messege to New Orleans

“Guess who's back, back again, guess who's back?
“I'm alive! Katrina to the east and Rita to the west! Dang I feel like the only standing duck in the shooting gallery!
We only had minor damage. Two small leaks in the roof from wind damage. We also lost our central A/C unit and one computer to a voltage spike. We had a near miss with the flood waters. It was much worse downriver for my parents. They fought the water with their private levee and pumps for 3 days. I helped them pick up stuff friday in their workshop before it flooded. The house was saved by the levee. They had about 12 inches of levee to spare. Lots of roads still under and some low lying homes have water. Lots of trees and limbs down again but not as bad as Katrina. Rita did bring more water to my area than Katrina. We had 8 inches of rain locally. Hope everyone here faired ok. I feel for my fellow gulf region residents to my east and west that took the worst of the storms. My cousin and his family who have been staying with us since Katrina had water is his house again with Rita. The levee system of Saint Bernard and Plaqumines are gone. Every storm even bad tides will flood them now. Time to start thinking about plan B. South Louisiana is forever changed. Many areas I don't believe should be rebuilt. It would just be irresponsible. Even my own home has flooded 5 times since being built. National flood pays me to rebuild everytime. Should they though? Should you people pay for me to live where I should not? I think those questions should be raised before congress before the checkbook is flooded with red ink. Should people in need recieve help from the government? I say yes of course. I think that the money should be used for relocation though. We are sinking people. The water hardly goes down at my parents home now. Their home is postcard Louisiana with huge moss draped cypress and the bayou flowing past. Unfortnately, the gulf wants it all back.

Take Care,

Bateaux””

“Buck.... this is the key line: "The lawsuit was settled in 1997 with the Corps agreeing to hold off on some work while doing an additional two-year environmental impact study. Whether this delay directly affected the levees that broke in New Orleans is difficult to ascertain."

And I don't know the area but these don't seem to be directly connected to NO. Seems like a lot of smoke and mirrors by national review.

Lets go have a look at the other one.”

“Y2, 1997 was just ONE of many years of delays. And of course the Corps agreeing to hold off for environmental impact studies affects the levees. Why are all the liberals saying, "why didn't Bush fix these levees?" when obviously any attempts to do so ends up in court with the likes of the Sierra Club?”

“The other conservative site uses blocked a little simplistically and covers projects in the the 70s. Without looking at the projects, the chances are that in that time there was little accounting for the downside of the plan. Modern engineering and technology can to much to alleviate these plans.

It does seem that these right wing sites have gone back through the archives to point the finger at someone else.

But I wasn't even pointing the finger at Bush buck. Significant national projects now seem to be beyond the US... This was not once the case. This dates back well before Bush. Billions of dollars of pork can be handed out in Transport, Energy and Healthcare bill, and yet when it comes to serious engineering projects to protect the country, the money can't be found.”

“It does seem that these right wing sites have gone back through the archives to point the finger at someone else.

Ha ha! I LOVE IT! So, now historical fact is merely going through archives to point fingers? YAAAAA! I love liberalism, it's so much fun! Uhhh... Y2, I hate to say this, and I hope this doesn't show your hypocritcal skirt or anything, but the libs are going through the archives to point the blame at the Bush Administration for not funding the levees... to, ummm... point fingers. See how that works? You cannot deny the Sierra Clubbers sued and blocked levee projects, you just can't deny it. It's historical fact.”

“BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (AP) -- The Army used Blackhawk helicopters to search for thousands of cattle feared stranded in high water Monday amid reports that more than 4,000 may have been killed in the aftermath of Hurricane Rita.

"Take all the coastal parishes, they all had cattle," said Bob Felknor, spokesman for the Louisiana Cattlemen's Association. "It could be more than 30,000 in trouble."

The storm flattened towns and swamped fields in Cameron and Vermilion parishes, just east of the Texas line. Scores of cattle were seen swimming in the brown floodwaters.

"The big thing now is the focus on keeping the cattle alive," said Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, commander of the military task force in charge in Louisiana.

He said there were reports that 4,000 cattle died in Cameron Parish alone, where ranchers on horseback struggled to herd the animals into corrals attached to pickup trucks.

The military may use satellite positioning systems to help spot surviving animals, Honore said.

Authorities were also trying to clear roads to tiny Pecan Island to rescue roughly 5,000 cattle there, said Robert LeBlanc, director of the Vermilion Parish Office of Emergency Preparedness. He said helicopters may be called in.



How do you like them apples? High priority using the US military to search for cows. Do you suppose those cattle ranchers are republicans?
last edited: 9/27/05 12:09:29 AM”

“WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush said he wants to make it easier for the military to take charge after a disaster like Hurricane Katrina, but the White House acknowledged Monday the proposal raises "a lot of issues" that need resolution.

Critics argue that putting active-duty troops on American streets would violate a long-standing tradition that keeps the military out of domestic law enforcement.

But Bush said he wanted to improve the federal response to a "catastrophic" event like Katrina, which left more than 1,000 people dead after it struck last month. (Watch Lt. Gen. Honore in action -- 2:35)

"I want there to be a robust discussion about the best way for the federal government, in certain extreme circumstances, to be able to rally assets for the good of the people," he said.



"...for the good of the people" Ha ha, more like the good of the rich who contributed to Bush.”

“Way to go! More big government...

http://washingtontimes.com/national/20050927-121122-3262r.htm”

“when will we start to listen to our mother earth? hurricanes are her way of telling her children that they are hurting her. we are her children yet we hurt our own mother who takes care of us and provides for us! water is the embryonic fluid which allows the mother to nourish the child. this natural process of nurturing is being destroyed by our selfish ways. she is really hurting near the water. tides are the way that she tries to clean herself, like a doe cleans itself. like you would help out around the house with chores, we need to move to the middle of the country so she has less to clean”

“Significant national projects now seem to be beyond the US... This was not once the case. This dates back well before Bush. Billions of dollars of pork can be handed out in Transport, Energy and Healthcare bill, and yet when it comes to serious engineering projects to protect the country, the money can't be found.”
Y2
11:00:54 PM
9/26/05
ignore this user
It's not just getting funds. Part of the problem are the bureaucracies that are involved. It takes forever for construction projects to get done when dealing with the government. The firm I work for has been working on a window replacement project since 2000, which is still unfinished. Over 5 years for a project that doesn’t involve any real engineering. I can’t imagine how long a levy project would take.”

