“Two words: President Nero,” writes Real History Lisa in an e-mail tonight. “President Fiddle,” replies Other Lisa. Don’t miss ThinkProgress’s tragically snarky photo essay (“As Katrina Struck, Bush Vacationed”), sent by Man Eegee.
Crooks & Liars has the photo of Bush fiddlin’ on a guitar today, and KeithO’s Countdown Katrina Carnage video.
Now this from the NYT: “A day after New Orleans thought it had narrowly escaped the worst of Hurricane Katrina’s wrath, water broke through two levees on Tuesday and virtually submerged and isolated the city, causing incalculable destruction and rendering it uninhabitable for weeks to come.”
The situation was so dire that late in the day the Pentagon ordered five Navy ships and eight Navy maritime rescue teams to the Gulf Coast to bolster relief operations. It also planned to fly in Swift boat rescue teams from California. […]
A certain sense of relief that was felt on Monday afternoon, after the eye of the storm swept east of the city, proved cruelly illusory, as the authorities and residents woke up Tuesday to a more horrifying result than had been anticipated. […] [T]he mayor estimated that 80 percent of the city was submerged, with the waters running as deep as 20 feet in some places. New York Times [NOTE: The NYT credits 10 reporters with this story.]
–> When the comments section in “A New Round of Flooding” below gets unwieldy, move up here.
P.S. Some GOOD news: Limbaugh-Hannity have been cancelled on AM Radio in Minnesota due to LOW ratings.
BELOW: President Howard Dean addresses us.
Dear Susan:
Donate to the Red Cross
Volunteer with the Red Cross
This week millions of Americans fled Hurricane Katrina. Across the South families abandoned their homes and businesses, not knowing what would be there when they returned.
Many stayed behind and suffered devastating loss and injuries — nearly a hundred have died that we know of, and hundreds of thousands need our help.
America is at its best when we realize that we are one community — that we’re all in this together. That means that each one of us has the responsibility to do what we can to help the relief effort.
The Red Cross is a great place to start:
http://www.redcross.org
They are already moving people and resources into the region to help. Donations will provide clean water, food, and shelter for disaster victims. The Red Cross web site also has important information for victims and their relatives across the country.
Many local Red Cross chapters are organizing volunteers to travel to affected areas — doctors and nurses to provide medical care, workers to build shelters, first responders to assist in rescue operations.
You can find your local chapter here to learn what you can do:
We are still learning the full story of the devastation, but there is no time to wait. Please do something now.
Thank you.
GovernorPRESIDENT Howard Dean, M.D.
Paid for and authorized by the Democratic National Committee, www.democrats.org. This communication is not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.
A girl can dream.
This is the best source of info I’ve found – from WWL-TV in New Orleans.
Here’s a link to their index of articles about Katrina. Some of the articles:
08/30/2005
Answers from Army Corps of Engineers on unwatering New Orleans
Heroic efforts made at Charity hospital to save patients
As floodwaters rose around Charity Hospital, nurses hand-pumped ventilators for patients who couldn’t breathe. Helicopters landed on the garage to airlift critically ill babies. Doctors canoed supplies to and from Charity and three nearby hospitals.
Flooding swamps New Orleans in desperation
New Orleans is apt to stay awash for days under oily, filthy water infested with mosquitoes, even if failed levees can be fixed quickly, according to experts assessing the flooding left by Hurricane Katrina.
Patients in need center sent to Ochsner
The hospital is crowded and hot. Surgeries go on with the help of generators. A teen arrives by boat after giving birth in a hotel. And outside, a steady stream of homeless, frightened people seek refuge.
Many more articles at the links.
