NEWS: A Letter From New Orleans

I've always wanted to go to New Orleans. It looks like I'll never get the chance now.

yea the US news is crap they don't show what's going on the BBC at least show what's really happening there it's like there reporting on two different things.

[Edited on Sep 01, 2005 7:08AM]

I went to N.O. last month thank god! I got to show my fiancee for the first time what it was like. We stayed in the French Quarter.

To see it under water, and all the palm trees down on Canal where we walked, is amazing. I am from Baton Rouge, and i've been to almost every Mardi Gras in N.O. since I was 10..... Their won't be any celebrating next year, just recovery.

I was going to be going to grad school there and put it off....
I'm glad I at least got to glance the city for burlesque two years ago.
God these are some really rotten assholes ugh.

I so wish I could help.

This is enough to make anyone ball their fucking eyes out

My best wishes to everyone.
Yuri.

so is US news underreporting? if so, not surprising.

Honest reporting like this is whats going to help people open their pockets to help. Right now it seems that it isn't so bad, and that the government will pay to repair the water damage.

Thanks for posting this.

I cannot even begin to share with you how furious it makes me to see the way some of the people of New Orleans are banding together AGAINST their own city. I have never been so poverty stuck that I was unsure if food would be on the table that night (though I've come damn close), so I will never know the mentality of a 'looter'. However, I can tell you that I think it is extremely insensitive and inhumane, even, that there is even looting and voilence. Why, WHY are these people not joining together to get themselves out of such a herendous nightmare is beyond me. No, I don't live in some fairytale world where everyone loves each other. But I can say, that when I was a child, I grew up in an extremely poor side of town. The innner city mentality was apparent everywhere. However, when a natural disaster (huge blizzard) hit and crippled us, we banded together to help each other out, whether it was shoveling someone out, or the ONE guy in the neighborhood who had a big truck to go and get groceries or make a hospital run for someone.....The reaction of some of the people in New Orleans makes me sick. I hope, however, that a tide turns for these folks and that the light at the end of the tunnel is not far off. I will do whatever I can, though, to help. I hope that other people who read this do as well.

The US news isn't worth spit. I've been watching a local N.O. channel that is streaming (wwltv.com) as well as monitoring international news. This letter only gets half the story of the problems caused by no clear chain of command and so many resources arriving DAYS later than they should have. Not only has N.O. devolved to complete lawlessness (it bordered on that in some places before the storm - you'd have to have lived there to understand), but the outlying parishes are seeing 100's of people dying of exposure and dehydration, because they aren't getting ANY supplies or support. They have commandeered boats to try to rescue people and scrounged up what they can, but it's just not enough.

In the end, it looks like we will have many 1000's dead when the death toll could have been kept down to a few hundred, if not for incompetence and underfunding of disaster services.

(edited for spelling)

[Edited on Sep 01, 2005 9:18AM]

Question: If there are sharks swimming in Lake NOLA, how the fuck did they get there? NOLA is 40 miles from the sea....wicked storm surges or no, that's a long distance for the sharks to come.

Yepyep. Scary to think about NO in it's current state.....

Somewhere, a greedy record company exec is rubbing his hands together while reading these news articles and saying "We're gonna find the next 50 Cent in New Orleans."

I could tell even before I got to the part of the storm you were probably from the north. First, there are many people in N.O. just like you remember from your childhood. They have been helping each other as best they can to get to places where they hope they could be rescued. Many of the first looters were pushing carts of food, water, diapers and such back to their apartment buildings for themselves and their families and neighbors.

Having lived on all three coasts and in Wisconsin, I can tell you two things. First, poverty sucks anywhere, but in the deep south it is a vastly different animal than it is in the north. The states have fewer funds and there are vastly less services provided. In New England, if you don't have some strict housing codes and basic services provided, people DIE during the winter. There is no such minimal measure in souther Louisiana.

Second, N.O. has devastating crime at the best of times. It's a very poor city in a poor state that is rife with corruption. It has an underfunded and understaffed police department. Unless you have seen the worst projects in the N.O. area you really can't grasp what it's like, and that was before Katrina hit. IMHO the poorest parts of N.O. are the absolute worst places in this country.

There are people there, by the score, intermixed with perfectly nice people who happen to have no education and are completely poverty stricken, who have been fighting the city and each other all along. Jefferson parish instituted marshal law immediately after the storm; harsh, but probably the best move they could have made under the circumstances. New Orleans needed 1000's of National Guard on the scene Sunday night to maintain order. Food and water should have been getting dropped in by Monday sometime at the latest.

Sure, be furious at the beasts who are shooting at helicopters. But understand that they are a small minority of the residents, and are the type that would have shot at a helicopter even before Katrina hit the city. Remember that N.O. averaged over one homicide a day, some years close to two a day, in a city with a population under 500,000. Those individuals (organizing into gangs) have no interest in being rescued - they believe they're lot would only be worse elsewhere.

(had an extra 0 in pop by accident)


[Edited on Sep 01, 2005 by Gilane]

40 miles?

Lake Ponchartrain is brackish because it intermingles with water from the gulf. The open ocean may be 40 miles downriver from N.O., but there is salt water fishing just a few miles out of town.

That being said, I'm still surprised sharks have entered N.O., as that would be a bit of a trip. Maybe one got there by some fluke. 'Gators and venomous snakes on the other hand I would expect, since they could be found just outside of town and even in City Park now and again. And of course the 20 pound rats (nutria) will be swarming in for the pickings.

This is bullshit, all fucking bullshit. Fuck the military and the Guard. They are all idiots how can we take over a fucking country and not even be able to handle a natural disaster. The government just wants to let the poor die. Fuck this bullshit. Fuck the news. New Orleans is a sunken city...For now at least?

http://www.redcross.org

Mary Dejevsky, writing about the New Orleans disaster in the Irish Independent, makes a cogent observation:

"Given that most of New Orleans lies below sea level, it is hard to believe that there was no contingency plan for this event."

