Katrina = Cat.5 = Goodbye New Orleans
- Thread starter SA
- Start date
Belisarius
Bluelighter
Another prophetic article, sent to me through e-mail:
Also, please see the link below containing an article written in
_December of 2000_. The article was written by Lori Widmer, a private
consultant in the Phoenixville, PA (a suburb of Philadelphia). The
article was written almost 5 years ago and is prophetic. It contains a
futuristic description from Shea Penland of New Orleans of what is
currently happening. Here are a few quotes from the article:
/"The city is facing a series of issues--disappearing wetlands that
protect from hurricanes, levees that are too low to hold back flood
waters, rising water tables, to name a few--that if not addressed soon
could have New Orleans suffering the same fate as Atlantis."/
/"The city is facing a series of issues--disappearing wetlands that
protect from hurricanes, levees that are too low to hold back flood
waters, rising water tables, to name a few--that if not addressed soon
could have New Orleans suffering the same fate as Atlantis."/
/Dramatic, yes. But not unlikely, according to Shea Penland, geologist
and professor at the University of New Orleans. "When we get the big
hurricane and there are 10,000 people dead, the city government's been
relocated to the north shore of Lake Ponchartrain, refugee camps have
been set up and there's $10 billion plus in losses, what then?" he asks./
/
"But Penland says there is no other choice. "We need to bite the bullet
as a society and say that we have a problem. Our coastline has 40 percent
of our nation's wetlands and 80 percent of the loss occurs here. New
Orleans needs a wake-up call. The city is on the verge of becoming
extinct."
Here is the link to the article:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BJK/is_15_11/ai_68642805
Another interesting article on the ABC News website documents how New
Orleans has been destroyed and rebuilt repeatedly. Apparently, just
after the city was started in 1722, a hurricane devasted the area. From
1720 to 1880, New Orleans was hit by nine hurricanes with at least one
catastrophic flood from Lake Ponchartrain. It appears that New Orleans
is prone to these catastrophic events about once every 40 years or so...
The other link:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1089005
Also, please see the link below containing an article written in
_December of 2000_. The article was written by Lori Widmer, a private
consultant in the Phoenixville, PA (a suburb of Philadelphia). The
article was written almost 5 years ago and is prophetic. It contains a
futuristic description from Shea Penland of New Orleans of what is
currently happening. Here are a few quotes from the article:
/"The city is facing a series of issues--disappearing wetlands that
protect from hurricanes, levees that are too low to hold back flood
waters, rising water tables, to name a few--that if not addressed soon
could have New Orleans suffering the same fate as Atlantis."/
/"The city is facing a series of issues--disappearing wetlands that
protect from hurricanes, levees that are too low to hold back flood
waters, rising water tables, to name a few--that if not addressed soon
could have New Orleans suffering the same fate as Atlantis."/
/Dramatic, yes. But not unlikely, according to Shea Penland, geologist
and professor at the University of New Orleans. "When we get the big
hurricane and there are 10,000 people dead, the city government's been
relocated to the north shore of Lake Ponchartrain, refugee camps have
been set up and there's $10 billion plus in losses, what then?" he asks./
/
"But Penland says there is no other choice. "We need to bite the bullet
as a society and say that we have a problem. Our coastline has 40 percent
of our nation's wetlands and 80 percent of the loss occurs here. New
Orleans needs a wake-up call. The city is on the verge of becoming
extinct."
Here is the link to the article:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BJK/is_15_11/ai_68642805
Another interesting article on the ABC News website documents how New
Orleans has been destroyed and rebuilt repeatedly. Apparently, just
after the city was started in 1722, a hurricane devasted the area. From
1720 to 1880, New Orleans was hit by nine hurricanes with at least one
catastrophic flood from Lake Ponchartrain. It appears that New Orleans
is prone to these catastrophic events about once every 40 years or so...
The other link:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1089005
Is bureaucracy slow? Yes.
Is Bush incompetent? Yes.
Did Bush's incompetence exacerbate the Katrina situation? Arguably, but probably only minimally.
I would say the real problem with Bush's performance in this tragedy is his nonchalant approach in the first few days, just like his casual air for 7 minutes during 911.
