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Katrina = Cat.5 = Goodbye New Orleans

Banquo said:
declaring a federal disaster while the hurricane was still over the Gulf wasn't even close to being enough.
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That is exactly what I meant. Action needed to follow, immediately after the declaration. I stated, in my first post I think, that they had a pretty good idea how serious this would be, therefore it is inexcusable that all available resources were not deployed immediately.
 
beeemer said:
Long time lurker, first time poster...

I just had to reply to some of the folks blaming Bush. Everything seems to be Bush's fault these days. Now Bush and Halliburton have made a hurricane machine!

The ones who are really going to hang are the Gov of LA and Mayor of NO for being unprepared . The French engineers warned of this hundreds of years ago.

My prayers go out to all... this is going to get much worse folks.
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Way to miss the point.Bush is the president of the US, he should be in charge of stuff like this, if he isnt meant to do anything in times like this then what does a president do?Anyhow like I said, i would like to see what Bush does in the next few days, his speech hardly helped him either, he's been criticised over it apparently.
 
No my friend, its up to the state gov to prepare, in fact Gov Blanco thought she had...

http://gov.louisiana.gov/Press_Release_detail.asp?id=911

""While it does not appear that this storm (Dennis) will significantly impact our state, I am confident of our ability to carry out our state’s emergency and evacuation plans in a manner that protects the people of coastal Louisiana."
 
SillyAlien said:
That is exactly what I meant. Action needed to follow, immediately after the declaration. I stated, in my first post I think, that they had a pretty good idea how serious this would be, therefore it is inexcusable that all available resources were not deployed immediately.
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I think we agree, then. :)
 
im not blaming bush for the way this is being handled... i mean a disaster is a disaster; those who point fingers instead of helping are the ones who need to be strung up.... what gets me is the reaction that bush seems to be having. macho bullshit re: foreign aid, condemnation of the looters etc... i dont hear a lot of heartfelt compassion, i hear a lot of the same bullshit he spewed to those who've sacraficed in iraq. not in my lifetime has there been a president so out of touch with the general population...

sad fucking days....:\
 
You could blame Bush.. If he had built dikes and had maintained the wetlands surrounding new orleans, there probably wouldn't have been any flooding. He's been warned and he didn't act upon it.
 
I rekon we send up a battalion of choppers with big-ass machine guns on em and start mowing down the vigilante scum who have taken a desperate situation and turned it into a civil war......raping and pillaging from their own people!! What fucking lowlife scum!!

Crank up "Ride of the Valkyries" and MOW 'EM DOWN!!!
 
Various items

Here's what the National Hurricane Center has to say about Katrina in its August summary:

<<KATRINA WILL LIKELY BE RECORDED AS THE WORST NATURAL DISASTER IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES...PRODUCING CATASTROPHIC DAMAGE AND UNTOLD CASUALTIES IN THE NEW ORLEANS AREA AND ALONG THE MISSISSIPPI GULF COAST...AND ADDITIONAL CASUALTIES IN SOUTH FLORIDA. THE EXTENT OF THE PHYSICAL AND HUMAN DEVASTATION FROM THIS HURRICANE CANNOT YET BE ESTIMATED.

THIS HORRIFIC STORM FORMED FROM A TROPICAL WAVE...>>

link:
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/tws/MIATWSAT_aug.shtml?

--And we thought Andrew was *the* watermark for a bad hurricane. What a world.

It turns out that a number of refugees will be coming to my city, San Antonio, over 500 miles from New Orleans:

UPDATED: 25,000 more La. refugees head to Texas
Web Posted: 09/01/2005 06:06 PM CDT

Sheila Hotchkin and Tracy Idell Hamilton
Express-News Staff Writers

Days after Hurricane Katrina left staggering numbers of Gulf Coast residents with nowhere to go, several thousand now have a place to call home: San Antonio.

Beginning Friday, they will move into Building 1536 at KellyUSA, a military base-turned-civilian business park located southwest of downtown.

Seeking temporary homes for at least 25,000 refugees, the Texas governor’s office called San Antonio Mayor Phil Hardberger on Thursday morning. The mayor agreed to host part of that group.

Within hours, city street-cleaning trucks vacuumed debris from the floor of the nearly quarter-mile-long building. Public works employees torched and ground down bolts sticking up from the floor.

“Gotta get rid of the trip hazards,” one torch-wielding worker said.

