Surviving Hurricane Katrina - My Story

[Townsend]

That notion has been contested.

Sorry, I missed it. I just skipped to the end of the thread...

 

[Ivan Seeking]

It wouldn't hurt to send a couple of bucks to help out.

That notion has been contested.

What are you talking about?

 

[Math Is Hard]

Does anyone know of this organization? I was thinking about sending them a little money if they are a good charity:

http://www.noahswish.org

 

[hypatia]

If you want to help the animals do it via the ASPCA, and ear mark dontaions Katrina animal aid.
http://www.aspca.org/site/PageServer

 

[Math Is Hard]

If you want to help the animals do it via the ASPCA, and ear mark dontaions Katrina animal aid.
http://www.aspca.org/site/PageServer

Thanks, Hypatia. I'm also planning to send a little extra to our local shelter because I know they will get neglected this month.

 

[εllipse]

Yikes, that would be the Grand Casino - built on a huge barge.

edit: apparently, it isn't the only one. HERE is the story (no good pics). I know from when I lived in the area that the laws of the state outlaw gambling, but had a loophole for offshore gambling. So none of the casinos are actually on dry-land. Some are on stilts, some, apparently, on barges.

Here's some pictures of the casinos: http://www.cnn.com/interactive/weather/0508/gallery.casinos.katrina/frameset.exclude.html


http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/interactive/weather/0508/gallery.casinos.katrina/images/gallery.barge.jpg

Yes, that used to be floating in the Gulf of Mexico.

 

[robphy]

Finally, a hi-res picture of New Orleans I was hoping for...
before: http://www.digitalglobe.com/images/katrina/new_orleans_msi_march9_2004_dg.jpg
after: http://www.digitalglobe.com/images/katrina/new_orleans_msi_aug31_2005_dg.jpg
(A few more at: http://www.digitalglobe.com/images/katrina/ )

Here is another before-and-after picture:
http://edc.usgs.gov/Katrina.html

From these images and some ground photos from http://www.nola.com/hurricane/photos/ , it looks like the streets around my apartment are not flooded. I hope that the structure survived the wind, the rain, and (now) the looters.

Here is a useful site announced on CNN: http://www.gnocdc.org/hurricane.html

 

[Moonbear]

robphy, where are you currently? Do you have a place to stay, or are you at some airport hotel?

 

[robphy]

robphy, where are you currently? Do you have a place to stay, or are you at some airport hotel?

I've been in New York since Friday, visiting my parents and attending a wedding. Needless to say, I'm glad that this wedding was scheduled when it was.

 

[hitssquad]

Needless to say, I'm glad that this wedding was scheduled when it was.

Why? An evacuation was announced and most people heeded it. It's not like you would be there if there you had not instead been attending a wedding.

 

[robphy]

Why? An evacuation was announced and most people heeded it. It's not like you would be there if there you had not instead been attending a wedding.

This is true. However, my circumstance got me out of the area before any panic and before any evacuations. (I didn't learn about the updated track to New Orleans until Saturday morning.) It's no fun trying to flee with thousands of other people... driving hundreds of miles in slow traffic, hoping to find a vacancy in a hotel.

 

[hitssquad]

Ok.

. . .

 

[Ivan Seeking]

This is true. However, my circumstance got me out of the area before any panic and before any evacuations. (I didn't learn about the updated track to New Orleans until Saturday morning.) It's no fun trying to flee with thousands of other people... driving hundreds of miles in slow traffic, hoping to find a vacancy in a hotel.

Some people report that they gave up trying to get out for fear of getting stuck on the road, or even a bridge, when the storm hit.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Did anyone else just hear the nurse at Charity hospital in NO, on CNN? OMG, the conditions are deteriorating beyond belief. There is no water or fresh linens so the patients are laying in their own feces. There is no medicine. The generators run intermittently and they have to manually bag some number of patients until power returns. Now the patients are becoming unsafe to even treat and the medical staff is getting sick.

These politicians need to get with it and bring in the troops. The response should be at least an order of magnitude larger than it is so far. This is absolutely crazy!

 

[Astronuc]

These politicians need to get with it and bring in the troops. The response should be at least an order of magnitude larger than it is so far. This is absolutely crazy!

