Hurricane Katrina

[sharward]

My thoughts are with those who are suffering the immeasurable devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Forum member Andrew McMaster comes to mind, and I'm sure there are others among us who are in the destruction zone or have family and friends in the area.

Please give to the American Red Cross. By making a financial gift to Hurricane 2005 Relief, the Red Cross can provide shelter, food, counseling and other assistance to those in need. Every little bit helps... And big bits help even more.

[the dreamer]

Hello Keith,
I'm not sure if you in the US see the same on TV as we in Europe as US-medias are tremendously cencored/manipulated. (On CNN that we get via sattelite they show often different/manipulated stuff than european reporters show...you wouldn't believe....for instance at 9/11 there was huge lies on CNN with arabian people dancing on the streets...plain lies)

What we see from NO is the pure horror, rape, murder, people starving and piling dead bodies and the goverment does nothing!!!
I do not understand this, where are the helicopters to supply them with food, where are the helicopters to pick them up?

One reporter intervied a group of young blacks that didn't want to wait for help cause there was none. They tried to leave the town and encounterded the national guards who sent them back. What's that? They could have saved themselves and where send back into the horror?

Another european reporter saw a truck caravan with supplies coming to NO. Several 100m before town, they suddenly stopped and drove away? Why?

In every 3rd world country catastrophy there is better organisation.

A lot of the intervied people still waiting are loosing hope. Lot's of them believe, cause they are poor and black, they are left behind. Too costly to save their lives.

I mean this with compassion to all that suffer.

And as America/the Bush administration lost so much of their reputation due the Irak war this is again something no one here can understand.
I'm honestly intersted in what the amarican citizens think about that and what is publicly disscussed in the US.

With compassion
Florian


edit:
Great news, just heard on radio that the first supply convoys are arriving!

[sharward]

I hope this doesn't degenerate into a political discussion. Indeed there have been some critical and embarrassing failures in the rescue and humanitarian operations, some of which are explainable, and some of which are not (yet). I'm not going to take that bait, at least not now. There will be plenty of time for a post mortem analysis (i.e., pointing the fingers of blame) in the months and years to come. Now is not the time.

One thing's for sure -- where the government (local, state, or federal) fails, private citizens and organizations can succeed. The American Red Cross is one such private organization that is doing great works. But they need our financial support, so please -- give a little, or give a lot -- just give.

[the dreamer]

Keith, you got me wrong. This was not intended as some kind of political thing or blaming. I just said what we see on the media here and wondered how this comes and what's going on among american citizens about this.

I don't consider my last post as an attack/insult/blaming. But as english is not my native language I may have expressed myself in a way that might sound like that to "english ears".
That was not my intend, I apologize for that!!!

My thoughts are with all that suffer and are involved in this tremendous crisis.

Warm greetings
Florian

[Sword9]

I gotta say, having worked half my life in "the media", the last thing the national news networks are is controlled by the government. If they were, there wouldn't be such bad stories about the government. It'd be all happy cheery and no problems. I'm perfectly willing to admit that some of the news networks are heavily influenced by the major political parties, but even then, they try to tell the truth, as being caught in lies really ruins their credibility (like the NY Times for instance).

I think a lot of people inside and outside the U.S. don't know about what New Orleans was like before the storm. Mistakes were made and people have been without food and water for too long. However, the situation didn't get bad in New Orleans simply for that reason. The neighborhood only two blocks away from Bourbon st.(part of the area that's had the worst violence post-storm) is a place that has nearly 400 murders a year from localized violence. That's literally more than 1 a day. So looting and violence broke out partly because it was simply "business as usual." Which is bad, and I'm not making excuses, it's just stating the facts.

This is not the time to point blame and the response by the government has been excellent compared to what would have probably been done had this happened 100 years ago. I can't understand people shooting at the rescue helicopters and taking TV's (where would they even plug them in?), but I can understand stealing food to survive. I think the best explanation for why it took so long for food and supplies to finally reach the city is this:

• A. it takes time to gear up a relief effort(I'll make one more comment about this later)
  B. there was only about 18-24 hours of notice that this was going to "the big one everybody'd always talked about" Many of the population of New Orleans were poverty stricken and unable to leave. There were a number of people who just decided to stay too. Either way, there wasn't much time to remove even 10% of the city's 1.4 Million people.
  C. most of the places that could give immediate aid (the main major roads into the city) were hit by the storm too. We in Tenneesee, just to the north of the disaster area, were nailed by 60 MPH winds and a lot of rain until Wednesday. I don't know if anybody saw the bridges going into Biloxi, MS, but they simply aren't there anymore.
  D. The levees broke in New Orleans, thus completing the worst case scenario and sending up to 25 feet of water into 80-90% of the city.
  E. Violence broke out and people were trapped in their homes either by water or fear.