And so we are left to react after the fact, by means of charities, and disaster recovery teams, and (always) the efforts of many unsung individuals.

To the extent that people render mutual aid towards each other, we may hope that New Orleans, Biloxi, and the rest of the Gulf Coast should in time recover from their trauma.

But what about the next time disaster strikes? Is your city or town or state or country really prepared to handle it? (Is mine? I wonder.) Are you? (Am I?) Perhaps, once we have done what we can to aid the Gulf Coast cities, we should check that our own homes and neighborhoods are prepared to handle future calamities. Just in case.

I find it completely unacceptable that when the Tsunamis hit Asia that we were there the next day with supplies and millions of dollars, but when something awful happens in this country Beauracracy is too strong of a force and nothing gets done. I'm not saying we shouldn't have helped the people in Asia...but we should help our own first and foremost. For the Government to not get in there ASAP and fix things is ridiculous. I would rather my tax dollars go to American citizens than Asian citizens any day. This whole thing is so fucking upsetting.

I find it completely unacceptable that when the Tsunamis hit Asia that we were there the next day with supplies and millions of dollars, but when something awful happens in this country Beauracracy is too strong of a force and nothing gets done. I'm not saying we shouldn't have helped the people in Asia...but we should help our own first and foremost. For the Government to not get in there ASAP and fix things is ridiculous. I would rather my tax dollars go to American citizens than Asian citizens any day. This whole thing is so fucking upsetting.

I find it completely unacceptable that when the Tsunamis hit Asia that we were there the next day with supplies and millions of dollars, but when something awful happens in this country Beauracracy is too strong of a force and nothing gets done. I'm not saying we shouldn't have helped the people in Asia...but we should help our own first and foremost. For the Government to not get in there ASAP and fix things is ridiculous. I would rather my tax dollars go to American citizens than Asian citizens any day. This whole thing is so fucking upsetting.

Shit, I didn't mean to do that...my fault.

Please read the Times-Picayune. There were plans. More importantly, N.O. and local FEMA and Army Engineers have been BEGGING for years for the resources to properly prepare for an event like this, including improving the levee system.

But funding has been steadily declining over the past 4 years, becoming functionally non-existent in 2003. The Times-Picayune has published no less than 8 articles in the past two years on this very subject, and the potentially catastrophic consequences!

Um...nothing was in Tsunami affected areas the next day. This is only two and a half days after the devestation has struck the area. The government is getting there as fast as they can and is doing everything as fast as they can. BUT, it's still a chaotic disaster area there. There are perhaps as many as 100,000 people trapped in a devestated city with few means in or out because many of the roads that led in or out simply do not exist anymore.

Fuel is scarce in the region (5% pre-katrina production) and the only way to get many people out or even off of rooftops is via helicopters which can't carry that many people at one time. Trying to plug up the levy breaks is problematic as well considering it all has to be done with helicopter as no trucks can get there and useful barges/boats are few and far between on the ravaged Lake Pontchartrain. Basically, to fix the breaks, they will have to attempt procedures that have never been done before. Everyone's doing the best they can, but if you expect a mess like this to be cleaned up in a week, you're smoking some serious crack.

Best case scenario is 15,000 people evacuated per day, but this is by no means a best case scenario (in fact i just read a story where a national guard helicopter trying to ferry people out of the Superdome was SHOT at by looters). There's looting and chaos on the streets. Not enough police to handle the situation. National guard are being flown in to help but that takes time considering the bases in LA and MS were more than likely seriously affected by this storm. Additionally, rescue workers and the like need to contend with looters who appear to have stolen guns en mass from places like Wallmart and other large stores--their safety is important too.

Here's a news flash for you man. Our money went to help the poorest of the poor on this planet try and recover after the most devestating natural disaster in recorded history (the Tsunami). I'm glad money went to that cause. They needed it (and still do). Try and wrap your mind around that one m'kay. Our own didn't need the help at the time (like those that had everything torn asunder by the tides of mother nature) and the richest country on earth can damn well afford to give in times of need such as that. To act like our nation was beggered by the aid it gave is insulting at best.

Now our own do need help and we will come to their aid and prevai as we have more than enough money, man power, resources and equipment. It won't be in a day, a week or perhaps even a month...but eventually NOLA will be back in business. Relief efforts of this scale have rarely if ever been attempted and it will naturally take time to get everything organized and smoothly running. The relief workers are dealing with water born disease, floods on a near-biblical scale, armed looters, no power, little fuel, scared people, necessary mandatory evacuation, and hospitals needed evacuating. Where do you put the priority? It's only a few days removed from the disaster dammit! Give them time and they'll (relief workers) will make the best of the hand dealt to them i'm sure. In the mean time, there's going to be some missteps along the way. Rome wasn't built in a day; NOLA will not be rebuilt in a day either.

Honestly though, get off your fucking soap box and donate your body to going down there and helping if you think you can do a better job. I'm 10,000 miles away and don't have the ability to make it back to help or i would. But you're a mere 1000 or so miles so give it a try. I'm sure you can get the help there ASAP right? Barring that, i hope you can at least dig down deep into your pockets as i intend to do.

The situation is way more complicated than you are giving credit for. Try thinking before you post...or triple posting as the case was.

[Edited on Sep 01, 2005 by Max16Characters]

WOW!! I am so impressed by your comment, it seemed pretty insightful and definitely not ignorant, not at all.

It's horrifying...
I watch the Canadian, US and British coverage of this...and I just can't imagine.

I still haven't heard from my friend who lived there...
I just hope that her and her woman got out...

Every day I get sicker with worry.