerged under
water. There was a report of people still trapped in houses--one family only
a block away from my high school! All us locals are wondering, "What
survived?" A friend, Charles, told me that the block where his house is in
Kenner amazingly hadn't flooded. Another, Alli reports her house "only" had
16 inches of water. But Waveland, Mississippi, where my family and cousins
had our country homes, has been destroyed. I can remember every room of that
house.

Lastly, I wanted to leave y'all with words regarding evacuation/emergency
relief procedures. On the news, most of the refugees are poor blacks. Why
are these the last to be evacuated? What does this say about the reliability
of our country, that nearly one week after a hurricane, there are people
still who can't get out. The marginalized-- even in natural disaster in a
first world country--are minorities. Desperation has led to violence:
murder and rape. I can't believe that people are starving in my city and
corpses rot on the roads.

There has got to be some good that comes out this. We will rebuild, right?

xo, Ro

I felt the need to share their words here to kind of show things from their perspective....ya know

[Coldwolf]

Calling for the immediate deployment of regular combat troops in New Orleans, David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican senator said: "My guess is that it [the death toll] will start at 10,000, but that is only a guess." He said this estimate was not based on any official death toll or body count.

Even before he set off, Mr Bush was forced to admit that the relief effort had been inadequate: "The results are not acceptable," he said.

Later he said: "I am not looking forward to this trip. It's as if the entire Gulf coast were obliterated by the worst kind of weapon you can imagine."

An emergency military convoy of aid supplies arrived in New Orleans yesterday to help in the relief of tens of thousands of refugees made desperate in the aftermath of the hurricane.

Live television broadcasts showed a queue of military vehicles loaded with crates making their way through the flooded streets. Troops with rifles rode in the convoy.

Attribution (http://www.guardian.co.uk/katrina/story/0,16441,1562005,00.html)

[oakhurstleaf]

I don't think we should compare the 3-day invasion of Iraq to the what seems like lagging 4-5 day rescue response in New Orleans. We didn't go into Afganistan Sept 12, 2001 and Iraq wasn't something that just happened in a few short weeks either. It takes months and weeks to organize and mobilize such huge "projects" in order for them to be successful or in the least, accomplish their goals...and even with great planning they don't always come off without a hitch.

I agree it's very frustrating and disappointing with the ongoing suffering in New Orleans...It's maddening too. But I tend to think that this is such a HUGE, seemingly insurmountable task...and everyone (Gov't, humanitarian, etc) involved with the rescue and restoration mission in front of them is doing the best they can trying to organize and mobilize their efforts. It's hard to be patient and understanding when you see a need to be met NOW. I'm sure no one is just sitting on their arse...this is far too big to imagine.

Alice

[Yosemite_Wolf]

But if more ppl took on the responsibility, maturity etc that ColdWolf did as a young serviceman.... then most of those ppl in New Orleans would have gotton out on time.
The ppl of N.O. were given ample warning that the storm was coming... the stupid *** gov't knew that the levies would break, cos the stupid *** govt gave N. O. the govt funds to FIX the levies ten yrs ago! The ppl of N. O. knew the storm was coming.. but they refused to believe that the storm would reach them instead going the way of Andrew when he hit Florida instead of Louisiana. The ppl of N. O. sat instead like sitting ducks when they could have been fleeing. And dont give me the cr*p that they had no cars etc etc etc. Right now, there are ppl looting and killing and raping in N.O. Talk about getting ppl when they are down. If one is sooooo terrified and sooo in danger.. would they be out looting, raping and pillaging? No, theyd be grubbing for food and water NOT T.Vs! Watch the telly reports.
The Army arrived in New Orleans today to quell the looters.. they have been told "you have live ammo, dont be afraid to use it". The hurricane ruined houses and lives.. but it is a storm. The looters in New Orleans are beating their own ppl when they are down. They deserve what they get. This AM, i heard a story on NPR about a young college woman who was at the uni dorms.... they realised it was time to bail when they saw the flood waters rising... so she and her fiance CHAINSAWED their way out... they were stranded, but used their heads and survival instincts to get the heck out.... they didnt sit crying for help and crying that the firefighters were taking too long. (not enough emergency help for so many standed ppl... doh.. its gonna take time!). Dont whine, get up off your duff and MOVE! And the fact that looters were shooting at the helicopters and firefighters etc... that makes me LESS inclined to see them to safety!!

I am an RN.. and if a patient attacks me... im not gonna hang around.. im gonna protect myself!

[Dodgergirl]

No, I'm sure no one is sitting on their arses. They are golfing, going to plays, etc. Sorry for the sarcasm, but I can't imagine not being able to come up with a few more food drops, etc.

When my house was red tagged in Northridge, FEMA was there the next day. With $$ & vouchers. I did have to pay most of it back, but we didn't go hungry. At the time my kids were little & I can't imagine them not being able to eat for days, I woulda been out there getting whatever I needed, too. By whatever means necessary. (I find this article very interesting) http://www.snopes.com/photos/katrina/looters.asp

Many of these people had next to nothing to start with, and now?? Now they have dead babies & psychologically damaged children. Are we gonna help them out as they try to deal with the atrocities put upon them?

This is the U.S.A., not some country thousands of miles away. We should have a better, quicker response time to a disaster that was forewarned. (Oh, I won't even get into that again)

JMHO

[oakhurstleaf]

The hurricane havoc and loss of lives in Biloxi itself is of much greater magnitude than that of the '94 Northridge earthquake. New Orleans is of no comparison to any natural disaster this country has ever faced.

Of course, it would be great if every single person didn't have to starve, didn't have to suffer...if everyone had a boat or raft and a week's worth of emergency sustenance before this all happened and immediately after it happened. I'm not saying that the amount of preparedness and response to this tragedy was anywhere adequate...all I'm saying is that there may be no way to be totally prepared and perfectly respond to a horrific situation like this. With the massive scale and the massive human toll...there's unfortunately going to be chaos and suffering.

As far as looting and "finding" goes...this is a desperate time and when you're a desperate victim in this situation...you will do desperate things. Some of these people were desperate even before the hurricane came.

The media is going to show us the desperation as they should. They will show us the people who are stuck, starving, stealing, sniping, suffering, etc. We should see that...but it's not the whole picture. There are 1000's of rescues going on un-videotaped and untold to the media. There are massive organizational efforts going on untold and behind the scenes to fix the countless problems and situations. Even Todd's dad, COO for LA County Health Dept, is going down there for at min. 9 days to help the relief effort.

In every large population, there's a criminal population and in New Orleans...they're loose. We see images on TV of a war zone. But again, these are isolated occurrences and should be expected in a situation like this. Besides saving and feeding people, there's also at issue maintaining law and order.

No relief will be fast enough. And hindsight is always 20/20.

Alice Originally posted by Dodgergirl:
No, I'm sure no one is sitting on their arses. They are golfing, going to plays, etc. Sorry for the sarcasm, but I can't imagine not being able to come up with a few more food drops, etc.

When my house was red tagged in Northridge, FEMA was there the next day. With $$ & vouchers. I did have to pay most of it back, but we didn't go hungry. At the time my kids were little & I can't imagine them not being able to eat for days, I woulda been out there getting whatever I needed, too. By whatever means necessary. (I find this article very interesting) http://www.snopes.com/photos/katrina/looters.asp

Many of these people had next to nothing to start with, and now?? Now they have dead babies & psychologically damaged children. Are we gonna help them out as they try to deal with the atrocities put upon them?

This is the U.S.A., not some country thousands of miles away. We should have a better, quicker response time to a disaster that was forewarned. (Oh, I won't even get into that again)

JMHO

[Dodgergirl]

Completely aware that there isn't a devastation comparison between the two disasters, my point being, as FEMA is neither based in N.R nor N.O, they shouldn't have too much problem getting the necessary items to the disaster locations. The real problem is with the lack of funding and lack of man power. Why do you think that is?

Shoot to kill at looters? hhmmm, that could be me out there 'borrowing' what I need. Don't think my investments would do me much good & I'm sure the ATM's are out. Again, sorry for the sarcasm, I do appreciate what you are saying.
As for hindsight? They knew this was gonna be a big one, they were predicting the damages before it hit. I never said I expected perfection or total preparation, but many of these people had nothing to start with, no means to 'prepare' themselves & no vehicle to get the hell outta there. Shouldn't we, as a nation, feel the obligation to help them out? Aren't we bound by the laws of man to help our neighbors? (Or is that just our neighbors with something we need?)

Do you honestly think if something of this magnitude hit the L.A. area, the response time for evacs would take as many days as it has for N.O.?

Like I said before, I appreciate your opinion & am just posting mine. http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/wink3.gif

[oakhurstleaf]

Dodgergirl, I appreciate your opinion too.

I don't know how Los Angeles would fare a major widespread disaster or terrorist attack. I'm sure there would be problems. BIG problems and critical errors. And there'd be a lot of scrutiny.

Imagine if we had another massive natural disaster or terrorist attack tomorrow in any big city? Could we be prepared for more than one Katrina at a time?

Alice

[Coldwolf]

Could we be prepared for more than one Katrina at a time?

FEMA Federal Emergency Management Agency--See, its their job to be prepared. To plan. To respond. Its their JOB. Its the only JOB they have. They weren't prepared. Not for this one. Did they know? Hell Yes they knew. They were the ones that ranked it in the top 3 scenarios of disasters.
Maybe they had a plan, I really have no doubt that they did. Problem is, they took too long to respond. They knew this hurricane was coming. Of course they didn't know how much damage it was going to cause, but they knew there would be damage. As soon as it was classified a Class 4 there should have been mobilization. Even before it made landfall. For gods sake, they are still lifting people off of roofs. 6 days later.

The ppl of N. O. sat instead like sitting ducks when they could have been fleeing. And dont give me the cr*p that they had no cars etc etc etc. Right now, there are ppl looting and killing and raping in N.O. Talk about getting ppl when they are down. If one is sooooo terrified and sooo in danger.. would they be out looting, raping and pillaging?
Ever been poor and living in a city with no car? Where the hell were they supposed to evacuate to? And how? Where were the busses lined up at? Where was the National Guard transports?

When a city is evacuated, the National guard is supposed to come in and help. And guard the city. That was the governors job. Order in the National Guard to aid in an orderly evacuation. It didn't happen.


They deserve what they get.

No they don't deserve it. They deserve so much more. They deserved to have food and water, transportation to safe housing, even a tent city. The store owners deserved to have the National Guard protecting the businesses.

[honeybee]

I agree....nobody deserves that horrible fate. http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/no.gif

[oakhurstleaf]

Most of the people who didn't evacuate couldn't. They had no place to go, no way to get there, no money to relocate, etc...and the ones who went to local shelters, obviously weren't spared from the chaos and flood waters. I'm sure most thought or wanted to believe evacuation would be temporary...not permanent. They probably thought they could ride it out.

I don't think they should shoot to kill looters...they are desperate people in a desperate situation. I'd sure as heck be helping myself to some food stuff and shoes for my family if I lost everything. I don't know what more to say than that other than well, I hope all these businesses being looted have hurricane and theft insurance.

I think one thing specifically different with this disaster than others here is the vast amount of people who need food and water. The difficult task is getting it to them. With no electricity and no transportation and no access to news and information...they cannot find or get to the food and water distributors; and the distributors are having difficulty finding those in need. In the cases where there are large groups of people gathered, there is a definate target for food and water.

Don't you all just wonder how all these displaced people are going to get their lives back, if they ever can? Survival is the word of the day, but then what?

[Yosemite_Wolf]

they need food and water..... so why are they looting and stealing TV's? Why are gangs roving around and gang raping? thats not the act of someone who is in survival mode. Survival is the name of the game. They had ample time to get out. These looters are looting and taking not food and water... but human lives and TVs. If they have no qualms about doing that... then they would have no problem stealing a car to get out of New Orleans. Id get my a$$ out even if i had to walk. Its stupid... they are sitting in the path of a hurricane.. and they dont move. If that was my store or house... and someone was breaking in and taking my goods.. id be knocking some serious poop around! Survival is the name of the game.. and when one's life is threatened.. one fights to save it.. not rape their own kind. GangRaping is NOT the acting of someone fighting for food!

amd what if it was your sh*t they were looting? and your daughter they were gang raping??
stealing food... yes... stealing TV's? come one... they dont even have a place to put it.. and Tvs come after survival.

