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Backe among 11 cited at bar ‘riot’ By Chris Paschenko The Daily News Published October 6, 2008 GALVESTON — Police arrested 11 people, including Houston Astros pitcher Brandon Backe and a FEMA official, at a disturbance at a Galveston hotel bar early Sunday. However, one witness said police used force on people who were offering no resistance to police. “It’s blatantly obvious — this was the fault of the Galveston Police Department,” said Dennis Byrd, the owner of a seawall restaurant. Byrd said Backe’s treatment by police couldn’t be justified. It was not clear Sunday night how or whether that...

Schooled In Disaster by: Lance Nation, September 30, 2008 In the recent Senate Hearing, the Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery of the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs attempted to establish whether the lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina were effectively implemented along the gulf coast when Hurricane Gustav and Ike hit Louisiana and Texas this past summer. “I have some good news about the federal response,” stated Houston’s Mayor Bill White in his opening testimony. “President Bush, Secretary Chertoff, Administrator Paulison, and the most senior members of [the Federal Emergency Management Administration] and the Corps of...

Hurricane Gustav gave the state of Louisiana a test for which it had three years to prepare. There were thousands of poor, sick, disabled and elderly people who could not get out on their own. They needed to be rescued with dispatch, and sheltered in safety and dignity. One simple test. The state flunked. Three years to the week after Hurricane Katrina’s landfall, Louisiana executed a fundamentally unfair evacuation plan and did it badly. It relied on dividing the population into separate streams: People with their own cars were directed to shelters run by parishes, churches and the Red Cross....

Hurricane survivors are being put at risk in Texas and other hot weather states because the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is no longer providing ice in relief situations, say watchdogs, relief workers and local leaders in Hurricane Alley. Chad Lavergne searches through his home, destroyed by Hurricane Ike, in search of documents and personal items, in Bridge City, Texas, Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2008. Hurricane survivors are being put at risk in Texas and other hot weather states because the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is no longer providing ice in relief situations, say watchdogs, relief workers and local leaders...

WHERE IS FEMA?????

GALVESTON, Texas (AP) - About 250 people who withstood Hurricane Ike on a coastal sliver of land will be forced off it so crews can begin the recovery effort, authorities said Tuesday, vowing to invoke emergency powers to make it happen. ~snip~ The Texas attorney general's office is trying to figure out how legally to force the holdouts to leave... ~snip~

Soldier in the Rain by: Emily Miller, September 15, 2008 Michael Chertoff admits that three and a half years after Hurricane Katrina, the Defense and Homeland Security (DHS) he heads still falls short from protecting the American national structures from natural disasters. In a speech last Friday at the Brookings Institution, Chertoff said that while the DHS has made strides in protecting the U.S. against possible terrorist attacks, much is left to be desired in keeping common good national assets, such as bridges, highways and levees safe from hurricanes, tropical storms and other potential Katrina-esque catastrophes. “Regrettably, I don’t think...

Critics of our region, including some federal officials, claimed after Hurricane Katrina that much aid sent our way would be wasted. As it turns out, the biggest squanderer of all has been the federal government itself -- and any waste should not be tolerated. The latest report on the government's post-storm waste is taking the Federal Emergency Management Agency to task for squandering $45.9 million in four massive no-bid contracts handed out after Katrina. The report, by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's inspector general, said deals with politically-connected firms Shaw Group, Brechtel Group, CH2M Hill Companies and Fluor Corp....

It didn't take long for the finger-pointing to begin. The Federal Emergency Management Agency came under fire Sunday as emergency workers were left undernourished and dozens of trucks of water and food had yet to be set up at distribution centers around Houston and surrounding communities.

A Call for Action from our viewers: Tropical Storm Fay flooded parts of Southwest Florida forcing hundreds of people out of their homes and into shelters. Since then, many viewers have called our newsroom or sent e-mails asking if undocumented immigrants will receive federal aid. WINK News has learned the answer is yes, sometimes. A FEMA Spokesman tells WINK News undocumented immigrants can receive federal aid if a child is a U.S. citizen. It's been agency policy for a number of years. FEMA Spokesperson William Lindsey says, "If there's someone who lives there like a child who has a social...