“that was beautiful moonglo.

i think i'm in love.”

“Clean up the man made mess. Bulldoze the levees and let the ocean and river have it. I'm tired of god and mother nature being at odds.”

“Buck - that second site you posted went back 30-years for most of its stuff. You can't tell the difference in relevance between what went on then and what went on now huh? Both these pieces give very very few details of what the legal actions by various enviromental groups claimed. Most seem to be calling for more detailed study of the environmental impact of schemes.”

“SS - I don't think we're talking about the criminal looters - maybe more the honest but poor folks who got caught up in it all.”

So you think stealing TVs,VCRs etc isnt criminal??



#1 I didnt write this message,Ive never been known as Jersey Peach!!!LOL

#2 I do agree with alot of whats said !!!so I posted it.

#3 Earthnsky-Grow up!! KKK? Racism!! Get real!!

#4 Alot of these statements could be made for any city in this country,flood or no flood.

#5 Its amazing to see some of the reactions you get to these type of posts.LOL

#6 Somebody please tell me what Fuego is.Id never even heard of the word until I saw it on here.And yes after this post I have an Idea ,but Id like to know for sure.

#7 being called KKK,and racist etc etc is a compliment coming from people who cant disagree without stooping to these petty games”

“SS - I don't think we're talking about the criminal looters - maybe more the honest but poor folks who got caught up in it all.”

So you think stealing TVs, VCRs etc isnt criminal?? - see and this is where you fall down streamweaver. Where the hell did I say that. Not everyone left in the city was stealing TVs and other goods. Most took nothing, some took only food.

Maybe you're a little quick to condemn every poor person in the city rather than the criminals, which every city has.”

“Buck buys into disinformation so easily. From the Clarion-Ledger:

[T]he Sept. 8 issue of National Review Online... chastised the Sierra Club and other environmental groups for suing to halt the corps' 1996 plan to raise and fortify 303 miles of Mississippi River levees in Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas.

The corps settled the litigation in 1997, agreeing to hold off on some work until an environmental impact could be completed. The National Review article concluded: "Whether this delay directly affected the levees that broke in New Orleans is difficult to ascertain."

The problem with that conclusion?

The levees that broke causing New Orleans to flood weren't Mississippi River levees. They were levees that protected the city from Lake Pontchartrain levees on the other side of the city.

When Katrina struck, the hurricane pushed tons of water from the Gulf of Mexico into Lake Pontchartrain, which borders the city to the north. Corps officials say the water from the lake cleared the levees by 3 feet. It was those floodwaters, they say, that caused the levees to degrade until they ruptured, causing 80 percent of New Orleans to flood.

Bookbinder said the purpose of the litigation by the Sierra Club and others in 1996 was where the corps got the dirt for the project. "We had no objections to levees," he said. "We said, 'Just don't dig film materials out of the wetlands. Get the dirt from somewhere else.' "

If you listen to what some conservatives say about environmentalists, he said, "We're responsible for most of the world's ills."

In 1977, the corps wanted to build a 25-mile-long barrier and gate system to protect New Orleans on the east side. Both environmental groups and fishermen opposed the project, saying it would choke off water into Lake Pontchartrain.

After litigation, corps officials abandoned the idea, deciding instead to build higher levees. "They came up with a cheaper alternative," Bookbinder said. "We didn't object to raising the levees."”

“so sayeth MTW:

The category you choose for your thread is very important on how it will be displayed on Trail Talk. Please make a valiant effort. General topics about the outdoors and other friendly topics that everyone enjoys should be put under the General Backpacking/Outdoors/Fun category. All political and religion threads should be placed under Fuego. thebackpacker.com reserves the right to edit, delete and re-categorize any thread.”

“Buck - I'm also criticizing every administration in say, the last 20-years. Clinton didn't do much to protect the city. As Bush has proven - it's pretty easy to ignore environmental groups if a president chooses to.”

“SS - I don't think we're talking about the criminal looters - maybe more the honest but poor folks who got caught up in it all.”

So you think stealing TVs, VCRs etc isnt criminal?? - see and this is where you fall down streamweaver. Where the hell did I say that. Not everyone left in the city was stealing TVs and other goods. Most took nothing, some took only food.

Well since the original post does talk about people stealing Tvs Vcrs etc Obviously they are talking about criminal looters ,maby SS was refering to something else and I missed something I dont know. But never does it condemn every poor person.”

“Streamweaver..... your orignal post labels everyone left in NO as the same. Or maybe it was just telling the looters they should have evacuated huh?”

“think this needs to be reposted on this thread. No one saw it on the other


Brown Blames 'Dysfunctional' Louisiana By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer
58 minutes ago (Off yahoo news)

WASHINGTON - Former FEMA director Michael Brown aggressively defended his role in responding to Hurricane Katrina on Tuesday and put much of the blame for coordination failures on Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin.

"My biggest mistake was not recognizing by Saturday that Louisiana was dysfunctional," Brown told a special congressional panel set up by House Republican leaders to investigate the catastrophe.

The storm slammed into the Gulf Coast on Monday, Aug. 29.

Brown's defense drew a scathing response from Rep. William Jefferson (news, bio, voting record), D-La.

"I find it absolutely stunning that this hearing would start out with you, Mr. Brown, laying the blame for FEMA's failings at the feet of the governor of Louisiana and the Mayor of New Orleans."

Brown, who for many became a symbol of government failures in the natural disaster that claimed the lives of more than 1,000 people, rejected accusations that he was too inexperienced for the job.

"I've overseen over 150 presidentially declared disasters. I know what I'm doing, and I think I do a pretty darn good job of it," Brown said.

Brown resigned as the head of FEMA earlier this month after being removed by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff from responsibility in the stricken areas.

