Katrina's aftermath

i know. i was saying before that they remind me of those swinging cages on coney island's wonder wheel.

also, how long does a hurricane last? how long will it be before these people can return to their homes (what's left of them anyways)?

That was pointed out, too. But no, it's spirit! Talking point! She wants to work for Fox someday.

LOOTERZ GETS BEER

(Quick note, Gem -- these questions at least were answered with various links up above, so scan through before asking! )

luck of the draw, but like I said, don't bother. No insight there, no breaking news. Buncha local news morons throwing around big hunks of obviousness.

Jimmy Mod, didn't you see the invisible capo on the first fret of teh Prez's guitar?

I did!

Climate Instability + Current Political Situation = Ruin

it's estimated that 1.3 million people live in the new orleans metropolitan area. only 2.6 million people live in all of mississippi, which includes areas not damaged by katrina.

what is a realistic estimate of people who are now homeless?

i don't know if there has been a realistic estimate at this point, across louisiana, mississippi and alabama.

also, how long does a hurricane last?

depends. katrina's dissipated from hurricane strength by this point. the flooding's the bigger issue now.

how long will it be before these people can return to their homes (what's left of them anyways)?

depends. for some it may be months.

Jimmy Mod, didn't you see the invisible capo on the first fret of teh Prez's guitar?

It's in the key of 'F'...

"There's a war that needs to be fought and won in America first. The war against nature."

Gem, it's being said that at least 1,000,000 might be homeless.

Do you realize that two of the "newscasters" were unashamedly wearing trucker caps? I don't want to seem classist or give any lack of sympathy to anyone, but please, these are not anchormen. Stop looking to Louisiana newscasters for information. Even now.

erm, i did 'scan' through - most reports seem to conflict on some of those issues and i haven't seen anything on population. i thought this was the thread to ask such questions. guess not, sorry.

Shit is *really* gonna fly:

8:04 P.M. - Mayor Nagin: Unhappy that the helicopters slated to drop 3,000-pound bags into the levee never showed up to stop the flow of water. Too many chiefs calling shots he says.
7:59 P.M. - Mayor Nagin: Pumps at 17th street canal has failed and water will continue pouring into the city. Nine feet of water is expected on St. Charles Avenue that will be nine feet high. Water is expected to spread throughout the east bank of Orleans and possibly Jefferson Parish.

This afternoon I reached Phil Frasier of the Rebirth Brass Band at his hotel room in Atlanta, where he has fled with his family from his home in the flooded Gentilly area of New Orleans. Three members of the band are still in the city, and Frasier hasn't reached them yet. He says the group still plans on keeping its September 10 date at the Cabooze in Minneapolis, though you might not want to hold your breath. As I speak to him, he has the news on in the background.

Any news about the Treme [neighborhood, reputed birthplace of jazz]?

Last I heard it was underwater. We've always lived in the Treme, but we all moved out of the Treme [in recent years], you know.

Before all this, your [soon-to-be] wife was organizing the Soulja Slim Hip-Hop Festival. Could you tell me about that?

The stuff that she was doing, it was called the Silence the Violence Festival. It was in honor of our son, who was the victim of a crime, he was murdered three years ago. What she was doing was trying to do something positive by putting on that festival, to help our kids, and maybe if she could reach out to someone, so that nobody else would fall victim, or to tell them that them that that's not the way to go. We were going to give out school supplies, bring a bunch of bands, and get guest speakers.

Seems like New Orleans will need more than a benefit now. Are you thinking of doing something like that?

Yeah. Soon as I regroup with my band, we'll put everything on the table and decide where we'll go from here.

I've been hearing for years about how the levees need to be looked at. Is anybody down there angry about this?

Oh, yeah. Including myself. I mean, they knowed the storms was coming, and the levees were built back in the '60s and '70s. I guess they were just putting the money in other places. But they should have put the money to save the city, save the people.

An uprising at Orleans Parish Prison and widespread looting contributed to a deteriorating situation in Louisiana's largest city Tuesday in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina Tuesday, according to witnesses and second-hand accounts from evacuees.

The problem is being compounded, officials said, by a breakdown in the ability of public agencies to communicate with one another, said New Orleans City Council President Oliver Thomas.

Thomas said he confirmed with New Orleans police that an uprising - and possible “hostage situation” - took place at the parish prison sometime late Monday or early Tuesday. Details were sketchy, but Thomas believes the uprising took place when prisoners were being evacuated in the storm's aftermath.

