Katrina Thread / New Orleans

[mr.Curmudgeon]

I still don't understand the bus situation.  I am under the distinct impression that the reason they are evacuating the shelters is because the levees are leaking water, causing the water levels to rise, putting the people in the shelters at risk.  If the water are got under control to the point of allowing buses to drive right up to the Superdome, doesn't that negate the need to evacuate in the first place?

All this latest confusion seems to point to a cascading disaster, the likes of which has never been seen in modern America. I'm getting the feeling these reports are not even touching on the reality of the situation, where essentially we have tens of thousands of people trapped by rising water.

I know that didn't have very many options for dealing with the refugees, so the Dome was probably the best bet...however, now, what do they do?

mrC

[Stingray]

Now they're saying they need to evac 10,000 out of 9 hospitals due to no power of any kind! Generators and backup generators are now completely out of fuel...

Oh man, this is getting bad. So the power is already out at the hospitals?

-S

[Stingray]

I know that didn't have very many options for dealing with the refugees, so the Dome was probably the best bet...however, now, what do they do?

I hope the city of Houston is doing something in the way of more permanent shelters. After being inside the flooded superdome with no power or working plumbing, the astrodome is going to seem like a luxury hotel. I can't even imagine what it would be like to be in that situation.

-S

[mr.Curmudgeon]

Mayor:

[DrewKaree]

My ignorance?? You're the fool who takes all his marching orders from Glenn Beck.

What would those be?  Clearly you have no idea what my "marching orders" are, or perhaps you see me as "one of them there racists" as well.



Oh, and again, tell us how Patty PovertyStricken is doing at work today, since she's living day to day. 

I've never claimed that the "left" is devoid of racism, but I don't think it's a stretch to claim that the right holds a monopoly on it. Don't shoot the messenger.

Kinda hard to say you believe your side to not be devoid of racism but then speak about a monopoly on the right.  Save your double-speak for the nightly shows.  I'm sure they'll be beating your door down to talk to you, since you have a better handle than anyone else on what to do.  We've all marvelled at your plan.

"Poverty drivel??"

What an @sshole you are. Seriously.

Is that supposed to be the kind-hearted person you are, just seeping out at the seams?  This from the guy who looks at this natural disaster and while everyone's discussing it, drops in with "BUSH SUCKS, YOU RIGHTIES ARE RACISTS"?

Here's an idea.  Send a few bucks down there.  That's about all the good you're able to do.  Tell us how compassionate you are then.   Tell us how you're working to unite the country again, in spite of Bush.  Just like you're working to unite everyone in this thread. 

Isn't there a kettle somewhere around here you can call black?


The place should be razed.  Split Baton Rouge into two parts and rename one of 'em NewNewOrleans.  Stop thinking we can outsmart nature, or at the very least, bulldoze some of Texas over to fill in the hole and build on that.  I've heard today that all the measures used to stop the water from the Mississippi from filling in normally actually contributed to the city sinking over the years, making this worse as time goes by.  Giddyup with the civil engineers admitting this can't be solved and this will most definitely happen again.  And again.  Three or more times, even. 

[mr.Curmudgeon]

I hope the city of Houston is doing something in the way of more permanent shelters. After being inside the flooded superdome with no power or working plumbing, the astrodome is going to seem like a luxury hotel. I can't even imagine what it would be like to be in that situation.

-S

I fear the shelters talk is extremely optimistic at this point, obviously they'll need them, and it's important to start planning for it, but, as it stands now, I have yet to hear of any feasible plan to get these people out of there and to these shelters!

The National Guard is strapped, a LOT of NO's flood-water equipment is in Iraq, same with the helicopters. This evac will take a herculean national effort.

mrC

[mr.Curmudgeon]

Oh, and again, tell us how Patty PovertyStricken is doing at work today, since she's living day to day.

You are a crass bafoon. Your penchant for this type of callous deflection needs no response. It truly stands alone.

