New Orleans After Katrina

[jjw1965]

UPDATE: 1:30pm CDT -- Total411.info has spoken with a representative of a major state-government association who has basically confirmed that local governments around the US offering aid are being told by FEMA to "coordinate" with them -- and then not following through. The exception is a couple of "special" local units long groomed by the Feds which have allegedly been dispatched, such as Fairfax County, Va. right outside DC, which rescue team has been on the scene of every manufactured event since OK BOMBING.

 

[Ocean Breeze]

United States of Shame
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By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: September 3, 2005
Stuff happens.

And when you combine limited government with incompetent government, lethal stuff happens.

America is once more plunged into a snake pit of anarchy, death, looting, raping, marauding thugs, suffering innocents, a shattered infrastructure, a gutted police force, insufficient troop levels and criminally negligent government planning. But this time it's happening in America.

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Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

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W. drove his budget-cutting Chevy to the levee, and it wasn't dry. Bye, bye, American lives. "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees," he told Diane Sawyer.

Shirt-sleeves rolled up, W. finally landed in Hell yesterday and chuckled about his wild boozing days in "the great city" of N'Awlins. He was clearly moved. "You know, I'm going to fly out of here in a minute," he said on the runway at the New Orleans International Airport, "but I want you to know that I'm not going to forget what I've seen." Out of the cameras' range, and avoided by W., was a convoy of thousands of sick and dying people, some sprawled on the floor or dumped on baggage carousels at a makeshift M*A*S*H unit inside the terminal.

Why does this self-styled "can do" president always lapse into such lame "who could have known?" excuses.

Who on earth could have known that Osama bin Laden wanted to attack us by flying planes into buildings? Any official who bothered to read the trellis of pre-9/11 intelligence briefs.

Who on earth could have known that an American invasion of Iraq would spawn a brutal insurgency, terrorist recruiting boom and possible civil war? Any official who bothered to read the C.I.A.'s prewar reports.

Who on earth could have known that New Orleans's sinking levees were at risk from a strong hurricane? Anybody who bothered to read the endless warnings over the years about the Big Easy's uneasy fishbowl.

In June 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, fretted to The Times-Picayune in New Orleans: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

Not only was the money depleted by the Bush folly in Iraq; 30 percent of the National Guard and about half its equipment are in Iraq.

Ron Fournier of The Associated Press reported that the Army Corps of Engineers asked for $105 million for hurricane and flood programs in New Orleans last year. The White House carved it to about $40 million. But President Bush and Congress agreed to a $286.4 billion pork-filled highway bill with 6,000 pet projects, including a $231 million bridge for a small, uninhabited Alaskan island.

Just last year, Federal Emergency Management Agency officials practiced how they would respond to a fake hurricane that caused floods and stranded New Orleans residents. Imagine the feeble FEMA's response to Katrina if they had not prepared.

Michael Brown, the blithering idiot in charge of FEMA - a job he trained for by running something called the International Arabian Horse Association - admitted he didn't know until Thursday that there were 15,000 desperate, dehydrated, hungry, angry, dying victims of Katrina in the New Orleans Convention Center.

Was he sacked instantly? No, our tone-deaf president hailed him in Mobile, Ala., yesterday: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

It would be one thing if President Bush and his inner circle - Dick Cheney was vacationing in Wyoming; Condi Rice was shoe shopping at Ferragamo's on Fifth Avenue and attended "Spamalot" before bloggers chased her back to Washington; and Andy Card was off in Maine - lacked empathy but could get the job done. But it is a chilling lack of empathy combined with a stunning lack of efficiency that could make this administration implode.

When the president and vice president rashly shook off our allies and our respect for international law to pursue a war built on lies, when they sanctioned torture, they shook the faith of the world in American ideals.

When they were deaf for so long to the horrific misery and cries for help of the victims in New Orleans - most of them poor and black, like those stuck at the back of the evacuation line yesterday while 700 guests and employees of the Hyatt Hotel were bused out first - they shook the faith of all Americans in American ideals. And made us ashamed.

