Our blogs about
America's Wars
War on Iraq
War on Drugs
War on Afghanistan
War on Columbia
War on Philippines
War on Venezuela

More
Matrix Masters
Blogs
World Events
US News
Science & Health
Earth News
Free Speech
News from Africa
News from Palestine
Bill of Rights Under Attack

Matrix Masters'
SUPPORTERS

Lorenzo's
Random Musings
. . . about Chaos,
Reason, and Hope

 

How Bush Blew It
(Evan Thomas, Newsweek, September 19, 2005 issue)
It's a standing joke among the president's top aides: who gets to deliver the bad news? Warm and hearty in public, Bush can be cold and snappish in private, and aides sometimes cringe before the displeasure of the president of the United States . . . The bad news on this early morning, Tuesday, Aug. 30, some 24 hours after Hurricane Katrina had ripped through New Orleans, was that the president would have to cut short his five-week vacation by a couple of days and return to Washington. The president's chief of staff, Andrew Card; his deputy chief of staff, Joe Hagin; his counselor, Dan Bartlett, and his spokesman, Scott McClellan, held a conference call to discuss the question of the president's early return and the delicate task of telling him. . . . The reality, say several aides who did not wish to be quoted because it might displease the president, did not really sink in until Thursday night. Some White House staffers were watching the evening news and thought the president needed to see the horrific reports coming out of New Orleans. Counselor Bartlett made up a DVD of the newscasts so Bush could see them in their entirety as he flew down to the Gulf Coast the next morning [the FRIDAY after the storm!] on Air Force One. . . . How this could be--how the president of the United States could have even less "situational awareness," as they say in the military, than the average American about the worst natural disaster in a century--is one of the more perplexing and troubling chapters in a story that, despite moments of heroism and acts of great generosity, ranks as a national disgrace. . . . But it is not clear what President Bush does read or watch, aside from the occasional biography and an hour or two of ESPN here and there. Bush can be petulant about dissent; he equates disagreement with disloyalty. After five years in office, he is surrounded largely by people who agree with him. Bush can ask tough questions, but it's mostly a one-way street. . . . When Hurricane Katrina struck, it appears there was no one to tell President Bush the plain truth: that the state and local governments had been overwhelmed, that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was not up to the job and that the military, the only institution with the resources to cope, couldn't act without a declaration from the president overriding all other authority. . . . The war in Iraq was a failure of intelligence. The government's response to Katrina--like the failure to anticipate that terrorists would fly into buildings on 9/11--was a failure of imagination. On Tuesday, within 24 hours of the storm's arrival, Bush needed to be able to imagine the scenes of disorder and misery that would, two days later, shock him when he watched the evening news. He needed to be able to see that New Orleans would spin into violence and chaos very quickly if the U.S. government did not take charge . . . [Rumsfeld] opposed sending in active-duty troops as cops. Dick Cheney, who was vacationing in Wyoming when the storm hit, characteristically kept his counsel on videoconferences; his private advice is not known. . . . The failure of the government's response to Hurricane Katrina worked like a power blackout. Problems cascaded and compounded; each mistake made the next mistake worse. The foe in this battle was a monster; Katrina flattened the Gulf Coast with the strength of a vengeful god. But human beings, beginning with the elected officials of the City of New Orleans, failed to anticipate and react in time. . . . Ray Nagin, the mayor of New Orleans, didn't want to evacuate. . . . Nagin's eye had long been on commerce, not catastrophe. A former executive at Cox Communications, he had come to office in 2002 to clear out the allegedly corrupt old guard and bring new business to the city, which has not prospered with New South metropolises like Atlanta. During Nagin's mayoral campaign, the promises were about jobs, not stronger floodwalls and levees. . . . At dusk [on Monday after the storm passed], on the ninth floor of city hall, the mayor and the city council had their first encounter with the federal government. A man in a blue FEMA windbreaker arrived to brief them on his helicopter flyover of the city. He seemed unfamiliar with the city's geography, but he did have a sense of urgency. "Water as far as the eye can see," he said. It was worse than Hurricanes Andrew in 1992 and Camille in 1969. "I need to call Washington," he said. "Do you have a conference-call line?" According to an aide to the mayor, he seemed a little taken aback when the answer was no. Long neglected in the city budget, communications within the New Orleans city government were poor, and eventually almost nonexistent when the batteries on the few old satellite phones died. The FEMA man found a phone, but he had trouble reaching senior officials in Washington. When he finally got someone on the line, the city officials kept hearing him say, "You don't understand, you don't understand." . . . Around New Orleans, three levees had overtopped or were broken. The city was doomed. There was no way the water could be stopped. But, incredibly, the seriousness of the situation did not really register, not only in Washington, but at the state emergency command post upriver in Baton Rouge. In a squat, drab cinder-block building in the state capital, full of TV monitors and maps, various state and federal officials tried to make sense of what had happened. "Nobody was saying it wasn't a catastrophe," Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu told NEWSWEEK. "We were saying, 'Thank you, God,' because the experts were telling the governor it could have been even worse." . . . Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, a motherly but steely figure known by the nickname Queen Bee, knew that she needed help. But she wasn't quite sure what. At about 8 p.m., she spoke to Bush. "Mr. President," she said, "we need your help. We need everything you've got." . . . Blanco did not specifically ask for a massive intervention by the active-duty military. "She wouldn't know the 82nd Airborne from the Harlem Boys' Choir," said an official in the governor's office, who did not wish to be identified talking about his boss's conversations with the president. There are a number of steps Bush could have taken, short of a full-scale federal takeover, like ordering the military to take over the pitiful and (by now) largely broken emergency communications system throughout the region. But the president, who was in San Diego preparing to give a speech the next day on the war in Iraq, went to bed. . . . Bush was told at 5 a.m. Pacific Coast time and immediately decided to cut his vacation short. To his senior advisers, living in the insular presidential bubble, the mere act of lopping off a couple of presidential vacation days counts as a major event. . . . Bush blithely proceeded with the rest of his schedule for the day, accepting a gift guitar at one event and pretending to riff like Tom Cruise in "Risky Business."