Brown, who joined FEMA in 2001 and ran it for more than two years, was previously an attorney who held several local government and private posts, including leading the International Arabian Horse Association.

Brown in his opening statement said he had made several "specific mistakes" in dealing with the storm, and listed two.

One, he said, was not having more media briefings.

As to the other, he said: "I very strongly personally regret that I was unable to persuade Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin to sit down, get over their differences, and work together. I just couldn't pull that off."

Both Blanco and Nagin are Democrats.

"The people of FEMA are being tired of being beat up, and they don't deserve it," Brown said.

The hearing was largely boycotted by Democrats, who want an independent investigation conducted into government failures, not one run by congressional Republicans.

But Jefferson — who is not a committee member — accepted the panel's invitation to grill Brown.

Referring to Brown's description of his "mistakes," Jefferson said: "I think that's a very weak explanation of what happened, and very incomplete explanation of what happened. I don't think that's going to cut it, really."

Committee Chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., cautioned against too narrowly assigning blame.

"At the end of the day, I suspect that we'll find that government at all levels failed the people of Louisiana and Mississippi and Alabama and the Gulf Coast," said Davis.

Davis pushed Brown on what he and the agency he led should have done to evacuate New Orleans, restore order in the city and improve communication among law enforcement agencies.

Brown said: "Those are not FEMA roles. FEMA doesn't evacuate communities. FEMA does not do law enforcement. FEMA does not do communications."

In part of his testimony, Brown pumped his hand up and down for emphasis”

“"The New Orleans looters have been on government welfare for four or five generations.
They do not understand the concept of taking responsibility for making their own lives better.
Sit and let the 'government' do it for them is the mindset.”
- StoveStomper
1:43:26 PM
9/26/05
http://www.thebackpacker.com/trailtalk/thread/40516,1,1.php#1262738


"He has not seen hide nor hair of FEMA, and is pissed about it."
- bitpusher
4:37:38 PM
9/08/05
http://www.thebackpacker.com/trailtalk/thread/40161,-1,3.php#1252930


"I'm not going to repair anymore till I hear from ALSTATE and FEMA.”
-StoveStomper
12:56:00 PM
9/09/05
http://www.thebackpacker.com/trailtalk/thread/40161,-1,4.php#1253430




I guess waiting for help from the government is only bad when “those people” do it… huh?”

“brown may be a scapegoat, but i heard his interview on NPR when the chit was going down and he sounded like an incompetent, clueless putz.

first time i've ever heard bob seigal make a guy look like an ass.”

“LOL@violin

I have done a hell of a lot of work myself.
Now the wait is on things you HAVE to wait on.”

“Stove, now is the time to sell that beach front property and move back to the mountains..Think that job offer is still open
last edited: 9/27/05 12:44:57 PM”

“I sure as hell thinking about higher ground, Ewker. LOL”

“a nice cabin up in the mountains of East Tenn. Just think how many TT trips you could go on then”

“I thought all the Tenn. TTers moved to CO.”

“just one moved to Co along with the rest of the US”

“TN is out. My parents are 'getting on' and need me to be somewhat near.”

“that is totally understandable, ok the mountains of Miss...lol”

“My mother was able to furnish enough to put two kids through high school and pay off a 15 year mortgage in 8 years with a job as a waitress. Of course she worked a day shift at one restaurant and a night shift at another. This wasn't a fancy restaurant or anything... she maybe brought home $30-50/day in tips on a good day. We didn't have air conditioning. We never had cokes or snacks or candies in the house. We never had cable TV. We never had the fanciest toys or clothes. We never had a new car. We never went on vacations. Yes a job at Mcdonalds or Wal Mart pays enough to support a family but that requires hard work and sacrifice, something it looks like most people aren't willing to do nowadays. Both of her kids graduated college and my brother is a top level salesman for a large pharmaceutical company and I became a senior designer for a large telecom company. Pretty good for someone making $2/hour plus tips supporting a household on her own.”
DeoreDorant


Who watched the kids while she worked? Did she neglect you while working day and night? Since when do you get tips at Walmart and McDonalds? $50 in tips? That's what you make in wages after an 8 hour day at Walmart and McDonalds, but then again, how many Walmart and McDonald's actually give full time employment plus benefits?

Don't get me wrong, DeoreDorant, I'm not dissing your mom. I'm a single mother myself. My point it that some poor people have other supports that we don't even think about; family babysitters, family gifts, hand-me-downs, etc. Some poor people don't have resources, don't know how to find resources and face other challenges as well. Welfare recipients with absolutely nothing and no income can get between $600-800/month for a family of four. I don't know about you but I don't see that as a free ride or an easy ride. Sounds like good incentive to find even a minimum wage job to me. Is there abuse? Of course! I just hate to see people so quick to judge others they don't even know. That's like me saying, "The rich don't care and the middle class are clue-less." As someone who watched their mother rise above her economic situation, you should provide encouragement and inspiration to those down-trodden rather than lifting your nose and passing judgement.”

“One other thing...

It's easy for those who have money to say "why didn't the people just leave?".

However, have they considered the fact that some people might not have

1) had money to stay in a hotel once they left
2) had any family outside of New Orleans-- Some people presumably might have lived in the same neighborhood with their families their entire lives and might not have any family or friends outside of their own neightborhood....

Sunshine is right.

DDX-- You should appreciate the sacrifices your mom made, and from your own experiences, you shouldn't berate others who might even be in a poorer state than yours as a child. By passing judgement, you are no better than the people who may have passed judgement on your family when you were growing up. I'm sure you are aware of how hurtful that may have been at the time....

I don't really want to go down the huge argument path about welfare, but I have friends who were on it at one time, due to different circumstances in their lives. Some were only high school educated, others were going through college at the time.

Their comment was that the majority of people use it the way it was intended (as a stepping stone and temporary measure.) The problem is that the minority who abuse it are the ones we usually hear mentioned on the news....”

“I seldom post on the flame threads but I do want to say this. There are people in New Orleans that have never left the city, whose parents never left the city, and whose grandparents never left the city. Literally the edge of New Orleans was like the edge of the flat earth. It's an ecosystem of poverty and inequality that has existed for generations.”

