Glad to hear you're ok. Let us know if we can help.

Glad to hear from you, busterb!

There was a lot of nailbiting around here wondering how you'd fared, BB. Glad you're safe. Let us know how we can help.

Tonight (Monday), Nightline showed the USS Bataan docking in New Orleans. Bataan is a Marine assault ship with beds for hundreds, 100,000 gallons of fresh water per day, six operating rooms supporting a large hospital, a crew of 1200 Marines and sailors, and even electricity so that police could recharge their radios. It is basically a small aircraft carrier to support and transport thousands.

But wait, the USS Bataan was not dispatched from Norfolk VA? The USS Bataan has been sitting in the Gulf of Mexico all this week awaiting orders. The Bataan traveled north along the TX coast in 13 foot seas when Katrina was slowly moving onto New Orleans. The Bataan could have docked in New Orleans on Tuesday or Wednesday to dispatch its 1200 man crew on rescue missions, feed thousands, and house hundreds. But the Bataan sat out this entire week in the Gulf awaiting orders from top management - who we need not name again.

Today the Bataan docked in New Orleans apparently just ahead of its sister ship Iwo Jima and other ships from VA. Maybe Bataan was delayed from docking so that we would not notice it did not come from VA? More of the devil's details. Days after thousands died from lack of food, water, medical supplies, and rescue; suddenly the president is bragging about how he got things moving? Well these neocons did just as much on 11 September. Yet we reelected the mental midget. I need not mention where 85% of all problems come from. That someone is again back in the region for more press photo ops - and avoiding New Orleans.

This story was provided by Chicago Tribune at Navy ship nearby underused

If I had wrote these details weeks ago, you would have called it total fiction - improbable - complete fabrication. No president could be that stupid. But then the president's response to Katrina was just as unresponsive on 11 September. Show me otherwise. Show me where the president did anything useful on 11 September OR while thousands died from Katrina flooding. The USS Bataan was sitting *where* this whole time - not utilized? Who elected these leaders? Were they told to do so by god? It only proves god is punishing a city of sin. Look out Las Vegas. George Jr will save you too from yourselves.

Meanwhile FEMA has declared 13 states under Katrina Emergency Declaration: Utah, N Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and even West Virginia. By declaring so many states on Friday and Monday as victims of a hurricane one week past, then do these states also get no aid? Last time I looked, Katrina did not get anywhere near to Utah.

Meanwhile the county that busterb lives in (as best I can tell) is not designated by FEMA's Emergeny Declaration for Mississippi: Normally I would have done more investigation before reporting this list of states. But why bother any more? At this point, FEMA and the administration are guilty until proven innocent. The only question remaining is what did they do right. FEMA's UnderSecretary is a George Jr political appointee. Need we say any more? Like breeds like.

Just wondering what that Presidential Daily Briefing predicted about Katrina and the levees of New Orleans? Not that this President reads his PDBs. After all, George Jr said nobody expected a Category 5 hurricane to breach Category 3 levees; contrary to what his PDBs would have reported. Just wondering how bad that unread PDB said this hurricane was expected to be. You remember those unread PDBs, such as the one warning of 11 September terrorist attacks.

Anyone want to complain about the term 'mental midget'? It was never an exaggeration. I even read his autobiography before I decided the term was fully appropriate.

I'm glad you're ok, stay safe. Griff

From the comments section of a QandO post

I've heard speculation that it was delayed so it would show up at the same time as the ships from Virginia. I'm not sure why.

Everybody <a href="http://www.katrinamistakelist.com/">loves a little conspiracy theory now and then</a>.

UTAH! :mg:

They really did, too. I clicked on the link just to make sure it wasn't a typo of some sort. How the hell did Katrina make its way WEST, skip over states like Oklahoma and Colorado and wreck havoc in Utah? Damn, those Mormons must have one hell of a lobbying group in DC!

UTAH! Will wonders never cease? Say, I notice its a little cloudy today here in Colorado, think we could be declared hurricane victims, too? :eyebrow:

OUTSTANDING! glad your alright Busterb!!

within the last 7 days i've logged over 40 hours flight time over Abbeville, La and Sabine Pass. get this: saturday a chopper had to make an emergency landing because it was shot at and hit bad enough to have to force a landing. it was shot down. either friday or saturday a life flight helicopter took 5 hits but did not go down. then on sunday another chopper was hit and went down as well. wtf? this small group of neanderthals is screwing up the rescue efforts for the rest of the people! dumb asses. i hope they get what's coming to them.

