Posts from — September 2005

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In the Ninth Ward of New Orleans is the Chalmette Battlefield where Andy Jackson fought the Battle of New Orleans shortly after the official end of the War of 1812 and started on the road to the White House. It also houses a National Cemetery that is the finally resting place of my great grandfather, Alfred Mullens, who died from tuberculosis in New Orleans.

He had to travel to the Philippines and China to be infected with TB and malaria. Unfortunately, many of the people along the Gulf Coast risk these and other diseases as a result of this disaster.

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Karen at Dark Bilious Vapors discovers that the media used government helicopters for some of its coverage and the flight crews are really PO’ed that they flew across the country to help people, and ended up flying CNN.

Len captures a new high [or low] of photoshopping. It’s too true.

Andante of Collective Sigh achieves the same effect with captions.

The People’s Republic of Seabrook has a great collection of quotes from “our leaders”.

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When you look at the pictures of the National Guard notice how new all of the equipment seems. The Feds may only have 40% of the Guard in the affected states, but they took all of the equipment. The generators and water purification equipment is in the Middle East, while the state has had to buy new trucks.

The head of the Mississippi Army National Guard has just said that one of the problems is that units from other states responding to the disaster have to bring enough gas for the trip and operations with them. Apparently disaster planning doesn’t include having a ready supply of fuel for operations.

I don’t guess anybody thought to have a few solar power units available to charge radio and car batteries, nor does the concept of collecting rainwater to use for drinking water, nor dumping several truckloads of water and MREs in the SuperDome prior to the storm.

The drill is to stage all of this stuff outside the affected area to bring in when the storm leaves. Look at the map. Where are the North-South roads that aren’t going to be washed out?

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Update: As fires rage out of control in New Orleans CNN reports that FEMA’s firefighting gear stockpile wasn’t sent to New Orleans because no one asked for it.

Apparently you have to ask for specific equipment on the proper form to get it from FEMA.

Update 2: Even today Chertoff is in denial about being warned about what would happen in New Orleans and how much time he had to respond before the hurricane hit.

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WEAR-TV is reporting that someone found Plan A in a file cabinet.

A tent city for a thousand Hurricane Katrina refugees will be going up in the next week at the Northwest Florida Fairgrounds in Fort Walton Beach.

Eglin Air Force Base will oversee the set-up.

Commanders say forty-one tractor trailers full of air-conditioned tents, showers, latrines, and portable kitchens, are enroute from Holloman Air Force Base New Mexico.

Colonel Ed Keith, Eglin 96th Air Base Wing Commander: “Bottom line is we’re trying to stop the suffering and help as many people as we can and the military is good at this. And we’ve been asked to do it and we’re leaning as far forward as we can to make it happen.”

The Fairgrounds 65-thousand square foot building will also be put to use – housing two, two-hundred-fifty bed hospitals.

We are also hosting 50 families from Keesler AFB in Biloxi who have lost their housing.

This is the same plan that was used 30 years ago for Asian refugees, only this time the tents are air conditioned.

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Communications: I guess it would have been too hard to air drop hand-crank radios in New Orleans, like we did in Afghanistan, so people would know what to do and where to go.

Leadership: Michael Brown is dumber than mildew

Earlier on CNN, Brown was asked why authorities had not prepared for just such a catastrophe — given that the levees were designed to withstand only a Category 3 hurricane and Katrina was stronger than that.

“Government officials and engineers will debate that and figure that out,” he replied. “Right now, I’m trying to focus on saving lives. I think we should have that debate, but at an appropriate time.”

Brown said Katrina was unlike other hurricanes in which the magnitude of the disaster typically subsides after the initial blow. That was not the case Monday, when the Category 4 storm blew ashore.

“What we had in New Orleans is a growing disaster: The hurricane hit, that was one disaster; then the levees broke, that was another disaster; then the floods came; that became a third disaster.”

Brown said he had to be careful about getting rescue teams to the site earlier.

“Otherwise, we would have faced an even higher death toll,” he said.

You would think that the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency would be able to understand that the levees and flooding are a single event, i.e. the levees prevent flooding. He should also be aware that storm surge and flooding are the major causes of death in hurricanes.

You would think he would have heard of the National Weather Service, which could have told him that it was safe to fly and drive at least a day before his agency made any move at all. It may also surprise him that the military is capable of judging risk on its own, but can’t do anything without permission in the United States.

The military does weird things, like reconnaissance. The military would use satellite photos and flyovers to determine routes and doesn’t depend on paved roads. [He would probably be surprised at how many times an enemy fails to provide an army with paved roads on invasion routes.]

Based on his performance, I think that Mr. Brown might be qualified to round up carts in a parking lot. He shouldn’t apply at Wal-Mart though, the job would be too big for him.

[Editor: FUBAR is a technical military Acronym – the last part is Beyond All Recognition.]

Update: Because I’m really angry and would really like to tow him through the streets of New Orleans with his mouth open: Brown, did you ever hear of the Hurricane Hunters? They are in the military and their job is to fly through hurricanes. They spent most of a week flying through Katrina which is why we knew what a bad storm she was.

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There is a disinformation campaign in the media that everyone trapped by hurricane Katrina wanted to remain. Those trapped are being characterized as all being poor and minority.

Sorry, but that is not the reality.

The people who evacuated were those who had access to private vehicles, had enough cash to cover gas, whose vehicles could operate at 25mph or less for hours on end.

There are two daily trains from New Orleans, one to New York, the other to Chicago, and the Orlando to LA train that runs three times a week. They shut down early because the tracks have to cross the same bodies of water as the Interstates.

There aren’t that many buses still running, and bus service was cut off.

The airlines did not put on extra flights to get people out of New Orleans.

The rental car fleet exited the city.

There were hundreds of people who did not want to remain in New Orleans stuck in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. These were people who didn’t live in the city, had platinum cards in their wallets, and a few whose cards really were platinum. There was no transportation.

When hurricanes hit everything reverts to cash. Nobody gives a damn how much money you have in your bank, or how big your credit line is, they want cash.

This was the end of the month. Many retirement checks and military checks are received on the first day of the month, and Social Security checks on the third.

Let’s stop blaming the victims, including those who are white, upper class Yankees.

Editor: Steve at The News Blog is reporting that elements from my neighbors at the 16^th Special Operations Wing have landed in New Orleans and their helicopters are staging out of Jackson.

They had to evacuate because of the hurricane and just flew back on Tuesday.

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[™ Kevin Drum]

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Ringo Hacking

One of these must turn it on.

[Editor: Ringo has entirely too much fun walking on keyboards.]

Friday Ark

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While I would have preferred that they had been released into the Gulf, I’m happy that they moved New Orleans dolphins from hotel swimming pools to a Panhandle marine park. They put them in the pools for protection during the storm, but they can’t go back to their home pool because of damage.

They have been conditioned to the marine park environment and have no wild family to teach them to survive in the open water.

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A family that lost their home and business in the storm have been settled in locally by a man my Mother knows. One of their major problems is that they can’t access their money as their bank may have been destroyed.

They will get some money from the Federal disaster unemployment insurance, but it takes two weeks to arrive after you apply and I’ve heard it isn’t generous. It is available even if you are self-employed when you can’t work because of a Federally declared emergency.

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