RUSH to anarchy??? WTF are you talking about? You take the poorest population of a state destroy every single worldly possession, let them sit for 48 hours in the most horrible conditions and state of mind a human could ever be in and youre ONLY talking about the FEW "LOOTERS". WTF is wrong with you? You clearly demonstrate what im talking about, the simple fact that you say "rush to anarchy" sums it all up.

Im not sure why you are possessed to twist what I said. Im not talking about evac, im talking RESPONSE, a question you directly ignored since I guess you werent able to form a intelligent response? Just tell me JIMG, why werent ALL THE NATIONAL GUARD UNITS IN BORDER STATES PUT ON RED ALERT AND READIED FOR DEPLOYMENT THE DAY BEFORE? Just answer that please?

This is why having any conversation with you is so fucking lame. "probably all racists too" blah blah blah, its like debating with a teenager. This is a national emergency, OUR government did not respond in time and we are seeing consequences. Heres another classic example "the people who KEPT attacking workers" COMPLETE EXAGGERATION, ONE FUCKING REPORT and you make it out like there are gangs constantly attacking relief workers. where does that come from? where is the honesty? why do you want to exaggerate these situations?

My sorry ass donated 1,000 dollars to the Red Cross yesterday and I donated blood and plasma. How about you? What has your incredible productive, intelligent, trim ass done for these people right next door to you?

In end, youre the one insulting a person whos genuinely in pain for these people, you are the one complaining about looters who lost everything they own.

Thanks for the link. There is cloud cover over my place, but the surrounding area appears to be dry.

Absolutely, im not sure which of my previous posts (if any) touched on this? I fully stand by what you are saying and I havent debated the contrary. But now, we are in day 5 and there are still 20k people at the convention center and there still hasnt been a single drop of water or supplies or anything. the reports from there are horrifying, dead bodies all over, babies dying in mothers arms, a woman just delivered a still born baby with no one to help her. its bad. how is it that for the last 2 days a copter couldnt come by and DROP supplies?

Impassible? How is it possible for some of the residents who have evacuated the area to come back and view damage to their property? It can't be that difficult to get through. On top of that, if it were difficult to get too, they would normally set up a spot on the outskirts of town as a station where the supplies would transported. This is what they do for hurricane relief in other areas all the time when the roads are impassible. They either bring the people to a designated local or they send people, by way of air or ground to where people have come together.



Yes, this seems to be true. What I was trying to point out is that restlessness started because of the lack of response and time tends to erode at the sanity of people, especially with death already occuring at that point, lack of food and water, and temperatures close to the 90s with humidity.


And I agree with this, since the reports that the helicopter couldn't land doesn't appear to be fabricated. That is why I believe a quicker response would have alleviated a lot of trouble that is occuring now.

Edited for my dola:

And referring to my first paragraph, how in the heck are they bussing people out of there if the streets are impassable?

If everyone is going to be running around blaming everyone over the next few months, I sure hope the media gets their share. . .

News is just seems to be the typical 'everything is shit, nothing is good' reporting. Media needs to take some blame especially if the reports of violence are way overblown which in turn resulted in delays because people had to rethink how to go into different areas because there was the illusion they had to protect themselves more than they might have...

Good deal EF (hopefully), I was badly hoping you'd see that post & be able to get some use from it. (I considered posting this in its own thread, decided things were already scattered enough)

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

6:07 A.M. - Jefferson Parish Emergency Operations Director Walter Maestri: Entergy is considering pulling out its crews trying to bring power back until there is some semblance of order. Entergy says some crew linemen have been shot at.

5:41 A.M. - (AP) Doctors at two desperately crippled hospitals in New Orleans called The Associated Press Thursday morning pleading for rescue, saying they were nearly out of food and power and had been forced to move patients to higher floors to escape looters. "We have been trying to call the mayor's office, we have been trying to call the governor's office ... we have tried to use any inside pressure we can. We are turning to you. Please help us," said Dr. Norman McSwain, chief of trauma surgery at Charity Hospital, the larger of two public hospitals.

4:55 A.M. - Refugee Alan Gould spoke to CNN from inside the New Orleans Convention Center. He said sick, eldery and children are dying and children have been beaten and raped. He pleaded for help.

4:15 P.M. - (AP): Police say storm victims are being raped and beaten inside the New Orleans Convention Center.


About 15,200 people who had taken shelter at the convention center to await buses grew increasingly hostile.


Police Chief Eddie Compass says he sent in 88 officers to quell the situation at the building, but they were quickly beaten back by an angry mob.


Compass says, "We have individuals who are getting raped, we have individuals who are getting beaten."


He says tourists are walking in that direction and they are getting preyed upon.


In hopes of defusing the unrest at the convention center, Mayor Ray Nagin gave the refugees permission to march across a bridge to the city's unflooded west bank for whatever relief they can find. But the bedlam appeared to make leaving difficult.

2:37 P.M. - CNN Reports that snipers have fired shots on Charity Hospital in New Orleans.

All of those reports were from the last 24 hours at WWLTV.com. These are not the actions of a select few individuals.

And for God's sakes, the President wasn't "playing golf in Texas" the day after the hurricane hit. You have no idea what the fuck you are talking about.

You're just figuring this out?

