Ugly scenes in the refugee centers in New Orleans.
It appears North Carolina will run out of gas sometime tomorrow afternoon. Normally, the tanks carry 1-2 weeks worth of 87 octane, but after Governor Easley announced that the fuel lines had been damaged by Katrina (and when we're out, we're out), everybody rushed out to buy gas in anticipation of everybody else rushing out to buy gas.
My coworker went to the gas station down the street to buy a diet coke, and many people began yelling at him, fearing he was going to cut in line. So everybody's pretty tense.
Yikes:
"We had excellent plans. We had enough food for 10 days,'' said Peggy Hoffman, the [nursing] home's executive director. "Now we'll have to equip our department heads with guns and teach them how to shoot.''
Deja 1970s.
Crap. God Damn it! God Damn short-sighted greedy fools.
re 2: I saw a story that gas was expected to be available again after Labor Day.
Wow, that is generous. What do you think happens to the Tulane and Loyola professors?
Not that it's significant, but I'm told that the New Orleans football teams will be playing in other cities. The Saints are marching over to San Antonio, apparently.
The guy seems a bit nutty, but he's right in the thick of things.
re: 5. Is this a real shortage, or an artificial one timed with a heavy travel weekend? Does anyone know how the oil/gas supply chain works?
I've posted a bunch of horrifying links, including a bunch of excerpts from someone blogging out of New Orleans via a generator, but is now down to one provider. It's grim. As is the report of the four hells of the Superdome.
There are lots of bodies about.
Why do I keep having to type my name and info in each time now?
Anyway: the water and contaminant problem.
Excerpts from the guy in New Orleans.
More lord of the flies stuff.
On the plus side: regenerating mice.
Ted Rall attacks Cindy Sheehan.
The 2001 prediction of all this.
Cursing Sharon to death is legal in Israel.
I didn't blog the cheap stuff about Condi seeing Spamalot last night and spending a few thousand bucks shoe-shopping this morning.
Cala,
Both North Carolina and Georgia receive most of their gas from pipelines that were shut down temporarily by power outages. So, yeah, we are actually running out of gas, but who knows how much is really in the tanks, and who's not telling?
This is incredible. I'm sure there's some explanation I don't understand, but why isn't every bus located within a day's drive of New Orleans driving in and coming out full? What is stopping someone, FEMA, the Governor of LA, Harry Connick Jr, anyone from just calling Greyhound and chartering every bus they have? The roads don't seem to be blocked -- what is the problem?
I trust our state leaders have a plan to keep ambulances and police cruisers gassed for the weekend, but I'm not going near the pumps until everything is turned back on.
ogged,
The "they should have evacuated" argument ignores all the people who actually could not have evacuated.
Bus service stopped SATURDAY. No cars, no money, what where these people supposed to do, walk? What about the elderly and the infirm?
Sure, maybe some people who had the means to could have left and didn't, but that is not everyone who stayed.
LB,
At this point I don't think a lack of buses is the problem. Apparently they don't have enough trucks capable enough to get to the Superdome. So the people are trickling out.
Also, where will the buses take the people?
Amtrak halted services, too; what were people supposed to have done? Evacuate on Friday when it was a category 2? Evacuate Thursday? Not go to the designated shelter?
Jesus some of the chatter going around is pissing me off. (No one here, we seem to be sane.) It's not like people were generally staying to party. And where are we going to put 500,000 people for three months?
Amtrak halted services, too; what were people supposed to have done? Evacuate on Friday when it was a category 2? Evacuate Thursday? Not go to the designated shelter?
Jesus some of the chatter going around is pissing me off. (No one here, we seem to be sane.) It's not like people were generally staying to party. And where are we going to put 500,000 people for three months?
I always said he was a smart guy.
But seriously -- this isn't hard. Pick the hundred nearest functioning hospitals, drive each busload to a different hospital, offload the people who need treatment and drive the rest to the Astrodome, or wherever else that isn't a apocalytic hellscape. What on earth is holding this up?