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 1:58 PM

 

Macabre Reminder: The Corpse on Union Street
(Dan Barry, New York Times, September 8, 2005)
In the downtown business district here, on a dry stretch of Union Street, past the Omni Bank automated teller machine, across from a parking garage offering "early bird" rates: a corpse. Its feet jut from a damp blue tarp. Its knees rise in rigor mortis. . . . Six National Guardsmen walked up to it on Tuesday afternoon and two blessed themselves with the sign of the cross. One soldier took a parting snapshot like some visiting conventioneer, and they walked away. New Orleans, September 2005. . . . Hours passed, the dusk of curfew crept, the body remained. A Louisiana state trooper around the corner knew all about it: murder victim, bludgeoned, one of several in that area. The police marked it with traffic cones maybe four days ago, he said, and then he joked that if you wanted to kill someone here, this was a good time. . . . Night came, then this morning, then noon, and another sun beat down on a dead son of the Crescent City. . . . That a corpse lies on Union Street may not shock; in the wake of last week's hurricane, there are surely hundreds, probably thousands. What is remarkable is that on a downtown street in a major American city, a corpse can decompose for days, like carrion, and that is acceptable. . . . Welcome to New Orleans in the post-apocalypse, half baked and half deluged: pestilent, eerie, unnaturally quiet. . . . Scraggly residents emerge from waterlogged wood to say strange things, and then return into the rot. Cars drive the wrong way on the Interstate and no one cares. Fires burn, dogs scavenge, and old signs from les bons temps have been replaced with hand-scrawled threats that looters will be shot dead. . . . The incomprehensible has become so routine here that it tends to lull you into acceptance. . . . Rush hour in downtown now means pickups carrying gun-carrying men in sunglasses, S.U.V.'s loaded with out-of-town reporters hungry for action, and the occasional tank.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 12:12 PM

 

