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With the harrowing (and crazy - you've seen the looting video) news footage of Katrina's wake in Louisianna and Mississippi and Louisiana governor's announcement that everyone must leave New Orleans, New Yorkers have been working to help out the affected, whether by heading down there or helping raise money.
Matt at Dorking Out had some suggestions about the best way to rebuild New Orleans, as in a floating megacity and references how on the Simpsons, the town of Springfield picked up and moved when it was full of trash (thanks to Sanitation Commissioner Homer). Which then reminded us of the cruel C. Montgomery Burns quote from "The Old Man and the Lisa":
Oh, so Mother Nature needs a favor? Well, maybe she should have thought of that when she was besetting us with droughts and floods and poison monkeys. Nature started the fight for survival and now she wants to quit because she's losing? Well, I say Hard cheese!In the face of these hard cheese times, there are many ways you can help. WNBC Channel 4 is having a Tsunami Relief Fund Drive tonight at 7PM, and the NY chapter of the Red Cross is taking donations; Ask Gothamist also wrote about how you can help.
Also, reader Rebecca pointed out how the captions for some agency photos of Katrina victims might be racist: This AP photo of a black man with food describes him as having looted a store while the AFP picture of two white people says they found food at a grocery store. Who writes these captions - the agencies or Yahoo News?
The NY Times on Hurricane Katrina. And the NY Post cover-headlines it as "Our Tsunami," which is ridiculous; it's devastating, yes, but it pales in comparison.
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Isn't it a little ridiculous to call this "our tsunami" when the Southeast Asia tsunami killed upward of 100,000? How many did Katrina kill?
so freaking typical of the assh*les at the post..I hope they get flooded by raw sewage
They're still counting the dead but its going into the hundreds that’s for sure.
The problem is the more we tend to fight back the forces of nature, the more damage it causes in return if something goes wrong.
Perhaps we should build a New New Orleans, but this time . . . don’t build it below sea level near a lake and the Gulf of Mexico Please.
Um...you mean "hurricane relief" not tsunami. whoops.
anybody have a pointer to this "crazy" looting video? just curious.
When taken out of context the "our tsunami" remark is ridiculous. The quote is reasonable in context -- it comes from the mayor of Biloxi, whose town was mostly destroyed by Katrina.
Yeah, not that I enjoy defending the Post, but the headline is a quote from the mayor of Biloxi. If you've seen any of the helicopter footage of Biloxi, the hyperbole kind of seems appropriate. There are gigantic floating casinos that were docked in the harbor of Biloxi that have been lifted and moved hundreds of yards inland -- similarly to the many ships that were moved a mile inland by the Asian tsunami. It's an unbelievable sight to see.
They will find hundreds of dead people in the wreckage. The death toll won't be as high as the Asian tsunami, but it will be tragic nonetheless. I think we can all agree that this is an incredible tragedy.
Public officials in MS and LA should be held accountable for the disastrous lack of planning that will likely result in huge casualties. As usual, its the poor and black that will suffer the most.
Give them a break in Lousiana, their world has been washed away, when all of the things YOU love and home are destroyed then you can complain - until then get off your high horse and relax.
Thanks, Joe. I was about to post the same thing. And I'm not even going to touch the "it's their own fault" or "people shouldn't live there" memes.
give who a break exactly? the morons who couldnt build a proper levee? the notoriously corrupt and racist public officials who failed to design a proper evacuation plan? the people who have lost everything arent the ones being criticized, its the ones who should have done more and the ones who continue to spout meaningless rhetoric who are under scrutiny as they should be. giving them a break is not what anyone needs right now.
SP, I feel your outrage, but it is seriously misdirected, and dangerously uninformed.
Agreed. I wouldn’t exactly blame the Army Core of Engineers. This was a very powerful storm that pretty much flattened everything in its path and overrode all levees that were build decades ago, designed to handle much smaller swells of water. And most people died because they failed to heed the warnings of their public officials in the first place to leave town, even though I did think there should’ve been a warning way beforehand, they warned that this was probably the big one and everyone should do everything in their power to flee.
Yes people die. It’s tragic. But we learn from our mistakes and we build better. We’re only human
SP, are you aware how long ago those levees were built?? Those that you complain about have long ago been buried. We can only hope that there's more compassion in the world as opposed to the negative anger that you possess. Remember, we are "one nation" and these folks need our support right now......not harsh words and hatred!
The people of NOLA have been aware for as long as they have been there (only about THREE HUNDRED YEARS now), that there was a huge risk of flooding. There is no excuse for not having levees built beforehand, and for not having a plan in place to close the inevitable breaches in the levees after a storm hits.
