How can you generalize that way? You do recall that after the storm, N.O. appeared to have "dodged a bullet" as many of the news channels were saying. It was only when the levee broke that more people abandoned there homes to go to the Superdome. I'm glad you "feel" that most people had the capacity to leave (something you have no way to substantiate). The fact is that 40% of N.O. lives below the poverty line. In a city of 500K, it should have been expected that many could not leave, in spite of free bus rides (again, what do they do when they get off the bus?).
die or get on a bus. That was the decision they were given. It's not rocket science. Poor or wealthy can comprehend that, but they decided to try and stick it out. What do you do when you get off the bus > live another day. What do you do if drown > you don't. Money or no money, someone warns a million people to move out, it's just a simple decision to make.
I think this is new. Texas is taking in an additional 25,000 refugees, bring the total now to 75,000. 25,000 in each major city: Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/K/KATRINA_TEXAS?SITE=TXSAE&SECTION=US Texas agrees to take 50,000 more refugees By KELLEY SHANNON Associated Press Writer AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- The state of Texas agreed Thursday to take in three times more refugees from Hurricane Katrina than officials initially expected, bringing the total number of evacuees to nearly 75,000. Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced that 50,000 more refugees would relocate to Texas, with plans to house 25,000 each in San Antonio and Dallas. Those people would join 23,000 others who are already being sent from New Orleans to the Astrodome in Houston. Perry declared an emergency disaster for the state, freeing up money to provide services for hurricane victims. The hurricane "has created emergency conditions in Texas that will require all available resources of both federal and state governments to overcome," Perry said. "We will do all we can as a state and a people to help our neighbors to the east who have lost so much." A shelter is being created in San Antonio in a huge warehouse at KellyUSA, a city-owned complex that once was home to an Air Force base. In Dallas, the refugees will go to Reunion Arena, the former home of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks. "Whatever we are called upon to do ... we intend to welcome these people with open arms and to try to give them some dignity which these circumstances have taken away from them," San Antonio Mayor Phil Hardberger said. The governor asked the state Department of Housing and Community Affairs to set aside all vacant low-income housing units for refugees. So far 7,000 units have been reserved for hurricane victims. Texas will also open its schools and hospitals to some of the hurricane's most desperate refugees. The state Health and Human Services Department planned to extend office hours to help people with Medicaid, food stamps and prescription benefits. Holly reports relief groups in Texas will continue accepting evacuees, regardless how many show up for help. "We're getting calls across the country from people who want to help," Perry said. "It's going to be the largest influx of refugees in American history." The American Red Cross has opened about 20 shelters in other Texas cities. Texas is a relatively close drive for New Orleans evacuees, many of whom escaped the city on Interstate 10 and Interstate 20 before Katrina struck. Tens of thousands of survivors continued to fill hotel rooms across the state days after the storm. Some hurricane survivors planned to start over in Texas. Many are poor. Some lived on the streets of New Orleans. Others lost homes or their jobs when the hurricane flooded their city. "I'm not going back. I'm going to rebuild in Dallas," said Thomas Washington, 46, who arrived in a caravan of cars carrying 26 people. The group left New Orleans on Sunday and stayed first in motels. They eventually turned to the evacuee shelter at Reunion Arena in downtown Dallas. Washington, who worked as a security officer at a Naval facility, said his home near Lake Pontchartrain is gone. "All I have is a pair of jeans and a shirt," he said. Perry, who agreed to Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco's request Wednesday to take in the evacuees, said Texas naturally wants to help its neighbor. "I think we all understand it's by the grace of God that this terrible tragedy didn't come ashore a few hundred miles west," Perry said.
Necessity forced many to leave their homes after the storm hit. Too bad they didn't think that a category 5 hurricane aimed at their city didn't force this kind of action in the first place. As for "dodging a bullet," its wonderful that the city didn't bear even more adversity than it already had, however, this doesn't excuse the fact that they were advised to evacuate before Katrina ever showed her ugly face. Since 40% of the population lives under the poverty level, show the statistics that show 40% of the population didn't leave the city. The fact of the matter is that many impovershed people did make it out. That's not an excuse. It's not so much that most couldn't get out, its that they choose not to leave.