“pinkbubelz, if there was a mandatory evacuation, the city of New Orleans, or their parish they live in, or at least the state of Louisiana should have provided shelter for them. You don't have to be rich to walk. You can at least get out of the flood zone area. If the city was so negligent as to leave hoards of empty buses behind, then the local leadership sucked. Period. People can find ways if they really want to find ways, regardless of money. So the "too poor to evacuate" doesn't hold "water" to me. Now those who physically were not able to, like the sick and old, should have been evacuated by the city of New Orleans or the local parish or the even the state. You don't need Federal assistance to merely leave your house when told. That's why we HAVE local governments, to take care of local needs. And that's why we have charities. The Red Cross and zeeellions of churches will be happy to feed and shelter evacuees, but they need to evacuate out of the imediate area in the first place. If there's a will, there's a way, and you can't force people to have a will, except maybe by gunpoint.”

“Some poor people don't have resources, don't know how to find resources and face other challenges as well.

We live in a country with unparalleled opportunity, for those who TRULY seek it. It's there. It takes work and it takes desire and those who look for it, find it. Those who don't truly care stay where they are, in poverty. Why is it that the poorest immigrants from around the world can come to this country and become very well off with hard work, while we have throngs of idle, resident poor people? People come here with nothing and they flee countries with little opportunity and with hard work and the freedom to create their own destiny, they make it big. But our own poor? For the most part they stay poor. They feel like victims and feel like they deserve more, not that they have to earn it, but they deserve it. This is a generality, of course, but it's true. No one in the United States of America can blame their poverty on the "system", or others. Be inspired, rise above, and kick arse. Do WHATEVER it takes. It's easier for some than others, but that makes those who work harder for it even more successful. It's all about motivation and desire. And I mean "true" motivation, one that eats at your gut and you can't sleep at night from excitement because you are determined to do better. You can't get that from a welfare check or the government, it must come from within.”

“Buck, many of our own poor DO rise above. Some people need to be shown the way because they know no other way. We need to educate.

A comedian once said, "It's not the 8% unemployment rate that bothers me. It's the 17% of stupid people that have jobs that bothers me!"

It would be easier to understand if you spent some time either among the poor or researching the backgrounds of the poor. It is easy for you to say from behind your computer screen that these people aren't trying. How do you know that they feel like victims? Have you spoken to them lately? Do they ALL feel like victims?

How about the Texas residents evacuating for Rita? My brother-in-law and his girlfriend both have lucrative jobs and nice homes, yet they were basically trapped in Houston. He had the money and a good car. She had an airline ticket in her hand. Still, neither could get out.

BTW, shelters filled up and were crisis centers themselves.

Whatever happened to "walk a mile in someone elses shoes?" It's easy for you to talk until you've been there.”

“sunshine, you do not know me. I have been desperately poor. I have lived in a "place" with no electricty or water. I have gone down, out of desperation, to a local shelter for food. Try walking in my shoes.

I have spent plenty of time with the poor, sunshine. I used to take missionary trips to the poorest places in this country and in Mexico, where people lived in villages of cardboard and plywood. Children didn't bother wiping the flies off their lips as we handed out boxes and boxes of food. I know what it's like to be desperately poor pesronally, and I know what it's like to work with the poor. You may not know this, sunshine, but my career right now is working with the poor. I work for the government in a subsidized program where we pay for mothers on welfare to get assistance paying for childcare so they can go to work and school because otherwise they couldn't make enough to even pay for childcare. Hence they'd be stuck in a cycle of poverty. It's what I do every day. I know about poverty and I know the mentality of poverty, and I know about opportunity and motivation and making a better life for oneself. Anyway, as you were saying?

P.S. If shelters get full, more are on the way and churches are willing to help and neighbors are willing to help and other cities are willing to help. Would you turn down someone needing assistance if they fled to your place during a hurricane? One thing I've learned about life, and it's a cliche but oh so true... if there's a will, there's a way. It applies whether your Hitler or Ghandi or someone wanting out of innercity poverty. And it's available to everyone who wants it, even if it's tougher for some than others, it's still available just the same.”

“The emergency management request made by Gov. Blanco prior to Katrina, excluded Orleans Parish and two others. New Orleans was omitted by the Gov in her request.

Nineteen million dollars was allocated to Louisiana for interoperative communications equipment. Where is it?”

“The director of Homeland Security for La. is under federal indictment and was removed from his position prior to the hurricane.

Ain't CSPAN great?”

“NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) -- Nearly 250 police officers -- roughly 15 percent of the force -- could face a special tribunal because they left their posts without permission during Hurricane Katrina and the storm's chaotic aftermath, the police chief said.

Police Superintendent Eddie Compass plans to assemble a tribunal of four of his assistant chiefs to hear each case and sort the outright deserters from those with a legitimate reason for not showing up for work. In all, 249 officers were found to have been absent without permission, he said in an interview published Tuesday in The Times-Picayune.

"We have a penalty schedule for each violation, and when that process takes place, individuals will have the right to appeal the decisions made by the bureau chiefs," Compass said adding that "the final decision and recommendation will be by me as superintendent of police."

Mayor Ray Nagin said the city attorney's office will review Compass' plan to ensure that it falls within civil service regulations. Compass did not say how many of the 249 officers are asking to return. The department has about 1,700 officers.

Lt. David Benelli, president of the Police Association of New Orleans, the union for rank-and-file officers, said true deserters should be fired.

"For those who left because of cowardice, they don't need to be here," Benelli told the paper. "If you're a deserter and you deserted your post for no other reason than you were scared, then you left the department and I don't see any need for you to come back."

But Benelli said he believes only a small fraction of the officers will wind up being deserters.

Police Superintendent Eddie Compass also resigned today.”

“Buck,

It's sad that you can walk among the poor blindly. If you've been there, how can you generalize things so loosely? I don't know you and you don't know all the poor in the world and how they think. If you don't like the way some think, maybe you could persuade them otherwise. These kinds of changes don't happen overnight and are dependent on many factors.

