Posted on 09/27/2005 5:10:27 AM PDT by gridlock
John Cooper is a freelance cameraman who has been working as one of the “roving cameramen” for Newspath, CBS’s news service that provides material for the network’s affiliates across the country. He has been in New Orleans for two weeks, traveling around the city with a producer and a correspondent, seeking stories and filing daily for CBS affiliates.
Cooper has been with CBS News for about 10 years and has been in the news business for 20, covering many hurricanes throughout that time. He has traveled the world working on various documentaries, and most recently, he traveled with CBS News to Iraq to cover the war and to the Georgian Republic to cover President Bush’s visit to the region.
As Hurricane Rita approaches the Gulf Coast, Cooper remains in the area and isn’t yet sure when he’ll return home. On Wednesday, as the city continued to recover and prepared for Rita, he shared his impressions of New Orleans in recent days — from a brutally honest and unique perspective:
It’s been a crazy week, with spotty phone service, and shaky internet … I’m heading into another week here in New Orleans, nervously watching Hurricane Rita winding up to hit something hard.
It’s hot down here, and pretty stinky. All the worst smells are around town: all kinds of rot — vomit, waste, mold, pollution, death — it’s all here. Turn a corner, and if your windows are down, or the vents for your air conditioning are open, there’s a new, nasty surprise. The combination of hot and stinky is rough at first, but you get used to it. Pretty soon, it doesn’t bother you, until you turn a corner, go into a house, or enter an area where the waters have just receded. Then there’s a new smell.
We’re very comfortable down here, and our conditions are much better than the evacuees, soldiers, cops and firefighters who are down here - much, much better than the folks who are trying to tough it out until it’s all over. The CBS Newspath compound is five RVs and a satellite truck, located between the levee and Jackson Square. We have a generator, a grill, two Cajun couriers who are mean cooks, and even a nurse to look after us. I have RV number five to myself right now — I was offered a hotel room in a place that just cleaned up, but I’m used to the RV by now.
The French Quarter is a beer bottle throw away, and it’s never been cleaner. It’s teeming with National Guard from all over, feds from agencies you know and have never heard of (like the Dept. of Agriculture’s Forest Police), Navy, Coast Guard, and the 82nd Airborne. They mostly wander around, taking pictures, re-parking their cars, and doing some light sweeping. There are clothes to give away, and there’s plenty of MRE’s to hand out, but there’s no one left in the Big Easy. They’ve been scattered to the winds.
These new tourists are already scoping out the bars, and all three of Larry Flynt’s “Hustler” clubs have power — they should be open soon, and there will be no shortage of customers. Many have beads. Not all of them are loafing around: the cleanup workers, mold specialists, power linemen, tree clearers and local business people are all working inhuman hours in the brutal heat. The visiting firemen are working overtime to get NOFD back in business. The MPs and the search and rescue specialists are still going through buildings and making grisly discoveries. Some have told me they don’t think they will ever know where all the bodies are. The teams working in St. Bernard Parish, which is now an enormous toxic waste dump, are waking up with sore throats and other respiratory ailments. Privately, the EPA testers have told them that all the pollutants and environmental toxins are way off the scale. No one is looking to stay there long.
The former residents fall into two categories: the hyperactive and the walking wounded. The hyperactive are trying to work as much as they can to get their lives going in some kind of direction, and make the best of the new realities. The walking wounded are just that. The people left in the shelters are fragile, beaten down, and bewildered. They are in no shape to deal with the bureaucratic nightmares of FEMA and the Red Cross.
They are also angry. Both groups rage against federal, state and local governments, President Bush, FEMA, Governor Blanco, and all the profiteers who have come to make their quick buck at the taxpayers’ expense. Blackwater, Dyncorp, Fluor, Bechtel and Halliburton have all arrived like vultures at a fresh kill. Many people we’ve met feel deeply betrayed by their elected representatives.
The strangest thing is that they are also grateful to the media. This is one of the rare times people see a camera and want to shake your hand. Quite a few people have said that if the press hadn’t reported on this still unfolding disaster, more people would have died. It’s spooky to hear. It’s spookier to think that they might be right.
Of course, the self-congratulatory BS about the media at the end obscures the fact that they completely screwed up the coverage of this story.
The same media that were passing on reports of hundreds dead in the SuperDome and Convention Center, LOL.
I guess they would prefer that nobody does this type of work. (Which is essential for the city to get back on its feet.)
Hey, palletized MREs look just like human bodies stacked like cordwood. Anybody could have made that mistake!
Halliburton was named, but not the Shaw Group. Just another ommission by the lsm.
Your average NO resident has no idea who is doing the work. This is all "Inside Baseball" stuff you get when the media sits around talking to itself.
