New Orleans

#1

I guess we can say goodbye to New Orleans. The Levee broke earilier, flooding entire parts of the City that were previously dry and okay. Also, the Supredome's roof was sheared off from the high winds. What do you guys think about this?

#2

i put my thoughts in announcements.

i am about three heart-beats from going down there, my training might be of use.

but it would cost me everything I moved to the east coast for.

sigh.

need to meditate... working on govt. energy bill issues is exhausting.

#3

It is bad, but...There's nobody allowed to go there...The people that are there, are having to leave...It's not pretty...

We only got lights on late last night here, and we are a couple hundred miles away...Highways have been destroyed, and the only people going there are rescue teams...It is tragic, but we will bounce back...We always do...Mardi Gras 2006 will be off the hook..!

#4

I'm not sure where you guys live, but in Illinois it's pretty pathetic. When the tsunami hit everyone was concerned and trying to do everything they could to help, and now with this hurricane the kids at my school are just like "Sucks to be them". Which makes me kind of mad, maybe it's just my school- but why is it that they're more concerned with things that don't involve our own country than things that's are just a few states away? Granted the scales of the disasters are much different- I still just wanted a place to rant, lol.

Oh, and my english teacher brought up an interesting point today- that the vast majority of the people who are trapped in their houses are stuck because of their own doing. They had the chance to evacuate, and stupidly thought that they could fight a hurricane. But me being me, I still feel really bad for them.

And who is PISSED OFF about GAS PRICES?!?? Good God- FOUR DOLLARS??????? Damn hurricanes...

#5

Not everyone had the money to evacuate babe, can't forget that...

#6

What do you mean? Did they have to pay to get out?

Okay, that sounded really dumb.

But, like- couldn't they just pack up their stuff and go to a relief place a few hours away?

Lost Ghost · #7

No no no..........this shit right here brings back my Tsunami view.

Tsunami hit...and we JUMPED to aid them...telathons...celebrity contributions...jumping to the gun to said aid and money. I made the point that....we're doing it for them...but they didnt do it during 9-11 to help us. Yall said a Natural Diaster is different..

Well here we fucking go......America Just got fucked up by a Hurricane.......how many foriegn countries are jumping to help us out? Send insulin to help the people with diabettis?

Well..My point has happened...lets see if the rest of the world proves me right or wrong.

We play big brother all the time and said money and food....lets see if anyone helps us.

#8

Please print this and request it be read to your class. If not, post it on the walls.

FIRST:

Things that need to be understood.

you can not be told to evacuate. evacuation is a military movement, and is mandatory. you are ORDERED to evacuate.

you are TOLD to abandon. this is a unplanned and unassisted retreat, where you are left up to your own means and the rare decency that rises in the pools of imminent human desparation.

they were told by a mayor who was out of town already - evacuate, by their own means... but not told how, and no assistance was provided. Those who left ABANDONED their homes.

this was most displayed the day before, and perhaps unlike illinois, many people down there do not watch TV, if they even have one.

few people have internet, where this was most popularized, and then only dial up from a local provider, which is often unreliable.

Airplanes grounded THOUSANDS in the city who did have the means to leave, refusing to fly, even though the skies were clear before the hurricane? did those thousands DESERVE the tragedy they are now involved in.

Many of US AND OUR FAMILIES WHO ARE IN LOUISIANA (though I am in New Jersey) have relatives who we cannot move, and we cannot just abandon them, and they can not be transported. They live at home and are taken care by relatives because HMO's are too costly to afford. So they can't be moved, and because of family loyalties can't just be left in the attic (if you even have one) with a life vest and hope for the best. Not when if you leave they can't eat, and if you are the difference between their life or their death. The biggest question becomes, what do we do, kill them so they don't drown? It's illegal, but its noble. I bet ya some old people asked. I know my (recently dead) grandfather's sister did. My cousin stayed. She is probably dead, as well. Why?, you may ask. My cousin is a nurse who refused to leave one of her most-loved and needful relatives... and refused to euthanize her though it had been requested of her. Her effort and probable sacrifice (if she died) defined what made her feel complete - saving lives and offering comfort to the ill and unfortunate. In a perfect world she is still alive. However, Louisiana is far from a perfect world, especially now. Regardless or not if my Aunt is dead, my great-aunt could have never made it. not in this case.

