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For an historical perspective Susie points to a timeline of the San Francisco Earthquake in 1906 and the Federal response. You would have thought that we would be better at responding after 99 years, not worse.

Three audio links from NPR’s All Things Considered:

Today: [available after 7:30PM EDT]

Robert Siegel’s A Family’s Life in Limbo After Katrina, covers the American tribute to Franz Kafka – applying for assistance from FEMA. Understand this is a story about the trials of an extended family of middle class homeowners, professionals with insurance, college educated, trying to make their way through an artificial labyrinth create by people who are supposed to help them.

[Editor: note the reference to the SBA, the Small Business Administration. She is not mistaken, they are, for some reason, involved in the process, even if you are not applying for aid as a small business owner.]

Jim Zarroli’s Small Towns Await Katrina Aid points to the lack of concern for remote areas and confirms the FEMA policy that vehicles are more important than people – every vehicle gets one ration, whether it’s for a single person or three families.

Yesterday in Looking to Rebuild on the Mississippi Coast, Melissa Block talks with Rep. Gene Taylor (D-MS).

Taylor talks about the loss of 80% of the homes along the coast, including his, and how people have been coping – by “borrowing” the contents of the local Wal-Mart [it’s not New Orleans, so he must be wrong when he says looting].

Mr. Taylor wants the local FEMA representative fired for interfering with the efforts to help the people affected. FEMA insists that individuals should make their own way to a central distribution point. This is a very efficient system for FEMA but it assumes a way of communicating with those affected and that they have transportation. In the FEMA system the individuals have the responsibility of finding help rather than expecting FEMA to find them.

“Where’s the cavalry?” They’re in the fort waiting for you to make your way there.

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While his real name was Bob Denver, and his best known role was Gilligan, he will always be Maynard G. Krebs – the eternal beatnik, the proto-type for the slacker, to me.

CNN has a short obituary.

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My life became a little easier as a result of this tragedy. My Mother has always been reluctant to leave when faced with a hurricane. She has some health problems and cannot exist down here without air conditioning.

We have a generator that is capable of powering a small air conditioner, the refrigerator, lighting, and a radio, specifically because it is always a battle to get her out.

After watching the coverage, she told me today that she’s leaving four days before any storms hit the area because: “those people would kill me. I can’t stand in line in this heat. What good is a generator if you can’t get gas for it? They just don’t care, there’s not a Christian among them.”

The local “special needs” shelter doesn’t even have a generator, and we found out that our local hospice tries to get their patients admitted to the hospitals for the duration of the storm, because there’s no other place for them to go that’s has any hope of maintaining their life. If you’re wondering why hospice does this, remember that they are trying to help these people to live their last days in comfort and dignity. I didn’t see much of that at the SuperDome.

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My Mother asked me to check for a fire behind her house because of the flashes of red-orange she was seeing from her bedroom window. It was the sun setting through the haze of pollution from the fires and chemical releases in New Orleans.

The “dead zone”, an area in the Gulf south of New Orleans in which nothing can live because of the absence of oxygen in the water, will no doubt expand as the toxic slug and sewage filling the depression that holds the city is pumped out.

It will be a while before I try another oyster or mudbug.

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