5 years ago today

[texasjohn]

I believe the normal distribution curve applies to individuals in many dimensions:

intelligence and understanding vs low IQ and misunderstanding
haves vs have nots
advanced education vs minimal education
logic vs illogic
foresight vs live in the moment
jobs that pay for food, shelter, transportation, insurance, savings vs below minimum wage
employable intellectual skills vs minimal employable skills
high income vs no income
youth and strength vs age and infirmity/disability
positions of power vs powerlessness
selflessness vs selfishness
greed vs generosity
lucky vs unlucky
mental health vs mental illness
nature vs nurture
gay vs straight
tenacity a la Don Quixote vs realistic life stance
honesty vs dishonesty
pacifism vs violence
selective memory vs perfect recall (a la John Dean)
analytical skill vs preconceived conclusion
decision and action vs indecision and inaction
reality vs fantasy

NONE of us are immune to being somewhere on each of these spectrum. Not you, not me, not the President, not your elected officials at any level, not any citizen, not any one. These spectrum and likely several dozen more in aggregate determine how we respond to any particular stimulus at a particular point in our life. And, the world of nature and man impacts us and our response according to the sum of its instantaneous power vectors.

A gargantuan event such as Katrina exposes these dimensions because the result of thousands of people's placement along the various dimensions is exposed all at the same time. Reality becomes starkly apparent and cannot be ignored.

The interpretation of that reality and why it happened is, again, in the eye of the beholder and subject, again, to the beholder's placement along the multitudinous spectrums of life.

It's a story as old as time, told in story, song, fable and parable:
Robin Hood
Scrooge
Elvita Peron
Moby Dick
French Revolution
Bible/Koran/Talmud/etc.
Gold rush
Westward expansion
Indian wars
Robber Barons
Texas Revolution/Alamo/Goliad/San Jacinto
Immigration to America..early, and ongoing

Now, I've reviewed carefully and believe that the above is not a political statement....so, don't YOU get this thread closed by your reply. In fact, no reply is fine with me.

Tallyho8, thanks for your careful, on site, eyewitness report and analysis. Good job:thumbsup:

 

[texasjohn]

Keegs, I think that you and Tallyho8 are in violent AGREEMENT....MRGO was not in the best long term interests of many NO residents and that many NO poor and elderly were victims of MRGO and Katrina.

Perhaps your 2nd paragraph comments are directed at a different TBN poster?

 

[keegs]

Perhaps your 2nd paragraph comments are directed at a different TBN poster?

Tex...it was very early in the morning...not sure who I was directing my comments to.

 

[tallyho8]

In the wake of Katrina there was so much lawlessness and reckless behaviors for people to write about that it upsets me when people have to make up untrue stories to add to the horrors to make it seem even worse than it was.

The news media was responsible for many slanted stories and half-truths in an attempt to garner high ratings for their shows and many of their inaccurate stories were 100% believed by their viewers. Even the smallest lie when perpetuated helps create negative feelings about the people of New Orleans and the efforts to rebuild the coast.

I have read many untruths by posters about events occurring in New Orleans pre and post Katrina and it would require several pages of this forum for me to rebut all of them so I will take just one simple statement as an example to show how the media's false reporting has caused many to believe that the citizens of New Orleans behavior was worse than actuality.

A previous poster wrote " that evacuees in the Superdome were flushing all sorts of crap down the toilets and stopping them up." People believe this because of false and slanted half-truth reporting as the news media reported that feces was inappropriately spread throughout the Superdome.

Here is what they should have reported: Thousands of evacuees were trapped in the Superdome without restroom facilities for 3 days. There was no electricity, no air conditioning in 100 degree heat, no running water and no way to flush the toilets IF the evacuees had been able to find them. The bathrooms had no windows or skylights and were designed so that no outside lights could enter them and were pitch black caverns that were impossible for anyone to negotiate in order to even find a toilet. Very few people brought flashlights with a 3 day supply of batteries and when entering the Superdome the police searched everyone and confiscated their cigarette lighters so there was absolutely no source of light in the bathrooms. People had to search for non-congested areas where a man could hold up a blanket in a corner in order to give his wife and children some privacy so they could relieve themselves. Many people did not have blankets or people to hold up the blankets for them.......etc.

Then after suffering these indignations and tortures worse than waterboarding for several days the news media shows up to film these people who have lost everything they owned including their dignity and the viewing audience at home is thinking how dirty and vile these people are and what are they complaining about since they had free room and board for the last few days.

 

[texbaylea]

My only comment is that the news media's concentration on New Orleans is a gross disservice to every one. What about the rest of the middle Gulf coast and what about IKE the forgotten hurricane.

AS always "If it bleeds, it leads". Also I think that covering the NO story lets them have a place to party after they report.

