Let me get this straight

The citizen-loving state of Texas can apparently 'claim' any person's beach front property if a hurricane like Ike comes ashore moving the sea moves in a little closer than it was before - The Texas Open Beaches Act allows this, whether the house was destroyed by the storm or not. The state also doesn't have to give this everyday American taxpayer a single dime for the property they claim. Its just gone. Poof.

Oh, and a stern finger in the face:

"Every one of them was warned of that in their earnest money contract, in the deed they received, in the title policy they bought," he said. "And whether you like it or not, neither the Constitution of the United States nor the state of Texas nor any law permits you to have a structure on state-owned property that's subject to the flow of the tide."

No doubt this ruling also affects those storm-damaged oil rigs out in the Gulf? Aren't they also subject to the flow of the tide? Different set of rules? Oh, I see... they aren't on the beach. Yet.

Imagine for a moment that this same beach front land wasn't owned by an ordinary citizen, but was instead owned by... AIG, or by Fanny Mae, or by Freddy Mac, or by the Lehman Brothers. The government would - of course - rebuild their offices if they could be rebuilt; and if not, would pay them whatever the property was worth before the storm.

One disaster is not like any other... it's all about who is affected by it.

Because of course - this really isn't about 'public beaches' at all. Texas probably intends to replace these homes with luxurious resort hotels. I'm sure investors are lining up, as they were after Katrina... and after the 2004 Tsumani. It may take a few years, but let's watch what actually happens to that land Texas plans to claim.

And the best part of all, is that whatever the State of Texas decides to do... they can use those former-beachfront-dwellers' tax money to pay for it.

Devastation and missing people

It was just reported on CNN that search and rescue operations are underway for an estimated 100,000 people who refused to evacuate in the path of Ike.

100,000 people? No way. Really? After seeing the aftermath of Katrina only 3 years ago? After hearing (undoubtedly) local history about the 6000 who died in Galveston, Texas in 1900?

100,000 actually refused to leave? Or were they perhaps unable to leave (for various reasons like ill health, lack of transportation, lack of housing, lack of information, lack of trust?)

Why is it that this never happens in Cuba; a country that is hammered by hurricanes (at full strength) nearly every year? Ike is really the first storm that has resulted in hurricane deaths - in Cuba - in decades. They lost under 10 people, which is remarkable considering how hard they were hit by the storm, and that it plowed right through Havana.

Cubans evacuate their people. I doubt they offer them an option. They do however make evacuation palatable... they bring their animals, livestock, provide transportation, food and housing. And their houses are protected until their return.

Are we doing that? Are we sure we are doing that? Or are we simply assuming that because our government says we are doing that... that they are making good on their word?

Because I just can't imagine why else 100,000 people would simply refuse to leave ahead of a monster like Ike. Almost every American has a television. Was it the label 'Cat 2' that caused them think this was just a ho hum, tropical storm? Or were they somehow more afraid of our government, of looters (that 'danger' everyone is always trumpeting,) or more worried about their 'stuff' than of the storm itself?

What went wrong this time?

Because if Cuba can get this right - an island nation with continual hurricane issues - surely we can eventually learn to get people out of harms way.

Galveston has seen this before

The 1900 Galveston Hurricane



I turned on the Weather Channel and was worried to see that waves were already crashing over the 'wall' that protects Galveston from the sea; Ike is still hours from making landfall, but it appears it will make a direct hit on the low-lying, seafront city.

Texas government officials are already warning those around Galveston Bay that they are facing 'certain death' if they refuse to evacuate; dire warnings that haven't been heard since Katrina made landfall in 2005.

Ike is HUGE.

From looking at this satellite photo, I can see bands already over New Orleans. I can't imagine that this monster - as large as it is - won't affect Louisiana as well. No one is talking about it, but I sure hope the people living West of New Orleans and in the Southern parishes move inland.

Keeping an Eye on Ike

Poor Cuba... they are once again taking the full brunt of a major hurricane. They withstood Ivan as a Cat 5, Gustav as a Cat 4, and apparently Ike rolled in as a Cat 3 packing waves five stories high.

Somehow they manage to avoid hurricane related deaths, even when they take a direct hit from a Category 5 storm. We could have learned a lot about hurricane preparedness from Cuba pre-Katrina.

But of course, we don't talk to Cuba.

The country that really appears to need assistance right now - from within and undoubtedly from a hurricane-ready country like Cuba - is Haiti. They were sacked first by Gustav, and then (without any time to recover,) by Ike. The Haitian death count from these two storms is horrific.

From Agence France-Presse:

PORT-AU-PRINCE (AFP) — With severe flooding, hundreds dead and hundreds of thousands lacking food and basic provisions, Haiti has been hit badly so far this hurricane season, with four severe storms in less than four weeks.

The Caribbean nation has suffered more than its neighbors, also lashed by major storms, in part because of severe deforestation and extreme poverty.

After Tropical Storm Fay and Hurricane Gustav in August, the poorest country in the Americas was devastated by Tropical Storm Hanna last week, and flooding was compounded Saturday night and Sunday when Hurricane Ike clipped the country's northern peninsula as it raged westward toward Cuba.