[oakhurstleaf]

These are not the general "they" - those who need food and water, but the people taking advantage of the lack of security...some of them were criminally-minded anyway before this (rapists, gang members, murderers, robbers)...now it's their unsupervised playground. Others maybe had lived without life's luxuries and saw this as an opportunity..."hmm, free TV? I'll take it" This is typical of any situation where there's no law enforcement. I think of the LA Riots. When the nuts go nuts and it becomes overwhelming to overtaxed law enforcement. I would not say that all the looters are nuts, nor are all the people who didn't evacuate when they presumably should've known better. There are nuts in every group everywhere.

so why are they looting and stealing TV's? Why are gangs roving around and gang raping?

[Yosemite_Wolf]

general my arse... watch the news. i dont care if its one or 1,000 ppl out there gangraping. Come on! you actually
think its ok for these ppl to be out there raping and stealing? Like i said, stealing to eat is one thing.. stealing material items is BS. And is it ok for looters to attack personnel in hospitals.. .is it ok for these ppl to shoot at helicopters and firemen? come on.. if i was one of those firefighters.. and I was going into save someone.. and they started shooting.. id get the hell out of Dodge and go find someone who really wants my help! Sheesh.. they are out there fighting for their lives... who the heck is thinking TV's? And when you have a bully on the playground... do you let him continue? no you stop his bullying lil butt. Well, these looters are bullys on a unsupervised playground.. and they need to be punished.

The LA riots were a race thing.. totally idiotic.. but a race thing. Northridge quake and Katrina are natural disasters. Next thing, they will prolly want to sue Katrina for being a racist hurricane!

[oakhurstleaf]

You seriously think I think it's okay for these nuts to rape and steal? Wrong. I don't think that at all. I think we need law and order back...and from what I see, it's coming...slowly, but it's coming.

I'm trying to address your general sense that all these people who were stupid enough to not evacuate when they knew Katrina was coming somehow deserve what they've got...and the looters shouldn't be saved or helped.

I think that crazy times can make people CRAZY. Looting...expected. Raping, killing, and any other violent crime...go ahead and shoot 'em!

Originally posted by Yosemite_Wolf:
general my arse... watch the news. i dont care if its one or 1,000 ppl out there gangraping. Come on! you actually
think its ok for these ppl to be out there raping and stealing? Like i said, stealing to eat is one thing.. stealing material items is BS. And is it ok for looters to attack personnel in hospitals.. .is it ok for these ppl to shoot at helicopters and firemen? come on.. if i was one of those firefighters.. and I was going into save someone.. and they started shooting.. id get the hell out of Dodge and go find someone who really wants my help!

The LA riots were a race thing.. totally idiotic.. but a race thing. Northridge quake and Katrina are natural disasters. Next thing, they will prolly want to sue Katrina for being a racist hurricane!

[Coldwolf]

Wolfie, I agree, its wrong. the looting and gangraping...the general lawlessness. Absolutely wrong.
So where was the National Guard on Monday? Tuesday? Wednesday? Thursday? Why was the mobilization taking so long.
I'm not excusing any of the violent and greed based crimes. I can excuse the people trying to get food and water. Even clothes and shoes. The chief of police even said his men had to steal food and water.

In an earlier post I comapared this to the invasion of Iraq, and was appropriatly rebuked. But I also thought about the month that followed the invasion. Remember all the unchecked looting? Hell, people even looted librarys and schools. REmember why it went on so long? Because the military had no plan for the occupation. So in a way, they are very similar. There was no plan in place to restore peace and provide security.

[Summer]

I keep thinking of the horrible state of mind these people must be in. Out in the horrific heat, scrounging for food, water, diapers & milk for their babies, knowing you have lost everything, not knowing where you are going or what to do, sewage and stench everywhere, dead bodies popping up at any given moment, criminals doing anything they want and no way to protect yourself and then having to wait out this nightmare for 5 days with no help in sight. They probably thought maybe no help was coming at all. Their lives will never be the same. Very, very sad. Oh, and one comment on why they didn't get out. Most of those survivors were dirt poor and living hand to mouth to begin with. How do you pick up and get out if there is no vehicle and you've got a family and there was not a lot of emphasis on the urgency of getting out anyhow.

[honeybee]

I don't think any one of those people that stayed behind for whatever the reason could even begin to fathom that such a thing could happen to them. I know I couldn't, in fact, they say it is the worst natural disaster our country has ever faced. Those that had transportation out of the city were so very fortunate, and the freeways were bottle necked with those that could. Imagine if the tens of thousands that were left had been able to do the same. From what I heard, Fema and the Red Cross had strategic plans set up and were readying themselves for the worst, however, Katrina decided she would head inland a bit further than anticipated and thwarted their efforts.

As far as looting, I sure would hate to be judged and found unworthy of empathy because of the lawless and inhumane hoards of gangs that plague our cities. Every city has them. So many people are quick to point fingers and place blame as they sit comfortably dry in their homes. It is much easier to contemplate and reason when you are not in harms way. Fact is, a horrible and unthinkable act of nature took place. So many people including babies, elderly and the infirm are truly suffering. I think it's most important right now for us to send positive prayer and hope and give in any way we can. I am challenging everyone to make a donation to the Red Cross.

[Yosemite_Wolf]

Thats very true Honeybee. And its those unfortunates who need and want our help. American Red Cross is a great organistion.. but they arent god. They can only help so fast... and it takes manpower.... just as with the national guard. The nationalguards"men" who were there to make/keep order were only 1/3 of the usually "man"power available. The rest are in Iraq. A friend of mine is in Houston working at a local hospital in charge of operations and placement of these poor displaced ppl. They are so in shock that when you ask them their personal info.. name, address etc... they burst into uncontrollable crying. These are not the ppl out looting.. these ppl are truly in shock. It amazes me of the ability of ppl to live through a disaster and instead of worrying about Mom, Dad or the kids.. they think first only of looting from the rich man? Where is the logic in this? but then... Katrina was beyond logic too.
Lets keep our thoughts positive for the poor misplaced ppl who no longer have houses or job. And Karma will take care of the looters. But pls, next time someone is coming to save you from a disaster or burning house..... dont shoot at them Looters... let them help ya!!

[jakobscalpel]

I'm a little behind the latest discussion. Please forgive any repitition.

oakhurstleaf: No relief will be fast enough. And hindsight is always 20/20.

I tend to agree with most of what you mentioned. However, despite hindsight being 20/20, I'd have to say foresight was maybe 20/40 in this situation. Everyone who has ever studied tropical meteorology knew this was going to happen. Just not when, exactly. Also, I still believe that when all is said and done, Galveston will continue to be the worst natural disaster this country has ever faced in terms of loss of life. In terms of pure cost however, NO is in a league of its own.

CW Ever been poor and living in a city with no car? Where the hell were they supposed to evacuate to? And how? Where were the busses lined up at? Where was the National Guard transports?

I don't blame the poor, exactly. They lacked means and likely lacked communication and education from those who knew what was coming. But still, at what point does being poor exempt you from taking responsibility for yourself and family? I don't know, but I sure can't imagine myself staying there, regardless of circumstances.

YW And dont give me the cr*p that they had no cars etc etc etc. Right now, there are ppl looting and killing and raping in N.O. Talk about getting ppl when they are down. If one is sooooo terrified and sooo in danger.. would they be out looting, raping and pillaging? No, theyd be grubbing for food and water NOT T.Vs! Watch the telly reports.

I guess I'm a pessimist. I have no faith in people when things get out of control. This behavior does not surprise me in the least. In fact, I'm surprised at how little violence there was in those suffocating refugee centers. Hmmm, maybe people are more restrained than I thought.


In general: After the last person is saved (let's hope there are many many before that last one), my thoughts will turn to the immediate future. These things always seem to happen in clusters. I know that is just the human mind trying to find patterns in random fluctuations, but it still seems that way. One or two more big hits over the next year and what will happen to the insurance industry and the economy in general? I'm still betting on bird flu. Ugh.

[Yosemite_Wolf]

Why is everyone pointing fingers? I mean.. it was a bleedin' HURRICANE! A Natural Disaster!!! Why don't we put the blame on Katrina..... THE HURRICANE! Fema acted as fast as it could.. i mean, it takes time to mobilise all the ppl and equipment.... the local officials of New Orleans fugged up cos they had the funds to fix the levies... and they didnt.. plus then there was all the building up of the swampland surrounding the city (where the brunt of the flooding was).... and most of all.. why don't we just blame the frogs and the froggy engineers back in the 1700's when they decided to build a city in swampland!! They knew even back then that it was a silly idea to build below sealevel... but heck, i guess if the dutch can do it.. then so can the Frogs.
But i say.. Blame Katrina! she did it!

[oakhurstleaf]

The death toll will be in the thousands...no exact number yet. It will take time to have every survivor and missing counted...but really, this seems to be far worse than Galveston's 1900 hurricane that claimed 6000 lives. In 1900, they didn't have the benefit of modern rescue equipment like we do now...10's of 1000's of lives were saved in New Orleans, MS, and AL because of preparedness and relief response no matter how poorly orchestrated some might say.

Yes, we could say they should've all known this was coming...maybe not when, but there was no question of if. We could say that about a lot of potential natural disasters and there are a lot of big cities which are flirting with disaster. There are estimated 5 - 7 more hurricanes expected this season for the Gulf region...what if TX gets it this time? What if New Orleans gets it again? Anything can happen.

If a major earthquake say a 9.0 or greater hit Los Angeles (there is a fault line right under Capitol Records!), imagine and expect the chaos. How many structures could withstand a quake of that magnitude, even the supposed reinforced and earthquake proof? How would the inner city impoverished folk fare? How would the virtually bankrupt county hospitals who've had to close so many trauma centers be able to attend to all the potential injured? There'd be fires, looting, violence...etc etc. How really prepared are we for that? We'd never know until it happens. According to some experts, Los Angeles is due for a BIG one...

[honeybee]

I agree Oakhurstleaf, anything can happen and none of us have any idea how we will react until it does. Perhaps we should all feel thankful that we are so many miles from that nightmare and hopeful that we would endure if an equal or worse tragedy were to happen in our backyard.

[oakhurstleaf]

I've made a donation here...

http://www.katrina.louisiana.gov/donate.htm

It's easy and if you can do it, do it.

[honeybee]

Awesome Oakhurst leaf.

"Charity sees the need, not the cause"

[honeybee]

My husband donated to a pool put together at his job a few days ago. If you haven't already done so, perhaps some of you can get a simular pool going at your place of employment. http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/yes.gif

[TOT]

anyone know a good website to donate via paypal? or is there anywhere in town taking cash for katrina related charities?

[Coldwolf]

Originally posted by TOT:
anyone know a good website to donate via paypal? or is there anywhere in town taking cash for katrina related charities?

TOT, eBay has opened itself to Katrina support. Here (http://pages.ebay.com/givingworks/index.html) is a page to donate via eBay and Paypal. There are also numerous auctions and organizations on eBay raising funds. Read carefully tho, some are shysty.

[Coldwolf]

I heard last night, and haven't verified that Carnival Cruise lines has cancelled all cruises until March and is donating their ships to be used as temporary housing.

[Coldwolf]

I was able to verify quickly ..Carniva l donating 3 ships for 6 months.

Carnival News
Carnival Cruise Lines Three Cruise Ships to Federal Government As Part of Hurricane Relief Efforts
09/03/2005

MIAMI (Sept. 3, 2005) – Carnival Cruise Lines has chartered three of its cruise ships to the Military Sealift Command (MSC) on behalf of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for six months as part of Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.

The three cruise ships are the Ecstasy, Sensation and Holiday.

The Ecstasy, normally homeported at Galveston, Texas, operating four- and five-day cruises, and Sensation, normally homeported in New Orleans operating four- and five-day voyages, will be pulled from service effective Monday, Sept. 5. Initial plans are for both vessels to be docked in Galveston.

The Holiday, which is homeported at Mobile, Ala., operating four and five-day Mexico cruises, will be pulled from service effective Thursday, Sept. 8. Initial plans are for the vessel to remain docked in Mobile.