Who are we if we can't take care of our own?

as has been stated before: the US/g is the author of it's own misfortune. So sad that in it's lust for power, control, money, greed, materialism, it has lost sight of humanity. This did not happen overnight.......but has been potentiated/ excentuated during the current administration...........more blatantly, and arrogantly than ever before. ........And the world is WATCHING......The world has seen for itself some of the real truths about the US......and they ain't what their "image" or propganda /spins will indicate. So sad to say: Shame on the US.--or as stated here: The US of Shame.

but as the saying goes: "what goes around, comes around."...and with hope the USers will learn something about themselves in this process. So far they have not. True awareness starts within........as does true constructive change. They now have no right to blame, condemn or criticise anyone or any nation. .....but will most likely continue to assume that right as the pattern will continue for some time yet. Waiting to see the blame game begin as all parties shirk responsibility again....and continue to "justify" their actions ......well, in their own minds perhaps. Won't work as well this time. "we" the world has seen for ourselves the double standards, the prejudice, and the ugliness that really does exist in the US. The plus is that now , we have a more realistic picture of the US and that is far healthier than the pumped up, glossy, phoney , "image" they have tried to present to the world for so long. The truth is that the US is like any other nation, with many problems within its own society, gov't and is NOT "better" than anyone else.......just different.. (as in unique in its own way.......similar to * pick any country* is unique in its own way. ) Just maybe "they" will be less inclined to brag about themselves so much now. a little understatement could go a long way to looking more civilized.----as civilized , the US has NOT been. ---to anyone, and even to itself. Poetic Justice???

 

[Ocean Breeze]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4211528.stm


help in earnest??? bush under strain/ Major pressure.

(almost feel sorry for the chap. ......but still think he is way out of his element/league. Hopefully some of his advisors will have some wisdom now )

 

[Ocean Breeze]

Speaking on Cuban television tonight, Castro revealed that on Tuesday, while George Bush was still on vacation playing with his spiffy new guitar, and a day or two before the Secretary of State went shopping for shoes, Cuba contacted the State Department and offered no less than 1,100 doctors to assist in dealing with the crisis. Doctors who, unlike the hospital ship which has yet to leave its berth in Baltimore and isn't scheduled to be in New Orleans until next Saturday (!), could have been on site by Wednesday if the Cuban offer had been accepted."


"It wasn't."
(LeftI)


Evan Derkacz is a New York-based writer and contributor to AlterNet.

gosh, even Castro, showed up the bush gov't..... during a time of such disaster. Not good .....

 

[Ocean Breeze]

An angry letter from New Orleans
3 September 2005
Use this version to print | Send this link by email | Email the author

On September 1 the WSWS posted a letter from a New Orleans hospital, forwarded to us by Karen O’Keefe, a Washington, DC-based lawyer. [Letter from New Orleans: tragedy at stranded hospital] Ms. O’Keefe sent the following letter and accompanying message to the WSWS on Friday.

Yesterday, I wrote to you to let you know that my friends were stranded with many, many others in a hospital. Thank you for posting it. I am so relieved to report that they are out of New Orleans now. But, many, many others (including at least one of my good friends) are still stranded there—with little or no water, medications, food, security, and other essentials. The relief response—as we all know—has been scandalously little and late. Now, on top of the disgraceful federal response, the feds are actually preventing individuals from providing desperately needed help. Here is the email I received:


* * * * *

NOLA Denied Food & Water/Get Your Act On Relief

There are supplies sitting in Baton Rouge for the folks in New Orleans, but the National Guard has the city surrounded and is not letting anyone in or out. They are turning away people with supplies, claiming it is too dangerous. ...

This is the message I am now sending to all major media sources, national and worldwide, as well as posting to email lists, blogs, etc. The story is getting out that the people there are not getting supplies, but the truth of WHY is not. Please help spread the word, we must get this story out. Please do not let any more of my friends die.

Here is my message:

I am a resident of the Bywater in New Orleans (9th Ward). I am one of the lucky ones that was able to evacuate before the storm.

I have recently managed to speak to some friends stranded in New Orleans. They are starving and dehydrating and there is no news of when they will be receiving food and water. I have spoken to relief efforts and understand that there are plenty of supplies waiting for these people, BUT THEY ARE NOT BEING ALLOWED INTO THE CITY.

The National Guard has the city surrounded and is not letting anyone in or out, except the buses being evacuated. The excuse that they cannot bring supplies into New Orleans because of the looting and gun fire is not a valid excuse—if they are too afraid to enter the streets of New Orleans, they need to be air dropping supplies into the city. If the United States is capable of sending planes that can withstand enemy fire to drop bombs in Iraq, certainly they are capable of air dropping supplies into a city where the worst of the gunfire they could encounter would be from semi-automatics.

Our government is killing the people of New Orleans. By withholding supplies, they are ensuring more deaths, and I hold them complicit.

Please bring this matter to the attention of the people of the United States. They need to know that New Orleans is deliberately being denied food and water. Perhaps if the people there had food and water, they might not be shooting off guns.