Stop waiving your big nasty finger at people and reach out your hand and help lift them up. It won't solve all the problems but then someone who has been there wouldn't give up so easily... or would you?”

“I don't get cspan, bacpac. Thanks for sharing! :)”

“Buck,

What about the convention center?
Yes, it was a shelter that held evacuated people, but once inside, they didn't have any resources or people to help... No water, no food, no medics, no government officials, just utter chaos and confusion. It was just a big building over their head, without air conditioning. (not that that is a requirement, but put thousands of people in a building in such a hot climate and you are guaranteeing that people will become ill.)

Yet, these people left their homes behind, they followed directions to evacuate. They obeyed...

Yes, a place to go was offered, but once there, the help wasn't...

Also, it is easy for us to say, put your stuff in a bag and "hike" or walk out of the city. Most of us on TT are fit enough to walk many miles. However, if you are not used to walking, and if you have attempted to take a few things of personal value with you, how far can you realistically trudge to get out of the city? (I remember trying to backpack for the first time. I think we only walked a few miles with our packs on our backs before we were exhausted--and that was in much cooler weather!)

Where do you go? Do you try to cross a bridge where you hear about the police shooting guns at you to "keep you back" from their city? Those people were on foot. They were trying to evacuate. They were turned back by gunfire.

Do you go to someplace unknown to you--where you are not sure if people are going to open their arms or close their doors to you? Fear of the unknown is a big thing... If all you have ever known or owned was in the house you lived in... and if you've never ventured more than a day's journey away (most likely, 18 miles or less--I'm basing this number on the Amish towns, where people don't use electricity or cars, the outer diameter of a day's travel is about 18 miles if you return home at the end of the day.) How likely are you to go to some unknown place, when you realize that your whole life's memories are tied to your house?

Of course the solution seems "easy" to those of us with cars, houses, atm cards, credit cards, etc...

I work with an inner-city children and some are in extreme poverty. Many do not have long distance on their phones, some don't even have phones, and few have access to credit cards in their family. The majority of time, they don't even have checking accounts-- a lot of fees are paid using money orders. You'd be surprised at the number of kids who have never gone further than the other side of town--for them to go to college just 1-1/2 hours away (about 80 miles) is often unfathomable. Many live in single-family homes, where their parent works hard, but still cannot always make ends meet. These children see education as a way out of poverty, but on the other hand, they aren't sure if they can even afford to go.
last edited: 9/28/05 9:57:01 AM”

“Well, this has been making the rounds: A black minister speaks out:

Moral poverty cost blacks
in New Orleans
Posted: September 21, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

Say a hurricane is about to destroy the city you live in. Two questions:

1. What would you do?
2. What would you do if you were black?

Sadly, the two questions don't have the same answer.

To the first: Most of us would take our families out of that city quickly to protect them from danger. Then, able-bodied men would return to help others in need, as wives and others cared for children, elderly, infirm and the like.

For better or worse, Hurricane Katrina has told us the answer to the second question. If you're black and a hurricane is about to destroy your city, then you'll probably wait for the government to save you.

This was not always the case. Prior to 40 years ago, such a pathetic performance by the black community in a time of crisis would have been inconceivable. The first response would have come from black men. They would take care of their families, bring them to safety, and then help the rest of the community. Then local government would come in.

No longer. When 75 percent of New Orleans residents had left the city, it was primarily immoral, welfare-pampered blacks that stayed behind and waited for the government to bail them out. This, as we know, did not turn out good results.

Enter Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan. Jackson and Farrakhan laid blame on "racist" President Bush. Farrakhan actually proposed the idea that the government blew up a levee so as to kill blacks and save whites. The two demanded massive governmental spending to rebuild New Orleans, above and beyond the federal government's proposed $60 billion. Not only that, these two were positioning themselves as the gatekeepers to supervise the dispersion of funds. Perfect: Two of the most dishonest elite blacks in America, "overseeing" billions of dollars. I wonder where that money will end up.

Of course, if these two were really serious about laying blame on government, they should blame the local one. Responsibility to perform – legally and practically – fell first on the mayor of New Orleans. We are now all familiar with Mayor Ray Nagin – the black Democrat who likes to yell at President Bush for failing to do Nagin's job. The facts, unfortunately, do not support Nagin's wailing. As the Washington Times puts it, "recent reports show [Nagin] failed to follow through on his own city's emergency-response plan, which acknowledged that thousands of the city's poorest residents would have no way to evacuate the city."

One wonders how there was "no way" for these people to evacuate the city. We have photographic evidence telling us otherwise. You've probably seen it by now – the photo showing 200 parked school buses, unused and underwater. How much planning does it require to put people on a bus and leave town, Mayor Nagin?

Instead of doing the obvious, Mayor Nagin (with no positive contribution from Democratic Gov. Kathleen Blanco, the other major leader vested with responsibility to address the hurricane disaster) loaded remaining New Orleans residents into the Superdome and the city's convention center. We know how that plan turned out.

About five years ago, in a debate before the National Association of Black Journalists, I stated that if whites were to just leave the United States and let blacks run the country, they would turn America into a ghetto within 10 years. The audience, shall we say, disagreed with me strongly. Now I have to disagree with me. I gave blacks too much credit. It took a mere three days for blacks to turn the Superdome and the convention center into ghettos, rampant with theft, rape and murder.

President Bush is not to blame for the rampant immorality of blacks. Had New Orleans' black community taken action, most would have been out of harm's way. But most were too lazy, immoral and trifling to do anything productive for themselves.

All Americans must tell blacks this truth. It was blacks' moral poverty – not their material poverty – that cost them dearly in New Orleans. Farrakhan, Jackson, and other race hustlers are to be repudiated – they will only perpetuate this problem by stirring up hatred and applauding moral corruption. New Orleans, to the extent it is to be rebuilt, should be remade into a dependency-free, morally strong city where corruption is opposed and success is applauded. Blacks are obligated to help themselves and not depend on the government to care for them. We are all obligated to tell them so.



The Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson is founder and president of BOND, the Brotherhood Organization of A New Destiny, and author of "Scam: How the Black Leadership Exploits Black America."”

