Hurricane Katrina

[Balta1701]

Fascinating blurb from a Townhall.com piece on Congresspeople and their pork addiction, and how they're responding to katrina. My favorite bit...

 

Bloggers, too have latched onto this theme. A coalition of bloggers have launched a website called "porkbusters." The site lists every member of the House and Senate by the name and has a column next to the name for "committed cuts," or sacrifices. Currently, the only member of Congress listed with a "committed cut" is House Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

 

Many Republican members of Congress must be asking themselves, "Is Nancy Pelosi the best fiscal conservative this Congress has to offer?"

[Balta1701]

A couple Congressmen have proposed a bill that would require the government to include pets in evacuation plans.

[Balta1701]

The Trib this morning has another piece of the puzzle on why more buses weren't used to evacuate NOLA earlier.

 

Guess what they find...you guessed it...Frank Stallone...no wait, um, FEMA.

 

    Though it was well-known that New Orleans, much of it below sea level, would flood in a major hurricane, Landstar, the Jacksonville company that held a federal contract that at the time was worth up to $100 million annually for disaster transportation,...

 

    ...did not ask its subcontractor, Carey Limousine, to order buses until the early hours of Aug. 30, roughly 18 hours after the storm hit, according to Sally Snead, a Carey senior vice president who headed the bus roundup.

 

What happened next? Did Landstar finally pull out its disaster transportation plan which, presumably, the $100 million contract should've encouraged them to produce? Sadly, No! They did what any company hired to do that job would do - they desperately started hunting for help on the internet!

 

 

    Landstar inquired about the availability of buses on Sunday, Aug. 28, and earlier Monday, but placed no orders, Snead said.

 

    She said Landstar turned to her company for buses Sunday after learning from Carey's Internet site that it had a meetings and events division that touted its ability to move large groups of people. "They really found us on the Web site," Snead said.

 

    Peter Pantuso of the American Bus Association said he spent much of the day on Wednesday, Aug. 31, trying to find someone at the Federal Emergency Management Agency who could tell him how many buses were needed for an evacuation, where they should be sent and who was overseeing the effort.

 

    "We never talked directly to FEMA or got a call back from them," Pantuso said.

 

    Pantuso, whose members include some of the nation's largest motor coach companies, including Greyhound and Coach USA, eventually learned that the job of extracting tens of thousands of residents from flooded New Orleans wasn't being handled by FEMA at all.

    ...

 

    The day the hurricane made landfall, Victor Parra, president of the United Motorcoach Association, called FEMA's Washington office "to let them know our members could help out."

 

    Parra said FEMA responded the next day, referring him to an agency Web page labeled "Doing Business with FEMA" but containing no information on the hurricane relief effort.

 

    On Wednesday, Aug. 31, Pantuso of the American Bus Association cut short a vacation thinking his members surely would be needed in evacuation efforts.

 

    In a regulatory filing last week, Landstar Express said it has received government orders worth at least $125 million for Katrina-related work. It's not known how much of that total pertains to the bus evacuation.

 

    Landstar Express is a subsidiary of Landstar System, a $2 billion company whose board chairman, Jeff Crowe, also was chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, one of the nation's premier business lobbies, from June 2003 until May 2004.

 

    Whatever happens likely will be good for Landstar's bottom line.

 

    Landstar's regulatory filing also said that because of Hurricane Katrina, the maximum annual value of its government contract for disaster relief services has been increased to $400 million.

[Balta1701]

Toyota has seen a surge of buying interest in its hybrid cars since Katrina hit.

[Mercy!]

Toyota has seen a surge of buying interest in its hybrid cars since Katrina hit.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I've been hoping that there might be a surge of interest in getting rid of those cars altogether. Got a problem with gasoline prices? Got an ethical problem regarding the planet's degredation? Try getting rid of your automobiles, folks! Anyone?

[1549]

We just heard from a few relatives in New Orleans who we still had not heard from (sigh of relief).

 

Everyone in the family is ok, pretty much all of them lost their homes. One of my cousins just bought a temporary place to live in Shrevport so the kids could get back to school.

 

I know Rutgers has taken in quite a few Tulane students...It would be so demoralizing if Rita just twists the knife even more this weekend.

[Balta1701]

We just heard from a few relatives in New Orleans who we still had not heard from (sigh of relief).

 

Everyone in the family is ok, pretty much all of them lost their homes.  One of my cousins just bought a temporary place to live in Shrevport so the kids could get back to school. 