Obviously, there's not much the President can do in a situation like this other than to exhort the cogs of government bureaucracy to turn as fast as possible. But the one crucial thing he COULD have done ASAP-provide critical morale support instantaneously BY GETTING OFF HIS ASS AND LEAVING HIS VACATION IMMEDIATELY TO RALLY SUPPORT-he didn't do.
I mean for God's sake, is there ANY question that events like 911 and Katrina call for INSTANTANEOUS, DECISIVE ACTION, not an air of "all is well, nothing to see here people, move along" nonchalance? Even if it's only to create the "perception" that everything possible is being done to aid those people at ground zero, it's still VITAL in times like these.
Additionally, declining the assistance offers of even allies like Canada is just pathetic. EVERYTHING helps in situations like this. If anything, this is the one TANGIBLE area in which the people of New Orleans are now reaping the consequences of Bush's "my way or the highway, we go it alone" approach.
Bush is clearly incompetent as a leader and isn't fit to be President. That being said, we all pretty much know that and we're stuck with him for the next 3 years, so let's move on.
Fuck Bush. He's not worth shit, and clearly not worth the time spent debating his unworthiness.
Instead, let's all try to help these people the best way we each individually can.
Is Bush incompetent? Yes.
Did Bush's incompetence exacerbate the Katrina situation? Arguably, but probably only minimally.
I would say the real problem with Bush's performance in this tragedy is his nonchalant approach in the first few days, just like his casual air for 7 minutes during 911.
Obviously, there's not much the President can do in a situation like this other than to exhort the cogs of government bureaucracy to turn as fast as possible. But the one crucial thing he COULD have done ASAP-provide critical morale support instantaneously BY GETTING OFF HIS ASS AND LEAVING HIS VACATION IMMEDIATELY TO RALLY SUPPORT-he didn't do.
I mean for God's sake, is there ANY question that events like 911 and Katrina call for INSTANTANEOUS, DECISIVE ACTION, not an air of "all is well, nothing to see here people, move along" nonchalance? Even if it's only to create the "perception" that everything possible is being done to aid those people at ground zero, it's still VITAL in times like these.
Additionally, declining the assistance offers of even allies like Canada is just pathetic. EVERYTHING helps in situations like this. If anything, this is the one TANGIBLE area in which the people of New Orleans are now reaping the consequences of Bush's "my way or the highway, we go it alone" approach.
Bush is clearly incompetent as a leader and isn't fit to be President. That being said, we all pretty much know that and we're stuck with him for the next 3 years, so let's move on.
Fuck Bush. He's not worth shit, and clearly not worth the time spent debating his unworthiness.
Instead, let's all try to help these people the best way we each individually can.
Last edited:
Belisarius
Bluelighter
Final article
I'm going to fudge a bit and post the whole article:
From Margins of Society to Center of the Tragedy
By DAVID GONZALEZ, The New York Times
(Sept. 2) - The scenes of floating corpses, scavengers fighting for food and desperate throngs seeking any way out of New Orleans have been tragic enough. But for many African-American leaders, there is a growing outrage that many of those still stuck at the center of this tragedy were people who for generations had been pushed to the margins of society.
The victims, they note, were largely black and poor, those who toiled in the background of the tourist havens, living in tumbledown neighborhoods that were long known to be vulnerable to disaster if the levees failed. Without so much as a car or bus fare to escape ahead of time, they found themselves left behind by a failure to plan for their rescue should the dreaded day ever arrive.
"If you know that terror is approaching in terms of hurricanes, and you've already seen the damage they've done in Florida and elsewhere, what in God's name were you thinking?" said the Rev. Calvin O. Butts III, pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. "I think a lot of it has to do with race and class. The people affected were largely poor people. Poor, black people."
In the days since neighborhoods and towns along the Gulf Coast were wiped out by the winds and water, there has been a growing sense that race and class are the unspoken markers of who got out and who got stuck. Just as in developing countries where the failures of rural development policies become glaringly clear at times of natural disasters like floods or drought, many national leaders said, some of the United States' poorest cities have been left vulnerable by federal policies.
