lederhosen (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lederhosen) wrote2005-09-02 09:17 am
lederhosen) wrote2005-09-02 09:17 am
Entry tags:
Swearing it is, then.
Fucking hell.
Rescue services yesterday began the huge task of evacuating the arena and the rest of the city, although the plan to remove thousands of survivors had to be suspended when shots were reportedly fired at helicopters.
Most of the people waiting to be saved told remarkable stories of fear and desperation but none more than those who had been in the Superdome.
"We pee on the floor. We are like animals," said Taffany Smith, as she cradled her three-week-old son, Terry. In her right hand she carried a half-full bottle of formula provided by rescuers. Baby supplies were running low; one mother said she was given two nappies and told to scrape them off when they got dirty and use them again.
At least two people, including a child, were reportedly raped in the night and at least three people died, including one man who jumped 15 metres to his death, saying he had nothing left to live for.
The hurricane left most of southern Louisiana without power, and the arena was not spared. An emergency generator kept some lights on but quickly failed. The sanitation gave out early as well, and the dome soon filled with the overpowering stench of human waste, made worse by the swampy heat.
"There is faeces on the walls," Bryan Hebert said. "There is faeces all over the place."
And here:
The evacuation of patients from Charity Hospital was halted after the facility came under sniper fire, while groups of armed men wandered the streets, buildings smoldered and people picked through stores for what they could find.
...A police officer working in downtown New Orleans said police were siphoning gas from abandoned vehicles in an effort to keep their squad cars running.
The officer said police are "on their own" for food and water, scrounging up what they can from anybody who is generous enough to give them some -- and that they have no communication whatsoever.
...President Bush, in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America," said that their [sic] should be "zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this."
You *fuckwit*. By all means, if they're threatening others or ripping off TVs, jewellery and the like, the National Guard and the cops can shoot on sight as far as I'm concerned. But a lot of the people who've been looting have been doing it for food, water, medical supplies, diapers, because you gouged the levee programs so badly the city flooded, and you gouged National Guard and FEMA so badly that they can't even keep order in the designated emergency shelter or keep people fed. And this is with several days' *notice* of impending disaster. Earthquakes and terrorists don't give that kind of warning. No bloody wonder many of those who couldn't get out of the city preferred to take their chances in their own homes.
Congratulations, George W. You're the first president in living memory to lose a major US city.
Rescue services yesterday began the huge task of evacuating the arena and the rest of the city, although the plan to remove thousands of survivors had to be suspended when shots were reportedly fired at helicopters.
Most of the people waiting to be saved told remarkable stories of fear and desperation but none more than those who had been in the Superdome.
"We pee on the floor. We are like animals," said Taffany Smith, as she cradled her three-week-old son, Terry. In her right hand she carried a half-full bottle of formula provided by rescuers. Baby supplies were running low; one mother said she was given two nappies and told to scrape them off when they got dirty and use them again.
At least two people, including a child, were reportedly raped in the night and at least three people died, including one man who jumped 15 metres to his death, saying he had nothing left to live for.
The hurricane left most of southern Louisiana without power, and the arena was not spared. An emergency generator kept some lights on but quickly failed. The sanitation gave out early as well, and the dome soon filled with the overpowering stench of human waste, made worse by the swampy heat.
"There is faeces on the walls," Bryan Hebert said. "There is faeces all over the place."
And here:
The evacuation of patients from Charity Hospital was halted after the facility came under sniper fire, while groups of armed men wandered the streets, buildings smoldered and people picked through stores for what they could find.
...A police officer working in downtown New Orleans said police were siphoning gas from abandoned vehicles in an effort to keep their squad cars running.
The officer said police are "on their own" for food and water, scrounging up what they can from anybody who is generous enough to give them some -- and that they have no communication whatsoever.
...President Bush, in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America," said that their [sic] should be "zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this."
You *fuckwit*. By all means, if they're threatening others or ripping off TVs, jewellery and the like, the National Guard and the cops can shoot on sight as far as I'm concerned. But a lot of the people who've been looting have been doing it for food, water, medical supplies, diapers, because you gouged the levee programs so badly the city flooded, and you gouged National Guard and FEMA so badly that they can't even keep order in the designated emergency shelter or keep people fed. And this is with several days' *notice* of impending disaster. Earthquakes and terrorists don't give that kind of warning. No bloody wonder many of those who couldn't get out of the city preferred to take their chances in their own homes.