“We sincerely apologize to those guests whose vacations have been impacted by these voyage cancellations,â€� said Bob Dickinson, Carnival president and CEO. “However, given that Hurricane Katrina is the worst natural disaster in U.S. history, we trust our guests will understand that the decision to enter into these charters was the right one. This inconvenience to our guests will provide desperately needed housing for thousands of individuals affected by this tragedy,â€� he added.

Carnival News (http://www.carnival.com/CMS/Articles/fema_charter.aspx)

KUDOS to Carnival for a great great great stepup.

[Mysteefied]

That's awsome! good to see people getting involved.

[Californee Girl]

Originally posted by Summer:
I keep thinking of the horrible state of mind these people must be in. Out in the horrific heat, scrounging for food, water, diapers & milk for their babies, knowing you have lost everything, not knowing where you are going or what to do, sewage and stench everywhere, dead bodies popping up at any given moment, criminals doing anything they want and no way to protect yourself and then having to wait out this nightmare for 5 days with no help in sight. They probably thought maybe no help was coming at all. Their lives will never be the same. Very, very sad. Oh, and one comment on why they didn't get out. Most of those survivors were dirt poor and living hand to mouth to begin with. How do you pick up and get out if there is no vehicle and you've got a family and there was not a lot of emphasis on the urgency of getting out anyhow.

This is all thats been on my mind too Summer. All this other political bs seems like a total waste of breath and energy to me. But I guess that is what the politics threads are for. I have friends who still have family and friends missing in Mississippi. They havent felt a need to talk politics yet, and I can understand why.

Im happy to see the change in this thread lately. Focusing on places to donate was a great switch Oakhurtsleaf. I heard on the news that you should get a list of valid donation spots from IRS.GOV (http://www.irs.gov).

[BGW]

Thanks for verifying the Carnival Story ColdWolf. I spent some time last night looking and came up empty handed, hence no late night post. I had thought news like this would have been on every news channel and related websites. I was surprised to not find anything.

I received a follow-up survival report email yesterday that I'd like to share.

<span class="ev_code_BLUE">Howdy, y'all!</span>
Got word from my Dad that he's alive and well and was
transported to Dallas, TX this a.m. Rachelle, my
sister, picked him up and brought him to Austin, where
they are staying with friends.
Thank you all for your optimism and support. Can we
all pray for Kevin Neafsey? He's a friend of mine
who's a NYC cop, there's a group of 500 NYPD who left
today to go down to New Orleans to assist with
evacuating people.
Way to go, Kev!
Thanks again for your support of LA/MS/AL and and
hurricane victims.


Another news tidbit that I find at best shocking, is that the kid that figured out a way to get himself and 100 others out of NO and to the Astrodome by using bus that was left on the street is being arrested for stealing the bus!!! WHAT???? This kid is a hero not a looter; nor did he use the vehicle he found to get himself to safety. He took with him anyone and every one there was room in the bus for, drove himself and those he rescued straight to Houston for help; at which time he relinquished the bus. This act, committed and completed by an 18 year old(which is impressive enough) is being viewed as a criminal act? I think I will just remain confused on this one otherwise, an extremely long explitive filled rant must follow.


Perhaps, the picture below will explain why busses weren't lined up and ready to go:

[Mysteefied]

Oh wow, where did you hear about the kid getting arrested? I hadn't heard that yet, but thanks. I heard he was like 15 yrs old. Either way, I agree, he's a hero! Smart kid!! He gets nothing but kudos from me!!

[SheilaMae]

Ya gotta do what ya gotta do!! Geeze...I want to be the first to put $10 bucks in a bucket toward that kid's bail and legal defense fund!

-Sheila

[BGW]

perhaps a better choice of words...

18yr old could face charges.

Channel 5 news (http://www.newschannel5.tv/2005/9/1/4255/Taking-refuge-in-the-Astrodome)

My guess is he will be charged and then have the charges dropped or will be found not guilty. That it is even being considered is almost too bizarre to think about.

More on the story (search results)
Jabbor Gibson (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=renegade+bus&btnG=Search)

I have also found web-logs to be quite interesting; giving us an up front and personal view as well as sharing the photos of those that are/were there.

[Coldwolf]

The Potemkin Photo OpSaturday, September 03 2005 @ 09:40 PM Eastern Daylight Time
Contributed by: Stranger (http://www.blah3.com/users.php?mode=profile&uid=2)</font>


src="http://www.blah3.com/images/topics/topic-scandal.jpg" alt="Bush Scandals" title="Bush Scandals" border="0">[/URL]I was tuning in and out of Bush's massive photo op on the Gulf Coast yesterday, and everything at the time seemed just a little too pat for me. From the 'briefing' that went on in a hangar full of helicopters to his walking down a street in Biloxi and having three regular citizens walk up to him for comforting to the last press availiability of the day when he announced that the Convention Center was secure and the levees were being repaired, it was clear that the game plan from the White House was for Bush to go to the region, look decisive, comfort a few citizens, and announce at the end of the day that all was well.



It was a full-on effort to change the subject of discussion from the utter failure of the Bush administration to handle the crisis with even a hint of competency, and in true Bush fashion, he wrapped it up at 5:00 PM and announced that he was 'Flyin' out of (t)here.'



But from beginning to end, the entire exercise was a series of lies - a Potemkin photo op designed to fool those Americans who were not bothering to look closely at what was going on. Let's look at key aspects of Bush's trip that were covered by television.

The Briefing: There were a lot of questions asked yesterday morning about the phony briefing that Bush got in that hangar, featuring a backdrop of Coast Guard helicopters. People were wondering why those choppers were not out picking up flood victims or delivering supplies. The reason why is simple - Bush had the majority of helcopter traffic stopped while Marine One was in the Gulf Coast region. The New Orleans Times-Picayune reported this (Via AmericaBlog (http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/09/breaking-bush-visit-to-new-orleans.html)):

<blockquote>

Three tons of food ready for delivery by air to refugees in St. Bernard Parish and on Algiers Point sat on the Crescent City Connection bridge Friday afternoon as air traffic was halted because of President Bush’s visit to New Orleans, officials said.



The provisions, secured by U.S. Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-Napoleonville, and state Agriculture Commissioner Bob Odom, baked in the afternoon sun as Bush surveyed damage across southeast Louisiana five days after Katrina made landfall as a Category 4 storm, said Melancon’s chief of staff, Casey O’Shea.



“We had arrangements to airlift food by helicopter to these folks, and now the food is sitting in trucks because they won’t let helicopters fly,â€� O’Shea said Friday afternoon.



The food was expected to be in the hands of storm survivors after the president left the devastated region Friday night, he said.
</blockquote>

This leaves me wondering how many people died while Bush was playing Decisive Leader.



The First 'Comforting Session': Then it was off to Biloxi, MS to survey the damage. As Bush, Haley Barbour and others walked down a street, 2 women appeared seemingly out of nowhere for Bush to 'comfort' them. But it turns out that the two women didn't even live in Biloxi, and had just come down for the day to try to 'salvage' clothes from the area for one of the women's son (were they looters?). But they were apparently reasonably telegenic and happened to be in the area, so they were recruited to represent an area where they didn't even live. A number of threads at Democratic Underground (http://tinyurl.com/cp9eu) discuss the weirdness of these women showing up in a disaster area. And a trandcript of the conversation between Bush and the women reads like a bad comedy skit:

<blockquote>

Bush to women: "There's a Salvation Army center that I want to, that I'll tell you where it is, and they'll get you some help. I'm sorry.... They'll help you.....


Woman 1: "I came here looking for clothes..."


Bush: "They'll get you some clothes, at the Salvation Army center..."


Woman 1: "We don't have anything..."


Bush: "I understand.... Do you know where the center is, that I'm talking to you about?"


Guy with shades: "There's no center there, sir, it's a truck."


Bush: "There's trucks?"


Guy: "There's a school, a school about two miles away....."



Bush: "But isn't there a Salvation center down there?"


Guy: "No that's wiped out...."


Bush: "A temporary center? "


Guy: "No sir they've got a truck there, for food."


Bush: "That's what I'm saying, for food and water."


Bush turns to the sister who's been saying how she needs clothes.


Bush to sister: "You need food and water."
</blockquote>

The 'Recovery Efforts': Wherever Bush went yesterday, it seemed as though people were already hard at work rebuilding the affected areas. Unfortunately for Bush, there were a few foreign journalists at his photo ops, and they pulled back the curtain on what we saw on TV to reveal that the 'work' was staged for the media. Here's a translation from the German news show web site (http://tinyurl.com/caz2g).

<blockquote>

Christine Adelhardt live from Biloxi:



"Two minutes ago the President drove by with his convoy. What happened here in Biloxi during the day is really unbelievable. All of a sudden the rescue troops finally showed up, the clean-up vehicles; we didn't see those over the last days here. In an area where it really isn't urgent, there is nobody around, all the remaining people went to the city center.



The President is traveling with a press convoy, so they get wonderful pictures saying the president was here and the help will follow. The amount of this catastrophe shocked me, but the amount of set-up that happened here today is at least equally shocking for me.
</blockquote>

And there's more, this time on the 'recovery efforts' in New Orleans, from War And Piece (http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/002485.html):
<blockquote>

There was a striking dicrepancy between the CNN International report on the Bush visit to the New Orleans disaster zone, yesterday, and reports of the same event by German TV.



ZDF News reported that the president's visit was a completely staged event. Their crew witnessed how the open air food distribution point Bush visited in front of the cameras was torn down immediately after the president and the herd of 'news people' had left and that others which were allegedly being set up were abandoned at the same time.



The people in the area were once again left to fend for themselves, said ZDF.
</blockquote>


Levee Repairs in New Orleans: As Bush flew around the skies above New Orleans, CNN began showing footage of a bulldozer and dump trucks working on the 17th Street levee, which was the maqin source of the flood waters in New Orleans. When Bush got ready to leave, he crowed that 'progress is flowing.' But according to Sen. Mary Landrieu, the crew that was working so hard yesterday left and apparently never came back:
<blockquote>

But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast - black and white, rich and poor, young and old - deserve far better from their national government.
</blockquote>

Control of the Convention Center: Bush made a big deal of telling the nation (http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0509/02/ldt.01.html) that the icon for unrest and chaos in New Orleans this week - the New Orleans Convention Center - was secured by the time of his statement yesterday.
<blockquote>

I'm pleased to report, thanks to the good work of the adjutant general from Louisiana and the troops that have been called in that the convention center is secure.

</blockquote>

But as was pointed out this morning, a report by CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr directly contradicted Bush's statement (http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/WWLBLOG.ac3fcea.html).
<blockquote>

CNN's Barbara Starr reports that there is "no indication" the convention center in New Orleans is secure. She reports there is still much unrest.
</blockquote>

And the now-famous Fox News video (http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/09/02.html#a4763) of Geraldo Rivera inside the Convention Center showed how Bush's idea of 'securing' the center was locking the people in.



All of this information has turned up in one spot or another on the web since yesterday, but I wanted to put it all together in one spot for a reason. Bit by bit, parts of Bush's trip were shown to be less truthful than we deserved. But when you look at the entire trip - and all of the deceit that went into each part of it - it's an inescapable fact that from beginning to end the trip was a menu of lies and self-serving actions that didn't do the region any good. In some instances, like the helicopter groundings halting rescue ops, the trip could conceivably actually killed more people.



And that's the bottom line with this administration. It always has been. Bush, Rove, and the rest of them will go to any measures to get their version of the truth out. and if a few of the little people happen to die in the process, it's no skin off their noses. All of America should know what the true bottom line is.



You are being lied to, and lives have been lost because of it. </p>

[monkey]

Originally posted by Coldwolf:
I was able to verify quickly ..Carniva l donating 3 ships for 6 months.

KUDOS to Carnival for a great great great stepup.

I have a friend that was going to take a cruise out of New Orleans in a couple of months. She was notified that the cruise was cancelled so they could use the ships for victims of the hurricane and they are offering her a full refund and $100.00 off a future cruise from any other port.
I had thought of this idea on the 2nd day after the hurricane. These ships have the ability to make drinkable water, laundries, food service, they are basically a city on the sea. It's great to see a big corporation pitch in like this.