Yeah!

And someone fired on one of the Chinooks, which was air-lifting people from the Superdome.

All my friends seem to be safe. But they have lost their homes, their jobs, and their bank accounts may be inaccessible because the bank's computers are off-line.

 

[rachmaninoff]

This is getting frustrating. It's been four days already, where's the large military presence and rescue effort?

Superdome situation out-of-control:

He also said that during the night, when a medical evacuation helicopter tried to land at a hospital in the outlying town of Kenner, the pilot reported that 100 people were on the landing pad, and some of them had guns.

"He was frightened and would not land," Zeuschlag.

He said medics were calling him and crying for help because they were so scared of people with guns at the Superdome.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050901/ap_on_re_us/katrina_superdome_evacuation_hk1

Pentagon officials said 30,000 National Guard and active-duty troops would be deployed by this weekend in the largest domestic relief effort by the military in the nation's history.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/01/n...&en=737b69f420b8d648&ei=5094&partner=homepage

They could have done as much a week ago, before the storm hit. Where's the foresight?

 

[Astronuc]

I know that I am being terribly cynical, but where is the "well-regulated militia"?

More to the point, where is the planning?

With all the people stealing guns, why weren't the guns secured to prevent the looting?

It occurred to me that establishments which sell guns to the public have a responsibility to secure those guns so they are not stolen. In the case of an emergency, the entire stock of guns should be put in something like a secure vault, or the establishment must provide the necessary security. One cannot simply walk away and leave guns (and ammunition) for the taking!

We do need gun control, as has been demonstrated by the current situation!

 

[εllipse]

I agree with Astronuc.

One lady they were interviewing on Fox said they released the prisoners from one of the local jails just before the storm. I guess like, "we can't keep you safe, go fend for yourself." Has anyone else heard this?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The city is now being described by the Mayor and media as out of control.

Heads are going to roll on this one, and Bush is going to be one of the focal points. A highly conservative paper, The Union [a new england paper], blasted the handling of this, all the way to the top.

This thing is beyond belief! And now there is concern about the violence spreading to other cities.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Okay, here's my political comment: Just think of how many American lives could have been saved if the money poured into Iraq had been spent on securing what was already described as the worst threat facing the US.

October 2001 Drowning New Orleans; October 2001; by Mark Fischetti; 10 page(s)

THE BOXES are stacked eight feet high and line the walls of the large, windowless room. Inside them are new body bags, 10,000 in all. If a big, slow-moving hurricane crossed the Gulf of Mexico on the right track, it would drive a sea surge that would drown New Orleans under 20 feet of water. "As the water recedes," says Walter Maestri, a local emergency management director, "we expect to find a lot of dead bodies."

New Orleans is a disaster waiting to happen. The city lies below sea level, in a bowl bordered by levees that fend off Lake Pontchartrain to the north and the Mississippi River to the south and west. And because of a damning confluence of factors, the city is sinking further, putting it at increasing flood risk after even minor storms. The low-lying Mississippi Delta, which buffers the city from the gulf, is also rapidly disappearing. A year from now another 25 to 30 square miles of delta marsh-an area the size of Manhattan-will have vanished. An acre disappears every 24 minutes. Each loss gives a storm surge a clearer path to wash over the delta and pour into the bowl, trapping one million people inside and another million in surrounding communities.

Extensive evacuation would be impossible because the surging water would cut off the few escape routes. Scientists at Louisiana State University (L.S.U.), who have modeled hundreds of possible storm tracks on advanced computers, predict that more than 100,000 people could die. The body bags wouldnÆt go very far

http://www.sciamdigital.com/browse.cfm?ITEMIDCHAR=D58B96E1-60BC-4C0F-BCE2-8C9B8A05275&methodnameCHAR=&interfacenameCHAR=browse.cfm&sequencenameCHAR=itemP

We knew this was going to happen.

WE KNEW THIS WOULD HAPPEN!

 

[TRCSF]

WE KNEW THIS WOULD HAPPEN!

Actually, Bush just said there's no way they could have known the levees would break.

So there.

 

[Astronuc]

I hope Bush is using the editorial we. He may not have known, and his administration may not have known, but a lot of experts have been expressing this concern for many years.