Please feel free to call me for further information or with any questions. I appreciate your attention to this most serious matter.

I fear for my friends.

Sincerely,

Andrea Garland

something very disturbing about this picture.....

 

[Ocean Breeze]

Europe "reacts"..... as it watches the real US displayed ...

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/sep2005/euro-s03.shtml

 

[GL Schmitt]

From the linked article Ocean Breeze posted above.


Europe reacts to US hurricane disaster
By Stefan Steinberg
3 September 2005

"In Great Britain, the Labour government of Prime Minister Tony Blair has been so far reluctant to comment directly on the disaster." 8O

 

[moghrabi]

First of all Mr Bush, let me say thank you for personally putting your life on the line and visiting the disaster zone. You should have taken the children out of the swamp with you when you left but you didn’t. Now they are still there and still no where to go. Where will they go? Eventually you will find somewhere for them, but it is too bad that you didn’t plan for this before. It is too bad that you were so slow and could not deploy help as rapidly as you can deploy an army to start wars. Think about this Mr President. Furthermore, you know Mr President, that most of this could have been avoided, but it wasn’t, so now what will you do? Will you get serious about your country for the sake of everyone and not only for your friends and your ilk?

 

[Ocean Breeze]

New Orleans: as the troops go in at last ... the full horrors start to emerge




By Neil Mackay and Jenifer Johnston



AID and military assistance may at last be arriving in New Orleans, but the full horror of the wave of the rapes, murders, looting, shootings and carjackings that hit the city in the wake of hurricane Katrina is only now beginning to emerge.
The US federal government said it still had no idea of the scale of the anarchy, chaos and social breakdown that swept over the Louisiana city. The true toll of fatalities will only be known once the floodwaters have subsided. Currently it is estimated at 10,000.

Linda Sacia of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) said of the death toll from crime and the number expected to report violence at the hands of armed mobs: “This will go on. As our urban search and rescue teams find more people to rescue, they are also finding more people who have become victims.”

She said that neither Fema nor local or state emergency services knew where to look for survivors. As they go on house-to-house rescue missions, they are discovering more and more evidence of just how gruesome the anarchy really was.

“Has the full horror been seen? No,” said Sacia. “We are certainly going to discover more horror. The current horror is how we house the survivors, but the horrors of the level of deaths are still to come.”

Sacia said that the size of the disaster zone – an area as big as Britain – meant “finding all those who died will take some time”.

“One of our biggest concerns is sending staff – like medical teams – into areas we do not know are safe yet. The public have not got the full picture of what has gone on so far.”

Fema and the White House have come under intense criticism from black America, which is outraged at the handling of a disaster which has primarily taken its toll on poverty-stricken African-Americans. There are also mounting calls for a 9/11-style inquiry into the disaster.

US President George W Bush has ordered an additional 7000 front-line troops into New Orleans, admitting that the emergency response had been too slow. Some 4000 soldiers are already in the city attempting to restore law and order and assisting with the complete evacuation of the city. More than 14,000 soldiers are on the ground in three states.

“We will complete the evacuation as quickly and safely as possible,” said Bush. “We will not let criminals prey on the vulnerable and we will not allow bureaucracy to get in the way of saving lives.” Bush has signed off a $10.5 billion emergency spending package from Congress.

Access to the city for soldiers is desperately difficult. Guardsmen were unable to get in by air as there were no usable landing strips, and had to dump supplies 150 miles from New Orleans before taking them by road into the city.

Fema plans to evacuate 10,000 people by air today alone. The agency has liaised with neighbouring states and found enough shelter space for 35,000 people over the next three days in Arizona, Arkansas and Utah. Texas will take 75,000. “The plan is for the city to be completely emptied,” Sacia said. Some 5500 people are still left in the Superdome, together with up to 12,000 at the Convention Centre – both refugee points were the scenes of horrendous crimes, including the rape of children and gang murder.

Trolkyn Joseph, 37, a refugee at the Convention Centre, said she had found a 14-year-old girl yesterday who had been raped to death. This came despite the arrival of the military and aid supplies.

New Orleans mayor, Ray Nagin, warned: “The people of our city are holding on by a thread. Time has run out. Can we survive another night? And who will we depend on? Only God knows.” Nagin has already savaged President Bush for the inadequacy of the emergency response which he believes has added to the death toll.

Even as citizens fled New Orleans for refugee camps, they were followed by violence and tragedy. One person died on an evacuation bus when a passenger seized control of the vehicle, causing it to crash.

There also remains the very real possibility that another major hurricane may hit the same coastline in the weeks to come.