You're right. They are clearly stupid and not worthy of speedy relief. Thank you for showing me the light. Seriously, man. It wasn't DIE or get on a bus, it was get on a bus to be transported to a place where you will be homeless or take your chances with the storm. Is it really that easy of a choice? I'd say its about 50/50, which seems about right with estimations of 100k of the 200k below the poverty line staying behind.
And for some reason you believe that 20,000 buses were actually made available to transport the 100,000 residents who required evacuation assistance
For some reason I'm watching Fox News and Oreily's show is on, and their correspondant in New Orleans (Sheppard Smith) said in his mind he can not come up with any scenario in which the city of New Oreans can be rebuilt. Its that bad. Oreily goes on to say yeah yeah yeah, of course they will rebuild it. And Smith says "Bill you have not seen it. I don't see how it could ever be rebuilt."
No it's not easy. But you must bear the consequences of your actions. The government is doing everything in its power to help these people from the dire situations they had a part in putting themselves in.
The reporter on KHOU said that there have been reports of a few fights breaking out at the Astrodome and some reports of looting in Houston. I'm not sure if she was embellishing in her account of the story, especially the looting part, but I'm going to be pissed if the crap that happened in the Superdome happens in the Astrodome.
This is something I've been really worried about as well, but it seems feeling like that is seen as insensitive. I don't see how we're going to maintain order for an extended period of time.
Well, the urban-legend that we all carry guns should help for a while. Plus, as one person put it, they don't know Houston. Kind of hard to go robbing someplace when you're not very familiar with where "home" is. The sad part is a friend of mine worked at the Astrodome today. His observations: Very few people were grateful. Most were downright harrassing. He's there volunteering, and getting calls out such as "Hey Cracker! Where you going? Bring me some water!" Most were beligerant and irritated, and this was as soon as they got here. The others were sobbing. He said, while he understood people's behavior, it was downright depressing. He also noted that when just 6-7,000 people had arrived, the entire place seemed to start overcrowding. He has nooo idea how they're planning to get 25,000 in there. Hopefully, these tensions will go away. But, for now, this is anything but a sanctuary to them.
Looting in Houston? Someone was misinformed on that one. Fights in the Astrodome- that's understandable, considering the incredible ordeal these people have been through. My nerves would be shot too, and I would think about taking a swing at someone if they said the wrong thing to my wife. I was thinking about how frigging fast things are falling apart in N.O.- It's Lord of the Flies x 1000. Insane.
Past U.S. disasters suggest New Orleans will recover Thursday, September 01, 2005 By Michael M. Phillips and Cynthia Crossen, The Wall Street Journal At the close of World War II, American bombers incinerated the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atomic weapons. Within two decades, both cities had been rebuilt, and their populations had surpassed prewar levels. The lesson, according to economists who have studied the question, is that, while it may take years, cities are resilient and usually bounce back from the worst natural or man-made devastation. "Even nuclear bombs and fire bombing of cities was not enough to change the level and nature of economic activity," says Columbia University economist Donald R. Davis, who studied Japanese reconstruction. "People don't abandon their cities, and indeed industries don't abandon the cities they're in." Such large-scale disasters are rare, of course, but a look back at four of them in the U.S. -- as New Orleans copes with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina -- reinforces that conclusion: Americans are loath to surrender their cities despite the threat of an array of biblical plagues. Whether Mrs. O'Leary's cow really kicked over the lamp that started the whole thing or not is still a matter of debate. But the fact is that somewhere near the O'Leary barn on the evening of Oct. 8, 1871, a small fire became a big fire that became an out-of-control conflagration. It had been a dry fall, and Chicago firefighters were already stretched thin. By the end of the next day, the city's "burnt district," as it became known, covered a swath four miles long and about three-quarters of a mile wide. The fire killed perhaps 300 people, destroyed 18,000 buildings, left 100,000 Chicagoans without homes and caused some $3.2 billion in damages, at today's prices. Half of the city had insurance, but only half of