[Dartful Dodger]

Mayor:

[ChadTower]

Let me get this straight.. they knew the hospitals were on limited fuel capacity... yet they didn't immediately start an evacuation of the patients?  They waited until the power was out to decide to move them?  We can refuel Air Force One in midair but we can't airlift fuel to hospitals?

The whole city is underwater, right?  Boat in some damn fuel so that you don't have to evacuate thousands of injured and critical patients.  That should have already been accounted for and a system for fueling hospital generators put in place.

Who is handling this situation?  It's been handled incompetently and now people are going to start dying because of it. 

This whole thing really makes me appreciate how brilliantly the days after 9/11 were managed.  I don't think many people ever understood that.  Given the dramatic contrast with this week's mismanagement, maybe they will now.

[Stingray]

Mayor:

[ChadTower]

Okay, then, tell us what that number signifies.  Does it signify that they are dead?  That they are round?  That they are Pillsbury artichokes?

Maybe you should have told him to say it was a substantial number.  That way he would look like he understood English.

[Stingray]

Dartful taught me yesterday that all numbers are significant. This was right after he gave me a big hug and called me his brother. I think he might have been smoking oregano.

-S

[ChadTower]

Well, here is what I can come up with:

6 is significant.  It signfies a whole value of more than 5 and less than 7.

[DrewKaree]

Dartful taught me yesterday that all numbers are significant. This was right after he gave me a big hug and called me his brother. I think he might have been smoking oregano.

-S

I saw him with a bong full of nyQuil just a few minutes earlier.  I was wondering where he was going, but he was whispering something about "Stingray's not heavy", so I figured it best to leave him alone.

Plus, my bacon was reaching perfection.  To leave it would have meant having to throw it away.  You see my conundrum, yes?

[DrewKaree]

Well, here is what I can come up with:

6 is significant.  It signfies a whole value of more than 5 and less than 7.

7 is actually more significant, not to mention that 6 is afraid of it.

[ChadTower]

It's true.

7 8 9.  Poor nine.

[M3talhead]

Let me get this straight.. they knew the hospitals were on limited fuel capacity... yet they didn't immediately start an evacuation of the patients?  They waited until the power was out to decide to move them?  We can refuel Air Force One in midair but we can't airlift fuel to hospitals?

The whole city is underwater, right?  Boat in some damn fuel so that you don't have to evacuate thousands of injured and critical patients.  That should have already been accounted for and a system for fueling hospital generators put in place.

Who is handling this situation?  It's been handled incompetently and now people are going to start dying because of it. 

This whole thing really makes me appreciate how brilliantly the days after 9/11 were managed.  I don't think many people ever understood that.  Given the dramatic contrast with this week's mismanagement, maybe they will now.

Chad, you need to understand 2 things...

1. Lousiana is the most corrupt state government in the US.

2. Hospital fuel reserves for generators are built below ground. You cant get fuel to the tanks if the manhole cover is submerged in 15ft of water.

[Stingray]

Plus, my bacon was reaching perfection. 

This makes no sense. Bacon is perfection. What could it possibly have to reach for?

Can I have another hit off that, DD?

-S

[ChadTower]

Chad, you need to understand 2 things...

1. Lousiana is the most corrupt state government in the US.

Didn't know that, but I believe it.

2. Hospital fuel reserves for generators are built below ground. You cant get fuel to the tanks if the manhole cover is submerged in 15ft of water.

You're telling me the US Military does not contain engineers capable of adding secondary capacity to a few generators?

[Dartful Dodger]

I need to type faster if I want to beat you guys to the bunch line.

The joke was done twice before I could press post.

[Stingray]

2. Hospital fuel reserves for generators are built below ground. You cant get fuel to the tanks if the manhole cover is submerged in 15ft of water.

Wow. Talk about brilliance. Advance planning at it's best ladies and gents.

-S

[ChadTower]

15 feet of water is nothing.  Send down divers to attach the hoses.

[M3talhead]

4 paitents have been confirmed dead due to the power outages.......