Great, great info. I’m crashing … can you keep us updated with this, as you can? (after you’ve crashed too :):))
But I’m sure that WWL-TV will still have the best info tomorrow. If you go to their home page, there’s a link to a blog that they update frequently. Also, on the right (but not far right, scroll down) there’s an Interactive Katrina Tell us about conditions in your area. Comment | Results link (free reg.) I registered and read some, but too heartbreaking to continue. Too many like this:
Given the amount of work to be done (Corps of Engineers has an open solicitation for, among others, debris removal contractors) the entire Gulf Coast will be a target for criminals. After every disaster criminal enterprises move in with scams, including my business: construction.
They will come in droves. They know homeowner’s want their properties repaired/rebuilt, will bring promises and fake licenses, take 5 -10k per house, and leave in less than a week with as much as 250,000 dollars.
Welcome to Dodge City.
WELCOME TO DEADWOOD.
Great photo find, Susan. How appropriate.
Where would we be without Crooks & Liars… he is so great.
As I said over on Kos, that photo makes me very, very proud that I play the banjo instead of the guitar.
I’ve got to stop thinking it can’t get any worse, because every time I do, I’m proven wrong yet again.
Well I’ll take a wild guess here and bet lots of money that sob doesn’t really play the guitar-that would actually take some concentration and ya know ah ‘hard work’ to learn guitar. Ten to one it’s a prop like his phony plastic turkey for Thanksgiving. But what a cute picture for such a nice calm day around the country.
I think about the only thing bush might be good at is that old game-Limbo Rock..you know how low can you go? and he’s the lowest.
I think it’s real… and it’s Freudian.
Check the position of his left hand for a possibly unconscious message to the reality-based world…..
That hand position is an open G chord, but he’s one fret off. The fellow standing behind him probably showed him the chord position, but he missed the fret.
I have a mixed bag of feelings watching the coverage of this massive devestation: overwhelming sadness for the victims; thoughts that if a category 5 hurricane is on the way anywhere – everyone should be forcefully evacuated – mandatory – no exceptions – those people who decided to stay (not those who had no choice, but those who thought they could ride it out) are taxing the resources of the already strained rescue workers (thanks Bush for sending all of those National Guard people to Iraq, you lousy bastard); anger that the rescue and relief efforts are not better organized; disbelief after listening to the Mayor of New Orlean’s interview on Aaron Brown’s show (the mayor may be a laid back guy, but he seriously sounded like he was underestimating the magnitude of the disaster); more anger directed at the most heartless president of the USA ever; shock at the overwhelming enormity of the task faced by those communities that must now cope with what seem like insurmountable obstacles… I could go on. I take these things to heart. It tears me apart watching from a distance, knowing there’s nothing I can do.
Sometimes there is nothing we can do but empathize. I think it helps.
I have so much hate in me right now….looking at the smug smile on this… creature… while Americans are dead and floating while survivors are calling for help.
Tomorrow, we ALL have to call our “media” and tell them to make damn sure they air just what the fuck Prez Bush did yesterday. Ate cake, played golf and played country muzak star.
I’m sure his apologists and justifiers will have a good reason for him not racing right back to the SmutHouse and at least pretending he cared.
No LEADER should be smiling this week. NONE.
I have never felt so much loathing before.
Damnit Janet, quit it. Just quit giving the son-of-a-bitch the satisfaction of knowing he pissed you off. They absorb the hate; it makes them stronger.
No worries. These guys think with the little head.
Just a quick note on a small item in the first Flooding article. The police can’t communicate?
This should never have happened. I understand phone lines going out, cell towers being smashed, etc. But the police are emergency responders and the whole point of ER is that they can communicate in… emergencies.
Secondly, as someone who worked in liaison with the Dept. of Homeland “Security”, a big portion of the money going to Emergency Responders is making sure communications between different ER’s (such as hospitals, nat’l guard, police, etc) doesn’t break down in an emergency. Whether that’s an emergency caused by a bomb or a tidal wave, the ER’s in New Orleans should be able to communicate with each other. They’ve certainly received enough money from the feds to ENSURE this wouldn’t happen.