Dola: be sure not to strain yourself as you're patting yourself on the back.

Hmmm...Rhandi Rhodes said he was playing golf here in Phoenix. Cindy Sheehan said he was playing golf in San Diego. Now it's Texas?

He sure played a lot of golf this week.

I thought he was dead?

Well he has some rich oil baron buddies, and since they are all racist too, they are paying to fly him around the country to play golf and ignore the crisis.

Somehow this is supposed to prove a point? Those are the 3 reports "everyone" is talking about. Lets stop relief all together!

Cam, im sorry, i was wrong. He wasnt playing the day after, it was the DAY OF the hurricane. oops!

Ding. Ding. Ding. We have a winnah!!!

I wouldn't have seen this except for Cam's quote, but ...


Enough that I don't feel any need to come online & try to play hero for doing it.

And, thanks to my wife, enough that I'm worried that we probably are in the process of spending (once a couple of the groups we've identified as recipients are reachable) more than maybe we should.

Enough that the total will ultimately exceed any single-subject donation we've ever made, including those to my own child's school or entities in our own local area or state.

And that'll just have to satisfy your curiosity, I'm not interested in sending you tax returns or receipts past, present, or future.

dont break your back trying to suck your tiny dick either. He calls me all sorts shit while demonizing people whove lost everything they own and some how im the bad guy? Im bitching about trying to HELP people, you fucks are bitching about looters. I wonder who falls on the side of good here?

So you're taking the stance that the lawlessness either isn't happening or it is minor or sporadic enough not to have any significant impact on rescue operations?

Chinaski, this thread we an excellent place for everyone to get together and talk about waht is happening and how the events are unfolding. It was an excellent place to go for updates and to be informed form a central location.

Thanks for shitting all over that

There is enough blame to go around for everyone (mayor, governor, Dept. of Homeland security, President, weather forcasters who said it was going to Florida, a construction company that tied a barge to the levee along the 17th St Canal, the media for grossly misrepresenting the conditions in the city, etc).

There is always looting in a cities even for something as stupid as an NBA team winning a championship. There is no excuse for the National Guard not being in the city immediately after the storm passed Monday morning and before the levee broke later in the day. They had enough time before the storm to prepare some units. Large groups of people should not have had to go even 48 hours without supplies being delivered.

The horribly inept response to the disaster helped create an environment that is being exploited by a small group of violent criminals. The viloent criminals should be shot if neccessary, and those responsible for the disaster response should be fired. Placing all the blame on the looters is wrong; placing all the blame on the government is also wrong. The current situation would not exists without each other.


edit: I should probably proofread posts made when I am stressed

I'm in the Houston area. My family and I have decided to go help out at Reliant Center with the refugees. Either with our time and effort, just bringing supplies, or hopefully both.

Here's my concern. What do I need to do to protect myself, my wife, and my children from any possible sickness that the victims may be unwittingly carrying after spending as many as 3+ days in stagnant contaminated water?

I know that a lot of other Texas schools are doing the same thing, but I thought it was awesome that a school over 1000 miles away from NO is offering to help out...

I know this is very localized info I'm about to post, but there's also quite a few FOFC'ers in the area of this particular site, so I'm gonna post it anyway (hope nobody minds that).
Just got this from my son's school:

1. As many of you may know, the FFA Camp in Newton County is housing around 400 evacuees (parents and children) from the hurricane ravaged areas of Louisiana and Mississippi. These evacuees have been placed under the charge of Newton County DFACS. Mrs. Jan Ballard at Newton County DFACS has notified us there is a great need for entertainment items for the children
(art supplies, games, books, etc.) If you can furnish any items like this
for the children, please send them to school on Tuesday (6th).

2. The Covington chapter of the Salvation Army is also working to help
provide for the people at the FFA Camp. They are asking for donations of
water, toiletries, towels, washcloths, linens, and snacks (nothing that will
melt), etc. Drop off points for these items are

- Salvation Army in Covington
- Monticello Baptist Church
- New Rocky Creek Baptist Church

Please do not take items to the FFA Camp.

Any help you can give will be deeply appreciated.

I talked directly to the Covington Salvation Army office, they say right now either works equally well right now, cash or materials.
(I wanted to know if they had a preference, since cash allows them to get specific things they know are short supply in the material donations).

I'm now trying to find out if there's a drop-off point for those kid's items that would defintely get them on-site faster than the Tuesday plan that the school is doing. The SA office said they'd accept them too (but I kinda got the feeling that they're working more on the general items). Every since Dutch mentioned the kid's entertainment items several days ago, I've thought that was a terrific idea & something that I really want to include in my own efforts (you get weird fixations like that when your own kid is a board-game fanatic).

Maybe I just live in my own naive, rose-colored glasses world, but I'd like to think that the reasons have a lot more to do with the situation (completely destroyed infrastructure, especially communication) and the lack of ability to move around competently. It's not "we don't want to rush to help them because they're black", it's "we can't talk to our people once they've left Texas but we've heard that all the major ways into the city are washed out".