As for an evacuation plan, there was none. The plan was basically "get out of town as quick as you can!" And Kojack, the idea that the people who died were at fault because they didnt heed the warning is a myth. They died because they had no means of leaving, there was no public evacuation transportation in place. If you are poor and dont have your own car, youre shit out of luck. That is unacceptable.
Shell, you are wrong to believe that I am full of anger and hatred towards these people. When disaster strikes and there is nothing in place to protect the people, officials MUST BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE, not given a free pass. They arent elected simply to pose for cameras at gala events, they are elected to manage their jurisdictions, which in this case, they failed to do miserably. Of course the rescuers and relief workers need help and support, but for the sake of the people most affected, there should also be justice.
Hmmmm... perhaps the losers at the HOT-97 Morning Show should write a parody song...
My thoughts and prayers go to all the victims of this tradgedy
N.O. is a filthy, mossy, mildewy, rotting, collapsing, bug infested city, and that was BEFORE the hurricane. One can only imagine how much worse can it get...not by much, once they pump the water out! I am concerned about all the poor black people (about 80% of N.O. population, the other 20% divided between French chefs and junkies on a William Burroughs kick) who will have absolutely nothing. Now that the city is getting evacuated, I see a lot of mistreatment of those people in the near future. After all, the southerners have a bad reputation for mistreating poor blacks--i.e. enslaving them, making them live in shotgun shacks 10 feet below sea level, etc, etc.
I think those that point to the age of the levees miss the point. People have been calling for years for upgrades to the levees, only to not receive any funding for the projects. Especially in light of the strangth of the local oil industry, these oversights were inexcusable.
"It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that’s the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us." -- Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 8, 2004
thank you Janine.
oh, and strangth=strength...
Jacob, you are sorely misguided. Your comments are uninformed to the point of being ludicrous.
Signed,
A former New Orleans resident, now New Yorker
I found this amazing video link that is streaming the local Louisianna ABC TV affiliate news feed 24/7. I've been watching this a lot the past few days.
http://reallive.stream.aol.com/ramgen/redundant/abc/now_hi.rm
at ME:
I do not think you are from NO, you may be a David Duke lover from Metrarie, or a closet Huey Long fan from Baton Rouge, but you are definitely not from NO. The only pure humor of my facts was the 20% French chef+junky statistic. As someone who purports to be from NO you should have a chuckle about it. I stand by all the other facts.
New York, PLEASE have some compassion already and stop the blame game. Remember there were a lot of good southerners who came to New York to visit right after 9/11. Lets show them some respect and stop blaming their officials, stuctures, engineering ect. Lets be as strong as they were to us. As much as we dont like to admit it Nature always has the advantage over us humans. No matter how smart we are, how strong our buildings are or our evaculation plans we will never ever be able to beat mother nature.
me, don't reply. Don't do it. You must fight the troll bait!
kel, you just dont get it.
at ME:
BTW, I hope your family (if it is really in NO!) is alright. My heart breaks at what happened. Can't wait to go back there and puke on the levee behind the french market...
spend 200 million on a better levee and you won't have 25 billion dollars in damage. In other news the Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson announced a "temporary" nationwide waiver of certain pollution standards covering gasoline and diesel fuels an alleviation of the clean air act. hmmm this smells like a conspiracy to me. how "temporary" will this be?
As a former New Orleans resident and native of Baton Rouge I have to say that some on the comments on this thread are enraging. If you had a clue you would know that NOLA's last 4 mayors were black men as is most of the city council. Also, I happened to be in Baton Rouge when the mandatory evacuation of New Orleans was called. All roads lead WEST, there was a plan. The Superdome was opened as a shelter of last resort. Yes many people were left behind but they did have options. I know it's hard to believe but people like to stay with their belongings. Think about it, Ivan , Dennis and Lilly were all "HEADED STRAIT FOR US" and then turned. At some point people become immune even though we've all always know that this day could come.
As for the levees breaking, they were built ages ago and have held through many storms (Andrew, Georges) with no problems. This is a category 5 storm we're talking about here, there was just no way to fight back that water. Of course the pumps stopped working, they've failed in far weaker storms. Perhaps if our funding hadn't been cut and cut again by the federal government these things would have been maintained better.
I look at these images and can not process it, every place I held dear to my heart is now under 6 feet of water. I may live in New York but my love is New Orleans. I just hope she can fight back and regain the culture she's had since Bienville arrived.
