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National Guard Troops Land in New Orleans
Associated Press/ALLEN G. BREED | September 2 2005
NEW ORLEANS - Ragtag armies of the desperate and hungry begged for help, corpses rotted along flooded sidewalks and bands of armed thugs thwarted fitful rescue efforts as Americans watched the Big Easy dissolve before their eyes.
About 4:35 a.m. Friday, a series of massive explosions along the riverfront a few miles south of the French Quarter jolted residents awake. The cause of the blasts or the extent of any possible damage was not immediately known.
An initial explosion sent flames of red and orange shooting into the pre-dawn sky. A series of smaller blasts followed and then acrid, black smoke that could be seen even in the dark. The vibrations were felt all the way downtown.
The explosions appeared to originate close to the east bank of the Mississippi River, near a residential area and rail tracks. At least two police boats were at the scene.
- yahoo.com
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Major explosion rocks New Orleans
By Allen G. Breed, AP Published: 02 September 2005
A massive explosion today rocked the New Orleans riverfront a few miles south of the French Quarter.
The blast - at a chemical storage facility - jolted residents awake at 4.35am local time (10.35am BST). A series of smaller explosions followed. Flames of red and orange shot into the pre-dawn sky.
A series of smaller blasts followed, and then acrid, black smoke could be seen even in the dark. The smoke could be seen from miles away and was still rising thickly hours later as day broke.
The explosions were close to the east bank of the Mississippi River, near a residential area and rail tracks. At least two police boats were at the scene.
Chaos has spread through this desperate city since Hurricane Katrina struck, despite the promise of 1,400 National Guardsmen a day to stop the looting, a $10.5 billion recovery bill in Congress and a relief effort that President George Bush called the biggest in UShistory.
The hungry beg for help, bodies lie along flooded sidewalks, and bands of armed thugs have thwarted fitful rescue efforts. - independent.co.uk
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Iraq-tested soldiers in New Orleans with shoot to kill orders
BATON ROUGE (AFP) Sep 02, 2005 - A squad of 300 National Guard troops landed in anarchic New Orleans fresh from Iraq on Thursday, with authorization to shoot and kill "hoodlums", Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco said.
"Three hundred of the Arkansas National Guard have landed in the city of New Orleans," said Blanco. "These troops are fresh back from Iraq, well trained, experienced, battle tested and under my orders to restore order in the streets," Blanco said. "They have M-16s and they are locked and loaded. "These troops know how to shoot and kill and they are more than willing to do so if necessary and I expect they will," said Blanco.
Colonel Henry Whitehorn of the Louisiana State Police said that the law and order situation in the city was "bad."
He said however anarchic conditions around the Superdome stadium and central business district where up to 20,000 refugees have been sheltering had been "stabilising."
But he admitted that a number of police officers, who had lost everything in flooding after Hurricane Katrina which roared ashore last Monday, had handed in their badges, unwilling to take the fight to looters.
Several thousand people are feared dead in the disaster.
- spacewar.com
Eight U.S. Navy vessels, including the hospital ship Comfort, and emergency personnel from around the country headed today to the Gulf coast.
- source: Bloomberg
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New Orleans: Desperate doctors evacuate hospitals
03/09/2005 - 08:20:23 - Two of New Orleans' most troubled hospitals were evacuated late yesterday after desperate doctors spent days making tough choices about which patients got dwindling supplies of food, water and medicines.
Rescuers finally made it into Charity and University hospitals and evacuated all remaining patients and staff.
"The last information I have is that all of the buildings are empty," said Don Smithburg, head of the Louisiana State University hospital system.
About 2,200 people were evacuated, including 363 patients. Some were taken out on stretchers and others on piggyback. Three terminally ill patients died during the evacuation. Smithburg did not know how many died waiting for help.
At Charity, the largest public hospital and trauma centre in the city, gunshots on Thursday had prevented efforts to evacuate more than 250 patients. The evacuation resumed yesterday after state police stepped up their protection, Smithburg said.
Earlier in the day, the hospital's morgue had 12 bodies, and another five were stacked in a stairwell - in both cases under water. Other bodies were in other parts of the hospital, Smithburg said
With food and water running out, some hospital employees gave each other intravenous fluids while waiting for rescue, Smithburg said.
As for the doctors and nurses: "Some of them are on the brink of being unable to cope any longer.
We just can't get our people out fast enough," Smithburg said.
At University Hospital, about 500 family and staff members had joined 110 very ill patients and hundreds of others from the general community needing evacuation. "We're starting to make some headway," said Knox Andress, an emergency room nurse in Shreveport, Louisiana, who helped co-ordinate relocation efforts. - IOL
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Troops begin combat operations in New Orleans
By Joseph R. Chenelly Times staff writer
NEW ORLEANS - Combat operations are underway on the streets "to take this city back" in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
"This place is going to look like Little Somalia," Brig. Gen. Gary Jones, commander of the Louisiana National Guard's Joint Task Force told Army Times Friday as hundreds of armed troops under his charge prepared to launch a massive citywide security mission from a staging area outside the Louisiana Superdome. "We're going to go out and take this city back. This will be a combat operation to get this city under control."
Jones said the military first needs to establish security throughout the city. Military and police officials have said there are several large areas of the city are in a full state of anarchy. Dozens of military trucks and up-armored Humvees left the staging area just after 11 a.m. Friday, while hundreds more troops arrived at the same staging area in the city via Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters.
"We're here to do whatever they need us to do," Sgt. 1st Class Ron Dixon, of the Oklahoma National Guard's 1345th Transportation Company. "We packed to stay as long as it takes."
While some fight the insurgency in the city, other carry on with rescue and evacuation operations. Helicopters are still pulling hundreds of stranded people from rooftops of flooded homes.
Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and police helicopters filled the city sky Friday morning. Most had armed soldiers manning the doors. According to Petty Officer 3rd Class Jeremy Grishamn, a spokesman for the amphibious assault ship Bataan, the vessel kept its helicopters at sea Thursday night after several military helicopters reported being shot at from the ground.
Numerous soldiers also told Army Times that they have been shot at by armed civilians in New Orleans. Spokesmen for the Joint Task Force Headquarters at the Superdome were unaware of any servicemen being wounded in the streets, although one soldier is recovering from a gunshot wound sustained during a struggle with a civilian in the dome Wednesday night.
"I never thought that at a National Guardsman I would be shot at by other Americans," said Spc. Philip Baccus of the 527th Engineer Battalion. "And I never thought I'd have to carry a rifle when on a hurricane relief mission. This is a disgrace."
Spc. Cliff Ferguson of the 527th Engineer Battalion pointed out that he knows there are plenty of decent people in New Orleans, but he said it is hard to stay motivated considering the circumstances.
"This is making a lot of us think about not reenlisting." Ferguson said. "You have to think about whether it is worth risking your neck for someone who will turn around and shoot at you. We didn't come here to fight a war. We came here to help."
armytimes
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'Outerbongolia' asks Will FEMA bio-attack Louisiana in the wake of Katrina?
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1. Oct 24, 2003: Michael Perich, 46 of Louisiana State University died under suspicious circumstances
2. [suspected of carrying out the Anthrax attacks Dr. Steven J. Hatfill, an eccentric 48-year-old scientist who had worked in one of the Army's top bioweapons-research laboratories] had recently accepted a job at Louisiana State University, and was cleaning out his apartment before the move. (Last week LSU placed Hatfill on a 30-day paid leave of absence.)
3. On July 1, 2004 the Louisiana State University School of Veterinary Medicine received a $9.9 million grant to establish a Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE).
more at global-elite.net
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Public health authorities concerned about spread of infectious diseases
Big News Network.com Sunday 4th September, 2005 - U.S. public health officials are worried about the possible spread of infectious diseases in areas hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina.
