Help Brothers & Sisters in N.O.

[Zero]

Re: • Unreleased DVD Warns Poor: Save Yourself •

Hmm... interesting story. Why did it take so long for evacuation plans to begin? It says that over the past 9 months, they've prepared about 90% of the plans, but what about before 9 months ago?

Sounds like everyone was ill-prepared.. Bush just accepted responsibility for the Fed's poor response.

You'd be suprised how many cities have disaster plans that are in some state of incompleteness or revision. Could have happened to any number of large cities. What happened in N.O. can only really be rivalled by maybe the "Big One" in Cali (when it comes) as far as scope of the disaster. If the "big one" hit Cali today, similar stories would come out about cities in Cali. No matter how much you plan, when the shit hits the fan, the story changes. Every plan will underestimate some aspects. Another thing people need to consider is that evacuating the entire population of a city requires multi-jurisdictional cooperation and I don't think that has really been considered until this happened. An affective N.O. hurricane plan would have to involve a LOT of surrounding cities in TX, LA, AR, MS, AL, etc., same thing will go for any Cali evacuation plan. Given the population density, if the "big one" were to hit, they'd have to spread Californians all over the country. A lot of this shit is "after the fact thinking". It's easy to judge, "after the fact".

 

[vitrifier]

Re: • Unreleased DVD Warns Poor: Save Yourself •

Yeah, I understand that, but was there an actual plan 9 months ago? I understand that every plan goes through stages, and certain tactics are substituted for ones that are deemed inneffective, but what was the prevoius plan?

I personally think they did everything they could to evacuate the city, and that opening the Dome and convention centers were good ideas (they'd do the equivalent here, too...then again, a soft-top dome might not be the greatest place for that, maybe the hockey arenas and the Target Center instead). I doubt any city in the country that size could be evacuated more than 80%. I know Mpls couldn't, same situation, huge metro areas with a high percentage of poor people with little or no private transportation (we do have excellent public transportation, though).

Most of the natural disasters that occur here are more suited to people staying inside their own houses, though. Can't really think of why we'd have to evacuate, except a military attack.

 

[Zero]

Re: • Unreleased DVD Warns Poor: Save Yourself •

Yeah, I understand that, but was there an actual plan 9 months ago? I understand that every plan goes through stages, and certain tactics are substituted for ones that are deemed inneffective, but what was the prevoius plan?

I personally think they did everything they could to evacuate the city, and that opening the Dome and convention centers were good ideas (they'd do the equivalent here, too...then again, a soft-top dome might not be the greatest place for that, maybe the hockey arenas and the Target Center instead). I doubt any city in the country that size could be evacuated more than 80%. I know Mpls couldn't, same situation, huge metro areas with a high percentage of poor people with little or no private transportation (we do have excellent public transportation, though).

Most of the natural disasters that occur here are more suited to people staying inside their own houses, though. Can't really think of why we'd have to evacuate, except a military attack.

Some of the best prepared areas in the country for their particular brand of disaster are "snow cities". You'd think hurricane cities would be equally prepared since the number of major blizzards we experience is about equal to the number of hurricanes they experience, but I guess the "staying inside" instead of evacuation portion of the planning makes things %1000 easier.

You know, as foul is this may seem, until Katrina hit, disaster planning was VERY low priority politically all over the country. Politicians assume that voters want to see tangible results, so things like 20 year levee projects and earthquake-proof construction projects just don't get votes (or that's the assumption). Areas of Japan have ALL THREE problems, they have built cities on recaptured land that is sinking, prone to monsoons and tsunamis and ALSO lie on major fault lines, but they have taken measures to make sure they survive these issues through massive, expensive and time consuming engineering projects. This may not be completely evident to the inhabitants of those areas, but it was done, regardless. The American politician would be comitting the equivalent of political suicide to even suggest such things. I guess, by that measure, this is partially the fault of the voter who puts off the future for the present so regularly.