[SheilaMae]

http://quilting.about.com/b/a/198829.htm
I expected to see something like this - been contemplating how to organize to make and send some travel size pillows, in fact, knowing in most of the facilities where survivors would gather it would still likely be too hot for quilts, but I knew in Houston as the International Quilt Festival is just about 60 days off they would have facilities, staff able to implement just about anything right now.

Several of us have said we quilt in various threads...let's send a package from Oakhurst Forums. I'll be putting some things together today and tomorrow, gonna fresh wash some sheets too and grab some boxes when I'm at work tomorrow. I have a roll of batting here and can roll out the ping pong table for quick and easy layering, an extra sewing machine too. How 'bout, come by my house Thursday evening for potluck and lets whip out some finished things to ship out Friday????

Better yet, my house will be open to anyone who wants Wednesday and Thursday evenings and if ya don't sew, quilt, have extra sheets maybe you can toss in a few bucks for shipping and we can NextDay/Express a package.
-Sheila

[oakhurstleaf]

Coldwolf,

Just a few comments...

Different versions of the truth and blame are everywhere. The German News is just as likely to spin a story as any other news medium... Dirt sells. Here and everywhere.

Louisiana state and local governments have failed their people in many ways and they want to pass the buck. Everyone wants to pass the buck.

Bush is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't as far as making any personal visits to the disaster zone.

This is too BIG to place blame on any one person's shoulders.

Done.

[Californee Girl]

I got this (http://www.meta-religion.com/Secret_societies/Groups/FEMA/fema.htm) in an email this morning. Thought Id share. Im not sure if I should take it seriously or laugh it off.

[Coldwolf]

Laugh it off. And this from the guy that sees everything as a government conspiricy. Its not religion, its fear. FEMA is under the Department of Homeland security. Now theres an organization to fear.

[Gandalf]

I find it oddly amusing that President Bush gets all the blame put squarely on his shoulders by everyone. What about the power of the State Govenor? He is THE one in charge of his or her state. They have the assets to do major good in their state. They own the National Guard. They are the ones responsible for creating and implementing disaster plans within their state. President Bush can not activate the National Guard except for war outside the US. He can not use active troops until the National Guard is called up and then he has to be asked by the Govenor to use them.

It looks like the Govenor of LA and the Mayor of New Orelans called after the levee broke and the city began flooding to take the heat off their poor planning. Why did it take 5 days to activate the National Guard? Bush can't do that.... Why did the police let people back into the city after the storm passed? That was their own fault. Once the levee broke, the city flooded in hours. There was no way they could re-evacuate. Where were the refugee facilities and support structure? Apparently NONE of the State officials had prepared for the hurricane.

So why is it President Bush is taking all the blame? FEMA is reliant on the State for resources initially and the National Guard for additional supplies and support. If the State didn't prepare, guess what? It will take a week or so to spool FEMA up and get the support from surrounding areas. Again, State failure.

So instead of just taking the easy target, learn a bit about the process and educate people on exactly what shortfalls there are in the system. Congressmen and Senators don't really care until the people care or until a disaster happens in their area.

So what could California expect in the event of a massive earthquake where the fault shifted and the San Juaquin flooded? It could happen. It has been predicted. Do you know what the plan is? I don't either and that scares the heck out of me!

Brian

[Coldwolf]

“One of the Worst Abandonments of Americans on American Soil Everâ€�

The president of Jefferson Parish in New Orleans, Aaron Broussard, just issued an emotional appeal on NBC’s Meet the Press. By the end, he was completely broken down, sobbing uncontrollably:

[Crooks and Liars, as always, has the video.]

RUSSERT: You just heard the director of homeland security’s explanation of what has happened this last week. What is your reaction?

BROUSSARD: We have been abandoned by our own country. Hurricane Katrina will go down in history as one of the worst storms ever to hit an American coast. But the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina will go down as one of the worst abandonments of Americans on American soil ever in U.S. history. … Whoever is at the top of this totem pole, that totem pole needs to be chainsawed off and we’ve got to start with some new leadership. It’s not just Katrina that caused all these deaths in New Orleans here. Bureaucracy has committed murder here in the greater New Orleans area and bureaucracy has to stand trial before Congress now.

Broussard then discussed the difficulties local authorities had with FEMA, including one case where they actually posted armed guards to keep FEMA from cutting their communications lines:

Three quick examples. We had Wal-Mart deliver three trucks of water. FEMA turned them back. They said we didn’t need them. This was a week ago. FEMA, we had 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel on a Coast Guard vessel docked in my parish. When we got there with our trucks, FEMA says don’t give you the fuel. Yesterday — yesterday — FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency communication lines. They cut them without notice. Our sheriff, Harry Lee, goes back in, he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards and said no one is getting near these lines…

Finally, Broussard told the tragic personal story of a colleague, and broke down:

I want to give you one last story and I’ll shut up and let you tell me whatever you want to tell me. The guy who runs this building I’m in, Emergency Management, he’s responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, “Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?â€� and he said, “Yeah, Mama, somebody’s coming to get you.â€� Somebody’s coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody’s coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody’s coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody’s coming to get you on Friday… and she drowned Friday night. She drowned Friday night! [Sobbing] Nobody’s coming to get us. Nobody’s coming to get us. The Secretary has promised. Everybody’s promised. They’ve had press conferences. I’m sick of the press conferences. For god’s sakes, just shut up and send us somebody.

Attribution (http://thinkprogress.org/2005/09/04/worst-abandonments/)

[jakobscalpel]

Originally posted by Gandalf:
I find it oddly amusing that President Bush gets all the blame put squarely on his shoulders by everyone.

For once, I'm not in this category. He shouldn't get all the blame. No one is at fault for a hurricane. Individuals are ultimately reponsible for their own well being, both in selecting where to live and reacting appropriately when danger approaches. Still, Bush is deservdely taking heat for his lackluster response to the disaster and diversion of funds from levee repair. These were bad decisions on his part, no doubt. But as some have said already, there is so much diluted blame to go around in this situation that ultimately no one is to blame.

RE: California. I'm a strong believer that no amount of planning (by gov't) will ever compensate for a truly large scale disaster, like a major earthquake. It may help mitigate the aftermath, but only to the extent that the remaining infrastructure can support the assistance. At least with a hurricane there is some warning, whether heeded or not. A huge earthquake will trap the full populations of either the bay area or la where they are. That is one of many reasons why I no longer live there.

[Gandalf]

[ Three quick examples. We had Wal-Mart deliver three trucks of water. FEMA turned them back. They said we didn’t need them. This was a week ago. FEMA, we had 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel on a Coast Guard vessel docked in my parish. When we got there with our trucks, FEMA says don’t give you the fuel. Yesterday — yesterday — FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency communication lines. They cut them without notice. Our sheriff, Harry Lee, goes back in, he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards and said no one is getting near these lines…]

All this discord and it seems that Gov. Blanco has refused to sign over control of the National Guard to the federal government and has turned to a Clinton administration official, former Federal Emergency Management Agency chief James Lee Witt, to help run relief efforts. Why, you ask? She brings in FEMA but then doesn't want them to do what they do. See this link: http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/federal-rescue-coordin...4/1125772411700.html (http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/federal-rescue-coordinator-accused-of-losing-the-plot/2005/09/04/1125772411700.html). It is all like a nightmare and there is no one person to blame. I say forget the blame until everyone has a place to sleep and the children are safe.

[concerned]

Bush was probably concerned about loss of oil revenues.

[Coldwolf]

Editorial blasts federal response (http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/04/times.picayune.editorial/index.html)

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- The Times-Picayune of New Orleans printed this editorial in its Sunday edition, criticizing the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina and calling on every FEMA official to be fired:
An open letter to the President

Dear Mr. President:

We heard you loud and clear Friday when you visited our devastated city and the Gulf Coast and said, "What is not working, we're going to make it right."

Please forgive us if we wait to see proof of your promise before believing you. But we have good reason for our skepticism.

Bienville built New Orleans where he built it for one main reason: It's accessible. The city between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain was easy to reach in 1718.

How much easier it is to access in 2005 now that there are interstates and bridges, airports and helipads, cruise ships, barges, buses and diesel-powered trucks.

Despite the city's multiple points of entry, our nation's bureaucrats spent days after last week's hurricane wringing their hands, lamenting the fact that they could neither rescue the city's stranded victims nor bring them food, water and medical supplies.

Meanwhile there were journalists, including some who work for The Times-Picayune, going in and out of the city via the Crescent City Connection. On Thursday morning, that crew saw a caravan of 13 Wal-Mart tractor trailers headed into town to bring food, water and supplies to a dying city.

Television reporters were doing live reports from downtown New Orleans streets. Harry Connick Jr. brought in some aid Thursday, and his efforts were the focus of a "Today" show story Friday morning.

Yet, the people trained to protect our nation, the people whose job it is to quickly bring in aid were absent. Those who should have been deploying troops were singing a sad song about how our city was impossible to reach.

We're angry, Mr. President, and we'll be angry long after our beloved city and surrounding parishes have been pumped dry. Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been were not. That's to the government's shame.

Mayor Ray Nagin did the right thing Sunday when he allowed those with no other alternative to seek shelter from the storm inside the Louisiana Superdome. We still don't know what the death toll is, but one thing is certain: Had the Superdome not been opened, the city's death toll would have been higher. The toll may even have been exponentially higher.

It was clear to us by late morning Monday that many people inside the Superdome would not be returning home. It should have been clear to our government, Mr. President. So why weren't they evacuated out of the city immediately? We learned seven years ago, when Hurricane Georges threatened, that the Dome isn't suitable as a long-term shelter. So what did state and national officials think would happen to tens of thousands of people trapped inside with no air conditioning, overflowing toilets and dwindling amounts of food, water and other essentials?

State Rep. Karen Carter was right Friday when she said the city didn't have but two urgent needs: "Buses! And gas!" Every official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be fired, Director Michael Brown especially.

In a nationally televised interview Thursday night, he said his agency hadn't known until that day that thousands of storm victims were stranded at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. He gave another nationally televised interview the next morning and said, "We've provided food to the people at the Convention Center so that they've gotten at least one, if not two meals, every single day."

Lies don't get more bald-faced than that, Mr. President.

Yet, when you met with Mr. Brown Friday morning, you told him, "You're doing a heck of a job."

That's unbelievable.

There were thousands of people at the Convention Center because the riverfront is high ground. The fact that so many people had reached there on foot is proof that rescue vehicles could have gotten there, too.

We, who are from New Orleans, are no less American than those who live on the Great Plains or along the Atlantic Seaboard. We're no less important than those from the Pacific Northwest or Appalachia. Our people deserved to be rescued.

No expense should have been spared. No excuses should have been voiced. Especially not one as preposterous as the claim that New Orleans couldn't be reached.

Mr. President, we sincerely hope you fulfill your promise to make our beloved communities work right once again.

When you do, we will be the first to applaud.

[Sandman]

http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/applause.gif

[Coldwolf]

LA TIMES (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-golden5sep05,0,6258105.column?track=hpmostemailedl ink)

Bush's Hurricane Response a Disaster



Nearly five years ago, the Bush administration rode into office bearing its cynicism about government high, like a banner.

It promoted a massive tax cut as a way of "starving the beast" of federal government. President Bush traveled the country telling us that we were overdependent on the government for help with healthcare and retirement. To those wondering what resources might see them into old age, he advised: "a conservative mix of stocks and bonds."

New Orleans is, or should be, the graveyard of the conservative ideology that government is useless. An American city is reduced to Third World desperation as people who own nothing scrounge for necessities in a sea of waste and federal officials offer lame excuses about how their disaster plans would have worked fine had there not been, you know, a disaster. The president, at the head of a global power that can't get its own troops or supplies off their bases to reach the needful, whines, "The private sector needs to do its part."

This deplorable performance has deep roots. Joe M. Allbaugh, a Bush campaign hack without any crisis management experience who was named director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, disparaged federal disaster assistance as "an oversized entitlement program" before Congress in 2001. The public's expectations of government in a disaster situation, he said, "may have ballooned beyond what is an appropriate level." He advised stricken communities to rely for help on "faith-based organizations … like the Salvation Army and the Mennonite Disaster Service."