“Interesting Mutt. Thought provoking. Evolutionary I dare say. What sayeth the libs?”

“From Times Picayune

Monday, September 26, 2005



Rumors of deaths greatly exaggerated

Widely reported attacks false or unsubstantiated

6 bodies found at Dome; 4 at Convention Center


By Brian Thevenot
and Gordon Russell
Staff writers


After five days managing near-riots, medical horrors and unspeakable living conditions inside the Superdome, Louisiana National Guard Col. Thomas Beron prepared to hand over the dead to representatives of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.


Following days of internationally reported killings, rapes and gang violence inside the Dome, the doctor from FEMA - Beron doesn't remember his name - came prepared for a grisly scene: He brought a refrigerated 18-wheeler and three doctors to process bodies.

"I've got a report of 200 bodies in the Dome," Beron recalls the doctor saying.

The real total was six, Beron said.

Of those, four died of natural causes, one overdosed and another jumped to his death in an apparent suicide, said Beron, who personally oversaw the turning over of bodies from a Dome freezer, where they lay atop melting bags of ice. State health department officials in charge of body recovery put the official death count at the Dome at 10, but Beron said the other four bodies were found in the street near the Dome, not inside it. Both sources said no one had been killed inside.

At the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, just four bodies were recovered, despites reports of corpses piled inside the building. Only one of the dead appeared to have been slain, said health and law enforcement officials.

That the nation's front-line emergency management believed the body count would resemble that of a bloody battle in a war is but one of scores of examples of myths about the Dome and the Convention Center treated as fact by evacuees, the media and even some of New Orleans' top officials, including the mayor and police superintendent. As the fog of warlike conditions in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath has cleared, the vast majority of reported atrocities committed by evacuees have turned out to be false, or at least unsupported by any evidence, according to key military, law enforcement, medical and civilian officials in positions to know.

"I think 99 percent of it is bulls---," said Sgt. 1st Class Jason Lachney, who played a key role in security and humanitarian work inside the Dome. "Don't get me wrong, bad things happened, but I didn't see any killing and raping and cutting of throats or anything. ... Ninety-nine percent of the people in the Dome were very well-behaved."

Dr. Louis Cataldie, the state Health and Human Services Department administrator overseeing the body recovery operation, said his teams were inundated with false reports about the Dome and Convention Center.

"We swept both buildings several times, because we kept getting reports of more bodies there," Cataldie said. "But it just wasn't the case."

Orleans Parish District Attorney Eddie Jordan said authorities had confirmed only four murders in New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina - making it a typical week in a city that anticipated more than 200 homicides this year. Jordan expressed outrage at reports from many national media outlets that suffering flood victims had turned into mobs of unchecked savages.

"I had the impression that at least 40 or 50 murders had occurred at the two sites," he said. "It's unfortunate we saw these kinds of stories saying crime had taken place on a massive scale when that wasn't the case. And they (national media outlets) have done nothing to follow up on any of these cases, they just accepted what people (on the street) told them. ... It's not consistent with the highest standards of journalism."

As floodwaters forced tens of thousands of evacuees into the Dome and Convention Center, news of unspeakable acts poured out of the nation's media: evacuees firing at helicopters trying to save them; women, children and even babies raped with abandon; people killed for food and water; a 7-year-old raped and killed at the Convention Center. Police, according to their chief, Eddie Compass, found themselves in multiple shootouts inside both shelters, and were forced to race toward muzzle flashes through the dark to disarm the criminals; snipers supposedly fired at doctors and soldiers from downtown high-rises.

In interviews with Oprah Winfrey, Compass reported rapes of "babies," and Mayor Ray Nagin spoke of "hundreds of armed gang members" killing and raping people inside the Dome. Unidentified evacuees told of children stepping over so many bodies, "we couldn't count."

The picture that emerged was one of the impoverished, masses of flood victims resorting to utter depravity, randomly attacking each other, as well as the police trying to protect them and the rescue workers trying to save them. Nagin told Winfrey the crowd has descended to an "almost animalistic state."

Four weeks after the storm, few of the widely reported atrocities have been backed with evidence. The piles of bodies never materialized, and soldiers, police officers and rescue personnel on the front lines say that although anarchy reigned at times and people suffered unimaginable indignities, most of the worst crimes reported at the time never happened.

Military, law enforcement and medical workers agree that the flood of evacuees - about 30,000 at the Dome and an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 at the Convention Center - overwhelmed their security personnel. The 400 to 500 soldiers in the Dome could have been easily overrun by increasingly agitated crowds, but that never happened, said Col. James Knotts, a midlevel commander there. Security was nonexistent at the Convention Center, which was never designated as a shelter. Authorities provided no food, water or medical care until troops secured the building the Friday after the storm.

While the Convention Center saw plenty of mischief, including massive looting and isolated gunfire, and many inside cowered in fear, the hordes of evacuees for the most part did not resort to violence, as legend has it.

"Everything was embellished, everything was exaggerated," said Deputy Police Superintendent Warren Riley. "If one guy said he saw six bodies, then another guy the same six, and another guy saw them - then that became 18."


Soldier shot - by himself


Inside the Dome, where National Guardsmen performed rigorous security checks before allowing anyone inside, only one shooting has been verified. Even that incident, in which Louisiana Guardsman Chris Watt of the 527th Engineer Battalion was injured, has been widely misreported, said Maj. David Baldwin, who led the team of soldiers who arrested a suspect.

Watt was attacked inside one of the Dome's locker rooms, which he entered with another soldier. In the darkness, as he walked through about six inches of water, Watt was attacked with a metal rod, a piece of a cot. But the bullet that penetrated Watt's leg came from his own gun - he accidentally shot himself in the commotion. The attacker never took his gun from him, Baldwin said. New Orleans police investigated the matter fully and sent the suspect to jail in Breaux Bridge, Baldwin said.

As for other shootings, Baldwin said, "We actively patrolled 24 hours a day, and nobody heard another shot."

Doug Thornton, regional vice president of SMG, which manages the Dome, walked the complex from before the storm until the final evacuation and kept a meticulous journal. In a Sept. 9 interview, he said he heard reports of rapes and killings, but they were unconfirmed and came from evacuees and security officials.

