Katrina Live Thread, Part XIV

Children from a nearby child care center wave to a convoy of Nebraska Army Guard from Omaha, Neb., as they set off Friday, Sept. 2. 2005, to assist the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Maybe they could arm one of the helicopters and let them use a missile on the building the thugs are holding up in.

lol!

Are these snipers by any chance some of our Islamic "friends"?

(local news here) NO police chief: retiress calling to ask if they can come back.

Lets see how they handle cleaning up the crap in the Superdome first...that and they have to return their looted booty

First Sgt. Ed Martinelli helps Master Sgt. Timothy Palmer put on his pack as they prepare their belongings, with other Army National Guardsmen, Friday, Sept. 2, 2005 at the Mesa Armory in San Diego. The National Guardsmen are being deployed to New Orleans to help in recovery efforts from Hurricane Katrina.

he just turned it back to MSNBC to rile me up and their heading says "Who's to Blame for the Diaster"...I'm going to knock him right upside his gumbohead if he doesn't turn it...lol

Thanks, what a sweet picture!

Thank you for that! I hope you don't mind if I post what it says:

ANIMAL SHELTER

A temporary animal shelter has been operating in Parker Coliseum on the University campus for just more than 48 hours.

The LSU AgCenter’s exhibition site is being filled with animals – primarily cats and dogs – which are enduring a long process similar to the evacuees at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.

An estimated 175 cats and 200 dogs have been registered, triaged, examined by a veterinarian and assigned a name tag and cage or kennel.

Dr. Patrick Thistlethwaite, a member of the Louisiana Veterinary Medical Association, said extra temporary animal shelters have been established both at the coliseum and the Lamar Dixon Exposition Center in Gonzales because of “the monstrosity of this disaster.”

To find out if your pet has been brought to the emergency shelters, call (225) 578-6111.

The shelters need old newspapers, leashes, disposable food dishes, paper towels, hand sanitizers, latex gloves, dog and cat food, kennels and cages and other products. To make a donation or volunteer, call Parker Coliseum at (225) 578-6111 or Lamar Dixon at (225) 621-1700

Great question. I know once they get rolling that a lot can be done in a short period of time, but my guess is 50% of the city will be a ghost town for more than 6 months.

What about all the mud and crud left over, where they going to dump it?

Is it for sure that the river side levees are holding?

schu

I thought I recognized his voice...should have known...

Man, we need to get hold of one of those magic 8 balls!

. . . just a word to the wise, while I'm thinking about it . . . if you get a household generator, make SURE that it's situated well away from living areas and well ventilated (i.e. downwind, on the deck, etc.) My husband built a little roof for ours - it directs the exhaust away from the house and the legs come off with wing nuts and the whole jobby folds up in a corner of the garage (he is a handy guy :-) )

Latest from Alexandria:

This United Way link contains all the helpful links for providing relief to the refugees in Central Louisiana:

http://www.uwcl.org/site/Templates/template4.aspx?tabindex=0&tabid=1

KALB has raised $155,000 so far in its 2-day telethon for the Central Louisiana chapter of the American Red Cross. To make a direct donation where it's needed right away, please call:

(318) 447-2542 or (318) 447-2531

The 5:00 pm (Central) KALB newscast shows a reporter waiting at a welcome center for buses that never arrived from New Orleans. This may or may not be related to the fatal accident with the overturned bus, no one seems to know why the buses aren't here yet.

I'll repeat my earlier suggestion for those of you who want to donate items but don't want to spend a lot of money on shipping costs. A Wal-Mart gift card can be purchased in the denomination of your choice, and is much cheaper to put in the mail than a carton full of supplies. A needy family can use it at the local 24-hour Wal-Mart SuperCenters which are much larger than the stores in other parts of the country. The card would allow its recipient to purchase personal hygiene items, groceries, shoes, gasoline, automotive repairs, pharmaceuticals -- just about anything you can think of -- and will solve their individual requirements. While it's great that Wal-Mart made a huge corporate donation, it still doesn't change the fact that there's a refugee mother who needs a package of maxi-pads for herself and diapers for her baby NOW.

Thanks for your continuing interest!

Rokke responded to oceanview at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1475135/posts?page=3660#3660:

"FEMA has not been "incompetent"."

“Yeah. Isn't it amazing that the Governors of Mississippi and Alabama both just said FEMA has been "outstanding" and has responded to every request. FEMA works fine when there is leadership. Nothing works fine when you've got a government like Lousiana voted for itself."

Check out this post on another blog about your point: http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/007442.php#c32

"This is the price of federalism. It’s a control issue. The federal government cannot be any more efficient in disaster relief than the affected state and local governments permit. Louisiana has the most corrupt and inefficient state government in the United States. New Orleans has the most corrupt and inefficient municipal government of any major city in the United States. The local ruling elites like it that way – they keep their power and their corrupt ways of doing business.
They’ve been driving honest businesses and people away for scores of years. This was true a long time ago and is true now. Read:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon_08_31_05ng.html - Will New Orleans Recover? which says:

"And the locals and outsiders who try to help New Orleans in the weeks and months to come will do so with no local institutional infrastructure to back them up. New Orleans has no real competent government or civil infrastructure — and no aggressive media or organized citizens’ groups to prod public officials in the right direction during what will be, in the best-case scenario, a painstaking path to normalcy.
... But the city’s decline over the past three decades has left it impoverished and lacking the resources to build its economy from within. New Orleans can’t take care of itself even when it is not 80 percent underwater ...
... it’s up to New Orleans, not the feds, to dig deep within itself to rebuild its economic and social infrastructure before the tourists ever will flock back to pump cash into the city’s economy. It will take a miracle. New Orleans has experienced a steady brain drain and fiscal drain for decades, as affluent corporations and individuals have fled, leaving behind a large population of people dependent on the government. Socially, New Orleans is one of America’s last helpless cities—just at the moment when it must do all it can to help itself survive."