Note that the Pressies are all noble, heroic and saving lives, but the National Guardsmen are lazy slobs looking to hit on hookers and the people doing actual work for the clean-up contractors are vultures. You are always going to get this attitude when you talk to Pressies. I just filter it out.
Who runs the Shaw Group?
Let me guess... RATS???
There's no shortage of them telling each other what a great job they are doing and how brave they are to be there. it's sickening.
Except for the seven year old who wasn't raped and didn't have her throat cut in the Superdome, the dozens who didn't die there, the 9,000 fatalities that didn't happen, the fact that Nagin and Blanco kept the Red Cross and FEMA out of NO for 48 hours too long, the bogus story of the old woman in the St. Rita's nursing home calling for rescue for four days after she was as dead as the phones....the media did a swell job. This deluded dunce thinks we will buy his story that the press did any better than the government hacks they interviewed
incessantly while they should have been rescuing people.
Hey, man! You have no idea how warm the beer is! Until you've been there, you have no idea!
The BEER! It was WARM! WARM I TELL YOU!!!
A city like Paris France.
Wide boulevards, unendingly lined with massive government buildings.
An armada of sleek Mercedes buses, painted with the Tri Colour, ubiquitest and quiet move the citizenry efficiently from their condos to their counselors.
What detestable ignorance. Who does he think does this kind of clean up and does he expect it to be free?
I remember Dan Rather interviewing the Commander on the scene a few hours after the Murrah Building bombing in Oklahoma City. After keeping the man asking inane questions for about five minutes, Dan Rather asked him to "stand by", in case he, Dan Rather, needed to speak to him later.
The Commander looked at him like he had two heads. He had work to do, after all.
Maybe he expects the Civilian Conservation Corps or the WPA...
The chairman of the board of the Shaw Group Inc. was the chairman of the LA Democratic Party until a week or two ago.
No doubt Shaw Group will get a piece of the pie.
I got no problem with that. Somebody has to do the work. Just so long as the Government gets it's money's worth.
Oh don't worry, they got a piece of the pie alright. A $300,000,000.00 piece.
US Army Corps of Engineers Awards 10 Contracts for Potential Work in U.S. Central Command Area of Operations - Jan 2004For those not familiar with Govt. contracting, IDIQ (Indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity) means they operate on task orders as required by the Govt. These were just task orders issued under existing contracts. But...hey...why let a few facts get in the way of a good conspiracy theory?Excerpt:
The solicitation synopsis was published on October 17, 2003, on the Federal Business Opportunities website. The companies were competitively selected based on their response to the Request for Proposal documents.
IDIQ contracts are authorized under Federal Acquisition Regulations. This type of contract does not specify a firm quantity of services, other than a minimum and maximum quantity, and it provides for the issuance of individual task orders for work during the period of the contract. The task orders may be fixed price or cost reimbursement (reimbursed according to actual costs), depending on whether the statement of work can be completely and accurately defined at the outset or generally described.
Halliburton News Release on CONCAP award
Excerpt:
The U.S. Navy uses the CONCAP contract to support immediate needs associated with regional emergencies caused by natural disasters, military-led or military-supported humanitarian assistance or military conflicts. For more information on this contract, which was awarded in July 2004 following a competitive bidding process, please see the company’s press release here.[See below]
Under CONCAP and other contracts, KBR has provided extensive relief services for major disasters in the U.S. and abroad for more than 15 years. Following Hurricane Andrew in Florida in 1992, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers tasked KBR with providing planning assistance, damage surveys, expedient debris removal, engineering assessments, repairs to public and private buildings and utilities, and the construction, operation and maintenance of temporary trailer camps for displaced residents. KBR also performed emergency repairs to schools in the region and installed temporary, modular school buildings where necessary. The company began providing disaster relief services to the Navy two days after Hurricane Ivan struck Florida in 1994, and assisted after Hurricane Marilyn in the U.S. Virgin Islands in 1995 and Hurricane Hugo in South Carolina in 1990. In addition, under the previous CONCAP contract KBR provided emergency repairs in Guam following Super Typhoon Ponsonga from 2002-2004.
Halliburton Press Release - July 2004
Excerpt:
July 2004 - HOUSTON, Texas - KBR has been selected to continue providing private sector construction and related services to the U.S. Navy and other Department of Defense agencies and missions worldwide under the competitively-awarded CONCAP (construction capabilities) contract from the Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Atlantic Division.
the fact that Nagin and Blanco kept the Red Cross and FEMA out of NO for 48 hours too long,
I wonder if that was so they could cover their butts for all that they knew would be uncovered once officials were allowed in? Just wondering. Hope it is not a dumb question.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.