The elephant that is Katrina
Sep. 7th, 2005 12:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumIt may be awhile before posts about Katrina stop.
I've been out of the loop for a week (sort of nice actually, apart from waiting for the phone to ring).
For those who wonder just how bad the aftermath can be, who wonder what it's like to be in the tender arms of FEMA,timiathan has this account of how FEMA is running things in Oklahoma.
All of sudden the landscape changed from picturesque mountainous rural America, to something foreign to me as we approached the rear gate of the camp. Two Oklahoma State Patrol vehicles and four Oklahoma Troopers guarded the gate. We started through and they stopped us.
"Can I help you, ma'am?"
I informed him we're here to deliver supplies to *our church's name* cabin. He stood silent and stared at me. My daughter turned and snapped a picture of his vehicle - very conspicuously.
We arrived at our cabin and started toting the clothes in. We finally found a group of men upstairs in the dorms trying to do something alien to them - make beds. They had almost completed the room of bunk beds and told us we could go over to the ladies' dorm room and start on it. We lugged our sacks of clothes back down the stairs. Then we got the first negative message. "You can't bring any clothes in. FEMA has stated they will accept no more clothes. They've had 30 people sorting clothes for days. They don't want anymore." My mind couldn't help but go back over the news articles that have accused FEMA of refusing water in to Jefferson Parrish, or turning fuel away.
We lugged the bags of clothes back to the car. We then turned to bringing in our personal hygiene products. That's when we learned our cabin had been designated a "male only" cabin. Approximately 40 men, ranging from age 13 on up would be housed there. We started resacking the female products and sorted out everything that would be useful for men.
We lugged the bags of female products back to the car. We asked if they knew of a cabin that had been designated for women. The "host" (the hosts are Oklahoma civilians who have been employed??? by FEMA to reside at each cabin and have already gone through at least one "orientation" meeting conducted by FEMA at "BASE" which is some unknown but repetitively referred location within the camp) told us he believed McAlester cabin was dedicated to females. He then explained there were male, female and family cabins designated.
We then started lugging in our food products. The foods I had purchased were mainly snacks, but my mother - God bless her soul - had gone all out with fresh vegetables, fruits, canned goods, breakfast cereals, rice, and pancake fixings. That's when we got the next message: They will not be able to use the kitchen.
Excuse me? I asked incredulously.
FEMA will not allow any of the kitchen facilities in any of the cabins to be used by the occupants due to fire hazards. FEMA will deliver meals to the cabins. The refugees will be given two meals per day by FEMA. They will not be able to cook. In fact, the "host" goes on to explain, some churches had already enquired about whether they could come in on weekends and fix meals for the people staying in their cabin. FEMA won't allow it because there could be a situation where one cabin gets steaks and another gets hot dogs - and...
it could cause a riot.
It gets worse.
He then precedes to tell us that some churches had already enquired into whether they could send a van or bus on Sundays to pick up any occupants of their cabins who might be interested in attending church. FEMA will not allow this. 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.
My son looks at me and mumbles "Welcome to Krakow."
My mother then asked if the churches would be allowed to come to their cabin and conduct services if the occupants wanted to attend. The response was "No ma'am. You don't understand. Your church no longer owns this building. This building is now owned by FEMA and the Oklahoma Highway Patrol. They have it for the next 5 months." This scares my mother who asks "Do you mean they have leased it?" The man replies, "Yes, ma'am...lock, stock and barrel. They have taken over everything that pertains to this facility for the next 5 months."
We then lug all food products requiring cooking back to the car. We start unloading our snacks. Mom appeared to have cornered the market in five counties on pop-tarts and apparently that was an acceptable snack so the guy started shoving them under the counter. He said these would be good to tied people over in between their two meals a day. But he tells my mother she must take all the breakfast cereal back. My mother protests that cereal requires no cooking. "There will be no milk, ma'am." My mother points to the huge industrial double-wide refrigerator the church had just purchased in the past year. "Ma'am, you don't understand...
It could cause a riot."