It's not clear how many prisoners were involved, or how many hostages were taken, as Thomas said he has been unable to contact police since evacuating to Baton Rouge on Tuesday. Cell phones are not working.

“The most frustrating thing about this whole thing has been communication,” Thomas said. “We have to devise a better system.”

Thomas said one report he received had a deputy being held hostage with his four children. Thomas said he was trying to verify the situation Tuesday evening.

He said looting has also escalated and an atmosphere of lawlessness has developed as police resources have been almost entirely devoted to search-and-rescue operations for people trapped by floodwaters on roofs and in attics. “Widespread looting is taking place in all parts of the city” - from uptown and Canal Street to areas around the housing projects, Thomas said.

“People are going in and out of businesses at Louisiana and Claiborne (avenues), taking clothes, tennis shoes and goods,” Thomas said. “It is inconceivable to me how people can do this.”

“People are leaving the Superdome to go to Canal Street to loot,” Thomas said. “Some people broke into drug stores and stole the drugs off the shelves. It is looting times five. I'm telling you, it's like Sodom and Gomorrah.”

Yeah, they're wearing trucker caps...probably because that's all that's around, and they haven't showered. That broadcast is from the building with the tower in the city, and they didn't evacuate (yet). Look around: the sign is taped to the door, and you can see a light switch behind them.

There's also a story I just read talking about the looting. Apparently, cops have been assisting and looting themselves (big shock there, especially in New Orleans, the most crooked cops in America), hauling away TVs in their cruisers and smashing jewelry cases so that no one cuts themselves trying to get in.

I did!

Thank you for your arguments, presentation of facts and reports, and your sustenance of this thread. I have needed a place to deal with this today, and you all have provided it.

This scares me so much, even though I haven't been there in two years. I guess its been a couple of years since I've felt real, hard loss.

We still cannot get people into the affected areas, so most production is remaining shut-in. Several platforms were left running on timers which will or have expired, allowing them to shut-in. There is no available phone service or power in the coastal areas east of ICY. Most generator systems will need to be purged and the fuel checked for water before even emergency power can be started. Mobil phone service is very patchy at best, and the landlines into Lafayette are overworked - please keep your communications at a minimum until further notice. Phones are non-existent from the Atchafalaya Basin eastward.
We will continue to try and get fueling stations up and running to allow us to field helicopters, but right now everything must be flown out of ICY or westward, and the standard fuel depots are not running or no longer in existence. We are extremely limited in the areas we can survey until fuel depots and heliports are up and running again.

From a helo pilot:

I just heard from our flight, which we sent to Venice and Fourchon for a look. There is a single building standing in Venice. The fuel tank is nearby but floating, along with huge amounts of debris from everywhere. All the nearby docks, boats and barges appear destroyed. There is lots of water inside the levees and destruction everywhere you look.

Fourchon looks OK at first glance. The roads even APPEAR POSSIBLY passable. The airport at Golden Meadow looks OK but no-one was around and there was no electricity. I know for a fact they have generators so we may be able to get fuel there later in the day. If our base fuel tank survived and the fuel is not contaminated, we have extra generators and will be trying to get that fuel system going. If Fourchon survived the fuel system on platform X might have as well.

Flight following will be a big problem. I will probably launch a small helo to orbit near GM to relay flight plans. Just for information, the Sikorsky that was abandoned at our base just before the storm hit is floating upside down on our heliport.

Damn....uhh...I dunno. Follow the blog then and NOLA.com. But I'm sure you're doing that already.

is this still true? i know that there was a major crackdown on police corruption about a decade ago, and a complete top-to-bottom restructuring of the police department. have the changes stuck at all?

The Craigslist postings didn't improve my mood much.

As far as I know, yes. They're still the lowest paid in the nation.

http://www.nola.com/cgi-bin/prxy/photogalleries/nph-cache.cgi/cache=3000;/nola/images/3684/2075007.jpg

Just got a firsthand account that the water is creeping up Napoleon Ave. A friend who lives at Baronne and Marengo confirmed that the water is just starting to come up Marengo St. towards St. Charles. Four of them there are leaving town as I write this. After reports that downtown has devolved into complete and total anarchy, I am fearing for their safety at the hands of mercenary carjackers trying to get out of town. Fortunately my friends are armed.

i've heard that rookie cops make something like $13,000 a year. that's even less than the average entry-level starting salary in tucson (another very poor city -- jobs that would easily net $35k/yr in new york were netting about $18k).