those actually got paid from their policies. Smallpox and cholera spread in an atmosphere of poor sanitation, close living and filthy water. "The city is infested with a horde of thieves, burglars and cut-throats, bent on plunder, and who will not hesitate to burn, pillage and even murder, as opportunity may seem to offer them to do so with safety," the Chicago Evening Journal advised the day after the fire, according to an essay published by the Chicago Historical Society. The authorities declared martial law, and Lt. Gen. Philip Sheridan, the Civil War hero and a Chicago resident, led troops in to help preserve "the good order and peace of the city," in the words of Mayor Roswell B. Mason. Yet almost as soon as the embers had cooled, Chicago business leaders deployed to New York to persuade investors that this was the time to put more of their money into Chicago, not less. Peter Alter, curator of the Chicago Historical Society, recounts the story of William D. Kerfoot, a real-estate speculator whose offices had burned. The day after the fire was extinguished, Mr. Kerfoot erected a crudely made painted sign: "All Gone But Wife, Children and Energy." The stockyards had been spared the flames, as had much of the city's heavy industry. "Five years will give Chicago more men, more money, more business, than she would have had without this fire," John Stephen Wright, one of the city's most vocal boosters, said at the time, according to the Chicago Historical Society. He proved prophetic. Chicago, on the shores of Lake Michigan, was a crucial crossroads of agriculture and industry, too valuable to give up. By the end of the decade Chicago was bigger and better than before. The city had a population of roughly 300,000 before the fire. In 1880 it was home to half a million. "Chicago was both built and rebuilt so quickly because the rest of the national and international economy needed it so badly," says Carl Smith, a professor of English, American Studies and History at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. The rebuilding accelerated the division of the city into commercial and residential districts, and hurried the adoption of fire-resistant building materials. The city grew so quickly that many of the buildings put up after the fire were torn down within a couple of decades to make way for the new skyscrapers. When the last fire was extinguished after the San Francisco earthquake of April 1906, survivors emerged from their makeshift shelters to find three-quarters of their city in ruins. All telephone and telegraph communications had ceased. There was little water for drinking. The railroads had been destroyed; the port was completely blocked by debris. Few, if any, hotels, restaurants or cafes survived, and 300,000 people were homeless. Banks were closed, and would remain so for a month. Despite martial law, looters roamed the streets, and the mayor ordered them to be shot on sight. "As regards industrial and commercial losses, the conditions are appalling," wrote Victor H. Metcalf, secretary of labor and commerce, in a report to President Roosevelt. "Not only have the business and industrial houses and establishments of one-half million people disappeared, leaving them destitute financially and their means of livelihood temporarily gone, but the complicated system of transportation indispensable to them has been almost totally destroyed." Yet there was never any doubt, among either the survivors or their elected officials, that San Francisco would be rebuilt. Indeed, just five days after the earthquake, California's governor, George Pardee, told a reporter, "The work of rebuilding San Francisco has commenced, and I expect to see the great metropolis replaced on a much grander scale than ever before." San Francisco's mayor, Eugene E. Schmitz, quickly appointed a group of local businessmen, lawyers and journalists, known as the Citizens' Committee of Fifty, to organize the recovery. In the first days and weeks after the disaster, that meant trying to feed, clothe and shelter survivors while raising money to repair the city's infrastructure. Private citizens from across America pledged $10 million, as well as train cars full of goods. The federal government voted to give the city $2.5 million, and Japan and Canada contributed to the relief fund. New bond issues were authorized, and Eastern financiers were encouraged to buy about $14 million of previously authorized but unsold municipal bonds. Engineers, contractors and draftsmen were recruited from other parts of the country, and the city began trying to buy all the lumber, cement and glass it could find. Temporary structures were erected in several centrally located squares for use by architects, transportation and insurance officials and lawyers. Labor unions quickly convened to mourn their lost members -- and set rules for the coming boom. The