SI

Jeebs - Georgia Tech took in (IIRC) 80 or so upper-level Tulane students earlier this week too.

wow, its obvious from what Bush said that he doesnt have a firm grasp as to what is going on when he was walking the destroyed neighborhood. He turned to his cronie and asked, "Isnt there a salvation center down here?" and the guy says, "there's a bus 2 miles away." Bush says, "But there is no Salvation Center down here." "No sir"....

Wow, he isn't getting told the proper info. to understand the scope.

Help me out here Flasch, I'm away from the TV most of the time right now -- is that like "Salvation Army Center" or is Salvation Center what the various refugee / evacuee/ aid locations are now being called (I don't recall seeing/hearing this phrase before)

its sporadic and in no way should unrest from a natural disaster be allowed to even remotely get to the point where it could or would stop evacuation. The NG just arrived, 5 days later. The day after a hurricane hits Florida, the NG is right there, blocking off neighborhoods, not allowing residents to go back to thier homes. Remember the fights? Folks trying to get back home to see the damage and the NG literally fighting with a father while his kid screamed inside the minivan?

To be fair, a ton of websites have been set up for this reason from WWL to Craigslist and other sites that are usually for other stuff.

SI

True, I was just thinking of broadening things past the blog/web stage & making use of even more mainstream/widespread forms of media.

My thought was "if those are working well, this might make them all even better". All of that after catching a link to a link to a link that had a great story of some blogger being able to find his wife's mother after she was transferred to a different nursing home but there had been no way to notify the family.

again from AJC.com (who, like Ben, I have to say is doing a pretty good job with this)

DeKalb County CEO Vernon Jones said today he is declaring a state of emergency to deal with an influx of evacuees from the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast.

Jones will ask Gov. Sonny Perdue to issue a statewide emergency declaration and to request assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The federal government could then reimburse DeKalb and other local governments for providing temporary housing, medical care and other services to people who fled the hurricane.

"We've got to accommodate those people who either are here or are on their way here," Jones said. But without state and federal assistance, he said, "we can't accommodate the huge impact."

Jones said he had no idea how many people have evacuated to metro Atlanta. But he said the numbers appear to be significant; while appearing on radio station V-103 Thursday to solicit donations of money and supplies to send to the Gulf Coast, he said, evacuees appeared at the station to give first-hand accounts of their exodus.

Local governments, Jones said, need to "process these people rather than [them] just hitting us and flooding our gates."

Well, to be fair, did you see the guy talking on Sunday about the Superdome? His quote that he kept having to say over and over again was to the effect that people need to remember that it was a refuge of last resort and while the future is a nice thing to think about, the only thing they could really plan for was trying to keep people alive through Tuesday morning.

SI

Huckleberry, I'm not an infectious disease expert (obviously) but the main things that people likely have as of right now is E. Coli. That is not transmittable as long as you don't go wading into their crap (literally) or drinking contaminated water. I *think* it should be reasonably safe for you to go and help bring supplies or aid in other ways.

JeeberD, that is awesome :)

Go UTEP!

By the way, how can this be considered a logistical nightmare when Houston can successfully coordinate bussing people out of the Superdome. The streets can't be that impassible if they can do this. So brininging in supplies should not have been a matter of only being flown in.

thats not the point, he was surprised that there wasn't a "center" nearby. The lingo doesnt bother me as it can vary from area of the country to area.

The first supplies for the convention center arrived about 15 minutes ago, it rolled up in a 20 truck caravan with the NG. Thats the frustration everyone is feeling, the convention center route has been clear.

Sorry, my bad for not being clearer -- I didn't mean it was the point, I was just asking 'cause I didn't know & was wondering.

oh, that I dont know. Could be called "That place over there" for all I know :p

They had a report on WWL (I swear, they have the best coverage by a mile, tho today it seems like it's been press conference tv) where a meteorologist was brought in on Tuesday, before there were all kinds of satellite images out there and people really had no idea how bad it was. He was talking about how, over land, when the morning starts to heat up, the little fluffy clouds start to form over the land. But the kicker is that they don't form over water. So then he pulled out a satellite of Southern Louisiana and there were the little fluffy clouds all up to the north, but then once you got south of Lake Pontchartrain, there were practically none except for a few south of the Mississippi river and then they abruptly stopped again, the implication of course being that everything else was under water due to the levee breaking the night before. That was pretty much the first time I started to grasp the magnitude of how things had gone from slightly bad with a few areas destroyed to the "um, how the hell do you even start to rebuild". The good news nugget in all this is that if there are little fluffy clouds over your house, it's probably fine waterwise.

SI

Jesus! FINALLY! It only took you guys 5 days....

but it's not like there were truckloads of pallets of water and food sitting in states surrounding NO. I'm not saying there isn't the possibilty that it could have gotten there faster but I kinda doubt people were twiddling their thumbs in regards to sending stuff

On the wire service in the past hour.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - A huge oil spill was spotted near two storage tanks on the Mississippi River downstream from New Orleans, state officials said Friday.

The oil was seen in a flyover to the Venice area by the Department of Environmental Quality.

"Two tanks with the capacity of holding 2 million barrels appear to be leaking," the department said in a statement.

No further details were given.

Ah yes, the old fallback. When confronted with proof of your idiocy, say the other guy has a tiny penis. :rolleyes:

President Bush wasn't playing golf this week, Chinaski. He was at the El Mirage RV and Golf Center for a Medicaid roundtable. There was no golf played.

