Remembering Katrina -

[packman]

Nine years ago - pictures of the areas hit then and now:

http://www.nola.com/katrina/index.ssf/2014/08/hurricane_katrina_then_and_now.html

[Mnemosyne]

1. Never forget. nt

[leftstreet]

2. DURec

[IdaBriggs]

3. My 1st time on DUs front page was Katrina: "I have returned from my 10 day stint with Red Cross."

I still remember it all vividly.

This was posted on September 22, 2005 at 9:55 p.m.

"I have returned from my 10 day stint with Red Cross. (1st Impressions)"

I got home tonight. I'm exhausted, and not sure I ever want to go back to another disaster ever again. At the same time, I am feeling terribly guilty about not being there to help out anymore, especially because of the close relationships that developed between myself and my team mates. My husband says this is pretty common for "soldiers in a war zone," and I guess he's right: that's pretty much what it felt like.

I never made it to a shelter. I was trained in a "quickie" class on "Introduction to Disaster," "Mass Care" and "Shelter Management", but my computer skills ended up placing me at the staff headquarters in Montgomery, Alabama. I helped develop a system for tracking Trucks, Drivers, Destinations and Supplies for the Bulk Distribution team, and I have to tell everyone -- our teams worked their butts off! From the warehouse folks (a lot of Navy nuke men - shout out: I Love You Guys!) to the drivers, to the dispatchers, to the people scrambling to figure out what needed to go where, and how to keep track of who got what when -- it was craziness! It was chaos! It was ... amazing. There was a clear sense of "the mission" -- getting supplies (water, toilet paper, food, diapers, etc.) -- to the people who needed it, and doing whatever it took to get the job done.

The biggest problem was the bureaucracy. Volunteers roll in and out (all of us doing this for free), and frustrations happen. The "out processing" part was just patently ridiculous, and I flat out refused to participate in several parts of it. I had gotten "sign offs" from: 1) Mental Health, 2) Staff (Medical) Health, 3) Accounting, 4) Hotels, 5) my "supervisor", 6) his superior, and the "7) okay you can leave now" folks. I refused to get signatures from four additional departments who would sign that I had not received a 1) cell phone, 2) rental car, 3) phone card or 4) radio; I am a "rebel" and simply put "N/A" through those sections. Its a small complaint, but when two hours for "out processing" is considered "quick," as a volunteer my answer becomes "la bite me."

I'm tired. It was frustrating, and exhausting. I swear to God some of the official "staff" people were there just to piss the rest of us off -- at least, that's how it felt sometimes. But one "old timer" explained to me that this was how every disaster was: chaotic, disorganized, frustrating, and annoying, but somehow, everything still got done, because everyone just keeps putting their shoulders to the wheel, and somehow, somehow, everything gets to where it needs to go.

We made screw-ups. The warehouse guys loaded up several pallets of flashlights, and didn't catch that batteries weren't included on a couple of trucks. What an "OUCH!" moment! A couple of trucks had to be loaded multiple times when weight became an issue. And the whole "baby wipes" fiasco will probably be pretty funny in a few years, but it isn't right now. Sigh. At the same time, dozens of men loaded hundreds of trucks with heavy boxes non-stop for days in 90-100 degree heat, while others drove them hundreds of miles on no sleep to get them there as quickly as possible -- and you know what the biggest complaint I heard was?

"Why can't we do MORE?"

The shelter workers wanted to get there quicker. The truck drivers wanted the trucks loaded faster, and screw the whole "sleep" thing, while the warehouse guys just lost weight in front of your eyes. The doctors and nurses, social workers and teachers -- every single one of the people there was there solely because they wanted to help!

I'm tired. I'm on no sleep. It was incredible, and I never want to go back again. I'll probably call in the morning to see when I can do another rotation.

It really was about helping the victims, and I'm extremely proud that I was privileged enough to meet and work with these incredible people. I'm glad I did it, I'm glad I'm home, and I'm glad I was a part of the Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief effort. I even bought a t-shirt.

But I'm still not filling out anymore damn paperwork.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4856343&mesg_id=4856343 /blockquote]

[Thinkingabout]

4. A terrible storm and the levee break damaged what Katrina left.

It is hard to image being dumped on the freeway in 103 degree temperature without a shelter to protect them from the sun and so many negative comments being made by those who did not know what the actual conditions these people was existing.

[Octafish]

5. Smirko did a heckuva job.

[sarge43]

7. Beat me to it, Octafish. n/t

[Octafish]

9. You are never second in my book, Sergeant.

I'd call you "Sir," but you know.

[sarge43]

13. Actually it's ma'am.

However, please don't call me either; I worked for a living.