On the other hand, people need to realize that major public works projects boost the economy. Had Louisiana and the federal government made a commitment to redesign and rebuid those levees, the economic situation in N.O. and the surrounding areas would have been much improved and many of those in poverty that could not leave may, very well, been in a postion to evacuate.

A lot of folks will try to "Monday morning quarterback" this tragedy, but there were actually two tragedies...

The natural disaster called Katrina
And the man-made disaster called the "Great flood of 2005"

One of them was unavoidable, but the other is the fault of generations of complacency and passing the buck on EVERY level, including the constituants who would vote against any politician willing to make such a comittment. Isn't it curious that no matter how bad the domestic situation got in this country, the polls showed it was still a LOW priority to most Americans. Well, this biblically massive slap in the face should serve as a wake-up call "Never take shit for granted!".

 

[Greed]

African American relief efforts pick up steam

African American relief efforts pick up steam
Helping survivors link with communities called important
By Jeremy Schwartz
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Saturday, September 17, 2005

Donell Creech, the founder of an Austin Web site dedicated to African American happenings in town, remembers how he felt watching relief efforts in the media in the days after Hurricane Katrina. "You see all these great and wonderful things people are doing for survivors here, but. . . where are the black faces?" Creech, 36, said. "Since most of the survivors look like us, where's our presence?"

That question has been answered countless times over the past two weeks, as African American leaders and groups in Austin have arrayed an army of help for evacuees from New Orleans, everything from offering rides around town to church donation drives to mentoring programs.

Many leaders see the stakes as high because many evacuees, overwhelmingly African American, may become a permanent part of the local community.

Working largely through black churches, much of the African American relief effort has been aimed at helping newcomers forge links with the communities that they will soon call home.

"You can meet their physical needs, but their long-term need is a sense of feeling connected," said Pastor Gary Renfro, of Corinth Missionary Baptist Church in East Austin. "It needs to go past donations and we need to be in a position to make that happen."

Albert Alford Coleman and Kevin Kellup, friends from the New Orleans neighborhood of Algiers who reunited unexpectedly at the Austin Convention Center, say they are overwhelmed by the help they've received but have relished their contact with African American volunteers and residents.

"They can relate to you better," said Kellup, 51. Other African Americans, he added, can help with little things such as where to get a good plate of red beans and rice or hair products for women, and larger questions, such as what parts of the city might be better to live in.

One of the largest African American-led relief efforts is unfolding just off East 11th Street, in a second-floor room donated by a Masonic lodge. In the past 10 days, the Community Action Development and Assistance group has found new homes for more than 400 people leaving the convention center. A database will allow volunteers to keep in touch with them.

The effort is run through an arm of the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church, but it has rolled like a growing snowball, getting help from other churches, social organizations and the Austin chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Creech is organizing a group that will serve as acollective for the African American relief effort. Called Project AROS, or Austin Reaching Out to Survivors, it is centered on a Web site that functions as a clearinghouse for African American relief efforts. Creech, who has run soulciti.com for about six years, says the site will have information on relief groups, donation needs and ways to get involved.

Project AROS is seeking to raise $500,000 for survivors, and it is acting as an umbrella organization, linking to churches and groups such as the Urban League and Capital City African American Chamber of Commerce.

The Austin Revitalization Authority is donating proceeds from ticket sales to today's second annual East End SoulFest on East 11th Street to the Project AROS fund and letting Katrina survivors in free.

"It's the first time since I've been in Austin that I've seen so much outreach across different organizations," Creech said.

The arrival of almost 5,000 evacuees coincides with ongoing City Council discussions about improving the quality of life for Austin's African Americans, a population that's shrinking largely because of a flight to the suburbs. Groups are discussing everything from health care and education to culture, and the city has approved about $730,000 to implement recommendations.

Participants say the new arrivals can be an impetus for the process.

"Instead of pulling us away from what's happening with (the quality-of-life initiative), it makes us look harder at it," said Anoa Monsho, a writer. "It has thrown into stark relief how important these issues are."