painters' union, for example, suspended many of its trade rules: "No overtime will be allowed; straight time for night or Sunday work. The brothers are requested to be satisfied with eight hours' work and give unemployed brothers a chance." Members of the Plumbers, Gas and Steam Fitters' Union, 80 percent of whom said they had lost their tools, voted to volunteer their services; about 500 plumbers worked around the clock for more than a week repairing broken pipes. Obviously, all did not go smoothly in the three years it took to rebuild San Francisco. There were complaints of red tape and poor coordination among relief agencies. Unscrupulous building contractors installed new foundations made of mud rather than cement. Some public officials, including some from the citizens committee, or "boodle board," as it was nicknamed, funneled donations into their own pockets. Yet just three months later, in July 1906, the St. Francis Hotel Annex re-opened, and hundreds of buildings were under construction. Charles B. Sedgwick, editor of a newspaper called the British-Californian, described the resilience of the people of San Francisco the day after the earthquake. "Men and women came to see what was going on, gazed about in blank astonishment for a few moments, then went their way as though nothing extraordinary was transpiring," he wrote. "It was this indifference, or philosophical resignation to the inevitable, that struck me as the most marvelous thing in connection with the great tragedy. This, and the ease and quickness with which people grew accustomed to the changed conditions." It could be argued that the Johnstown flood of 1889 wasn't a natural disaster at all, but the inevitable consequence of humans thinking they could control nature. Whatever the cause, the day after a dam burst, unleashing 20 million tons of water on the residents of Johnstown, Pa., and its neighboring boroughs, the area looked like "a vast sea of muck and rubble and filthy water," in the words of David McCullough, author of "The Johnstown Flood." A survivor, a Presbyterian minister named David Beale, realized that words couldn't describe what he was seeing. "It were vain to undertake to tell the world how or what we felt, when shoeless, hatless and many of us almost naked, some bruised and broken, we stood there and looked upon that scene of death and desolation." Like Dr. Beale, some 25,000 survivors of the steel town needed food and shelter. Among the first workers who came to help Johnstown were 55 undertakers, who would work in nine temporary morgues. Recovery of the dead continued for months; almost a third of the 2,200 bodies were never identified. Five days after the flood, Clara Barton and five Red Cross workers arrived from Washington, D.C. It was the organization's first major peacetime relief effort. Articles about Johnstown's calamity were widely published in the country's burgeoning national press, and relief poured in. The New York Stock Exchange pledged $20,000. The United States Brewers Association sent $10,000. Cincinnati donated 20,000 pounds of ham; prisoners of a Pittsburgh penitentiary baked 1,000 loaves of bread. "Men in light skiffs are poling about the streets all day taking passengers from place to place," wrote a witness, Willis Fletcher Johnson. "Their services are free." Tents served as dining halls, coffee was ladled from buckets. With the arrival of tools and dynamite, some of the biggest piles of debris could be loosened. Pennsylvania's governor, James Beaver, created the Pennsylvania Relief Committee to coordinate cleanup and restoration, while the state militia kept order. With thousands of men working, the Pennsylvania Railroad rebuilt 20 miles of track in two weeks. One gang of workers, Mr. McCullough writes, did nothing but sprinkle disinfectants over the entire area. Hundreds of cellars, flooded with "every kind of filth," had to be dug out by hand. But there was no hope the area would survive unless its biggest employer, the Cambria Iron Works, re-opened. On June 9, company officials announced that it would. In July, a little more than a month after the flood, you could buy ice cream for the Independence Day celebration on the streets of Johnstown. During the afternoon of Saturday, Sept. 8, 1900, the town of Galveston, Texas, became part of the ocean floor. Broadway, the main East-West street through town, stood at 8.7 feet above normal sea level, the highest land on the island on which Galveston sits. But that day a hurricane with 84 mile-per-hour winds hit Galveston, and, as the ocean surged ashore, sea level was soon seven feet above Broadway. "Every part of the island was covered in water," says Christy Carl, director of the Galveston County Historical Museum. The row of wooden houses nearest the shore crumpled with the impact of the waves, and the debris slammed into the next block. And the next. And the next, until