Congratulations, George W. You're the first president in living memory to lose a major US city.
no subject
Also, mobilizing the relief BEFORE the hurricane has stopped actively destroying the city could seem rather dangerous. Also, how do you know they WEREN'T drawing up plans to help the place? (If you have a cite for someone in the know actually saying that they weren't drawing up plans, provide it and I'll withdraw this argument)
Also, it seems very possible that many folks just didn't properly grasp the concept of what a hurricane this powerful would do. I've been in two or three typhoons in my life, but none of them was bigger than a Category 3, and this was in a country where it's just assumed from the get-go that anything you build WILL get hit by storms, earthquakes, and possibly even volcanic eruptions. I had no idea that this hurricane would be this bad when it hit, which is a bit stunning to me, because it seems that if a somewhat different set of weather fronts had been around, Kat could have just sailed right into my chunk of the world instead of the next state over.
no subject
I didn't say anything about additional police or paramedics.
Also, mobilizing the relief BEFORE the hurricane has stopped actively destroying the city could seem rather dangerous.
I also did not suggest that relief should have been mobilized while the hurricane was actively hitting the cities. I agree with you, that would have been assinine. However, from all news sources that I have seen or heard (including the radio interview with the mayor of New Orleans), it appears that tucks carrying supplies and buses to help transport out the victims only began to arrive in full force today.
Also, how do you know they WEREN'T drawing up plans to help the place?
Fair enough. You are correct. I do not know that they were not drawing up plans. But if plans were in place, they were either piss-poor plans or piss-poorly executed.
Also, it seems very possible that many folks just didn't properly grasp the concept of what a hurricane this powerful would do.
Perhaps, but many folks did. There were projections of the worst possible case scenario. Weather experts were predicting the distinct possibility of Very Bad Things. Sure, it was possible that it could have taken a different path, and I firmly believe that those paths should have been planned for as well.
I'm not suggesting that the National Guard should have been sitting at the city limits of Biloxi and New Orleans, ready to charge in as soon as the last storm cloud rolled away, but the overall response of our national agencies has been absolutely pathetic. Aid has been too slow in coming. We watched this thing coming in across the Gulf, and be it a category 3, 4, or 5, it should simply not have taken four days to deliver clean water.
no subject
Maybe the powers tha be will get it together next summer.
no subject
Which is *exactly* the problem; coordination has been piss-poor for a disaster that had been a well-known risk for years, and had several days' notice.
Also, it seems very possible that many folks just didn't properly grasp the concept of what a hurricane this powerful would do.
June 2003, Civil Engineering Magazine: "The design of the original levees, which dates to the 1960s, was based on rudimentary storm modeling that, it is now realized, might underestimate the threat of a potential hurricane. Even if the modeling was adequate, however, the levees were designed to withstand only forces associated with a fast-moving hurricane that, according to the National Weather Service’s Saffir-Simpson scale, would be placed in category 3. If a lingering category 3 storm—or a stronger storm, say, category 4 or 5—were to hit the city, much of New Orleans could find itself under more than 20 ft (6 m) of water."
September 2002, American Radioworks: "Until a couple months ago, Suhayda ran a prominent research center at Louisiana State University. They've developed the most detailed computer models that anybody's ever used to predict how hurricanes could affect this region. Studies suggest that there's roughly a one in six chance that a killer hurricane will strike New Orleans over the next 50 years.
Suhayda is still extending his stick as he describes what he is doing, "It's well above the second floor, just about to the rooftop."
It's hard to comprehend.
"Yes," agrees Suyahada, "it is really, to think that that much water would occur in this city during a catastrophic storm."
Do you expect this kind of hurricane—this kind of flooding—will hit New Orleans in our lifetime?
"Well I would say the probability is yes," says Suyahada. "In terms of past experience, we've had three storms that were near misses—that could have done at least something close to this."
Basically, the part of New Orleans that most Americans—most people around the world—think is New Orleans, would disappear.
Suyhayda agrees, "It would, that's right.""
December 2001, Houston Chronicle: "...earlier this year the Federal Emergency Management Agency ranked the potential damage to New Orleans as among the three likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing this country.
The other two? A massive earthquake in San Francisco, and, almost prophetically, a terrorist attack on New York City.
The New Orleans hurricane scenario may be the deadliest of all.
In the face of an approaching storm, scientists say, the city's less-than-adequate evacuation routes would strand 250,000 people or more, and probably kill one of 10 left behind as the city drowned under 20 feet of water. Thousands of refugees could land in Houston..."
October 2001, Scientific American: "A major hurricane could swamp New Orleans under 20 feet of water, killing thousands. Human activities along the Mississippi River have dramatically increased the risk, and now only massive reengineering of southeastern Louisiana can save the city."