[M3talhead]

Chad, you need to understand 2 things...

1. Lousiana is the most corrupt state government in the US.

Didn't know that, but I believe it.

2. Hospital fuel reserves for generators are built below ground. You cant get fuel to the tanks if the manhole cover is submerged in 15ft of water.

You're telling me the US Military does not contain engineers capable of adding secondary capacity to a few generators?  How about just rerouting the source to come from above ground tanks that you just brought in?  How about having it come from a boat anchored right next to the hospital?  Think like an engineer.  Lives are in the balance and you have the full resources of the United States at your disposal.

Chad Tower for Lousiana Governor!

He has all the answers.

[ChadTower]

I saw the Louisiana Governor on TV this morning.  I think it was tommy.

[shmokes]

That bong was filled with Jagr.  It's a perfectly understandable mistake, though.

In defense of the disaster effort here compared with 9/11, they're not really comparable.  Not that I don't think 9/11 was handled just about as well as it could have been retroactively, but...everyone was doomed.  There was nobody to save, and nearly every victim (or remains) was confined to a city block.  Nearby apartments had to be evacuated, but those people were not in immediate mortal danger.

Most of the worst things about 9/11 don't apply here, or at least they apply in very different ways.  And vice versa.  I suspect it's pretty damned easy to evacuate neighboring apartment buildings after the World Trade Center has been demolished by terrorists and the air is nearly unbreathable.  What were they supposed to do in New Orleans, send troops every door in the city, smashing them in and searching for people not following evacuation orders?  The logistics of moving millions of people out of a city and trying to coorinate piecemeal rescue efforts across hundreds of square miles (I made that up, I don't know how big the city is) -- a person in this tree, a family in that attic -- it ain't anything like the same thing.

9/11 happened and for the most part, it was over.  People either survived or didn't survive and this all happened in the space of hours.  After that all we could do was dig and provide aid to survivors.  If you were a survivor you went to, for the most part fully functional, if crowded hospitals.  For the most part there wasn't much ongoing danger after all the planes had crashed and the fires were extinguished.

[missioncontrol]

just a thought......


I remember hearing once about a flood somewhere that once the ground got so saturated the caskets at a cemetary started poping up out of the ground and floating in the flood.

[shmokes]

New Orleans "buries" their dead above ground precisely because they are below sealevel.

[ChadTower]

Their main cemetary, BTW, is one of the few dry spots in New Orleans right now because it is the high point topographically.

[Stingray]

Thankfully it looks like caskets popping out of the ground isn't going to be an issue in this situation, but thanks for creeping me the hell out Mission.

-S

[missioncontrol]

you don't have to worry about being creeped out until the cemetay is under water..........

[DrewKaree]

Plus, my bacon was reaching perfection. 

This makes no sense. Bacon is perfection. What could it possibly have to reach for?

Can I have another hit off that, DD?

-S

Heat.  Bacon is almost perfection.  Cooking completes it.  Cooking it makes bacon attain its sole purpose in this world.  Perfection.


I thought the entire city was built on the silt and crap from the Mississippi, and that the reason all their houses are so tall is because they CAN'T dig a basement, water simply keeps flooding in.  How can they bury fuel tanks in that crap and expect them to stay in place and not shift, defeating their purpose? 

That's yet another reason they have all the mausoleum's there. 

Oh, and it's not surprising....New Orleans was settled by the French.  It was just a matter of time before the city gave up.

[Zero_Hour]

Building a city below sea level was a dumb idea to start with, so I'm sure the government will be happy to build it again in the same bad location.

-S

New Orleans being largely below sea level is not really a new development. The potential harm from a direct hit of a large hurricane, or damage to the levees around it have also been discussed at length. But with so many things, it is often our nature to procrastinate, or be reactive.

