Thousands Remain To Be Evacuated

White House Shifts

Blame to Local

Officials

By Manuel Roig-Franzia and Spencer Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, September 4, 2005; A01
Link Here


NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 3 -- Tens of thousands of people spent a fifth day awaiting evacuation from this ruined city, as Bush administration officials blamed state and local authorities for what leaders at all levels have called a failure of the country's emergency management.

President Bush authorized the dispatch of 7,200 active-duty ground troops to the area -- the first major commitment of regular ground forces in the crisis -- and the Pentagon announced that an additional 10,000 National Guard troops will be sent to Louisiana and Mississippi, raising the total Guard contingent to about 40,000.

Authorities reported progress in restoring order and electricity and repairing levees, as a hospital ship arrived and cruise ships were sent to provide temporary housing for victims. As Louisiana officials expressed confidence that they had begun to get a handle on the crisis, a dozen National Guard troops broke into applause late Saturday as Isaac Kelly, 81, the last person to be evacuated from the Superdome, boarded a school bus.

But there remained an overwhelming display of human misery on the streets of New Orleans, where the last 1,500 people were being evacuated from the Convention Center amid an overpowering odor of human waste and rotting garbage. The evacuees, most of them black and poor, spoke of violence, anarchy and family members who died for lack of food, water and medical care.

About 42,000 people had been evacuated from the city by Saturday afternoon, with roughly the same number remaining, city officials said. Search-and-rescue efforts continued in flooded areas of the city, where an unknown number of people wait in their homes, on rooftops or in makeshift shelters. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced by the flooding -- 250,000 have been absorbed by Texas alone, and local radio reported that Baton Rouge will have doubled in population by Monday. Federal officials said they have begun to collect corpses but could not guess the total toll.

Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state's emergency operations center said Saturday.

The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. "Quite frankly, if they'd been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals," said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.

A senior administration official said that Bush has clear legal authority to federalize National Guard units to quell civil disturbances under the Insurrection Act and will continue to try to unify the chains of command that are split among the president, the Louisiana governor and the New Orleans mayor.

Louisiana did not reach out to a multi-state mutual aid compact for assistance until Wednesday, three state and federal officials said. As of Saturday, Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency, the senior Bush official said.

"The federal government stands ready to work with state and local officials to secure New Orleans and the state of Louisiana," White House spokesman Dan Bartlett said. "The president will not let any form of bureaucracy get in the way of protecting the citizens of Louisiana."

Blanco made two moves Saturday that protected her independence from the federal government: She created a philanthropic fund for the state's victims and hired James Lee Witt, Federal Emergency Management Agency director in the Clinton administration, to advise her on the relief effort.

Bush, who has been criticized, even by supporters, for the delayed response to the disaster, used his weekly radio address to put responsibility for the failure on lower levels of government. The magnitude of the crisis "has created tremendous problems that have strained state and local capabilities," he said. "The result is that many of our citizens simply are not getting the help they need, especially in New Orleans. And that is unacceptable."

In a Washington briefing, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said one reason federal assets were not used more quickly was "because our constitutional system really places the primary authority in each state with the governor."

Chertoff planned to fly overnight to the New Orleans area to take charge of deploying the expanded federal and military assets for several days, he said. He said he has "full confidence" in FEMA Director Michael D. Brown, the DHS undersecretary and federal officer in charge of the Katrina response.

Brown, a frequent target of New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin's wrath, said Saturday that "the mayor can order an evacuation and try to evacuate the city, but if the mayor does not have the resources to get the poor, elderly, the disabled, those who cannot, out, or if he does not even have police capacity to enforce the mandatory evacuation, to make people leave, then you end up with the kind of situation we have right now in New Orleans."

New Orleans City Council President Oliver Thomas acknowledged that the city was surprised by the number of refugees left behind, but he said FEMA should have been prepared to assist.

"Everybody shares the blame here," said Thomas. "But when you talk about the mightiest government in the world, that's a ludicrous and lame excuse. You're FEMA, and you're the big dog. And you weren't prepared either."

In Baton Rouge, Blanco acknowledged Saturday: "We did not have enough resources here to do it all. . . . The magnitude is overwhelming."

State officials had planned to turn to neighboring states for help with troops, transportation and equipment in a major hurricane. But in Katrina's case, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida were also overwhelmed, said Denise Bottcher, a Blanco spokesman.