Stagnant flood waters, lack of proper sewage and clean water all could contribute to the spread of disease. The conditions in the flooded city of New Orleans are a recipe for diahrreal diseases rarely seen in the United States, including hepatitis, dysentery, cholera, and typhus. The diseases occur when there is no sanitation, and water becomes contaminated with fecal matter.
Officials are also concerned about mosquito-borne illnesses.
Appearing on CNN's Late Edition program Sunday, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt says it is not uncommon to see such outbreaks following natural disasters.
'Any time you have this type of disaster, whether it's in the United States or anywhere else, you have the potential for this kind of disease. For that reason, we have dispatched 24 public health teams, or (we are) in the process of dispatching them, throughout the Gulf region to begin working with state and local officials to assure we are doing everything possible to avoid it,' Mr. Leavitt says.
Mr. Leavitt says public health officials will also help victims who are traumatized by the hurricane.
'People have lost their jobs, they have lost their lives, they have lost loved ones, their homes are gone, their mementos, all of the things that make life stable and certain for many of these people are gone, and it's going to exact a devastating toll. And we've got to be there to help them, and we will be,' Mr. Leavitt says.
For now, Mr. Leavitt says, federal officials are assessing the immediate health needs of survivors of hurricane Katrina, and mobilizing a coordinated response that may ultimately include offers of assistance from abroad. - BNN
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If the comments below are by a 'civil rights leader,
just imagine what the bigots on the
Christian Right are talking about...
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Civil-rights leader claims cannibalism
Says black storm victims eating corpses to survive
Posted: September 2, 2005 5:00 p.m. Eastern - Without providing evidence, a civil-rights leader and author claimed black victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans have resorted to cannibalism to survive because no one has come to help them.
Randall Robertson, writing in his Huffington Post weblog, said:
It is reported that black hurricane victims in New Orleans have begun eating corpses to survive. Four days after the storm, thousands of blacks in New Orleans are dying like dogs. No-one has come to help them.
However, no reports of cannibalism have turned up as thousands of armed National Guardsmen pour into the city to restore order, help distribute relief supplies and evacuate stranded refugees.
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Robinson, author of " The Debt - What America Owes to Blacks," said, "New Orleans marks the end of the America I strove for. I am hopeless. I am sad. I am angry against my country for doing nothing when it mattered."
He called the response to Katrina's aftermath the "watershed moment in America's racial history."
"My hand shakes with anger as I write," he said. "I, the formerly un-jaundiced human rights advocate, have finally come to see my country for what it really is. A monstrous fraud."
Many readers responded positively to Robinson's remarks, but some sharply criticized him, pointing out his lack of sourcing and the unlikelyhood of cannibalism after only four days, since people can survive for weeks without food.
world net daily
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White people 'find stuff' - Black people are 'looters'...
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I guess the people at Yahoo didn't have their racism detectors on earlier this week. On August 29th an image appeared on Yahoo of a white woman and man trudging through chest deep water after "finding bread and soda from a local grocery store." Huh. They just "found" bread and soda? Like little Goldie Locks "found" porridge after skipping through the forest? The next day Yahoo gives us an image of a black boy after just "looting a grocery store." I hate to break it to the heads of Yahoo but even if you didn't mean to do it, it is still racism.
Not surprisingly, the people at Yahoo took off the picture of the "white finders," because Yahoo would never plan out racism. Maybe their subconscious did it for them? The media can't build up the poor black people to be ravage beasts, foaming from the mouth looting everything in sight, from bread to medicine to water, if we have these other images floating about. The media has to maintain its "fairness" and "objectivity." Goddamn it if Walmart's insurance doesn't cover the diapers or food that damn crying baby needed, or the diabetes pills that 82 year old woman whorishly craved. We can't taint it with picture perfect, racist images of white people just "trying to survive."
We haven't treated black people like three-fifths a person in a while-well not if their rich and republican. As Condi Rice looks at the impoverished refugees with the, my-mommy- didn't-teach-me-about-this-during-piano-lessons stare, we realize it will take her more than a week to get "down and dirty" with the people of her own race.
It's not as though the people of New Orleans are asking for aid in small unmarked bills. They just want to get out of New Orleans. Why didn't they get out in the first place? Well that's an effect of being poor and black in a country that doesn't give a damn about you. Who cares if the death toll tops 10,000, just as long as Bush gives 10.5 billion in aid two weeks from now. He can say, "I tried," or "in hindsight." People in America love to say in hindsight as a code for: yes we screwed you, but we're going to try and put a good face on it anyway... - Remi Kanazi
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cops looting?
"The police are looting. This has been confirmed by several independent sources. Some of the looting might be "legitimate" in as much as that word has any meaning in this context. They have broken into ATMs and safes: confirmed. We have eyewitnesses to this. They have taken dozens of SUVs from dealerships ostensibly for official use. They have also looted gun stores and pawn shops for all the small arms, supposedly to prevent "criminals" from doing so. But who knows their true intentions." - see here
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An Emmanual Goldstein-like Al Queda is paraded
who is trying to justify those 'much needed' troops 'rebuilding' Iraq???
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Iraq's al Qaeda says Katrina is "wrath of God"-Web
04 Sep 2005 15:49:42 GMT - DUBAI, Sept 4 (Reuters) - The al Qaeda group in Iraq on Sunday hailed the hurricane deaths in America as the "wrath of God", according to an Internet statement.
"God attacked America and the prayers of the oppressed were answered," said the statement, which was posted on an Islamic Web site often used by the insurgent group fighting the U.S.-backed Iraqi government.
The statement's authenticity could not be verified.
"The wrath of the All-powerful fell upon the nation of oppressors. Their dead are in the thousands and their losses are in the billions," said the statement from the group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has a $25 million U.S. bounty on this head.
"Only recently America killed and starved whoever it wanted, but today it is appealing for oil and food," it added.
The hurricane on the U.S. Gulf coast killed hundreds but as rescue work continues the final toll could be in the thousands.
Zarqawi's group is at the forefront of a raging insurgency since the U.S.-led war in 2003 that toppled Saddam Hussein. Nearly 1,900 U.S. soldiers have been killed since the invasion.
U.S. President George W. Bush has vowed to keep U.S. troops in the country as part of the U.S. "war on terror" to prevent attacks on U.S. soil.
reuters
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Wayne Madsen gets to the point...
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September 1, 2005 -- Hurricane Katrina brings out blatant racism from the loonie White Right. No sooner than the television images flashed across the national screens of desperate New Orleans residents carrying non-perishable food items, dry clothing, and medicines out of flood ravaged stores did the white "evangelical" right begin to make noise about shooting looters and that "people that dumb" not to get out of New Orleans when they could deserved what they got. Of course, every looter was likened to the one or two people seen carrying television sets from broken store windows, not those carrying cases of bottled water or canned goods.
The venomous bile about "dumb people" and looters comes from the very same people who follow the dictates of Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and James Dobson (none of whom have been at the forefront of any relief efforts except to say that New Orleans was punished by God because it was going to host a gay festival this month).
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HAM Radio going down? Frequency block?
September 2, 2005 -- Who is jamming communications in New Orleans? Ham radio operators are reporting that communications in and around New Orleans are being jammed. In addition, perplexed ham radio operators who were enlisted by the Federal government in 911 are not being used for hurricane Katrina Federal relief efforts. There is some misinformation circulating on the web that the jamming is the result of solar flares. Ham radio operators report that the flares are not the source of the communications jamming. If anyone at the National Security Agency is aware of the source of the jamming, from direction finding or satellite intelligence, please discretely contact me at waynemadsendc@hotmail.com (from a private or temporary email account). In this case, the Bush administration cannot hide behind national security and it is the duty of every patriotic American to report such criminal activity to the press. Even though the information on the jamming may be considered classified -- it is in the public interest to disclose it. Also, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is reporting that no aircraft over New Orleans have been fired on over New Orleans or anywhere else in the area. Are the reports of shots being fired at aircraft an attempt by the Bush administration to purposely delay the arrival of relief to the city's homeless and dying poor? The neocons have turned New Orleans into Baghdad on the Mississippi.