From:
http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001051313

"On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; told the Times-Picayune: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

Also that June, with the 2004 hurricane season starting, the Corps' project manager Al Naomi went before a local agency, the East Jefferson Levee Authority, and essentially begged for $2 million for urgent work that Washington was now unable to pay for. From the June 18, 2004 Times-Picayune:

"The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don't get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can't stay ahead of the settlement," he said. "The problem that we have isn't that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can't raise them."

Half of The Netherlands population lives below sea level. During a Flood in th 50's 2000 died, and at that point the Dutch reacted, Increasing an already expansive array of seawalls. You can pretty much put people anywhere if you have the technology, and are willing to deploy it properly.

So far I've watched very little coverage of the storm on TV, it feels more like distater exploitation than useful information. Even the print press are doing a crappy job. I can't speak to wether or not there is outright racism involved in the reporting, but the captions for the following photos were more than a little interesting to me:
Photo One
Photo Two

Additionally, My wife is a commissioned officer in the Public Health Service (Uniformed Services as opposed to Armed Services), she's on the list for emergency deployment (a list that is maintained year round, but is seldom ever called into action), and in fact would like to go and help. Even with this system in place, and after getting regular updates about preparing (what to pack etc.) She discovered that somehow her existence on that list is unknown to the people actually making the deployment decisions, and that things are to say the least, screwed up. It starts to make you think that those emergeny response plans are a placebo and not an actual plan. I suspect that FEMA will be under the same sort of scrutiny after this, as the intelligence community was after 9/11. Hopefully, even if a storm like this repeats itself in our lifetimes, we won't see this level of damage.

*EDIT: Photo links fixed

[Dartful Dodger]

Oh, and it's not surprising....New Orleans was settled by the French.

[mr.Curmudgeon]

Classy.

People are still dying there and you guys are competing for funniest one-liner...and Drew has the balls to question my concerns, and criticise my character.

Real classy.

[DrewKaree]

So far I've watched very little coverage of the storm on TV, it feels more like distater exploitation than useful information. Even the print press are doing a crappy job. I can't speak to wether or not there is outright racism involved in the reporting, but the captions for the following photos were more than a little interesting to me:
Photo One
Photo Two

Links no longer working.

Today I heard a morning DJ say the flooding might finally wash away that permanent urine and vomit smell on the streets.

If they decide to rebuild, they're contemplating installing vomit-resistant cobblestones.  That way, they keep the old world charm, but replace it with new high-tech materials

Seriously, I think they start planning on spending for relocation rather than any rebuilding program.  The inane system that's set up already there fails.  Zero's link speaks of the levee's ALWAYS sinking.   It's a natural occurrence due to how the area SHOULD work, and to continue sinking money into keeping that city viable until the next hurricane is like.....any structure or road in WV.  It's a waste of money, but it keeps the locals happy.

[DrewKaree]

Classy.

People are still dying there and you guys are competing for funniest one-liner...and Drew has the balls to question my concerns, and criticise my character.

Real classy.

Yeah, because YOU see this as political fodder, with a side dish of sympathy thrown in there. Mebbe you'll tell us what you're doing about the problem.  How YOU are gonna help out, oh great uniter.

Your morbid obsession with wallowing in despair no matter the reason is simply amplified in any responses you've had in this thread.

And you tell me I'm the one who needs to get outside once in a while.

Save your piousness for someone else.  Sackcloth and ashes don't become you.

[Dartful Dodger]

I went to New Orleans in College, and back then I though "Where was Mrs. O'Leary's cow when a city needed it"?

[quarterback]

Chad, you need to understand 2 things...

2. Hospital fuel reserves for generators are built below ground. You cant get fuel to the tanks if the manhole cover is submerged in 15ft of water.

You're telling me the US Military does not contain engineers capable of adding secondary capacity to a few generators?

[Dexter]

Classy.

People are still dying there and you guys are competing for funniest one-liner...and Drew has the balls to question my concerns, and criticise my character.

Real classy.

Did we really expect the people who have no problem with 100,000 people being killed needlessly in a 'brown' country with their tax dollars to have a problem with whats happening in New Orleans?