Someone in Kevin's comments had the idea of a staging area; you don't need to do the 7 hour round trip to Houston all at once: first get them somewhere that isn't flooded, then move them to Houston later.
Yes, we're covering the oil/gas side of this thing over at The Oil Drum.
I wish I had good news to report, but this whole thing is much worse than is being reported in the MSM.
If you are so inclined, come on over...but, if not, all I am telling my friends right now is this is going to be a long, drawn out, emergency.
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2005/8/31/83553/8973
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2005/8/31/124723/302
Not happy days ahead...for those directly affected in the short-term, for most everyone else after that.
And where are we going to put 500,000 people for three months?
We are going to have to construct enormous refugee camps. At this point, we really need to call in the UN. They have much more experience with massive refugee flows than we do. However, the US government has, for no apparent reason, declined offers of help from Canada and Jamaica, so I doubt we'll be seeing the administration that sent them Bolton asking for their help.
We are going to have to construct enormous refugee camps.
Why would they need to all be in the same place? I'd think each state could accomodate a thousand people without too much difficulty. Shouldn't appeals be going out to local governments nationwide to find housing for refugees for the next year or so?
They don't all need to be in the same place, but heading into fall and winter, you wouldn't want them in, say, Minnesota. You need the refugee camps now. Resettlement won't be a quick process.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More than 20 countries, from allies Germany and Japan to prickly Venezuela and poor Honduras, have offered to help the United States cope with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Accustomed to being a rich donor rather than on the receiving end of charity, the United States initially seemed reticent about accepting foreign aid, but later said it would take up any offers. The hurricane devastated New Orleans and other parts of the U.S. Gulf Coast, killing hundreds and possibly thousands.
"Anything that can be of help to alleviate the tragic situation of the area affected by Hurricane Katrina will be accepted," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.
"America should be heartened by the fact that the world is reaching out to America at a time of need," he added.
Earlier, President George W. Bush said in a television interview that the United States could take care of itself.
It's a serious problem, but I suspect that 500k is overstating it. Surely most of the city evacuated before the storm, and surely most who had advanced warning have some place to stay. I know there are vast numbers of people still trapped in the city, but 500k would be almost the entire city.
We also have a lot more friendly, comparatively wealthy cities nearby than there typically are in what most of us imagine when we hear "refugee situation". I'm optimistic that if these people can be moved somewhere safe they'll remain that way, at least for a while.
But maybe I'm just not willing to grapple with how bad this all really is.
I don't think so. I'm not saying we need to rescue 500,000, but it's going to be uninhabitable for some time; those people are going to have to go somewhere eventually.
but 500k would be almost the entire city.
It isn't just New Orleans. Also Mississippi, Alabama, and other parts of Louisiana. Some of the folks who got out, though, are middle-class people who are living in hotels. In a month, when their savings and credit are dried up and they still have no job to return to, they'll be in the same situation as the folks in the Astrodome.
"I'm not expecting much from foreign nations because we hadn't asked for it. I do expect a lot of sympathy and perhaps some will send cash dollars. But this country's going to rise up and take care of it," Bush told ABC's "Good Morning America."
What a fucker.
But, also, on a lighter note, Hugo Chavez has extended an offer to send cheap fuel and humanitarian aid to the region.
In a month, when their savings and credit are dried up and they still have no job to return to, they'll be in the same situation as the folks in the Astrodome.
Barring federal assistance, which there will be. The legislature's heading back early for precisely this purpose. We're a rich nation; I don't know if we'll take care of the affected to everyone's satisfaction, but I believe that something will be done. Maybe I'm wrong on this, but right now it seems like the real crisis is in getting people out before the lack of water, food and sanitation becomes any worse. It won't be easy after that, but it won't be fundamentally different from what FEMA does all the time -- there'll just be more of it to do.
But, also, on a lighter note, Hugo Chavez has extended an offer to send cheap fuel and humanitarian aid to the region.
I'd think that first cut administrative costs would be substantially lower as you increase the size of the refugee camps. I'd think second cut costs (i.e., keeping refugees safe from other refugees and native predators) would be lower in smaller camps. I assume that local governments will have the same issues with housing poor black refugees that they do with housing projects in their neighborhoods or prior refugee settlements (which cost Clinton an election, IIRC).