Creating this city within a city is no small endeavor: from the moment the refugees arrive, they will need food, clothing, shelter and medical care. In the weeks and, almost certainly, months ahead, their needs will grow more complex: schooling for their children, and perhaps even jobs.

“But the long and short of it is we're going to be welcoming neighbors here in San Antonio,” Hardberger said.

With the situation still evolving, many details remain unclear. City officials planned to open Building 1536 Friday but remained uncertain about what time.

And it could be some time before anyone knows how many temporary residents San Antonio will receive and how long they will stay.

“I think it is legitimate to assume we’re not talking about next week they’re going to go home,” Hardberger said. “The City of New Orleans is effectively closed.”

link:
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA090105.refugees.en.15bc1368.html

More anarchy from New Orleans:

<<Col. Henry Whitehorn, chief of the Louisiana State Police, said he heard of numerous instances of New Orleans police officers — many of whom from [sic] flooded areas — turning in their badges.

"They indicated that they had lost everything and didn't feel that it was worth them going back to take fire from looters and losing their lives," Whitehorn said.>>

<<Every so often, an armored state police vehicle cruised in front of the convention center with four or five officers in riot gear with automatic weapons. But there was no sign of help from the National Guard.

At one point the crowd began to chant "We want help! We want help!" Later, a woman, screaming, went on the front steps of the convention center and led the crowd in reciting the 23rd Psalm, "The Lord is my shepherd ..."

"We are out here like pure animals," the Issac Clark said.

"We've got people dying out here — two babies have died, a woman died, a man died," said Helen Cheek. "We haven't had no food, we haven't had no water, we haven't had nothing. They just brought us here and dropped us."

Tourist Debbie Durso of Washington, Mich., said she asked a police officer for assistance and his response was, "'Go to hell — it's every man for himself.'">>

<<Donald Dudley, a 55-year-old New Orleans seafood merchant, complained that when he and other hungry refugees broke into the kitchen of the convention center and tried to prepare food, the National Guard chased them away.

"They pulled guns and told us we had to leave that kitchen or they would blow our damn brains out," he said. "We don't want their help. Give us some vehicles and we'll get ourselves out of here!">>

link:
http://news.yahoo.com/fc/world/hurricanes_and_tropical_storms
 
Three days ago, police and national guard troops told citizens to head toward the Crescent City Connection Bridge to await transportation out of the area. The citizens trekked over to the Convention Center and waited for the buses which they were told would take them to Houston or Alabama or somewhere else, out of this area.

It's been 3 days, and the buses have yet to appear.

Although obviously he has no exact count, he estimates more than 10,000 people are packed into and around and outside the convention center still waiting for the buses. They had no food, no water, and no medicine for the last three days, until today, when the National Guard drove over the bridge above them, and tossed out supplies over the side crashing down to the ground below. Much of the supplies were destroyed from the drop. Many people tried to catch the supplies to protect them before they hit the ground. Some offered to walk all the way around up the bridge and bring the supplies down, but any attempt to approach the police or national guard resulted in weapons being aimed at them.

There are many infants and elderly people among them, as well as many people who were injured jumping out of windows to escape flood water and the like -- all of them in dire straights.

Any attempt to flag down police results in being told to get away at gunpoint. Hour after hour they watch buses pass by filled with people from other areas. Tensions are very high, and there has been at least one murder and several fights. 8 or 9 dead people have been stored in a freezer in the area, and 2 of these dead people are kids.

The people are so desperate that they're doing anything they can think of to impress the authorities enough to bring some buses. These things include standing in single file lines with the eldery in front, women and children next; sweeping up the area and cleaning the windows and anything else that would show the people are not barbarians.

The buses never stop.

Before the supplies were pitched off the bridge today, people had to break into buildings in the area to try to find food and water for their families. There was not enough. This spurred many families to break into cars to try to escape the city. There was no police response to the auto thefts until the mob reached the rich area -- Saulet Condos -- once they tried to get cars from there... well then the whole swat teams began showing up with rifles pointed. Snipers got on the roof and told people to get back.

He reports that the conditions are horrendous. Heat, mosquitoes and utter misery. The smell, he says, is "horrific."

He says it's the slowest mandatory evacuation ever, and he wants to know why they were told to go to the Convention Center area in the first place; furthermore, he reports that many of them with cell phones have contacts willing to come rescue them, but people are not being allowed through to pick them up.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/
 
October 2004 National Geographic Cover Story http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature5/index.html

ft_hdr.5.jpg


By Joel K. Bourne, Jr.
Photographs by Robert Caputo and Tyrone Turner

The Louisiana bayou, hardest working marsh in America, is in big trouble—with dire consequences for residents, the nearby city of New Orleans, and seafood lovers everywhere.