Something is deeply wrong if the ER’s cannot communicate with each other. Deeply, deeply wrong…
I don’t know if Rove is asleep or drunk or just doesn’t care anymore but I can’t imagine even the reddest voter wants to see Bush fiddling while the country is facing a major disaster.
Pax
Bingo. The entire network has built-in redundancy. Not to mention satellite phones using (reserved) emergency frequencies.
[ENSURE. Cute Soj.]
I think that a disaster of this magnitude is turning into one giant clusterfuck of criminal mismanagement..well not even mismanagement as it seems for almost two days not much was done at all.
I mean I just heard around ten tuesday evening that some convey of Nat. Guard were finally on there way to NO but what about rest of places …I seem to be repeating myself stupidly by saying wtf?
And soj, rba you’re so right about the emergency communications..again..wtf?
2 or 3 weeks ago about the Firfighters’ lack of radios in the 9/11 disaster and how that cost lives?
They have had 3 1/2 YEARS to work on this stuff, they had a distaster of gigantic proportions to learn from and this is the result?
Just like Rumsfeld’s was on the cheap, we now see Homeland Security on the cheap — well, at least cheap for the stuff that REALLY matters, I’m sure tons of $$ has gone to R&D for things like the microwave crowd control and fucking datamining and face recognition technologies. Gads, but we are one fucked up country.
Shit Shit Shit Shit Shit Shit -Can’t even say what I am thinking- I was on media blackout all day today ’cause I knew it was going to be awful- and so it was, and will be for months and probably years.
Just losing it with fury, sorry.
VIDEO HERE.
There are unofficial reports that thousands have perished.
Prisoners Riot, Take Hostages in New Orleans
Someone suggested that the headines for Bush’s behavior this week should read “AWOL Again”…
This is a total disaster.
I couldn’t sleep and woke up to a headline that prompted me to post a diary. I wouldn’t normally pimp my own diary but it tells of the incompetent leaders we have.
Diary here
Frankly I think we need a separate Superdome thread. There is a truly terrible report from the Times-Picayune this morning:
I want to echo the need for some more info on the Superdome. WHY ARE THE MEDIA NOT TALKING ABOUT IT?? When we KNOW that the situation there is dire, and we’re not hearing much about it, I wonder what else is happening while we hear a focus on “looting” (I don’t see what the big deal is – everything will be destroyed by flood waters anyway!)
I’m getting increasingly angry and worried about all of this. As I said in another comment elsewhere, I think America’s racism is on display for all of us if we are willing to see it. For example, what would we be seeing on the tv if all of those people in the Superdome were rich white people? And what would we be demanding be done about it?
Southern black people are being portrayed as criminals at best and expendabale at worst. WTF!!
From the Fort Worth Star Telegram:
Does this make sense?
I’m not sure, Parker.
I think in many ways it does though. They will be going somewhere with clean air and water, working plumbing, and where it is easy to deliver food and supplies. Also, medical care is important, and they shouldn’t be as swamped in Houston as I’m sure they are to the North and the East of NOLA.
It would be my hope that if the people have the means and place to go elsewhere, they would be allowed to (God, WTF is wrong with this country where I would have to even wonder that?). But those who are too poor or who have nowhere else should be able to stay as long as necessary.
It would be great if the Astrodome could just work as a staging point where people’s friends or family could come and pick them up. But I’m not sure how realistic that is for many of the people in there.
They have families…
If this administration were not so arrogant they should ask United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees UNHCRfor help…they have done this for 45 years and this level… I think that they are making a huge mistake.
There are methods with dealing with “Internally Displaced Persons…usually this happens with war…but the same mechanism can be used in natural disaster.
UNHCR booklet on IPDs (pdf)
I agree, we should be asking for whatever help anyone is willing and able to give us.
Not all of the refugees necessarily have families that they can go to. Some may not have any family at all, and I suspect there are probably some that don’t have family that didn’t live in New Orleans.