Again, you are speaking out of your ass. There were plenty more incidents than the three that I found on ONE website.

You are lashing out at the President because that is all you know how to do. You are patting yourself on the back for your donations because it makes you feel superior to others. You're claiming that it's racism on the part of the President, FEMA, the Governor of Louisiana (who's in charge of the NG troops), and other officials that have prevented aid from coming into New Orleans when that is the most farfetched of reasons for this clusterfuck.

You disgust me.

I apologize to all for continuing this discussion rather than letting this thread get back to good solid information. I'm just disgusted by this train of thought that is becoming increasingly prevalent.

I'm in the camp that's thinking there should have been a better command structure in place for such an emergency and some better planning for after the fact but I think the preparation beforehand was about as good as they could muster. All the people bitching about having a 72 hour evacuation plan are really failing to take this into consideration and falling into the hindsight 20/20 trap. It wasn't until half that where it even seemed like a remote possibility. Hell, didn't they just have a 105 mph hurricane there a couple of (last?) years ago and not much happened to the city? Certainly nothing of this magnitude.

Exceptioning the tourists, who were really screwed in this when they shut down the airport ahead of time, everyone who could (and wanted to- not the "I'm going down with the ship" crowd) managed to get out of town. Even with only 24 hours to really evacuate, they managed to get 1 million people out of town and I remember 2am Monday morning when the outermost bands of storms were arriving, one reporter was standing at the bridge in Baton Rouge that comes in from New Orleans and he was commenting on how it was empty and everyone who wanted to get out had. The Superdome and the other "shelters of last resort" seemed to have held up and kept people from dying to the elements in the first 24 hours and while a handful suffered stress-related deaths, everyone else was still alive, even if uncomfortable. It wasn't until the levee broke, flooding a lot more of the city that things went crazily south to where we are now.

SI

awesome. I just heard a thousand oil exectutives shout for joy...

umm it was reported that Bush came back early from vacation. just sayin.

And the hits just keep on coming. :(

I've searched and scanned the thread, but I've haven't seen any reference to this. Has anyone seen/heard the interview with CNN's Soledad O'Brien that she did with FEMA director Mike Brown? It was unreal.

She asked why it's taken until Friday to get the national guard and troops on the ground when Tuesday the mayor and the governor issued the "SOS" and begged for help. He also admitted that HE DIDN'T KNOW THERE WERE REFUGEES AT THE CONVENTION CENTER UNTIL HE SAW IT ON TV THURSDAY. That's why these people weren't getting any food or water -- FEMA didn't know there were there. Hell, I knew there were there. So did most people paying attention to any media reports since Tuesday. And Brown had the never to blame a "lack of communication with city officials," as though he were trying to pass off the blame on them. What a tool.

I'm at a loss. Troops and everything we had should have already been there. Brown also blatantly lied several times during the interview. He said "every" urban search and rescue team in the country was in New Orleans now helping to rescue people. I know SNR people in Kansas City who are not there, so it's a flat our lie.

How this guy every got to head FEMA is beyond me. He needs to be replaced NOW. Whether you militarize the situation and turn everything over to the National Guard or what, I'm not sure. But this clown shouldn't be running a Baskin and Robbins much less the single-largest humanitrian effort and disaster recovery in our nation's history.

I don't know if I have ever heard anyone make me so angry. They played most of the inteview on a local radio station this morning and then played clips from Ray Nagin and he was more pissed than I was. He accused FEMA and the federal government of nothing having a "goddamned clue what they are doing," and I think he was dead on.

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/20...199344-ap.html

Nagin started to turn this into a Bush bashing, and I don't want to do that. I realize there is something to be said for the "buck stops here" mentality, but I don't think now's the time to blame Bush for the problems.

I'll change my tune if Bush doesn't take Michael Brown and put a boot up his ass and lock him in a closet until this mess is over.

KU did the same. Heck, they said they had 20 people inquire about it which was more than I expected up here

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/se...nded_students/

SI

Damn kcchief, you're as fucking clueless in this thread as you are in HA's thread.
Why the hell did I even bother to read the drivel you posted, some sort sick hope that it might be something useful I guess.

You're so full of absolute horseshit & pomposity, you'd probably be able to float every refugee in New Orleans out of town on your fucking back, maybe even elevate the city to above sea level.

"When the troops showed up at the convention center with food and water in tow, the crowd erupted!!" Just like we knew they would. This shouldve been done 48 hours ago. That General Armany(sp?) really has his shit together and made all of this happen.

Just as I don't think that trashing Bush is the answer right now, I don't think defending the administration is appropriate either.

Let's get the problem fixed. If somebody is standing in the way of fixing the problem, let's make a change. Michael Brown isn't racist; he's inept.

I'm with you. Heads should roll for this incompetance and this guy's head should be first on the chopping block. He hasn't got a single clue about anything and there is no way he should have a say on what to do from now on.

So youre saying the above was a lie? Fema's handling this well?

You're a fucking tool. Go back to sucking the administration's cock.

I'm ashamed you are a citizen of the same country that I am.

I don't even understand this. Care to elucidate? I also don't know what you're talk about with HA's thread.