Blackwater Mercenaries Deploy in New Orleans
(Jeremy Scahill and Daniela Crespo, t r u t h o u t, 10 September 2005)
Heavily armed paramilitary mercenaries from the Blackwater private security firm, infamous for their work in Iraq, are openly patrolling the streets of New Orleans. Some of the mercenaries say they have been "deputized" by the Louisiana governor; indeed some are wearing gold Louisiana state law enforcement badges on their chests and Blackwater photo identification cards on their arms. They say they are on contract with the Department of Homeland Security and have been given the authority to use lethal force. Several mercenaries we spoke with said they had served in Iraq on the personal security details of the former head of the US occupation, L. Paul Bremer and the former US ambassador to Iraq, John Negroponte. . . . "This is a totally new thing to have guys like us working CONUS (Continental United States)," a heavily armed Blackwater mercenary told us as we stood on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. "We're much better equipped to deal with the situation in Iraq." . . . Blackwater mercenaries are some of the most feared professional killers in the world and they are accustomed to operating without worry of legal consequences. Their presence on the streets of New Orleans should be a cause for serious concern for the remaining residents of the city and raises alarming questions about why the government would allow men trained to kill with impunity in places like Iraq and Afghanistan to operate here. Some of the men now patrolling the streets of New Orleans returned from Iraq as recently as 2 weeks ago. . . . What is most disturbing is the claim of several Blackwater mercenaries we spoke with that they are here under contract from the federal and Louisiana state governments. . . . Blackwater is one of the leading private "security" firms servicing the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. It has several US government contracts and has provided security for many senior US diplomats, foreign dignitaries and corporations. The company rose to international prominence after 4 of its men were killed in Fallujah and two of their charred bodies were hung from a bridge in March 2004. Those killings sparked the massive US retaliation against the civilian population of Fallujah that resulted in scores of deaths and tens of thousands of refugees. . . . As the threat of forced evictions now looms in New Orleans and the city confiscates even legally registered weapons from civilians, the private mercenaries of Blackwater patrol the streets openly wielding M-16s and other assault weapons. This despite Police Commissioner Eddie Compass' claim that "Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons." . . . But what has not been publicly acknowledged is the claim, made to us by 2 Blackwater mercenaries, that they are actually engaged in general law enforcement activities including "securing neighborhoods" and "confronting criminals." . . . That raises a key question: under what authority are Blackwater's men operating? . . . The men we spoke with said they are indeed on contract with the Department of Homeland Security and the Louisiana governor's office and that some of them are sleeping in camps organized by Homeland Security in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. One of them wore a gold Louisiana state law enforcement badge and said he had been "deputized" by the governor. They told us they not only had authority to make arrests but also to use lethal force. We encountered the Blackwater forces as we walked through the streets of the largely deserted French Quarter. We were talking with 2 New York Police officers when an unmarked car without license plates sped up next to us and stopped. Inside were 3 men, dressed in khaki uniforms, flak jackets and wielding automatic weapons. "Y'all know where the Blackwater guys are?" they asked. One of the police officers responded, "There are a bunch of them around here," and pointed down the road. . . . "Blackwater?" we asked. "The guys who are in Iraq?" . . . "Yeah," said the officer. "They're all over the place." . . . A short while later, as we continued down Bourbon Street, we ran into the men from the car. They wore Blackwater ID badges on their arms. . . . "When they told me New Orleans, I said, 'What country is that in?,'" said one of the Blackwater men. He was wearing his company ID around his neck in a carrying case with the phrase "Operation Iraqi Freedom" printed on it. After bragging about how he drives around Iraq in a "State Department issued level 5, explosion proof BMW," he said he was "just trying to get back to Kirkuk (in the north of Iraq) where the real action is." Later we overheard him on his cell phone complaining that Blackwater was only paying $350 a day plus per diem. That is much less than the men make serving in more dangerous conditions in Iraq. Two men we spoke with said they plan on returning to Iraq in October. But, as one mercenary said, they've been told they could be in New Orleans for up to 6 months. "This is a trend," he told us. "You're going to see a lot more guys like us in these situations." . . . If Blackwater's reputation and record in Iraq are any indication of the kind of "services" the company offers, the people of New Orleans have much to fear.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 5:43 PM

 

Police fired on people trying to leave N.O. by foot
(Kevin Drum, Washington Monthly, September 9, 2005)
For the past couple of days I've vaguely noticed some stories circulating about police preventing people from leaving New Orleans after Katrina hit, but there have been so many urban legendish anecdotes like this making the rounds that I didn't pay much attention to it. . . . Big mistake. Not only is the story true, it's worse than you can imagine. It wasn't New Orleans cops keeping people in, it was cops from other cities keeping people out: "We shut down the bridge," Arthur Lawson, chief of the City of Gretna Police Department, confirmed to United Press International. . . . The bridge in question - the Crescent City Connection - is the major artery heading west out of New Orleans across the Mississippi River. . . . Lawson said that once the storm itself had passed Monday, police from Gretna City, Jefferson Parrish and the Louisiana State Crescent City Connection Police Department closed to foot traffic the three access points to the bridge closest to the West Bank of the river. . . . "If we had opened the bridge, our city would have looked like New Orleans does now: looted, burned and pillaged." . . . [According to an eyewitness account from a pair of San Francisco paramedics who tried to leave the city], As they made their way to the bridge in order to leave the city "armed Gretna sheriffs (sic) formed a line across the foot of the bridge. Before we were close enough to speak, they began firing their weapons over our heads." . . . Members of the group nonetheless approached the police lines, and "questioned why we couldn't cross the bridge . . . They responded that the West Bank was not going to become New Orleans and there would be no Superdomes in their City. . . . "These were code words," the paramedics wrote, "for if you are poor and black, you are not crossing the Mississippi River and you were not getting out of New Orleans." . . . This story exposes a calculated savagery far worse than anything that happened in New Orleans.