Damaged infrastructure and continuing rains left aid organizations struggling to bring emergency assistance to hundreds of thousands of storm victims.

About 600 people died in Haiti's recent storms, according to UN and government figures, and one million were affected. The storms also battered roads and bridges.

Our own media is rather quiet about the ongoing plight of suffering Haitians. Even the Weather Channel tracks a hurricane while it is pounding on one of our neighbors - and they are our neighbors - and considers only the potential landfall on our Gulf Coast (and this is the very attitude that causes everyone to hate Americans.)

But we're not all so self-absorbed. I care, so I'm posting this AP clip.

Meet Ike.

Ike hammering Cuba and Haiti

If you have any trouble with the sound on this video, please click here.

Lt. Gen. Honore: Nation needs 'Culture of Preparedness'

Honore, as a commentator for CNN:

I would not count on levees during a hurricane to save your life. Levees will give you early warning. If you're living behind a levee, you need to be prepared to evacuate at any time. That's Russel Honore's rule No. 1. If you live along the Mississippi River or on the Gulf Coast, rule No. 2 is: It's going to flood.

Honore went on to say that everyone in our nation needs to be trained in disaster preparedness so that we can survive at a local level while waiting for national help to arrive.

This is a terrific overview of what we as a nation should - and could easily be doing to prepare ourselves for environmental disasters.

Good stuff. Too bad Honore isn't in charge of Fema, eh?

Honore:

We need to build a culture of preparedness. We need to assure that every kid who goes to school in America knows how to swim. The number of EMS teams and ambulances is not tracking with the growth in population. We need to teach more of our people first aid.

The federal government ought to be there to back the states up, we need to build a culture of preparedness in each. Why are we sending people there to issue them ice and water? We should be empowering people to act locally. The key to hurricane preparation is family preparation. If families are prepared, we lose fewer lives.

Government has to set standards for institutions like nursing homes and hospitals and for homes where people with mental or physical disabilities are kept. They should be evacuated well before the general population. We have to decide how close we should have those types of institutions to the coastline and to areas that will probably be flooded. That part of the population is just too vulnerable.

We need to create a national preparedness plan, with a local civil defense corps. We need dual trained teachers who can be disaster responders. We need to equip each high schools with satellite communications.

We need drugstores with generators in each geographical area ... If you lose power, people can still get medicine. Gas stations along interstate highways need to have generators. We need cellphone towers that could be lowered before the storm and then raised after the storm.

For every dollar you spend in preparedness before the disaster you save $9 after the disaster.

Vive NOLA!

Washington Post: In the Big Empty, a Calm After The Storm

"It was a good strange"

It was so quiet. Where there was power, the street lights dutifully blinked green and red for no one. The interstate was an elevated curving channel of void. The toll barrier on the bridge over the Mississippi River was untended, offering a $1 break to no takers. New Orleans after Gustav was like a post-apocalyptic thought experiment without the apocalypse. Does a city exist if no one is there to experience it?

Faux hurricane compassion

Love that faux GOP compassion. Leave it to Jon Stewart to nail them for it. (If you have any trouble with this video - sound or otherwise - please click here.)

Oh Louisiana... Louisiana...

They're tryin to wash you away,
they're tryin to wash you away.

Three years later and there are still residents of New Orleans who can't afford to leave?

Now wait a minute: I keep hearing that this time, there are 'buses for everybody.' Can everyone that needs transportation get to the buses and trains? Do they even know about them?

I thought I heard promises that there were finally provisions made to help all residents without cars to evacuate the city with their pets. (Those of us who were involved in the massive pet rescue operation after Katrina -- along with many outraged Americans -- have been working tirelessly for three years to keep another 10,000 pets from dying in the next major hurricane.)

Well that 'next major hurricane' is here. Why am I reading about a woman staying behind because of her Rottweilers?

From CNN:

Across town in the 9th Ward, a neighborhood decimated by Katrina, Sidney William climbs slowly out of his truck. He's 49 but moves like he's 20 years older.

"My legs hurt; my feet hurt a lot," he said. "It's not easy."

William wants desperately to leave his native New Orleans to avoid Gustav. He didn't leave for Katrina because he didn't have the money. He won't talk about what happened to him during that storm.

"I wish I had the money to go." Rejected for disability subsidies, he depends on his 23-year-old daughter, Gloria, to support the family.

"Lot of folks around here are gonna make do with what they have, and you won't hear a terrible amount of complaining," he said. "You can't just come in here and expect to hear people fussing about how they don't have nothing. People just be used to not having much, and so you don't even think too hard about it until someone starts asking you questions."

A neighbor, Victoria, says she has two Rottweilers who she's not willing to leave behind.

Three years after Katrina, and there are still people and animals trapped in New Orleans, unable to escape the second 'storm of the century?' What is the point of a mandatory evacuation if there are still people who literally can't get out?

Did you forget... the invisible people again?