Creech said he thinks that the newcomers, arriving at a crucial juncture for the area's African American population, can benefit from the discussions.

"The time is good for black people coming to Austin right now because . . . the city is listening and listening with its checkbook," Creech said.

And becoming part of the city will require more than just finding a place to live.

"The bottom line," Renfro said, "is that when the hype goes away, they're going to be in the community and we want them to know that they have a place to plug in."

East End SoulFest:

Where: Kenny Dorham's Backyard, 1106 E. 11th St.

When: Show starts at 6 p.m.

Cost: $20, free to evacuees

Info: www.theeastend.org

Also, a dominoes tournament at 2 p.m. today at Gene's New Orleans Style PoBoys & Deli, 1209 E. 11th St.

http://www.statesman.com/metrostate/content/metro/stories/09/17aaresponse.html

 

[QueEx]

Re: African American relief efforts pick up steam

A "Good News" story. Thanks.

QueEx

 

[muckraker10021]

Re: African American relief efforts pick up steam

<img src="http://proquest.umi.com/i/pub/7818.gif">
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Tragedy In Black And White</font>
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by PAUL KRUGMAN Sep 19, 2005. pg. A.25


By three to one, African-Americans believe that federal aid took so long to arrive in New Orleans in part because the city was poor and black. By an equally large margin, whites disagree.

The truth is that there's no way to know. Maybe President Bush would have been mugging with a guitar the day after the levees broke even if New Orleans had been a mostly white city. Maybe Palm Beach would also have had to wait five days after a hurricane hit before key military units received orders to join rescue operations.

But in a larger sense, the administration's lethally inept response to Hurricane Katrina had a lot to do with race. For race is the biggest reason the United States, uniquely among advanced countries, is ruled by a political movement that is hostile to the idea of helping citizens in need.
Race, after all, was central to the emergence of a Republican majority: essentially, the South switched sides after the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Today, states that had slavery in 1860 are much more likely to vote Republican than states that didn't.

And who can honestly deny that race is a major reason America treats its poor more harshly than any other advanced country? To put it crudely: a middle-class European, thinking about the poor, says to himself, ''There but for the grace of God go I.'' A middle-class American is all too likely to think, perhaps without admitting it to himself, ''Why should I be taxed to support those people?''

Above all, race-based hostility to the idea of helping the poor created an environment in which a political movement hostile to government aid in general could flourish.

By all accounts Ronald Reagan, who declared in his Inaugural Address that ''government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem,'' wasn't personally racist. But he repeatedly used a bogus tale about a Cadillac-driving Chicago ''welfare queen'' to bash big government. And he launched his 1980 campaign with a pro-states'-rights speech in Philadelphia, Miss., a small town whose only claim to fame was the 1964 murder of three civil rights workers.

Under George W. Bush -- who, like Mr. Reagan, isn't personally racist but relies on the support of racists -- the anti-government right has reached a new pinnacle of power. And the incompetent response to Katrina was the direct result of his political philosophy. When an administration doesn't believe in an agency's mission, the agency quickly loses its ability to perform that mission.

By now everyone knows that the Bush administration treated the Federal Emergency Management Agency as a dumping ground for cronies and political hacks, leaving the agency incapable of dealing with disasters. But FEMA's degradation isn't unique. It reflects a more general decline in the competence of government agencies whose job is to help people in need.

For example, housing for Katrina refugees is one of the most urgent problems now facing the nation. The FEMAvilles springing up across the gulf region could all too easily turn into squalid symbols of national failure. But the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which should be a source of expertise in tackling this problem, has been reduced to a hollow shell, with eight of its principal staff positions vacant.

But let me not blame the Bush administration for everything. The sad truth is that the only exceptional thing about the neglect of our fellow citizens we saw after Katrina struck is that for once the consequences of that neglect were visible on national

Consider this: in the United States, unlike any other advanced country, many people fail to receive basic health care because they can't afford it. Lack of health insurance kills many more Americans each year than Katrina and 9/11 combined.