04 September 2005

 

[Ocean Breeze]

Backlash gathers force as black leaders hit out at ‘racist’ response to disaster




James Hamilton



KANYE WEST, hip hop star: “I hate the way they portray us in the media. You see a black family, it says: ‘They’re looting.’ You see a white family, it says: ‘They’re looking for food.’ It’s been five days [waiting for federal help]. With the way America is set up to help the poor – the black people – that’s as slow as possible. We realise a lot of people who could help are at war right now , and the government’s given the army who are here permission to go down and shoot us! George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”
Jesse Jackson, Congressman: ‘‘Today I saw 5000 African Americans on the I-10 causeway, desperate, perishing, dehydrated, babies dying. It looked like Africans in the hull of a slave ship. It was so ugly and so obvious. Have we missed this catastrophe because of indifference and ineptitude, or is it a combination of the both? We have great tolerance for black suffering and black marginalisation. And today those who are suffering the most, in fact, in New Orleans certainly are black people.”

Randall Robinson, civil rights leader: ‘‘New Orleans marks the end of the America I strove for. I am angry against my country for doing nothing when it mattered. This is what we have come to. This defining watershed moment in America’s racial history. I, the formerly unjaundiced human rights advocate, have finally come to see my country for what it really is: a monstrous fraud. But what can I do but write about how I feel? How millions, black like me, must feel at this, the lowest moment in my country’s story.”

Elijah Cummings, Maryland Democrat and former head of the Congressional Black Caucus: “We cannot allow it to be said by history that the difference between those who lived and those who died in this great storm and flood of 2005 was nothing more than poverty, age or skin colour. Many of these Americans who are struggling to survive are Americans of colour. Their cries for assistance confront America with a test of our moral compass as a nation. ”

04 September 2005

 

[no1important]

RE: New Orleans After Kat

"W" and the Various governments really showed their true colours over this. Disgraceful for such a country like America tries to portray itself as. Always execuses and no one wants to be held accountable, so they blame the victims.

 

[Ocean Breeze]

Re: RE: New Orleans After Kat

"W" and the Various governments really showed their true colours over this. Disgraceful for such a country like America tries to portray itself as. Always execuses and no one wants to be held accountable, so they blame the victims.

Absolutely !! just like one of the comments in previous post..... : the US has been shown to be a FRAUD.....on multiple levels . Their perpetual blame game is tiresome , irresponsible, and immature. (and transparent)

it is like the superficial wrapping ( advertizing/ spin /glorification etc) of the US has been torn off and we are seeing the tortuous dysfunctionality of the nation......(which they have been trying so hard to mask all these years with spin and cosmetics)

 

[Ocean Breeze]

"In Great Britain, the Labour government of Prime Minister Tony Blair has been so far reluctant to comment directly on the disaster."

Bet he is :roll: ........("reluctant".) (his partner in crime ain't "showing" all that well.......and it is reflecting on him. (the "friends" we keep.. 8O ....

 

[no1important]

RE: New Orleans After Kat

{slightly OT} Ocean- did you happen to listen to David Berner today on CKNW?

Anyways he had a (black) women call who lives just outside of Seattle but comes to Vancouver often called in.

She was originally from New Orleans . She says in New Orleans that racism is alive and well and that "not to many white people talk to black people". I was dumfounded she said that and that racism was so still alive and well in America.

She said she also comes up to Canada often as she feels more free here than in America.

Its pretty sad in this day and age some people still see colour as a disavantage or being lesser. I wonder if these morons will ever see past colour? It is sick to treat someone diferent soley because of their race. Like wtf? It is 2005 not 1965. geeez.{/Slightly off topic}

 

[GL Schmitt]

Has anybody wondered where Dick Cheney was?

New Orleans a 'ghost town' for 9 months

By Geoffrey Lean and Andrew Gumbel
Published: 04 September 2005


. . . Republican David Vitter, gave the Bush administration "an F grade" for its handling of the crisis. Senator Chuck Hagel, a leading contender for his party's nomination to succeed Mr Bush, said, "There must be some accountability."

The criticism is all the sharper because the President did nothing to alter his holiday schedule for 48 hours. Vice-President Dick Cheney remains on holiday in Wyoming. Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, returned to Washington after being seen shopping for $7,000 shoes in Manhattan as New Orleans went under. . . .

. . . . Although a government exercise last year predicted the course of the disaster, Mr Bush drastically cut back spending on city defences. Work on strengthening vital levees needed to keep out flood water stopped for the first time in 37 years. . . . .