(Also see: "Cops trapped survivors in New Orleans")

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 4:02 PM

 

Divers Find Explosive Residue On New Orleans Ruptured Levy
(Hal Turner, September 9, 2005)

[NOTE: On the day Katrina came ashore, I heard an news reporter say (late that Monday night) that she had just seen some FBI sharpshooters or swat team-looking people "coming ashore" in New Orleans from Lake Ponchetrain. Then about a week after the storm hit, I heard Peyton Manning, Jr. (who had been called up by his National Guard unit and was helping with the rescue) say that he spoke with a survivor who "heard the levee break." Manning reported that this man said, "It sounded like a huge explosion." Had I not had these two bits of information, I would have not paid attention to the following story, patricularly since it is coming from an man who claims to be "an ardent Pro-Life, conservative Republican." However, there is something that really stinks about the federal response to this tragedy. IMHO, the Cheney-Bush junta was responsible for 9-11, and I wouldn't put it beyond them to have blown the levees. You can speculate on their motives yourselves, but I think it wise to keep an open mind here and investigate these facts, no matter how horrible and improbably they may seem. . . . Also, it is interesting to note that the Army General in charge on the ground in New Orleans recently said on MSNBC, "If someone had planned to destroy this city, they couldn't have done it any better." . . . Lorenzo.]

Divers inspecting the ruptured levee walls surrounding New Orleans found something that piqued their interest: Burn marks on underwater debris chunks from the broken levee wall! . . . One diver, a member of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, saw the burn marks and knew immediately what caused them. He secreted a small chunk of the cement inside his diving suit and later arranged for it to be sent to trusted military friends at a The U.S. Army Forensic Laboratory at Fort Gillem, Georgia for testing. . . . According to well placed sources, a military forensic specialist determined the burn marks on the cement chunks did, in fact, come from high explosives. The source, speaking on condition of anonymity said "We found traces of boron-enhanced fluoronitramino explosives as well as PBXN-111. This would indicate at least two separate types of explosive devices." . . . The levee ruptures in New Orleans did not take place during Hurricane Katrina, but rather a day after the hurricane struck. Several residents of New Orleans and many Emergency Workers reported hearing what sounded like large, muffled explosions from the area of the levee, but those were initially discounted as gas explosions from homes with leaking gas lines. . . . If these allegations prove true, the ruptured levee which flooded New Orleans was a deliberate act of mass destruction perpetrated by someone with access to military-grade UNDERWATER high explosives. . . . More details as they become available.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 3:50 PM

 

National Guard Deployment in Iraq Hurt Katrina Response
(Robert Burns, Associated Press, 09 September 2005)
he deployment of thousands of National Guard troops from Mississippi and Louisiana in Iraq when Hurricane Katrina struck hindered those states' initial storm response, military and civilian officials said Friday. . . . Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, said that "arguably" a day or so of response time was lost due to the absence of the Mississippi National Guard's 155th Brigade Combat Team and Louisiana's 256th Infantry Brigade, each with thousands of troops in Iraq. . . . "Had that brigade been at home and not in Iraq, their expertise and capabilities could have been brought to bear," said Blum. . . . Blum said that to replace those units' command and control equipment, he dispatched personnel from Guard division headquarters from Kansas and Minnesota shortly after the storm struck. . . . Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., whose waterfront home here was washed away in the storm, told reporters that the absence of the deployed Mississippi Guard units made it harder for local officials to coordinate their initial response. . . . "What you lost was a lot of local knowledge," Taylor said, as well as equipment that could have been used in recovery operations. . . . "The best equipment went with them, for obvious reasons," especially communications equipment, he added.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 3:04 PM

