Hurricane Katrina

[deerhart]

Mandy

Many of the websites have information about people who are willing to house others and I have seen a number of the posts that are willing to house pets!!! Many of them are animal rescue places or vets office around the country. I think some where on the Nola website and others may have been on CNN.

[mamc2003]

Erin,

Thank you for that. I think I'll print it out and take it to them. I'm sure they are still there, b/c they had nowhere else to go. I really appreciate that, I didn't even think of such. Thanks again.

[grace04]

Oh my gosh I just read through all these posts and I am so sad and scared for all of you being affected by this hurricane. I am so sorry for the losses you are all experiencing in so many ways. If there is anything I can do let me know. I talked to Eleni yesterady and we decided we are going to donate all of the leftover Walk-a-Thon t-shirts to the hurricane relief. We still have about 150 shirts. Its not much but hopefully it will help something. My biggest issue is finding out who I can donate to locally and be assured that the t-shirts will actually go to the hurricane victims. I am assuming Red Cross or the Salvation Army or something.

You are all in my thoughts and prayers!

[mamc2003]

I'm sorry, I've got to vent about a few things and hopefully I'm not stepping on any toes by saying this. I am so upset and frustrated by everything going on in New Orleans. It looks like a third world country down there. They said there are babies in the Convention Center that have died b/c of lack of water and food. There are people just crying saying please get me out.

What upsets me this much is that I am only 3 hours away and it feels like it's another country. This is not Bosnia or Ethiopia. This is right down the road and there is not enough help for these people. I know the situation is not as dire this morning as it was last night. They are finally getting everyone out. But, how many people had to suffer for 5 whole days before something was done to help our own citizens. We were able to get to the Tsunami victims and the 9/11 victims within a day or two. Why can't we do the same for New Orleans.

Anyway, thanks for letting me get this out.

I just cried and cried last night trying to watch the news. I went to the RV park and campground taking food. I talked to a girl from the Coast who lost everything. I'm taking her some clothes today. I feel like since I can't get down to NO and Biloxi to help, I can at least help others here. I have about 10 family members from Hattiesburg staying with us b/c they will be without power for months. I'm so depressed by all of this.

[lorelei]

It's horrible how things are going down there. It's almost like total chaos...I know it's so scary for the people there. My aunt and uncle own an appliance store here in Seneca and someone called them yesterday to see if they would donate a couple of stoves and refridgerators. They said that we were getting some of the people that had been removed from the superdome here in our town. We have two large buildings..one's an old school that they have renovated for various events, and the other is our local recreation building. I don't know how long the people will stay there but I am glad we can at least help out a little. I've been watching CNN most of the day and the footage is just unbelievable...

[fiona]

I just found this thread and wanted to add my sadness and horror at the situation in NO. It's unimaginable to me that it's so hard to get these poor people (in every sense of the word) out of such a terrible, dangerous situation. As an outsider (a Brit living in Canada, reading both countries' news) I just wanted to say that from where I'm sitting, the world does care and is horrified at the lack of mobilisation.

I'm so sorry for everyone affected.

[deerhart]

You have to remember that this situation is very different then most the tsunami or 9/11. With 9/11 there was still easy access to the area by emergancy response. With the tsunami, you didn't have to deal with flood waters in most of the areas.

What many people have forgotten is that the hardest hit areas of the tsunami, which were flooded and access blocked did not recieve add for almost a week and for the most part it was 2-3 weeks before people could get in there.

While we would hope that our response would be faster, everyone is dealing with a situation where the entire infastructure of an area is completely gone.. no water, no electricity, no roads, no communication.
The reasons why third world countries are like they are has to do with a lack of infastructure. I have seen lots of things people have suggested the gov should have done (like had boats waiting with aid in the gulf or already in LA,MS, and AL) but that would have been even more disasterous (since they all would have gotten blasted by the storm) and any boats coming into the gulf wouldn't have been able to leave their naval bases until after Saturday (when Katrina moved past FLA) and probably wouldn't have gotten there until yesterday or today.