"No one would have checked on a lot of the black people in these parishes while the sun shined," said Mayor Milton D. Tutwiler of Winstonville, Miss. "So am I surprised that no one has come to help us now? No."
The subject is roiling black-oriented Web sites and message boards, and many black officials say it is a prime subject of conversation around the country. Some African-Americans have described the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina as "our tsunami," while noting that there has yet to be a response equal to that which followed the Asian tragedy.
Roosevelt F. Dorn, the mayor of Inglewood, Calif., and the president of the National Association of Black Mayors, said relief and rescue officials needed to act faster.
"I have a list of black mayors in Mississippi and Alabama who are crying out for help," Mr. Dorn said. "Their cities are gone and they are in despair. And no one has answered their cries."
The Rev. Jesse Jackson said cities had been dismissed by the Bush administration because Mr. Bush received few urban votes.
"Many black people feel that their race, their property conditions and their voting patterns have been a factor in the response," Mr. Jackson said, after meeting with Louisiana officials yesterday. "I'm not saying that myself, but what's self-evident is that you have many poor people without a way out."
In New Orleans, the disaster's impact underscores the intersection of race and class in a city where fully two-thirds of its residents are black and more than a quarter of the city lives in poverty. In the Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood, which was inundated by the floodwaters, more than 98 percent of the residents are black and more than a third live in poverty.
Spencer R. Crew, president and chief executive officer of the national Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, said the aftermath of the hurricane would force people to confront inequality.
"Most cities have a hidden or not always talked about poor population, black and white, and most of the time we look past them," Dr. Crew said. "This is a moment in time when we can't look past them. Their plight is coming to the forefront now. They were the ones less able to hop in a car and less able to drive off."
That disparity has been criticized as a "disgrace" by Charles B. Rangel, the senior Democratic congressman from New York City, who said it was made all the worse by the failure of government officials to have planned.
"I assume the president's going to say he got bad intelligence, Mr. Rangel said, adding that the danger to the levees was clear.
"I think that wherever you see poverty, whether it's in the white rural community or the black urban community, you see that the resources have been sucked up into the war and tax cuts for the rich," he said.
Outside Brooklyn Law School yesterday, a man selling recordings of famous African-Americans was upset at the failure to have prepared for the worst. The man, who said his name was Muhammad Ali, drew a damning conclusion about the failure to protect New Orleans.
"Blacks ain't worth it," he said. "New Orleans is a hopeless case."
Among the messages and essays circulating in cyberspace that lament the lost lives and missed opportunities is one by Mark Naison, a white professor of African-American Studies at Fordham University in the Bronx.
"Is this what the pioneers of the civil rights movement fought to achieve, a society where many black people are as trapped and isolated by their poverty as they were by segregation laws?" Mr. Naison wrote. "If Sept. 11 showed the power of a nation united in response to a devastating attack, Hurricane Katrina reveals the fault lines of a region and a nation, rent by profound social divisions."
That sentiment was shared by members of other minority groups who understand the bizarre equality of poverty.
"We tend to think of natural disasters as somehow even-handed, as somehow random," said Martín Espada, an English professor at the University of Massachusetts and poet of a decidedly leftist political bent who is Puerto Rican. "Yet it has always been thus: poor people are in danger. That is what it means to be poor. It's dangerous to be poor. It's dangerous to be black. It's dangerous to be Latino."
This Sunday there will be prayers. In pews from the Gulf Coast to the Northeast, the faithful will come together and pray for those who lived and those who died. They will seek to understand something that has yet to be fully comprehended.
Some may talk of a divine hand behind all of this. But others have already noted the absence of a human one.
"Everything is God's will," said Charles Steele Jr., the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Atlanta. "But there's a certain amount of common sense that God gives to individuals to prepare for certain things."
That means, Mr. Steele said, not waiting until the eve of crisis.
"Most of the people that live in the neighborhoods that were most vulnerable are black and poor," he said. "So it comes down to a lack of sensitivity on the part of people in Washington that you need to help poor folks. It's as simple as that."