I worry that things are going to get uglier in the next month, not less ugly.
I'd think second cut costs (i.e., keeping refugees safe from other refugees and native predators) would be lower in smaller camps.
This is what I'm thinking -- integrating refugees into still-functioning communities, where they might be able to find short or long term employment, has got to be better than setting up enormous camps.
There's an enormous NIMBY problem, LB. I think what Houston has done is marvelous - seriously, I'm taking a whole day of hating Texas - but there are going to be really large scale complaints within a month.
Even smaller groups are going to be worrisome. I don't recall the size of Clinton's Mariel refugees, but I don't think it was much over a thousand. (Obviously, there are differences - Mariel purportedly inc. primarily criminals, which would not be true here.) I grew up in a state that took some Cuban refugees - to this day, almost 30 years later, people attribute recent growth in crime to the Cubans.
Just thinking about it all makes me sad.
There's an enormous NIMBY problem, LB.
I know you're right, but damn I wish you weren't.
And you probably mean "off", rather than "of". Me too.
Barring federal assistance, which there will be.
That still puts them all in the same boat - destitute, homeless, unemployed, and relying on the federal government just to stay alive.
Yeah, seems to me that joblessness is the real problem here, not homelessness.
If the people in San Francisco haven't taken notice, man...from Farber (from a 2001 FEMA report):
New Orleans is sinking. And its main buffer from a hurricane, the protective Mississippi River delta, is quickly eroding away, leaving the historic city perilously close to disaster. So vulnerable, in fact, that earlier this year the Federal Emergency Management Agency ranked the potential damage to New Orleans as among the three likeliest, most castastrophic disasters facing this country.The other two? A massive earthquake in San Francisco, and, almost prophetically, a terrorist attack on New York City.
Well some of the mainline Protestant groups are trying to organize migration ministries. I know that Episcopal Relief and Development is.
t's going surreal now.
I went back with Harry Connick Jr. He spoke to them and told them he would do anything he can to help them. They seemed to appreciate that. He's the only person of authority - believe it or not, a musician -- to go in there and tell them that things are going to be ok.Which it's not:
Dead people around the walls of the convention center, laying in the middle of the street in their dying chairs. ... They were just covered up ... Babies, two babies dehydrated and died. I'm telling you, I couldn't take it.This is not the Superdome; this is the New Orleans Convention Center; a whole 'nother scene of death and horror.
Something else I've read: the water covering NO is so contaminated that there's a real question of where to pump it to, because it'll so pollute the place it ends up. Also, there will be lots of toxic residue left behind when the city is dry.
Wow. Anderson Cooper just ripped Sen. Landrieu a new one. It looks like the storm is giving the press a significant backbone.
But anyway, want a date?
"Something else I've read: the water covering NO is so contaminated...."
#12, first entry.
This too, from NPR, in which they rip Michael Chertoff.
Focusing on what's important: "But it has now emerged that people stranded at the New Orleans Convetion Center -- about eight blocks away from the Superdome -- are in dire straights...."
Or "straits," even.
>The levee, as designed, might not have held back the surge from a direct Class 5 hit, but it certainly would not have crumbled on Monday night from saturation and scour erosion following a glancing blow from a Class 3. The failure was in a spot that had just been rebuilt, not yet compacted, not planted, and not armed (hardened with rock/concrete). The project should have been done two years ago, but the federal gov't diverted 80% of the funding to Iraq.
good lord.
35-41: We need some serious socialism. Private enterprise is not going to put a whole bunch of refugees to work--the government, once it's settled them, needs to do something, anything, to give them work.
Or we need to start demonizing the refugees so we don't feel too bad about leaving them destitute.
I heard that U Mass Boston was going to let Bay State sstudents displaced by Katrina register for courses on a non-degree credit basis. I'm not sure that's worth doing, but for New Jerseyites, the offer from Rutgers might be worth something.
Does anyone know L's plans?
