Hurricane Katrina -

by 90 degrees Mon Jun 05, 2017 17:12

'iosaf' has put up a post with much sense and indignation. In the USA the weak go to the wall when disaster strikes. When Katrina hit New Orleans in August 2005 it was the poor black population that was worst off. The National Guard patrolled the disaster ghettoes like an imperial occupation force.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_Hurricane_Katr...ities

by iosaf Fri Jun 02, 2017 23:36

Since Trump took office he has not had the time to fill the vacancies at the top of every agency responsible for natural disaster response. When the shit hits the fan - & it will - Trump will have nobody to fire.

Since Katrina scientist have agreed that the intensity of tropical storms on a worsening curve. We all reacted to Katrina seeing the humanitarian disaster and mismanagement of resources in the USA. We saw international solidarity. Many of us will remember the lunatic reactions in the USA by the far right and Christians who thought the hurricane might have been the wrath of a homophobic God. It was generally thought and observed how the mighty USA and its war machine could be so humbled by nature on its doorstep. The tropical storms that followed were treated differently. The general public had been awed and followed instructions from the directorships of the emergency and response services.

What has changed?

Well Donald Trump has cut disaster preparation mitigation funding by 60% since taking office.
Hugo Chavez is now dead, his country in ruins and Venezuela will most likely not be the first humanitarian responder to a natural disaster of the scale of Katrina.
As well as cutting more than half of the funds for emergency response and mitigation Trump has also failed to appoint a director of NOAA or a director of FEMA.

The Hurricane season officially began yesterday. Is it not ironic that it began with names prepared for all the tropical storms which shall be rated hurricane up to 2020 when the term of Trump's presidency (Whoever takes over after his impeachment) shall end.

But the one name missing is the name of a director. The man or woman probably great, very good at their job, a patriot, gurgle, ribbid, who shall pick up the phone and call his or her corresponding equivalent director.

Trump knows which way the wind blows.

The good folks of the Federal emergency management authority will probably be able to better engage with state authorities and federal agencies without a boss or clear line of command. They will be relying on clear and up to date information from the expert teams in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration thanks to their _________________ director still to be appointed.

1245 deaths were attributed to storm Katrina and the flooding in her wake. The cost to property and infrastructure was 108billion dollars in 2005. That was a lot of money then & it is more now. That cost was damage. Not for reconstruction.

Trump's pride and arrogance and need for glory are all part of his narcissistic personality disorder, at the beginning of the official video of his statement on leaving the Paris accord about a minute was given to vice president Pence. About a minute of utter felching fawning flattery & lies. The journalists witnessing the spectacle were as is usual papered with paid members of the Trump administration. They are instructed like a live studio audience to applaud and cheer the boss.

All hubris faces a fall. It is the simple axiomatic truth which not only fuels fiction but puts the fibre on more than one vengeful god.

Europe has a new destiny. When the natural disaster hits the USA people will die. The federal and local response will not even compare to the disaster which was the legacy of Bush. & is it not so very ironic that Trump will have nobody to fire?

by Gigahertz Fri Sep 16, 2005 20:30

I have made a customized EMERGENCY type search engine that links only to crisis situation type websites (like relief aide, evacuation planning layouts, crisis management setup and others relating to disasters caused by terrorism, natural disasters, poverty, disease and man-made war), see http://www.CrisisSearch.com ... This niche portal was made after the Katrina devastation and hopefully it will assist humanity in/during the next disasterous crisis...

Please add related crisis blogs and websites to the database, already 1,000 websites spidered for meta data (fetched meta tags for description, title and keywords, plus we then grab the text from page and cache it for further searchable data)...

Also a portal as at the bottom of every search page has external links. Also a 'Suggestion Bot' that tries to suggest similar terms to use in further queries... Blogs/forums are on the way (being created so people can find more personalized one-on-one advice/help) for people to post missing friends, family, pets or post about volunteering or possible stradegies for Emergency Planning for current crisises or Clean-Up plans for past disasters.