UPDATE: We can now report that the jamming of New Orleans' communications is emanating from a pirate radio station in the Caribbean. The noise is continuous and it is jamming frequencies, including emergency high frequency (HF) radios, in the New Orleans area. The radio frequency jammers were heard last night, stopped for a while, and are active again today. The Pentagon must locate the positions of these transmitters and order the Air Force to bomb them immediately.
However, we now have a new unconfirmed report that the culprit may be the Pentagon itself. The emitter is an IF (Intermediate Frequency) jammer that is operating south southwest of New Orleans on board a U.S. Navy ship, according to an anonymous source. The jamming is cross-spectrum and interfering with superheterodyne receiver components, including the emergency radios being used in New Orleans relief efforts.
The jamming frequencies are:
72.0MHZ
45.0MHZ
10.245MHZ
10.240 Mhz
11.340 Mhz
455 IF 233 MHZ
A former DoD source says the U.S. Army uses a portable jammer, known as WORLOCK, in Iraq and this jammer may be similar to the one that is jamming the emergency frequencies. If a U.S. Navy ship is, in fact, jamming New Orleans communications, the crew must immediately shut down the jammer and take action against the Commanding Officer..
We have just learned from a journalist in Mobile that yesterday, Sprint blocked all cell phone calls from the Gulf Coast region to points north and west. Calls were permitted between Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida but no calls could be made to Washington, New York, or Los Angeles
The Wayne Madsen report
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George Noory amplifies the fear
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Radio host: No doubt 'End Times' here
World Net Daily | September 2 2005 - A national talk-radio host believes the severity of Hurricane Katrina is clear evidence that civilization is now in the "End Times" described in the Bible.
"I don't think there's any doubt," George Noory said this morning on his "Coast to Coast AM" program. "I think we're in it. I really do."
While Noory explained he did not mean an imminent end to all life on Earth, he referred to the book of Revelation in the New Testament, saying current events are "the beginning of the end." "I cannot imagine the grief and the horror that the people in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana are undergoing," Noory said. "I see it, I hear it, but you know what, unless it happens to you, it really doesn't affect you. "In this particular case, eventually it's going to affect everybody in the United States in some form or fashion. And as you see the price of oil going up, as you see shortages, as you see the price at the grocery store going up, you're going to realize just how serious a tragedy this really is.
"It's time to rethink the priorities of this country first and foremost and I always have in this strange mind I have, I always wonder, why did this have to happen now? Think about that for a moment. If you believe that there are no coincidences, why would this happen? I mean why would divine Providence want this to happen to us now?"
Katrina's storm surge and flooding have some recollecting the post-Christmas tsunami which killed 200,000 people and left up to 5 million in need of basic services in a dozen Indian Ocean nations.
At that time, some people reflected on the End-time warning from the Gospel of Luke, where Jesus stated: "And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring ... ." (Luke 21:25)
Noory was joined on the program by former NASA consultant Richard C. Hoagland, who called the flooding situation of New Orleans a "nightmare" and a "disaster waiting to happen."
"This is such a biblical-proportion catastrophe," Hoagland said. "What I am appalled by is the lack of forethought and preplanning to save people from the inevitable. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that someday this city, sitting in a bowl, would have this happen to it, with catastrophic consequences."
Regarding efforts to lower the water level in the Big Easy, Hoagland said, "It is like trying to bail out the Atlantic Ocean with not even a teacup [but] a toothpick."
- worldnetdaily
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What is BUSH doing?
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ZDF News reported that the president's visit was a completely staged event. Their crew witnessed how the open air food distribution point Bush visited in front of the cameras was torn down immediately after the president and the herd of 'news people' had left and that others which were allegedly being set up were abandoned at the same time.
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German reporter near Biloxi described how Bush landed in an area where absolutely nothing was happening. Rescue workers and their dogs had to stop looking for survivors to drive a few miles to where Bush would land and put on a show for the TV cameras. A few minutes after Bush left, the area was once again deserted, people could go back to doing their jobs.
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"The president is starting to grasp the magnitude of the situation."
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Bush counters criticism with more hurricane aid
03/09/2005 - 16:43:30 - US President George Bush today threw more resources at the hurricane-battered Gulf Coast as criticism mounted that a slow response by the government had contributed to the misery of thousands of people in the region.
"The enormity of the task requires more resources," the president said. "In America we do not abandon our fellow citizens in their hour of need."
Bush said 4,000 active duty troops are already in the area and 7,000 more will arrive in the next 72 hours. Those troops will be in addition to some 21,000 National Guard troops already in the region. The decision came after the president met for nearly an hour with Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and others involved in planning the recovery from Hurricane Katrina.
Bush took the rare step of delivering his Saturday morning radio broadcast live from the White House Rose Garden with Rumsfeld, Chertoff and Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, by his side. Bush was resolute during his remarks, but he smiled when he commented on the people of the region, which he visited Friday. "When you talk to the proud folks in the area, you see a spirit that cannot be broken," he said.
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After returning to Washington late last night from nearly seven hours spent touring some of the most devastated areas of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, Bush took several more steps in his effort to meet that pledge of support and to recapture the leadership kudos he won after the 2001 terrorist attacks. Bush immediately signed a $10.5bn (€8.4bn) disaster aid package passed by Congress - an amount he repeatedly called "just the beginning" of federal expenditures for storm relief. He issued a memorandum saying Hurricane Katrina could damage the national economy, and he formally authorised the release of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
The hurricane forced Bush to cancel his meeting on Wednesday with Chinese President Hu Jintao, the White House said. The two leaders, who spoke on the phone this morning, agreed that it was best to reschedule the visit. They agreed, however, to meet in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting later this month.
"I'm not going to forget what I've seen," the president said in New Orleans as he ended his tour yesterday. "I understand the devastation requires more than one day's attention."
While Bush sized up the crisis mostly by air, he heard plenty during meetings aboard his plane with local politicians about why it is taking so long to relieve the misery of so many people in New Orleans who have been living in squalor.
"He heard some things he didn't want to believe at first," said Sen. Mary Landrieu, a Louisiana Democrat. "The president is starting to grasp the magnitude of the situation."
Four days after Katrina killed hundreds if not thousands, Republicans joined Democrats in shaking their heads. "If we can't respond faster than this to an event we saw coming across the Gulf for days, then why do we think we're prepared to respond to a nuclear or biological attack?" asked former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican.
Republican Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts called the government's response "an embarrassment".
The criticism stung for a president who won widespread praise for his handling of the terrorist attacks four years ago - and who already is suffering sagging approval ratings in the polls over the Iraq war and petrol prices that were high even before Katrina wreaked havoc on Gulf of Mexico operations.
The active duty troops Bush ordered to the region are from the Army's 82nd Airborne from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, 1st Cavalry Division from Fort Hood, Texas, and the Marines' 1st and 2nd Expeditionary forces from Camp Pendleton, California, and Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.
To cries of "Thank you, Jesus!" and catcalls of "What took you so long?", a National Guard convoy packed with food, water and medicine rolled through axle-deep floodwaters into what remained of New Orleans and descended into a maelstrom of fires and floating corpses. "Lord, I thank you for getting us out of here!" Leschia Radford shrieked amid a throng of tens of thousands of storm victims outside the New Orleans Convention Centre.
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More than four days after the storm hit, the caravan of at least three-dozen camouflage-green troop vehicles and supply trucks arrived along with dozens of air-conditioned buses to take refugees out of the city. There were also profane jeers from many in the crowd of nearly 20,000 outside the convention centre, which a day earlier seemed on the verge of a riot, with desperate people seething with anger over the lack of anything to eat or drink.
"They should have been here days ago," said 46-year-old Michael Levy, whose words were echoed by those around him yelling: "Hell, yeah!" "We've been sleeping on the ground like rats," Levy added. "I say burn this whole city down."