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is trying to figure out if more than 150 underground fuel tanks -- including one each in Clifton and Lodi -- are leaking diesel fuel into the soil and groundwater. First, though, they need to find out where they are. The agency knows of at least 150 underground tanks, some of which were built for federal emergency storage dating back to the 1950s, that need to be inspected for leaks, according to spokeswoman Debbie Wing. FEMA also is trying to determine by September whether an additional 124 tanks are underground or aboveground and whether they...

An Open Letter to God, from Michael Moore Dear God, The other night, James Dobson's ministry asked all believers to pray for a storm on Thursday night so that the Obama acceptance speech outdoors in Denver would have to be canceled. I see that You have answered Dr. Dobson's prayers -- except the storm You have sent to earth is not over Denver, but on its way to New Orleans! In fact, You have scheduled it to hit Louisiana at exactly the moment that George W. Bush is to deliver his speech at the Republican National Convention. Now, heavenly Father,...

OTTAWA, ONTARIO -- 08/31/08 -- The Honourable David Emerson, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the Honourable Peter Gordon MacKay, Minister of National Defence and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, today announced that Canada is providing assistance with the evacuation of those in the path of Hurricane Gustav. At the request of the United States government, a Canadian Forces CC-177 aircraft left Canada earlier today for the southern U.S. Gulf Coast. The Honourable Stockwell Day, Minister of Public Safety, indicated that he had spoken with U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff to offer further assistance. "Canada and the United States...

(1) Gets Bush out of St. Paul, where he would have given a speech that the media and the Democrats would have pounced on, and puts him in the eye of the storm, doing the nation's business, where he will be welcomed and greeted by friendly Republican governors. (2) Puts the spotlight on those friendly Republican governors--Haley Barbour, Charlie Crist, and most of all, Bobby Jindal, (the male Sarah Palin)--who will do their jobs competently, in contrast with the mess made three years ago by the Democratic governor of Louisiana, whose performance even at the time was compared unfavorably to...

Check it out, Live on FOX now. You can see why Bobby Jinal was on so many people's recomendation for VP.

You don't know me; I am new on this forum. I'm a truth researcher / investigative reporter, now living off-shore USA. I am interested in re-distributing sending several research videos because they deal with an issue of urgent USA national security interest to all Americans as well as people overseas.

CNN reports that the RNC Convention will turn into a telethon and a community service outlet for 4 days if Hurricane Gustav destroys cities along the gulf coast. McCain campaign is presently going over options. He refuses to have the convention be a party atmosphere during time of tragedy and crisis CNN Reports. Developing...

Three years ago this morning, Hurricane Katrina roared ashore at the Mississippi-Louisiana line. It left a swath of devastation no mountain of statistics can describe fully: 1,836 dead; hundreds of thousands homeless; upward of $150 billion in property damage. That Katrina was the costliest natural disaster, by a factor of nearly four, in U.S. history only begins to tell the story. Katrina was "the storm," New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin would say later, "that most of us have long feared." For decades, scientists had predicted his city would slip beneath the waves in the 21st century from the combination of...

President meeting with FEMA and RNC right now over Hurricane Gustav's arrival on Gulf Coast...RNC might delay convention if hurricane is severe on the coast...

(BILOXI, Miss.) Aug. 4 - Mississippi Congressman Gene Taylor told NBC 15 News he doesn't have time to look into our investigation into whether or not tax dollars are being wasted on Hurricane Katrina victims unwilling to look for work. (video at link)

COMMENTARY According to some political operatives and willing members of the dominant media, the nation has a President who is extraordinarily inept. Yet other critics say George W. Bush is evil beyond description. But conventional wisdom among the President's detractors implies Bush is both of these things, inept and evil, to a point never before seen in world history. According to the far left, Bush, a bumbling fool, is one of the great evil masterminds of our times. However, no one has ever accused liberals of basing their views on logic or truth. If this sounds extreme, it is. To...