If Allbaugh were not an amateur, he would have known that communities, "faith-based organizations" and the private sector become overwhelmed by disasters more modest than this one. In a crisis the federal government should be the first responder, not the last, to take charge, not wait to be asked.

Cynicism on such a scale is self-perpetuating. Determined to portray government as little but an intrusion into people's lives, this gang made it irrelevant to hundreds of thousands of victims of Hurricane Katrina — thus giving them, and us, good reason to be cynical after all.

The federal officials assigned to New Orleans have displayed an appalling combination of arrogance and ignorance. Thursday evening on NPR, I heard Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who oversees FEMA, dismiss reports of thousands of refugees trapped at the New Orleans convention center for days without sustenance. He called the reports, in so many words, "rumors and anecdotes."

Informed that an NPR reporter had been on the scene, he sniffed, "I can't argue with you about what your reporter tells you." Later, his staff called back to say that he had "received a report confirming the situation" and that he was now "working tirelessly" to get food to the location.

At a news conference that day, FEMA Director Michael Brown, Allbaugh's successor and college chum, attributed the death toll in New Orleans "to people who did not heed evacuation warnings." Insensitive to the truth that many of the stranded had no way of responding to the warnings — no money, no transport out of the city and nowhere to go — he blamed them for having failed to prepare any better than, well, the federal government.

He also described security in the city, where snipers were firing on rescue boats and a mob beat back police trying to impose order at the convention center, as "pretty darn good." The image of lawlessness, he said, was fomented by those willing to "stick a camera" in front of "bad people."

The Bush administration is not alone in having ignored pleas to improve the hurricane and flood defenses of New Orleans. But it bears sole responsibility for a crisis response that has been fairly labeled a national disgrace. FEMA drafted an action plan for a New Orleans flood: pre-position food, supplies and hospital ships for immediate deployment in the aftermath. Brown and Chertoff failed to implement it adequately, pleading that no one could have anticipated a disaster that had in fact been anticipated by engineers, geographers and political leaders for decades. As I write, the Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort remains moored in Baltimore, not to arrive off New Orleans until the end of this week.

President Bush will surely feel the consequences of his dereliction. Every policy of his administration will be viewed through the prism of the debacle of New Orleans. The pursuit of a personal vendetta against Saddam Hussein, supported by manipulated intelligence, has sucked billions out of the treasury and removed more than 30% of Louisiana and Mississippi National Guard members from their homes, so they must watch the disaster unfold from half a world away instead of assisting their own communities. Tax cuts for the wealthy have been financed by budget cuts

for disaster preparedness and other crucial programs. Four years of anti-terrorism planning have failed to produce a competent system for mitigating a metropolitan cataclysm — one that, on the ground, is indistinguishable from the effects of the terrorist attack we've supposedly been girding for since 9/11.

Then there's Bush's sustained assault on social insurance programs such as Social Security, safety nets that are to be replaced by the slogan "You're on your own."

New Orleans is not a local calamity; it belongs to us all, not least because it signals what to expect from this administration. If a major earthquake strikes Los Angeles or San Francisco, will President Bush wait to respond until he can conclude his vacation, as he did last week? Will his appointees express surprise at an eventuality that "no one could have predicted"?

Probably. George W. Bush is known for never admitting his mistakes. Consequently, he never learns from his mistakes. The chances are dismal that he will learn from this one. We're on our own.

[Coldwolf]

What about the power of the State Govenor? He is THE one in charge of his or her state. They have the assets to do major good in their state. They own the National Guard. They are the ones responsible for creating and implementing disaster plans within their state. President Bush can not activate the National Guard except for war outside the US. He can not use active troops until the National Guard is called up and then he has to be asked by the Govenor to use them.

It looks like the Govenor of LA and the Mayor of New Orelans called after the levee broke and the city began flooding to take the heat off their poor planning. Why did it take 5 days to activate the National Guard?


hmm...wanna retract before I tear this apart?
I'll give you a couple of roadsigns.
The Governor of LA asked for help from the FEMA and the Federal government BEFORE Katrina hit land.
While the LA National Guard may belong to LA< they fall under the Department of Homeland Security, and were called to IRAQ along with 90% of their equiptment.

[electroman]

FEMA Director Michael Brown, has no prior experience in the area of disaster relief. He was the college roommate of Bush's campaign manager. Just a well paid do-nothing job for one of the 'good ol' boy network', but this time it backfired. I'm sure he's financially set for life by now so even if he is forced out he'll never worry about where his next meal is coming from. It kinda makes you sick, doesn't it.

[Yosemite Joy]

Parts of the United States are as poor as the Third World, according to a shocking United Nations report on global inequality.

Claims that the New Orleans floods have laid bare a growing racial and economic divide in the US have, until now, been rejected by the American political establishment as emotional rhetoric. But yesterday's UN report provides statistical proof that for many - well beyond those affected by the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina - the great American Dream is an ongoing nightmare..........

The annual Human Development Report normally concerns itself with the Third World, but the 2005 edition scrutinises inequalities in health provision inside the US as part of a survey of how inequality worldwide is retarding the eradication of poverty.

It reveals that the infant mortality rate has been rising in the US for the past five years - and is now the same as Malaysia. America's black children are twice as likely as whites to die before their first birthday.

The report is bound to incense the Bush administration as it provides ammunition for critics who have claimed that the fiasco following Hurricane Katrina shows that Washington does not care about poor black Americans. But the 370-page document is critical of American policies towards poverty abroad as well as at home. And, in unusually outspoken language, it accuses the US of having "an overdeveloped military strategy and an under-developed strategy for human security".

"There is an urgent need to develop a collective security framework that goes beyond military responses to terrorism," it continues. " Poverty and social breakdown are core components of the global security threat."

It goes on to say worse things about the state of insurance and health care in the US, which doesn't directly relate to this thread so I left it out, you can read it here: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article311066.ece

Barbra Bush: "So many of the people [in stadium]... underprivaliged anyway... so lucky now"

Wolf Blitzer: "So many of these people, almost all of them we see are so poor, and so black..."

Jack Berkman (Republican Strategist) "I understand there are 10,000 people dead... these things happen"

Jim Angel (Fox News): "Dems still fit to be tied.. slow response, asking for firing of Michael Brown"
Oh yeah, it is the evil Democrats...

Who would they blame if the Mayor and Gov weren't Democrats???????

O'Reilly: "Every teacher should tell the students, 'if you refuse to learn, if you refuse to work hard, if you become addicted, if you live a 'gangsta' life you will be poor and powerless, just like many of those in New Orleans'".

[Yosemite Joy]

I am aware this is from a week ago, but I cried when I heard this, I say Nagin for President 2008.

NAGIN: I told him we had an incredible crisis here and that his flying over in Air Force One does not do it justice. And that I have been all around this city, and I am very frustrated because we are not able to marshal resources and we're outmanned in just about every respect. (Listen to the mayor express his frustration in this video -- 12:09)

You know the reason why the looters got out of control? Because we had most of our resources saving people, thousands of people that were stuck in attics, man, old ladies. ... You pull off the doggone ventilator vent and you look down there and they're standing in there in water up to their freaking necks.

And they don't have a clue what's going on down here. They flew down here one time two days after the doggone event was over with TV cameras, AP reporters, all kind of ******* -- excuse my French everybody in America, but I am pissed.

WWL: Did you say to the president of the United States, "I need the military in here"?

NAGIN: I said, "I need everything."

Now, I will tell you this -- and I give the president some credit on this -- he sent one John Wayne dude down here that can get some stuff done, and his name is [Lt.] Gen. [Russel] Honore.

And he came off the doggone chopper, and he started cussing and people started moving. And he's getting some stuff done.

They ought to give that guy -- if they don't want to give it to me, give him full authority to get the job done, and we can save some people.

WWL: What do you need right now to get control of this situation?

NAGIN: I need reinforcements, I need troops, man. I need 500 buses, man. We ain't talking about -- you know, one of the briefings we had, they were talking about getting public school bus drivers to come down here and bus people out here.

I'm like, "You got to be kidding me. This is a national disaster. Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get their asses moving to New Orleans."

That's -- they're thinking small, man. And this is a major, major, major deal. And I can't emphasize it enough, man. This is crazy.

I've got 15,000 to 20,000 people over at the convention center. It's bursting at the seams. The poor people in Plaquemines Parish. ... We don't have anything, and we're sharing with our brothers in Plaquemines Parish.

It's awful down here, man.

WWL: Do you believe that the president is seeing this, holding a news conference on it but can't do anything until [Louisiana Gov.] Kathleen Blanco requested him to do it? And do you know whether or not she has made that request?

NAGIN: I have no idea what they're doing. But I will tell you this: You know, God is looking down on all this, and if they are not doing everything in their power to save people, they are going to pay the price. Because every day that we delay, people are dying and they're dying by the hundreds, I'm willing to bet you.

We're getting reports and calls that are breaking my heart, from people saying, "I've been in my attic. I can't take it anymore. The water is up to my neck. I don't think I can hold out." And that's happening as we speak.

You know what really upsets me, Garland? We told everybody the importance of the 17th Street Canal issue. We said, "Please, please take care of this. We don't care what you do. Figure it out."

WWL: Who'd you say that to?

NAGIN: Everybody: the governor, Homeland Security, FEMA. You name it, we said it.

And they allowed that pumping station next to Pumping Station 6 to go under water. Our sewage and water board people ... stayed there and endangered their lives.

And what happened when that pumping station went down, the water started flowing again in the city, and it starting getting to levels that probably killed more people.

In addition to that, we had water flowing through the pipes in the city. That's a power station over there.

So there's no water flowing anywhere on the east bank of Orleans Parish. So our critical water supply was destroyed because of lack of action.

WWL: Why couldn't they drop the 3,000-pound sandbags or the containers that they were talking about earlier? Was it an engineering feat that just couldn't be done?

NAGIN: They said it was some pulleys that they had to manufacture. But, you know, in a state of emergency, man, you are creative, you figure out ways to get stuff done.

Then they told me that they went overnight, and they built 17 concrete structures and they had the pulleys on them and they were going to drop them.

I flew over that thing yesterday, and it's in the same shape that it was after the storm hit. There is nothing happening. And they're feeding the public a line of bull and they're spinning, and people are dying down here.

WWL: If some of the public called and they're right, that there's a law that the president, that the federal government can't do anything without local or state requests, would you request martial law?

NAGIN: I've already called for martial law in the city of New Orleans. We did that a few days ago.

WWL: Did the governor do that, too?

NAGIN: I don't know. I don't think so.

But we called for martial law when we realized that the looting was getting out of control. And we redirected all of our police officers back to patrolling the streets. They were dead-tired from saving people, but they worked all night because we thought this thing was going to blow wide open last night. And so we redirected all of our resources, and we hold it under check.

I'm not sure if we can do that another night with the current resources.

And I am telling you right now: They're showing all these reports of people looting and doing all that weird stuff, and they are doing that, but people are desperate and they're trying to find food and water, the majority of them.

Now you got some knuckleheads out there, and they are taking advantage of this lawless -- this situation where, you know, we can't really control it, and they're doing some awful, awful things. But that's a small majority of the people. Most people are looking to try and survive.

And one of the things people -- nobody's talked about this. Drugs flowed in and out of New Orleans and the surrounding metropolitan area so freely it was scary to me, and that's why we were having the escalation in murders. People don't want to talk about this, but I'm going to talk about it.

You have drug addicts that are now walking around this city looking for a fix, and that's the reason why they were breaking in hospitals and drugstores. They're looking for something to take the edge off of their jones, if you will.

And right now, they don't have anything to take the edge off. And they've probably found guns. So what you're seeing is drug-starving crazy addicts, drug addicts, that are wrecking havoc. And we don't have the manpower to adequately deal with it. We can only target certain sections of the city and form a perimeter around them and hope to God that we're not overrun.

WWL: Well, you and I must be in the minority. Because apparently there's a section of our citizenry out there that thinks because of a law that says the federal government can't come in unless requested by the proper people, that everything that's going on to this point has been done as good as it can possibly be.