The soldiers' arrival-in-force came amid angry complaints from the mayor and others that the federal government had bungled the relief effort and let people die in the streets for lack of food, water or medicine.
"The people of our city are holding on by a thread," Mayor Ray Nagin warned in a statement to CNN. "Time has run out. Can we survive another night? And who can we depend on? Only God knows."
- IOL
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President Bush announced that the Defense Department will assist in rescue efforts of Hurricane Katrina afflicted areas, especially New Orleans. Reports indicate that dozens of military helicopters are now evacuating the New Orleans Convention center at a rapid pace. The posse comititus law prevents the U.S. active military from participating in American law enforcement, but President Bush has suspended the law for the affected areas. - www.atsnn.com
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Condoleeza Rice Spends The Week At Broadway Shows and Shopping On Fifth Avenue
Secretary of State Condi Rice laughs it up at 'Spamalot' while Gulf Coast lays in tatters
Yesterday she was shopping on Fifth Avenue. According to several published reports, she spent the Wednesday night at a Broadway show "Spamalot," laughing in tears throughout the show. She was also missing (of course) from the cabinet photos all week long (naturally).
"Eyewitness: Sec of State Condi Rice laughs it up at 'Spamalot' while Gulf Coast lays in tatters. Theater goers on New York' City's Great White Way were shocked to see the President's former National Security Advisor at the Monty Python farce last night -- as the rest of the cabinet responds to Hurricane Katrina..."
And yesterday she was seen shopping in a luxury shoe store on Fifth Avenue.
"Just moments ago at the Ferragamo on 5th Avenue, Condoleeza Rice was seen spending several thousands of dollars on some nice, new shoes (we've confirmed this, so her new heels will surely get coverage from the WaPo's Robin Givhan). A fellow shopper, unable to fathom the absurdity of Rice's timing, went up to the Secretary and reportedly shouted, “How dare you shop for shoes while thousands are dying and homeless!” Never one to have her fashion choices questioned, Rice had security PHYSICALLY REMOVE the woman." - in.sys-con.com
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The conversation can get rough. At a concert fundraiser for Katrina victims, rapper Kanye West said, "George Bush doesn't care about black people," and that America helped poor and black people "as slow as possible."
Condi Rice felt the need to make the extraordinary defense of her boss: "Nobody, especially the president, would have left people unattended on the basis of race."
That's not really the question, though. The timing of the response had nothing to do with race. But David Brooks, the conservative columnist, put it another way: "The first rule of the social fabric - that in times of crisis you protect the vulnerable - was trampled."
And there's also the issue of trust. A group of black Louisiana legislators held a news conference the other day to ask why so many left homeless by Katrina were being sent out of state - even though there's really no other option.
And the word "refugee" has become, to many blacks, a word that means "blame the victim."
I run into Donald Young, a New Orleans school teacher, at a hotel where he's staying in Baton Rouge. He sees my press ID and pulls me aside.
"We're not refugees," he says. "How does the media come off calling us refugees? We don't come from some other country. We're Americans. We're Americans that got left on the side of the road, but we're Americans." - rocky mountain news
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"Nobody, especially the president, would have left people unattended on the basis of race," the administration's highest-ranking black said as she toured damaged parts of her native Alabama.
Later, during a service at the Pilgrim Rest AME Zion church outside Mobile, Rice nodded in agreement as the Rev. Malone Smith Jr. advised the congregation, "Wait for the Lord."
"There are some things the president can do; there are some things the government can do," Smith told about 300 worshippers during a rollicking two-hour service. "But God can do all things. I want you to know he's never late. He's always on time."
Rice later echoed the call for patience.
"The Lord is going to come on time - if we just wait,"
SF GATE
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CIVIL WAR??? FEMA VS ?
Jefferson Parish President, Aaron Broussard,
let the world know what he was thinking today
on Meet the Press. Here are his comments:
MR. RUSSERT: And we are back.
Jefferson Parish President Broussard, let me start with you. You just
heard the director of Homeland Security's explanation of what has
happened this last week. What is your reaction?
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MR. AARON BROUSSARD: We have been abandoned by our own country.
Hurricane Katrina will go down in history as one of the worst storms
ever to hit an American coast, but the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina
will go down as one of the worst abandonments of Americans on American
soil ever in U.S. history. I am personally asking our bipartisan
congressional delegation here in Louisiana to immediately begin
congressional hearings to find out just what happened here. Why did it
happen? Who needs to be fired? And believe me, they need to be fired
right away, because we still have weeks to go in this tragedy. We have
months to go. We have years to go. And whoever is at the top of this
totem pole, that totem pole needs to be chain-sawed off and we've got to
start with some new leadership.
It's not just Katrina that caused all these deaths in New Orleans here.
Bureaucracy has committed murder here in the greater New Orleans area,
and bureaucracy has to stand trial before Congress now. It's so
obvious. FEMA needs more congressional funding. It needs more
presidential support. It needs to be a Cabinet-level director. It
needs to be an independent agency that will be able to fulfill its
mission to work in partnership with state and local governments around
America. FEMA needs to be empowered to do the things it was created to
do. It needs to come somewhere, like New Orleans, with all of its force
immediately, without red tape, without bureaucracy, act immediately with
common sense and leadership, and save lives. Forget about the
property. We can rebuild the property. It's got to be able to come in
and save lives.
We need strong leadership at the top of America right now in order to
accomplish this and to-- reconstructing FEMA.
MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Broussard, let me ask--I want to ask--should...
MR. BROUSSARD: You know, just some quick examples...
MR. RUSSERT: Hold on. Hold on, sir. Shouldn't the mayor of New
Orleans and the governor of New Orleans bear some responsibility?
Couldn't they have been much more forceful, much more effective and much
more organized in evacuating the area?
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MR. BROUSSARD: Sir, they were told like me, every single day, "The
cavalry's coming," on a federal level, "The cavalry's coming, the
cavalry's coming, the cavalry's coming." I have just begun to hear the
hoofs of the cavalry. The cavalry's still not here yet, but I've begun
to hear the hoofs, and we're almost a week out.
Let me give you just three quick examples. We had Wal-Mart deliver
three trucks of water, trailer trucks of water. FEMA turned them back.
They said we didn't need them. This was a week ago. FEMA--we had 1,000
gallons of diesel fuel on a Coast Guard vessel docked in my parish. The
Coast Guard said, "Come get the fuel right away." When we got there
with our trucks, they got a word. "FEMA says don't give you the fuel."
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Yesterday--yesterday--FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency
communication lines. They cut them without notice. Our sheriff, Harry
Lee, goes back in, he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards on our
line and says, "No one is getting near these lines." Sheriff Harry Lee
said that if America--American government would have responded like
Wal-Mart has responded, we wouldn't be in this crisis.
But I want to thank Governor Blanco for all she's done and all her
leadership. She sent in the National Guard. I just repaired a breach on
my side of the 17th Street canal that the secretary didn't foresee, a
300-foot breach. I just completed it yesterday with convoys of National
Guard and local parish workers and levee board people. It took us two
and a half days working 24/7. I just closed it.
MR. RUSSERT: All right.
MR. BROUSSARD: I'm telling you most importantly I want to thank my
public employees...
MR. RUSSERT: All right.
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MR. BROUSSARD: ...that have worked 24/7. They're burned out, the
doctors, the nurses. _And I want to give you one last story and I'll
shut up and let you tell me whatever you want to tell me. The guy who
runs this building I'm in, emergency management, he's responsible for
everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and
every day she called him and said, "Are you coming, son? Is somebody
coming?" And he said, "Yeah, Mama, somebody's coming to get you.
Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get you on
Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody's coming
to get you on Friday." And she drowned Friday night. She drowned
Friday night.
MR. RUSSERT: Mr. President...
MR. BROUSSARD: Nobody's coming to get us. Nobody's coming to get us.
