Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Hurricane Katrina

I did see one report that said something about there not being any place to land helicopters near the Superdome or the Convention center. Something about a parking lot being a possibility, but it had a lot of telephone polls that had to be removed first. Even so, this doesn't explain whey they didn't send troops in via helicopter - they could have fast roped in - to receive air-dropped supplies.

Isn't this disgusting? What does this say about our society? What does this say about these young men and their values? To hoard this food for themselves and their own families while they see elderly and sick people sitting by with nothing? Shame on them!

Lynn

To be clear, I wasn't criticizing the American Red Cross. I was conveying a possible explanation as to why the Canadian Red Cross had been discouraging foreign donations.

As for the young men taking the supplies... Is anyone sure what they're doing with them? Are they actually hoarding them, or were they appointed to do the heavy lifting and help with the distribution?

Well, whatever the case with them, the whole operation does seem like it's being handled very poorly. There's got to be a better way to do it all. More to the point, there's got to be something more we, the ones who are sitting high and dry, can do to help, other than sending money and letting other people clean up the mess for us.

Paul

Didn't y'all hear? There were some idiots in NO that were *shooting* at the helos that were coming in to help! Makes me want to cry for the people who weren't doing the shooting--they got to suffer for their neighbor's stupidity.

Word is that people are moving to other parts of the country, so over here in Atlanta, we might be getting some of the refugees from the gulf coast.

Laura

Here's an interesting bit of information: http://junkyardblog.net/archives/week_2005_08_28.html#004749 (there's a picture)

Apparently the city of New Orleans owns tons of buses that they *could* have used to evacuate people before the storm -- but they didn't.

PJ

You're assuming that there were people available who know how to drive those buses. It's not the same as driving a car; there's a reason you need a special license. You're also assuming they are all in working condition (which may be true, but it's hard to guess from a picture).

Also, as far as the "finally!" comments, I'd like to quote a friend of mine from another forum , whose husband is among the firefighters from Alabama who have gone to NO to help with the rescue efforts.

Rivka, if you read the text accompanying the article you'll see that the writer was making two points about those buses - or rather, pointing out that there were two ways in which they could have been used if someone in the city had actually thought about it beforehand. They could have been moved to higher ground - say, the freeway just above where the buses are parked. That way they would have been available to bus people out of the city once the waters started rising on Tuesday.

Or, better still, they could have been used to take people out of the city last week. What is the point of ordering a mandatory evacuation when 50% of people in the city have no means of their own of getting out? - indiscriminately, raping women and children and murdering people. I hope that those thugs are caught and imprisoned and that they throw away the key.

But I also think about bodies piled up in the convention centre, and that poor woman in the wheelchair with a blanket thrown over her, and the other poor woman who gave birth with no medical attention and whose baby died, and all the other appalling scenes on television this week, reminiscent of a Rwandan or Bosnian refugee camp, and I am furious at officials who complacently declared that everything\'s under control and take their sweet time to get food and water in and get the evacuation started. Sure, the city was dangerous, but that's what the national guard and army is trained for, right? That's what flak jackets and armoured cars are for, right?

At least this evening things are finally beginning to look better. I hope that continues - I would just hate to think what worse would look like.


Wendy

As far as I know (and I could very well be wrong), it takes a special type of helicoptor to bring in water, or a copter with a special container hanging underneath. The local authorities have been trying to take care of it, but in some cases right now it might be better to let something burn now instead of demolish it later. Just a thought.

And I'd heard of people shooting at the rescuers, too. That's why they had to stop boat and other evacuations for a time. You'd think that the snipers would allow those who want to get out of the city get out.

Rivka, I don't think that many people mean to imply that nobody was doing anything during this past week when they offer up complaints about the situation. I can't speak for everyone, of course, but my own frustration is with the City of New Orleans, the state government of Louisiana, and US federal government for both not acting pre-emptively (as Wendy has described so well in her post above) in evacuating those whom they knew had no means to self-evacuate, and then responding in such a way that simply doesn't make sense considering the information we have all been shown.

I have all the respect in the world for the rescue workers who are putting aside their own personal losses to work around the clock to help these people. In a million years I would never imply that they have done anything but their very best to make things better. They are true heroes in this tragedy, as are the millions of people in the US and around the world who have donated money and supplies.