NAGIN: Really?

WWL: I know you don't feel that way.

NAGIN: Well, did the tsunami victims request? Did it go through a formal process to request?

You know, did the Iraqi people request that we go in there? Did they ask us to go in there? What is more important?

And I'll tell you, man, I'm probably going get in a whole bunch of trouble. I'm probably going to get in so much trouble it ain't even funny. You probably won't even want to deal with me after this interview is over.

WWL: You and I will be in the funny place together.

NAGIN: But we authorized $8 billion to go to Iraq lickety-quick. After 9/11, we gave the president unprecedented powers lickety-quick to take care of New York and other places.

Now, you mean to tell me that a place where most of your oil is coming through, a place that is so unique when you mention New Orleans anywhere around the world, everybody's eyes light up -- you mean to tell me that a place where you probably have thousands of people that have died and thousands more that are dying every day, that we can't figure out a way to authorize the resources that we need? Come on, man.

You know, I'm not one of those drug addicts. I am thinking very clearly.

And I don't know whose problem it is. I don't know whether it's the governor's problem. I don't know whether it's the president's problem, but somebody needs to get their *** on a plane and sit down, the two of them, and figure this out right now.

WWL: What can we do here?

NAGIN: Keep talking about it.

WWL: We'll do that. What else can we do?

NAGIN: Organize people to write letters and make calls to their congressmen, to the president, to the governor. Flood their doggone offices with requests to do something. This is ridiculous.

I don't want to see anybody do anymore ******* press conferences. Put a moratorium on press conferences. Don't do another press conference until the resources are in this city. And then come down to this city and stand with us when there are military trucks and troops that we can't even count.

Don't tell me 40,000 people are coming here. They're not here. It's too doggone late. Now get off your asses and do something, and let's fix the biggest ******* crisis in the history of this country.

WWL: I'll say it right now, you're the only politician that's called and called for arms like this. And if -- whatever it takes, the governor, president -- whatever law precedent it takes, whatever it takes, I bet that the people listening to you are on your side.

NAGIN: Well, I hope so, Garland. I am just -- I'm at the point now where it don't matter. People are dying. They don't have homes. They don't have jobs. The city of New Orleans will never be the same in this time.

WWL: We're both pretty speechless here.

NAGIN: Yeah, I don't know what to say. I got to go.

WWL: OK. Keep in touch. Keep in touch.

[Yosemite Joy]

It was Bush's responsiblity.. Impeach him!

Blanco declared a state of Emergency, Bush signed it, which makes it a Federal case, which means he is responisible for the mess. The levees are controlled by a federal agency, the Army Corp of Engineers. Hello? Earth to the Roveian spin...

Lies, lies, lies... Fore!

Why aren't the Republican governors of Mississppi and Alabama being blamed? Oh yeah, cause they are REPUBLICAN!

Quit shifting the blame...

They are blaming the local and state agencies, give me a break... The attacks, the smear campains, people are seeing through it.

When Bush declared a distaster, it was a FEDERAL RESPONSIBILITY. Now that people are outraged, the President is stating "state officals were slow to call for outside help" No no, retract that... On Aug 27 Gov Blanco gave a letter to the President, "This incident is of such severity, and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capablity of the state and affected local governments , supplementary federal assistance is necessary to save lives, protect property, public health and safety to lessen or divert the threat of this disaster."

[Yosemite Joy]

FEMA director off of Katrina..

WASHINGTON - Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown is being removed from his role in managing the Bush administration's Hurricane Katrina relief efforts and is returning to Washington.


Brown, who has been under fire for the federal government's slow response to the storm that devastated much of the Gulf Coast region, will be replaced by Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad W. Allen, who was overseeing New Orleans relief and rescue efforts.

Asked if he was being made a scapegoat for a federal relief effort that has drawn widespread and sharp criticism, Brown told The Associated Press after a long pause: "By the press, yes. By the president, No."


Now, for the Impeachment of Bush and his cronies..

[Sandman]

Holdouts to Be Removed From New Orleans
Sep 09 10:34 AM US/Eastern


By DON BABWIN
Associated Press Writer

NEW ORLEANS

Authorities said their sweep of this deluged city for the last voluntary evacuees was nearly complete, with officers ready to carry out the mayor's order to forcibly remove the thousands who remain in their homes.

"The ones who wanted to leave, I would say most of them are out," said Detective Sgt. James Imbrogglio.

Between 5,000 and 10,000 residents are believed left in the city, where toxic floodwaters have started to slowly recede but the task of collecting rotting corpses and clearing debris will likely take months.

Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Jason Rule said his crew pulled 18 people from their homes Thursday. He said some of the holdouts did not want to leave unless they could take their pets.

"It's getting to the point where they're delirious," Rule said. "A couple of them don't know who they were. They think the water will go down in a few days."

Police Chief Eddie Compass said officers would use the "minimum amount of force" necessary to persuade those who remain to evacuate. Although no one was forcibly removed Thursday, some residents said they left under extreme pressure.

"They were all insisting that I had to leave my home," said Shelia Dalferes, who said she had 15 minutes to pack before she and her husband were evacuated.

"The implication was there with their plastic handcuffs on their belt. Who wants to go out like that?"

As searches for the living continued, the grim task of retrieving corpses intensified under the broiling sun. Officials raised the death toll in Louisiana to 118 Thursday, though New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin has said up to 10,000 could be dead in that city alone. State officials have ordered 25,000 body bags.

Authorities are now faced with the challenge of how to identify bodies that may be bloated and decayed beyond recognition. At two collection sites, federal mortuary teams were collecting information that may help identify the bodies, such as where they were found. Personal effects were also being logged.

At the temporary morgue set up in nearby St. Gabriel, where 67 bodies had been collected by Thursday, the remains were being photographed and forensic workers hope to use dental X-rays, fingerprints and DNA to identify them.

Dr. Bryan Patucci, coroner of St. Bernard Parish, said it may be impossible to identify all the victims until authorities compile a final list of missing people.

Decaying corpses in the floodwaters could pose problems for engineers who are desperately trying to pump the city dry. While 37 of the 174 pumps in the New Orleans area were working and 17 portable pumps were in place Thursday, officials said the mammoth undertaking could be complicated by corpses getting clogged in the pumps.

"It's got a huge focus of our attention right now," said John Rickey of the Army Corps of Engineers. "Those remains are people's loved ones."

Some 400,000 homes in the city were also still without power, with no immediate prospect of getting it back. And fires continued to be a problem. At least 11 blazes burned across the city Thursday, including at historically black Dillard University where three buildings were destroyed.

Also Thursday, Congress rushed through an additional $51.8 billion for relief and recovery efforts and President Bush pledged to make it "easy and simple as possible" for uprooted storm victims to collect food stamps and other government benefits.

In an attempt to stem the criticism of the slow federal response to the disaster, Vice President Dick Cheney also toured parts of the ravaged Gulf Coast, claiming significant progress but acknowledging immense obstacles remained to a full recovery.

Meanwhile, Democrats threatened to boycott the naming of a panel that Republican leaders are proposing to investigate the administration's readiness and response to the storm. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said it was like a baseball pitcher calling "his own balls and strikes."

Democrats have urged appointment of an independent panel like the Sept. 11 commission.

Confusion continued to be a problem in many areas:

_ Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said that radio equipment and portable generators she requested from the federal government a week ago had yet to arrive. Federal officials said they were tracking down the status of the items.

_ In Houston, hundreds of storm victims waited for hours to pick up debit cards for cash that had been promised by relief agencies. By noon Thursday, so many people had jammed the entrance to the sign-up area that some were overcome by the heat and police were summoned.

___

Associated Press writers Cain Burdeau, Melinda DeSlatte, Brett Martel, Erin McClam and Doug Simpson contributed to this report.

[Coldwolf]

Originally posted by Yosemite Joy:
FEMA director off of Katrina..

WASHINGTON - Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown is being removed from his role in managing the Bush administration's Hurricane Katrina relief efforts and is returning to Washington.


Brown, who has been under fire for the federal government's slow response to the storm that devastated much of the Gulf Coast region, will be replaced by Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad W. Allen, who was overseeing New Orleans relief and rescue efforts.

Asked if he was being made a scapegoat for a federal relief effort that has drawn widespread and sharp criticism, Brown told The Associated Press after a long pause: "By the press, yes. By the president, No."


Now, for the Impeachment of Bush and his cronies..

From TIME.COM (http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1103003,00.html)

Before joining FEMA, his only previous stint in emergency management, according to his bio posted on FEMA's website, was "serving as an assistant city manager with emergency services oversight." The White House press release from 2001 stated that Brown worked for the city of Edmond, Okla., from 1975 to 1978 "overseeing the emergency services division." In fact, according to Claudia Deakins, head of public relations for the city of Edmond, Brown was an "assistant to the city manager" from 1977 to 1980, not a manager himself, and had no authority over other employees. "The assistant is more like an intern," she told TIME. "Department heads did not report to him." Brown did do a good job at his humble position, however, according to his boss. "Yes. Mike Brown worked for me. He was my administrative assistant. He was a student at Central State University," recalls former city manager Bill Dashner. "Mike used to handle a lot of details. Every now and again I'd ask him to write me a speech. He was very loyal. He was always on time. He always had on a suit and a starched white shirt."

In response, Nicol Andrews, deputy strategic director in FEMA's office of public affairs, insists that while Brown began as an intern, he became an "assistant city manager" with a distinguished record of service. "According to Mike Brown," she says, "a large portion [of the points raised by TIME] is very inaccurate."

Brown's lack of experience in emergency management isn't the only apparent bit of padding on his resume, which raises questions about how rigorously the White House vetted him before putting him in charge of FEMA. Under the "honors and awards" section of his profile at FindLaw.com — which is information on the legal website provided by lawyers or their offices—he lists "Outstanding Political Science Professor, Central State University". However, Brown "wasn't a professor here, he was only a student here," says Charles Johnson, News Bureau Director in the University Relations office at the University of Central Oklahoma (formerly named Central State University). "He may have been an adjunct instructor," says Johnson, but that title is very different from that of "professor." Carl Reherman, a former political science professor at the University through the '70s and '80s, says that Brown "was not on the faculty." As for the honor of "Outstanding Political Science Professor," Johnson says, "I spoke with the department chair yesterday and he's not aware of it." Johnson could not confirm that Brown made the Dean's list or was an "Outstanding Political Science Senior," as is stated on his online profile.

Speaking for Brown, Andrews says that Brown has never claimed to be a political science professor, in spite of what his profile in FindLaw indicates. "He was named the outstanding political science senior at Central State, and was an adjunct professor at Oklahoma City School of Law."

Under the heading of "Professional Associations and Memberships" on FindLaw, Brown states that from 1983 to the present he has been director of the Oklahoma Christian Home, a nursing home in Edmond. But an administrator with the Home told TIME that Brown is "not a person that anyone here is familiar with." She says there was a board of directors until a couple of years ago, but she couldn't find anyone who recalled him being on it. According to FEMA's Andrews, Brown said "he's never claimed to be the director of the home. He was on the board of directors, or governors of the nursing home." However, a veteran employee at the center since 1981 says Brown "was never director here, was never on the board of directors, was never executive director. He was never here in any capacity. I never heard his name mentioned here."

The FindLaw profile for Brown was amended on Thursday to remove a reference to his tenure at the International Arabian Horse Association, which has become a contested point.

Brown's FindLaw profile lists a wide range of areas of legal practice, from estate planning to family law to sports. However, one former colleague does not remember Brown's work as sterling. Stephen Jones, a prominent Oklahoma lawyer who was lead defense attorney on the Timothy McVeigh case, was Brown's boss for two-and-a-half years in the early '80s. "He did mainly transactional work, not litigation," says Jones. "There was a feeling that he was not serious and somewhat shallow." Jones says when his law firm split, Brown was one of two staffers who was let go.

SO how did Brown get that job? Oh yeah he was a campaign manager for The Moron.

[Yosemite Joy]

Hmmmm.....

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/09/09.html#a4871

[Coldwolf]

NEWSWEEK ARTICLE (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9287434/)

You should read the whole thing.
page 3
Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, a motherly but steely figure known by the nickname Queen Bee, knew that she needed help. But she wasn't quite sure what. At about 8 p.m., she spoke to Bush. "Mr. President," she said, "we need your help. We need everything you've got."

