Some background to illustrate a point relevent to my previous post.

New Orleans hundreds of years of history has multiple examples of floods from semi-tropical downpours, hurricanes, and levee failures.




What happened in 2005 was radically different.



( More illustrated history )

In short:

There's a difference between a flood that gets your feet wet in the street



And one that drowns you in your attic.



Heck of a job, MRGO.

Vimeo video: Harry Shearer on confronting Brian Williams about the levee disaster. Big TV news: About sharing emotions, not facts.

Editor B: Four Years Post-Katrina

[edited to add]

New York Times: In New Orleans, Recovery Is Not Enough


( text mirror )

Snarky but interesting early look at next year's mayor race in New Orleans:

The Root: "Who Will Run New Orleans?" by Eli Ackerman

Video by John McCusker, done for the Katrina anniversary last year. Reposted "because little has changed since then":

Times-Picayune Video: Ghosts of Katrina

New look at Memorial Hospital during the great levee failure disaster:

New York Times: Strained by Katrina, a Hospital Faced Deadly Choices

Why do Republicans Hate Our Troops, latest episode:

Veterans for Common Sense: Veterans Demand Apology from GOP and FOX for Lies About VA

Coming up to the 4th anniversary of the worst disaster to hit a U.S. city in 99 years. New Orleans population has rebounded to some 3/4 of its pre-K level, and local culture is in a number of ways thriving, it seems to me in no small part in an act of deliberate defiance. In governmental response, however, "Heck of a Job" remains the unfortunate rule. Various details:

"Katrina Cottages": some finally under construction in Louisiana; none yet occupied by anyone who lost their home.

Delgado College lost its library in the Katrina levee failure flooding. FEMA promised funds to restore the building and restock with books. The library building is still empty.

Times-Picayune today: FEMA & Coast Guard to get to work clearing up some 6,000 Katruba sunk boats and other objects clogging waterways in S. Louisiana

Levees.org: Saying Katrina destroyed New Orleans is like saying traffic destroyed the Minneapolis bridge

Guardian: Four years on, Katrina remains cursed by rumour, cliche, lies and racism. Ordinary people mostly behaved well. Those in power panicked, spread fear and fiction, and showed eagerness to kill

29 August 2005: President George W. Bush takes a break from his vacation to fly out to Phoenix for the birthday of his pal Senator John McCain.


Do you remember where you were, what you were doing, how you felt on August 29th 2005? If you live in a section of the USA about the size of Britain, stretching from the western Florida Panhandle to past Grand Isle Louisiana and a long bit inland, you probably remember it all too well.

If you lived in other parts of the country, you may have noticed something about it on the news. Hurricane Katrina.



( Bush & McCain FAILED to defend America )

H and I are contemplating it might be road trip time again, as Hurricane Gustav is forcasted to be heading to the central Gulf Coast.

I've never seen so much activity while a storm was this far out before. There were lines at gas stations in Chalmette 2 days ago and some buildings Uptown being boarded up yesterday. While I always keep an eye on storm threats, the early track projections heading straight towards us didn't worry me much, as one thing I don't recall any hurricane doing is continuing in a straight line for 6 days.

I'll be keeping an eye on the National Hurricane Center website, and the birds. The birds bugged out the Saturday before Katrina; if they go I'm not sticking around. Rumors have it that Da Mayor may issue an evacuation order way early and at lower hit possibility than Ivan etc.

Of course people here have their minds on the terrible scenes from this time 3 years ago







The horror... the horror...

Today's installment in the unending "Heck of a Job" sitcom series:

FEMA held on to 85 million dollars worth of relief supplies for Katrina victims for over 2 years after the disaster, paying rent to store the supplies in warehouses.

Salon.com article "How Karl Rove played politics while people drowned".

Lots of confirmation of stuff those of us who've kept a close eye things already knew, but some new details.

Favorite detail I didn't already know: Gov. Blanco personally gave President Bush a two-page letter detailing everything the state needed to cope with the disaster. Bush "lost" the letter. Ooopsie.