The director of FEMA appears to know less about what's going on in New Orleans than I do and it's not my job to know. Do you have some other source of information that suggests otherwise? Or is this just typical partisan blowhardism? I don't think that matters right now.

Hey JeeberD, guess where we are going for dinner either tonight or later this weekend?

Neverending Pasta Bowl! :)

We are mostly eating the free breakfast at the hotel and then going to buffet type places in the evening, but the pasta bowl will be a nice change soon.

How are you financially? Is this going to hurt in the long run? DO you expect to get some sort of assistance? Have you heard anything about that sort of stuff?

If that's Jon's take -- that I'm using this to criticize Bush -- then he didn't read or understand my take. I have no interest in critizing Bush right now. In that regard, it's his job to put the right people in place to make decisions. Based on what heard Michael Brown say today and what the people in New Orleans are saying -- incluing the mayor, who's up this his ass in the shit right now -- he's not the right person for the job. This has been bungled badly. It needs to be fixed, and I don't think he could do it.

Soledad had a very penetrating question for Brown. She asked him why following the tsunami airlifts of food and water and airdrops were taking place within 48 hours and here it is four days since the levees broke in New Orleans and people at the convention center were starving and dying from dehydration. He's answer: we're working on it.

I appreciate how awful this situation is. I can't even imagine it. I think everybody on the ground is doing everything they possibly can. But the people on the ground rely on the people back in office somwhere -- whether it's in Baton Rouge, Washington or a trailer outside New Orleans -- to call the plays and put the pieces in motion. Maybe it's not Mike Brown's fault; maybe he has someone working for him who was supposed to be tracking the convention center and they dropped the ball. But it's his job to make sure balls don't get dropped. The convention center was a very big ball.

Jon, I will say this -- I put a lot more stock in what the people in New Orleans are saying than I do in what you say and right now everything I've seen and heard them say indicates that while FEMA may be trying hard, they aren't necessarily make the right decisions. I applaud them for trying, but these people need more than trying -- they need smart decisions made quickly.

I couldn't be the head of FEMA either. Most people I know wouldn't. It takes a special guy. Brown's apparently not the guy.

Just as an information-gathering notion, anyone know how the people in Florida viewed FEMA during the four-storm season last year? I don't remember this sort of hell being raised about them at that time. It could be that Brown was able to handle that sort of situation because they were spread over a couple of months (still an unprecendentedly intense period of activity) and that this single large disaster is just beyond his ability to manage because FEMA's not doing small-scale work, but literally trying to manage tens of thousands of people, workers and refugees alike.

I think a plausible scenario is that the local governments prepared as best as they could, but the scale of the disaster starting with the levee breaks on Tuesday suddenly escalated things well beyond their control and the Feds weren't in position to pick up the ball yet. Normally, the locals handle the first response, but since New Orleans was effectively decimated, that eliminated the city government, while the state government suddenly found itself depending on tenuous lifelines to reach the city. A complete lack of communication with New Orleans hindered things as authorities had incomplete knowledge of where people may be holed up aside from the Superdome, which was covered extensively. Once the criminal elements in the city realized they had the run of the place, the looting and violence broke out. The violence was unexpected for rescuers who had begun moving in Tuesday and Wednesday. Without an effective city police force and the state government having not deployed the NGs en masse yet, the authorities had to stop rescue and relief efforts because the rescusers and relievers didn't want to get killed. It was really Wednesday before the federal authorities began working to get in place in earnest. Essentially, they were caught out by the fact that they were not expecting such a complete breakdown at the local level in responding to the situation. In short, this was a huge-ass cluster$#@ and just about everyone is to blame for it. Books will be written for years on this subject and most of them will not be flattering.

Now, I do not think the local breakdown does not absolve the federal government of any responsibility whatsoever. By contrast, it does show that the federal government must have better preparation for anything that happens. As pointed out elsewhere, this is not unlike a terrorist attack against New Orleans with similar results (no local control, mayhem among the survivors, etc). The feds need to be able to not depend on local control and step in immediately if need be. We're showing to the world right now (and our good friends at Al Quaeda in particular) that if you hit us hard enough, we'll stagger. The WTC wasn't a hard enough hit. This was.

EDIT to add: Yipes. I see the thread has slid south a little since I started typing this post. Better slip on a flame-retardant suit (I don't know who I'm battening down against, but better to be prepared... :) ).

This thread is now anarchy.

When things return to normal (or as close as possible), what type of population hit do you suspect that the metro area of New Orleans will take? Also, where will those that leave settle?

The 2000 census put the city's population at 485,000 and the metro area at 1.38 million.

I'm sure some of the people that left will not return and I cannot imagine that many new people will be eager to move there. I guess what I am asking is, what do you think the geographical implications will be from Hurricane Katrina?

I'm doing well enough that I could survive for at least 6-8 months without any financial assistance even paying for my apartment and my in-laws apartment in Shreveport. I feel very fortunate to have some nice savings built up.

LSU Medical School just announced that they will be announcing later this afternoon IF they are going to continue to pay employees. Hopefully, they'll provide at least partial payments for a few months.

I doubt I will get much financial aid from FEMA or the red cross since I have resources, but my mother-in-law is very poor and I suspect she'll be able to get some aid from the Red Cross or some other agency soon.