He then points to the vegetables and fruit. "You'll have to take that back as well. It looks like you've got about 10 apples there. I'm about to bring in 40 men. What would we do then?"
My mother, in her sweet, soft voice says, "Quarter them?"
"No ma'am. FEMA said no...
It could cause a riot. You don't understand the type of people that are about to come here...."
The rest of it is more disturbing.
The problems I'm seeing are typical, but typical of central planning, of people who are using bureaucracy to solve trivial problems. The problem with bureaucracy isn't that it can't solve problems, but that it lends an impersonal air to things. Rules become, not useful tools, not even the frame in which to work, but valuable for their own sakes.
Rivka, at Respectful of Otters has some thoughts on how this plays out in missed opportunities here
As if that weren't bad enough, Barbara Bush managed to make the cake eating moments of John McCain's birthday, and those who want to blame people for not being able to get out (yes, Senator, "lets make it impossible for people to see the National Weather Service Info they paid for with tax dollars, unless they pay a private firm for it" Santorum I mean you) said, Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality, and so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them."
Yep, the former First Lady, just said all the people in Astrodome are better off for having had everything they own taken from them, spending time wondering if they were going to die, and then being shipped to a bunch of cots (we won't discuss those who no longer know where the rest of their families are) have things, "working very well for them," because they were, "underprivileged."
Reporters without Borders reports of cops in Louisiana not destroying cameras, stealing memory cards and tearing up press passes, because they don't like what the pictures might have shown.
A second incident involved Gordon Russell of the New Orleans-based Times-Picayune daily as he was covering a shoot-out between police and local residents near the convention centre where hurricane victims were awaiting evacuation. The police detained Russell and smashed all of his equipment on the ground. Russell was forced to flee to avoid further violence and reportedly left the city the same day.
This thing is huge. And it was, mostly, preventable. We live in the richest (or so we keep hearing, I don't know quite how to measure that sort of wealth) country in the world. We knew this was coming. We knew that a disaster of this magnitude was going to cause huge problems for New Orleans, someday.
The Governor of Louisiana called a state of emergency two days before Katrina Made landfall. Meteorologists told people about the scope. Bush was told of this in a conference call, probably too late to do anything, but with the declared state of emergency he could (and a couple of days earlier) ordered trains in to take people out of the projected disaster-zone.
Didn't need to be Amtrak either. A couple of long trains, hauling empty boxcars would have worked fine.
A couple of Nat. Guardsmen on each one, to keep too many people from crowding on, and a half-mile of boxcars, could probably have hauled out almost everyone. If that wasn't enough, just get one more.
China cleared 1 million people out of the way of a typhoon. Cuba (with not much of anywhere to hide) managed to evacuate from a similar sort of storm, and only had a dozen people die.
Us, we lost a city (might have been any way to stop it, certainly not with the way things were, on the say it happened. What New Orleans needed was a long term plan and some real will on the part of the people who have to make it happen, neither seems to have been in evidence), and had a couple more pounded to pulp (Biloxi and Gulfport) as well as who knows how many other small towns which no longer exist (I read was purported to be a letter from the mayor of a town of almost 70,000, which claimed it was wiped off the map). We have thousands dead and a nation which now believes there is damn all which can be done to help those who suffer from such a catastrophe.
This is only the beginning of hurricane season.
I've been out of the loop for a week (sort of nice actually, apart from waiting for the phone to ring).
For those who wonder just how bad the aftermath can be, who wonder what it's like to be in the tender arms of FEMA,
timiathan has this account of how FEMA is running things in Oklahoma.All of sudden the landscape changed from picturesque mountainous rural America, to something foreign to me as we approached the rear gate of the camp. Two Oklahoma State Patrol vehicles and four Oklahoma Troopers guarded the gate. We started through and they stopped us.
"Can I help you, ma'am?"
I informed him we're here to deliver supplies to *our church's name* cabin. He stood silent and stared at me. My daughter turned and snapped a picture of his vehicle - very conspicuously.
