CNN.Com Breaking News Banner: ?New Orleans hospital halts patient evacuations after coming under sniper fire, a doctor who witnessed the incident says. More soon.?

What do you say about this DCB? What do you expect the rescuers do when this happens? FEMA is doing what they can, but what happens when the people they are trying to rescue turn against them?!

Windy
September 9, 2005

Exaggerations to buy time and give excuses of this massive failure of a relief effort. While I have no doubt that a few bad apples are making it difficult, to think that a homie with a pistol is preventing rescue or supply drop-off of 60,000 people is ludicrous.

DCB
September 9, 2005

Five weeks after Hurricane Katrina laid waste to New Orleans, some local, state and federal officials have come to believe that exaggerations of mayhem by officials and rumors repeated uncritically in the news media helped slow the response to the disaster and tarnish the image of many of its victims.

Claims of widespread looting, gunfire directed at helicopters and rescuers, homicides, and rapes, including those of “babies” at the Louisiana Superdome, frequently turned out to be overblown, if not completely untrue, officials now say.

Washington Post
October 5, 2005

On a lighter note, am I the only liberal celebrating an early Christmas present with the unraveling of Bush’s White House? Katrina debacle, corruption scandals, trouble with the latest Supreme Court pick, escalating violence in Iraq, and now we may be looking at possible indictments of actual White House staff.

:pika: :drama: :pika:

me -> :laugh:
George Bush voter -> :shudder:

Look for the Democrats to somehow find a way to blow it in next year’s election.

POSTSCRIPT: Do you believe in coincidences?!

Katrina Timeline

1.

I’m a little disappointed with my peers. They either have no idea of what’s going on in New Orleans or they unknowingly reveal their prejudice towards blacks with ignorant comments. The first one is, “They should have left the city. It was a category five hurricane.” Arguments to show that the affected were poor and car-less is met with statements such as, “Well I would have started walking.” Yes, escaping a 200-mile wide hurricane by walking 15 miles a day is the rational thing to do. They don’t want to hear that Greyhound bus service shutdown on Saturday because then they would have to strain to come up with the next comment: “Well they shouldn’t be looting. They are hampering the effort.” I can’t help but think of the movie Die Hard when Bruce Willis blows up a couple terrorists by throwing down an improvised explosive device through an elevator shaft. The explosion infuriates the FBI, who calls him on the walkie-talkie to complain about the shattered glass. Bruce Willis says, “Glass, who gives a fuck about glass?” Those who are focusing on the looting try to use that as some sort of proof that Katrina victims deserve their situation, like a poor person deserves to live in a ghetto because they “don’t work hard enough.” Explaining them the social causes of poverty and race it met with a confused, blank stare, since you share with them facts that their daddy didn’t teach them while growing up. It’s a shame how racist beliefs prevent otherwise normal people from empathizing with those seriously in need.

2.

Many say that it is disgusting of the left to politicize the issue and blame Bush during this crisis. Coming from those who politicized a blow job and used it to impeach a standing President, I’d say they have a lot of nerve. This administration has failed the people of New Orleans and I’ll be damned if no one is going to be held accountable. While George Bush was strumming the guitar, and Condi Rice was shopping for shoes and playing tennis, the relief effort for perhaps the biggest natural disaster in the history of this country was bungled beyond belief. And I almost forgot about Dick Cheney, who is still on vacation. It’s not that unexpected to see the administration so detached from reality for they have done it with the economy and they have done it with Iraq, painting a lessening insurgency on its “last throes” as violence continued to intensify. Even respected journalists are tired of the conservative spin. The crucial moment after the hurricane passed to restore order was missed, allowing groups of thugs to terrorize the area, providing the government with a much needed excuse of why relief could not be provided in a timely matter.

3.