I read a blog post this morning (can’t remember where) by a Mississippi River shipping guy who had grown up in New Orleans saying that shipping companies had been leaving the Port of New Orleans for as long as he’d been in business, in favor of other River ports, because it cost too much to do business at the Port of New Orleans due to theft and corruption.

Then check out how New Orleans elites behaved during the 1927 flood, in this book:
RISING TIDE: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America
and compare that with what is going on now, as reported here (New Orleans live blog:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/

"The following is the result of an interview I just conducted via cell phone with a New Orleans citizen stranded at the Convention Center. I don't know what you're hearing in the mainstream media or in the press conferences from the city and state officials, but here is the truth:
"Bigfoot" is a bar manager and DJ on Bourbon Street, and is a local personality and icon in the city. He is a lifelong resident of the city, born and raised. He rode out the storm itself in the Iberville Projects because he knew he would be above any flood waters. Here is his story as told to me moments ago. I took notes while he talked and then I asked some questions:
Three days ago, police and national guard troops told citizens to head toward the Crescent City Connection Bridge to await transportation out of the area. The citizens trekked over to the Convention Center and waited for the buses which they were told would take them to Houston or Alabama or somewhere else, out of this area. It's been 3 days, and the buses have yet to appear.
Although obviously he has no exact count, he estimates more than 10,000 people are packed into and around and outside the convention center still waiting for the buses. They had no food, no water, and no medicine for the last three days, until today, when the National Guard drove over the bridge above them, and tossed out supplies over the side crashing down to the ground below. Much of the supplies were destroyed from the drop. Many people tried to catch the supplies to protect them before they hit the ground. Some offered to walk all the way around up the bridge and bring the supplies down, but any attempt to approach the police or national guard resulted in weapons being aimed at them.
There are many infants and elderly people among them, as well as many people who were injured jumping out of windows to escape flood water and the like -- all of them in dire straights.
Any attempt to flag down police results in being told to get away at gunpoint. Hour after hour they watch buses pass by filled with people from other areas. Tensions are very high, and there has been at least one murder and several fights. 8 or 9 dead people have been stored in a freezer in the area, and 2 of these dead people are kids.
The people are so desperate that they're doing anything they can think of to impress the authorities enough to bring some buses. These things include standing in single file lines with the eldery in front, women and children next; sweeping up the area and cleaning the windows and anything else that would show the people are not barbarians.
The buses never stop.
Before the supplies were pitched off the bridge today, people had to break into buildings in the area to try to find food and water for their families. There was not enough. This spurred many families to break into cars to try to escape the city. There was no police response to the auto thefts until the mob reached the rich area -- Saulet Condos -- once they tried to get cars from there... well then the whole swat teams began showing up with rifles pointed. Snipers got on the roof and told people to get back ..."

If you've read RISING TIDE, it is obvious that the behavior of New Orleans elites and the government they control has not changed in the least since 1927. Them first and to hell with everyone else.
I.e., the reason Louisiana Governor Blanco refused to suspend habeas corpus and declare martial law for days after such was obviously necessary, and still refuses to formally ask for federal military assistance in restoring order (the first two are legal prerequisites to the third – legal words of art are required for the third), is that Louisiana & New Orleans elites would no longer be able to have special protection and most especially control over the relief efforts.
Honest, efficient, government is the last thing they want, and “federal military assistance in restoring order” would provide just that.
Look carefully at what is going on, and consider how Louisiana & New Orleans government are loathe to give up control of public order and relief to the federal government.
It’s about power. They really, really, really, don’t want to cede power to the federal government. This drastically limits what the federal government can do to help.
Anyone with experience in emergency management can tell you how essential it is that one person and one organization be ultimately in charge of major disasters. Lousiana and New Orleans elites, and the governments they control, do not want that to happen. Honest, efficient, government is their enemy."

My hat's off to those National Guardsmen. They've been doing a lot of the heavy lifting the last couple of years.

"I doubt the goblins are truly trained snipers . . . i.e. concealment & evasion. Military ought to be able to remove the threat in a summary and effective manner."

I think that once some real men get the order to take them out those thugs will be no threat in a matter of minutes.

CNN

Lou Dobbs

I think the president did all he could do, I am just sick of all the Bush bashing and who's the blame.

He even went so far as to sign a disaster action before the storm hit.

Hells bells if he knew then why didn't the ignorant asses in New Orleans know.

Had New Orleans asked for help Bush would have bent over backwards to give help.

Jackson, NAACP, Congressional Black Caucus, and other free hand out blame America first enabling groups are naturally ignorant and biased about the problems in South Louisiana.

These people bleed on and cry, yell and scream about it's all President Bush's fault but at least Lou Dobbs has the common sense to know local New Orleans politics.

Black leaders are the ones to blame for this catastrophe.

They have sat on their butts and whined like little babies for years waiting on whitey to come and fix the problem.

One other thing CNN and your biased reporting has forgotten that Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with what the black leadership did to their own

I'm going to knock him right upside his gumbohead if he doesn't turn it...lol

could that second pic be of a very dirty "snowball"?