 

Was the Katrina disaster intentionally amplified?
(Paul Krugman, New York Times, September 2, 2005)
Before 9/11 the Federal Emergency Management Agency listed the three most likely catastrophic disasters facing America: a terrorist attack on New York, a major earthquake in San Francisco and a hurricane strike on New Orleans. "The New Orleans hurricane scenario," The Houston Chronicle wrote in December 2001, "may be the deadliest of all." It described a potential catastrophe very much like the one now happening. . . . So why were New Orleans and the nation so unprepared? . . . First question: Why have aid and security taken so long to arrive? Katrina hit five days ago - and it was already clear by last Friday that Katrina could do immense damage along the Gulf Coast. Yet the response you'd expect from an advanced country never happened. Thousands of Americans are dead or dying, not because they refused to evacuate, but because they were too poor or too sick to get out without help - and help wasn't provided. Many have yet to receive any help at all. . . . Even military resources in the right place weren't ordered into action. . . . Maybe administration officials believed that the local National Guard could keep order and deliver relief. But many members of the National Guard and much of its equipment - including high-water vehicles - are in Iraq. "The National Guard needs that equipment back home to support the homeland security mission," a Louisiana Guard officer told reporters several weeks ago. . . . Second question: Why wasn't more preventive action taken? After 2003 the Army Corps of Engineers sharply slowed its flood-control work, including work on sinking levees. "The corps," an Editor and Publisher article says, citing a series of articles in The Times-Picayune in New Orleans, "never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security - coming at the same time as federal tax cuts - was the reason for the strain." . . . In 2002 the corps' chief resigned, reportedly under threat of being fired, after he criticized the administration's proposed cuts in the corps' budget, including flood-control spending. . . . I don't think this is a simple tale of incompetence. The reason the military wasn't rushed in to help along the Gulf Coast is, I believe, the same reason nothing was done to stop looting after the fall of Baghdad. Flood control was neglected for the same reason our troops in Iraq didn't get adequate armor. . . . At a fundamental level, I'd argue, our current leaders just aren't serious about some of the essential functions of government. They like waging war, but they don't like providing security, rescuing those in need or spending on preventive measures. And they never, ever ask for shared sacrifice. . . . Yesterday Mr. Bush made an utterly fantastic claim: that nobody expected the breach of the levees. In fact, there had been repeated warnings about exactly that risk. . . . So America, once famous for its can-do attitude, now has a can't-do government that makes excuses instead of doing its job. And while it makes those excuses, Americans are dying.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 8:13 PM

 

Church camp turned into FEMA concentration camp for survivors
[NOTE: This story has photos associated with it. Click the link above to see them and read this entire story. Post Number: 1664014]

