Archive for the Natural Disasters category
March 1st, 2006
Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch has put together a document analyzing how much progress the city of New Orleans with the promised State and Federal help has made since Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005. Known as The Mardi Gras Index and released yesterday, February 28th, it looks at over 235 indicators in 11 categories. The statistical outlook suggests that President Bush’s promise that the country “would do what it takes” to make New Orleans whole again has been forgotten a mere six months later and that very little progress has been made.
Here are just some of the statistics
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Tags: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans
February 14th, 2006
One of the most frustrating things I’ve heard and read a lot recently is the complaint that Katrina Evacuees are mooching off the system when they should just get on with their lives and get jobs.
People like to point out that there are a lot of jobs in New Orleans right now. Why just about every business has a sign out that they are hiring. Anyone who claims they can’t find work must be moochers.
Meanwhile, people who are working in the city are getting kicked out of their hotels because FEMA won’t pay anymore. FEMA is handing
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Tags: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, politics, FEMA
October 18th, 2005
Gosh, it seems like ages but less than a month ago articles started appearing in the paper and news-related websites about how the U.S. had received tons of food donations (MREs) from other countries for Hurricane Katrina but they ended up in Little Rock awaiting possible incineration because of laws prohibiting certain foods from outside the country.
Now another article has appeared indicating that the State Department asked its embassies to ask countries worldwide for donations when there was a need for 500k readily packaged meals for hurricane victims. Get that? We asked them to give us
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Tags: Hurricane Katrina, MREs
October 18th, 2005
I spoke with PW last night. She’s currently in New Orleans preparing what’s left of her personal possessions for the trip to England. She said that she has about six changes of clothes at this point and from her descriptions, it sounds like everything she rescued can fit into four suitcases, carefully packed to not be more than 50lbs each.
She said that New Orleans is very much a cash-based economy at the moment. There aren’t a lot of working phone lines for those credit card machines. Plus, she also verified that most stores as well as
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Tags: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans
October 14th, 2005
Remember back in August when I wrote how my friend made annoying comments implying that the Red Cross was somehow communist or whatever. Mind you this friend is one of those rhetoric spewing Republicans who are always talking about how people should take care of themselves and not live off of government money, etc.
It occurred to me last night that he said this about a week before Hurricane Katrina hit. Of all my friends, he probably lost the least but he was the first to get his grubby hands on the Red Cross money and aid and
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Tags: hypocrisy, Red Cross, Hurricane Katrina
October 10th, 2005
I spoke with El yesterday. She painted a rather grim picture of the apartment she used to share with PW. The images she painted were similar to photographs seen all over the news and net.
The higher parts of her first floor apartment had a watermark 4″ from the ceiling, but most of the apartment was lower than that and was completely under water. Those rooms are in danger of having a sagging ceiling falling in. She rescued PW’s jewelry by breaking through the back of PW’s dresser which the water had wedged somehow and then breaking
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Tags: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans
October 5th, 2005
I spoke with PW last night. Apparently she is flying back to the states the Saturday with the boyfriend who’s now a fiance to try to salvage what’s left of her stuff.
She said that El told her that the water mark was 4 inches from the ceiling, which is not good. Also the ceiling apparantly is dripping and El is afraid it’s going to fall in before they get their stuff. It’s none of my business but I don’t understand why anyone is letting El walk around in the mold and toxins considering she supposedly has a
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Tags: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans
October 4th, 2005
Well, this is a little disturbing. Remember when Bush and his adminstration promised to help rebuild the Gulf Coast, including it’s economy? Remember how “reconstruction” was going to boost the Gulf Coasts local economy?
Companies outside the three states most affected by Hurricane Katrina have received more than 90 percent of the money from prime federal contracts for recovery and reconstruction of the Gulf Coast, according to an analysis of available government data. [“Gulf Firms Losing Contracts (Washington Post)”]
Among the contracts analyzed, 3.8 percent of the money went to companies that listed an Alabama address, 2.8 percent to
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Tags: Gulf Coast, Hurricane Katrina, economy, Homeland Security, Olympia Snowe
October 2nd, 2005
This just pisses me off. Apparently, natural disasters are only important in Presidential election years. God, this makes the whole fuck-up look less like incompetance and more like a general lack of caring and compassion. It just gets worse and worse, doesn’t it?
Imagine if, in advance of Hurricane Katrina, thousands of trucks had been waiting with water and ice and medicine and other supplies. Imagine if 4,000 National Guardsmen and an equal number of emergency aid workers from around the country had been moved into place, and five million meals had been ready to serve. Imagine if
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Tags: politics, FEMA, Hurricane Katrina, incompetence
October 1st, 2005
I had a long conversation with a friend who’s lived through the Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita disasters and come home to put her life together. She has a different point-of-view than the rest of us who’ve been lapping up the tales told to us by the media. I found it odd because of the two of us, she’s definitely more practical and less likely to suspect conspiracy of any kind.
Her opinion of the New Orleans’ Superintendent’s resignation last week is that he’d been asked to leave as part of a massive government cover-up. She seems to
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Tags: none
October 1st, 2005
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My Life,
Politics & Causes,
Books, Music, Movies, & T.V.,
Geekery,
Wellness,
Discombobulated,
The World,
Natural Disasters,
Hurricane Rita by
n. mallory
- I saw Serenity last night. It’s a beautifully done film; Joss Wheddon should be proud, but as a Firefly fan, I wish I hadn’t seen it yet. Since I don’t want to spoil it for others. I’ll wait to explain. I’m glad now that I couldn’t go to see it for free in Boston on Tuesday in exchange for a written review. I don’t think I could have given it a fair, unbiased review so soon after seeing it. But it really was a brilliant movie. It’s certainly a good two hour ride.