The administration’s hype since 9/11 of increasing security for Americans and protecting the homeland has turned out to be one big sham. Billions of dollars have been spent on the Department of Homeland Security, but apparently only to respond to fantasy terrorist attacks and not natural disasters such as strong hurricanes which are sorta known for hitting this country. The joke of the organization known as FEMA has been revealed, and other than providing flood insurance I’m not really sure they have any other duty except for giving television interviews to let everyone know that “help is coming” (while criticizing hurricane victims at the same time). FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security should have a plan to deal with every possible natural disaster that occurs in this country, especially the one concerning the flooding of New Orleans which has been discussed plenty in scientific and media circles for the past decade. Unfortunately, the flooding is getting played out exactly as described. When President Bush says, “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees,” he is either lying or showing his true incompetence as leader of this country, something he’s shown many times already with his handling of domestic terror policy, the economy (more tax cuts!), and lies about the invasion of Iraq.

If the government takes over three days to simply drop food and water for 60,000 stranded people, I shudder to think what would happen if there was a large terrorist attack in a major US city. Our inability to handle this disaster has exposed our vulnerability, but as long as we search every passenger that borders a plane, the window dressing of security is good enough to give the impression that we got things under control.

4.

The latest talking point coming from the administration and other conservatives goes something like this: “There will be plenty of time to assign blame for the delayed rescue effort.” Another simple deflection that in this microwave-speed culture works time and time again. Several months from now as the people of New Orleans build a life in some new place, everybody will forget about the abysmal relief effort, the human suffering, and the casual response of our politicians, instead focusing on increasing gas prices and how it is too expensive to fill up the Ford Explorer to take Cody to soccer practice. I have lost all hope that the people of this country will actually care to remember something that happened more than a month ago.

I don’t think many of you grasp what’s going on in New Orleans right now. To give you an idea, here is something that was written in Time magazine “pre-Katrina”:

If a flood of Biblical proportions were to lay waste to New Orleans, Joe Suhayda has a good idea how it would happen. A Category 5 hurricane would come barreling out of the Gulf of Mexico. It would cause Lake Pontchartrain, north of New Orleans, to overflow, pouring down millions of gallons of water on the city. Then things would really get ugly. Evacuation routes would be blocked. Buildings would collapse. Chemicals and hazardous waste would dissolve, turning the floodwaters into a lethal soup. In the end, what was left of the city might not be worth saving. “There’s concern it would essentially destroy New Orleans,” says Suhayda.

It’s a good thing that we have a President that is on top of the disaster efforts. Here’s what he did while New Orleans was getting utterly destroyed. I mean, if he can run a war from his ranch, what’s playing the guitar while a million people lose their homes? I know there is nothing he can do to prevent the ongoing destruction, but he could at least wipe that stupid smirk off his face and pretend he cares.

POSTSCRIPT:

Is anyone watching CNN? There are people dying in the Superdome right now (mostly poor, black people), a place the government told everyone to gather for food, shelter, and water. You think other black people in major cities are not watching? If I was disenfranchised and saw the outrageous way my people were being treated, I would get pretty angry.

Today I paid $3.15 a gallon for gas. I wonder how all this will turn out. In the meantime I should maybe go celebrate with a drink at one of the many benefit hurricane relief parties.

The Storm After the Storm

Hurricanes come in two waves. First comes the rainstorm, and then comes what the historian John Barry calls the “human storm” - the recriminations, the political conflict and the battle over compensation. Floods wash away the surface of society, the settled way things have been done. They expose the underlying power structures, the injustices, the patterns of corruption and the unacknowledged inequalities. When you look back over the meteorological turbulence in this nation’s history, it’s striking how often political turbulence followed.

…

The political disturbances are still to come.

i.e. riots

Here’s something I’m sending to my Congressional representatives, which I’m sure some intern will promptly trash:

Four years after 9/11, when billions of dollars were spent on homeland security preparing us for terrorist attacks, I am currently watching New Orleans residents suffering on my television set three days after the hurricane passed, with no relief in sight. It seems that news crews have no trouble getting into these areas, but it is hard to see any sort of strong government presence. Where is the food and water drop-offs? Why isn’t there more coordination between state and federal agencies? I can’t help but think that if the evacuees were rich and white, they’d be helped by now. The government has failed these people, and I hope those in charge are held accountable for this gross incompetency.