I'm extremely depressed to report that things seem to only be getting sadder concerning the people so devastatingly affected by Katrina last week. Two car loads of us headed over to Falls Creek, a youth camp for Southern Baptist churches in Oklahoma that agreed to have its facilities used to house Louisiana refugees. I'm afraid the camp is not going to be used as the kind people of the churches who own the cabins believe it was going to be used. . . . Falls Creek is very secluded and absolutely no where near a population center. . . . We arrived at our cabin and started toting the clothes in. We finally found a group of men upstairs in the dorms trying to do something alien to them - make beds. They had almost completed the room of bunk beds and told us we could go over to the ladies' dorm room and start on it. We lugged our sacks of clothes back down the stairs. Then we got the first negative message. "You can't bring any clothes in. FEMA has stated they will accept no more clothes. They've had 30 people sorting clothes for days. They don't want anymore." My mind couldn't help but go back over the news articles that have accused FEMA of refusing water in to Jefferson Parrish, or turning fuel away. . . . We lugged the bags of clothes back to the car. We then turned to bringing in our personal hygiene products. That's when we learned our cabin had been designated a "male only" cabin. Approximately 40 men, ranging from age 13 on up would be housed there. We started resacking the female products and sorted out everything that would be useful for men. . . . We lugged the bags of female products back to the car. We asked if they knew of a cabin that had been designated for women. The "host" (the hosts are Oklahoma civilians who have been employeed??? by FEMA to reside at each cabin and have already gone through at least one "orientation" meeting conducted by FEMA at "BASE" which is some unknown but repetitively referred location within the camp) told us he believed McAlester cabin was dedicated to females. He then explained there were male, female and family cabins designated. . . . We then started lugging in our food products. The foods I had purchased were mainly snacks, but my mother - God bless her soul - had gone all out with fresh vegetables, fruits, canned goods, breakfast cereals, rice, and pancake fixings. That's when we got the next message: They will not be able to use the kitchen. . . . Excuse me? I asked incredulously. . . . FEMA will not allow any of the kitchen facilities in any of the cabins to be used by the occupants due to fire hazards. FEMA will deliver meals to the cabins. The refugees will be given two meals per day by FEMA. They will not be able to cook. In fact, the "host" goes on to explain, some churches had already enquired about whether they could come in on weekends and fix meals for the people staying in their cabin. FEMA won't allow it because there could be a situation where one cabin gets steaks and another gets hot dogs - and...it could cause a riot. . . . It gets worse. . . . He then precedes to tell us that some churches had already enquired into whether they could send a van or bus on Sundays to pick up any occupants of their cabins who might be interested in attending church. FEMA will not allow this. The occupants of the camp cannot leave the camp for any reason. If they leave the camp they may never return. They will be issued FEMA identification cards and "a sum of money" and they will remain within the camp for the next 5 months. . . . My mother then asked if the churches would be allowed to come to their cabin and conduct services if the occupants wanted to attend. The response was "No ma'am. You don't understand. Your church no longer owns this building. This building is now owned by FEMA and the Oklahoma Highway Patrol. . . . he tells my mother she must take all the breakfast cereal back. My mother protests that cereal requires no cooking. "There will be no milk, ma'am." My mother points to the huge industrial double-wide refrigerator the church had just purchased in the past year. "Ma'am, you don't understand...It could cause a riot." . . . He then points to the vegetables and fruit. "You'll have to take that back as well. It looks like you've got about 10 apples there. I'm about to bring in 40 men. What would we do then?" My mother, in her sweet, soft voice says, "Quarter them?" . . . "No ma'am. FEMA said no. . . . It could cause a riot. You don't understand the type of people that are about to come here...." . . . I turn and walk out of the room...lugging all the healthy stuff back to the car. My son later tells me the man went on to say "We've already been told of teenage girls delivering fetuses on buses." My son steps toward him and says "That's because they've almost been starved to death, haven't had a decent place to get a good night's sleep, and their bodies can't keep a baby alive. I'm not sure that's any evidence some one should be using to show these are 'bad people'." . . . We then went to the second dorm room and made up beds. When we got through and were headed outside the host says to me and my daughter, "How did you get in here?" I told him we came in through the back gate. He replies, "No, HOW did you get in here? No one who doesn't have credentials showing is supposed to be in here." (I had noticed all the "hosts" had two or three badges hanging around their necks.) I told him it might have had something to do with the fact my daughter was snapping pictures of the OHP presence at the gate. He then tells us, "Well, starting in the morning NO ONE comes in. So if you have further goods you want to donate you will have to take them to your local church. They will collect them until they have a full load and then bring them to the front gate."

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 2:32 PM

 

Bush's mother wants survivors to get out of Texas
President George W. Bush returned to the site of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in a bid to quell criticism of his Government's response to the disaster. . . . But his mother, Barbara Bush, appeared to make his troubles even worse by suggesting some of the homeless might be better off. . . . Mrs Bush further inflamed simmering racial tensions when she referred to the 18,000 people now in Houston who had lost everything saying: "This is working very well for them." . . . Mrs Bush, who hails from Texas, also appeared to express concerns that many of the victims might remain in the state's largest city. . . . "Almost everyone I've talked to says 'We're going to move to Houston'," she said. "What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. . . . "And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this, this is working very well for them."

[COMMENT by Lorenzo: This makes it easy to see why Bush is such a mean-spirited man . . . just look at what a wicked mother he has.]

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 1:25 PM

 

On Scene New Orleans Blog with Thousands of Pictures
The link above will take you to a blog from one of the people who work at DirectNIC, where I've hosted many URLs for several years. This blog provides a fantastic portrait of what it was like, and still IS like, on the ground in New Orleans. And they also have provided several thousand photos taken in New Orleans during the past 10 days.