Fucking unbelievable! Reports like that make me rethink my stance on the death penalty. Keep up the good work, plth, and stay SAFE!

States that are providing housing for Katrina survivors are declaring a state of emergency to open their bureaucracies and make the accodomation of these people more smooth.

I think they're trying to make sure they don't screw the pooch like the Feds did.

thanks marichiko. safety is paramount in my flying.

they're opening up two cruise ships to help with the housing relief but some don't want to go. i'm sorry....come again? from the houston chronicle.

busterb, I am so glad you're alive and well. Your posts about your postion on the map and the track of the storm and the well, hell, you saw what happened. We did too, but we could only worry. Thanks for checking in. Welcome back.

From http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/...in810774.shtml

From http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/...in812561.shtml

Gov. Sebelius also declared Kansas a disaster area...
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/se...w_orleans_sos/

This from a diff website http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/9/4/105148/3626:


edit: From the "You gotta be shittin me...." Department:

Link (Houston Chronicle): http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory...siness/3335685


From the first link:

Broussard.

Heartbreaking.

http://www.wonkette.com/images/WRC_0...5_10.58.46.wmv

CNN: the difference between what "officials" think is happening and what is actually happening AND BEING PLAYED ON THE NEWS:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/02/kat...nse/index.html

How many years and how many lives before we finally get to it:

There is more at http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050831/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush

Tee, an opinion certainly in line with yours:

I've never heard of this group before you posted about it. Can you dumb it down far enough for my non-political/non-business brain to understand?

Thanks for all the kind words folks. I'm using a friends puter that has Opera? As an OS, never used that before & has more buttons on mouse than I have shit in my yard.
All that PMed me, Sorry, but I don;t feel right about taking the time to reply to each of you. Thanks again.
Damn no Halliburtion trucks here yet?? Someone is going to make a killing on this. They are bring ice from WI.,Conn. and god knows where.
I heard on radio today that FEMA was on the job here. You just need a phone to get help. HELLO! I have no power or phone.

I can use the compute at library to check my yahoo mail. So I'll let Bruce have the address. Contact him if you feel like dropping me a line. BB

Lt. Commander Sean Kelly of the Bataan checks in at Kevin Drum:

Anyone who missed the Daily Show should catch one of the repeats.

The BBC has a <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4216508.stm">really good rundown of the failures before and after Katrina</a>. It actually isn't dripping with politics, either. Amazing.

I was curious who would grab the numbers as if your life depended on it. Numbers being how one so easily identifies manager who are lying - inventing fiction to justify their mistakes - ie Michael Brown. Not providing numbers is how Rush Limbaugh types promote their half truth lies.

I realized after posting this that the number was one foot every four miles; not one foot every one mile. However I stalled, waiting to see if anyone would catch on to this, a glaring error. Well, its been a few days now. No one noticed what is really an essential fact - numbers that put that Scientific American article into perspective. I would have expected UT, who is currently on a tirade about factual accuracy (having been caught stating conclusions without underlying facts) would have caught this glaring error immediately.

There is a big difference between one mile and four miles when using marshlands to protect people. I am disappointed that no one caught this error; the numbers being that important to perspective and seeing through 'myths for a political agenda'.

Hey, tw, what was so obvious about it? Its not like that's general knowledge or something. I have a degree in biology/ecology and it went right past me (course lots of things do these days ;) ).

You have to take the time to click on the link and read thru that article to catch it, and its not like everyone here has all the time to do that. Even me, Ms. Too Much Time On Her Hands, didn't check out that article until you brought it up again, so I don't see what the big deal is about everyone missing that statistic.

It IS a pretty good article, though. Glad I finally got around to reading it.

Not to mention most of TWs posts just give me a headache. By the time I slug through the info he's posted, I'm exhausted.

One idea to future protection of New Orleans is to restore marshes where homes are clearly too far below sea level. Whereas four miles of marsh (given the erroneous numbers) would provide significant additional protection; the actual numbers suggest significantly less protection of New Orleans from a Lake Pontchartrain storm surge.

However to protect New Orleans from the south, corrected numbers mean marshes must stretch for 40 to 80 miles - not just 10 plus. Based upon the xoxoxoBruce citation, that protection is therefore quickly disappearing; might require even more levees. Things that WE pay for.

Other problems should be addressed up front and now. For example, $multi-million homes should not exist on, for example, Dauphin Island. That wonderful beachfront and necessary protection for the mainland should be, for example, a state park. Not beachfront property that WE end up paying to replace the beach every four years. Now is time for free market economics and proper risk analysis to be applied to reconstruction. There is little reason for residences to be located so close to the water in towns such as Biloxi and Waveland. Time to put buildings most essential to human life in locations not so exposed - such as half mile from the water.