Her mom said that she was supposed to be home by the end of the week. I can't imagine Tulane will reopen this semester, probably not this academic year -- even if its physical damage isn't that great, NO will just be too much of a mess to move students back into.
Or we need to start demonizing the refugees so we don't feel too bad about leaving them destitute.
I think we've already got people on the job.
I was just looking at the photos at the end of the link ogged posted. They're screwed. I don't know of a state government that has more of a reputation for corruption and incompetence than Louisiana. In any case, the entire region is a cost sink.
And, just looking at those photos - those are not the faces of people for whom Republicans traditionally look out. There will be a lot of pretty talk in the ensuing weeks, but over the long haul, the money won't be there. This Administration skimps on monies for veterans' benefits during a war, and it has three plus years until it's done; no way do they see the point in spending on poor African-Americans in three months.
If people left homeless by this aren't housed and cared for decently I will be more ashamed of my country then I have ever been.
I find that, more and more, I just can't fucking stand what this country has become. The effort to make this about poor blacks revealing their savage natures, not, you know, about our federal government's utter and complete incompetence and indifference, is just so damn depressing. (Yes, some of the lawlessness is truly terrible, but much of it is a predictable and defensible response to having been essentially abandoned to die by one's country.) Honestly, up until very recently, I found the Bush-years oddly fun. Having your most cynical estimations proved correct over and over again really is kind exhilarating, even if it's also terrible. Now I just feel so goddamn sad.
55: Yep, we've got at least two government officials talking about those who 'chose' to stay behind. The two most directly responsible for helping them get out.
LB, re: Tulane. It creates an interesting problem, and one I didn't touch in my blog, though I thought about it. Here are the three scenarios that I could see being played out:
1. They close for the fall semester, and open after New Years. They graduate the class of 2006 in 2006, and so on. Now, there is the certain problem pertaining to classrooom size, as incoming classes in following years come in (for instance, imagine an Econ 101 class. It's heavily enrolled in a normal year. If they teach it in the spring, what will those students who start next fall take? They could teach it the next semester as well, it would just take some logistics for a little while).
2. They close for the academic year. Next year's incoming class is twice the size of a normal class (assuming they admit students). I don't know if this causes problems with university housing (I don't know how it is done at Tulane).Again, some courses will be very heavily enrolled (there will be two freshman classes, one sophomore class, one junior class and one senior class). Again, a logistical nightmare.
Scenario 3. Tulane does not accept students this year and stays closed for the entire year. This makes things very complicated for students (What do they do for the year? Can the economy accomodate them and provide jobs for them on a one-year basis?).
I suppose there are other options as well, although I think these are the three most probable. Tulane does have an emergency website up here.
[I've also decided to cross-post this on my blog]
If I were them, what I would be doing is encouraging students to enroll elsewhere for the academic year (and coordinating with other schools to let them) and then accepting them back with a year's worth of credit.
I get the feeling that the Republicans, were they teachers, would be those teachers who would punish the whole class because one kid stole the chalk. Seriously, there were over a million people in the city. The bad looting is probably limited to less than 200 citizens. Meanwhile, you have 20,000 people that you left in the city at the shelter you told them to go to and then provided them with nothing.
That being said, I was listening to NPR on the way home. They had one of the leaders of the Army Corps of Engineers on, and he couldn't understand why people were shooting at the ones trying to help. I don't really understand that, but I do understand that these assholes will probably melt back into the crowd when the time comes to play nice, and we'll end up housing them. It'd be better if we could bring them to justice, but we can't punish 20,000 people because a bunch of assholes fucked up. I mean, we're not punishing the whole of the Republican party, and a bunch of assholes have, did, and will continue to fuck up.
The problem, LB, at least as far as I was educated by NPR today, isn't that schools won't accept Tulane students, but that they are accepting them for non-credit courses only. But you are right, that's definitely a solution.