- One
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Tags: discombobulated, Serenity, Firefly, Tom DeLay, Red Cross, Hurricane Rita
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My Life, Politics & Causes, Books, Music, Movies, & T.V., Geekery, Wellness, Discombobulated, The World, Natural Disasters, Hurricane Rita
September 27th, 2005
As I try to catch up with the day’s events after being locked up with the crazy people I work with from 8am to after 5pm in a little hot room, New Orleans weighs heavily on my mind…
Probably because there’s been quite a few stories in the news about it today.
It’s no surprise to me that main stream media is under attack from misreporting the aftermath of Katrina. Euphoric Reality has an excellent post about it and I’ve already expressed my opinion.
Police Superintendent Eddie Compass of New Orleans resigned after the chaotic aftermath
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Tags: New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina, Ray Nagin
September 27th, 2005
Remember that scene in Galaxy Quest where the crew of Protector, while looking for something to power the damaged ship, come across an apparently abandoned mine; only it’s not abandoned as they soon discover. There are these cute innocent-looking little blue-green aliens that look just E.T. precious. Then a poor little injured cute alien arrives and it looks like the others are going to help him get a drink of water.
Suddenly they visciously turn on him in a most cannibalistic manner…
That’s what the reports of Michael Brown’s testimony regarding FEMA’s failures
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Tags: FEMA, Republicans, Michael Brown, Hurricane Katrina
September 25th, 2005
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Politics & Causes,
In the News,
Soap Box,
The World,
Featured,
9-11 & Terrorism,
Iraq & Afghanistan,
Hurricane Katrina,
Conspiracy Theories,
Natural Disasters,
Hurricane Rita,
The Middle East by
n. mallory
It suddenly hit me today that Bush was conviently overseeing Hurricane Rita operations (when he diddled about on vaction prior to and during and even after Hurricane Katrina) while protestors where marching past the White House yesterday. The conspiracy theorist in me that thinks that Bush’s advisors who prefer to keep him in rose-colored glasses would rather him see a natural disaster up close than be present for massive numbers of Americans who think he’s doing a terrible job.
Or maybe I’m just being sarcastic…
Maybe.
Tags: George W. Bush, Hurricane Rita, Hurricane Katrina, protestors, Conspiracy Theories
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September 23rd, 2005
A co-worker pointed out this morning that President Bush is damned-if-he-does-and-damned-if-he-doesn’t in this whole Hurricane Rita thing. Already he’s been making more of a show of interest regarding Rita than he did regarding Katrina.
If his administration and their underlings like FEMA are more on the ball with the Rita recovery, some will say that he learned from his mistakes less than a month ago, but some will say that he’s showing his home state, a state with a Republican Governor, preferential treatment while leaving the state with a Democratic Governor to drown in quicksand…or swampland.
However, if FEMA and Bush’s
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Tags: George W. Bush, Hurricane Rita, Hurricane Katrina, FEMA
September 23rd, 2005
A lot of finger-pointing has been going on in the aftermath of Katrina. Certainly a lot of fingers were pointed at Democrat Governor Blanco by Republicans claiming she and New Orleans city Mayor Ray Naggin are to blame for poor planning and not evacuating the city soon enough. They’ve been blamed for not commandeering city and school buses (though the drivers had abandoned ship) to evacuate the poor without transportation.
The tale from Republican-run Texas regarding Rita doesn’t sound much more organized and successful.
“I done called for a shelter, I done called for help. There ain’t none. No one
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Tags: Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Rita, New Orleans, Kathleen Blanco, Ray Nagin
September 22nd, 2005
Yesterday, Big Dog wrote an excellent post about how illegal immigrants displaced by Katrina are afraid to seek help for fear of deportation. Some organizations believe that they should be given “protected human status” because they’ve already lost so much thanks to Katrina.
Illegal immigrants are…well…illegal. They’re committing a crime and I agree that they shouldn’t be awarded for committing the crime. All that does is make committing the crime more appealing to people who haven’t yet, but were thinking about it — which I know may sound heartless. I’m not saying they shouldn’t be given
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Tags: immigration, Hurricane Katrina
September 22nd, 2005
I spoke with El last night. If you think Louisiana and the Gulf Coast looks chaotic from the comfort of your living room, you’re under-estimating the chaos. She has become extremely frustrated with both Red Cross and FEMA — though interestingly, she recognizes that Red Cross is made up of volunteers and FEMA is not and therefore holds more bitterness for FEMA.
With Red Cross, it just seems like not everyone knows what’s going on. For one thing, she’s supposed to contact her local Red Cross center (not shelter) for help, but the center for her area is
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Tags: FEMA, Gulf Coast, Red Cross, New Orleans, Kathleen Blanco
September 22nd, 2005
I must say that I’ve always liked David Vitter and was really disappointed when Blanco beat him out of the governorship. I was glad to see him elected to the Senate last fall and if I were still living in Louisiana, I’d be proud and grateful for the statements he made last Tuesday at a Senate subcommittee (Disaster Prevention and Prediction) hearing on the prediction of Hurricane Katrina and the work of the National Hurricane Center.
“Mr. Chairman, at your June 26th hearing on hurricane prediction, I gave an opening statement describing a ‘worst case scenario’ – the hypothetical
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Tags: David Vitter, Hurricane Katrina, Senate
September 22nd, 2005
An article in Michigan’s The Gloucester Daily Times today tells more about FEMA’s confusing ice issues. The article breaks down the costs indicating that in the end, the government will pay more than $4 for each of the thousands of five-pound bags of ice that would have cost us $1.50 each at the gas station or convenience store; plus, it will cost close to $1 billion in trucking for the $2 million worth of ice.
The initial problem was that too much ice was ordered by FEMA for areas that had been evacuated. As a result, some truckers
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Tags: FEMA, incompetence