The extra people are at my mom's house are now. The people who are homeless, jobless, and making a huge strain on my mom's meager reserves for winter, after she just took off a year to let her own father die with dignity. She can't afford them there. I am out of state, and working to help my family monetarily, as I am a database technician, and the only member of my family who actually has a technical job on my mother's side. They all know this strains my mother, who at the age of forty-seven still has to go hunting and grow her own food in the garden, her greatest joy in life, though no one would dare have it any worse. You can not fathom your mother on a roof-top fixing a leak,.. my mother did so last week. and she live closer to Arkansas than New Orleans - on the land that is the only thing in the world that is hers and has been in my family since before the Louisiana purchase.

Also consider this, the issue is not the same. Mississippi is devastated because of the hurricane; in Louisiana this is compounded by the levee breaks that rendered the city uninhabitable. After 9-11, the funds from the state of Louisiana that were intended to strengthen, and raise the levees instead got redirected to assist with New York's 9-11 crisis emergency. The Louisiana Levee system was literally sold up stream, and we in Louisiana willingly did so, because America comes together in times of adversity. Also, the local funds to strengthen the police departments and sherriffs were absorbed to train and outfit the TSA that still can't pass an effective number of tests to catch terrorist possibilities in regulated drills in national airports. That could have saved New Orleans from flooding. and given much needed jobs to many of the unemployed who have been caught in the flooding, who know no other way to make money than convince drunken tourists to part with it or to receive government assistance.

There is no "magical" relief place a few hours away- not when you have no car, and the current road work on the highways render traffic speeds in some places in the state. The places a few hours away they could get to were totalled or full as the hurricane diverted its path. The roads were congested. My cousin and his wife and new baby got on the road, which endangered the baby's life, at 9:23 am and got to my mom's house (usually 6 hours away) at 11:45 that night. the only way they made it was they loaded up on gas, and carried plastic bottles full to make it there. They got there on fumes. Those who did leave are now just as lost.

The thousands in houston (the largest city nearby) who they won't let into the Astrodome - because they have not "recieved them from the triage teams"- are refugees from a place they abandoned and many have no proof of who they were, or who their children were. My cousin Nathan ciphoned the gas from the lawn mower, btw, so he wouldn't have to stop for gas.

Here are real factors to consider:

The identity theft that will invariably occur - making a national security nightmare for implanting terrorists, or gulf citizens returning to the states... the loss of identity for out of state residents. I was just required to get a new copy of my birth certificate, in June... Birth records are in new orleans... and sell for a pretty penny. My birth certificate no longer exists, without it, i can't pass some states laws for my Driver's Liscense in their state.

The concentration camp in Houston. - with restricted access and leaving.
What are the ethics of this? What about the possibility of riots, or escalation of crime in houston? Will the media be allowed in for full coverage, will they be allowed to leave freely? How will the refugees be kept safe, even from themselves?

Consider the prisoners detained, who now have no evidence or in some cases no case against them. What about the pending appeals? Do we let them go, or violate the civil code to enforce a justice, just "in case"? Would that really just be tantmount to "guilt for safety's sake," and the violation of the foundation of our civil Legal system?

What about the armed and peaceful resistance that will invariably be encountered in LA (for sure, swamp rats got teeth). Can the martial law be enforced with respect to civil liberties, or do we have a downtown militarized zone, and respond with military force?

I would advise you to heed, but question your teacher, if all they can come up with is a scenario thinking people just didn't listen to the call to evacuate... because it is obvious they have never EVER had enough human understanding to even see that many of the people affected avoid the media they obviously cling to for a picture of the world. They have never been a part of New Orleans, even if they visited.