My first humanitarian project was http://www.SpareSomeChange.com which only covers resources for those living homeless (I had suffered homelessness a few times as a youth). I will try to come up with other helping humanity type portals as I can afford too...

by seedot Sun Sep 04, 2005 16:02

On Wednesday Green Party activists tried to bring a large amount of water to the SuperDome. They were prevented from doing so, as have many others. Why have food and water been BLOCKED from reaching tens of thousands of poor people?

On Thursday, the government used the excuse that there were some very scattered gunshots (two or three instances only) -- around 1/50th of the number of gunshots that occur in New York City on an average day -- to shut down voluntary rescue operations and to scrounge for 5,000 National Guard troops fully armed, with "shoot to kill" orders -- at a huge economic cost.

They even refused to allow voluntary workers who had rescued over 1,000 people in boats over the previous days to continue on Thursday, using the several gunshots (and who knows WHO shot off those rounds?) to say "It's too dangerous". The volunteers didn't think the gunshots were dangerous to them and wanted to continue their rescue operations and had to be "convinced" at gunpoint to "cease and desist."

There is something sinister going down -- it's not just incompetence or negligence. ........................

If people resist the National Guard coming to remove them against their will, will New Orleans become known as the first battle in the new American revolution?

by Che Mus Sun Sep 04, 2005 14:35

These guys are not insurgents they are freedom fighters. Just like the freedom fighters in Iraq - Fighting against Bush.
Everyone knows Bush caused this hurricane. If he had signed Kyoto this hurricane would never have happended!! If the muggers and rapists were white they'd have gotten help quicker.
Qui Bono???

by lkj Sun Sep 04, 2005 03:58

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.

http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1077495.php



IEM Inc., a Baton Rouge, La.-based emergency management and homeland security consultant, announced it will lead the development of a catastrophic hurricane disaster plan for Southeast Louisiana and the City of New Orleans under a more than half a million dollar contract with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security/Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

The IEM team will complete a functional exercise on a catastrophic hurricane strike in Southeast Louisiana and use results to develop a response and recovery plan. A catastrophic event is one that can overwhelm state, local and private capabilities so quickly that communities could be devastated without Federal assistance and multi-agency planning and preparedness.

http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/southcentral/2004/06/09/43008.htm

and good news...

by Searc Sun Sep 04, 2005 01:19

Why weren't the troops and helicopters deployed to relieve the City on Day 1?
I gotta agree with the commentator about the US meida being in shock - even Fox News were critical of Bush's reaction -
Is it too cynical to say that his oil interests in Texas made the New Orleans tragedy a tad too convenient in these days of depleted oil reserves? Thousands are displaced and it will take years to unravel the truth about the 'too little too late' policy....

by hs Sat Sep 03, 2005 18:58

got this of an email list so have no link to it but it's worth reading: Pretty much everything that happened predicted well in advance almost word for word, one local paper even ran a 5 part series predicting everything that happened and warning, not if but when. Incredible. Hs



A Warning Sent But Left Unheeded
Submitted by editor4 on September 2, 2005 - 2:38pm.
By Tim Rutten
Source: Los Angeles Times

As commentators and public officials survey the morass of loss and desolation that once was a great American city called New Orleans, one of the words we hear and read over and over again is "unimaginable."

In fact, the tragedy that this week destroyed a vibrant metropolitan area that was home to 1.4 million people and the city proper that was a national cultural treasure was not simply imagined but foreseen with a prescience that now seems eerily precise.

These days, media criticism has become a kind of blood sport. One of its practitioners' most frequently repeated complaints is that mainstream news organizations have become increasingly — if not solely — reactive, retailing the sensation of the moment to an audience hooked on titillating irrelevancies.

Well, that didn't happen here.

Three years ago, New Orleans' leading local newspaper, the Times-Picayune, National Public Radio's signature nightly news program, "All Things Considered," and the New York Times each methodically and compellingly reported that the very existence of south Louisiana's leading city was at risk and hundreds of thousands of lives imperiled by exactly the sequence of events that occurred this week. All three news organizations also made clear that the danger was growing because of a series of public policy decisions and failure to allocate government funds to alleviate the danger.

