Category: Katrina

  • i got the antediluvian de-stroyed de-brised de-scouraged homeland insecurity blues

    Sittin’ in a friend’s Uptown shotgun listening to Bobby Lounge bang the ivories singing “do not pass on by” while the dog sleeps and the mockingbirds sing on a softly humid Monday morning. The friends are workin’, a blessing in this post-Katrina, trauma-tized, water-marked, limpin’ and hurtin’ New Orleans. “We Back” says the spray paint…

  • Lyons, Carnival, and FEMA oh my!

    We talked on the phone to our friends in New Orleans last night as they were out on their front porch directing traffic onto sidewalks and neighbor’s driveways for Mardi Gras parking. They sounded happy for the first time in a long while. Here’s some pics of their neighborhood at Inside The Bowl

  • The White House Lied While New Orleans Died

    “FYI from FEMA” said the e-mail to Homeland Security on the night the 17th Street Canal levee broke. The White House knew of flooding, stranded people and fires in the Crescent City by midnight. Then they all went about their business as if nothing had happened. Meanwhile the City of New Orleans fought it’s greatest…

  • Reconstruction: Iraq vs Louisiana

    The Bush administration has doled out a lot of cash for the “reconstruction” of Iraq and we now have a report from the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. The long story short is that $25 billion was appropriated by Congress to rebuild Iraq, including for 136 projects to improve water and sanitation and 425…

  • Still somewhat slow on the uptake

    Mike Brown took the hint, finally, and resigned as FEMA director. Look for him to receive the Medal of Freedom in a few months. Fortunately, Skeletor… er, I mean Chertoff is still firmly in control of Homeland Security.

  • Dispatch: Heroic Imp

    Earlier today, my pal Heroic Imp sent me this chilling vision of the future I thought was worth sharing: New Orleans has one of the world’s greatest international ports, one of the largest in the nation, and it is a major focus of the city’s economy. New Orleans is home to the corporate offices of…

  • A Little Understanding, Please…

    Aside from the very slight chances of a hurricane and a flood occurring coincidentally, planners had to identify and assign personnel according to their skills. It must be remembered: –Every hurricane or flood is different. Some call for public-safety skills, boats and sandbagging, while others require clockmakers and paleontologists. –The records had to be, by…

  • Is the national guard stopping aid from getting in to New Orleans?

    That’s the word on indymedia.org and getyouracton.com. One show-stopping excerpt: Also heard that part of the reason our house flooded is they dynamited part of the levee after the first section broke – they did this to prevent Uptown (the rich part of town) from being flooded. Apparently they used too much dynamite, thus flooding…

  • Donate to Habitat for Humanity

    Help Hurricane Victims Rebuild Their Lives The situation on the Gulf Coast is grave. Reports of devastation are staggering. Thousands of families are left homeless or with homes that are severely damaged. Katrina was nothing short of catastrophic–especially for families in low-income housing and mobile home parks. In a disaster like this, families who were…

  • What took so long

    Can anyone verify the following assertions (from a mailing list I’m on)? Halliburton hired for storm cleanup 01 Sep 2005: The Navy has hired Houston-based Halliburton Co. & Roof Installation Newton repair roofs, restore electric power and remove debris at three naval facilities in Mississippi damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Halliburton subsidiary KBR will also perform…

  • Government by photo-op

    Is this really the best way to help the relief effort? It goes to show how overwhelming things are here right now that I encountered the First Lady yesterday and I almost forgot to put it in this e-mail. It actually couldn’t have been a worse experience; a team of us were working to put…

  • FEMA Chief Brown: An Unqualified Success

    Talking Points Memo on the qualifications of FEMA chief Michael Brown (aka “Brownie”): The news out today about FEMA Director Michael Brown tells the ugly tale. So let’s just review what we now know — with key new details first from a diarist at DailyKos and now confirmed in more depth in this morning’s Boston…

  • Sympathy for the FEMA

    “In Louisiana’s capital, Baton Rouge, the head of FEMA, Michael D. Brown said power outages, rising waters and violence by looters and others shooting at rescuers had complicated relief efforts.” .-LA Times How is FEMA supposed to function effectively under these kind of adverse conditions? Rising waters! Power outages! Looters! Who can be expected plan…

  • Deep Thinker at the Helm

    And they say his imagination is limited… …in Air Force One. Turning to his aides, he said: “It’s totally wiped out. … It’s devastating, it’s got to be doubly devastating on the ground.” (Newsweek)

  • Looting

    Have you been watching Fox and Fox type TV this past couple of days? Their coverage of the looting is making me insane. Poor people who’ve lost everything, even lost the city they were poor in, stealing food, stealing clothes, stealing TVs, I really don’t care. Who are we to judge them? Who is the…

  • Yes, I get sophomoric when I vent.

    President Bush has announced his first priority response to the disaster in New Orleans has been to head off flooding in all major waterways surrounding Crawford, Texas. “We are not about to fall back into a passive, reactive, defensive strategy on this. If we do not fight flooding in Crawford today, we will be fighting…