Vernon

 

[keegs]

My only comment is that the news media's concentration on New Orleans is a gross disservice to every one. What about the rest of the middle Gulf coast and what about IKE the forgotten hurricane.

AS always "If it bleeds, it leads". Also I think that covering the NO story lets them have a place to party after they report.

Vernon

Vern,

I agree with your "if it bleeds it leads" characterization of the media. To what extent the consumer has a role in that is unclear to me.

On the other hand, as I recall it, while the media was reporting the increasingly desperate conditions in the NO shelters, the Secretary of Homeland Security seemed to minimize the scale of the disaster. One can only wonder where he was getting is information from.

There's certainly allot of blame to go around here but my sense is we may not all take away the same lessons from that event.

 

[beppington]

Combining the topics of this thread with this Land Survey one, does anyone know if anybody in Katrina's path had not only their home disappear but also their land? I read where some barrier islands are now gone. Didn't know if there were any homes on any of those? If your actual land disappears, how is that handled?? I guess insurance pays you somehow?

 

[tallyho8]

Combining the topics of this thread with this Land Survey one, does anyone know if anybody in Katrina's path had not only their home disappear but also their land? I read where some barrier islands are now gone. Didn't know if there were any homes on any of those? If your actual land disappears, how is that handled?? I guess insurance pays you somehow?

As far as I know, there is no insurance that covers land. And in many areas once a property is covered with water it reverts to the government which owns the property up to the water's edge.

There have been many court cases over this in the past over islands in the Mississippi River. They gradually lose land on the upriver side and gain land on the downriver side, basically moving downriver. Once they are not where the survey says they were, you lose possession of them.

 

[milkman]

In the wake of Katrina there was so much lawlessness and reckless behaviors for people to write about that it upsets me when people have to make up untrue stories to add to the horrors to make it seem even worse than it was.

The news media was responsible for many slanted stories and half-truths in an attempt to garner high ratings for their shows and many of their inaccurate stories were 100% believed by their viewers. Even the smallest lie when perpetuated helps create negative feelings about the people of New Orleans and the efforts to rebuild the coast.

I have read many untruths by posters about events occurring in New Orleans pre and post Katrina and it would require several pages of this forum for me to rebut all of them so I will take just one simple statement as an example to show how the media's false reporting has caused many to believe that the citizens of New Orleans behavior was worse than actuality.

A previous poster wrote " that evacuees in the Superdome were flushing all sorts of crap down the toilets and stopping them up." People believe this because of false and slanted half-truth reporting as the news media reported that feces was inappropriately spread throughout the Superdome.

Here is what they should have reported: Thousands of evacuees were trapped in the Superdome without restroom facilities for 3 days. There was no electricity, no air conditioning in 100 degree heat, no running water and no way to flush the toilets IF the evacuees had been able to find them. The bathrooms had no windows or skylights and were designed so that no outside lights could enter them and were pitch black caverns that were impossible for anyone to negotiate in order to even find a toilet. Very few people brought flashlights with a 3 day supply of batteries and when entering the Superdome the police searched everyone and confiscated their cigarette lighters so there was absolutely no source of light in the bathrooms. People had to search for non-congested areas where a man could hold up a blanket in a corner in order to give his wife and children some privacy so they could relieve themselves. Many people did not have blankets or people to hold up the blankets for them.......etc.

Then after suffering these indignations and tortures worse than waterboarding for several days the news media shows up to film these people who have lost everything they owned including their dignity and the viewing audience at home is thinking how dirty and vile these people are and what are they complaining about since they had free room and board for the last few days.

Thank you. And if they couldn't afford a car to get to work they should get off their lazy *** and get a better paying job. (sarcasm off)

 

[dmccarty]

I have posted this before....

After Floyd flooded out Eastern NC I went down twice to help clean up. With the first trip the water had just peaked in some areas and was finally going down.

The first trip was to find bodies.

Thankfully none were found. Nor were their any to find as it turns out. :thumbsup::laughing:

Though I did see what was left of 100 head of dairy cows that had drowned.....

Two towns I visited were both poor. One town was wiped out. Just gone. Now not gone in that the buildings were gone. I only saw two obviously destroyed buildings which happened to be trailers that got hit by rushing waters. They were exceptions and just happened to be in a low spot where the water was going to rush. The town was gone because the water just rose into the houses/trailers and then out again. What the water touched was destroyed.

The town that was wiped out is in a low spot and the town was settled by freed slaves after the Late Unpleasantness. So the land was basically worthless which is why the got it. The town is next to the Tar River and there is a dike protecting the town. But the dike does not encircle the town and if the water rises to a certain point the river can come if from the rear. Which is what happened.

Even the city hall which was built up at least 6-10 feet above grade was flooded out. Going into the town there was stuff in the trees 15-20 feet over our heads.