The Times-Picayune, in fact, won numerous awards for John McQuaid and Mark Schleifstein's superbly conceived and executed five-part series — that's right, five-part — whose initial installment began with a headline reading: "It's only a matter of time before south Louisiana takes a direct hit from a major hurricane. Billions have been spent to protect us, but we grow more vulnerable every day." One of the separate stories in that first installment — each part consisted of multiple pieces supported by compelling graphics — began: "The risk is growing greater and no one can say how much greater."

The series' second part began: "It's a matter of when, not if. Eventually a major hurricane will hit New Orleans head on, instead of being just a close call. It's happened before and it'll happen again." In that installment, McQuaid and Schleifstein reported that "a major hurricane could decimate the region, but flooding from even a moderate storm could kill thousands. It's just a matter of time.... Evacuation is the most certain route to safety, but it may be a nightmare. And 100,000 without transportation will be left behind.... Hundreds of thousands would be left homeless, and it would take months to dry out the area and begin to make it livable. But there wouldn't be much for residents to come home to. The local economy would be in ruins....

"People left behind in an evacuation will be struggling to survive. Some will be housed at the Superdome, the designated shelter in New Orleans for people too sick or infirm to leave the city. Others will end up in last-minute emergency refuges that will offer minimal safety. But many will simply be on their own.... Thousands will drown while trapped in homes or cars by rising waters. Others will be washed away or crushed by debris. Survivors will end up trapped on roofs, in buildings or on high ground surrounded by water, with no means of escape and little food or fresh water, perhaps for several days."

Sound familiar?

Later, in August 2002, New York Times reporter Adam Cohen wrote that New Orleans "may be America's most architecturally distinctive and culturally rich city. But it is also a disaster waiting to happen.... If a bad hurricane hit, experts say, the city could fill up like a cereal bowl, killing tens of thousands and laying waste to the city's architectural heritage. If the Big One hit, New Orleans could disappear."

Cohen went on to report that, "So far, Washington has done little and New Orleans' response has been less than satisfying."

The reporter quoted Terry Tullier, head of the city's Office of Emergency Preparedness, as saying, "When I do presentations, I start by saying that 'when the Big One comes, many of you will die — let's get that out of the way.' "

Chilling then; worse now.

A little more than a month later, NPR's "All Things Considered" aired an extended two-part broadcast on New Orleans' peril that was, in its own way, every bit as compelling as the Times-Picayune's series. In its opening sequence, reporter Daniel Zwerdling accompanied scientist Joe Suhayda, a researcher from Louisiana State University, as he used an extending measuring rod to determine how high hurricane-driven flood waters might rise in the French Quarter if a levee gave way. Here's an excerpt from the transcript of what followed:

Suhayda: It's well above the second floor there and it's just about to the rooftop.

Zwerdling: Do you expect this kind of hurricane and this kind of flooding to hit New Orleans in our lifetime?

Suhayda: Well, I would say the probability is yes....

Zwerdling: So, basically, the part of New Orleans that most Americans and most people around the world think of as New Orleans would disappear underwater.

Suhayda: It would. That's right.

The NPR report went on to note that none of Suhayda's views were even remotely controversial in the scientific or engineering communities. This was not global warming — or even second-hand smoke. And, as Zwerdling went on to explain with great clarity, there was similar agreement that the steps taken by the federal and state government in earlier years to protect the city from smaller storms and to ensure that the Mississippi River would remain open to commerce had dramatically increased the danger from the inevitable larger storm. It was, in other words, the same conclusion the Times-Picayune's reporters reached.

Both organizations also agreed that a massive — and expensive — overhaul of the levee system was required, if the danger to life and property were to be alleviated.

So what happened in the three lost years between then and now?

Nothing.

And did the mainstream news media simply drop the issue, moving on to the next big thing, another victim of our real epidemic — national deficit disorder?

Not really. Since 2002, when all these reports ran, the Times-Picayune has published no fewer than nine stories reporting that the combination of tax cuts, the war in Iraq and the demands of homeland security had led President Bush's administration to repeatedly reject urgent requests from the Army Corps of Engineers and Louisiana's congressional delegation that it allocate the money to save New Orleans.