Contributing reporting from New York for this article were Andy Newman, William Yardley, Jonathan P. Hicks, Patrick D. Healy, Diane Cardwell, Anemona Hartocollis, Ronald Smothers, Jeff Leeds, Manny Fernandez and Colin Moynihan. Also contributing were Michael Cooper in Albany, Gretchen Ruethling in Chicago, Brenda Goodman in Atlanta and Carolyn Marshall in San Francisco.
link:
http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20050902071309990001
I'm going to fudge a bit and post the whole article:
From Margins of Society to Center of the Tragedy
By DAVID GONZALEZ, The New York Times
(Sept. 2) - The scenes of floating corpses, scavengers fighting for food and desperate throngs seeking any way out of New Orleans have been tragic enough. But for many African-American leaders, there is a growing outrage that many of those still stuck at the center of this tragedy were people who for generations had been pushed to the margins of society.
The victims, they note, were largely black and poor, those who toiled in the background of the tourist havens, living in tumbledown neighborhoods that were long known to be vulnerable to disaster if the levees failed. Without so much as a car or bus fare to escape ahead of time, they found themselves left behind by a failure to plan for their rescue should the dreaded day ever arrive.
"If you know that terror is approaching in terms of hurricanes, and you've already seen the damage they've done in Florida and elsewhere, what in God's name were you thinking?" said the Rev. Calvin O. Butts III, pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. "I think a lot of it has to do with race and class. The people affected were largely poor people. Poor, black people."
In the days since neighborhoods and towns along the Gulf Coast were wiped out by the winds and water, there has been a growing sense that race and class are the unspoken markers of who got out and who got stuck. Just as in developing countries where the failures of rural development policies become glaringly clear at times of natural disasters like floods or drought, many national leaders said, some of the United States' poorest cities have been left vulnerable by federal policies.
"No one would have checked on a lot of the black people in these parishes while the sun shined," said Mayor Milton D. Tutwiler of Winstonville, Miss. "So am I surprised that no one has come to help us now? No."
The subject is roiling black-oriented Web sites and message boards, and many black officials say it is a prime subject of conversation around the country. Some African-Americans have described the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina as "our tsunami," while noting that there has yet to be a response equal to that which followed the Asian tragedy.
Roosevelt F. Dorn, the mayor of Inglewood, Calif., and the president of the National Association of Black Mayors, said relief and rescue officials needed to act faster.
"I have a list of black mayors in Mississippi and Alabama who are crying out for help," Mr. Dorn said. "Their cities are gone and they are in despair. And no one has answered their cries."
The Rev. Jesse Jackson said cities had been dismissed by the Bush administration because Mr. Bush received few urban votes.
"Many black people feel that their race, their property conditions and their voting patterns have been a factor in the response," Mr. Jackson said, after meeting with Louisiana officials yesterday. "I'm not saying that myself, but what's self-evident is that you have many poor people without a way out."
In New Orleans, the disaster's impact underscores the intersection of race and class in a city where fully two-thirds of its residents are black and more than a quarter of the city lives in poverty. In the Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood, which was inundated by the floodwaters, more than 98 percent of the residents are black and more than a third live in poverty.
Spencer R. Crew, president and chief executive officer of the national Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, said the aftermath of the hurricane would force people to confront inequality.
"Most cities have a hidden or not always talked about poor population, black and white, and most of the time we look past them," Dr. Crew said. "This is a moment in time when we can't look past them. Their plight is coming to the forefront now. They were the ones less able to hop in a car and less able to drive off."
That disparity has been criticized as a "disgrace" by Charles B. Rangel, the senior Democratic congressman from New York City, who said it was made all the worse by the failure of government officials to have planned.
"I assume the president's going to say he got bad intelligence, Mr. Rangel said, adding that the danger to the levees was clear.
"I think that wherever you see poverty, whether it's in the white rural community or the black urban community, you see that the resources have been sucked up into the war and tax cuts for the rich," he said.
Outside Brooklyn Law School yesterday, a man selling recordings of famous African-Americans was upset at the failure to have prepared for the worst. The man, who said his name was Muhammad Ali, drew a damning conclusion about the failure to protect New Orleans.