This is a week before labor day weekend,.. and that's a pretty big affair for the REAL people there, because it's when all the tourists start leaving, and usually things go back to normal in a city where nothing is ever normal. Tourism picks up in Mississippi and we prepare for the blues festivals in early fall. People on the bayou need to start saving power because the tourism dollars don't insulate against the winter, and most everyone was fishing this weekend. you live off the land, and pinch every penny when power bills skyrocket, and invariably holidays, and medical bills eat up most funds later in the year.

about my cousin:

He lost his job for leaving town, and it almost cost him his wife and newborn baby, cause she wanted him to go to work, and then they could go stay with her family, pretty far from new orleans, in plaquemines parish (where the hurricane first touched down and obliterated everything), where she just lost 80 family members and hundreds of people she grew up with. Some of Her family members visiting the baby came with them to my moms house, and didn't even get to warn their own children and spouses who never even heard about the hurricane, cause they had to go without power to help pay her medical bills. Others went home and were destroyed with all they ever knew of love or life...
Him losing his job cost him his second mortgage to pay off his first mortgage and to compensate for paying hospital bills not covered by his work, and everything right there, and the hurricane wasn't even aground yet.

Many of her relatives couldn't even read, and were prolly sleeping in boats after dozing off looking at the night sky with a cane fishing pole tied between their feet.

I gotta go cry some more now.,.. while people in another forum talk about shooting scavengers of the worst disaster ever to hit modern America because they want anything that might help them salvage a future - people no one gave a damn about, and apparently still don't.

My cousin lost his job, his home, our family members, and his in-laws, and now has a baby not a year old and a wife who barely made it through the premature pregnancy. Since he ABANDONED the disaster site, he is less eligible for aid... because he didn't risk death in the house he just put another mortgage on. That morning, he would have been working the docks on a forklift... to make the end meet. My mom is feeding extra people this year and will not have the food to make it through winter if the power gets cut off, and it always does... She may not get ANY aid because all she got was stiff wind and a little rain.

Her only option is to let our living family members go to their concentration camp where the national guard is going to guard them from their civil liberties and make sure they get no priority or preference? bull-We can't do that. We from Louisiana, and if you were from Louisiana, you would understand what that means. Lousiana, in the greater sense is Gulf culture, because those state lines were arbitrarily drawn after the US bought Louisiana from Napoleon. We are a strong people and most of that strength has a price. Your family is a burden, but a burden that makes you strong. That is the only thing strong enough to endure seeing a 30 foot creature that survived the ice age to bite off your grandfather's finger, and wade right past it.

My family faces this tragedy and faces a harsh winter with countless thousands who will now pay the price of abandoning their homes in an attempt to survive. That burden is beaurocratic logistics - that is only slightly better than "relief imprisonment in the astrodome concentration camp" that they are not even eligible for as of yet.

This also has countless other repurcussions no one from outside the area can consider. I also have family in Mississippi, who build their entire income this time of year. they have not been heard from. All of these states and these victims have my thoughts, but I have to take this one state at a time.

My dad, who moved away from New orleans, who was supposed to be volunteering down there to set up better emergency procedures for the hospital system in case of a disaster and was supposedly staying with his family down there as the first vacation he has taken in more than five years. I have not heard from any of them yet. I bet he went home and carried who he could,.. but i have chewed my finger until they bleed nonetheless. If anyone wants, they can have my dad's cell phone number, so IF he ever picks it up again, they can tell him "that's what you get for not getting out", even though his is one of the engineers that saved the hospitals that survived. I'm sure he would love to hear your opinion.

i have seen more compassion from today's youths and general society for islamic extemists who are "misunderstood" for their suicide bombs in iraq than people who live a simple life in the big easy - which is a vital organ for american society and economy.

vertical,
raumbh

#9

Well there's not much to say when "sorry" doesn't nearly cut it. I didn't mean to be so objective and harsh, and I apoligize for making you type something that I'm sure wasn't easy for you. I appreciate you explaining the situation to me- which I now know that I never fully understood. I can't very well type my emotions into a response, but please know that your family and friends are in my heart. Many, many hugs..

#10

QUOTE(Lost Ghost)No no no..........this shit right here brings back my Tsunami view.

Tsunami hit...and we JUMPED to aid them...telathons...celebrity contributions...jumping to the gun to said aid and money. I made the point that....we're doing it for them...but they didnt do it during 9-11 to help us. Yall said a Natural Diaster is different..

Well here we fucking go......America Just got fucked up by a Hurricane.......how many foriegn countries are jumping to help us out? Send insulin to help the people with diabettis?

Well..My point has happened...lets see if the rest of the world proves me right or wrong.

We play big brother all the time and said money and food....lets see if anyone helps us.

I'm gonna wait to see if YOU jump to help US... /sad.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad.gif" />