( Text mirror )

"We must also prepare, far better than we have, to respond quickly and effectively to a natural calamity. When Americans confront a catastrophe they have a right to expect basic competence from their government. Firemen and policemen should be able to communicate with each other in an emergency. We should be able to deliver bottled water to dehydrated babies and rescue the infirm from a hospital with no electricity. Our disgraceful failure to do so here in New Orleans exposed the incompetence of government at all levels to meet even its most basic responsibilities." -- John McCain

Applause. I'm not planning to vote for McCain, and I may never applaud him again, but he earned my applause for saying this.

Though he said it not "here in New Orleans" but 2 cities over in Kenner, Louisiana.

Also, contrary to the McCain campaign official transcript above, he spoke it as "deliver hot bottled water to dehydrated babies". Whatever.

And more importantly, as bad as the "natural calamity" was, the man-made one was very much worse.

And McCain twice voted against establishing a Congressional commission to examine Federal, State, and local response to devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina. He also voted against emergency relief after the disaster, funding communications for disaster first reponders, and other relevent items.

Perhaps you think such proposals should be opposed on the grounds of keeping the government small.

Perhaps you think William Howard Taft was a damn Commie for authorizing the army to bring food and tents to San Francisco after the great earthquake.

Perhaps you think when the shit hits the fan, it is better to let our citizens die of from lack basic necessities than to spend government funds to save their lives. Maybe you have no problem with America being a country whose government leaves the corpses of its people who die unnecessarily bloated in the sun, to be eaten by rats and dogs.

If so, I disagree with you. But I'd have a modicum more respect for you had the courage to damn well admit it.

News story: "A New Orleans civil judge has ruled that a case brought by a couple who were turned back by police when they tried to cross a Mississippi River bridge following Hurricane Katrina should be heard by a court." "Turned back" makes the situation sound much more civil than it was.

Nice profile of pianist/composer Tom McDermott from Offbeat Magazine

Some stuff on the web I found of interest:

5,200 year old potters wheel zoetrope animation


Harry Shearer: The Pulitzer for Getting Katrina Right is Yet to be Awarded

New edition of Frommer's Guide on New Orleans

Driftglass on the Democratic primary fight excerpt:
"God knows after eight years of Dubya and five years of Iraq no one should have to explain this to Senator Clinton, but the first test of real leadership is not just how well you fight the necessary and unavoidable battles, but how well you keep us the Hell out of stupid, unnecessary conflicts in the first place ... how much clearer does it have to be that the worst possible trait to have in a leader is a willingness – an eagerness! -- to fudge facts, gin up divisive brawls out of thin air and lob bombs to advance their personal political agendas and fortunes."

On the 2nd anniversary of the worst engineering disaster in US history, some folks have stuff to say. For instance:

Marrus

People Get Ready

Seamusd

Ashley Morris

I'll just say, for those who've helped, a thousand thank yous.
For those whose job it was to help and didn't, a thousand f*ck yous.

No shortage of problems, but would I trade it to have moved to somewhere "safe" and "normal" back before the disaster? Hell no!

Viva New Orleans!

Beth, Hollie, and I had very nice mini-vaction to Gulf Shores, Alabama. We checked out some of the Mississippi Coast on the way back.

( Read more... )

In Katrina's Wake: Where Is the Money?

Speaking of which, Da Po' Blog on Bush's dubious $ claim

Former FEMA hack Michael D. "Heck of a job" Brown reveals yet more dirt that many suspected: A chance to screw over Democrats was a higher priority in Bushco's Katrina response than was saving American lives. Brown: Party politics played role in Katrina response. Nice to have this on the record, but as I've said before, sorry Brownie, you still don't get to pull your reputation out of the toilet, because you went along with this when it was actually killing your countrymen.

Speaking of people who failed to stand up to BushCo when it mattered most, Bob Harris argues that Hillary's full support for Bush's invasion of Iraq makes her unelectable.

In local news, as a non sports fan, I have to say: Go Saints! Go capture that supurb owl, or whatever it is you do. Rah.