What I have issues with is the fact that not enough people, supplies, military troops, etc. were put in the right place at the right time to do the jobs they are willing to do. All of this "we were waiting to be asked" that the various government officials keep bantering about is pure hogwash, IMO. FEMA and other organizations have done what-if scenarios on this very kind of crisis, so why weren't they standing at the ready, able to sweep in mere hours after the levees began to give way rather than four days later? And how is it that the public was aware of the situation sooner than the officials in charge? How hard is it to put officials on the scene to convey what is needed and where and when? Isn't that the very job of FEMA?

Lynn

Hi y'all,

Well first off please don't get mad if I say something wrong b/c well I'm super tired and if I don't chit chat now, I won't for a while probably I miss it here. (promotion and 12 hr days for the past few weeks have made me numb in the head). I’ll probably read it in the future and think - gee I said that? I meant to say it this way…

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**crosses some fingers too**

Mom already called me and woke me up at 6:30 this morning. (So much for sleep, right?) She and dad are in Orlando this weekend on a conference and are safe, but she told me to just get the hell out of town than stay in their house (by myself) which is the usual plan. So we're just waiting for the official word from campus to leave, but I seriously doubt they'll tell us to stick around with a 5 churning not too far away. Um, keep me in your thoughts, ok? It's pretty damn scary. It's amazing to think, though, after 17 years here this is only the first time I'm evacuating.

Jen
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I really hope you and your gang are doing well.

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I've been keeping an eye on Katrina -- she's scary. From what I'm seeing, this could be the worst storm in thirty years or more. I quote from the Weather Channel guy on location -- "If you're not scared, you should be." Chief Pam
Oh I agree!!!!!!

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I'm from south Louisiana and we are watching the storm closely. We have family staying at our house, ane are praying everything will work out fine. Hey, I also hope the storm doesn't mess with the oil refineries - gas prices are plenty high enough!! Shellyem
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My thoughts are with you <hug>

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I can't belive it...I was in New Orleans a week ago!! And I'm very sorry because it's a fantastic city..I've loved it!!
I was talking about going with my husband. I was so devistated at all that history washing away, the people who give the energy and right down to that duck I saw on CNN getting blown down the street.

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I think what astonishes and appals me almost as much as the terrible destruction is what the news organisations expect of their reporters and crews. These people are among the only human beings outside, exposed to the elements. There's one reporter and his crew in a car in Gulfport, a place described as a ghost town - everyone's evacuated. Everyone but the reporting team! And every time they go to Gulfport this reporter gets out of the protection of his armoured car and into 100+mph winds and torrential rain.
What was up w/ Anderson Cooper (CNN) standing beside that great big crane when the wind was nasty!? What if that thing came down!

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In Baton Rouge a student being interviewed said, almost gleefully, that this was a "fun place" to watch the storm from. Anyone who could describe this sort of weather, a hurricane which has already destroyed lives, property, natural resources and so on to such an extent, and which will cause destruction running into perhaps billions of dollars, not to mention hardship and anguish for so many people who may return to their homes in a few days' time to find that they've lost most of what they owned, and maybe their jobs too if the businesses where they worked are destroyed too, needs to re-evaluate his priorities.

I couldn’t imagine living in a place or time where such a thing was common place - loosing your home or lives as a part of life. I am glad we live in a place where we can most likely be helped.

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Ditto. I saw that too. Moron! You know, I wonder how many of these news reporters not only endanger their own safety and lives, but hamper rescue efforts by either being in the way or needing to be rescued themselves!
Adding to the problem. Hmmm. Maybe it can be a natural selection process for dumb reporters. Oh dear here comes a tomato.


I was glued to the TV when I saw Katrina hit Florida. I get so interested when I read about weather, space or hear a jet engine roar, etc. It's just my chemical make up I guess. Like many I'm sure, or anybody knowing the jazz about hurricanes and such, you had to have known Katrina was going to be a whopper!

I took three years of climatology at school and it fascinated me. Also we learned about natural hazards and government and other societal responses to it. If it wasn’t for the math I’d be doing geography instead of accounting (doesn’t sound right ‘eh? $=math). It was tough to learn not only from a 'scientific standpoint', but when I did my psych degree we learned about how people react in such situations. It would bring tears to my eyes. I couldn’t do the psych part. I bring it home.