"Blacks ain't worth it," he said. "New Orleans is a hopeless case."
Among the messages and essays circulating in cyberspace that lament the lost lives and missed opportunities is one by Mark Naison, a white professor of African-American Studies at Fordham University in the Bronx.
"Is this what the pioneers of the civil rights movement fought to achieve, a society where many black people are as trapped and isolated by their poverty as they were by segregation laws?" Mr. Naison wrote. "If Sept. 11 showed the power of a nation united in response to a devastating attack, Hurricane Katrina reveals the fault lines of a region and a nation, rent by profound social divisions."
That sentiment was shared by members of other minority groups who understand the bizarre equality of poverty.
"We tend to think of natural disasters as somehow even-handed, as somehow random," said Martín Espada, an English professor at the University of Massachusetts and poet of a decidedly leftist political bent who is Puerto Rican. "Yet it has always been thus: poor people are in danger. That is what it means to be poor. It's dangerous to be poor. It's dangerous to be black. It's dangerous to be Latino."
This Sunday there will be prayers. In pews from the Gulf Coast to the Northeast, the faithful will come together and pray for those who lived and those who died. They will seek to understand something that has yet to be fully comprehended.
Some may talk of a divine hand behind all of this. But others have already noted the absence of a human one.
"Everything is God's will," said Charles Steele Jr., the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Atlanta. "But there's a certain amount of common sense that God gives to individuals to prepare for certain things."
That means, Mr. Steele said, not waiting until the eve of crisis.
"Most of the people that live in the neighborhoods that were most vulnerable are black and poor," he said. "So it comes down to a lack of sensitivity on the part of people in Washington that you need to help poor folks. It's as simple as that."
Contributing reporting from New York for this article were Andy Newman, William Yardley, Jonathan P. Hicks, Patrick D. Healy, Diane Cardwell, Anemona Hartocollis, Ronald Smothers, Jeff Leeds, Manny Fernandez and Colin Moynihan. Also contributing were Michael Cooper in Albany, Gretchen Ruethling in Chicago, Brenda Goodman in Atlanta and Carolyn Marshall in San Francisco.
link:
http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20050902071309990001
mariacallas
Bluelight Crew
massive said:
yep . jeez three thousand people died in a huge storm over here around nov last year, but hey...happens four times a year in this part of the world (not including the tsunami!)
Convoy brings relief supplies to New Orleans
Programming Note: CNN correspondents throughout the region gauge the impact from the heart of disaster. (Program Schedule)
(CNN) -- A convoy of military vehicles plowed through the flooded streets of New Orleans on Friday bringing food, water and medicine to the thousands of people trapped at a downtown convention center.
The relief effort came as President Bush toured the Gulf Coast to survey damage from Hurricane Katrina and shortly after the mayor of New Orleans said the city was "holding on by a thread."
Mayor Ray Nagin said in a statement that more than 10,000 people were evacuated from the city Thursday but that more than 50,000 survivors were still on rooftops and in shelters, in urgent need of help. (See video of the desperate conditions -- 1:56)
Earlier, Nagin lashed out at state and federal authorities saying they were "thinking small" in the face of the massive crisis. (See video of the demand for national leaders to 'get off their asses' -- 12:09)
Thousands of people have been stranded at the Ernest Morial Convention Center with little help and surrounded by corpses, trash and human waste.
"We got here, there's no food. There's no water. There's shooting. They're killing people," evacuee Tishia Walters told CNN from inside the center. "They're robbing men in the restrooms, they're raping women trying to go to the rest room. So people have resorted to defecating on the floors. You can't walk. There's babies without Pampers, mammas without milk. It's chaos total chaos."
CNN's Chris Lawrence, who was driving out of New Orleans around 11:30 a.m. (12:30 p.m. ET), said he saw huge flatbed trucks stacked with water bottles and boxes of food heading into the city.
He also saw about 25 tour buses and as many as 12 school buses in a line heading into the city.