There's a big movement afoot among schools on the Eastern seaboard to absorb undergraduate and graduate students who are now enrolled at Tulane and other area schools. Penn, I know, is only taking students from the Philadelphia area -- and who thus have no housing needs -- but is not charging any tuition (probably to allow schools in New Orleans to continue to receive tuition). Temple is taking basically any student who wants to transfer or visit, but is charging tuition. I don't know how other schools are doing it.
I also know that Tulane law students are basically being sent, 10 in a group, to law schools within a day's drive of the hurricane's path (e.g., Tennessee, Harvard, Columbia, Penn, Chicago, etc.). I'm really impressed with how quickly the schools moved on this. It seems like a small thing. But it's something.
I also know that Tulane law students are basically being sent, 10 in a group, to law schools within a day's drive of the hurricane's path (e.g., Tennessee, Harvard, Columbia, Penn, Chicago, etc.).
That's great -- a wonderful ex-paralegal from my old firm who was starting her 2d year at Tulane Law had called the firm asking for her job back, under the assumption that she was just screwed for the year. I hope she ends up back in school instead, although it's the firm's loss.
My god, have they successfully spun this? I've been watching TV news and it's almost all about the "anarchy" and violence, and nothing about how you get anarchy when there's a total fucking breakdown of government; nothng about, "where's the help for these people?" Have they really managed to spin this?
CNN (Aaron Brown anchoring) seemed to have it pretty good before I turned it off as too depressing, what are you watching?
I found CNN (not Larry King) was doing a pretty good job. CNN Headline News as well. Discovery is talking all about it right now.
I've been flipping between CNN, MSNBC, and Fox, though I've turned it off now. When I was watching CNN, they were going on about the violence.
The Anderson Cooper clip is worth watching. He just can't maintain the facade anymore.
Joe Scarborough, of all people, was saying the federal government's response was a disgrace and embarrassing. Said it had been "amateur hour" throughout.
I didn't catch the guy's name but someone at the Pentagon was just on CNN talking about how reporters have been showing more sympathy for the plight of the victims than for the plight of the government officials who are confronting the disaster, and how some of those reporters may be trying to make Bush look bad for political reasons. He also claimed that the military personnel in Iraq may not have helped anyway, because they're mostly not military police.
Looks to me like they need all the trained personnel they can get, whatever their particular specialization.
I just heard that too. Actually, the first part--the sympathy differential--was a complaint from the Pentagon being relayed by the CNN guy, and the second part--they aren't MPs, so they wouldn't be much help--was the CNN guy's own brilliant contribution.
Thanks for the clarification; I just caught the end and I wasn't sure if the guy talking to Aaron Brown was CNN or not.
Has anyone run a report showing systematically, parish by parish, which areas are flooded and approximately how high the water is, which routes are closed, and which areas are dry, but damaged?
I haven't heard anything like that. It really doesn't sound like the conditions allow for something like that.
Ogged's penultimate update? see #9. damn you gary farber! damn you!
Shit, I don't know what to say about the Astrodome fiasco.
I'm starting to wonder whether the small scale offers by churches and individuals to house people might not work better.
Yeah, I turned CNN back on, saw the Astrodome thing, and I need to go back on a news moratorium. Not that it'll help anyone who was actually affected, but I think I'll go give blood tomorrow.
Good for you. I've been fantasizing for the past few hours about renting a van and driving to NO, just to get a few people out. There must be millions of people all across the country feeling just so angry and helpless.
No it's not a good idea to go there, but offering private housing to people seems a lot nicer than sticking them in a sports complex.
Joe Scarborough was talking about having from Florida drive to Mississipi with water. He said that he's never seen anything this bad before in MI.
Kevin Drum has just put up a satellite photo.
I really hope that Texas digs deep and shows New Orleaneans the hospitality I would like to believe we are capable of. I know that Harris County judge Robert Eckles has said that he expects the refugees to spend "days, maybe weeks" at the Astrodome, which is drastically unrealistic (unless some better option is created) and, I hope, not the opinion of most Harris County or TX State officials. San Antonio volunteered to take refugees at the Kelly Air Force Base, and a group called the Harris County Citizens Corps seems to be assembling a pretty strong local fundraising effort. (But Judge Eckles is apparently a chair for the HCCC, so.)