 

I know Rutgers has taken in quite a few Tulane students...It would be so demoralizing if Rita just twists the knife even more this weekend.

Actually I have an uncle in lafayette, LA, who's a helicopter pilot. He got through the first one all right, but I think this one might actually hit closer to them.

[southsider2k5]

The reports of dead bodies in the Superdome seem to have been greatly exagerated. According to NOLA, only 6-10 bodies were every found in there, compared to the "hundreds" that had been rumored.

 

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/ind..._26.html#082732

[Mercy!]

I heard of a report of CANNIBILISM somewhere. Someone on here posted of hearing that a MILLION people might die. I heard some official person mentioning the problem of dogs, alligators and SNAKES eating the human corpses left exposed.

 

With everyone being a printing press owner now, I think it’s ever more important to keep the who, what, where, when stuff firmly in mind.

[Steff]

I don't know about the other stuff, but the "million might die" was corrected to "a million homeless". Which is near correct.

 

And I would not doubt animals eating human remains at all.

[Mercy!]

As far as the million casualties statement goes, someone said they heard it on WGN. Nobody ever “corrected” that. Another speculation was merely posted in its place. For all I know, some news reader on WGN might have said a million casualties were expected.

 

I left in the “dogs and alligators” part to be fair to the speaker. It was the part about SNAKES eating human remains in New Orleans that was totally dippy.

 

I wasn't pointing a finger. My point had to do with keeping our critical wits about us.

[Steff]

Yes, it was corrected, and I know because it was me that said it and corrected myself. And it was not from WGN that I heard it, it was from FEMA and MSNBC. And it's earlier in this thread.

[Mercy!]

Steff – Like I said, I wasn’t pointing a finger and I’m sorry you’re taking this personally, for some reason. I was referring to this post by SOMEONE ELSE:

 

“I heard on WGN that waves will reach 30 ft. and that the New Orleans sewer sytem and flood control will be destroyed with the city under 10-20 feet of sewage and toxic stuff from landfills and such. 90 % of the homes will be destroyed with the expected casualties at 1 million.”

 

Did someone on WGN actually say that? Dunno.

 

Can we at least agree that no species of snake in New Orleans would eat people, dead or alive?

[Balta1701]

:banghead :banghead :banghead :banghead :banghead

 

Why does this just not surprise me at all?

 

CBS News' Bob Schieffer just announced that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has rehired ex-FEMA chief Michael Brown-- as a consultant to evaluate the agency's response to the disaster!

 

From CBS's Katrina blog: "Sept. 26, 2005 /6:44 p.m. (CBS) — CBS News correspondent Gloria Borger reports that Michael Brown, who recently resigned as the head of the FEMA, has been rehired by the agency as a consultant to evaluate it's [sic] response following Hurricane Katrina."

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CBS says they've confirmed Brown had been rehired. Brown resigned after taking heat when a Time Magazine article revealed that he had padded his resume with bogus jobs.

 

The Associated Press, however, tells the story differently: "Brown is continuing to work at the Federal Emergency Management Agency at full pay, with his Sept. 12 resignation not taking effect for two more weeks, said Homeland Security Department spokesman Russ Knocke."

 

Brown had been shopping his resume in Washington. Wrote U.S. News' Washington Whispers last week: "Ex-FEMA Administrator Michael Brown seems to be doing for his career what he did for the beleaguered agency. Less than a week after FEMA's dismal Hurricane Katrina response forced Brown out of the agency, he has been shopping his resume to headhunters and Washington PR firms. And it's not working. "He's radioactive," said one exec. An ally of Brownie in the PR world said he should have waited a month before starting his job hunt. "It's just a bad play."

[Steff]

Steff – Like I said, I wasn’t pointing a finger and I’m sorry you’re taking this personally, for some reason. I was referring to this post by SOMEONE ELSE:

 

Can we at least agree that no species of snake in New Orleans would eat people, dead or alive?

 

 

Well... you said it was said, I said it, so I wanted to be sure it was noted that I corrected it. That's all. Nothing more. Nothing less.

 

I dunno about snakes.. but did you see that Crock I posted last week...

 

 

[southsider2k5]

More on the misreporting of atrocities, which was aided by the politicians and media alike.

 

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...-home-headlines

[southsider2k5]

Brown defends himself and FEMA against some of the accusations from Katrina...