Please donate to the Red Cross or any relief fund, these people have no money, no homes, no jobs and no relief in sight.
If Mother Nature wants to take a giant shit on us, there’s really not much we can do to prevent the widespread damage & loss of life which will ensue.
The more we try to hold it back and control her, the more damage it will inflict upon us.
If I were the city planners, I'd move New Orleans to higher ground. But that Neo Orleans Idea is a little out there...
maybe you should come down to New Orleans and see for yourself. The dead aren't being counted yet but they are they. and the people missing in Mississippi, those bodies will never be found. I live here, I am in Baton Rouge and if you don't think it is terrible down here for everybody, you are sadly mistaken. I really resent your attitude and your tone. You have no idea how desperate this situation is.
There is no question that what you are going through is horrible. Could a lot of it have been prevented, or lessened though? I think the answer to that is yes. The evacuation plan consisted of getting on the roads leading West? Thats it? What about people who have no cars? There was nothing for them. What about the levees? Why werent they at the very least maintained properly? Why werent better ones built? Why werent the pumps upgraded after they failed in lesser storms? Why wasnt a mandatory evacuation called for sooner? It was afterall a cat 5 hurricane, no?
Sorry, but you are missing the point, and while I am deeply sorry for your and all the other people's situations down there, it would be downright stupid to ignore the lapses in planning that led to an inordinate amount of death and destruction. If theres anyone you should be resentful of, its your president and you governors for ignoring the threats that have always loomed over the entire region.
And the whole "if mother nature wants to destroy us" kind of thinking is pure horseshit. Yes, the forces of natures are awesome and more powerful than anything we can control, but thats no excuse to not mobilize every reasonable resource BEFORE disaster strikes, especially in areas that are more prone to cataclysmic weather. That means no trailer parks in hurricane paths in Florida for example, no houses on stilts on sand bars, no tall inflexible concrete structures in places where there are a lot of earthquakes, and in places that are below sea level that happen to be on the coast and next to a lake that get a lot of hurricanes, build a really good levee and have multiple roads out that are high enough not to be flooded over. The fact that we know that mother nature is way more powerful than we can predict shouldnt be an excuse to stick our heads in the sand pray, but a hell of a good reason to be more intelligent about how we live.
Sorry, but thats just the hard facts. Again, no one is diminishing the horror that you are going through, but next time you go out and vote, try to pick someone who will do a better job in protecting your city. That means you will have to pay taxes to fund these kinds of preventative measures. Wow, paying taxes for the public good, what a concept!
you're not there, you don't know the magnitude of this matter, so you shouldn't have anything to say......when you've gone through a situation like this, then you'll know, all people that live in hurricane effect areas knows there are evacuation warnings...this was a big warning, until you're there buddy, then you'll know. they made it a mandatory evacuation, they even provided transportation to everyone who needed it. The elderly, the poor, the rich, the white, the black, the yellow, the red...it didn't matter....everyone was warned, some people just didn't have the means to go.....if you didn't have a rule of transportation, i'm sure you would be in the same boat. why is everyone getting soo mad about it being called 'our tsunami'....it is our tragedy....the United States and their "citizens" are sooooooo quick to help everyone out of their own country, but when tragedy happens to their own land, they criticize and belittle them..why don't you help them????...Don't forget, the south would do anything to help anyone in need.....
jacob, you're just a miserable person who is stuck in the past..get over it dude, its ok....come back to 2005....new orleans is a wonderful city filled with wonderful people.....obviously you don't know.....i'm sure whereever you're from, and it happened to your city, you wouldn't like it if someone talked about your city like that...right? just remember, we're all human man.....oh yeah, and um, don't you think that a black mayor wouldn't be racist towards his own kind? think before you speak....new orleans have had like 4 black mayors before him.....i'll pray for you man, you need all you could get
you can't force nature to do what you want or don't want it to do. I've been through hurricane warnings where we evacuated, and then the hurricane turned, and did not even touch us. It's nature. It is not like you could wave your magic wand and make it go away. Louisiana government for the longest time have been begging for the United States government to help save the Gulf Coast from erosion and to build a better stronger levee, but the past 20 years or so, have been denied of that better and stronger levee. So, through all the past government officials, they've been denied of that. So, before you go judging the citizens of the United States, pray that your country will rebuild and will unite as 1 country and help those in need.
Wow. All of this must be so easy to contemplate and argue about from the comfort of your still-standing, dry homes. There will be plenty of time for blame and figuring out solutions. For now, people are still trapped in attics, on rooftops and a lot of people are dead. Shame on all of you armchair engineers and civic planners who have absolutely NO clue about anything.