These are arbitrary suggestions or speculative proposals based upon numbers in articles from UT and xoxoxoBruce to demonstrate how our leaders should be thinking. Not that we will have any influence since rebuilding Trent Lott's porch apparently is more important. Numbers to reduce or eliminate damage from the next Camile are traditionally trumped by more critical political agendas such as Trent Lott's porch.

Interesting items this morning:

Talking Pts Memo's timeline of the disaster. TPM will update it with many more events as submitted by readers.

The Red Cross had food and supplies ready early for the Superdome, but was blocked by the LA Nat'l Guard

From the Washington Post

Sunday's Washington Post had a decent opinion piece where they basically came out predicting that New Orleans will not be rebuilt.

They say essentialy that all the goodwill and promises by politicians mean nothing in the face of economic reality. New Orleans had a shrinking population for decades before Katrina. The city was already dying a slow economic death. The only industry it has left is tourism and the port. Since the advent of standardized shipping containers and automation, the port employs a small number of skilled machine operators, not the thousands of dockworkers of previous decades, and the tourism industry isn't large enough to support the whole city. The historic old district, which was mostly unharmed, will remain, and so will the port, but the rest will never be rebuilt.

I pretty much agree that rebuilding a city below sea level is a fool's errand. If anyone wants to do it, they should have to pay insurance rates that are high enough to cover the increased risk without turning to the rest of the country for help after the next one.

i'm with you Glatt.

I agree as well. However, since when has common sense ever played in the decision making process of us grown adults? Here's my prediction:

They will rebuild NO with the help of billions of tax payer's dollars. Attempting to make it the centerpiece of an urban rebuild program the likes we have never seen before. All the while, ignoring all the other highly damaged areas such as Mississippi and Alabama that would make better sense to rebuild. NO will become the banner of "hey look how well we respond to those in need" for the current administration.

Well, you know, it would be okay if they'd rebuild it taking into consideration the advise of ecologists, geographers, urban planners, etc. Have 'em all read tw's Scientific American article first. I know, in my wildest dreams! I imagine they'll salvage the French Quarter and places like Loyola and Tulane. You gotta keep in mind that Halliburten jumped right on the gravey train, as usual, so we'll probably see a lot of highly expensive, ultimately worthless construction. We'll have a New Orleans with a smaller population than the old one, and I bet not much done when it comes to wise planning. But, hell, I'm just a cynic.

Ditto. They could make a nice little town out of NO, but who is served by rebuilding a depressed area below sea level... besides the Democratic Party. Seriously, they should really think about the environment down there. The GOP can use the greenie spin to eliminate how many Dem districts? It is win win for the evil or is that the stupid party I keep forgetting. I really don't like pissing away tax dollars on losing situations and that area is a loser. Bring on the swamps er wetlands.

Not so many, really.

Blame blame blame.... It's a massive natural disaster. It could have been much much worse. We're lucky it didn't turn out worse. Let's finish the recovery effort and then POSITIVELY start restructuring our disaster response system. Its being POLITICIZED to death. It definitely showed the fractious partisanship of the blame game.

Not much of a surprise .... since it definitely showed the RACIAL HANGUPS of the media, if not society in general.

That's true...the media could have left the "race card" alone, and no one would have EVER showed up. :dead:

Yup, we coulda been hit by a giant asteroid and the entire planet vaporized, Thanks for reminding me. I feel EVER so much better now!

By the way, how is some white chick's blog evidence of the "racist" media? What, is she an editor for the Washington Post or something?
:worried:

Did you say Race Card?

Heh heh heh...do we get to see a pic of the Righteous Whitey Card too? Maybe Syc will scan his and post it for us. :lol:

I don't have a Righteous Whitey card, but I do have one of these.

I carry it in my planner in case of emergency.

Bawhaahahahahah! Now that's comedy Wolf.

That is hysterical, but I'm betting Walter Williams and Louis Farrakhan don't spend a lot of time having lunch together, if you get my drift.

Professor Williams occassionally fills in as a guest host for Rush Limbaugh. You may draw your own conclusions from that. (but the suggestion did make for a very funny scene in my head)

If you can't find the Devil, look for a corpse...

These people aren't desperate enough to murder someone.....are they? :eyebrow:

We can only hope. At this point Kenneth Lay is already a liability for Bush, so maybe they'll think it's time for 'Kenny Boy' to take one for the team.

Of course, he lives in Texas, but they can try to find a link.