An effort to evacuate patients and staff from downtown's Charity Hospital had to be suspended after a sniper opened fire on rescuers. The hospital was caring for about 200 patients with no power or water, and the only food left was a couple of cans of vegetables and some graham crackers. (Full story)
"Any patients who are critically ill at this point, have either died -- and there have been a few that have literally died in the parking deck waiting to be taken out by choppers -- or they are still having their bags -- air pumped into their lungs by handbag as doctors and hospital officials sat there pushing air into their lungs," said CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta, who got into the hospital Thursday night.
Bush: Results 'not acceptable'
President Bush arrived in Mobile, Alabama, on Friday to inspect the storm damage. He sad the federal government would "restore order in the city of New Orleans," where violence has hampered rescue efforts.
Before leaving Washington, Bush told reporters that millions of tons of food and water were on the way to -- but the results of the relief effort "are not acceptable." (Full story) (Watch Bush news briefing -- 2:32)
Bush will take an aerial tour of Mobile and nearby Biloxi, Mississippi. He then plans to view Louisiana hurricane damage from the air, flying over the city of New Orleans.
He is scheduled to make a statement at the Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans before returning to Washington Friday night.
Police outnumbered and outgunned
Overnight, police snipers were stationed on the roof of their precinct, trying to protect it from gunmen roaming through the city, CNN's Chris Lawrence reported.
One New Orleans police sergeant compared the situation to Somalia and said officers were outnumbered and outgunned by gangs in trucks.
"It's a war zone, and they're not treating it like one," he said, referring to the federal government.
The officer hitched a ride to Baton Rouge Friday morning, after working 60 hours straight in the flooded city. He has not decided whether he will return.
He broke down in tears when he described the deaths of his fellow officers, saying many had drowned doing their jobs. Other officers have turned in their badges as the situation continues to deteriorate.
In one incident, the sergeant said gunmen fired rifles and AK-47s at the helicopters flying overhead.
He said he saw bodies riddled with bullet holes, and the top of one man's head completely shot off.
Lt. Gen Steven Blum of the National Guard said that as many as 2,600 National Guard troops were expected to arrive in Louisiana Friday to join the nearly 2,000 who went in Thursday.
Other developments
The Houston Astrodome in Texas, where thousands of refugees had been bused over the past couple of days, stopped accepting refugees late Thursday. However, authorities later decided to process evacuees at the Astrodome and house them in the nearby Reliant Arena, said Patrick Trahan, city spokesman. Other New Orleans refugees are being taken to Huntsville, Texas, along with San Antonio and Dallas, he said.
Offers of support have poured in from all over the world in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Many countries have offered their condolences and made donations to the Red Cross, including Britain, Japan, Australia and Sri Lanka, which is still recovering from last year's tsunami. (Full story)
At Louis Armstrong airport, a field hospital set up by FEMA was overwhelmed with patients. Equipment normally used to move luggage was instead ferrying patients to a treatment center and to planes and buses for evacuation. "I do not have the words in my vocabulary to describe what is happening here," said Ozro Henderson, a medical team commander with FEMA. "Catastrophe and disaster don't explain it."
In Washington, the Senate approved a $10.5 billion disaster relief request from the Bush administration. The House is expected to do the same when it takes up the matter Friday. (Full story)
Programming Note: CNN correspondents throughout the region gauge the impact from the heart of disaster. (Program Schedule)
(CNN) -- A convoy of military vehicles plowed through the flooded streets of New Orleans on Friday bringing food, water and medicine to the thousands of people trapped at a downtown convention center.
The relief effort came as President Bush toured the Gulf Coast to survey damage from Hurricane Katrina and shortly after the mayor of New Orleans said the city was "holding on by a thread."
Mayor Ray Nagin said in a statement that more than 10,000 people were evacuated from the city Thursday but that more than 50,000 survivors were still on rooftops and in shelters, in urgent need of help. (See video of the desperate conditions -- 1:56)
Earlier, Nagin lashed out at state and federal authorities saying they were "thinking small" in the face of the massive crisis. (See video of the demand for national leaders to 'get off their asses' -- 12:09)
Thousands of people have been stranded at the Ernest Morial Convention Center with little help and surrounded by corpses, trash and human waste.