Bush, the governor later recalled, was reassuring. But the conversation was all a little vague. Blanco did not specifically ask for a massive intervention by the active-duty military. "She wouldn't know the 82nd Airborne from the Harlem Boys' Choir," said an official in the governor's office, who did not wish to be identified talking about his boss's conversations with the president. There are a number of steps Bush could have taken, short of a full-scale federal takeover, like ordering the military to take over the pitiful and (by now) largely broken emergency communications system throughout the region. But the president, who was in San Diego preparing to give a speech the next day on the war in Iraq, went to bed.


page 5
The denial and the frustration finally collided aboard Air Force One on Friday. As the president's plane sat on the tarmac at New Orleans airport, a confrontation occurred that was described by one participant as "as blunt as you can get without the Secret Service getting involved." Governor Blanco was there, along with various congressmen and senators and Mayor Nagin (who took advantage of the opportunity to take a shower aboard the plane). One by one, the lawmakers listed their grievances as Bush listened. Rep. Bobby Jindal, whose district encompasses New Orleans, told of a sheriff who had called FEMA for assistance. According to Jindal, the sheriff was told to e-mail his request, "and the guy was sitting in a district underwater and with no electricity," Jindal said, incredulously. "How does that make any sense?" Jindal later told NEWSWEEK that "almost everybody" around the conference table had a similar story about how the federal response "just wasn't working." With each tale, "the president just shook his head, as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing," says Jindal, a conservative Republican and Bush appointee who lost a close race to Blanco. Repeatedly, the president turned to his aides and said, "Fix it."

According to Sen. David Vitter, a Republican ally of Bush's, the meeting came to a head when Mayor Nagin blew up during a fraught discussion of "who's in charge?" Nagin slammed his hand down on the table and told Bush, "We just need to cut through this and do what it takes to have a more-controlled command structure. If that means federalizing it, let's do it."

A debate over "federalizing" the National Guard had been rattling in Washington for the previous three days. Normally, the Guard is under the control of the state governor, but the Feds can take over—if the governor asks them to. Nagin suggested that Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, the Pentagon's on-scene commander, be put in charge. According to Senator Vitter, Bush turned to Governor Blanco and said, "Well, what do you think of that, Governor?" Blanco told Bush, "I'd rather talk to you about that privately." To which Nagin responded, "Well, why don't you do that now?"

The meeting broke up. Bush and Blanco disappeared to talk. More than a week later, there was still no agreement. Blanco didn't want to give up her authority, and Bush didn't press. Jindal suggested that Bush appoint Colin Powell as a kind of relief czar, and Bush replied, "I'll take that into consideration." Bush does not like to fire people. He told Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to go down to Louisiana and sort out the various problems. A day later FEMA's Brown was on his way back to Washington.

Late last week, Bush was, by some accounts, down and angry. But another Bush aide described the atmosphere inside the White House as "strangely surreal and almost detached." At one meeting described by this insider, officials were oddly self-congratulatory, perhaps in an effort to buck each other up. Life inside a bunker can be strange, especially in defeat.

[BGW]

I just received another 'survival report' that I'd like to share.

Things are starting to resemble a sort of normalcy. The interview went as well as it could. The organization interviewed a number of people, and they have good candidates. It will be stiff to get another interview. I've decided to not worry about it, and oddly enough, I haven't.

James and I are headed to Columbia MO on Tuesday. My car has finally had a symptom that declares it ready to be sold for parts. I'll start work on that today. James and I will rent a car. A friend is generously paying for it.

I'm feeling very blessed through this whole situation. My house is intact, and I'm assuming that most of my stuff is okay. James' sister and her husband have been extremely accomodating in spite of some financial issues they are having (started before the storm).

My landlord found me, and didn't ask for a red cent, just that I was okay. We spoke of the welfare of people we knew in common.

I'm putting together some information for my program. I'm also starting to get back into the groove of job hunting again.

Keep on me to check in with you.

Life is working itself out. I'm very lucky.

Shanna


________________________________________________


We can say and complain about the Gov't all we want, but this is the reality. My friends have used up their time in Chattanooga and are headed to Columbus, Mo. hoping to be there long enough to find jobs before their welcome is worn out yet once again.

Do you choose to relocate period? I have picked up and moved with 35 boxes of 'stuff' and I felt I had started out on a new segment of my life with nothing. I now understand how lucky I was to have those 35 beer case sized boxes of stuff.

[Coldwolf]

As I said earlier, the Dems are going to hurl accusationa and the Rep are going to circle the wagons and deny.

So From the RNC there is only one talking point and you are going to hear it over and over. It's disappointing that while President Bush has focused his administration's entire efforts towards saving lives and helping the victims of Katrina, there are those who are using this tragedy to score cheap political points.
Its an attempt to deflect deserved criticizm and teflon the WhiteHouse.
You are going to hear it from every shill for the RNC

[Patagoniamaniac]

I really wish people would stop waisting their time and energy by pointing fingers and venting their anger at who is to blame in this tradgic situation. My opinion is simply this..Our government is doing the best they can. It is physicaly impossible to save everyone in a matter of hours. I just hope that everyone is doing their part to make this situation better than worse.. we all should be helping by either donating to the redcross, or perhaps housing the homeless for a time being. We are having a church meeting at sierra Pines ( Tuesday)about sending some people to N.O. to help . we even actually have some that are preparing to leave there this week. We are also getting information together for anyone who is willing to take in a family...Del and I have prayed and talked about this and have decided to open up our home.This is the least we can do, so please , if you think about it..pray that we can be able to take in a family that could use our help...that said...I pray for healing and peace for the families of the 911 victims and the victims of the hurricane..i pray they experience the Peace that passes all understanding....

[Yosemite Joy]

Pata, I saw you at church yesterday http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/happy.gif... I have decided not to attend that church anymore after a couple things that were said yesterday by the Pastor.

Anyway, Pata, there should be people to blame for the horrid conditions and things that happened in NO.

See, tragedy usually makes or breaks a president. Go back in history and you see this is true. It is even true for Bush. 9/11 made his rating soar to the 80's.. now he has the lowest poll rating a president has ever had. 38%. He hired a crony to do a serious job Pata. People died because the FEMA director did a poor job. Some people died because of reasons of their own. People were raped, killed, etc in the Convention Center, with no food or water. The FEMA director claimed he didn't know about it for days...

I commend you and anyone else who helps these people...

The government is not doing the best it can. Please watch and listen to something other then FNC.

[TOT]

What scares me more is that maybe you're right, Pata.

If this is the best they can do, we're screwed.

[Coldwolf]

I really wish people would stop waisting their time and energy by pointing fingers and venting their anger at who is to blame in this tradgic situation.


1. Why is it that people say this when they don't like where the blame is going to fall?

My opinion is simply this..Our government is doing the best they can.

2. I agree. the government is doing the best they can. The administration is filled with incompetent fools, and they have proven it well.
What they are doing now is shunting the blame elsewhere, while attempting to rectify the damage they have administered. They remind me of a dog trying to round up loose chickens. Chasing here, chasing there...never doing much besides killing the occasional chicken. Meanwhile they are making plenty of noise.

They are doing the best they can.

So should we. On a personal level, we can donate to the Red Cross. They are helping. If you can do it, volunteer, or help someone to volunteer. Maybe your company has a way you can offer your vacation time to a co-worker that has been asked to help. Donate again to the Red Cross. And Again. And AGAIN. The need isn't going to go away quickly, and most of us can't give huge sums of money. But if we give twenty a payperiod for 2 months, it adds up.

As for pointing fingers at those people whos incompetence and lack of foresight caused this. Those people need to be removed from positions of power. In order to be removed, they need to be identified. In some cases this won't be enough. Some need to be prosecuted. There was a breakdown in communication. It needs to be pointed out. And fixed. And those who are saying stop pointing fingers?? Is it because the fingers are pointing at them?

The government is doing the best they can. Please. It would have been nice if they had put a little more effort into prevention. Emergency planning. Rescue operations.
Because whats left now, is picking up the dead and cleaning up the mess.
And the poor of New Orleans? They're going to get a little help for a little while. And they get to be the poor of a new town.

The Democrats have to come out fighting for the national security of America. Forget about an investigation. The facts are in, Bush was in Neverland and the Governor of Louisiana couldn't even reach a high official in the White House as New Orleans started to become unglued.

We are long past the value of another commission to whitewash another Bush catastrophic failure that threatens the very safety of the United States of America.

It's time for the Democrats to rise up and stop doing business as usual on the Hill. This is not a time for the hesitant and cautious politicians who consult their high-paid pollsters and image makers before making a move.

It's time to come out fighting and battle back against the spin, the message points, the slander, the treason, the lies, the incompetence, and the complete lack of accountability that is the hallmark of this ill-fated regime.

These are your message points: our lives are in peril with Bush in office; he tries to elude responsibility for his actions by blaming others; there are some things only the federal government can do -- but it needs a competent leader; contracting out America's national security to corrupt campaign contributors of the GOP puts all of us at risk; good government is more than a series of photo-ops; if Bush allowed this to happen to New Orleans, what will happen if a natural disaster occurs in your community?

That's too much for a single message point to be sure. But it's the beginning of a good offense. The Dems always cave too early. They need to keep fighting until they are defining the terms of the political debate. If you tenaciously keep at it, without apologizing and retreating, eventually you will break through to the other side.

Bush gets away with his Potemkin presidency because a good percentage of the American population doesn't know the truth. The Democrats have to stop censoring their comments about Bush. To paraphrase Harry Truman, "Just tell the truth, and they'll think it's hell."

A recent poll discovered that the more Americans were informed about specific provisions of the so-called Patriot Act, the more they opposed it. But Americans will never know the truth, if the Democrats shout once and then back off, or -- worse yet -- don't shout at all.

The Bushcos know this: tell a lie five times and it becomes the truth; barrel ahead and you will eventually ride into another news cycle and the press will ease up and the public will forget about your latest crime against the nation; the party that shouts the loudest and the longest wins; intimidation, bullying, slander, fear and dirty tricks work.

If that's not enough to evoke an unrelenting, unstoppable tidal wave of outrage and exposure of the truth by the Democrats, we are doomed.

Tell the people the truth five times, with passion, and they might learn the truth -- and realize the grave risks that Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld and Rove pose to the lives of the average American and the lives of their loved ones.

Start screaming at the top of your lungs and don't let up, don't back down, and don't cut and run. If you don't express passionate anger and inform the public at every turn, with every detail of Bush's ongoing betrayal of the nation, they won't be outraged; they will accept it as normalcy.

Worse yet, they won't even know that they are being duped by five years of the "big lie" from the "boy in the bubble" and his handlers. Because the "big lie," absent a sustained onslaught of the truth, becomes the truth.

Pull the fire alarm and keep pulling it.

Because otherwise, Bush will recover and people will forget that the arsonist fringe wing of America is burning down this great nation with its arrogance, ineptitude, dishonesty, cronyism and corruption.

[Yosemite Joy]

MICHAEL BROWN RESIGNED!!!

[Patagoniamaniac]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Yosemite Joy:
Pata, I saw you at church yesterday http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/happy.gif...

WELL,
why Didnt you come say hi to me????????????
you said you saw me at starbucks a time ago too but never said hi....I'd love to meet you sometime and if I saw you anywhere...I would definitly say hi to you....hmmm.. http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/sad3.gif

as for not liking what pastor Bruce said..I'd love to know what it was that had you decided not to come back.... was it when he said he doesnt think he'd go to hell if he was 86 years old and checking out a babe right before being hit by a truck?...I thought that was funny....i know alot of other christian people that would be blown away by his being frank,honest and open...but..Thats what i love about him..He's just like the rest of us...I dont think he's offending too many people with how much that church is growing...they are going to need to build a bigger church soon...well, I hope you find another church that meets your needs. There are so many great churches in our area.It's just a matter of finding the one you feel comfortable with...hope you still plan on attending one of them...anyways..
I hope you had a great honeymoon and I wish you would have told us you were getting married so that we could of had a bridal party for you! maybe we still can?...

as for someone being blamed for the effects of the hurricane? im sure there are.. certain individuals to blame..I understand The levee didnt break till after the hurricane..Most people were warned to flee, but decided to stay...because they weathered the previous hurricane..I just feel that many of us are responsible for our own actions and we have the freedom of choice..my heart goes out to those who were disabled and old and couldnt leave..that is so sad...I'm just greatful that the body count wasnt as high as was excpected.thats a positive note to end on...