(BAY ST. LOUIS, Miss.) - Some people receiving FEMA assistance admitted to NBC 15 cameras thet they are getting a free ride and not looking for work. We asked one of the nation's top democrats, Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, where your tax dollars are really going. When NBC 15 News first met Gwenester Malone a month ago, she was receiving three catered meals a day, while housekeepers made sure her hotel room stayed clean. None of it was costing her a dime. "Since the storm, I haven't had any energy or pep to go get a job," Malone...

After Hurricane Katrina, the Federal Emergency Management Agency bought $85 million worth of basic personal and household goods for the storm's victims. For at least two years, FEMA warehoused it all — towels, shirts, pants, shoes, coffee makers, pillowcases, dinnerware, plastic food containers, cleaning supplies, etc. — at a cost to taxpayers of an additional $2 million-plus. Throughout that period, nonprofit relief agencies in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama made repeated public pleas for donations of those sorts of items. "You would have to be living under a rock not to know there is still a need," said Cass Woods of...

Is it really true that the people of Iowa and Wisconsin are morally superior to the residents of New Orleans? That certainly seems to be the attitude of some Wisconsin State Journal readers who send me e-mails on a daily basis crowing about how victims of the floods of Cedar Rapids aren't whining or asking for hand-outs, unlike the victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. The messages take the same perspective: When floodwaters drowned downtown Cedar Rapids, people got to work filling sandbags and helping one another. When the residents of New Orleans were drowned in the floodwaters unleashed...

Order restored among crowd seeking food vouchers By GREG J. BOROWSKI and ANNYSA JOHNSONgborowski@journalsentinel.com Posted: June 23, 2008 Milwaukee police said they have restored order this morning but will remain outside of the Marcia P. Coggs Human Services Center after a crowd awaiting free food vouchers - which never were to be distributed - became unruly this morning.Police Department spokeswoman Anne E. Schwartz said Vliet St., between N. 12th and N. 13th streets, is blocked, and barricades have been installed so people are able to line up around the block of the building at 1220 W. Vliet St."That line is...

FEMA gave away about $85 million in household goods meant for Hurricane Katrina victims, a CNN investigation has found. The material, from basic kitchen goods to sleeping necessities, sat in warehouses for two years before the Federal Emergency Management Agency's giveaway to federal and state agencies this year. James McIntyre, FEMA's acting press secretary, said that FEMA was spending more than $1 million a year to store the material and that another agency wanted the warehouses torn down, so "we needed to vacate them." "Upon review of our assets and our need to continue to store them, we determined that...

An official reaction to FEMA's no-ice policy came from U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor who referred to FEMA officials as a "bunch of buttheads." Last week, officials were told that FEMA had decided to only supply ice for use in medical emergencies and life-saving reasons. It's left local officials scrambling to figure out ways to make it available for the general public. During a meeting with Hancock County Board of Supervisors this morning Taylor said he intends to write to FEMA to register his objections to the new policy. He also urged Hancock County supervisors, as well as the city councils...

WATERLOO — Normal operations on the National Cattle Congress fairgrounds have been suspended for most of May as the federal government has leased out virtually the entire facility for a training exercise, NCC general manager Doug Miller said Saturday. Miller said he could release few details. But activity on the NCC fairgrounds was apparent Saturday, as contractors installed massive generators adjacent to many buildings on the NCC fairgrounds and windows of many of the buildings were covered up, blocking views of any work going on inside. A number of large mobile home-size trailers also have taken up residence on the...

In a statement released early this morning, presumptive Democratic Party nominee Senator Barack Obama, (D-Ill) speculated Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans would be a "Spectacular" choice for FEMA director. Said a spokesperson, "In light of the hurricane disasters caused by global warming and the Bush administrations inability to cope with the devastating effects, we feel in a Democratic Party regime Mayor Ray Nagin would be a spectacular choice to head the federal emergency team. His prolific actions during the evacuation of New Orleans during the Katrina catastrophe saved thousands of lives and serves as a model for the rest...

Senator John McCain took direct aim at the Bush administration on Thursday as he stood in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, the area hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and declared the handling of the disaster “terrible and disgraceful” and pledged that it would never happen again. “I am for doing what is necessary — $4.2 billion, $10.5 billion, $50.5 billion,” Mr. McCain said at the time. “The $4.2 billion is not the end of the requirement.”

