Katrina coverage

My heart goes to the people affected by the Katrina disaster. I am reading the accounts of devastation in New Orleans and surrounding areas, and it is terrible. The infrastracture and fabric of civilized society deteriorates VERY quickly.

This is what a war is like. I hope people will remember this befire waging a war someplace else.

The public officials IMO are unreasonably optimistic about the economic impact of this disaster. If we are to consider New Orleans alone, we shuld keep in mind that to 80% of US ag export goes (sorry, used to go) via Mississippi barge route through the NO port. I used to watch those barges on Mississippi river almost every day. Not to mention imports and destruction of oil rigs. WE will all feel it very soon, and not just in the gas prices.

However, to fully appreciate the magnitute of the destruction, consider the following, written by a survivor and a witness:



The material world in which we lived has been utterly and completely
destroyed; only the earth remains.

Homes and commercial structures which survived every catastrophe since
the 1840's (yes, that's the correct date -EighteenForties), including
Hurricane Camille, have simply ceased to exist.

All you are seeing on TV is New Orleans and the casinos in Biloxi but I
can assure you there is more to the Mississippi coast than the casinos
in Biloxi. The coast is 90 miles wide and, from east to west, here are
the cities that are NOT being featured on the news: Pascagoula, Ocean
Springs, Biloxi, Gulfport, Long Beach, Pass Christian (home),
Diamondhead, Bay St. Louis, Waveland, and Pearlington. Each city was
populated with thousands of residents, many of whom evacuated, many who
remained. No news footage of them. Just the endless banal coverage of
those damned casinos. Every one of those cities and towns were heavily
damaged or totally destroyed. Every structure within 200 yards of the
beach is gone. No recognizable landmarks remain.

Public schools are damaged or non-existent. Churches and temples
(including First Baptist in Long Beach which survived Camille in 1969
and my baptism in 1957) are non-existent or severely damaged. Medical
facilities (doctors offices, pharmacies, etc) non-existent or severely
damaged. Retail centers are non-existent. Recreation areas
non-existent. Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport - severely damaged.


At the east and west ends of Harrison County (my home), both vehicle and
railroad bridges on the waterfront Highway 90 across Bay St. Louis
(west) and Biloxi Bay (east) are completely destroyed.

Scenic Drive in Pass Christian, 2-miles along the beach lined with
ancient oaks and late 19th-century and ante-bellum homes so stately and
graceful that it was once called "the most beautiful street in America"
and was on the National Registry of Historic Places, is now a pile of
rubble.

No electricity since early Monday. Which translates into: no living and
no commerce of any kind is possble. for home and businesses, no lights,
no cooking, no air conditioning, no fresh water, no toilets. gas
stations are destroyed or closed (pumps are electric)

In an area 90 miles wide by approximately 6 miles deep:

1) cell phones are now useless paperweights. transmission towers
were damaged or blown down. none have electricity. Of those that have
their own generators, the generators were destroyed in the tidal wave
and because the roads are not passable (see below) technicians cannot
reach the towers to repair the generators. Theres no gasoline for the
generators. Regular land-line phones are out and service will not be
back for 2-3 weeks or more. "Satellite" phones are only means of
communication.

2) every single road has to be cleared by bull-dozer and
electricians (downed power lines everywhere) before it is passable

3) every single motor vehicle caught in the storm-surge has been
destroyed, inundated under 20+ feet of muddy salty water. Envision:
every privately owned automobile, police cruiser, ambulance, rescue
wagon, fire truck, post office delivery vans, UPS/FedEx truck, etc., is
now useless.

4) municipal goverment and services no longer exist. Buildings
housing all governemnt offices are non-existent or damaged beyond use.
In my city, the police department has simply vanished from the earth;
officers survived but physical plant is gone and vehicles inoperable

5) Tens of thousands of homes are now scattered rubble. In many of
those homes, someone died. If the body is visible, it is not
recoverable until mountains of debris can be removed. It's sunny and
the temperatures are in the 90s. (Ignore "current death toll" on
evening news reports! It will be weeks, probably months, before a
staggeringly higher death count is officially recognized)

6) In every destroyed home was a refrigerator and in many of them,
freezers, filled with the family's choice of meat, poultry, fish, and
game. Those appliances now litter the landscape, their contents strewn
about, rotting in the sun and heat.

7) every single grocerystore in the storm-surge area had its
contents blown out. Mountains of fresh produce, red meat, fresh fish
and poultry, eggs, milk, frozen food, etc., now lies rotting in the sun.
Add this to 5 & 6 above and you see the health hazard in the making.

8) mortuaries have been destroyed. Refrigerated trucks are
arriving to be used as temporary morgues.

9) mosquito eggs that had lain dormant in dry soil have now been
re-vitalized; in the next two or three weeks, the horde will hatch and
attack

10) every place of employment on the coast is destroyed. no one
who survived and no one who returns will have a job. all are now
unemployed. The casinos alone employed 14,000 people, now jobless. The
hospitality industry (hotels and restaurants) employed thousands more,
now jobless. The 500-boat fishing fleet, if the ships survived, have no
crews. Of the ships that may be operable when their crew can return,
there are no homeport facilities to off-load and process their catch.
The port of Gulfport, 2nd largest on the Gulf coast and largest port of
entry for commerce from central and south america, has been destroyed.
Retail stores (pharmacies, hallmark cards&gifts, groceries, dry
cleaning, hardware, fast food, etc., all gone--those that remain cannot
open due to lack of power. No-one who was expecting to get a pay check
this week for work done last week will get a check and "plastic" is as
useless as cell phones. Credit/debit cards drawn against local banks
cannot be used in in commerce because the banks are destroyed. And
ATMs? Fuggedabboutit. Most of the ATMs were inundated and are now
filled with muddy salt water. State aid? the casinos pump $500,000 of
tax revenue each day into state coffers and every penny of that income
ceased last Sunday. That's $180,000,000/year that the state will NOT
receive.



A terrible, terrible situation.



And here is the latest from the Powers To Be:


Barbara Bush: Things Working Out 'Very Well' for Poor Evacuees from New Orleans

NEW YORK Accompanying her husband, former President George H.W.Bush, on a tour of hurricane relief centers in Houston, Barbara Bush said today, referring to the poor who had lost everything back home and evacuated, "This is working very well for them."

The former First Lady's remarks were aired this evening on National Public Radio's "Marketplace" program.

She was part of a group in Houston today at the Astrodome that included her husband and former President Bill Clinton, who were chosen by her son, the current president, to head fundraising efforts for the recovery. Sen. Hilary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama were also present.

In a segment at the top of the show on the surge of evacuees to the Texas city, Barbara Bush said: "Almost everyone I've talked to says we're going to move to Houston."

Then she added: "What I'm hearing which is sort of scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality.

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."



Like mother, like son ... like all of them past, present and future.