Oh my god, I just read the update. That's so fucking awful. I can't stand it. Houston has to be one of the wealthiest cities in the nation, and is certainly home to some very generous people and institutions. This is just horrible news.
I don't think generosity and hospitality are lacking right now, but the mismatch between planning and expectation and what's actually required is going to frustrate a lot of people and they won't keep being their best selves.
Driving crossed my mind also (thought it would take a couple of days), as I'm sure it did many others, but I think something similar to the part of War of the Worlds where *spoilers* Tom Cruise gets pulled out, at gun point, of the van he's using to evacuate his family *end spoilers* would be a far too likely result.
Indeed, w/d, not to mention:
many of [the people at the NO convention center] with cell phones have contacts willing to come rescue them, but people are not being allowed through to pick them up
We're fantasizing so that we can stop feeling so damn helpless, of course. That's also part of the reason people are so mad at the government, I think: they're supposed to represent us, and we're filled with this massive desire to help, and it's not being translated into action by our designated agents. It feels personally embarrassing.
I just looked at a prior picture Drum had posted, and it made me tear up. I actually laughed first. It looks like an old SNL skit: poor black people, trying to get some help, huge sign written on the ground so those above them can see, waving the flag to make nice, even a dropped "e". The fact that this "skit" iis real just kills me.
I was stunned by 9/11, but I was never scared, or even worried. I'm more than a little worried about this one.
I think 89 is exactly right; we all have ideas of what should be done, and what we want to do, and it's frustrating to see things not being done as well or as quickly as they need to be.
But god is it depressing. Twenty-five thousand were invited to Houston, but the fire marshall says that it's nt safe for more than 5K? I think there are probably legitimate reasons for this, but bureaucratic caution seems to really fail to meet the reality of the situation.
I'm actually conflicted on this, though my conscience and emotions say I shouldn't be. On the one hand I just want to say suspend the usual fire prevention precautions; on the other hand, those precautions grew out of very real disasters like the 1871 Chicago Fire (on the same day as the Peshtigo fire, the deadliest in American history), Triangle Shirtwaist, San Francisco in 1906, and many others, and one of the disturbing things about this disaster is how 19th century it seems: the lack of preparedness, the unwillingness to use the state's full resources until after disaster strikes, the lack of coordination among agencies, both private and public, the feeling that at this level of governance we're going to find ourselves drifting from catastrophe to catastrophe.
In the short run they could probably push the limits of the Astrodome's capacity much farther, but the longer it stayed like that, the riskier it would be. I don't understand why this couldn't have been thought through before the buses were on their way.
More from the Interdictor (the guy is former Special Forces now running operations from the tenth floor of a downtown high-rise where an Internet provider with their own diesel generator and a deeply buried fiber-optic cable are keeping things going; they have pics and a streaming cam, as well).
Notice the part in my montage where it turns out that FEMA dithered for days about the levee breach, and it's been fixed by a private contractor, Boh Bros., just driving in and doing it. On their own.
Kathryn Cramer is covering the satellite photo situation.
I'm going to be writing to the New York papers and to Mayor Bloomberg begging that we offer resettlement to as many people as we can. We're a big city, we should be able to take thousands at least, and getting them from Houston to here shouldn't be an insurmountable problem. I have this nightmarish vision of these people being left in camps for months -- that just shouldn't happen.
In the words of my friend:
"This is fuck."
LB, if they evacuated people to camps outside of the city, family and friends would be able to pick them up, at least.
What if every major hotel in the South donated 10 rooms/suites to the displaced families for 2-4 wks? Or long enough for them to collect their bearing.
family and friends would be able to pick them up, at least.
Not everyone has family and friends outside NO who can help them. Certainly the first step, once people are out of the city and someplace safe and dry, is to figure out if there's someplace they can go on their own, but that's still going to leave thousands and thousands of people with nothing.
I think that, at this point, large-scale refugee camps would be more accomodating than the Superdome. It merely has the added benefit of allowing some people the chance to stay with family and friends.