Somehow the people got out and were else where. They could not even get back into town when I was "visiting." The place looked like a ghost town. Very strange. Which was made worse by the vaults that had popped out of the ground in the grave yards.

The other town had a low area and a high area. The water rose so fast that people barely got out alive. One house had a car out front. Next to the front door was a TV. All they had to do was grab the TV, get in the car and go. They did not have time to do that much.

In this part of the town was a grocery store. It just happened to be barely above the high water mark. By a foot or so. I talked with a few people and they were all related. Grandma's house was here. The other grandma's house was there. Siblings, parents, aunt, uncles all in this little section of town. One of the two trailers that was destroyed was owned by one of the grandma's of a kid I talked too. They were all family and related one way or the other.

That grocery store had big plate glass windows. Not one pane was busted by the storm or the people. Not one.

This was a 2-3 days after the storm. There was no government to help really. The National Guard had setup a kitchen in the train depot to feed people. The Red Cross was running a truck with food. The Mennonites were in town organizing food and clothing donations. Don't have a clue where they came from. :laughing: But dang glad to see them.

The Feds were not in sight.

A week or so later I led a team of people back to this town to help clean up. Simply to carry peoples belongings out of the houses to get picked up and taken to the dump. We met up with a town official in a building the Mennonites had taken over for their work. While we waited for the government official to show up per our agreement, those Mennonite women put me to work! Their men were out working in houses and those women did not like seeing empty hands go unworked. :laughing: So they put us to work. :thumbsup:

Our contact showed up and sent us to see the Baptists. Or maybe I should say the other Baptists. :laughing: They had brought in men and teenagers to clean out the houses. The women were running a kitchen. They had an awesome tractor trailer setup that contained a kitchen and showers. They just drove in to the local Baptist church. Hooked up to power, setup up tents, got organized and got to work. They and the local government were handling the logistics of cleaning out the houses. We got our assignments and off we went. :thumbsup:

We only could clean out three houses. Miserable, disgusting, depressing work. The first house we cleaned out was in a neighborhood that in the first trip was still under water. The only way those people got out was that a neighbor had an airboat. He rescued most/all of the people in that area. The house was down stream of the town. And the towns sewer plant. The water was NASTY when I saw it on the first trip. Now we were in the houses cleaning out what the water had touched. :ashamed: I won't tell you what we saw in the water.

Most of the people got off their fannies and got to work. One house we helped clean out were some of the people who were rescued by the Airboat. The house was owned by an elderly couple who were at least in their 60s. When we showed up they had hired some people to clean out their house. They even had a dumpster on site. When I first saw the hired help I thought they were looting. The couple let the help go since we were free. The lady was recovering from Cancer and was in working in what was left of the belongings she had collected over a lifetime. She should not have been exposed to the air in the house but there she was. She cried when we showed up. She cried when we told her she could keep the N95 masks we had given her. In fact she could have a box of N95 masks.

We all coughed up good out of our lungs for days after the visit..... Not good for someone recovery from Chemo.

Another house was owned by a younger man. He really had not done much before we arrived. Sad thing was that he had just put on a new roof on the house and had bought new furniture. The roof was nice and solid. Held up well. The irony of which we got a chuckle out of. His furniture had swollen up so much we had to bust it up with an axe to get it out of the house.

The neighbors were all out working that day throwing their ruined goods into the street. The city was running a front end loader and trucks to pick up the piles of belongings.

Just as we finished this house an older lady drove up and asked if we would help her friends down the street. They only needed to move some appliances. We were about to head back to the Baptists and get lunch but it sounded like this job would only take a few minutes......

Long story short. Just down the road was 15 minutes. They had chest freezers, fridges, standing freezers, a dishwasher, range, and wood burning stove.

We were late for lunch. In fact my town contact thought we had disappeared. :laughing:

This house was owned by another older couple. They had CLEANED out that house. The only things left were the appliances that were just to heavy to move. Honestly I don't know how they had done the work. They had a nice garden and a green house. They ate what they grew. Unfortunately they froze the food instead of canning. They were just burning the rotten food. The smell of rotten food and 20-30 pounds of butter will never leave me. When smoke from a burning fire smells better than the air you are breathing things are BAD. One freezer was in an old building and we had to shovel the rotting food out of the building. We set up a relay. You would take a few deep breaths. Run in and shovel for as long as you could and then run out to breath. Next man would go in until we were done. :ashamed:

The daughter of the people we were helping got my address and a few weeks later I got a nice thank you letter from them. :thumbsup:

NC has the 82nd Airborne, the 2nd Marine division. An Air Fourch Air Wing just down stream of this town. Another Airwing of Marines to the NE. And there were more Air Force assess to the SW. Not one Federale was to be seen helping. A company of Marines could have clean out that little town in one or two days, the Army would have only needed three days. Shoot. The Air Force could have done it in four.