While sp's approach is a bit harsh, but he's right on the money.
For a city that is BUILT below sea level, it's simply bizarre how efforts to reinforce and modernize the levy system were shelved. Not only that, wetlands were drained to build casinos and other developments completely ignoring the natural flood barrier that wetlands provide.
Read more here:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article309471.ece
It's tragic, but at the same time when you build a city below sea level and encourage development that ignores natural threats... Well, this is what happens.
For those who suggest somehow we deserve this because we did not spend enough on our levee systems, please refer to an article in Salon by Sidney Blumenthal dated 8/31. In it he explains exactly where all the federal money that has been cut from our state budget has gone. Where do you think, for the last 3-4 years? You got it, looking for WMDs and Saddam and all those terrorists in Bagdad. Maybe now more people will wake to the destruction of this country and it's infrastructure by the current administration and it's 'cut taxes, wage war and screw the homeys' attitude. That's why we do not have enough National Guardmen to help police in NO, they are all overseas! This is the same federal administration that is now trying to screw NY state and NYC out of all that 9/11 money they promised. Remember?
I am not saying there might have been some poor decision making, etc., but the fact remains, our federal $$ have been drastically cut for the past several years and actually, the levees really did quite well. They were able to stand up to a Category 5 (just dropped to Category 4 right before it hit)hurricane and they were built to stand up to a Category 4. The storm surge caused such a backwash that the lake overflowed and the pressure and force of that water is what caused the breach of the levee. The pumps were just overworked and submerged by the flood. Of course, if we had $ for newer and stronger equipment, maybe things would have been different and maybe not. It is a huge lake and it was a huge hurricane and huge winds @125 mph.
We in Louisiana are not too good to have offshore oil rigs, we have pumped more oil for this country than Bagdad ever will or did and we have for years and years. And after we pump it out of our ground, we then refine it for you, we make gas, kerosene, propane because of our huge natural gas field. We make all kinds of chemicals that you use every day, whether you know it or not. We certainly deserve the rest of the country to stand up and intercede on our behalf with the federal government.
How about we all stand together as Americans in a time of a great natural disaster instead of all this petty fighting and bickering and sniping and snarky little comments? There will plenty of time for blame to be dealt out and I am sure there is plenty to go around for everyone.
Right now, let's just get these poor people out of the toxic soup, clean out that mess, and do what we can to strengthen the levee system and get this town and economy going again.
I love my state, I always loved to visit New Orleans and it makes me very sad and angry for people who have no idea what they are talking about to take easy shots at us at this time. Thanks for listening and everybody just chill.
PS You'll love this, in one of the larger evacuation centers, the Scientologists have set up tents and are counseling people....yikes! That Tom Cruise doesn't miss any opportunity. Pam from Baton Rouge, Louisiana
If money for the levee system was so goddamn important to New Orleans, why didn't Louisiana raise taxes to fund it? So what if the feds cut it short, the state government has a better understanding of the conditions than federal bureaucrats.
Louisiana should have raised a bond measure that would have funded the necessary levee upgrades.
In the end, we all lose.
i agree with pam...as americans, we should help each other out and quit bickering with each other and finding wrong in what's already been done. We are sooo quick to help outside of the country, but when it comes to our own, people lose interest quickly, judge, and say we deserve it
i agree with pam...as americans, we should help each other out and quit bickering with each other and finding wrong in what's already been done. We are sooo quick to help outside of the country, but when it comes to our own, people lose interest quickly, judge, and say we deserve it. what is wrong with that picture?
great post Pam. Thank you.
Dear New Orleans:
I remember after 9/11 when truckloads of you drove up here to feed the rescue workers for days with the best southern comfort food in the world.
I'm not a restaurant owner, but some those who post here might be or know one who is - so i'm lettng it be known that it's time to return the favor.
And that those of us who can't offer food are eagerly awaiting, as soon as things dry out, to get down there with our NYC tourist dollars (in addition to our charity dollars on the way now). You just give the word, we'll be there with beads on.
Love and best wishes for a speedy recovery,
Alo and all my neighbors and friends in NYC
From today's Chicago Tribune:
"I'm not saying it wouldn't still be flooded, but I do feel that if it had been totally funded, there would be less flooding than you have," said Michael Parker, a former Republican Mississippi congressman who headed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from October 2001 until March 2002, when he was ousted after publicly criticizing a Bush administration proposal to cut the corps' budget.