Today, while Bush personally surveys the consequences of his decisions, the staff of the Times-Picayune — driven from their offices by the flood waters — is busy putting out an electronic edition of a newspaper that, in this instance, has done just what a paper is supposed to do: serve the common good.

Politics may have failed the people of New Orleans. Politicians certainly failed them. They may have failed themselves by not demanding better. But their newspaper and other important segments of the American press did not fail them.

Nowadays, it often seems like every other third person with access to a mike or computer is a press critic, who thinks that their particular beef could be resolved by simply resorting to the good old-fashioned practice of shooting the messenger.

As it turns out, one of the truly unforeseen lessons of New Orleans is that whether you rhetorically gun down the media messengers — or simply ignore them — the result is a self-inflicted, sometimes fatal wound.

by hs Sat Sep 03, 2005 18:44

"In nature and in society, seemingly routine, insignificant incidents can set off chains of events with profound, far-reaching consequences out of all proportion to their beginnings. In an unstable situation, in a “system on the edge of chaos”, even the smallest shock or change can unleash tremendous forces further down the line. Under certain conditions, all it takes is one flake of snow or a single cough to set off an avalanche on a snow-covered mountain – the proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back"

feature continued at:

http://www.marxist.com/new-orleans-disaster-capitalism020905.htm

This one has the now infamous AP photos, one shows a black man with a bag and the caption says he is "looting" the other shows two whites with identical bags and the caption says that they "found" them. hs

by RobbieS Sat Sep 03, 2005 12:57

http://www.stratfor.com/news/archive/050903-geopolitics_katrina.php

On this link, George Friedman shows the significance of New Orleans to US economy (trade and tranposrt). A cNew Orleans depopulated of skilled workers (which it will be for the foreseeable future), will not be able to manage the adjacent oil installations or work the largest port in the US (fifth largest in the world).

by . Sat Sep 03, 2005 05:00

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by . Sat Sep 03, 2005 04:59

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by seedot Sat Sep 03, 2005 01:36

Halliburton gets the contract for Katrina clean-up. Even before the victims get food and water!
Read the POST date on the article...

by hs Fri Sep 02, 2005 21:22

.

helps coming?

by hs Fri Sep 02, 2005 21:20

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bush administration funding cuts forced federal engineers to delay improvements on the levees, floodgates and pumping stations that failed to protect New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters, agency documents showed on Thursday.

The former head of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the agency that handles the infrastructure of the nation's waterways, said the damage in New Orleans probably would have been much less extensive had flood-control efforts been fully funded over the years....
article continued at

http://maconareaonline.com/news.asp?id=11853

by iosaf Fri Sep 02, 2005 18:09

(i've been monitoring US imc response which has been till some quite rude and well placed messages I left yesterday as slow and ineffectual as the federal government)

Bush has just gone on air with republican governors in a completely needless PR stunt of "briefing". He now goes to meet the New Orleans mayor who is begging for help before nightfall. The itinerary has been altered due to "an increased security threat to the president".
I've left an account here
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=71751&condense_comments=false#comment120314

Hs, and others with a little help from Jesus we're watching the countdown to his end.

& interestingly of all the left wing governments in Central & south America all have citizens in the Gulf states of the USA.
None are satisfied that their citizens are safe.
the State department will not "refuse aid" from any quarter.

by hs Fri Sep 02, 2005 17:39

An Indictment on the US Right

While Hurricane Katrina itself was unpreventable the unfolding disaster was and is. Those with the means or money to escape had ample warning and did so. But those without money or a place to go had no such choice. Worse still the weakest in society the sick, disabled and old had no choice but to try and ride it out. No mandatory evacuation order was made leaving us with the incredible pictures of hundreds of sick and elderly literally dying on rooftops waiting days to be rescued.

Incredibly the national guards (battle hardened from the Iraqi war) and the remaining police are patrolling the streets supposedly with orders to shoot and kill “looters” rather than rescue starving and thirsty survivors.