"We got here, there's no food. There's no water. There's shooting. They're killing people," evacuee Tishia Walters told CNN from inside the center. "They're robbing men in the restrooms, they're raping women trying to go to the rest room. So people have resorted to defecating on the floors. You can't walk. There's babies without Pampers, mammas without milk. It's chaos total chaos."
CNN's Chris Lawrence, who was driving out of New Orleans around 11:30 a.m. (12:30 p.m. ET), said he saw huge flatbed trucks stacked with water bottles and boxes of food heading into the city.
He also saw about 25 tour buses and as many as 12 school buses in a line heading into the city.
An effort to evacuate patients and staff from downtown's Charity Hospital had to be suspended after a sniper opened fire on rescuers. The hospital was caring for about 200 patients with no power or water, and the only food left was a couple of cans of vegetables and some graham crackers. (Full story)
"Any patients who are critically ill at this point, have either died -- and there have been a few that have literally died in the parking deck waiting to be taken out by choppers -- or they are still having their bags -- air pumped into their lungs by handbag as doctors and hospital officials sat there pushing air into their lungs," said CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta, who got into the hospital Thursday night.
Bush: Results 'not acceptable'
President Bush arrived in Mobile, Alabama, on Friday to inspect the storm damage. He sad the federal government would "restore order in the city of New Orleans," where violence has hampered rescue efforts.
Before leaving Washington, Bush told reporters that millions of tons of food and water were on the way to -- but the results of the relief effort "are not acceptable." (Full story) (Watch Bush news briefing -- 2:32)
Bush will take an aerial tour of Mobile and nearby Biloxi, Mississippi. He then plans to view Louisiana hurricane damage from the air, flying over the city of New Orleans.
He is scheduled to make a statement at the Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans before returning to Washington Friday night.
Police outnumbered and outgunned
Overnight, police snipers were stationed on the roof of their precinct, trying to protect it from gunmen roaming through the city, CNN's Chris Lawrence reported.
One New Orleans police sergeant compared the situation to Somalia and said officers were outnumbered and outgunned by gangs in trucks.
"It's a war zone, and they're not treating it like one," he said, referring to the federal government.
The officer hitched a ride to Baton Rouge Friday morning, after working 60 hours straight in the flooded city. He has not decided whether he will return.
He broke down in tears when he described the deaths of his fellow officers, saying many had drowned doing their jobs. Other officers have turned in their badges as the situation continues to deteriorate.
In one incident, the sergeant said gunmen fired rifles and AK-47s at the helicopters flying overhead.
He said he saw bodies riddled with bullet holes, and the top of one man's head completely shot off.
Lt. Gen Steven Blum of the National Guard said that as many as 2,600 National Guard troops were expected to arrive in Louisiana Friday to join the nearly 2,000 who went in Thursday.
Other developments
The Houston Astrodome in Texas, where thousands of refugees had been bused over the past couple of days, stopped accepting refugees late Thursday. However, authorities later decided to process evacuees at the Astrodome and house them in the nearby Reliant Arena, said Patrick Trahan, city spokesman. Other New Orleans refugees are being taken to Huntsville, Texas, along with San Antonio and Dallas, he said.
Offers of support have poured in from all over the world in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Many countries have offered their condolences and made donations to the Red Cross, including Britain, Japan, Australia and Sri Lanka, which is still recovering from last year's tsunami. (Full story)
At Louis Armstrong airport, a field hospital set up by FEMA was overwhelmed with patients. Equipment normally used to move luggage was instead ferrying patients to a treatment center and to planes and buses for evacuation. "I do not have the words in my vocabulary to describe what is happening here," said Ozro Henderson, a medical team commander with FEMA. "Catastrophe and disaster don't explain it."
In Washington, the Senate approved a $10.5 billion disaster relief request from the Bush administration. The House is expected to do the same when it takes up the matter Friday. (Full story)
Wow, i just saw the President(on CNN) walking with, comforting, asking questions and taking questions from a victims family. He was hugging what looked to be like a 12 year old girl. You could tell they were so happy for him to be there.
youarewhatyouis
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2005
- Messages
- 2,544
what the fuck?? so if your fat, you're not hungry? i don't get why thats funny.