 

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/27/kat...n.ap/index.html

[Texsox]

I wonder how to make it better? If officials can't be trusted to have accurate information, would it be better to come on the air and say there is no accurate news available from New Orleans? We can't confirm the numbers dead, dying, raped, and OK? Would that cause more panic? Even just pointing a camera down a street doesn't give an accurate picture if it happens to show the only looter.

 

I hope journalists will be studying this to improve their disaster coverage. I also blame it a bit on the business side. With so many competitors, all trying to attract eyeballs and ears, there is a crush of pressure on "getting the stories" and the "bigger and juicier" the better.

 

When I tried to post that there were thousands of volunteers helping and that most people were good, I was shouted down with stories of death, dying, rapes, and murders.

[southsider2k5]

One of the scarier things to come out of this is the huge amount of police officers who left their posts during Katrina, and the wondering if this were a terror attack in another city, and the same chaos ensued, would their be this large of a desertion rate?

 

In New Orleans 249 of an estimated 1700 police officers were AWOL during Katrina.

 

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/09/27/D8CSMBN81.html

[Texsox]

One of the scarier things to come out of this is the huge amount of police officers who left their posts during Katrina, and the wondering if this were a terror attack in another city, and the same chaos ensued, would their be this large of a desertion rate?

 

In New Orleans 249 of an estimated 1700 police officers were AWOL during Katrina.

 

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/09/27/D8CSMBN81.html

 

In some ways I am surprised the number isn't larger. I know I don't have the temperment to be a cop in that situation. Not knowing if my children were ok or not would have me leaving my post. I know it in my heart. I'd get back as fast as possible, but I would have to know my children were safe.

[Mercy!]

The New Orleans police chief has resigned.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/A...ans-HK2.html?hp

[southsider2k5]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/10/04/neworlean...s.ap/index.html

 

The body search has ended in New Orleans with 90% less deaths than were projected at the peak of the disaster. 964 is the official death toll.

[Rex Hudler]

I have to say I am quite surprised, happily of course. Thought from the very beginning it would be much worse.

[Balta1701]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/10/04/neworlean...s.ap/index.html

 

The body search has ended in New Orleans with 90% less deaths than were projected at the peak of the disaster.  964 is the official death toll.

CNN

 

Five weeks after Katrina, New Orleans is calling off the house- to-house search for bodies. Teams have pulled 964 corpses from storm- ravaged areas across southeastern Louisiana. Authorities admit more bodies are probably out there. They'll be handled on a case-by-case basis. The count is far short of the 10,000 dead once predicted by New Orleans mayor. As of today, the death toll from Hurricane Katrina stands at just under 1,200.

 

Searchers and residents insist there are still plenty of dead to find in New Orleans. Once again, they say the Ninth Ward is being ignored because it is poor and black. Here's CNN's Jeanne Meserve.

 

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

 

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: (voice- over): In pulverized portions of New Orleans's Ninth Ward, where water flows, instead of traffic, most homes bear the signs that search teams have been in to look for the living and the dead, but not in one area that spans several blocks. Here, house after house after house is unmarked.

 

EDWARD MENDEL, SEARCH VOLUNTEER: From here back, I estimate 100 to 150 homes that are still unsearched. And I do expect we will probably find some bodies.

 

MESERVE (on camera): Why do you think that?

 

MENDEL: You can smell them as we drive by.

SNIP

ROZ KAY, FORMER NINTH WARD RESIDENT: We have so many people who were superseniors that lived in these neighborhoods. And they didn't have children or anyone to rescue them all the way out.

 

MESERVE: If these homes have not been searched and these people found, Roz Kay perceives it as another slap at the Ninth Ward and the people who lived here.

 

KAY: This is a predominantly black neighborhood, OK? And it's always been neglected. And it's been a hard fight and an uphill fight always. So, I'm not surprised.

 

MESERVE: Not surprised, but horrified that, more than a month after Katrina rampaged and ravaged through, there may be grim discoveries still waiting to be made.

[southsider2k5]

Of course, it is still a race thing. :rolly

 

I guess once you have played the race card, it becomes trump card until the end? Dispite being complete bulls*** predictions that were coming out at the height of everything, there are people still insisting that they are getting screwed because they are black. These people just need to STFU until they get proof that either #1 10,000 people are dead, or #2 they unsurface some vast conspiracy at any level of this that actually said, screw them they are black, let them die. Until then all the stuff that comes out of their mouths is worth about as much as the sewage water that was pumped out New Orleans in the first place.