Lawlessness was not an issue. No need to worry about Posse Comitatus. Just bring in some units to help the initial clean up. With the manpower the Services had in NC they could have cleaned up those houses in two weeks and really put people on a road to recovery.

But NOTHING. I mean NOTHING. The Feds paid for things eventually but the WORK was done by locals or citizens who came into help.

Later,
Dan

 

[tallyho8]

Dan, if there were more people in the world willing to volunteer as you did, it would be a much better place. :thumbsup:

I think everyone would agree that small towns have less crime than inner-city neighborhoods and that neighbors are more friendly to each other and willing to help others more.

What set New Orleans apart from those small towns was that the city was under water in spots for 3 months not 3 days. There were 300,000 people with no place to stay and they had to be shipped to cities far and wide hundreds or thousands of miles from home where they were unable to work on their homes even if they wanted to.

It is true that for many this was a glorious vacation but for many others it was worse than prison being away from family and friends and unable to even start rebuilding their own home.

I wish I had been able to do even more volunteer work after Katrina but I suffered so much destruction myself that it took me 2 years of hard work to get back to something resembling normalcy.

I had worked hard and saved for many years and planned on retiring at 62 and enjoying life for a change. Katrina hit 2 weeks after my 60th birthday. On August 29, 2005 when the winds died down to about 30 mph I started my chainsaw and began 2 years of hard labor. My business that I ran for 38 years was destroyed. The "good hands people" had canceled my insurance a few weeks earlier and I was unable to find a replacement policy. Two of my rental properties had moderate damage that was mostly covered by insurance but I still suffered heavy losses on them as I had to do so many things to the property myself plus missing rent for several months.

I had excellent homeowner's insurance that covered damage to my home and partial damage to my barn and other outbuildings but nothing for my 2 miles of new fencing and over 100 trees down. All in all I lost about $200,000 that came out of my retirement savings and I had to retire 2 years before I could collect my social security because I had no shop and had to spend the next 2 years repairing my properties.

FEMA did not give me a dime because I had insurance on my home and even though my shop was destroyed with no insurance, they did not give out money to help small businesses. I had too many assets to try to collect welfare or food stamps if I had wanted to so I had to live off my retirement savings.

I am NOT complaining about not getting any hand-outs because I don't think it was the governments job to do so and I am rightly upset that so many others got so much that they did not deserve. I am lucky that I had been frugal all my life and still have enough savings to enjoy my retirement years unless we get another Katrina because now I have no insurance because the insurance companies pulled out of our area.

The only thing that upsets me is people that have no clue as to what really happened here condemning most of us for the actions of a few.

 

[dmccarty]

...
I think everyone would agree that small towns have less crime than inner-city neighborhoods and that neighbors are more friendly to each other and willing to help others more.

What set New Orleans apart from those small towns was that the city was under water in spots for 3 months not 3 days. There were 300,000 people with no place to stay and they had to be shipped to cities far and wide hundreds or thousands of miles from home where they were unable to work on their homes even if they wanted to.
...

The city makes one anonymous. It is hard to be anonymous in a small town. Being anonymous makes criminal activity easier that is for sure. After the flood there was nothing to steal. If the water touched something it was ruined. There were reports of some looting but I did not see it. And after looking for bodies in a few houses it was very apparent there was nothing to loot.

There was some pushing in shoving in some areas where food, ice, and water was being distributed but that was quickly stopped.

I don't know where the people in the flooded out areas went. They certainly could not go back to their homes. I know they were in shelters for a long time. And given that many of them lived next to family they could not just go to grandma's house to stay since grandma's house was destroyed just like theirs.

The houses were torn down to the studs and then rebuilt but that would take a good part of a year if one could line up supplies, labor and money to pay for same. The trailers were just hauled off to the dump. I saw one trailer park that was extremely nice and well kept. Just a wonderful place. Most of the trailers got an inch or two of water in the floor which earned the trailer the red sticker of destruction.

Only the trailers could be replaced quickly but then there was the problem of contaminated wells. Not sure what ever happened to the wells. I know the Feds were running around down east pulling up well pumps. Even once power was restored one had to drill a new well according to the reports back then. I don't if this requirement persisted but it was there for awhile and people were not happy to say the least.

People have an expectation that the Government is going to come in after a major disaster and save them. If you are stranded on a rooftop you might get pulled off but it ain't going to be fast. After Floyd there were only a handful of rescue copters in the entire eastern part of the state. One pulled my wife's grandmother out of a creek. Grandma was very lucky that a man saw her car washed into the creek. She was lucky again when he was able to call for help. And she used up even more luck when one of the few copters in the state was able to pull her from the top of the car.

It is the local and state the will do most of the initial work. Not the Feds. As FEMA says, one better be able to take care of yourself for a week or so before outside helps arrives.

Later,
Dan