NEW ORLEANS — Senator John McCain took direct aim at the Bush administration on Thursday as he stood in the lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, the area hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and declared that “never again will a disaster of this nature be handled in the terrible and disgraceful way that it was handled.”

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - John McCain toured still hurricane-damaged areas of New Orleans and declared that if the disaster had happened on his watch, he would have immediately landed his plane at the nearest Air Force base. The Republican presidential candidate is campaigning this week in what he calls forgotten areas of the country. He offered a pledge Thursday to New Orleans residents that their situation will not be forgotten and that such a botched disaster response will never happen again. McCain was unsparing in his criticism of the Bush administration. He said Congress must share some of the blame,...

Hurricane season is just around the corner, so Americans should know where to turn to if disaster strikes. It's not the Federal Emergency Management Agency. A new study suggests Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Lowe's would be a lot more helpful. **** The study, by Steven Horwitz, a professor of economics at St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y., **** "Profit-seeking firms beat most of the government to the scene and provided more effectively the supplies needed for the immediate survival of a population cut off from life's most basic necessities," Horwitz wrote in the study, which was published by the Mercatus...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Imagine that your home was reduced to mold-covered wood framing by Hurricane Katrina. Desperate for money to rebuild, you engage in a frustrating bureaucratic process, and after months of living in a government provided-trailer that gives off formaldehyde fumes you finally win a federal grant. Then a collector announces that you have to pay back thousands of dollars. Thousands of Katrina victims may be in the same boat. A private contractor under investigation for the compensation it received to run the Road Home grant program for Katrina victims says that in the rush to deliver aid...

Who did the most to help victims of Hurricane Katrina? According to a new study, it was the company everyone loves to hate.

(NEW ORLEANS) - A group of Gulf Coast hurricane victims sued the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Tuesday for sheltering them in trailers that allegedly exposed them to dangerous fumes. The complaint filed in federal court adds FEMA as a defendant in a batch of consolidated cases against several manufacturers that provided the agency with tens of thousands of trailers and mobile homes after hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. The cases against trailer makers were consolidated in November 2007 and transferred to U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt in New Orleans. However, FEMA couldn't be named as a defendant in...

Text of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's memo sent Wednesday to the nation's emergency first responders about a falling U.S. satellite, as provided by FEMA. ___ MEMORANDUM TO: America's First Responder Community FROM: FEMA Disaster Operations Directorate SUBJECT: Satellite Re-entry A U.S. satellite has malfunctioned and is expected to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere sometime between the last week of February and the first week of March. Right now it is in an uncontrolled descent and as a result, the exact date, time and place of impact cannot yet be determined. It is our plan to pass on more specific information...

NEW ORLEANS — The Federal Emergency Management Agency said today it will step up efforts to move Gulf Coast hurricane victims out of more than 35,000 trailers because tests indicate some of the temporary homes contain high levels of formaldehyde. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said fumes from 519 tested trailer and mobile homes in Louisiana and Mississippi were — on average — about five times what people are exposed to in most modern homes. FEMA Administrator R. David Paulison and CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding said at a news conference they hope to get people out of...

Link only - Chelsea discusses environment, FEMA

Homeland Security Contracts KBR to Build Detention Centers in the US Sources:New America Media, January 31, 2006 Title: “Homeland Security Contracts for Vast New Detention Camps” Author: Peter Dale Scott New America Media, February 21, 2006 Title: “10-Year US Strategic Plan for Detention Camps Revives Proposals from Oliver North” Author: Peter Dale Scott Consortiium [sic], February 21, 2006 Title: “Bush's Mysterious ‘New Programs’” Author: Nat Parry Buzzflash Title: “Detention Camp Jitters” Author: Maureen Farrell Community Evaluator: Dr. Gary EvansStudent Researchers: Sean Hurley and Caitlyn Peele Halliburton’s subsidiary KBR (formerly Kellogg, Brown and Root) announced on January 24, 2006 that it...