But then Bush likes to brag that he does not read!

 

[gonpost]

There's one thing I can't help but wondering why...

Why is it that when I see the pictures of the most harshly hit areas, 90% of the people I see are black? I mean, I don't intend to be racist...it's just an observation... Everytime there are people idling, they are almost all black. Nearly no whites, no hispanics, nothing else. I'm quite sure that 90% of the population there isn't black; I was in New Orleans and the surrounding area a mere five months ago. The one trend I've detected is that they all expect something, from someone besides themselves. I hear people complaining that not enough is being done, people crying that there isn't enough help. I agree, but like I said...I just see hundreds of people standing idle...I'd be walking somewhere, or building something, or even going through remnants to find anything possibly useful. I'd at least be constructive with my time...

I know there are those with children and those who can't really do anything...but when everyone just sits there...

Perhaps it's something with the media's pictures that are falsely painting this portrait for me, though perhaps not.

Anyone have comments? or flames, as the case may become?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

In New Orleans we are seeing the poorest of the poor. And I've seen plenty of white people in other areas. Also, there is nothing to be done - the situation is beyond their control.

The psychology of extreme poverty is another discussion and is certainly not exclusive to black people.

 

[gonpost]

Poorest of the poor...the situation is beyond their control.

The psychology of extreme poverty is another discussion and is certainly not exclusive to black people.

I agree with your second part...

The thing is (this is directed at everyone), if they can move everyone away from the superdome, why don't more people leave? I KNOW that almost everyone could get out of there, whether by buses or by walking. It seems to me most people left just want to suck off of what's left...such off of the aid they're getting. They don't want to start over, too lazy to do anything. It's like they're waiting for the government to rebuild their entire city before they can live again, which won't happen...

EDIT: I just heard that the bus shipments have been nearly canceled because some morons were shooting at the rescue helicopters...yeesh.

 

[TRCSF]

I agree with your second part...

The thing is (this is directed at everyone), if they can move everyone away from the superdome, why don't more people leave? I KNOW that almost everyone could get out of there, whether by buses or by walking. It seems to me most people left just want to suck off of what's left...such off of the aid they're getting. They don't want to start over, too lazy to do anything. It's like they're waiting for the government to rebuild their entire city before they can live again, which won't happen...

EDIT: I just heard that the bus shipments have been nearly canceled because some morons were shooting at the rescue helicopters...yeesh.

Are you kidding? Tell me you're kidding.

The city is flooded, there's no where for them to go. They told people to wade for days to the Convention Center. There get there and there is nothing.

There is no food.

There is no water.

There is no sanitation.

There is no authority.

Elderly people are dying in their wheelchairs.

Babies are dying in their mother's arms.

And now you're bringing up these racist stereotypes about how black people are lazy and they're only staying there because they want the government handouts which aren't even there?

Chr*st on a pogo stick.

 

[hypatia]

I felt sick when Bush was talking on TV, he dosen't have a clue does he? Why are they not air lifting food and water in? The people at the convention center are in life or death need!

new orleans census 2000
Race

White 135956 28.05%
Black or African American 325947 67.25%
American Indian and Alaska Native 991 0.2%
Asian 10972 2.26%
Asian indian 1195 0.25%

For who ever asked, there are a lot of middle class black people in NO too, but also very poor.

 

[gonpost]

Thank you, that's about what I was looking for.

And sorry for my seeming so racist, guess it came across that way, my frustration is directed at humanity, as a whole.

More like disgust, but close enough.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Bush just suggested that we should not buy gas if we don't need it.

Who buys gas they don't need? Or...are they worried about hording like back in the 70's.

Fischetti, the author of the article cited, is on CNN right now. He stated that being too much for La or NO to handle, with a price tag of 14 billion dollars to secure the levees, pleas to the feds for financial help were ignored.

 

[TRCSF]

Bush just suggested that we should not buy gas if we don't need it.

Who buys gas they don't need? Or...are they worried about hording like back in the 70's.

Fischetti, the author of the article cited is on CNN right now. He stated that being too much for La or NO to handle, with a price tag of 14 billion dollars to secure the levees, pleas to the feds for financial help were ignored.

Yeah, he said it just before boarding Air Force One to get a birds eye view of the damage.