Greta Van Nosteren on FoxNews was just jocking Houston and how great the people have been down here. How this city is giving hope to these people, and how we seemed more prepared for this than New Orleans. She kept going on and on how amazing this city has been. I did some work at a donation site this morning and the amount of items being droped off were incredible. There were stacks and stacks of bags of clothes, water, diapers, etc.. The refugee's might end up with a bigger wardrobe than me after this.
I've always told people that I love being from Texas. Espcially from Houston. I know this city isnt perfect. This isn't a beautiful city. We don't have beautiful scenery. We have bad traffic, smog, pollution, crime, never ending strip malls, bad drivers, potholes in the road. I love it. But we do have some good people. Can't really say anything bad about it. I watch the news and I see Houston being mentioned a lot and that pumps me up. I see how they said we took these people in and gave them shelter. That's just Houston being Houston. I hope it puts Houston in a better light. As for myself, I really haven't had time to do anything. I work downtown at the Library, and I was answering the phones, and this lady said she wanted to know if we had internet access at the Libraries. I asked her where she was at, and she said somewhere near Northwest Freeway. The closest Library near 290 is the one at Pinemont. She was from Louisiana, and had no clue, so she gave me the name of the motel, and some landmarks near that place. I still had no clue, till she said a Bowling Alley. She was near the Windfern Bowling alley, and I gave her directions to the Collier Library branch. That felt pretty damn good.
I'm broke right now, but Bill White pays me on Friday, and I will buy some formula and crap like that.
that's awesome, kam. yeah, our libraries will be a huge resource for people looking for jobs. last night at a dinner we hosted at our church, i referred a lady who used to teach music to elementary schools to a nearby library for internet access. she wanted to check job openings in local districts.
Normally, to get a Library Card at the Houston Public Library, you need to be a resident of the state, but right now, they are letting people with Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi get library cards for free for three months. Maybe they can check out books to past time or something.
We do deserve a pat on the back, but let's not forget that we've only just begun. These people in the Astrodome, in the George R. Brown, aren't going back to New Orleans. There ain't no New Orleans anymore. It's going to take months just to drain the city, let alone level and rebuild her. Nobody's going to wait years for there to be a city to return to. These refugees, who have seen some **** that would turn us all white over the last week, are Houstonians now. Let's make sure to take this opportunity to show our new neighbors (and the world) how we treat one another in this city. Sure, right now when the scenes of devestation are all over TV, there will be so many volunteers that they're turned away. That won't be the case a month from now. Might not be the case a week from now. Having lived in Louisiana, these helpless folks know from experience that they can't rely on government. Let's continue to show them that they can rely on Houston.
i know for a fact that if a walgreen employee(louisiana) wants a job at any walgreens store, they HAVE to be given a position immediately... pretty damn good rule.
So doesn't that directly cut into the hours someone else works and take away from their money or do they just add extra people and let more employees work at the same time?
doestn cut anyones time or hours, infact, the store itself isnt even affected, because corporate is paying for them directly...
Anybody get the feeling that 10 years from now, after the hurricane has faded from most American's memories that Houston will be getting 'dogged' by the media and other cities for stuff like having "such a large homeless population" and other crap like that which is directly attributable to the after-effects from the storm?
Harrisment - thanks for posting the article indicating the American government was turning away aid. I didn't have any time to find an article yesterday. To be (a little) fair, though, the initial countries hit by the tsunami also turned down aid at the start... I still don't think that's an excuse for us to say no when countries that support us right away include: * Canada - a "local" country, and * the Netherlands - which has a decent corps of engineers ready to handle silly things like levees Oh well - God bless everyone for helping, and man, I miss Houston.
Hats off to Houston and in particular Bill White. I shudder to think how this would have gone under Bob Lanier or Lee Brown. I'm very proud to be a Houstonian today.
No, I don't. First, to Mayor White. A friend of mine who works for Baylor (they are handling most of the healthcare at the Dome) was at the Dome all last week and he was there when White was giving his press conference. He said he had no assistants or handlers or anything. When he wanted to conference with the doctors, he turned around to the media and said, "Do NOT follow me. Just wait and I'll be with you when I am done. NO pictures now." They just stood and waited while he talked to the doctors for 15 minutes coordinating what to do. The then went out and said, "I want Reliant Center open NOW." My friend said Judge Eckles balked at first saying that they had a lot of events scheduled in the coming weeks. White just told him on the phone, literally, "I don't care. Cancel them...right now." DAMN!!! That guy has been balls out money. Way to go, Mr. Mayor! Second, to the rest of the city. This is Houston, period. This is simply the way the city works. We have always been this way. We will always be this way. We may have close to 100,000 new residents - many of them, no doubt, permanent - but, for us, the more the merrier. I could give a rat's ass if people think we are ugly or not. As I said in the "Houston is ugly" thread, I don't live in a city for the scenery. I live here for the people. We rock.
Yeah, I was really inspired by White's response and handling of the situation. I also love what we're doing as a city, it is amazing. But.. what you just said doesn't really make me feel any different.. why do you think that won't happen? I'm not being pessimistic.. ok well, maybe I am.. but this is the real world to me.. people have short attention spans and become very judgemental. I never said I -cared- about what other people thought about Houston in terms of image, I love the city and the people here, including our new found residents.. I was just saying this is a distinct possibility.
thing is.....it doesnt matter. the only people that matter already know how much this area rocks...this city( and all the surrounding ones) makeup one of the friendliest and most caring metorpolitan area in this country...and as long as we continue to show the support and the love that we show in times like these..the only folks that matter will know.
I think you are also making the assumption that a lot of people who are coming here are going to end up homeless, which is a flawed assessment of the situation. Many of these people just lost everything they owned, but that doesn't mean that they are going to come here and sit on street corners to beg for food. If anything, I would guess a lot of them will simply find work here. Given the situation though, it is un-important at this point. It's like spending every penny you have on an operation that saves your life. Sure, you're broke, but you're still alive.
This is another interesting problem. How can we get these people back on their feet? The port of Houston should be seeing increased traffic because of the damage to other ports along the coast.. can we start busing people to work there? Once New Orleans is dried out (somewhat).. can we establish shelters there, bus people back to New Orleans, and pay them to help rebuild and clean up the city? I hope we can work this out.