These people are in a New Orleans high rise office building and have been throughout this entire emergency. Amazingly, their service never went off-line. A skeleton crew is still working there and has another three weeks of emergency power available. This company has really planned ahead and in the midst of total chaos has continued providing service to customers worldwide. I hope that if you are considering the purchase of URLs in the months and years ahead that you will think about giving some of your business to DirectNIC. BTW, I'm just one of their customers who thinks this is a terriffic company. I've been extremely pleased with their service for several years, but now I'm even more happy about using their service. These people are simply the best cyberjockies you can find. BRAVO! . . . Lorenzo Hagerty

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 10:56 AM

 

Living Paycheck to Paycheck Made Leaving Impossible
(Wil Haygood, The Washington Post, 04 September 2005)
To those who wonder why so many stayed behind when push came to water's mighty shove here, those who were trapped have a simple explanation: Their nickels and dimes and dollar bills simply didn't add up to stage a quick evacuation mission. . . . "Me and my wife, we were living paycheck to paycheck, like most everybody else in New Orleans," Eric Dunbar, 54, said Saturday. . . . He was standing on wobbly, thin legs in the bowels of the semi-darkened Louis Armstrong Airport, where he had been delivered with many others after having been plucked by rescuers from a roadway. . . . He offered a mini-tutorial in the economic reality of his life. . . . "I don't own a car. Me and my wife, we travel by bus, public transportation. The most money I ever have on me is $400. And that goes to pay the rent. And that $400 is between me and my wife." Her name is Dorth Dunbar; she was trying to get some rest after days of peril. . . . Dunbar estimated his annual income to be about $20,000, which comes from doing graphic design work when he can get it. Before the storm, when he and his wife estimated how much money they needed to flee the city, he was saddened by the reality that he could not come up with anywhere near the several thousand dollars he might need for a rental car and airfare. . . . "If I took my wife out to dinner, it was once a month," he said, sounding as if even those modest good times had come to an abrupt end. "We'd go to Piccadilly's. Never any movies. Really, it's a simple life. I go to work, come home, talk to my wife, go to bed, then back to work again. A basic existence." . . . He was rolling two quarters around in his hand, short 50 cents to make a long-distance call to his son. As his eyes began to water, he repeated himself: "Just a basic existence."

[NOTE: Click the link above to read many more of these heart-breaking stories.]

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 5:33 PM

 

Timeline: How the hurricane crisis unfolded
(BBC NEWS, 3 September 2005)
A day-by-day look at how the crisis has unfolded in New Orleans, after the city was battered by Hurricane Katrina.

SUNDAY 28 AUGUST: Hurricane Katrina gains strength over the Gulf of Mexico - having already battered the state of Florida. Fears grow for New Orleans, which sits some 6ft (2m) below sea level. . . . Mayor Ray Nagin orders the mandatory evacuation of the city after the storm becomes a maximum-strength Category Five hurricane. . . . Motorways are jammed as people obey the order to leave. . . . Some of those unable to leave spend the night in shelters - including the Superdome stadium.

MONDAY 29 AUGUST: Hurricane Katrina hits the Gulf coast, wreaking havoc in the states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. . . . Many areas of New Orleans are flooded and winds of more than 100mph (160km/h) tear off part of the roof of the Superdome stadium where some 9,000 people are taking refuge. . . . Power lines are cut, trees felled, shops wrecked and cars hurled across streets strewn with shattered glass. . . . There are reports that some of the city's flood defences have been breached.

TUESDAY 30 AUGUST: The scale of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent flooding becomes clearer. . . . About 80% of the low-lying city is under water. Helicopters and boats are picking up survivors stranded on rooftops across the area - many are to spend several more days there. . . . Rescuers are said to be pushing aside the dead bodies floating in the water, as they try to reach survivors. . . . With some of the city's flood defences breached, the situation is getting more desperate as waters continue to rise. . . . Hundreds of people are feared dead along the Mississippi coast.

WEDNESDAY 31 AUGUST: Mayor Ray Nagin says the hurricane has killed hundreds, possibly thousands. He orders the full evacuation of the city - up to 100,000 residents are still said to be there. . . . Many try to battle their way through the water to the city's Superdome stadium in search of refuge. Tens of thousands of people end up there, but conditions inside the stadium are deteriorating fast. . . . Armed police try to impose a form of martial law to stem looting - while some looters are stealing non-essential goods, others are simply trying to find food and water. . . . Cutting short a holiday in Texas to take charge of the federal recovery effort, President Bush says the government is dealing with one of the worst natural disasters in US history. . . . The government declares a public health emergency along the whole of the Gulf coast, to speed up the delivery of food, water and fuel to the region. It is announced that extra troops are also being sent. Bush flys over the area in Air Force 1 and then plays a round of golf in Washtington.