"We walked through the facility every day, and we didn't see all this that was being reported," said Thornton, one of about 35 Dome employees who rode out Katrina in the building and lived there in the days after the storm hit. "We never felt threatened. It's hard to determine what's real and what's not real."


No victims


Inside the Convention Center, the rumors of widespread violence have proved hard to substantiate, as well, though the masses of evacuees endured terrifying and inhumane conditions.

Jimmie Fore, vice president of the state authority that runs the Convention Center, stayed in the building with a core group of 35 employees until Sept. 1, the Thursday after Katrina. He was appalled by what he saw. Thugs hotwired 75 forklifts and electric carts and looted food and booze from every room in the building, but he said he never saw any violent crimes committed, and neither did any of his employees. Some, however, did report seeing armed men roaming the building, and Fore said he heard gunshots in the distance on at about six occasions.

NOPD Capt. Jeff Winn's 20-member SWAT team responded on about 10 occasions to calls from the Convention Center, usually after reports of shots being fired. The group found people huddled in the fetal position, lying flat on the ground to avoid bullets or running for the exits. They also heard stories of gang rapes, armed robberies and other violent crimes, but no victims ever came forward while his officers were in the building, he said.

"What's true and what's not, we don't really know," he said.

Rumors of rampant violence at the Convention Center prompted Louisiana National Guard Lt. Col. Jacques Thibodeaux put together a 1,000-man force of soldiers and police in full battle gear to secure the center Sept. 2 at about noon.

It took only 20 minutes to take control, and soldiers met no resistance, Thibodeaux said. What the soldiers found - elderly people and infants near death without food, water and medicine; crowds living in filth - shocked them more than anything they'd seen in combat zones overseas. But they found no evidence, witnesses or victims of any killings, rapes or beatings, Thibodeaux said.

Another commander at the scene, Lt. Col. John Edwards of the Arkansas National Guard, said the crowd welcomed the soldiers. "It reminded me of the liberation of France in World War II. There were people cheering; one boy even saluted," he said. "We never - never once - encountered any hostility."

One widely circulated tale, told to The Times-Picayune by a slew of evacuees and two Arkansas National Guardsmen, held that "30 or 40 bodies" were stored in a Convention Center freezer. But a formal Arkansas Guard review of the matter later found that no soldier had actually seen the corpses, and that the information came from rumors in the food line for military, police and rescue workers in front of Harrah's New Orleans Casino, said Edwards, who conducted the review.

It's possible more than four people died at the Convention Center. Fore, the center's vice president, said he saw another body outside the building early in the first week after the storm, covered in a shroud on the pavement along Julia Street, near the back of the Convention Center. It's unclear whether that body ended up in the nearby food service entrance, where the four confirmed bodies were found later.

Also, several news organizations reported the body of 91-year-old Booker T. Harris, which sat covered in a chair on Convention Center Boulevard for several days after he died on the back of a truck while being evacuated.

Just one of the dead appeared to be the victim of foul play, said Winn, one of few law enforcement officers who spent any time patrolling the Convention Center before it was secured. Winn, who did the final sweep of the building, said one body appeared to have stab wounds, but he could not be sure. Baldwin also said only one of the dead appeared to have been slain, apparently referring to the same body as Winn described. Bob Johannessen, spokesman for the Department of Health and Hospitals, also confirmed just one suspected homicide at the Convention Center, though he said the victim had been shot, not stabbed.

A Washington Post report quoted another soldier who concluded that three of the four people appeared to have been beaten to death, including an older woman in a wheelchair.

But Spc. Mikel Brooks, an Arkansas Guardsman who said he wheeled the woman's dead body into the food service entrance, said she appeared to have died of natural causes. Brooks went on to say that the woman had expired sitting next to her husband, who shocked him by asking him to bring the wheelchair back.

The Post also cited evacuee Tony Cash and three other unnamed sources saying a young boy died of an asthma attack, but multiple officials could not confirm that death.


One attack thwarted


Reports of dozens of rapes at both facilities - many allegedly involving small children - may forever remain a question mark. Rape is a notoriously underreported crime under ideal circumstances, and tracking down evidence at this point, with evacuees spread all over the country, would be nearly impossible. The same goes for reports of armed robberies at both sites.

Numerous people told The Times-Picayune that they had witnessed rapes, in particular attacks on two young girls in the Superdome ladies room and the killing of one of them, but police and military officials said they know nothing of such an incident.

Soldiers and police did confirm at least one attempted rape of a child. Riley said a man tried to sexually assault a young girl, but was "beaten up" by civilians and apprehended by police. It was unclear if that incident was the one that gained wide currency among evacuees.

Baldwin, the National Guard commander of a special reaction team patrolling the Dome, also said he knew of only one attempted sexual assault of a child - but the details of his story, while similar, differed somewhat from that of Riley. It was unclear last week whether the two men spoke about the same incident.

Soldiers apprehended the assailant after a "commotion" in the bathroom exposed him, Baldwin said, but he knew nothing about the man being beaten. Furthermore, in a detail that raises questions about whether officials have full knowledge of any sex crimes, Baldwin said his men turned over one alleged child molester to New Orleans police - only to find him again inside the Dome two days later, reportedly attempting to molest other children.

"We ran into the same guy a couple days later," he said. "The crowd came to us and said, 'You better do something with this guy or we're going to do something with him.' ... That kind of re-confirmed (the first allegation), when the crowd came to us saying he was putting his hands on kids."

But other accusations that have gained wide currency are more demonstrably false. For instance, no one found the body of a girl - whose age was estimated at anywhere from 7 to 13 - who, according to multiple reports, was raped and killed with a knife to the throat at the Convention Center.

Many evacuees at the Convention Center the morning of Sept. 3 treated the story as gospel, and ticked off further atrocities: a baby trampled to death, multiple child rapes.

Salvatore Hall, standing on the corner of Julia Street and Convention Center Boulevard that day, just before the evacuation, said, "They raped and killed a 10-year-old in the bathroom."