The secretary has promised. Everybody's promised. They've had press
conferences. I'm sick of the press conferences. For God sakes, shut up
and send us somebody.
MR. RUSSERT: Just take a pause, Mr. President. While you gather
yourself in your very emotional times, I understand, let me go to
Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi.
Author: Steve Sabludowsky | 9/4/2005
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| who shot who?
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New Orleans police shoot dead five
September 5, 2005 - 9:49AM - New Orleans police shot and killed at least five people after gunmen opened fire on a group of contractors travelling across a bridge on their way to make repairs, authorities said. Deputy Police Chief WJ Riley said police shot at eight people carrying guns, killing five or six.
Fourteen contractors were travelling across the Danziger Bridge under police escort when they came under fire, said John Hall, a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers. They were on their way to launch barges into Lake Pontchartrain to help plug the breach in the 17th Street Canal, Hall said.
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None of the contractors was injured, Mike Rogers, a disaster relief coordinator with the Army Corps of Engineers, told reporters in Baton Rouge. The bridge spans a canal connecting Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River.
No other details were immediately available.
Meanwhile, A civilian helicopter that was not involved in rescue operations crashed in New Orleans on Sunday and the two people on board were slightly injured, a state official said.
The helicopter crashed in the area of the Danziger Bridge, said Mark Smith, spokesman for the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. "The helicopter came down hard and rolled over on its side and broke its blades off and broke its tail off," Smith told reporters in Baton Rouge. "There were two civilians on the helicopter. Both sustained cuts and scrapes," he said.
It was not known why the helicopter was in the area, Smith said.
The US military and Coast Guard have conducted hundredsof helicopter flights in the New Orleans area in recent days searching for Hurricane Katrina survivors and have rescued thousands of storm victims. Early media reports said the crashed aircraft was a Coast Guard helicopter.
Live television footage from the scene showed the redhelicopter lying on the ground near a roadway, with smokedrifting from its cockpit. The ground around the wreck wasblackened and churned up by the aircraft's rotor blades. Smith said he did not know if shots had been fired at the helicopter. Gunfire has been reported on numerous occasion in the New Orleans area in recent days. "It could have been mechanical failure," he said.
www.smh.com.au
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Report: FEMA Head Bio Exaggerated
(CBS) Michael Brown, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency that has been heavily criticized for what many charge was a slow response to the decimation caused by Hurricane Katrina, now faces accusations that his resume is padded.
Much of the criticism of the response to the hurricane has been aimed at Brown, whose qualifications for the job have been questioned. Some even have called for him to be fired.
Now, Time magazine is questioning the validity of Brown's White House biography in an article identifying several alleged discrepancies.
That bio and a White House news release says Brown worked for the city of Edmund, Okla., overseeing its Emergency Services Division.
But Carolina Miranda, a reporter for Time, tells The Early Show co-anchor Rene Syler that doesn't appear to have been the case.
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"His bio, the White House press release, and a number of sources list him as assistant city manager in Edmund, Okla.," Miranda says. " When we called the folks in Edmund, they told us that, no, his position in fact had been assistant to the city manager, which is a purely administrative job, a very different job. He was an administrative assistant. It's sort of an entry-level, intern-type job for somebody who's interested in learning about government. …When he began that job in 1977, he was still a college student. He didn't graduate with his B.A. until 1978."
Miranda says she isn't sure who is responsible for that type of error.
"That, we'll have to wait to see and find out," Miranda says. "But the fact is, it's an error that's been repeated a number of times, on his FEMA bio, the White House press release. It's the kind of thing you'd think somebody would have caught it by now but, clearly, nobody has."
Miranda says there are discrepancies in another profile as well.
"FindLaw is a legal Web site where attorneys can post information about themselves," she says. "It said he was a professor at Central State University in political science. We called Central State (now known as the University of Central Oklahoma, in Edmund). They said he had never been a professor there, that he had been a student. … But his FindLaw bio says he had been an outstanding professor in political science."
FEMA has issued a statement challenging Time's findings. It reads in part, "Time's misleading online report on Undersecretary Mike Brown's background is based on online information Mr. Brown has never seen. The Web site used as a primary source by the magazine states clearly: 'We try to provide quality information but we make no claims, promises, or guarantees about the accuracy.' ... It's disappointing this magazine relied on unconfirmed information."
Miranda counters that the statement refers to FindLaw, about which she had reservations.
"I got on the phone with FindLaw and I said, 'Where does this information come from?' And they said, 'This information comes from the attorney who's profiled, or somebody in his office. That's where that information comes from,' " she said. "And, the interesting thing to note is that bio was updated as recently as (Thursday) morning by somebody, whoever manages that account, be it Brown himself or somebody in his office."
- cbsnews.com
- here's the BIO in question
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"...& this is where you can send my money...!"
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FEMA Chief Relieved of Katrina Duties
WASHINGTON-Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown is being removed from his role managing Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, The Associated Press has learned.
Brown is being sent back to Washington from Baton Rouge, where he was the primary official overseeing the federal government's response to the disaster, according to two federal officials who declined to be identified before the announcement.
Brown will be replaced by Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad w. Allen, who was overseeing New Orleans relief and rescue efforts. - .findlaw.com
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| Chertoff delayed federal response, memo shows
The federal official with the power to mobilize a massive federal response to Hurricane Katrina was Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, not the former FEMA chief who was relieved of his duties and resigned earlier this week, federal documents reviewed by Knight Ridder show
Even before the storm struck the Gulf Coast, Chertoff could have ordered federal agencies into action without any request from state or local officials. Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown had only limited authority to do so until about 36 hours after the storm hit, when Chertoff designated him as the "principal federal official" in charge of the storm....
But Chertoff - not Brown - was in charge of managing the national response to a catastrophic disaster, according to the National Response Plan, the federal government's blueprint for how agencies will handle major natural disasters or terrorist incidents. An order issued by President Bush in 2003 also assigned that responsibility to the homeland security director." - Timesleader.com
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As bodies recovered, reporters are told 'no photos, no stories'
New Orleans -- A long caravan of white vans led by an Army humvee rolled Monday through New Orleans' Bywater district, a poor, mostly black neighborhood, northeast of the French Quarter.
Recovery team members wearing white protective suits and black boots stopped at houses with spray painted markings on the doors designating there were dead bodies inside.
Outside one house on Kentucky Street, a member of the Army 82nd Airborne Division summoned a reporter and photographer standing nearby and told them that if they took pictures or wrote a story about the body recovery process, he would take away their press credentials and kick them out of the state.
"No photos. No stories," said the man, wearing camouflage fatigues and a red beret...
- sfgate.com
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| Jesse Jackson was right when he said "refugees" was not the appropriate word for the poor souls dislocated due to Katrina. But he was wrong about why it is not appropriate. It's not appropriate because they are detainees, not refugees.
The occupants of the camp cannot leave the camp for any reason. If they leave the camp they may never return. They will be issued FEMA identification cards and "a sum of money" and they will remain within the camp for the next 5 months.
- I just got back from a FEMA Detainment Camp
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er deja vu anyone???
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FEMA says debit card distribution at Reliant Park complete
By SALATHEIA BRYANT and MoNICA GUZMÁN
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is urging Katrina evacuees not to come to Reliant Park on Saturday for debit cards. FEMA officials said tonight that the debit card operation there has been completed. Officials said that by this evening, FEMA had successfully distributed debit cards providing nearly $12.3 million to evacuees in three Texas locations, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio.
Hurricane victims at other locations will have to apply for expedited aid through the agency's traditional route - filling out information on FEMA's Web site to receive direct bank deposits, FEMA spokeswoman Natalie Rule said.
"We tried it as an innovative way to get aid to evacuee populations in Texas. We decided it would be more expeditious with direct deposits," she said, citing the large staffing operation that would be required to replicate the Texas operation in other states.