Also, I think humanitarian aid will be easier to deliver once people are evacuated from the city.
Oh, wow, certainly. I'm not talking about not getting people out of the Superdome as fast as possible, I'm talking about what happens Monday.
"LB, if they evacuated people to camps outside of the city, family and friends would be able to pick them up, at least."
Generally speaking, if the people left behind had family and friends that could pick them up, they wouldn't have been stuck in New Orleans.
Locally, the University of Colorado has set up phone banks running yesterday taking calls from any New Orlean students to tell them to come, they're admitted, we'll work out all the problems and details later. The local PBS network is doing an all-Colorado fund-raising telethon tonight. 450 Colorado National Guard are on the way.
This is what I just sent to Mayor Bloomberg:
Mayor Bloomberg:
At this moment there are tens of thousands of New Orleans residents who, even when they've been rescued from the city, will have nothing and no place to go. Please, can New York City offer resettlement assistance to as many as possible -- housing, jobs, schools for their children.
I know this will be expensive, but we're a rich city; even if you had to fund a resettlement effort with a property or income tax surcharge, I swear that it would be what the city wants you to do.
I've never voted for a Republican in my life -- if you offer these people help, I'll vote for you in the fall, and again for any other office you ever run for. Every poor or minority voter in NYC who can see themselves in these people's shoes will do the same.
Four years ago, the rest of the country surrounded us with their love and support in our hour of need. Isn't it time we gave some of that back?
I sent versions to the Times, News, Post, and Newsday. Is there anyone else obvious to write to?
Generally speaking, if the people left behind had family and friends that could pick them up, they wouldn't have been stuck in New Orleans.
Ogged post this above
many of [the people at the NO convention center] with cell phones have contacts willing to come rescue them, but people are not being allowed through to pick them up
Also, I'm not convinced residents expected it to be this bad.
That's a good letter, LB. The morning shows on cable news networks may read it on air. Sometimes FoxNews does.
LB - WSJ? Also, you can promise him more than one vote. I may have voted for a Republican for a judgeship once though.
Of course they didn't expect it to be this bad, and of course some of them will have places to go, but lots of them will still need places to go.
I understand, LB. I'm not saying that moving them to a large-scale refugee camp outside the city will solve everybody's problem, but it has to be more accomodating than the Superdome and the convention center, and some people will have family and friends, and that's better for everyone.
Once the inhabitants of New Orleans are evacuated, what are tens of thousands of broke, jobless, homeless people supposed to do for the next several months? Scrimshaw?
Some kind of works project program springs to mind, but I don't have any confidence in the current crew's ability to design one.
Paul,
How about rebuild their city? It's going to take workers.
Yeah, something like a Lake Ponchatrain/Gulf Coast Valley Authority could work, couldn't it?
The percentage of refugees apt to have the physical abilities and skills to engage in building is going to be?
Probably similar to the number who were employed beforehand. Skills can be taught. Even if we are discussing building houses, it can be done. Even supplementing professional teams with refugees would be good.
These people aren't all infirm, elderly, or young. And I'm not saying immediately. I'm saying feed them, make sure they are healthy, and then put them to work. Pay them for their work. Do something that shows an ounce of organization and forethought.
God is looking down on this. The mayor breaks down on-air.
"Probably similar to the number who were employed beforehand.
Unemployment was high. This isn't just a problem of an emergency; it ties directly into structural poverty.
Not that I'm disagreeing with you. Just noting.
By the way, thanks for all the stuff you've been posting -- I've been relying on your site for news.
In that case, you have the ability to employ more people than were employed before. Ability does not necessarily mean that you should, can or will.
reporters have been showing more sympathy for the plight of the victims than for the plight of the government officials who are confronting the disaster
Wait, someone said this? Can we lock the officials in a room without food, water, or sanitation for a few days?
Someone at the Pentagon. While it may have been inappropriate in other contexts, I think we can all agree here: suck it up.
Damn it, LB, we've been asking for more transparency in the Pentagon for years, and now when they share, you castrating Democrats all start screaming "suck it up! suck it up!" WTF?