And thank you.

[azureblue]

20. once again, Bush was responsible for the flooding of New Orleans

http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=hurricane_katrina_3062

http://www.mvn.usace.army.mil/pd/projectslist/home.asp?projectID=165
a description of a project (SELA) initiated in 1996 to repair the levee system.

February 2001
Bush’s first budget proposed more than half a billion dollars worth of cuts to the Army Corps of Engineers for the 2002 fiscal year. Bush proposed half of what his own officials said was necessary for the critical Southeast Louisiana Flood Control Project (SELA)—a project started after a 1995 rainstorm flooded 25,000 homes and caused a half billion dollars in damage.

Bush did this to offset the tax break he gave to the top 1% of rich Americans. The first major economic initiative pursued by the president was a massive tax cut for the rich, enacted in June of 2001. Bush signed his massive $1.3 trillion income tax cut into law-a tax cut that severely depleted the government of revenues it needed to address critical priorities.

February 2002
Bush provided just $5 million for maintaining and upgrading critical hurricane protection levees in New Orleans—one fifth of what government experts and Republican elected officials in Louisiana told the administration was needed. Bush knew SELA needed $80 million to keep working, but the he only proposed providing a quarter of that.

February 2004
The SELA project sought $100 million to repair the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain levees, but Bush offered only $16.5 million. The Army Corps of Engineers asked for $27 million to pay for hurricane protection upgrades around Lake Pontchartrain—but the White House cut that to $3.9 million. Gaps in levees around Lake Pontchartrain & the Industrial Canal, which were supposed to be filled by 2004, were not filled because of budget shortfalls. Repair work on the levees, including the ones that failed, was stopped due to lack of funds.

[sarge43]

6. Never forget, never forgive.

[azureblue]

21. Bush's failure to respond after Katrina

A COMPARISON OF PREVIOUS HURRICANE RESPONSES:

President Nixon -- August 1969 when Cat-5 Hurricane Camille hit roughly the same area as Katrina, President Nixon had already readied the National Guard and ordered all Gulf rescue vessels and equipment from Tampa and Houston to follow the Hurricane in. There were over 1,000 regular military with two dozen helicopters to assist the Coast Guard and National Guard within hours after the skies cleared.

President Clinton -- September 1999, Hurricane Floyd -- Cat-3, was bearing down on the Carolinas and Virginia. President Clinton was in Christchurch, New Zealand - meeting with President Jiang of China. He made the proclamation that only Presidents can make and declared the areas affected by Floyd "Federal Disaster Areas" so the National Guard and Military can begin to mobilize. Then he cut short his meetings overseas and flew home to coordinate the rescue efforts. All one day BEFORE a Cat-3 hit the coast.

President Bush (41) -- August 1992 -- was in the midst of a campaign for re-election. Yet, he cut off his campaigning the day before and went to Washington where he martialed the largest military operation on US soil in history. He sent in 7,000 National Guard and 22,000 regular military personnel, and all the gear to begin the clean up within hours after Andrew passed through Florida.

George Bush (43) -- August 2005 -- Cat-5 Hurricane Katrina bears down on New Orleans and the Mississippi gulf. Both states are down nearly 8,000 National Guard troops because they are in Iraq -- with most of the rescue gear needed.
Bush is on vacation. The day before Katrina makes landfall, Bush rides his bike for two hours. The day Katrina hits, he goes to John McCain's birthday party, and lies to old people about the multi-billion-dollar pharmaceutical company welfare boondoggle.
People are dying, the largest port of entry in the United States (and fifth largest in the World) is under attack. Troops and supplies are desperately needed. The levees are cracking and the emergency 1-1/2 ton sandbags are ready, but there aren't enough helicopters or pilots to set them before the levees fail. The mayor of New Orleans begs for Federal coordination, but there is none, and the sandbagging never gets done. Bush goes to San Diego, to play guitar with a country singer and lie to the military about how Iraq is just exactly like WWII. The levees give way, filling New Orleans with water, sewage, oil and chemicals. Ten percent of all US exports, and 50% of all agricultural exports ordinarily go through this port. It is totally destroyed. Bush decides he'll end his vacation a couple of days early -- BECAUSE HE HAS TICKETS TO A PADRES GAME.
He goes back to the farm in Crawford, with every intention of doing something on WEDNESDAY about this disaster that happened starting last SUNDAY night. He had time for a couple of rounds of golf, too.

George Bush (43)’s responses to FL hurricanes in 2004:

HURRICANE CHARLEY

In 2004, George W. Bush and FEMA left little room for error. Not long after Hurricane Charley first made landfall on Aug. 13, Bush declared the state a federal disaster area to release federal relief funds. Less than two days after Charley ripped through southwestern Florida, he was on the ground touring hard-hit neighborhoods.

