Hurricane Katrina: Some feelings on this whole mess

I went to bed last night angry and woke up this morning inspired. It's time to affect change so that we as a nation, and as a citizen of the world, are never unprepared again. If this had been a terrorist attack or natural disaster with little or no warning, no one would have evacuated and we would be talking about a human tragedy 10-times the scale we're seeing right now. (By which I mean hundreds of thousands of body bags instead of hundreds of thousands of refugees.) The nation has had four years since 9-11 to get something in place for a large scale disaster but as we can see, nothing effective has been done. In fact, money that could have lessened the impact of this particular disaster (one that was predicted many times for many years) had been cut. The folks in charge up in Washington now have a choice either fix the problem immediately or find themselves voted out at the next elections.

The answer I'm leaning to right now is a civil defense corp. Whether or not you agree with our nation's armed forces, reserves, and nat’l guard being stationed in Iraq right now, it's a situation we have to deal with. While plans were being drawn up to invade, federal level plans to replace the resources those lost reservists and guard members provided should also have been drawn up. In the past in the U.S. and in other nations that role was played by the Civil Defense Corps. Large groups of citizens, with some from every neighborhood, who are trained to deal with disasters, operate and distribute propositioned equipment and supplies, and are looked to in their community as leaders in time of emergencies, can step into the role of managing people in their communities during emergencies. This releases the National Guard members that are left as well as police and emergency personal to perform rescue missions and keep the peace as needed.

Hindsight is twenty-twenty, but it is already clear that this is a failure of monumental proportions by members of the government from the top on down. What must be done immediately is to get resources to the stricken areas ASAP. That effort looks like it is slowly materializing. Over the next few weeks congress must enact legislation that brings into existence the 'Civil Defense Corps' with a large enough budget for training and procuring the equipment and supplies necessary to deal with an emergency a magnitude larger in scale than the one occurring right now. Only then will we begin to be ready for the next catastrophe whether it is man or nature made.

In the meantime, if you haven't donated, please do so today. If you want to help some other way, please consider giving blood or signing up at the local Red Cross or Salvation Army for a volunteer shift at the phones.

[ Technorati Tags: civil+defense, hurricane, katrina, flood+aid, refugee, disaster, relief, emergency, donate, recovery ]

Gone, just gone.

When Stacey, Indigo, and I drove cross-country during our move in February we passed right through all those towns. We spent two nights in New Orleans and enjoyed the sights, but thought the French Quarter had seen better days. Now it certainly has. As we drove we commented on all the beautiful homes in Bay St. Louis, Gulfport, Biloxi... we wished we had the money to buy a home there, now as we watch survivors mourn over their losses, we are glad we hadn't. We stopped at the sharkhead souvenir shop and took photos, we ate at Pirates Cove (best Po'Boys and HushPuppies of the trip), marveled at the casinos.... Now all that is gone. Just gone.

Plus we have a human tragedy beyond imagining. The poor of New Orleans, Biloxi, and the rest of the gulf area have been abandoned by our government. Even the big media types are wondering how the situation could have gotten so bad. I hope the people in Washington who are supposed to know better pay with their jobs and at the midterm elections and we elect a house that has the balls to impeach the incompetent idiots that are mismanaging our country and our resources into ruin. Bush and company has had four years to get a plan into place. What if this had been a terrorist attack and instead of 200,000 people in New Orleans needing help, we had 1.2 million? In Japan they would all be resigning in shame and moving aside for people who could get results.

[ttags: hurricane, katrina, flood+aid, refugee, disaster, bush, impeach ]

Levees breached and city sinks

Kathryn Cramer has a great post on her blog showing exactly where the levees were breached and puts pictures together in ways that really show what sort of devastation is facing the once fine city of New Orleans.

Also see the Flickr set marked Hurricane Katrina.

Meanwhile the Haydens on Making Light show the blatent racism in the photos of Katrina looting on Yahoo.

Hurricane Katrina... wow!

I'm glad that Hurricane Katrina isn't forecast to bother Central Florida. A Catagory 5 hurricane is intense, like a F3 Tornado but 200 miles wide. The damage is going to be incredible, I can't believe there aren't mandatory evacuations for the tourists, I don't care if they have to fly them out on military jets. But forcing someone to stay in the path of this monster is insane... don't believe me, read this warning posted by the National Weather Service this morning at 10AM (link, scroll down to read)

URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA
1011 AM CDT SUN AUG 28 2005

...DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED...

.HURRICANE KATRINA...A MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE WITH UNPRECEDENTED
STRENGTH...RIVALING THE INTENSITY OF HURRICANE CAMILLE OF 1969.

MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER. AT
LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL
FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL...LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY
DAMAGED OR DESTROYED.

THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL.
PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD
FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED. CONCRETE
BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE...INCLUDING SOME
WALL AND ROOF FAILURE.

HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY...A
FEW TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. ALL WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT.

AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD...AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH
AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITY
VEHICLES AND LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE MOVED. THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE
ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS...PETS...AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE
WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK.

POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN
AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING
INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY
THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING...BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED. FEW
CROPS WILL REMAIN. LIVESTOCK LEFT EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL BE
KILLED.

AN INLAND HURRICANE WIND WARNING IS ISSUED WHEN SUSTAINED WINDS NEAR
HURRICANE FORCE...OR FREQUENT GUSTS AT OR ABOVE HURRICANE FORCE...ARE
CERTAIN WITHIN THE NEXT 12 TO 24 HOURS.

ONCE TROPICAL STORM AND HURRICANE FORCE WINDS ONSET...DO NOT VENTURE
OUTSIDE!