We arrived at our cabin and started toting the clothes in. We finally found a group of men upstairs in the dorms trying to do something alien to them - make beds. They had almost completed the room of bunk beds and told us we could go over to the ladies' dorm room and start on it. We lugged our sacks of clothes back down the stairs. Then we got the first negative message. "You can't bring any clothes in. FEMA has stated they will accept no more clothes. They've had 30 people sorting clothes for days. They don't want anymore." My mind couldn't help but go back over the news articles that have accused FEMA of refusing water in to Jefferson Parrish, or turning fuel away.
We lugged the bags of clothes back to the car. We then turned to bringing in our personal hygiene products. That's when we learned our cabin had been designated a "male only" cabin. Approximately 40 men, ranging from age 13 on up would be housed there. We started resacking the female products and sorted out everything that would be useful for men.
We lugged the bags of female products back to the car. We asked if they knew of a cabin that had been designated for women. The "host" (the hosts are Oklahoma civilians who have been employed??? by FEMA to reside at each cabin and have already gone through at least one "orientation" meeting conducted by FEMA at "BASE" which is some unknown but repetitively referred location within the camp) told us he believed McAlester cabin was dedicated to females. He then explained there were male, female and family cabins designated.
We then started lugging in our food products. The foods I had purchased were mainly snacks, but my mother - God bless her soul - had gone all out with fresh vegetables, fruits, canned goods, breakfast cereals, rice, and pancake fixings. That's when we got the next message: They will not be able to use the kitchen.
Excuse me? I asked incredulously.
FEMA will not allow any of the kitchen facilities in any of the cabins to be used by the occupants due to fire hazards. FEMA will deliver meals to the cabins. The refugees will be given two meals per day by FEMA. They will not be able to cook. In fact, the "host" goes on to explain, some churches had already enquired about whether they could come in on weekends and fix meals for the people staying in their cabin. FEMA won't allow it because there could be a situation where one cabin gets steaks and another gets hot dogs - and...
it could cause a riot.
It gets worse.
He then precedes to tell us that some churches had already enquired into whether they could send a van or bus on Sundays to pick up any occupants of their cabins who might be interested in attending church. FEMA will not allow this. 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.
My son looks at me and mumbles "Welcome to Krakow."
My mother then asked if the churches would be allowed to come to their cabin and conduct services if the occupants wanted to attend. The response was "No ma'am. You don't understand. Your church no longer owns this building. This building is now owned by FEMA and the Oklahoma Highway Patrol. They have it for the next 5 months." This scares my mother who asks "Do you mean they have leased it?" The man replies, "Yes, ma'am...lock, stock and barrel. They have taken over everything that pertains to this facility for the next 5 months."
We then lug all food products requiring cooking back to the car. We start unloading our snacks. Mom appeared to have cornered the market in five counties on pop-tarts and apparently that was an acceptable snack so the guy started shoving them under the counter. He said these would be good to tied people over in between their two meals a day. But he tells my mother she must take all the breakfast cereal back. My mother protests that cereal requires no cooking. "There will be no milk, ma'am." My mother points to the huge industrial double-wide refrigerator the church had just purchased in the past year. "Ma'am, you don't understand...
It could cause a riot."
He then points to the vegetables and fruit. "You'll have to take that back as well. It looks like you've got about 10 apples there. I'm about to bring in 40 men. What would we do then?"
My mother, in her sweet, soft voice says, "Quarter them?"
"No ma'am. FEMA said no...
It could cause a riot. You don't understand the type of people that are about to come here...."
The rest of it is more disturbing.
The problems I'm seeing are typical, but typical of central planning, of people who are using bureaucracy to solve trivial problems. The problem with bureaucracy isn't that it can't solve problems, but that it lends an impersonal air to things. Rules become, not useful tools, not even the frame in which to work, but valuable for their own sakes.
Rivka, at Respectful of Otters has some thoughts on how this plays out in missed opportunities here
As if that weren't bad enough, Barbara Bush managed to make the cake eating moments of John McCain's birthday, and those who want to blame people for not being able to get out (yes, Senator, "lets make it impossible for people to see the National Weather Service Info they paid for with tax dollars, unless they pay a private firm for it" Santorum I mean you) said, Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality, and so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them."