Bush later made a handful of other Florida visits to review storm-related damage, but the story on the ground was not Bush's hand-holding. Rather, it was FEMA's performance.

Charley hit on a Friday. With emergency supply trucks pre-positioned at depots for rapid, post-storm deployment, the agency was able to deliver seven truckloads of ice, water, cots, blankets, baby food and building supplies by Sunday. On Monday, hundreds of federal housing inspectors were on the ground, and FEMA already had opened its first one-stop disaster relief center.

By the end of September, three hurricanes later, the agency had processed 646,984 registrations for assistance with the help of phone lines operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Fifty-five shelters, 31 disaster recovery centers and six medical teams were in operation across the state. Federal and state assistance to households reached more than $361 million, nearly 300,000 housing inspections were completed, and roughly 150,000 waterproof tarps were provided for homeowners, according to FEMA figures.

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1104/110304cm1.htm

September 4, 2004
HURRICANE FRANCES

FROM THE ATLANTIC MAGAZINE November, 2005
“Imagine if, in advance of Hurricane Katrina, thousands of trucks had been waiting with water and ice and medicine and other supplies. Imagine if 4,000 National Guardsmen and an equal number of emergency aid workers from around the country had been moved into place, and five million meals had been ready to serve. Imagine if scores of mobile satellite-communications stations had been prepared to move in instantly, ensuring that rescuers could talk to one another. Imagine if all this had been managed by a federal-and-state task force that not only directed the government response but also helped coordinate the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and other outside groups.
This requires no imagination: it is exactly what the Bush administration did a year ago when Florida braced for Hurricane Frances. It was two months before the presidential election, and Florida's twenty-seven electoral votes were hanging in the balance. It is hardly surprising that Washington ensured the success of "the largest response to a natural disaster we've ever had in this country." The president himself passed out water bottles to Floridians driven from their homes.”

[azureblue]

23. Trent Lott

Sunday, September 4

TRENT LOTT, MS SENATOR, DIVERTS SHIP BASED HELP TO MS. NOT JUST ONE SHIP-TWO


From the Chicago Tribune, September 4, 2005: The US Bataan:
"While federal and state emergency planners scramble to get more military relief to Gulf Coast communities stricken by Hurricane Katrina, a massive naval goodwill station has been cruising offshore, underused and waiting for a larger role in the effort.
"The USS Bataan, a 844-foot ship designed to dispatch Marines in amphibious assaults, has helicopters, doctors, hospital beds, food and water. It also can make its own water, up to 100,000 gallons a day. And it just happened to be in the Gulf of Mexico when Katrina came roaring ashore."
The Bataan rode out the storm's 12- to 14-foot seas and then headed for shore. Its chopper pilots were some of the first to begin rescuing the stranded of New Orleans.
"But now the Bataan's hospital facilities, including six operating rooms and beds for 600 patients, are empty. A good share of its 1,200 sailors could also go ashore to help with the relief effort, but they haven't been asked. The Bataan has been in the stricken region the longest of any military unit, but federal authorities have yet to fully utilize the ship."
Tyson dispatched a landing craft from her ship -- 90 miles up the Mississippi River to New Orleans, carrying medical personnel, food, water. It was over halfway there when it was ordered back to the Bataan because the Bataan itself had been ordered to Mississippi

From Micheal Brown’s Testimony- the US Comfort Hospital ship:

One of the problems that [NorthCom Cmdr. Timothy] Keating ran into, which I found embarrassing during Katrina, was with the USS Comfort. I had requested the ship, and it's moving into Mississippi, because Mississippi wanted it for medical purposes. So I gave the order through NorthCom to move that ship there. As it was making its way to Mississippi, Mississippi decided they no longer needed it. The Comfort is primarily a medical ship, so I made the decision, "Steam on to New Orleans, because we can use you in New Orleans for medical triage."

And a certain U.S. senator became ballistic that that ship was going to bypass Mississippi. That senator called and screamed at me. And I said, "Well, your state doesn't want it. Your governor doesn't need it anymore, so it is best utilized somewhere else." [The senator responded,] "Well, I don't care. I want it in my state." He called [DHS Secretary Michael] Chertoff and convinced Chertoff to use the ship there. And Keating is, I'm sure, ready to pull his hair out, because there is an e-mail that finally gets to me that says, "I'm fed up. Somebody tell me where the Comfort is going or I'm sending it back to Baltimore," or wherever it was. It was that kind of baloney that was going on. And it was [Mississippi Republican Sen. Trent] Lott. [The senator's office did not return National Journal's calls for comment.]