This morning the lines snaked around the Reliant complex as hurricane evacuees picked the FEMA debit cards, and those from the American Red Cross. Even before the sun rose this morning, Katrina victims were lining up for the disaster aid they need most now: money to start their new lives away from home. The distribution of Red Cross cards worth up to $1,500 was continuing this morning at Reliant Park and is expanding to include evacuees at the George R. Brown Convention Center. The Red Cross' other 26 shelters in the Houston area will be making their own arrangements for the distribution of cards on site.
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Meanwhile, FEMA cards worth up to $2,000 were passed out at the Reliant Arena to those who have already registered with the Federal Emergency Management Agency but haven't already received checks and direct deposits to their banking accounts. This morning, U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's visit to the Reliant Park this offered him a glimpse of what it's like to be living in shelter.
While on the tour of a shelter with top administration officials from Washington, including U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao and U.S. Treasury Secretary John W. Snow, DeLay stopped to chat with three young boys resting on cots. The congressman likened their stay to being at camp and asked, ``Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?''
They nodded yes, but looked perplexed.
With a group of reporters and press officers in tow, DeLay then moved on, chatting with others, including a local IRS representative. He then visited with job recruiters set up in the complex. Evacuee Eva Kinnard, 37, was the first person to walk off the floor of the Reliant Arena this morning with the new FEMA debit card. She said she slept overnight at the arena because she feared today's lines would be as bad as yesterday's mile-long lines. Kinnard has five children with her and was down to zero dollars in her pocket. She's carrying all her wordly possessions in a blue Wal-mart bag and pillow case slung over her shoulder. She has a bandage wrapped around her right foot. Limping from foot surgery, she reinjured it running during the storm. Tears rolled down her cheeks when she took card from FEMA workers: "Thank you all, so so much. It means a lot." "I want a house. I need a house for me and my children."
At least 100 FEMA work stations on floor of the arena to help evacuees. Today the line was long but at least it was orderly, straight, with no pushing, shoving, cutting. There was a strong police presence. Cards will be activated within four hours of receipt. On Thursday the Red Cross' first debit card handouts threatened to overwhelm organizers and evacuees. The demand was so strong that police locked the Reliant Park gates for several hours to prevent evacuees living at other sites from getting into line.
"We were not prepared to handle an influx of people coming in. It got a little bit out of hand," said Johanna Abad, a Houston Police Department spokeswoman. "I had to take extreme measures by locking the doors."
Officials said they are attempting to process residents at the Reliant complex first because of the number of displaced people housed there.
The Red Cross debit cards - with spending power ranging from about $300 to about $1,500 - can be used for tax-exempt purchases of anything except tobacco, alcohol and firearms.
"It's so chaotic," said volunteer Shelley Kain, who processed evacuees' paperwork Thursday. "It's not organized."
Officials said they are working to speed up the process today as FEMA began passing out its debit cards. The agency already has given out $12 million in assistance to Louisiana hurricane victims in Houston and $79 million in aid to Louisiana victims elsewhere, said spokesman Ed Conley.
State Rep. Rick Noriega, D-Houston, site manager at the convention center, said he is confident that today's distribution of debit cards will go smoothly. He said there is no plan to lock the doors to prevent those not living at the center from registering there.
The debit cards are an unusual step for the Red Cross, which normally sends teams to examine property before providing assistance. "In this case, there's no way to send people out," said spokeswoman Denise Bishop. "But you still can't deny people assistance." - Houston Chronicle
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'Big loop' of red tape frustrates evacuees
By ANNE MARIE KILDAY, SALATHEIA BRYANT and MONICA GUZMAN
After 8 a.m. today, evacuees can call the American Red Cross at 800-975-7585 to register for financial assistance.
For thousands of Hurricane Katrina survivors, the last week has been a series of hot waits in long lines, countless minutes "on hold" to toll-free telephone help lines, computer glitches and misinformation.
For New Orleans resident Jacqueline Patrick, trying to get help from the Federal Emergency Managment Agency "feels like one big loop" of government red tape.
The mounting frustration for some evacuees came as local officials stepped up efforts to move thousands of them out of temporary shelters and into more permanent housing. City and county officials said they hoped to close the shelters at Reliant Park and the George R. Brown Convention Center by next Saturday.
"This is a shelter. It is not a home," Harris County Judge Robert Eckels said at Reliant Park. "This is the fastest ramp up of a shelter and it will be the fastest ramp down."
Houston Mayor Bill White visited with two families who were among 37 moving into the Timberlake Apartments near Beltway 8 and U.S. 59 North. "We think it would be a human tragedy to keep people in shelters until FEMA gets here," he said. "If we had to wait for FEMA, it wouldn't have started yet." White said about 1,300 families had moved into apartments costing between $400 and $600 per month as of Saturday, and he expected that number to rise to 1,500 by Tuesday.
The Joint Katrina Housing Task Force is moving evacuees into housing at the rate of about 100 a day and has at least 2,000 apartments identified for occupancy, he said. In Washington, D.C., on Saturday, the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced it had distributed more than $690 million in federal aid to Hurricane Katrina survivors across the nation. In a press release touting streamlined procedures, the agency said more than 330,000 households had received a $2,000 FEMA grant or have one on the way. Locally, FEMA on Saturday said it distributed about 1,000 debit cards providing $2,000 in emergency asistance to Katrina survivors, one day after officials said the program was being scrapped because of a lack of cards. The debit cards distributed Saturday at the convention center went to evacuees who did not have bank accounts.
"We have not stopped issuing assistance," said Ed Conley, a FEMA liaison working in Houston. "You will get everything you're eligible for from FEMA. We will help you."
In the Houston area, 36,823 families have registered for assistance with FEMA, and the agency has given more than $49.3 million in financial assistance for hurricane victims who took refuge here.
But evacuee Roderick Tureaud, who is staying at the convention center with his wife and six children, said the process of getting FEMA assistance "is very confusing." "Everywhere I call, busy signal," Tureaud said. "It's just a waste of time."
To address those complaints, FEMA officials said the agency has increased the number of operators from 800 to 3,000 to handle calls.
Some residents who received debit cards from the American Red Cross were also back in line Saturday saying that their cards were not working.
Sabrina Joseph, 32, said she was especially frustrated because she stood in a long line on the first day of distribution when a fistfight nearly broke out around her of people eager to get their cards. "I have blisters on my feet from walking so much," said Joseph, who found herself back in another line Saturday. "I can't give up. I've got to live. I've got two kids."
There were also others, such as Michael Phillips, who was angry because he and others not living at one of the mass shelters did not receive FEMA cards. "Now I've got to wait two weeks for the mail," said Phillips, who has been living in Houston at a distant relative's house. "We're all in the same boat. Everybody should get the same treatment."
Meanwhile, the American Red Cross announced that a new toll-free number for evacuees to register for financial aid would begin operating at 8 a.m. today. The number is 800-975-7585. However, the Red Cross warned: "Due to the huge number of families who have been affected by Hurricane Katrina, the phone lines will be busy over the next few days." On Friday, the Red Cross said it was in the process of arranging for evacuees to apply for emergency aid through Western Union offices. Saturday, agency officials said they had not decided whether Western Union would be designated as a place to cash checks or withdraw funds from debit cards. Houston Red Cross spokesman Russell Hubbard said the organization had issued 12,000 "client assistance" debit cards or checks through Friday. About 5,000 more cards or checks were distributed Saturday. The relief agency moved its financial assistance program to St. Agnes Baptist Church, 3730 South Acres, after determining Reliant Park could not support its technology needs. Red Cross officials today are pleading with evacuees not to go to their new service center at St. Agnes today because there were more people in line at noon than they can possibly assist today. They asked that hurricane evacuees come later in the week. The same service is available by phone at this toll-free call center number: 1-800-975-7585. Callers will be asked to provide their names, pre-storm address, ZIP code, and home telephone number - and be prepared to write down a client identification number.