Monday Dec. 3. 2007 - Sheridan Oregon. Many Sheridan residents were effected by a flood that hit the city. Streets and homes were flooded. There was mandatory evacuations for some residents. The National Guard was called in to provide sand bags, and fire departments from surrounding communities came to help with mutual aid. The city was also hit by a flood back in 1996. View AlbumGet your own

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration now acknowledges it is trying to recover nearly $500 million from people who improperly received federal aid money intended to help victims of two deadly hurricanes, Katrina and Rita, along the Gulf Coast two years ago. It said the amount may increase further. "This is a moving target and not finite," said James McIntyre, a spokesman for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The government's newest estimate of improper aid represents $494 million FEMA paid to 134,000 people who were ineligible for the aid they received. More than half the money went to people who couldn't...

On Oct. 23, the day of FEMA's now infamous phony news conference, the agency's former external affairs chief, Pat Philbin, announced plans to promote a number of people in the shop as part of an effort to build a "new FEMA." Cindy Taylor, deputy director of public affairs, was to become head of a new Private Sector Office, Philbin said in his e-mail to staff members. And Mike Widomski would move up to replace Taylor as deputy director of public affairs. Loop Fans might recall that both of them, posing as reporters, asked questions of acting Deputy Administrator Harvey Johnson....

BOSTON, Mass. (October 31, 2007) -- According to the most comprehensive survey of people affected by Hurricane Katrina, results of which are being presented today to the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery, the percentage of pre-hurricane residents of the affected areas in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi who have mental disorders has increased significantly compared to the situation five to eight months after the hurricane. These findings counter a more typical pattern from previous disasters where prevalence of mental disorders decreases as time passes. The detailed results of this report are...

As I sit here looking out toward the Santa Monica Mountains, I can barely see the buildings 2 miles away which are now mostly obscured by smoke. My West Los Angeles area has been mostly clear of any smoke until the wind direction began to change. Until then, most all of the smoke from the Southern California wildfires was being blown out over the ocean by the offshore Santa Anna winds coming off the desert. Now the smoke seems to be backing up against the hills that surround Los Angeles. With the mountains between me and the San Fernando Valley...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Bush administration official whose department had government workers pose as journalists in a news conference has been dropped from a planned new job as media chief for the top U.S. spy agency. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence said on Monday that John Philbin, who until last week was external affairs director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, would not be taking up a similar job with the intelligence office. "Mr. Philbin is not, nor is he scheduled to be, the director of public affairs for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence,"...

(2007-10-29) — With the success of last week’s simulated news conference on the California wildfires by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), mid-level bureaucrats at the disaster-relief agency have reportedly initiated plans to stage “natural” disasters as well. The imitation news briefing, which featured FEMA employees pretending to be genuine journalists, was “just a test run for the more ambitious pilot program of engineered catastrophes designed to help even out the work flow during the year,” according to one unnamed source inside the agency. “Due to the unreliable nature of floods, wildfires, tornadoes and blizzards,” the source said, “FEMA employees...

WASHINGTON - The homeland security chief on Saturday tore into his own employees for staging a phony news conference at the Federal Emergency Management Agency. "I think it was one of the dumbest and most inappropriate things I've seen since I've been in government," Michael Chertoff said. "I have made unambiguously clear, in Anglo-Saxon prose, that it is not to ever happen again and there will be appropriate disciplinary action taken against those people who exhibited what I regard as extraordinarily poor judgment," he added. Asked specifically if he planned to fire anyone at FEMA, which is part of his...

It looked like any other Washington press briefing, with a public affairs official walking up to a podium, introducing a government official and kicking off a press conference. But what happened next raised the ire of the news media and ticked off Bush administration officials. Tuesday the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced it was holding a news conference to answer reporters' questions about the federal agency's emergency response to the Southern California wildfires. The agency gave reporters just 15 minutes notice to attend, and those members of the media who called in via phone lines could listen to the event...

WASHINGTON, Oct 26 (Reuters) - The U.S. government's main disaster-response agency apologized on Friday for having its employees pose as reporters in a hastily called news conference on California's wildfires that no news organizations attended.