[Patagoniamaniac]

food for thought
Life can be war; we all know that. And when life, through nature or some other contrivance, fires a swift and sudden mortar into our midst meant to fracture and destroy us, our first step should be to scramble to our feet and huddle together. A cord of many strands, as it is said, is not easily broken.

But against nature, it seems, we've been our own greatest foe. Intent on taking potshots and shoving others toward the explosion, we have had our pride shattered by Hurricane Katrina. This makes it tempting to point an accusatory finger, a weapon nonpareil in its ability to dissect unity.

Has the schism of warring ideologies - red versus blue, rich against poor, the overzealous accusers of racism and the apathetic shoulder-turners - flooded the American souls of the people that Katrina could only dampen externally? Could this impassioned factionalism burn unity, America's great hope and her greatest strength, to the ground?

Surely, we all feel loss and anger at something in this destruction - but how does breathing life into emotion-ridden blame that lashes out in enmity help?

It's become an omnipresent cancer - in everyone from the federal agencies to the city leaders, from the evacuees and the press to the world of celebrity.

The Kanye West affair has become stale. West's ordeal of wresting the spotlight from Mike Myers during the NBC telethon to ad-lib that the president "doesn't care about black people" was a burst of awkwardness so severe that the International Man of Mystery couldn't hide his horror.

As the self-appointed go-between for a Cajun folk West likely knows little about and a president he likely knows even less about, West's outburst was unfortunate. But the true sadness is that West's rambling wasn't the anomaly many had hoped it would be.

It's merely a sampling of a growing field: Jesse Jackson, who appeared on "Larry King Live" the same night, refused to denounce West's lamentable statement, although NBC took immediate steps to distance itself. And Al Sharpton, who was not wanting to "in any shape or form water down the facts," openly endorsed West on MSNBC's "The Situation with Tucker Carlson," saying that he "salute[s] Kanye West for what he said."

Or consider the remarks of Randall Robinson, the author of a book called "The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks." (It would be appalling, I know, to think that such a man has an ax to grind.) He wrote that the Katrina calamity was nothing other than the "defining watershed moment in America's racial history."

He added, in what he admitted was flagrant error, that "black hurricane victims in New Orleans have begun eating corpses to survive." He concluded, as any bitter American would, that his country and all it stands for is a "monstrous fraud."

Neither President Bush nor Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco has worked at easing the obvious strain between them and their two quarrelling camps.

His quick buss on her cheek during Monday's press conference carried a kiss-of-death air. And the gamut of liberal environmentalists, from odd-ball pundits like longtime global warming agitator and liberal journalist Ross Gelbspan to entire outfits like Scientists and Engineers for Change, have blamed Bush for Katrina's very existence. Should've signed the Kyoto Protocol, they scoff.

It's a pity that when cohesion would do the most good for the splintering country, factions take to what they must see as a fortuitous disaster and politicize it for self-gain and, in some bizarrely flawed way, vindication.

That Germany's minister of the environment, Jürgen Trittin, said Bush caused Katrina, and the French newspaper Le Monde said Bush can't protect American citizens, doesn't bother me much - they're the French and the Germans. And that Kanye West is sounding like Cindy Sheehan, and Cindy Sheehan is sounding like Ward Churchill, isn't really a bombshell either. It's the contagious and magnetic effect these people are having on a nation that has historically outlasted tragedy through its inimitable unified support that grates on me.

But thank God we're America. For most of us, we don't care whose fault it is. We're too busy extending a hand to draw others back into the group.

When the dust settles, the time will come for the tough questions. But when nature takes the world by storm, sometimes all we can do is find solace in the fact that she can break our levees and flood our lives, but she can't break us apart. Only we can do that.

http://www.dailytexanonline.com/media/paper410/news/200...ointing-978661.shtml (http://www.dailytexanonline.com/media/paper410/news/2005/09/08/Opinion/Stop-Political.FingerPointing-978661.shtml)

[MadScot]

Pat if everyone took your view we would still have a moron in control of the relief effort. When someone is murdered do the police wait until after the funeral to start investigating. No of course not they start right away. Criminal negligence is involved here on a massive scale. I'm not going to be quiet regardless of how politely I'm asked. I have a contact in the white house I know how much effort is being put into damage control. There is more white house effort being put into covering their colective backs than what is being spent on the disaster itself. So don't tell me our government is doing all they can I know better. How many times have we heard that Bush is capable of running the country from his ranch? Aids had to make a DVD of the news programs to get Bush up to speed on what was going on. The free ride like Bush has got on 9-11 and Iraq has come to an end. The press is going to be relentless on this you might as well get used to it. It's been too long coming.

[Coldwolf]

http://oakhurstonline.com/icon/applause.gif Amen brother

[jakobscalpel]

The free ride like Bush has got on 9-11 and Iraq has come to an end. The press is going to be relentless on this you might as well get used to it. It's been too long coming.

You're right about this. I still haven't been able to put my finger on exactly why though. It seemed to start a couple months before the infamous vacation...

[Coldwolf]

Chertoff delayed federal response, memo shows (http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/12637172.htm)


By Jonathan S. Landay, Alison Young and Shannon McCaffrey

Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - The federal official with the power to mobilize a massive federal response to Hurricane Katrina was Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, not the former FEMA chief who was relieved of his duties and resigned earlier this week, federal documents reviewed by Knight Ridder show.

Even before the storm struck the Gulf Coast, Chertoff could have ordered federal agencies into action without any request from state or local officials. Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown had only limited authority to do so until about 36 hours after the storm hit, when Chertoff designated him as the "principal federal official" in charge of the storm.

As thousands of hurricane victims went without food, water and shelter in the days after Katrina's early morning Aug. 29 landfall, critics assailed Brown for being responsible for delays that might have cost hundreds of lives.

But Chertoff - not Brown - was in charge of managing the national response to a catastrophic disaster, according to the National Response Plan, the federal government's blueprint for how agencies will handle major natural disasters or terrorist incidents. An order issued by President Bush in 2003 also assigned that responsibility to the homeland security director.

But according to a memo obtained by Knight Ridder, Chertoff didn't shift that power to Brown until late afternoon or evening on Aug. 30, about 36 hours after Katrina hit Louisiana and Mississippi. That same memo suggests that Chertoff may have been confused about his lead role in disaster response and that of his department.

"As you know, the President has established the `White House Task Force on Hurricane Katrina Response.' He will meet with us tomorrow to launch this effort. The Department of Homeland Security, along with other Departments, will be part of the task force and will assist the Administration with its response to Hurricane Katrina," Chertoff said in the memo to the secretaries of defense, health and human services and other key federal agencies.

On the day that Chertoff wrote the memo, Bush was in San Diego presiding over a ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II.

Chertoff's Aug. 30 memo for the first time declared Katrina an "Incident of National Significance," a key designation that triggers swift federal coordination. The following afternoon, Bush met with his Cabinet, then appeared before TV cameras in the White House Rose Garden to announce the government's planned action.

That same day, Aug. 31, the Department of Defense, whose troops and equipment are crucial in such large disasters, activated its Task Force Katrina. But active-duty troops didn't begin to arrive in large numbers along the Gulf Coast until Saturday.

White House and homeland security officials wouldn't explain why Chertoff waited some 36 hours to declare Katrina an incident of national significance and why he didn't immediately begin to direct the federal response from the moment on Aug. 27 when the National Hurricane Center predicted that Katrina would strike the Gulf Coast with catastrophic force in 48 hours. Nor would they explain why Bush felt the need to appoint a separate task force.

Chertoff's hesitation and Bush's creation of a task force both appear to contradict the National Response Plan and previous presidential directives that specify what the secretary of homeland security is assigned to do without further presidential orders. The goal of the National Response Plan is to provide a streamlined framework for swiftly delivering federal assistance when a disaster - caused by terrorists or Mother Nature - is too big for local officials to handle.

[Yosemite Joy]

It defientely isn't enough that Brown was fired/resigned. We need to go to the top people, Chertoff, Bush.. a few inbetween.

Just an FYI for the people still going on and on about the 2000 buses that weren't used to save people. There were not 2000 buses, there were 324. Of those 70 were broken down before the hurricane. Yes, there was a failed opportunity to save at least a few (seeing how there are about 100,000 people uprooted).

Quit watching Faux News and listen to Al Franken, good Dead music inbetween breaks too. Seriously though, turn on CNN at least.

[Coldwolf]

Who is Killing New Orleans (http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0324-34.htm)

An early, deadly blow was Treasury Secretary John Snow's refusal to guarantee New Orleans municipal bonds, forcing Mayor Nagin to lay off 3,000 city employees on top of the thousands of education and medical workers already jobless. The Bush Administration also blocked bipartisan measures to increase Medicaid coverage for Katrina evacuees and to give the State of Louisiana--facing an estimated $8 billion in lost revenues over the next few years--a share of the income generated by its offshore oil and gas leases.

Even more egregious was the flagrant redlining of black neighborhoods by the Small Business Administration (SBA), which rejected a majority of loan applications by local businesses and homeowners. At the same time, a bipartisan Senate bill to save small businesses with emergency bridge loans was sabotaged by Bush officials, leaving thousands to face bankruptcy and foreclosure. As a result, the economic foundations of the city's African-American middle class (public-sector jobs and small businesses) have been swept away by deliberate decisions made in the White House. Meanwhile, in the absence of federal or state initiatives to employ locals, low-income blacks are losing their niches in the construction and service sectors to more mobile outsiders.

In stark contrast to its neglect of neighborhood relief, the White House has made herculean efforts to reward its own base of large corporations and political insiders. Representative Nydia Velazquez, who sits on the House Small Business Committee, pointed out that the SBA has allowed large corporations to get $2 billion in federal contracts while excluding local minority contractors.

The paramount beneficiaries of Katrina relief aid have been the giant engineering firms KBR (a Halliburton subsidiary) and the Shaw Group, which enjoy the services of lobbyist Joe Allbaugh (a former FEMA director and Bush's 2000 campaign manager). FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers, while unable to explain to Governor Blanco last fall exactly how they were spending money in Louisiana, have tolerated levels of profiteering that would raise eyebrows even on the war-torn Euphrates. (Some of this largesse, of course, is guaranteed to be recycled as GOP campaign contributions.) FEMA, for example, has paid the Shaw Group $175 per square (100 square feet) to install tarps on storm-damaged roofs in New Orleans. Yet the actual installers earn as little as $2 per square, and the tarps are provided by FEMA. Similarly, the Army Corps pays prime contractors about $20 per cubic yard of storm debris removed, yet some bulldozer operators receive only $1. Every level of the contracting food chain, in other words, is grotesquely overfed except the bottom rung, where the actual work is carried out. While the Friends of Bush mine gold from the wreckage of New Orleans, many disappointed recovery workers--often Mexican or Salvadoran immigrants camped out in city parks and derelict shopping centers--can barely make ends meet.

The Big Kiss-Off

In the fractious, take-no-prisoners world of Louisiana politics, broad solidarity of interest is normally as rare as a boulder in a bayou. Yet Katrina created an unprecedented bipartisan consensus around twin demands for Category 5 hurricane protection and mortgage relief for damaged homes. From conservative Republicans to liberal Democrats, there has been unanimity that the region's recovery depends on federal investment in new levees and coastal restoration, as well as financial rescue of the estimated 200,000 homeowners whose insurance coverage has failed to cover their actual damage. (There has been no equivalent consensus and little concern for the right of renters--who constituted 53 percent of the population before Katrina--and of public-housing tenants to return to their city.)

Yet by early November it was clear that saving New Orleans was no longer high on the Bush agenda, if it had ever been. As Congress headed toward its Christmas adjournment, the Louisiana delegation was in panic mode: A Category 5 plan had disappearedWho is Killing New Orleans (http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0324-34.htm)