What i find depressing is the fact that while it is so noble to feel sympathy for the victims of katrina some of the same people think nothing of the horror of worst proportions that U.S. got. has unleasehd upon iraqis, destroying houses, hospitals, and lives. How noble is it to decide when to feel sorry and when not to, whose lives are more important and finally, is it about our own self, we decide whose houses we want to help build and whose do we want to pay to destroy?
Here's an excerpt from an online article appearing on The Miami Herald's website entitled "Hurricane coverage mesmerizes Europe"--posted Wed. Aug 31, 2005--which I found most interesting:
"Katrina led the news in the Netherlands, a land well acquainted with danger from the sea. With much of the country below sea level -- the country gets its name from that position -- the Dutch have learned to survive the ravages of angry winds and surging tides, but not without enduring catastrophe.
In one winter night in 1953, an unexpected combination of hurricane force winds and extraordinarily high tides sent the sea rushing above and through the dikes, killing more than 1,800 people and drowning some 47,000 cattle. Since then, hydraulic engineers have rebuilt a reinforced network of dams and pumps that has largely managed to keep the sea away.
'New Orleans floods even with minor storms,' said one Dutch woman who used to live in the Big Easy. 'It's like a Third World city.' Amsterdam, another major city below sea level, crisscrossed by canals and sitting along a major body of water, never seems to flood."
My point is, both New Orleans and The Netherlands appear to be in the same boat, so to speak. As such, instead of tryin to reinvent the wheel, simply incorporate whatever measures they did--since it's obviously working--when the time comes rebuilding New Orleans.
It's better to work with Mother Nature rather than fight her because in the end she WILL have the last say.
I believe this is a terrorist attack by the weasel French. They built New Orleans below sea level just to p1ss us off. We should be careful, as they also designed Washington... who knows what can happen now?!
Let's all take some time and actually pray because only GOD can control what is going to happen next. Prayer is the main thing needed now so that when donations are received, when the area is cleared, the individuals in charge will know what to do and how to do it.
Always remember, GOD is the creator of all and he has the final say...PERIOD!!
God bless and my prayers are with everyone!
Why bother rebuilding NO? It's been pointed out many times here, it's below sea level. Let it go. Move. I keep hearing "everything's gone" on the news. Well, then I guess there's nothing keeping you there. Why bother rebuilding it, it just doesn't seem worth the money when something like this could just happen again. A stitch in time saves nine.
LOL@Patrick!!
Very interesting comments!! It's not like the French intentionally removed soil just to make sure New Orleans would be below sea level. That's just the topography of the area. (Nature had a way of addressing that problem with the periodic Mississippi River floods, etc. Man, however, disrupted that process with the levees and other measures designed to keep New Orleans dry.) What the French did do--and ultimately the Americans who took over when the French left--was look beyond that "little" problem and see the bigger picture: DOLLARS!!!
New Orleans is a MAJOR port city, accounting for the vast majority of goods and services, raw materials, etc. that arrive in the US. So, even if you don't live in New Orleans trust me you WILL be affected by this catastrophe. That's how important that city is to the US economy. Not too many cities can make that claim.
"Bob"....why bother rebuilding new orleans? that's a idiotic comment don't you think? why rebuild san francisco and los angeles when there is a big earthquake.....i mean think before you speak...its an entire city....you wouldn't have all the things you have if it weren't for the port of new orleans or any port thanks to the gulf of mexico....it will be rebuilt no matter what you think.....
Hey folks, I have only visited NO once and loved it. I like the Acadian Parishes even more. Lafayette, that is a city a life-long southerner can love. I am heart sick over all the devastation, but hindsight is always 20-20. Let's all get together and do what we do best in a crisis, pull together.
As for Ma Nature, when she decides its payday, IT IS PAYDAY, and she don't take checks.
No offense, but realistically, your prayers seem to be ineffective.
Perhaps that's why the relief took so long--people were too busy praying instead of getting OFF THEIR ASSES AND RESCUING people. May god strike me with lightning if I'm wrong.
No atheists in the foxholes. If you were there you'd have been on your knees crying like a schoolgirl asking for divine help.
If you look at Holland, they are below sea level and have spent over 3 trillion dollars in massive water gates and huge metal walls to protect their country from tragic flooding (we could learn from them). New Orleans is much smaller, I bet it could be replicated (smaller scale) for less than 10 billion... Is this too much to protect human lives and prevent further homelessness?
The looter has a packed-full grocery bag in one hand and a batch of napkins in the other, while the finders have a loaf of bread and two liters of soda.
If you can't see the difference there, you are a moron.
Gut! Sehr schoen seite! ^^ Wirklich! :)