[uppityperson]

8. k&r&b to mark for later viewing

[TinkerTot55]

10. If only the scars in people's lives.....

....have healed as beautifully.

[LynneSin]

11. I was coming home from a Green Day concert at the Merriweather Pavillion in MD

When we got back to Delaware sometime around 1-2 in the morning all the gas prices were marked up a dollar more than we left. I was lucky to find the one gas station that hadn't marked stuff up yet and I filled it up in the morning. The car on the other side showed up with a dozen 2-gal gas tanks and filled those up too.

[NOLALady]

12. After all of this time has passed,

I'm crying again.

I don't know if this wound will ever heal.

[handmade34]

14. I have

had reason to go to the NOLA area a number of times since Katrina... will never forget my first time soon after... this photo was the remains of a small house between the River Rd and the Mississippi at St. Rose

[URL=.html][IMG][/IMG][/URL]

[New Orleans Strong]

15. Yikes. Hard to look at.

Shaking a little right now, but thanks for posting -

[catrose]

16. Not looking at those

It was hard enough the first time. I was going to go back home as a volunteer, but the sheriff said the parish was "closed." I'm still wondering how you close a whole county-equivalent.

[OldRedneck]

17. We were there

Living in Bay St. Louis, MS; building two retirement homes -- one for us, one for my parents. Lost everything we owned except for one car, the few clothes we took with us when we evacuated, and a few items that were above the 5 feet of water that invaded our apartment.

Fortunately -- we were insured, the houses were only foundations, and we were able to sell both lots in the year after Katrina.

MANY others were not so fortunate.

[nolabear]

19. Glad you made it out, Darlin'.

I grew up in Biloxi, Pascagoula and New Orleans. I watched the storm from Seattle and saw it endanger family and wash and blow away damn near everything I'd known. Since then I've been back a lot and watched with a combination of awe and horror at the rebuild. It can't ever be the same but it is there. And I love it still, especially my NOLA.

[SoapBox]

18. I'll never forget and I'll never forget Chimpy's response...

Or lack there of.

Toxic trailer, anyone?

[nolabear]

22. I watched my people suffer from the PNW, and I still stand in awe.

Most who've been here awhile know I'm from the Mississippi coast and New Orleans. I spent days glued to the TV, sick at what I saw, enraged at what was and wasn't done. I scanned the Craigslist sites from all the cities where people were looking for one another. I watched local an d national people break down.

But mostly I talked to my sister on the phone. She works 911 in another city upstate, and when the coastal system went down they got a lot of rerouted calls from people who were trapped and terrified, and all she could do is tell them no one could come. They were on generators themselves and the cable systems were down, so I spent days watching CNN, trying to tell her what was going on so she could get some idea what they were dealing with. It just about took us both out.

It was two years before I could bring myself to go back, and when I did go to New Orleans I couldn't tell where anything was. The landmarks (outside of the quarter and the Garden and University Districts, which were built on high ground) were gone, the street signs were still gone, the jungle was taking whole neighborhoods. Speculators had come in and were buying up land and trying to make Disney New Orleans of the place.

And you know what? They haven't succeeded. It's still crazy decimated, but the musicians and business people and old timers who love the place have done an astounding job of taking care of one another and slowly coming back.

The coast is weird, because the casinos have replaced so much of the old local life, but hell, the locals love "going to the boats" as we always called it. It perseveres too, in all its crazy glory.

[Skittles]

28. I called a local news station, outraged when they called Katrina folk coming to Texas "refugees"

THEY'RE NOT FROM ANOTHER COUNTRY, THEY'RE OUR *NEIGHBORS* I shouted at them

[nolabear]

31. And I'm afraid a lot of people saw them as "invaders."

There was a shocking amount of "we don't want them" going on.

What the hell is wrong with us?

[niyad]

24. k and r and bookmarking for these remarkable and heartbreaking images.

[malaise]

25. I Won't ever forget Katrina

My three big hurricanes are Gilbert, Andrew and Katrina.

[steve2470]

26. never forget and never forget Bush's criminal neglect nt

[Skittles]

27. like 9/11, I will never forget the horror

I felt real shame for my country.........I remember thinking, Dubya thinks he can bring democracy to the world but he can't get a little girl off a bridge in Louisiana

[Ex Lurker]

29. My SO still suffers from PTSD. This is a rough weekend for her NT

[davidpdx]

30. Just one of the many tragedies that occurred under Bush

9/11
Afghanistan War
Iraq War
Katrina

Add up the deaths and you get zero...zero responsibility that is.