I want to experience a hurricane one day. I want to see a tornado one day. I want to experience a earthquake (in an empty field!). I still want to ride in a shuttle even if it might go kerpow. Yet, I think pple who climb Mt. Everest are nuts! I am a scaredy cat and over protective of myself and hide when lighting strikes, but I still have this overwhelming urge to see it and experience it. I’d rather risk Mother Nature than walk though the North End of my city at night. My point is I can understand the twit who came from California to see the hurricane - but like others, he didn’t know it was going to be so…devastating. My mum thought the tornado chasers and explorers of centuries past where nuts - but hey some pple have that gene. Not quite to comparable, but I can see the similarities.

I can see what the dumb reporters are doing on the tele - risking their lives and others, and in a way I wish I was them AND I want to smack them upside the head. Reporters do annoy me (but not our Lois Lane - Ralph yes). I wouldn't want to go and hinder any emergency response b/c *me* a 'tourist' was there. I'm torn like that.

I'm glad the reporters are there to tell us what is happening and are our watchdogs to see if pple are doing their job (ie. gov't response). Yes reporters don't get it right all the time or have stupid ways of describing things (in my opinion)(e.g. 'our' tsunami, 'our' Hiroshima etc.. I was disgusted when I heard those word being used. I won’t go into why - I’m sure some pple are disagreeing. *Yes* the Katrina hit area is horrid and makes me cry, they deserve their own 'word', but don't compare oranges to apples. I can see why they would use the words - because they are all fruit - destruction that makes you mouth drop and your heart tear.) I was just waiting for CNN to report deaths so they could call it a killer hurricane - they love to add that killer/terror element in a sensational way. I roll my eyes. Just report please don’t make it like the National Inquirer.

My heart broke when I watched one man describe loosing his wife in the turbulent waters and one woman in disbelief that her house just basically disappeared. I cannot imagine or put myself in anyone’s place, but I was ticked at some pple. I guess everyone just reacts differently - of course! One woman was stating she had no water and the nearest supply station would take her half a day to get to. She was not physically hindered in anyway (it was stated as a fact) - walk! How far do pple in drought areas walk for food and water? Again I guess different mentalities (eg. Fear) and expectations.

I am disappointed the relief is not 100% effective, but it is hard to get everywhere. Imagine all that area, imagine all the people. I am disappointed they didn’t prepare for a cat 5 (HEEEEEEEEEEELLLLO you are way below sea level) or for the other fact they had insufficient supplies ready for the pple at the Superdome, but in a way I thought it would be impossible to maneuver that many people effectively. I cannot fathom trying to coordinate something within a two day span like what pple wanted. If anyone could do that I would be sooooo happy. I only did a month of emergency training for natural disasters, I couldn’t imagine having that as my job. Why didn't they have groups of military vehicles set up with supplies outside of the danger zone and move in when realistically possible?

When Grand Forks flooded and the buildings downtown started to burn, they thought why can’t anyone put it out? They lost their city’s newspaper building. All the historical info gone. Dumping water on it a building would damage it. Yes fire is damaging it, but what if you made things worse? Perhaps it would get knocked down by the force of the water and may hit another building, it may create a wave. Yeah fire may do that too. What if others are near by and we don’t know it? If it is isolated then it isn’t an immediate concern. If fire is already at it, water has probably already damaged it. Why fix something that is probably already damaged when you could be doing something that WILL help and not just MIGHT help - unless toxic chemicals are involved. I used to have a good article debating such an issue. Gee my unorganized self doesn’t know where it could be.

If I had the same life I do here, but only in New Orleans I would have jumped on my bike and left with my backpack of stuff. I know how many kms I could do and hey I’d try. I’d be more scared of the people than the storm. I wouldn’t have stayed and the thought of being with so many pple at the Superdome actually frightened me. I thought of the toilets, madly agitated pple and the water.

I have been thinking of the pple I saw on CNN in the French Quarter who stayed and survived the initial winds and such. Now that there are flood waters, I wonder if they are O.K. now. When I watched them last, they where dining on food from a nearby restaurant who was giving it away b/c hey, it was going to go bad. I keep thinking of them.

Every hurricane season I like to go through my old text books and see what it may do or what society may do. I think of the people, the distraction and outcomes. I am saddened by what we loose and hope society actually learns, adjusts and adapts. I hope everyone is okay and think of my relatives and friends down there. And I wish I could be there to see it. Either in the airplanes that go through to study it or on the ground wanting to historically record it. You must respect Mother Nature. Prepare for it. Prepare what your fellow person may do. Suck it up and go forward. That’s what I would do or what I like to think I would do based on past personal experience.