By late Saturday afternoon, as word spread about the new location, the line of evacuees wrapped around the church three times. Because of the large number seeking assistance, the Red Cross shut down the line about an hour and a half early and sent out a volunteer with a bullhorn advising evacuees to "come back tomorrow." Red Cross spokeswoman Denise Bishop said the Red Cross center will be open today from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Ricci Owensby, however, was not planning to stick around. Saying she was ready to get away from the crowds, the 25-year-old was preparing to fly to Nashville, Tenn., with a new suitcase full of clothes and a purse, thanks to her Red Cross debit card.
"Finally, I'm glad to leave. I get to shower by myself now," she said.
Houston Chronicle
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Evacuees' stories are moving, but fence isn't
By Diane Carman Denver Post Staff Columnist
If I didn't know better, I'd have thought I was peering through the fence at a concentration camp.
The signs on the buildings say "Community College of Aurora," though for now they're serving as an impromptu Camp Katrina. About 160 hurricane survivors are being housed in the dorms, surrounded by fences, roadblocks, security guards and enough armed police officers to invade Grenada.
There's a credentials unit to process every visitor, an intake unit to provide identification tags and a bag of clothes to every evacuee, several Salvation Army food stations, portable toilets, shuttle buses, a green army-tent chapel with church services three times a day and a communications team to keep reporters as far away from actual news as possible.
It probably was easier for a reporter to get inside Gitmo on Tuesday than to penetrate the force field around Lowry.
But survivors occasionally breached the lockdown and came to the fence to tell their stories, each one astonishing.
At a time when it seems ordinary to deliver food and water and provide sanitation to the space station orbiting 200 miles above the Earth, these people watched bodies float past them for days and wondered if help ever would arrive.
Irvin Walker limped toward reporters. "I'm real glad to be here," he said.
Walker, a 55-year-old disabled Vietnam vet, was trapped in his home when the floodwaters inundated New Orleans. On Aug. 30, rescuers picked him up in a boat and deposited him on an interstate. From there he rode in a truck to the New Orleans Convention Center, where he watched his friend, a diabetic, die for lack of food, water and insulin.
When he arrived here Sunday, it was the first time he'd ever seen Colorado. "Everybody treats you real nice," he said, smiling. "There's a lotta love up here."
As he slowly walked away, a car pulled up depositing more evacuees. Organizers said a few were coming from Houston and other cities by car. They have been told to prepare for planeloads of survivors over the next few days. Verne Stovall, 67, landed in Denver on Monday. She had spent a week along with 23 other people in a flooded house in New Orleans before rescuers ordered them to leave. They survived on canned food and water that National Guard troops dropped from helicopters. On Sunday, police officers came to the door and gave them no choice. Stovall, who has diabetes, ulcers and vision blurred by glaucoma, reluctantly scrambled up onto the roof.
"I didn't want to go in that helicopter," she said. "I was so scared, I dropped my pocketbook into the water." She arrived in Denver with her son and daughter-in-law, Edward and Jacquelyn Augustine. Her identification swept away in the flood, all she had was the clothes she was wearing. But after a shower, some food and desperately needed rest, Stovall put on some donated lipstick, took a look around the campus grounds and liked what she saw.
"I've never been out of New Orleans," she said, "but I've decided I want to move here."
Edward, a janitor, and Jacquelyn, who worked for the housing authority, plan to look for jobs. Stovall is retired. "We lost everything," Edward said. "Our home, our cars."
Like so many survivors of Hurricane Katrina, their needs are complex and immediate. But help is trickling in.
All day Tuesday, people arrived at the Lowry site. A truck from Mountain Man Nut and Fruit Co. pulled in to deliver supplies. Volunteers came to offer counseling and help finding housing, furniture and clothing for evacuees.
Kathy Arford, who owns a small remodeling company, Kateri Homes, arrived offering two jobs at $10 an hour.
"I need help," she said, "and I can teach people how to do the work." The only problem was she couldn't get near the survivors. "I've spent two hours trying to find somebody who'll listen to me," she said. She wants to give a couple of desperate people a chance at a new life. She just needs to get through the fence.
- denverpost.com
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| The land of the free?
Blackwater, one of the fastest-growing private security firms in the world, which achieved global prominence last year when four of its men were killed and their bodies mutilated in the Iraqi city of Falluja, has set up camp in the back garden of a vast mansion in the wealthy Uptown district of the city.
David Reagan, 52, a semi-retired US army colonel from Huntsville, Alabama, who fought in the first Gulf war and is commander of Blackwater's operations in the city, refused to say how many men he had in New Orleans but indicated it was in the hundreds.
Asked if they had encountered many looters so far, Mr Reagan said that the sight of his heavily armed men - a pump action shotgun was propped against the wall near to where he was standing - was enough to put most people off.
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Two Israeli mercenaries from ISI, another private military company, were guarding Audubon Place, a gated community. Wearing bulletproof vests, they were carrying M16 assault rifles. Gill, 40, and Yovi, 42, who refused to give their surnames, said they were army veterans of the Israeli war in Lebanon, but had been living in Houston for 17 years. They had been hired by Jimmy Reiss, a descendant of an old New Orleans family who made his fortune selling electronic systems to shipbuilders. They had been flown by private jet to Baton Rouge, the capital of Louisiana, and then helicoptered to Audubon Place, they said.
"I spoke to one of the other owners on the telephone earlier in the week," Yovi said. "I told him how the water had stopped just at the back gate. God watches out for the rich people, I guess." - guardian.co.uk
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We had to kill our patients
by C AROLINE GRAHAM and JO KNOWSLEY, 09:01am 11th September 2005
New Orleans: Doctors forced to 'play God'
Doctors working in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans killed critically ill patients rather than leaving them to die in agony as they evacuated hospitals, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
With gangs of rapists and looters rampaging through wards in the flooded city, senior doctors took the harrowing decision to give massive overdoses of morphine to those they believed could not make it out alive.
In an extraordinary interview with The Mail on Sunday, one New Orleans doctor told how she 'prayed for God to have mercy on her soul' after she ignored every tenet of medical ethics and ended the lives of patients she had earlier fought to save.
Her heart-rending account has been corroborated by a hospital orderly and by local government officials. One emergency official, William 'Forest' McQueen, said: "Those who had no chance of making it were given a lot of morphine and lain down in a dark place to die."
Euthanasia is illegal in Louisiana, and The Mail on Sunday is protecting the identities of the medical staff concerned to prevent them being made scapegoats for the events of last week. Their families believe their confessions are an indictment of the appalling failure of American authorities to help those in desperate need after Hurricane Katrina flooded the city, claiming thousands of lives and making 500,000 homeless.
'These people were going to die anyway'
The doctor said: "I didn't know if I was doing the right thing. But I did not have time. I had to make snap decisions, under the most appalling circumstances, and I did what I thought was right.
"I injected morphine into those patients who were dying and in agony. If the first dose was not enough, I gave a double dose. And at night I prayed to God to have mercy on my soul."
The doctor, who finally fled her hospital late last week in fear of being murdered by the armed looters, said:
"This was not murder, this was compassion. They would have been dead within hours, if not days. We did not put people down. What we did was give comfort to the end. "I had cancer patients who were in agony. In some cases the drugs may have speeded up the death process. "We divided patients into three categories: those who were traumatised but medically fit enough to survive, those who needed urgent care, and the dying. "People would find it impossible to understand the situation. I had to make life-or-death decisions in a split second. "It came down to giving people the basic human right to die with dignity. "There were patients with Do Not Resuscitate signs. Under normal circumstances, some could have lasted several days. But when the power went out, we had nothing. "Some of the very sick became distressed. We tried to make them as comfortable as possible. "The pharmacy was under lockdown because gangs of armed looters were roaming around looking for their fix. You have to understand these people were going to die anyway."
Mr McQueen, a utility manager for the town of Abita Springs, half an hour north of New Orleans, told relatives that patients had been 'put down', saying: "They injected them, but nurses stayed with them until they died." Mr McQueen has been working closely with emergency teams and added: "They had to make unbearable decisions."