Not politicize this? Fuck that shit. Someone is to blame. There is hell to pay.

i'll repost what chris posted on the other thread: the washington post article by the director of the king county, washington dept. of emergency management.

Destroying FEMA
By Eric Holdeman
Tuesday, August 30, 2005; A17

SEATTLE -- In the days to come, as the nation and the people along the Gulf Coast work to cope with the disastrous aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, we will be reminded anew, how important it is to have a federal agency capable of dealing with natural catastrophes of this sort. This is an immense human tragedy, one that will work hardship on millions of people. It is beyond the capabilities of state and local government to deal with. It requires a national response.

Which makes it all the more difficult to understand why, at this moment, the country's premier agency for dealing with such events -- FEMA -- is being, in effect, systematically downgraded and all but dismantled by the Department of Homeland Security.

Apparently homeland security now consists almost entirely of protection against terrorist acts. How else to explain why the Federal Emergency Management Agency will no longer be responsible for disaster preparedness? Given our country's long record of natural disasters, how much sense does this make?

What follows is an obituary for what was once considered the preeminent example of a federal agency doing good for the American public in times of trouble, such as the present.

FEMA was born in 1979, the offspring of a number of federal agencies that had been functioning in an independent and uncoordinated manner to protect the country against natural disasters and nuclear holocaust. In its early years FEMA grew and matured, with formal programs being developed to respond to large-scale disasters and with extensive planning for what is called "continuity of government."

The creation of the federal agency encouraged states, counties and cities to convert from their civil defense organizations and also to establish emergency management agencies to do the requisite planning for disasters. Over time, a philosophy of "all-hazards disaster preparedness" was developed that sought to conserve resources by producing single plans that were applicable to many types of events.

But it was Hurricane Andrew, which hit Florida in 1992, that really energized FEMA. The year after that catastrophic storm, President Bill Clinton appointed James Lee Witt to be director of the agency. Witt was the first professional emergency manager to run the agency. Showing a serious regard for the cost of natural disasters in both economic impact and lives lost or disrupted, Witt reoriented FEMA from civil defense preparations to a focus on natural disaster preparedness and disaster mitigation. In an effort to reduce the repeated loss of property and lives every time a disaster struck, he started a disaster mitigation effort called "Project Impact." FEMA was elevated to a Cabinet-level agency, in recognition of its important responsibilities coordinating efforts across departmental and governmental lines.

Witt fought for federal funding to support the new program. At its height, only $20 million was allocated to the national effort, but it worked wonders. One of the best examples of the impact the program had here in the central Puget Sound area and in western Washington state was in protecting people at the time of the Nisqually earthquake on Feb. 28, 2001. Homes had been retrofitted for earthquakes and schools were protected from high-impact structural hazards. Those involved with Project Impact thought it ironic that the day of that quake was also the day that the then-new president chose to announce that Project Impact would be discontinued.

Indeed, the advent of the Bush administration in January 2001 signaled the beginning of the end for FEMA. The newly appointed leadership of the agency showed little interest in its work or in the missions pursued by the departed Witt. Then came the Sept. 11 attacks and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Soon FEMA was being absorbed into the "homeland security borg."

This year it was announced that FEMA is to "officially" lose the disaster preparedness function that it has had since its creation. The move is a death blow to an agency that was already on life support. In fact, FEMA employees have been directed not to become involved in disaster preparedness functions, since a new directorate (yet to be established) will have that mission.

FEMA will be survived by state and local emergency management offices, which are confused about how they fit into the national picture. That's because the focus of the national effort remains terrorism, even if the Department of Homeland Security still talks about "all-hazards preparedness." Those of us in the business of dealing with emergencies find ourselves with no national leadership and no mentors. We are being forced to fend for ourselves, making do with the "homeland security" mission. Our "all-hazards" approaches have been decimated by the administration's preoccupation with terrorism.

To be sure, America may well be hit by another major terrorist attack, and we must be prepared for such an event. But I can guarantee you that hurricanes like the one that ripped into Louisiana and Mississippi yesterday, along with tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, floods, windstorms, mudslides, power outages, fires and perhaps a pandemic flu will have to be dealt with on a weekly and daily basis throughout this country. They are coming for sure, sooner or later, even as we are, to an unconscionable degree, weakening our ability to respond to them.

http://us.news3.yimg.com/us.i2.yimg.com/p/ap/20050830/capt.capm10208301856.bush__capm102.jpg