Totally!
We knew and we just watched the news - for the most part I guess anyways!!

Laura, that didn't happen to several days in. I'm not talking about the later stages, but early on. What still continues to puzzle me was why there were no helicopters flying in the first couple of days. Long before such shooting incidents. And if they had come in timeously with relief and rescue, instead of waiting till five days later, it's doubtful the situation would have deteriorated to the point where snipers and armed gangs roaming the streets would have become the problem it is now. In the early days, it was just some unarmed looters in supermarkets. If the NG had been brought in right at the start, they could easily have neutralised that threat, nipped it in the bud.

Yesterday, I saw a little bit of a report with a reporter in Biloxi. She pointed out that she and her crew were amazed to finally see the first FEMA, ARC and National Guard arriving just that morning. She and her crew, she pointed out, had been there for days.

And, of course, she was right. As Wendy pointed out in her post, reporters have been swarming all over NO in helicopters shooting footage since about two hours after the event. Granted, some of them would already have been there pre-hurricane to film that, but not all of them. A huge no. - especially overseas reporters whose editors would not have paid for them to helicopter into NO just to film the hurricane, they'd rely on US footage for that, and did - came in right after the storm left. Half of the UK's news reporters have been reporting from NO all week. I think most of them started reporting live there from Tuesday. If they could fly into NO from the UK that early on, so could American aid agencies.

If they could get in by helicopter, why couldn't helicopters to drop food/water/medical supplies to those poor people dumped on a concrete overpass for example? And I'm not just talking at an official level. Don't the cities/states surrounding the affected ones have air ambulances? Helicopters? How much does it take to go to a warehouse, load up with bottled water, get in your air ambulance and fly? How could you not, watching the pictures unfolding on your TV?

Nor am I sure I'd accept the excuse that helicopters couldn't land. I saw one do it yesterday - the one which just dumped food out and then left again. And again I'm not talking about later, when things obviously got very dangerous for relief crews thanks to the shooting, lawlessness and I don't blame them for having difficulty then, but right at the start - the golden 72 hours, the first two days. And as far as those poor people dying on the overpass goes, you have a very large stretch of flat concrete road there. They couldn't land on that? Or hover and airdrop? The state governer said on TV yesterday that she'd been asking for a 'Berlin drop' for days. That shouldn't have been difficult. They can do it all over the world, why did America prove logistically impossible?

LabRat

This bus thing just keeps getting worse -- there were 255 school buses and 364 city transit buses. Even if they'd only had drivers for half that many, they could have gotten *thousands* of people out before Katrina hit. The city of New Orleans "emergency plan" says they're supposed to use those buses for evacuation. But nope. They're just sitting there -- totally ruined *and* polluting the water further.

The more I hear about the mayor (and local government) of New Orleans the less impressed I get. He should have started evacuating last Saturday -- and the only reason he ordered an evacuation on Sunday is because President Bush asked him to. From what I can see, the logic there was "well, lots of people can't get out, so why bother telling them to?" Given all those buses, that's just a reprehensible attitude.

I know the medical people, National Guard, Coast Guard, etc, etc, are doing a heroic job, and I am deeply respectful of that. But it sure looks like the ones whose job it was to be prepared for an entirely predictable disaster have utterly failed them.

Oh, and on a random semi-related note, about the helicopters -- you know all those video shots of people stuck on rooftops, where the helicopter apparently just takes pictures and flies away? If I were one of those people who'd rather be rescued than seen on TV, I'd be incredibly ticked at those 'copters. But then it occurred to me that media choppers probably wouldn't have the capacity to rescue anyone -- they certainly wouldn't have that nifty basket on a winch arrangement. So that makes it a *little* better. Still seems cruel to get people's hopes up and then just fly away, though. I'll just hope they were recording locations and passing them along to people who *would* be able to perform rescues.

PJ

I'm getting more and more frustrated at what I see on TV. Ugh.

I was watching one news channel the other day, where the guy said the television equipment was taking up too much space for them to carry anyone. However, they were taking note of the locations, complete with GPS locations, and passing them on to the people who *could* go pick them up. So you could probably consider them a scout.

To any of you who were affected by HK, or know people who were, I hope for the best for all of you. This is so tough to watch on TV and see how disastrous it has become.