Also from CNN:

He (NOLA Mayor Nagin) said that between 14,000 and 15,000 people had left New Orleans on buses and trains the city had provided -- much lower than the initial estimate of 30,000.

"We're just not seeing those kind of numbers in terms of people needing city-assisted services," Nagin said. "The 30,000 number may have been high."

The last of the buses carrying people out of New Orleans would leave around 2 or 3 p.m., he said.

OK, I'm not coordinating this massive operation- and it is obvious that you are trying. But if the buses and trains aren't as full as you expected -- and there are still people who can't afford to leave -- something ain't working.

And to those of you who can leave but choose not to... good grief. People like you died in Katrina. Is whatever you're staying there to guard, more important than your life?

Would you at least - please - evacuate your pets? Many people risked their lives -- and would happily do it again -- to rescue trapped animals after Katrina. You have a choice. Your pet - who undoubtedly would have the sense to escape ahead of a hurricane - can't drive.

Hurricane recovery becomes 'class war'

Ah the things you don't hear in the corporate media these days:

We needed an answer to a weird, puzzling and horrific discovery. Among the miles and miles of devastated houses, rubble still there today in New Orleans, we found dry, beautiful homes.

But their residents were told by guys dressed like Ninjas wearing “Blackwater” badges: “Try to go into your home and we’ll arrest you.”

These aren’t just any homes. They are the public housing projects of the city; the Lafitte Houses and others.

But unlike the cinder block monsters in the Bronx, these public units are beautiful townhouses, with wrought-iron porches and gardens right next to the tony French Quarter.

Raised up on high ground, with floors and walls of concrete, they were some of the only houses left salvageable after the Katrina flood.

Amazing Katrina video from storm chasers

Harry Connick Jr. in New Orleans September, 2005

Anderson Cooper: Where is the Federal Government?

Disconnected

Australian paper cites 'Third World response' to Katrina

News from Australia, with striking comment about US Federal response:

Two years on, New Orleans seething over Katrina

By North America correspondent Kim Landers

Posted August 30, 2007 08:42:00
Updated August 30, 2007 10:20:00

Two years on, the residents of New Orleans are still angry about the response to Hurricane Katrina.

Two years after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, people in New Orleans are still frustrated with the slow place of recovery.

At the time the wild storm left thousands of residents stranded on rooftops, while others made do in sub-standard shelters.

America was criticised for initially mounting a Third World response to a massive domestic crisis.

Katrina's second anniversary is an opportunity for New Orleans to recapture the national spotlight and to show the rest of the country how it has rebuilt itself and what still needs to be done.

In New Orleans two-thirds of the residents are back - the French Quarter survived Katrina and the music and restaurant scenes are recovering.

But few neighbourhoods are thriving, much of the city looks like a wasteland and businesses and homes are still abandoned.

Guess the 'Third World response' hasn't really changed much in two years.

Promises unkept

New Orleans 2 Years After Katrina

Another message; more specific

Message from the Gulf Coast

The Katrina Animal Rescue

For a long time I couldn't watch any videos about the animal rescue; it was still too raw. I still can't sit through this one without tears, but I recognize some of the dogs, so including it here. Everyone has an issue that keeps them in the fight; now you know what haunts me, and keeps me coming back.

It's always been Katrina.

Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans?

Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans
And miss it each night and day
I know I'm not wrong
This feelings gettin stronger
The longer, I stay away
Miss them moss covered vines...the tall sugar pines
Where mockin birds used to sing
And I'd like to see that lazy Mississippi
Hurryin into spring
The moonlight on the bayou
A creole tune that fills the air
I dream about magnolias in bloom
And I'm wishin I was there

Two years this week since Katrina made landfall, spared New Orleans... only so it could drown by governmental neglect. Two years and I'm still not over it - and I don't even live there, although a piece of my heart drowned with the city.

This week I will be writing about New Orleans, the Gulf Coast, and the continuing neglect. I once had an entire blog devoted to Katrina and the aftermath. I tried to move on, but the pain is - today - as raw as it was two years ago. Betrayal is like that.



And where is our government? Absent. Uncaring. AWOL.

As the Washington Post so scathingly put it:

Two full years after the hurricane, the Big Easy is barely limping along, unable to make truly meaningful reconstruction progress. The most important issues concerning the city's long-term survival are still up in the air. Why is no Herculean clean-up effort underway? Why hasn't President Bush named a high-profile czar such as Colin Powell or James Baker to oversee the ongoing disaster? Where is the U.S. government's participation in the rebuilding?

And why are volunteers practically the only ones working to reconstruct homes in communities that may never again have sewage service, garbage collection or electricity?

Eventually, the volunteers' altruism turns to bewilderment and finally to outrage. They've been hoodwinked. The stalled recovery can't be blamed on bureaucratic inertia or red tape alone. Many volunteers come to understand what I've concluded is the heartless reality: The Bush administration actually wants these neighborhoods below sea level to die on the vine.

In the end, that is what keeps me here; keeps me in the blogging trenches day after day. New Orleans. My anger, pain, bewilderment, sadness and outrage. And I won't rest until there is justice for that beloved city.