SmC
Ex-Bluelighter
youarewhatyouis said:
That statement confused me to...
youarewhatyouis
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2005
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its just the same old bullshit. same old shit. british people don't have any of their own problems, so they have to bitch and complain about how we handle shit. we're all fat, stupid, and armed to the teeth, right? you all live in your perfect little island, and you're all smarter than us. none of you cunts would have survived one day in new orleans.
Skyline_GTR
Bluelight Crew
I have to say it's a complete disgrace, the federal response. Just been wathcing BBC and the reporter (Matt Fry) was saying it's the worse condition he's seen some people in, anywhere in the world, and he's been in some real shit holes.
He told of seeing an ill woman going up to a police car to ask for help and getting a shotgun pointed in her face for her trouble
And they showed a helicopter landing, throwing out supplies without getting out, then taking off - leaving desperate people to fight over it, and all the weak, and the woman and children aren't getting any. They should have the soldiers get out to distribute it fairly
He told of seeing an ill woman going up to a police car to ask for help and getting a shotgun pointed in her face for her trouble
And they showed a helicopter landing, throwing out supplies without getting out, then taking off - leaving desperate people to fight over it, and all the weak, and the woman and children aren't getting any. They should have the soldiers get out to distribute it fairly
DarthMom
Bluelighter
well in defense of that last comment skyline, those copters tried to land a few times and the crowds weren't allowing it, and so they didn't have a choice. The troops have it right now, finally. On the trucks pulling in now the troops are atop with guns pointing upwards, it is unfortunately the only way they will stop people from mobbing them while they try to disperse the food and water.
DarthMom
Bluelighter
they are called helicopters. They land in small areas.
think son, think.
think son, think.
A state of emergency was declared before the hurricanes hit on Monday, and Bush flew over the area on Tuesday on his way back to Washington, where he should be.
The relief efforts have been far from perfect up to this point but it is called a natural disaster for a reason.
The relief efforts have been far from perfect up to this point but it is called a natural disaster for a reason.
faris
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Apr 26, 2002
- Messages
- 4,166
and why exactly should bush be in washington? this is his country afterall.
no wait, in fact. you're right. he really does need to stay in washington. too little, too late.
edit....i got distracted and posted before i read that.
what i MEANT to say was, he should just stay at home like you said. it would not boost my morale to have that man pretend like he cares by making a "photo op" at ground zero. just buzz on back to DC, george.
no wait, in fact. you're right. he really does need to stay in washington. too little, too late.
edit....i got distracted and posted before i read that.
what i MEANT to say was, he should just stay at home like you said. it would not boost my morale to have that man pretend like he cares by making a "photo op" at ground zero. just buzz on back to DC, george.
DarthMom said:
You don't land helos over that area, most of it is covered in rubble or covered in water. They go back to washington, nab marine one, carry it in the C5 back to the gulf coast, so he can do what? Parade around in a helo over unaffected ground instead of signing papers and conducting meetings?
After watching the news just there I'd be ashamed to be an American who has even a shred of respect left for Bush and his government. There's absolute CHAOS happening there and they're doing fuck all about it. It's a fucking disgrace.
Sticky Green
Bluelighter
Vladibus said:
I agree with helicoptors lifting people out is not efficient. However, it is possible that military helicoptors get in there with equipment to repair roads and construct temporary bridges.
It is a fact that there have been buses taking people to the Astrodome. So, there are roads into and out of NO. The helicoptors shoud be clearing the roads of heavy debris (abandoned cars and boats).
IMO, it should have been planned to have 1,2, or 3 major evacuation routes cleared within 24 hours. Once these routes have been established, I like the idea of calling on all US bus services (ie. greyhound and all others) to evacuate the people with a fresh supply of water and food on hand. I don't think that's too much to ask.
As for the helicoptors, they should be doing the rescue missions at people's houses and bring them to the central locations like the convention center or the superdome. From those 2 locations, there should be these large convoys of busses.
Where they then go is a question still. I'm sure there are many who don't have family or friends to live with outside of NO.