the detritus itself formed a wall to stop the advancing waters. All told, some 3,600 buildings were destroyed. The federal government had just completed the 1900 census, and Galveston, a prosperous island of cotton merchants, bankers and shippers, boasted a population of 37,500 on Saturday morning. By day's end, as many as 8,000 residents were dead, along with 2,000 or so more on the mainland, making the Galveston hurricane the deadliest natural disaster in the history of the U.S. Thousands of survivors fled, never to return, according to Casey Greene, head of special collections at the Rosenberg Library in Galveston. Some, perhaps, had in mind the experience of Indianola, Texas, just west of Galveston. The residents of Indianola had decided to rebuild their lives after being hit by a hurricane in 1875, a storm that killed between 150 and 300 people. They were still rebuilding when a second hurricane flattened the town in 1886. This time they gave up and abandoned Indianola for good. But in Galveston a large number of business and civic leaders elected to stay and rebuild after the catastrophe of 1900. The city divided itself into wards to provide relief to the homeless and injured. And town leaders and Army engineers launched an extraordinary effort to insulate the exposed barrier island from the fury of nature. Between 1902 and 1904, the Army Corps of Engineers built a seawall that now stretches more than 10 miles and stands 17 feet high. And in case the seawall didn't deflect the cresting waters, the engineers raised the city. They put each home on the Gulf side of the island up on stilts and pumped wet sand underneath to elevate it. Brick homes couldn't be raised, so the owners had to fill in their basements instead. The island's terrain was graded to slope gradually down toward Galveston Bay. The project took eight years to complete. Another hurricane -- thought to be as strong or stronger than the big storm -- hit the island in 1915, killing about 275 people. It was a disaster, but the seawall and the elevated ground level apparently kept the toll from approaching the grim tally from 1900.
Not to play the devil's advocate, but the American Cities (Chicago, San Francisco) cited above were rebuilt in a time of extreme expansionism, when cheap labor in the form of immagrants was a dime a dozen. It was a different time. As for Japan- we helped rebuild those cities, not to mention that Japan is an island with finite space. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bound to be population centers again eventually. As far as Galveston goes- I live there, and I can tell you that it never actually recovered from the 1900 Storm. In fact, it has only recently seen robust outside investment and growth (which is actually spearheaded by a local). I'm not saying that N.O. can't be rebuilt- heck, it's an economicly strategic city at the mouth of the Mississippi, but the entire infrastructure needs to be rebuilt, and it will take a long, long time to regain it's prestiege, especially after the display of anarchy we are seeing right now.
What should the "consequences" be, a slow painful death? Because that's what it's turning out to be for many of these people. These people made it through the storm, they shouldn't be dying 3 days later because no one can seem to figure out a way to get food and water to them. I heard a spokesman for FEMA on the radio this afternoon and he was asked why it's taking so long to get help for these people. His answer was "well, we were caught off guard." You've got to be kidding me! This storm has been bearing down on NO for days. Of course there are going to be people who, by their own choice or not, don't leave the city. I can't believe the most powerful country in the world didn't seem to prepare for that!
they arent just saw it on CNN...fire marshal ordered that HPD not allow anymore people..."reached max capacity in these circumstances" the buses that had just arrived were diverted to other shelters...
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Thursday that 4,200 National Guard troops trained as military police will be deployed in New Orleans over the next three days, which he said would quadruple the law enforcement presence in the city. Pentagon officials said the first contingent of 100 military police officers would arrive at Louis Armstrong International Airport at 10 p.m. (11 p.m. ET) -- combat-ready for immediate deployment in New Orleans. link _______________ Unbelievable ~ why aren't they rushing in an entire brigade?
the ultimate, irony, reliant will be dormant. In a catastropher, will they actually let reliant sit there unused.
I work for a city housing authority once. Maybe FEMA has had to send out everything for bids. Government agencies love to hold bid processes for everything. Maybe they are taking bids on who can provide the cheapest buses and drivers?