It was a broiling August afternoon in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Big Easy, the City That Care Forgot. Those who ventured outside moved as if they were swimming in tupelo honey. Those inside paid silent homage to the man who invented air-conditioning as they watched TV "storm teams" warn of a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing surprising there: Hurricanes in August are as much a part of life in this town as hangovers on Ash Wednesday.

But the next day the storm gathered steam and drew a bead on the city. As the whirling maelstrom approached the coast, more than a million people evacuated to higher ground. Some 200,000 remained, however—the car-less, the homeless, the aged and infirm, and those die-hard New Orleanians who look for any excuse to throw a party.

The storm hit Breton Sound with the fury of a nuclear warhead, pushing a deadly storm surge into Lake Pontchartrain. The water crept to the top of the massive berm that holds back the lake and then spilled over. Nearly 80 percent of New Orleans lies below sea level—more than eight feet below in places—so the water poured in. A liquid brown wall washed over the brick ranch homes of Gentilly, over the clapboard houses of the Ninth Ward, over the white-columned porches of the Garden District, until it raced through the bars and strip joints on Bourbon Street like the pale rider of the Apocalypse. As it reached 25 feet (eight meters) over parts of the city, people climbed onto roofs to escape it.

Thousands drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated by sewage and industrial waste. Thousands more who survived the flood later perished from dehydration and disease as they waited to be rescued. It took two months to pump the city dry, and by then the Big Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid sediment, a million people were homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.

When did this calamity happen? It hasn't—yet. But the doomsday scenario is not far-fetched. The Federal Emergency Management Agency lists a hurricane strike on New Orleans as one of the most dire threats to the nation, up there with a large earthquake in California or a terrorist attack on New York City.


continued at link.


holy shit talk about hitting the nail on the head.
 
Bush still not to blame?

Is Bush still not to blame for what is going on in New Orleans?

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1125597613680_121006813/?hub=Canada

We have Canadian forces standing at the ready if we ask, and more than likely other countries more than willing to help if we just ask. What does Bush have to say though? We've got it under control...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200509/s1452244.htm

We got dead bodies sitting next to us for days. I feel like I am going to die. People are going to kill you for water.
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This is America, I don't understand the lack of communications between the authorities and the people.
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It is disgusting, we feel we have been forgotten.
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People were raped in [the Superdome, where refugees were living]. People were killed in there. We had multiple riots.
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You can't be trapped in there for so long without going crazy. People were locked in the dome like prisoners.
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There was shooting, our lives were in danger. A seven-year-old girl and an eight-year-old boy got raped.
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We were treated like this was a concentration camp. One man couldn't take it. He jumped over the railing and died.
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With 60 residents, the average aged 87, that have not had air-conditioning in five days, three have died and another eight - no matter how much water we give them, could expire because it's too hot for them.
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Who is going to defend this? I want to know. How can anyone possibly justify telling trained rescue operators who are standing by with TONS and TONS of crates packed with supplies and stacks of medical equipment all ready to roll out, that we have it under control?

I would stand up and jump for joy if some African tribe sent us coconut milk and some goats on a wooden raft because even if it isn't as amazing as "our great American forces" whoever gets that milk and goat is going to be really happy. I want to see as many people as possble with as much possible supplies converging in the area. I don't care where it came from, who paid for it, how it got here, nothing.. I just want it there, now.. and that is something that our PRESIDENT should be saying, not ME. Jesus fucking christ.

I really just want someone to tell me how the leader of our nation is turning down additional support when people are dying NOW, there are people dying there right NOW. The true tragedy is happening right before us.

It's comparable to those people who were trapped in the World Trade Center above the floors that were on fire, or those people who were on the phones with their loved ones as their airplanes crashed, all of those stories you've heard so many times played over and over again to ramp you up for hating what happened so much.

It's happening again right now, at this very second hundreds of Americans are dying.

I keep hearing that "help is on the way" and "help will be there soon". You know what though? I've been listening to police scanners and reading blogs and talking to people in IRC who are there RIGHT NOW, and there is no help on the way.

Take this great line for example I just heard on the scanner: "10-59 I have nothing for you right now, just come back to base"

I'm also hearing that rescuers can't get in because they're being shot at.. what the fuck? The president is the top of the executive branch of our government, why don't I see video right now of embedded reporters riding into New Orleans on an M1A1 gunning down anyone who is shooting or taking advantage of this situation?