Yeah. Makes pretty good sense if they can get them here.
There’s more under roof than just the Dome, there’s a full-blown exhibition and convention center with beaucoup space enclosed and airconditioned and with the infrastructure to support tens of thousands of people more or less indefinitely… and the complex is minutes away from one of if not THE largest medical complexes in the US, which is going to be important given that many of the original Superdome IDP’s were medical cases who couldn’t be evac’d for whatever reason.
And right now, it’s just sitting in standby. We can spin it up in a matter of hours, I think. It won’t be luxury but it WILL be livable.
And Houstonians, for all their Republican roots, tend to have a generous streak when they decide that the people in trouble didn’t “deserve” to suffer. Bring `em on. We can help.
Thanks Janet – this is important news and I really appreciate hearing about it!
The following, attributed to “a rescue worker”, was posted over on BoingBoing:
The provenance of the message itself is not resolved, but this certainly dovetails with what’s being reported here. If it develops that this is was indeed perpetrated as a matter of policy, this counts in my book as the greatest single atrocity committed by American authorities against American citizens.
I am so sick of the Kos “Bush apologists”… they make me want to puke…
They are pummeling anyone who dares “snark” at Bush…must get the natives too riled up…
First it was the “fraudsters”, then the “London bombing conspiracists”…now the “snarkers”… how dare they snark at the president in his hour of need…and say that the recue operations are racially slanted
Absolutely dispicable… typical SYFPH don’t think just cough up bucks…
I don’t go there much anymore (well, I guess I never did in the first place). The comment threads sort of feel like Times Square and 42nd St.
Latest is that the people in the New Orleans Astrodome are being moved to the one in Houston. Was this the one where Bush’s team played? If so, the poor souls moving there must be feeling dome laden.
Nope. Different place, different city, about 300 miles apart.
There is one similarity… neither team was worth a damn.
All Americans should be angry by BushieBoy’s lack of action.
New Orleans is a major city of our country with thousands of US Citizens. We all should hold him and his administration accountable for this.
Why wasn’t the city declared a “national disaster” earlier to allow federal money to help? Where are the Louisiana and Mississippi National Guard and their equipment?
Why weren’t the people at the Superdome bused somewhere else? Why federal projects under were funded to repair and maintain the levees?
Why is the Federal Govt. cutting important domestic projects, but funding a war? Why don’t we listen to the Army Corp of Engineers when they offer insight to potential damages to the levees?
How about after the “clean up”, how are individual affected by the “new” bankruptcy laws? How many homeless were created by this Katrina Hurricane?
Parts of Florida are still damaged by last year’s storms. How long will it take to help New Orleans? Will there be a time table or plan? Or will it be like our exit strategy for Iraq?
We all know a lot of the answers to these questions. We as Americans, need to be strong loud obnoxious in asking Congress and the Executive Branch these questions, when they return next week from their vacations.
We all should pay attention to these events. Cause it could happen to your city too.
Bless you, susanhu. That’s the happiest thing I’ve read all day.
wwltv.com
11:30 A.M. – Emergency Operations Director Walter Maestri: Evacuees from New Orleans and the east bank of Jefferson are flocking to the west bank, overwhelming the facilities. [emphasis added]
11:32 A.M. – Director Walter Maestri: FEMA and national agencies not delivering the help nearly as fast as it is needed.
11:33 A.M. – Director Walter Maestri: We have no food or water for the evacuees. Says emergency workers have SEIZED the food and water and drinks from Sam’s Club, Wal-Mart and other groceries for evacuees, but he said that is all gone . Says water supply is gone. More water expected, but its not there right now. Says evacuees are getting upset and harried. [emphasis added]
11:40 – (AP) Roving bands of looters are breaking into stores in Carrollton area to get food and supplies. They’ve also stolen guns and armed themselves. [emphasis added]
Emergency workers seize, but when citizens look for their own provisions (in an admitted supply crisis), they loot..