That's the way I see it. In 1994, we experience a localized tornado/thunderstorm in my hometown of Metropolis, IL (pop. 6700). We were without power for 5 days, had no way to refrigerate things and didn't really have any way to cook or buy things unless we had cash on hand. There was no flooding and it was not nearly as much damage as a huge hurricane can deliver, at least not so wide spread. I can't imagine enduring what happened in N.O. Thankfully there were other surrounding communities that helped and I'm sure state and local government did all they could. However even for our small town/region it took time.

There is apparently a lot of corruption in local New Orleans government, a major problem with their communication with state government, and there has always been a problem, since the Articles of Confederation was drafted, with the states communicating with each other and the national government. Even with all these problems, I don't see how people can blame one particular political party or set of officials. The levees were bad for many years and many administrations both nationally and locally.

This is a major tradgedy with a disaster area of 90k sq. miles. That's just a huge amount of damage in such a localized area. That's bigger than some of our states, like Kansas and Idaho. It's heartbreaking and hopefully things are starting to turn around. The loss of life is horrible and the immediate economic impact will be very strong, but in the end this will hopefully turn that whole section of the southeast around and start a new period of growth for an area that had previously been "rotting on the vine" for about 20+ years.

[sharward]

Thanks, Florian. In rereading your post, I can clearly see your intended points/questions. Sorry I overreacted there. However, your allegation that CNN lied about people dancing in the streets on 9/11 is false -- that really happened.

It's difficult for me to be in a position of defending CNN, because I'm so disgusted with them right now. Night before last, on Larry King Live, the CEO of Wal-Mart announced they were increasing their cash contribution to the Katrina humanitarian efforts from $1 million to $15 million. During that brief interview, Larry King took a pot shot at Wal-Mart by asking (paraphrasing), "How do you feel that Wal-Mart stores are being looted and that guns are being taken by the looters?"

I said I wouldn't take the bait, and yet I am.

[Sword9]

Okay, one more comment, and I promise that this is not politically minded or influenced at all. It's really apples to oranges here, but many Americans simply cannot help and compare this national disaster to the national disaster that was the 9/11 attacks. In my opinion, we got lucky on 9/11 in two ways. It was a very localized problem (the entirety of Manhattan island compared to the huge expanse of the hurricane path is nothing) and there was good leadership in NYC (not just the mayor, although most will agree he did an excellent job). Part of that leadership and organization was just inherent to the north like it isn't to the south. Southerners like their independence and it's always going to be that way.

Anybody else in the south that's lived in the north know what I mean by that?

[the dreamer]

Keith, thanks for the link. It seems I fell prey to an internet lore and if this is the "truth" it somehow rehabilitates the reputation CNN had for me. But still not very high when I think of the Iraqi war reports in comparison to what I've seen here. (and I'm sure that "media" often is biased here too if it helps the powerful)
CNN is the only US news channel I receive here so I could just made myself a picture on that and this is also why I wanted to ask how real, independent people in the US feel about it...

And this brings me to Sam's posts:
Sam, thanks for sharing your thoughts and for reporting!


Again I want to apologize if I came across rude/biased/blaming. Not intendet, I was just interested in how you guys perceive the situation.

Thanks to both of you!
Florian

[Eric Best]

I have received the commentary from people in other countries that we are "not seeing the entire picture" because of what they saw on CNN or SKY news, and proceded to tell me of all the things that happened that I didn't see because they didn't see it on CNN. I proceded to tell them that I did see it on one of about 25 different news sources that we have available in the US.

How many different TV news stations do you have available to watch? I don't know how many we have here. I think that on my cable I have at least 25 stations that run news and about 10 that do news 24hours, and they are all different.

Spend 30 minutes watching each network (make sure that you include FOX, they are very different) and see how much different coverage you get.

[John Sayers]

Fair comment Eric - our news has been pretty parochial, as we've seen reports by Australian reporters in the US that Australian tourists caught in New Orleans were being threatened and feared for their lives, because they were white. We were also being told our consulate staff were being prevented from entering New Orleans to locate, and evacuate our citizens.

In 1974 a cyclone category 5 took out the city of Darwin in our northern territory. Similar climate, similar mix of black and white. It happened on New Years Eve and by Xmas evening (i.e. within 24hrs) an Army general was in Darwin with a team supervising the evacuation of the city. Food, medicine, and shelter etc was already arriving by the planeload. No looting, no armed gangs raping and murdering, no collapse of society, in fact the opposite as people traditionally come together in disasters. Just witness Europe last month.