How long could it possibly fucking take for our military to take a city from civilians?

If the US was attacked by China and they had landed ground forces do you really believe that we'd be here days later saying, "Help is coming!"

This whole situation is bullshit and I WILL blame Bush directly for this because this is a federal emergency that I is STILL happening and that I am currently listening to from friends and through police scanners and other mediums.

Please, someone tell me what I'm missing here and why I shouldn't be blaming the leader of my country for saying, "We don't need any help.." while my fellow Americans are literally dying from starvation and lawlessness. I want to know why my president isn't on TV RIGHT NOW telling me what he's doing, I want to know why I havn't seen Bush EVERY HOUR since this happened informing me of what has been done in the last hour and what were working towards. I want to see him on TV looking like he hasn't slept in a week because he's been so busy slaving away working as a public servent for my country which is supposedly run by the people.

I am truly sick to be an American not because of what Bush does but because people continue to support him not because of what he is actually doing but because they have iconified him as Jesus revived.

No single person could make me ashamed to be an American but my country embracing that persons actions can.

EDIT: NATO has offered help as well now..
 
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http://www.homesforkatrina.com/

http://www.openyourhome.com/

wow, this is awesome!!!

edit..another suggestion, get on craigslist and offer your help on there. maybe put your number, or just an email addy and just say you can pick up someone and give them assistance. It can be dangerous no doubt, but the government sure isn't offering assistance, just ideas

although it isnt' like these people have access to the internet. I dunno, it sucks you can't just drive there and physically do something, it is an awful feeling: that you can't do anything.

another idea, call your local volunteer orgs. they may have projects going, and knwo how to get these things done.
 
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I have to say i am also totally amazed by the pictures that i am seeing on my television screen. One would not expect to see something like that happening in america.
They can hardly help out a city that is drowning and its people are sufferring but when it comes up to getting rid of foreign dictators america is the first country on the scene, guns all drawn and soldiers ready to fight.

You might wonder how can a bunch of armed looters run havoc in New orleans ? Well its because the soldiers that are suppossed to stop them are in bloody Iraq and Afghanistan.

Or is it just that Bush doesnt care, its his final term and he has accomplished his mission ( finally got his hands on the oil :\ ).
He probably doesn't even know what do or say cause the only words that can come out of his mouth are " terrorists, saddam, al-qaeda, 9/11, terror".
Well those words wont help him out this time.
 
Tuesday, August 30, 2005 — The American Red Cross has mobilized thousands of volunteers to respond in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which completely devastated parts of Louisiana and left at least 55 people dead.

The Red Cross plans to send close to 2,000 volunteers in the area to begin the initial response in the next few days.


Red Cross emergency response vehicles (ERVs) will visit damaged neighborhoods like this one in Florida after Hurricane Charley last year. (Photo: Bonnie Gillespie).

“Volunteers are truly the lifeblood of the American Red Cross, and we are calling on them now by the thousands to help support relief efforts in Louisiana and other states after Katrina,” said Pat McCrummen, American Red Cross disaster spokesperson. “We are looking at a long term, very significant response to this storm.”

The Red Cross is mobilizing every available resource from across the country including thousands of staff and volunteers to respond to this storm. Red Cross volunteers and donors are neighbors helping neighbors.

Volunteers are already on the ground staffing shelters for tens of thousands of people in five states—Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Texas.

The Red Cross is launching the largest mobilization of resources for a single natural domestic disaster, in part because the extent of the damage is so widespread over a large geographical area. The response includes sending nearly 1,900 staff and volunteers into the field in the next few days, and sending more than 250 Emergency Response Vehicles (ERVs) out to provide food and water to affected residents.

The best way to help is by making an online contribution to the Disaster Relief Fund at www.redcross.org.

If you are interested in volunteering for the American Red Cross, the place to start is your local chapter Red Cross. There you can learn about the training courses necessary to become a disaster volunteer. For more information, visit your local Red Cross chapter online.

Trained disaster volunteers often start by volunteering on local Red Cross Disaster Action Teams, which respond to disasters 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The Red Cross responds to more than 70,000 disasters each year, the vast majority of which are house and apartment fires. Disaster volunteers who gain local experience also are eligible to serve as part of the Red Cross Disaster Services Human Resources System to be deployed to disasters around the country.
 
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