For now, I'm completely supporting my MIL, SIL, and BIL. I'm trying to look at ways to conserve money but still keep us reasonably comfortable. For example, I just found a dollar movie theater last night that has some decent movies (10 movies that are only 2-3 months old or so) and that 2 hours or so of entertainment is very valuable from a slight mental relief. 5 dollars for the whole crew is certainly worth those 2 hours of relief. I'm rambling a bit, but we are doing ok. Even if LSU decides not to pay us, I feel fairly confident that I'll be able to get at least part time work in Shreveport since I'll be able to practice medicine within the state boundaries. Even if I can only find 15-20 hrs/week that should cover our apartments and keep a positive cash flow going. This will put a dent in our house buying fund, but we'll be ok.

On the contrary, I applaud you for one of the most well-reasoned and impartial posts of the whole lot. In other words, WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?!? ;)

LOL!

FWIW, I totally agree with WSU's post as well ;).

I'm sure there'll be plenty of blame to go around. But if someone is going to spout of the most nonsensical bullshit, I'm at least going to counter it.

Which is why I didn't respond to your complaints about Michael Brown. I disagree to a certain extent, but you at least have an argument that's not based on conspiracy theories and made up shit.

Los Angeles Saints, Las Vegas Hornets?

I would say when the situation stabilizes, there probably won't be that big of a net change in the metro area population. While NO itself is known primarily as a tourist spot, the region's economy is a bit more diversified than that. The port of South Louisiana handles the most tonnage in the country, as it is the exit point for the trade that flows out of the Mississippi River as well as a conduit for petroleum shipments. I would think that it would be more cost-effective to try to keep that port open, than for people to find alternative shipping methods...

Some analysts are predicting a shot in the arm in the region's economy when the rebuilding phase goes into full swing. Much like the civilians willing to risk their lives by driving trucks in Iraq, the promise of economic reward may draw a few into the region.

My feeling is that the metro area will shrink a little, but the city will shrink a lot. I'm reasonably certain money will be plowed into clearing the devastation, but not so sure about rebuilding a lot of it. The French Quarter will come back. The Garden District will come back. Downtown and around the Superdome will come back. Don't know about anything else, though. This "anything else" is unfortunately mostly the poor areas of the city. What happens to those people is uncertain. Do they settle in their refugee spots in places like Houston? Do they come back and settle in one of the suburbs? I don't know.

I respect and agree with that. There's always plenty of blame to go around. I think the response from 9/11 is one of the rare times in our history where the immediate response from city, state and federal officials was so outstanding that there was little to critize and so much to champion.

I didn't read a lot of the thread leading up to your last comment; I scanned for some keywords for info I was looking for. I think I was punctuating your comment as much as anything. I saw a lot of partisanism and I wish that wasn't happening right now. This is not a Democrat or Republican issue. I don't think this is the time or place for that. I don't doubt for one minute that everyone is trying their best to make things better. The question is whether or not they have the skills to do what they are doing. When you're at the top, you're job is cheerleader just as much as it is actually movine the pieces. Brown failed as a cheerleader today.

This is an excellent point--it does show terrorists that an attack could bring a city to its knees...

Again, nobody can be expected to predict the future, but certainly contingency planning could improve, especially since we are plowing a lot of money into homeland security now. I think it is fair to expect a return on our investment.

I've lost track of where I've said things- what message board, what IM, to whom, etc so I hope I'm not repeating myself (and these are just my thoughts- I'm no urban planner or anything). But I think it was earlier in this thread that someone was talking about it likely returning to the Crescent City mentality. The areas that are not a giant lake of nastiness right now will build back up- it's too big a port and too much of an industrial destination for oil refining, if nothing else. As for the inner city, worst case is that the FQ will build back up as a tourist destination with everything around it, past about a 4 block buffer zone, as a bombed out condemned area.

More likely, after the water receeds and people can start to put stuff together again in a few months, people will go back to some of the nicer areas and rebuild. They won't be as nice and the areas around them will descend into abandoned warehouse-type districts. There will be pockets of good, surrounded by lots of bad. Basically, I see it like some of the downtowns of old (Cleveland, etc) or the ones that haven't been redone yet (Kansas City, etc) with regards to sports influences.

Now, maybe, there will be someone ambitious enough and with enough foresight to buy up a ton of this land on the cheap, realize it's a great prospect for urban renewal, if they can fix some of the flooding problems (restore some buffer area, more efficient and up-to-date water removal system, etc) and turn it into a wonderful downtown, building around the FQ and maybe a new sports venue but that would take a ton of cash and a lot of federal money to fix some of the currently existing problems so this doesn't happen again.

SI

Hope you enjoy it! Be sure to try the Mushroom Alfredo...it's some damn tasty stuff. :)

New Orleans Mayor's thoughts(Hopefully this hasn't been posted).

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/02/nag...ipt/index.html

Either Bush or the Governor of Louisiana dropped the ball, and when all is done they should hang for it, figuratively speaking.

It was a page or two ago but we'll forgive ya since it takes forever to catch up with everything in this thread ;) :)

SI

Can you even compare this to 9/11? During 9/11 only a few city blocks were effected by this diasaster. Here you have a large portion of a city. So im not sure how you can compare the repsponse with 9/11 with the reponse here.