THURSDAY 1 SEPTEMBER: New Orleans descends into anarchy, with reports of looting, shootings, carjackings and rapes. The local police force is ordered to focus its efforts on tackling lawlessness. . . . Buses and helicopters begin to take the most vulnerable out of the Superdome stadium . . . Shots reportedly fired at a helicopter airlifting people from the stadium slow down the evacuation process. . . . Anger mounts over the delay in getting aid to people in New Orleans and what is seen as an inadequate response from the federal government.

FRIDAY 2 SEPTEMBER: The relief effort in New Orleans is stepped up. Evacuations continue as military convoys arrive with supplies of food, medicine and water. . . . Extra National Guard units are brought into New Orleans to tackle the looting and general lawlessness which has spread across the city. . . . It is still not known how many people have died as a consequence of Katrina, but a Republican Senator in Louisiana, David Vitter, says the number could reach 10,000. . . . Tens of thousands of people are still stranded - some of them are still waiting to be rescued from rooftops of houses surrounded by water. . . . Meanwhile, President Bush promises long-term help for reconstruction during a visit to affected areas, having acknowledged that the initial response had not been acceptable. Congress approves a $10.5bn emergency spending package.

SATURDAY 3 SEPTEMBER: Amid mounting political pressure, President George Bush orders 7,000 more front-line troops into the areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina. . . . In a national televised address, he acknowledges that many "citizens simply are not getting the help they need, especially in New Orleans".

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 2:42 PM

 

Special report: Hurricane Katrina
The link above will take you to an excellent Web site about Katrina. It is presented by the UK's Guardian Unlimited, one of the best newspapers in Europe. Many of the stories you will find here have not yet been made public by U.S. news organizations, which have been covering up some of the worst stories from New Orleans and other areas for fear of the reaction they might cause in the U.S.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 10:44 AM

 

San Antonio, Texas will receive 25,000 refugees
(Associated Press, September 1, 2005)
Texas agreed to take in an additional 25,000 Hurricane Katrina refugees from Louisiana and house them in San Antonio, Gov. Rick Perry's office reported. . . . A shelter is being created at what's now KellyUSA, which is a sprawling complex owned by San Antonio. The site used to be the Kelly Air Force Base. . . . The refugees are expected to arrive at the shelter on their own, but some will be bused in from the Astrodome. . . . The refugees are in addition to about 25,000 already being moved into the Houston Astrodome, mostly from the Superdome in New Orleans.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 5:04 PM

 

Hurricane Katrina information about friends and family members

This is a forum on the Houston Chronicle's bulletin board where people can post information about friends and family members.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 3:08 PM

 

Dial 211 for shelter: The United Way of the Texas Gulf Coast has set up the help line for evacuees who need shelters information.
Alternate: 713-957-HELP.

Houston Red Cross shelters: Find a shelter by calling 1-866-GETINFO (1-866-438-4636). . . . The Red Cross has opened 13 shelters in the Greater Houston area to help disaster victims forced from their homes by Hurricane Katrina. The shelters will remain open and additional shelters will be opened as necessary. . . . As of Thursday morning: Mont Belview Sr Center (112 capacity) 11607 Eagle Drive . . . Baytown Community Center (250 capacity) 2407 Market St Baytown, Tx . . . Memorial Baptist Church (capacity 135) 600 W. Sterling Baytown Texas 77520 . . . # St. Peter Claver (capacity 220) 6005 N. Wayside Drive Houston Tx . . . Moody Methodist Church (capacity 300) 2803 53rd Street Galveston, Texas . . . Spring Tabernacle (capacity 200) 3034 FM 2920 Spring, Tx 77338

FEMA aid: Disaster assistance process for individuals. Call to Apply for Assistance 1-800-621-FEMA (3362). The speech or hearing impaired may call (TTY) 1-800-462-7585.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 3:04 PM

 

The state of Texas has set up a special refugee phone line (dial 211) for those currently in motels or finding their way to Texas on their own. All the refugee centers and redcross locations and other headquarters set up to help them find help will be listed on a recording.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 12:43 PM