What this event has made clear to me is the underlying extreme poverty and violence that exists in major US cities, and minor ones such as New Orleans. I come from a primarily democratic socialist country and you won't find poverty on the scale of New Orleans in my country, even in our most remote aboriginal communities, because of our extensive, socialist, welfare system. The first thing that amazed me when I first went on-line and read the views of Americans was you’re your entrenched extreme hatred, and distrust of socialism ( and the French BTW). I’m still amazed by it, as the alternative IMO is what happened in New Orleans.

What I also find amazing is that over a third of the National Guard, and all the associated equipment were in Iraq, and that the money earmarked for the levee banks had also gone to Iraq, reeks of serious miss-management and miss-guided national priorities IMO.

Cheers
john

[Sword9]

and that the money earmarked for the levee banks had also gone to Iraq, reeks of serious miss-management and miss-guided national priorities IMO.

Cheers
john

Even the engineers responsible for it doubt it would have made a difference though story

I saw a survivor of the flood on tv today say that he saw runaway barges hit the levee and that's when it broke. Nobody else seems to be confirming that though, so it could just be shock or a mistake. I'm sure that there will be many reports and investigations though. That city is going to have to be totally redesigned and rethought if they're even going to think of rebuilding it.

The hurricane actually hit Gulfport, MS with the most strength and thankfully the rescue missions and help is working there flawlessly really. I wish more of that was on TV, but I guess it doesn't get as good ratings. New Orleans, though horribly damaged, was fine until nearly 30 hours later when that levee broke. As far as hurricanes go, she "missed" N.O. originally. At that point, so much of the aid was already on course for MS and AL rural areas and then everything had to be redirected quite suddenly in an unplanned way. I hope that if nothing else, this disaster will help the U.S. finally lay down better emergency preparedness plans. We've had it so good for so long, that it's often hard to imagine "it" happening here.

[sharward]

I totally regret starting this thread.

[John Sayers]

No worries mate

cheers
john

[sharward]

What this event has made clear to me is the underlying extreme poverty and violence that exists in major US cities, and minor ones such as New Orleans.

Do not assume that New Orleans is (or was) a representative example of the criminal culture of the United States. New Orleans has a murder rate ten times the national average and for the 19th time in the last 20 years, they've had 200 murders. They also have a grossly understaffed police department and have long kept a controversial requirement that all police offers live within the city limits, which hinders their ability to recruit officers (source). Their police department "has a poor image in the community, with allegations of brutality and corruption dating back decades" (source).

I come from a primarily democratic socialist country and you won't find poverty on the scale of New Orleans in my country, even in our most remote aboriginal communities, because of our extensive, socialist, welfare system. The first thing that amazed me when I first went on-line and read the views of Americans was you’re your entrenched extreme hatred, and distrust of socialism ( and the French BTW). I’m still amazed by it, as the alternative IMO is what happened in New Orleans.

For the record, our economy is not purely capitalistic. It's a mix of capitalism and socialism. Prior to the disaster our unemployment rate was an impressive <5% (source), comparable to the current 5% of our Australian friends (source).

What I also find amazing is that over a third of the National Guard, and all the associated equipment were in Iraq, and that the money earmarked for the levee banks had also gone to Iraq, reeks of serious miss-management and miss-guided national priorities IMO.

Thousands of National Guard troops had been given the "heads up" to await orders and were staging with their equipment around the country, but were not actually called to duty for days (source). Even if we had zero troops in Iraq, it likely wouldn't have made a difference. The response failures appear to be rooted in bureaucracy; communications problems; logistical issues; lack of ground transportation infrastructure access; and possibly ineptitude/incompetence of some in positions of authority at local, state, or federal agencies. To use this tragedy as an opportunity to take pot shots at our administration's policies on Iraq and/or the War on Terrorism is, in my opinion, inappropriate.

Having addressed those points, please, please, please, folks: No more politics here. Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but if you want to talk about Iraq or politics, please start a new thread. This thread is (or was) about giving to the humanitarian effort and offering our condolences to our fellow members in the region affected by the disaster.

[camistan]

Does anyone have any info on Andrew? I wrote to him shortly after it hit not realizing he was in New Orleans.

I have a friend who's Church took a truckload of clothing, personal items and other supplies to that area. What they told us some of the people experienced was heart-wrenching.

I thought about Andrew and hoped that he made it out in time.

He and the others along the Gulf coast have my Prayers.
Stan