We have seen incredible pictures on our TV screens of thousands of people abandoned by those in power. People in power who saw there first task as protecting the property of those safely tucked away outside new Orleans rather than protect the lives of those trapped inside the city.

This is an indictment not only of the current administration but also on the entire ideology that puts property ahead of the lives of ordinary everyday people, ordinary everyday people that for whatever reason didn’t have the money or means of escape. And for the ideology which needlessly allows, what will probably be hundreds if not thousands of deaths in the world’s most developed country. Every person who died because they couldn’t afford to escape and every sick or elderly patient who dies for lack of treatment is an indictment of the federal and state governments. Governments which have been cutting disaster relief funds for years and are wasting national resources on the immoral impearialist disaster that is iraq Governments that have cut down state services so much they can't deal with what are very predictable disaters. Governments who had been warned about such disaters and which had the resources and the technology to create defences for hurricanes even bigger than Katrina.

For this reason I’ve posted some articles which hopefully go further than looking at just the disaster itself but also question the system which allowed it to happen. HS

by seedot Fri Sep 02, 2005 17:30

Indy in New orleans started running a lot of reports yesterday (the site was working previously but people had other things to think about).

by bless the men that do it. Fri Sep 02, 2005 16:55

the 5th largest port in the USA had contingencies for disaster in place since the Cuban crises.

*the Bush administration directed the funds for essential repairs to the dyke system which protects the beneath sea level city.

*the Bush administration made no attempt to evacuate before the storm or even begin an evacuation plan.

*the Bush administration bears the responsibility for not shutting down the refinery the largest in the USA ahead or even during the storm.

*the Bush administration bears the responsibility for the information flow, disaster response, civil order, supply of food, water, medical supplies. Anyone who doesn't get that, missed the Patriot Act and the creation of the Homeland Security department.

The Only thing Bush is not directly responsible for is the weather. His lobby is blamed globally for the changes to climate which have caused extreme storms in the last years, flooding in Europe, forest fires and global warming. But he did'nt do that. They did it before. He just thought invading Iraq was more important and spent the day of disaster addressing the navy in California.

The USA has failed in the eyes of the world to cope with a natural disaster in a strategic city of its national defence. If the dykes had been blown up by terrorists, if a small nuclear device had been brought into the port and exploded the damage would be the same-
25billion aproximate insured losses and oil at 70$ a barrel.

Jesus knows.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons/stevebell/0,7371,1561417,00.html
GET HIM NOW+

http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=71751

by hs Fri Sep 02, 2005 16:47

By afternoon [the day before the hurricane struck], the Superdome descended into sweaty chaos," the Miami Herald reported. "About 30,000 refugees eventually arrived under the vigilance of the Louisiana National Guard. The frustrated line to get into the stadium stretched the length of several football fields. People sucked at empty water bottles, lugged their belongings in plastic grocery bags, fanned themselves in the humid air, brought their beer and cigarettes and braced for what could be a two-day stay as torrents of rain started soaking them about 4 p.m."

article continued at:
http://www.socialistworker.org/2005-2/555/555_12_LeftBehind.shtml

by hs Fri Sep 02, 2005 16:44

As the toll mounts, it becomes increasingly clear that the city of New Orleans was remarkably unprepared for such a disaster. That the city of over one million was spared the direct hit which many at first feared, and nevertheless experienced such massive damage, only underscores the fact that the systems protecting the city are entirely inadequate. One can only speculate as to the effects on the city if the hurricane had passed only ten miles west of where it did....

article continued at:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/aug2005/katr-a31.shtml

by hs Fri Sep 02, 2005 16:41

Venezuela was the first country to offer help to the United States in dealing with the effects of Hurricane Katrina. On Wednesday, August 31st, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez announced that Venezuelan state-owned CITGO Petroleum Corporation had already pledged US$1 million for hurricane aid. "It's a terrible tragedy that our North American brothers are living through," Chavez said. "We have a battalion from our Simon Bolivar humanitarian team ready in case they authorize it for us to go there, if they give us the green light."

article continued at:

http://www.marxist.com/venezuela-hurricane-bush020905.htm