But the health care crisis hasn't had much effect on politics. And one reason is that it isn't yet a crisis among middle-class, white Americans (although it's getting there). Instead, the worst effects are falling on the poor and black, who have third-world levels of infant mortality and life expectancy.

I'd like to believe that Katrina will change everything -- that we'll all now realize how important it is to have a government committed to helping those in need, whatever the color of their skin. But I wouldn't bet on it.
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[QueEx]

Re: African American relief efforts pick up steam

BUMPING SELECTED KATRINA THREADS ON THE 4TH ANNIVERSARY


<font size="5"><center>On Katrina Anniversary, Obama Pledges to End
"Turf Wars" that Slow Recovery</font size></center>


Washington Post
By Michael A. Fletcher
August 29, 2009


President Obama used his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday to mark the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, saying that his administration is cutting red tape and bulking up resources to accelerate the Gulf Coast's recovery from the storm.

Obama said that 11 of his Cabinet members have visited the region in the seven-plus months since his administration took office, and he said he, too, plans to visit the area later this year.

He said his administration has made a priority of fostering greater cooperation among federal, state and local governments.

"I have made it clear that we will not tolerate red tape that stands in the way of progress, or waste that can drive up the bill," Obama said. "Government must be a partner -- not an opponent -- in getting things done."

While the federal government appropriated more than $100 billion for Katrina rebuilding efforts during the Bush administration, complex federal rules and problems with state government programs, particularly in Louisiana, have slowed spending, and thus the pace of recovery.

Obama declared those days over. "No more turf wars," he said. "All of us need to move forward together, because there is much work to be done."

The 2005 storm bludgeoned much of the Gulf Coast and drowned New Orleans. In all, more than 1,000 people were killed and than 1 million people were displaced.

To prevent a recurrence of such a disaster, Obama said, the federal government must continue the work of rebuilding hundreds of miles of levees and floodwalls around New Orleans. The government also must work to bolster the barrier islands and wetlands in the region, which he called the Gulf Coast's "first line of defense" against devastating hurricanes.

FULL STORY HERE

 

[muckraker10021]

<font face="arial Black" size="5" color="#D90000">Neal Boortz says : If New Orleans Is Rebuilt,<br> The ‘Debris That Katrina Chased Out’ Will Return </font>
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Yesterday, hate-radio talk show host Neal Boortz mocked President Obama’s pledge to rebuild New Orleans, calling the victims of Hurricane Katrina human trash. This weekend, President Barack Obama told the New Orleans Times-Picayune that he “remains focused on rebuilding New Orleans and the Gulf Coast,” and anything less “<a href="http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2009/08/post_1.html">would be a betrayal of who we are</a> as a country.” Boortz responded on Twitter by attacking the “<a href="http://twitter.com/Talkmaster/status/3537276200">debris that Katrina chased out</a>“

Boortz, who <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/200708100005">regularly mocks Latinos</a>, <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/200808200005">women</a> and the <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/200608030007">poor</a> — even calling Rep. Cynthia McKinney a “<a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/200603310005">ghetto slut</a>” — made an expansive case that the combined natural and human disaster of Hurricane Katrina actually helped the city of New Orleans on his June 24, 2009 radio show. Although Katrina’s devastation cost this nation $80 billion, killed thousands, and displaced a million people, Boortz believes “<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GrgOgmp2MY">Katrina cleansed New Orleans</a>“::

Boortz has also called the overwhelmingly black and poor victims of the Katrina disaster in New Orleans “<a href="http://boortz.com/nealz_nuze/2009/02/beyond-belief.html">human parasites</a>” and “<a href="http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200606070003">deadbeats</a>,” even suggesting that a victim of Hurricane Katrina consider prostitution instead of “<a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/200510240014">sucking off taxpayers</a>.”

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http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/08/26/boortz-katrina-debris/


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