Unfortunately there are lots of places to lay blame (NO PD losing 2/3'ds its force to people who simply left) but it is a good study of State and Federal relationship in things like these. The way our country is set up is that its first LA's responsability and they have to request help from the federal government and even then everything still stays under LA control unless they give it up (which is basically what happened yesterday/today). Alot of the blame being put on the federal government shows how little people actually understand how our whole government system works (federalism). I will point something else out, its typically the conservative republicans that support federalism (AKA states control fed's keep out). Instead of asking why the feds hadn't moved in yet, people should be asking why did LA wait so long to hand control over to the feds. It could be they felt they could handle it and later found out they couldn't.
On the flip side, any aid we send to foreign countries in response ot disasters are done via the federal government and osme states do things on their own. It doesn't have to go through all the channels that something like this does.

[akemt]

Thanks for the insightful post, Erin. That does make many things much clearer, though we still wish more could be done.

[mamc2003]

Thank you Erin for explaining that. I'm not as upset over the gov't as I am just the fact of the suffering that these people have gone through. I didn't know that's how aid worked, but I do understand that there was no way to get to everyone down there. So, even if the federal gov't had been asked there still wasn't any way to help.

It still just feels like this is happening somewhere else and not in my own backyard.

[alexp]

I want to say first...no offense to anyone, and I understand there are a lot of people here who will not agree with me. And I'm going to try to avoid ranting too much, as I know this is not the place for it.

I should probably add that I'm talking specifically about the situation in NO and the surrounding area.

I AM totally upset and disgusted with the government...from La's govenor, (who apparently will need surgery to remove her head from her *** it's so far embedded) all the way to the man at the very very top. Speaking of Dubya, I'm glad he made it back from vacation in time to fix up everything that "wasn't exactly right". A disaster of this magnitude, whether or not he was officially involved in it, our president should have made a show of concern immediately. Not stayed on the ranch or at military ceremonies in San Diego or whereever the heck he was.

I have to say though, it was my impression that LA was crying out for federal help since Tuesday before the levees broke...and it was FEMA that dropped the ball. I could be wrong, and I'm trying to research it a bit better myself.

In addition, here's some more things I'm feeling disgusted, depressed, panicky about:

I feel like people everywhere in the US really pulled together over 9/11...but what I'm hearing about this disaster from some people I know (outside Louisiana and the surrounding area...and certainly not anyone here) is that "they are a bunch of animals" "it's all looters and criminals" "those people should have gotten out before the storm hit" and the charming "that's the price you pay for living in a place like that" (heard that one from my own mother, who does not live in La and has never been to NO to my knowledge). In addition, I'm surprised that overall it doesn't seem like it is that much of a big deal - it's getting plenty of coverage, but I mean - ****! - nothing like September 11.

I think that's because people really took 9/11 personally...someone was attacking us. But this is even worse. 9/11 showed us that we are not safe from terrorism. Hurricaine Katrina is showing that we are not only not safe from natural disasters but that the government - on state and federal levels - is unwilling or unable to help us in a time of need. I don't understand it.

Most of the people left behind in NO were desperately poor. Most probably would have loved to evacuate before the storm hit, but literally did not have the resources. I think there has been a significant socioeconomic (and racial) bias in the way all this has been handled. Did you hear about the 700 well dressed, if shaken up, guests of the hyatt hotel (across the street from the Dome) who were loaded onto buses in advance of over 5000 starving refugees? What's up with that?

As for the looting - NO was a beautiful international city...it was also a violent city with a lot of drugs and crime. The "bad guys" that were there in NO were very bad guys indeed, and they didn't all evacuate, either. So that's a lot of the looting and raping and killing right there.

And then there's the people in the dome and convention center going crazy. To those people who think they are acting like animals(and I'm not saying there's anyone here who thinks this way) I say, what do you think you might have done in that situation? You've lost everything you had...and it probably wasn't much to begin with. You haven't had food or water in days, your children are crying for food, there's rotting bodies and garbage and human waste all around you, there's violence and danger everywhere...and you're trapped in all this, and you don't know when it is going to end. I know I'd **** sure be stealing food and anything I thought I needed.

Half of the great state of Louisiana has been turned into an adult rated video game. The rest of the south is full of refugees as desperate as you'd see in a war. It's so unbelievably bad.