Neither he nor the many people around him who corroborated the killing had seen it themselves.

Talk of rape and killing inside the Dome was so pervasive that it prompted a steady stream of evacuees to begin leaving Aug. 31, braving thigh-high foul waters on Poydras Street. Many said they were headed back to homes in flooded neighborhoods.

"There's people getting raped and killed in there," said Lisa Washington of Algiers, who had come to the Dome with about 25 relatives and friends. "People are getting diseases. It's like we're in Afghanistan. We're fighting for our lives right now."

One of her relatives nodded. "They've had about 14 rapes in there," he said.


The official word


In many cases, authorities gave credibility to portraits of violence broadcast around the world.

Compass told Winfrey on Sept. 6 that "some of the little babies (are) getting raped" in the Dome. Nagin backed it with his own tale of horrors: ''They have people standing out there, have been in that frickin' Superdome for five days watching dead bodies, watching hooligans killing people, raping people.''

But both men have since pulled back to a degree.

"The information I had at the time, I thought it was credible," Compass said, conceding his earlier statements were false. Asked for the source of the information, Compass said he didn't remember.

Nagin frankly acknowledged that he doesn't know the extent of the mayhem that occurred inside the Dome and the Convention Center - and may never.

"I'm having a hard time getting a good body count," he said.

Compass said rumors had often crippled authorities' response to reported lawlessness, sending badly needed resources to respond to situations that turned out not to exist. He offered his own intensely personal example: The day after the storm, he heard "some civilians" talking about how a band of armed thugs had invaded the Ritz-Carlton hotel and started raping women - including his 24-year-old daughter, who stayed there through the storm. He rushed to the scene only to find that although a group of men had tried to enter the hotel, they weren't armed and were easily turned back by police.

Compass, however, promulgated some of the unfounded rumors himself, in interviews in which he characterized himself and his officers as outgunned warriors taking out armed bands of thugs at every turn.

"People would be shooting at us, and we couldn't shoot back because of the families," Compass told a reporter from the (Bridgeport) Connecticut Post who interviewed him at the Saints' Monday Night Football game in New York, where he was the guest of NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue. "All we could do is rush toward the flash."

Compass added that he and his officers succeeded in wrestling 30 weapons from criminals using the follow-the-muzzle-flash technique, the story said.

"We got 30 that way," Compass was quoted as saying.

Asked about the muzzle-flash story last week, Compass said, "That really happened" to Winn's SWAT team at the Convention Center.

But Winn, when asked about alleged shootouts in a separate interview, said his unit saw muzzle flashes and heard gunshots only one time. Despite aggressively frisking a number of suspects, the team recovered no weapons. His unit never found anyone who had been shot.

Many soldiers and humanitarian workers now agree that although a number of bad actors committed violent or criminal acts, the evacuees responded well considering the hell they endured.

"These people - our people - did nothing wrong," said Sherry Watters of the state Department of Social Services, who was working with the medical unit at the Dome and noted the crowd's mounting frustration. "No human should have to live like that for even a minute."


Crowds pitch in


As the authorities finally mobilized buses to evacuate the Dome on Sept. 2, many evacuees were nearing the breaking point. Baldwin said soldiers could not have controlled the crowd much longer. They ejected a handful of people attempting to start a riot, screaming at soldiers and pushing crowds to revolt.

"We're not prisoners of war - y'all are treating us like evacuees and detainees!" he recalled one of them shouting.

But many others sought to quiet such voices. On the deck outside the Dome on Sept. 1, the day before buses arrived, preachers took it upon themselves to lead the agitated crowd in prayer and song.

"Everybody needs to help the soldiers," Baldwin recalled one of them saying. "We're all family here."

About 15 others joined the medical operation, as people collapsed from heat and exhaustion every few minutes, Baldwin said.

"Some of these guys look like thugs, with pants hanging down around their asses," he said. "But they were working their asses off, grabbing litters and running with people to the (New Orleans) Arena" next door, which housed the medical operation.

As the Dome cleared out Sept. 3, Beron, the National Guard commander, fashioned a plan to deal with the dead. He knew of the six bodies in the freezer, but expected far more. He and an Ohio National Guard commander sent 450 Ohio troops to search every nook of the Dome, top to bottom. They told them to mark locations of bodies on a map of the Dome, to rope off suspected crime scenes, and leave a chemical light sticks next to each one so they could be retrieved later.

"I fully expected to find more bodies, both homicides and natural causes," he said.

They found nothing.


Staff writers Jeff Duncan and Gwen Filosa contributed to this report.”

“Uhhh... sunshine? Hello? I said it was a "generalization" from the get go? Don't you read my posts? I generalize and say I generalize because obviously no one can speak for all people of any group, so you make generalizations for the sake of, ummm, discussion? What I said was very true. In a general sense. Get off your snooty high horse and quit waving your nasty finger. Kidding, you don't have to. As for helping the poor, you are only words. It is what I do day in and day out. I'm used to hypocritical folks like you though, who speak with no action just so they sound all sweet and use names like "sunshine", so it's okay. In the meantime, as you words echo with emptiness, I do something about it. Both practically in assistance with food and money, and in working with them to better their lives through education and motivation.”

“pinkbubelz, what you speak of is exactly what I'm talking about, the miserable failure of the Mayor of New Orleans to tell people to go to the Superdome if they can't make it out. Then what does he do? He leaves no authority, he leaves no food, no water, no police, no way to communicate with the outside world. It was a collosal failure on his part. You don't just do that to the people you were entrusted to govern.

As for the poor being able to walk, you don't have to be an avid TTer backpacker to simply walk out of the evacuation area, especially the flood-prone areas. If you were poor and I told you that the city was going to be destroyed with an atomic bomb tomorrow, would you not find a way, any desperate way, to get out? Of COURSE you can find a way to get out if the MOTIVATION is great enough. They apparently didn't realize the hurricane would be so bad or they would have. People in other communities and churches and anyone would help people with nowhere to go. I know it. You don't even have to be physically fit to walk many miles. It would be painful, it would suck, but it can be done if the motivation was there.”