Nah!

I guess he’s not such a fun kind of guy that anybody misses him.

 

[peapod]

$7,000 shoes 8O 8O she could have got them at the thrift store for way less :twisted:

 

[GL Schmitt]

Do you think maybe she was getting a black sou ... sole implant? :?

 

[Ocean Breeze]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4212526.stm

massive rescue operations continue.

an aside: but did anyone see Celine Dion on Larry King live yesterday ???? She donated one million dollars to "relief efforts " in N.O. ......but was so upset (angry) at the mismanagement of this whole situation, she was crying. She did not mince words either. Said something along the lines of : " they can drop precision bombs in Iraq (and kill people ) with such efficiency and can't rescue people properly in their own country. ". (not a direct quote.) .......Seems Iraq and NO.....are intertwined in people's thinking now..... as Iraq was, where bush the semi prehistoric warrior put his priorities. and MONEY.

Seems that mother nature just kicked bush and his greedy band of criminals in the butt .........big time. But again.....as in Iraq .......many innocents have died and are suffering..

There was no excuse for this lack of preparedness in an area of the country that has been so prone to natures "aggression". This , is NEGLEGENCE. ......on all gov't levels.. "their" excuses are not acceptable at any time........but particularly now.

How sad for the US in general now. ( of course the die hards will simply say "we will recover and be stronger".......without reflecting on the much larger picture that exists. A picture of serious societal /gov't pathology. These quips are callous and indifferent......and reflect the superficial pride that has been the forefront of the US. )

(IMHO......

 

[Ocean Breeze]

$7,000 shoes 8O 8O she could have got them at the thrift store for way less :twisted:

what is with this $7,000 shoes??? Is this ONE pair or $7,000 worth of shoes ??? She is shopping with this level of extravagance while her black "kinfolk"........are desperate for food, shelter, water and the basic toilet facilities. If that does not represent the societal contrasts of the US........nothing can. From the sublime to the rediculous. Gosh, are "we" ever seeing the US for what it really is now. .......obscene wealth vs extreme poverty..... with the racial twist....

 

[jjw1965]

Joseph R. Chenelly/Army Times | September 4 2005
Troops begin combat operations in New Orleans to fight 'insurgents'

Joseph R. Chenelly/Army Times | September 4 2005

NEW ORLEANS — Combat operations are underway on the streets “to take this city back” in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

“This place is going to look like Little Somalia,” Brig. Gen. Gary Jones, commander of the Louisiana National Guard’s Joint Task Force told Army Times Friday as hundreds of armed troops under his charge prepared to launch a massive citywide security mission from a staging area outside the Louisiana Superdome. “We’re going to go out and take this city back. This will be a combat operation to get this city under control.”

Jones said the military first needs to establish security throughout the city. Military and police officials have said there are several large areas of the city are in a full state of anarchy.

Dozens of military trucks and up-armored Humvees left the staging area just after 11 a.m. Friday, while hundreds more troops arrived at the same staging area in the city via Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters.

“We’re here to do whatever they need us to do,” Sgt. 1st Class Ron Dixon, of the Oklahoma National Guard’s 1345th Transportation Company. “We packed to stay as long as it takes.”

While some fight the insurgency in the city, other carry on with rescue and evacuation operations. Helicopters are still pulling hundreds of stranded people from rooftops of flooded homes.

Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and police helicopters filled the city sky Friday morning. Most had armed soldiers manning the doors. According to Petty Officer 3rd Class Jeremy Grishamn, a spokesman for the amphibious assault ship Bataan, the vessel kept its helicopters at sea Thursday night after several military helicopters reported being shot at from the ground.

Numerous soldiers also told Army Times that they have been shot at by armed civilians in New Orleans. Spokesmen for the Joint Task Force Headquarters at the Superdome were unaware of any servicemen being wounded in the streets, although one soldier is recovering from a gunshot wound sustained during a struggle with a civilian in the dome Wednesday night.

“I never thought that at a National Guardsman I would be shot at by other Americans,” said Spc. Philip Baccus of the 527th Engineer Battalion. “And I never thought I’d have to carry a rifle when on a hurricane relief mission. This is a disgrace.”

Spc. Cliff Ferguson of the 527th Engineer Battalion pointed out that he knows there are plenty of decent people in New Orleans, but he said it is hard to stay motivated considering the circumstances.

“This is making a lot of us think about not reenlisting.” Ferguson said. “You have to think about whether it is worth risking your neck for someone who will turn around and shoot at you. We didn’t come here to fight a war. We came here to help.”