Doh, skimmed a bit :D. Sorry.

What the hell do you expect me to say when youre telling me im bragging about making a donation? John calls me all sorts of shit and says im demonstrably worthless, but in the same breath hes advocating shooting looters who just lost every single possession. wtf is he doing besides posting on a message board, bitching about 100 people when there are 800,000 in need. Thats the only point I was making. Youre taking a stab at someone who actually is trying to help, im now a bad guy for donating blood/plasma/money?

Strike Bush playing golf then (because it sure was on his itinerary). How is giving a Medicare roundtable in a remote section of Arizona acceptable the day a massive hurricane destroys the gulf? Just answer it.

I am not lashing out, you are twisting and blowing everying I say out of proportion. I never once said all of those other people are racist, and youre incapable of undertstanding the nuance of what I was really saying. I dont concretely believe that the Bush administration is flatout saying "hey theyre black and poor, let them drown". I know 100% that is not the case. I do believe that classism/racism plays some subconscious part in the interpretation of the looting and violence, but that is just my arm chair psychologist talking.

and like hell you are sorry to everyone, you wouldnt have opened your yap in the first place.

Like I said, in this thread, it's really tough to keep up. Took me over half an hour to get caught up with just the stuff from overnight when I first logged in and then kept falling further behind as the posting is fast and furious :)

SI

I just found out that my wife's hotel chain (Wyndham) is going to pay her for the next 2 months as if she was working full time for them still! :)

Bush has a entire country to run. He can't ignore everything else. That is why we have organizations like FEMA and the Dept. of Homeland Security. He has to trust them to do their jobs. But I don't think it would have mattered if he was playing golf, talking about medicare, or throwing sandbags into the levee breeches.

Yeah I didn't see the FEMA bit til just now. Lot of fuck ups with this whole situation, well beyong Bush and the Governor.

Hopefully people will be held accountable. By the time it's over Fox News will probably hang it on the Mayor somehow.

Glad to hear that.

Lot's of churches are being very helpful. My MIL has a little dog that requires a special pet food (it gets kidney stones) and a local church that has already bought my in-laws some clothes just brought a 10 pound bag of that special food (which goes for about 25 dollars/bag and can only be bought from vets.)

What hotel is it, Ill be sure to lean their way when hotels are needed.

i apologize for my contribution to the downfall of this thread :(

I just don't get how we could know for days of the possibility of a Cat-5 storm hitting New Orleans, know for years of the flooding this could cause, and still be totally useless and incompetent in our response.

After this I have no trust in the Government to do anything but wage wars. I'm just beyond words. All the empty PR everyone has been saying up until today just makes it worse. More interest in ones political careers than whats going on in the South.

As for the downfall on the thread, I think that can be 100% attributed to the "Bush hates blacks" idea ;). Other than that, looks at the ongoing fuck ups of those in charge seems to be a legitimate topic of concern.

I'd like to post a formal complaint to Skydog regarding JIMG and chinaski (among others). They have taken a good informative thread and made it into their personal catfight. It is this type of thing that puts a dark cloud over FOFC, as far as I am concerned. I would like to see a penalty boxing.

a little bit of a disconnect I'd say:

From CNN:

The big disconnect on New Orleans
The official version; then there's the in-the-trenches version

Friday, September 2, 2005; Posted: 3:03 p.m. EDT (19:03 GMT)



NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Diverging views of a crumbling New Orleans emerged Thursday. The sanitized view came from federal officials at news conferences and television appearances. But the official line was contradicted by grittier, more desperate views from the shelters and the streets.

These conflicting views came within hours, sometimes minutes of each of each other, as reflected in CNN's transcripts. The speakers include Michael Brown, chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, evacuee Raymond Cooper, CNN correspondents and others. Here's what they had to say:

Conditions in the Convention Center

# FEMA chief Brown: We learned about that (Thursday), so I have directed that we have all available resources to get that convention center to make sure that they have the food and water and medical care that they need. (See video of CNN asking why FEMA is clueless about conditions -- 2:11)

# Mayor Nagin: The convention center is unsanitary and unsafe, and we are running out of supplies for the 15,000 to 20,000 people. (Hear Nagin's angry demand for soldiers. 1:04)

# CNN Producer Kim Segal: It was chaos. There was nobody there, nobody in charge. And there was nobody giving even water. The children, you should see them, they're all just in tears. There are sick people. We saw... people who are dying in front of you.

# Evacuee Raymond Cooper: Sir, you've got about 3,000 people here in this -- in the Convention Center right now. They're hungry. Don't have any food. We were told two-and-a-half days ago to make our way to the Superdome or the Convention Center by our mayor. And which when we got here, was no one to tell us what to do, no one to direct us, no authority figure.

Uncollected corpses

# Brown: That's not been reported to me, so I'm not going to comment. Until I actually get a report from my teams that say, "We have bodies located here or there," I'm just not going to speculate.

# Segal: We saw one body. A person is in a wheelchair and someone had pushed (her) off to the side and draped just like a blanket over this person in the wheelchair. And then there is another body next to that. There were others they were willing to show us.