- Mail on Sunday
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do we believe this?
Hurricane death toll in hundreds, not thousands
Monday 12th September, 2005
Officials say they are recovering fewer bodies from the areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina than the thousands they had originally expected.
Meanwhile, relatives continue searching for their loved ones among survivors scattered across the country, nearly two weeks after the storm wiped out the city of New Orleans and devastated parts of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi. As recovery efforts continue, President Bush traveled to the region for the third time to assess progress.
Last week, as news pictures showed corpses floating in the water or abandoned in the streets of New Orleans, authorities there predicted a death toll in the thousands. Recovery efforts are far from over. The official death toll from Katrina at the moment stands at about 400.
Coast Guard Vice Admiral Thad Allen, who was named last week to take charge of U.S. government relief efforts on the ground, told the Fox News Sunday program he did not have any expectations of the death toll.
'I've been involved in enough of these operations,' Admiral Allen says. 'The worst thing you can do is guess on what the outcome might be. You just need to get in and work the problem on the ground. I will say this. We are finding many fewer fatalities than we had expected.'
Admiral Allen told ABC's 'This Week' program he is focusing on trying to help clean up New Orleans, which was 80 percent flooded following Katrina.
'First of all, we have to get water out. We have to do environmental testing,' Admiral Allen says. 'We have to know what the condition of the infrastructure is, and it's all very, very different. The electrical grid is very different from the natural gas supply lines. That's very different from the pumping system that keeps the city dry, and very different from the sewage system.'
Meanwhile, in light of a new threat against the United States from the al-Qaida terrorist group, Admiral Allen said he has heard of no threats to the Gulf Coast area. 'None that I'm aware of,' he says.
The commander of active duty U.S. troops involved in hurricane relief, Lieutenant General Russel Honore, said his soldiers will not take part in forcing people to leave New Orleans, despite the flooded city's evacuation order.
'Federal troops will not be involved in the direct evacuation, of anyone from their home, in any way. That is a local and state law enforcement task,' Lt. General Honore says.
In an interview with CNN's Late Edition, General Honore added that U.S. military units have continued to provide food and water, and other aid, to residents who refuse to leave.
Nearly two weeks after Katrina struck land, many families are still searching for their loved ones. Efforts to unite relatives include notices like this one that appeared Sunday on CNN.
'My name is Charles Rubio. I'm from Washington, DC. I grew up in New Orleans. I was born there. I have not heard from my sister and my brother in law, Eloise and Alvin Adams.'
The thousands of survivors who were hurriedly evacuated from New Orleans were sent to communities throughout the United States. The president of the American Red Cross, Marty Evans, said her organization has shelters for the displaced in 17 states.
'Right now, we have about 89-thousand people in Red Cross shelters,' he says. 'And that's down significantly from last week, where we had as many as 150,000 in Red Cross shelters.'
Ms. Evans said that, besides those people living in the shelters, the Red Cross is also helping hundreds-of-thousands others affected by the storm. She estimated that as many as one-million people will need assistance, and that her organization has set an initial fundraising goal of one-billion dollars. So far, the American Red Cross has raised nearly $580 million.
Big News Network.com
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Race not an issue in Katrina disaster, says Bush
- President uses city tour to defend federal recovery
- Beleaguered emergency services chief finally quits
Jamie Wilson in New Orleans, Julian Borger in Washington and Dan Glaister in Los Angeles
Tuesday September 13, 2005 The Guardian
The director of the much-criticised federal emergency management agency, Michael Brown, resigned yesterday. The news of his resignation came as George Bush, on his first visit to New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina, rejected suggestions that race had played a role in the slow government response to the flooding of the city. Insisting it had been his decision to step down, Mr Brown said he had resigned to give the beleaguered agency a chance to refocus on the rescue and recovery effort. "As I told the president, it is important that I leave now to avoid further distraction from the ongoing mission of Fema," Mr Brown said in a statement.
Speaking in New Orleans, Mr Bush attempted to duck questions about the resignation. "I have been working," he told reporters. "I can't comment on something that you may know more about than I do." On his first trip to the region after the hurricane, Mr Bush had told Mr Brown, "Brownie, you're dong a heck of a job." But on Friday, Mr Brown was abruptly called back to Washington DC and operations in the Gulf coast were handed to Vice-Admiral Thad Allen.
A Fema official, R David Paulison, the head of the fire administration, was chosen to succeed Mr Brown. Pressure had increased on Mr Brown as discrepancies in his CV and his lack of experience in disaster management began to emerge.
In New Orleans Mr Bush, on the defensive after the relief debacle brought his popularity to new lows, toured the city on the back of a military lorry. He said it was "preposterous" to suggest the US military presence in Iraq had hindered the immediate federal reaction to the storm. "We've got plenty of troops to do both," he said.
He was most animated on the question of race. Standing alongside Ray Nagin, the city's black mayor who had on occasion heaped derision on Washington's role, he said: "The storm didn't discriminate and neither will the recovery effort. When those coastguard choppers ... were pulling people off roofs, they didn't check the colour of a person's skin." His tour had taken him through the empty streets of the historic French Quarter which escaped serious damage, and into some of the worst-hit neighbourhoods. But for many the president's first close-up look at the city's devastation was too late.
"I think it looks bad, he should have been down on the streets sooner," said Matt Cushman, 35, a paramedic from Raytown near Kansas City. VL Sanders, 55, who works at the Royal Sonesta hotel on Bourbon Street, said: "Just to turn up here for a photo op seems pointless."
The official death toll for Katrina has passed 400. One million people have been uprooted.
A court overturned a Fema order yesterday banning journalists from following the rescue operations in New Orleans, after a legal challenge from CNN. - guardian.co.uk
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Katrina's Forgotten Victims: Native American Tribes
News Report, C. Stone Brown, Imdiversity, Sep 11, 2005
The early news headlines for Hurricane Katrina highlighted some black New Orleans residents "taking" goods from businesses. Days later, the coverage shifted from "looting" to sympathetic coverage of black evacuees and criticism of President Bush and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. But despite the constant media coverage, Native Americans have become Katrina's forgotten victims.
Native American tribes that stretch across the Gulf States of Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi affected by the wrath of Hurricane Katrina largely have been ignored.
"What we are hearing is there has been no contact or minimum contact with most of the tribes," said Robert Holden, National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), who estimates there are several thousand Native Americans living in the hurricane's path. But like other news accounts regarding the dead, there are no firm numbers on the death toll.
What we do know is there are at least six federally recognized tribes located in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi. They include the Poarch Band Creek in Alabama, Coushatta India Tribe, Jena Band of Choctaw and Tunica-Biloxi Tribe in Louisiana, and the Chitimacha Tribe and the Choctaw Indians in Mississippi.
Although communications with the tribes has been very limited, Holden said there was one particular tribal area near in Chalmette, La., that had a gruesome story. "This tribal representative said they were using Chalmette High School as a morgue. Evidently, they are in proximity to New Orleans, and they have heard from no one in five or six days."
Chalmette is located approximately nine miles east of New Orleans in St. Bernard Parish, one of the areas hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina.
"They were inundated with water, completely washed away, not only their homes, but their livelihood … fisherman, shrimpers, folks who everything they had was destroyed," said Holden.
The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians remains unreachable by phone; however, news reports indicate power outages on the reservation with evacuees seeking shelter at the tribal hotels, according to the NCAI.
The Native American community has taken action. Instead of waiting for relief efforts by local, state and federal government officials, the NCIA has teamed with the National Indian Gaming Association (NIGA) to raise relief funds for Native American tribes in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi.
The goal is to raise at least $1 million. NIGA started the fundraising effort by contributing $5,000. "The word is beginning to go out … many tribes have already implemented relief efforts. Some have sent trained responders, police, law-enforcement folks," said Holden. - pacificnews.org
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why were they left to die?
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