Yep, the former First Lady, just said all the people in Astrodome are better off for having had everything they own taken from them, spending time wondering if they were going to die, and then being shipped to a bunch of cots (we won't discuss those who no longer know where the rest of their families are) have things, "working very well for them," because they were, "underprivileged."
Reporters without Borders reports of cops in Louisiana not destroying cameras, stealing memory cards and tearing up press passes, because they don't like what the pictures might have shown.
A second incident involved Gordon Russell of the New Orleans-based Times-Picayune daily as he was covering a shoot-out between police and local residents near the convention centre where hurricane victims were awaiting evacuation. The police detained Russell and smashed all of his equipment on the ground. Russell was forced to flee to avoid further violence and reportedly left the city the same day.
This thing is huge. And it was, mostly, preventable. We live in the richest (or so we keep hearing, I don't know quite how to measure that sort of wealth) country in the world. We knew this was coming. We knew that a disaster of this magnitude was going to cause huge problems for New Orleans, someday.
The Governor of Louisiana called a state of emergency two days before Katrina Made landfall. Meteorologists told people about the scope. Bush was told of this in a conference call, probably too late to do anything, but with the declared state of emergency he could (and a couple of days earlier) ordered trains in to take people out of the projected disaster-zone.
Didn't need to be Amtrak either. A couple of long trains, hauling empty boxcars would have worked fine.
A couple of Nat. Guardsmen on each one, to keep too many people from crowding on, and a half-mile of boxcars, could probably have hauled out almost everyone. If that wasn't enough, just get one more.
China cleared 1 million people out of the way of a typhoon. Cuba (with not much of anywhere to hide) managed to evacuate from a similar sort of storm, and only had a dozen people die.
Us, we lost a city (might have been any way to stop it, certainly not with the way things were, on the say it happened. What New Orleans needed was a long term plan and some real will on the part of the people who have to make it happen, neither seems to have been in evidence), and had a couple more pounded to pulp (Biloxi and Gulfport) as well as who knows how many other small towns which no longer exist (I read was purported to be a letter from the mayor of a town of almost 70,000, which claimed it was wiped off the map). We have thousands dead and a nation which now believes there is damn all which can be done to help those who suffer from such a catastrophe.
This is only the beginning of hurricane season.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-09-07 08:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-07 09:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-07 10:00 pm (UTC)K.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-07 10:36 pm (UTC)But I see that speed might have mattered more than appearance. The echoes of history are painful, I agree, but as three of us stood waiting for a lumber train to pass, with empty box and flatcars, I thought it would be easy to put fifty people, and a bunch of their stuff, into one of thosel, and wondered why something like that wasn't done.
TK
no subject
Date: 2005-09-07 10:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-07 11:04 pm (UTC)Because he doesn't look old enough to be a Vietnam vet, and I'd be surprised if he qualifies for the VFW, so coming face to face with a gun-toting, combat-vet liberal might just pop a couple of the vacuum tubes I think run his brain.
I have seen a bit more traffic of late, mostly I blame
:)
TK
no subject
Date: 2005-09-08 02:04 pm (UTC)By the way, did you hear about the stampede in Iraq while you were away? You must have. More than 950 people killed. I can't help but see a correlation as far as our guilty leadership goes.
Beth
no subject
Date: 2005-09-08 02:18 pm (UTC)From what we heard, I can't see that there was anything anyone could do about it, given similar circumstances, similar things would have happened.
On a lesser scale, similar things have happened (I call to mind the Who concert in Cincinnati, where four people were crushed to death trying to get good seats).
TK
no subject
Date: 2005-09-08 02:54 pm (UTC)However, I do understand that this fear extends even beyond that of war. If there is a bomb threat in a NYC subway, rest assured I think the outcome would be similar if not worse - and I certainly wouldn't want to be there. I go to work every morning via Metro North Railroad and greet the National Guard soldiers on my platform and I still feel safer in Israel - but that's a different issue.
But it is that fear that makes me so sad and I can't help but feel that those people in Iraq died (in vain) on that day because of a fear caused by this war.