# Evacuee Cooper: They had a couple of policemen out here, sir, about six or seven policemen told me directly, when I went to tell them, hey, man, you got bodies in there. You got two old ladies that just passed, just had died, people dragging the bodies into little corners. One guy -- that's how I found out. The guy had actually, hey, man, anybody sleeping over here? I'm like, no. He dragged two bodies in there. Now you just -- I just found out there was a lady and an old man, the lady went to nudge him. He's dead.

Hospital evacuations

# Brown: I've just learned today that we ... are in the process of completing the evacuations of the hospitals, that those are going very well.

# CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta: It's gruesome. I guess that is the best word for it. If you think about a hospital, for example, the morgue is in the basement, and the basement is completely flooded. So you can just imagine the scene down there. But when patients die in the hospital, there is no place to put them, so they're in the stairwells. It is one of the most unbelievable situations I've seen as a doctor, certainly as a journalist as well. There is no electricity. There is no water. There's over 200 patients still here remaining. ...We found our way in through a chopper and had to land at a landing strip and then take a boat. And it is exactly ... where the boat was traveling where the snipers opened fire yesterday, halting all the evacuations. (Watch the video report on corpses stacked in hospital stairwells -- 4:45

# Dr. Matthew Bellew, Charity Hospital: We still have 200 patients in this hospital, many of them needing care that they just can't get. The conditions are such that it's very dangerous for the patients. Just about all the patients in our services had fevers. Our toilets are overflowing. They are filled with stool and urine. And the smell, if you can imagine, is so bad, you know, many of us had gagging and some people even threw up. It's pretty rough.(Mayor's video: Armed addicts fighting for a fix -- 1:03)

Violence and civil unrest

# Brown: I've had no reports of unrest, if the connotation of the word unrest means that people are beginning to riot, or you know, they're banging on walls and screaming and hollering or burning tires or whatever. I've had no reports of that.

# CNN's Chris Lawrence: From here and from talking to the police officers, they're losing control of the city. We're now standing on the roof of one of the police stations. The police officers came by and told us in very, very strong terms it wasn't safe to be out on the street. (

The federal response:

# Brown: Considering the dire circumstances that we have in New Orleans, virtually a city that has been destroyed, things are going relatively well.

# Homeland Security Director Chertoff: Now, of course, a critical element of what we're doing is the process of evacuation and securing New Orleans and other areas that are afflicted. And here the Department of Defense has performed magnificently, as has the National Guard, in bringing enormous resources and capabilities to bear in the areas that are suffering.

# Crowd chanting outside the Convention Center: We want help.

# Nagin: They don't have a clue what's going on down there.

# Phyllis Petrich, a tourist stranded at the Ritz-Carlton: They are invisible. We have no idea where they are. We hear bits and pieces that the National Guard is around, but where? We have not seen them. We have not seen FEMA officials. We have seen no one.

Security

# Brown: I actually think the security is pretty darn good. There's some really bad people out there that are causing some problems, and it seems to me that every time a bad person wants to scream of cause a problem, there's somebody there with a camera to stick it in their face.

# Chertoff: In addition to local law enforcement, we have 2,800 National Guard in New Orleans as we speak today. One thousand four hundred additional National Guard military police trained soldiers will be arriving every day: 1,400 today, 1,400 tomorrow and 1,400 the next day.

# Nagin: I continue to hear that troops are on the way, but we are still protecting the city with only 1,500 New Orleans police officers, an additional 300 law enforcement personnel, 250 National Guard troops, and other military personnel who are primarily focused on evacuation.

# Lawrence: The police are very, very tense right now. They're literally riding around, full assault weapons, full tactical gear, in pickup trucks. Five, six, seven, eight officers. It is a very tense situation here.

Apology accepted. As penance, please send me your 1st round pick via the draft utility. Thaaaaaanks.

That's great EF! Now if they could just change their pet policies for employees...;)

I kind of feel the same. I had no intention of being partisan. In my post, and if a voice of reason like Marmel or someone else thinks it was inappropriate for this discussion, I'll remove it.

You'll have to talk to the 'future 1st whore' about that one...

As a complete outsider looking in, I have to say this is exactly how I feel. Watching CNN I have to remind myself I am watching not Somalia but the USA.

Flasch, it is the Wyndham. They have a national chain of resorts and hotels.

Farrah, I agree. I wish they would waive that policy and give us the 25 dollar rooms with our pets, but I'm glad that they are least offering some sort of aid to us. Hopefully, LSU Medical School will take a similar stance. I'm still waiting for that update which is supposed to happen sometime this afternoon.

I've heard that at least several major companies are doing this or something similar for their employees in the stricken areas.

The El Mirage Golf Club is located in a suburb of Phoenix. You know, Phoenix, the 5th largest city in the country, in the fastest growing state in the country. And the senior citizens he spoke to sure care about their Medicare. I mean, with out it they'd be eating dog food right?

So pull your stuck up nose out of the air before you piss me off.

It wasn't a Cat-5 storm until about 24 hours before it hit

I'm aware of that. But they were predicting it prior to that.

No they weren't, it was still a completely guess. If they started early and it became a small storm or missed them you'd be griping about all the wasted tax dollars and resource involved in the move

I recall that as well. The warmer waters would keep it gaining strength til landfall is what I had heard.