Bush canceled a visit with Chinese President Hu Jintao that had been scheduled for Wednesday and made plans to return to the Gulf Coast on Monday. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice scheduled visits to the region, as troops continue to pour in.

Top Bush administration officials met at the White House with African American leaders amid criticism that the federal response to Hurricane Katrina has neglected impoverished victims, many of them black.

Chertoff, Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson, White House domestic policy adviser Claude Allen and Pentagon homeland security official Peter Verga met for two hours with NAACP President Bruce Gordon, National Urban League President Marc H. Morial and Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), the former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus. The caucus's current chairman, Rep. Melvin Watt (D-N.C.), participated by phone.

"I think they wanted to make sure that the leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus, the Urban League and the NAACP knew that they were very sensitive to trying to make sure that things went right from here on out," Cummings said, according to his spokeswoman, Devika Koppikar. "And I think they wanted to try to dispel any kind of notions that the administration did not care about African American people -- or anyone else."

Caucus Executive Director Paul A. Brathwaite said Bush officials promised to keep black leaders informed. He credited the administration with reaching out to the caucus for the first time to solve a national problem.

In New Orleans on Saturday, smoke from several fires that have burned for days swirled over the French Quarter. Outside the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, the stench and heat worsened the long wait of the thousands of evacuees lining up for buses. Many of them said they had no idea where they would go.

Columbus Lawrence, 43, a landscaper, shambled down St. Joseph Avenue searching for the end of the line. He pushed a cart piled with packets of dry, chicken-flavored noodles. "It's like a chip," he said hopefully, putting another handful into his mouth.

Others have been here since the day of the storm, the early part of the week made increasingly awful because there were no toilets, no water, no food.

Herbert J. Freeman arrived in a neighbor's boat with his mother, Ethel M. Freeman, 91, frail and sick, but with an active mind. She kept asking him for a doctor, for a nurse, for anyone who could help her. Police told Freeman there was nothing they could do. She died in her wheelchair, next to her son, on Thursday morning.

It was half a day before he could find someone to take away her body, he said. "She wasn't senile or nothing," he said. "She knew what was going on. . . . I kept saying, 'Mom, I can't help you.' "

Next to Freeman, Kenny Lason, 45, a dishwasher at Pat O'Brien's, a French Quarter restaurant famous for its signature "Hurricane" cocktail, took a long slurp out of a bottle of Korbel extra-dry champagne. He broke a store window to get it, and he is not ashamed. "They wasn't giving us nothing," he said. "You got to live off the land."

Outside New Orleans, frustration boiled over among the boatmen who spontaneously left their homes in central Louisiana to rescue stranded residents in the first hours after reports of flooding hit the airwaves. For the past two days, many have been turned away because of security concerns in a city that had turned violent and chaotic.

"It's a tragedy that's unfolding now," said Moose Billeaud, a former New Orleans prosecutor who is now in private practice in Lafayette, La. "It is not organized at all."

The boatmen who made it in came back with harrowing memories. Kenny, who did not want to disclose his last name, said friends were shot at by stranded people who wanted to steal their boats. "It's total chaos," he said.

Isaac Kelly, the last to depart from the Superdome, said "it feels good" as he boarded the bus. A young guardsman put an arm around the stooped Kelly and said, "Good luck and God bless."

The dome, which once housed more than 20,000 evacuees, became a symbol of the chaos that gripped New Orleans, with television network cameras capturing scenes of filth and misery.

Just before Kelly stepped aboard, Isaiah Bennett, leaning heavily on a wooden cane, was helped onto the bus. "It was hell," said Bennett. "I don't like this kind of mess," he said. "I never thought it would be this bad.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has said that it will take as long as 80 days to remove the water from New Orleans and surrounding areas.

Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) sent a letter to Bush Saturday urging him to provide cash benefits and transportation assistance to stranded people and to use federal facilities for housing. They wrote that they "are concerned that rescue and recovery efforts appear to remain chaotic and that many victims remain hungry and without adequate shelter nearly a week after the hurricane struck. Clearly, strong personal leadership from you is essential if we are to get this effort on track."

The administration said that 100,000 have received some form of humanitarian aid and that 9,500 have been rescued by the Coast Guard. The administration said it is providing funds to employ displaced workers and has arranged for Amtrak trains to help in the evacuation. The rail service expects to remove 1,500 people daily. In addition, the Energy Department reported that 1.3 million customers were without electricity, down from 1.5 million Friday.

The 7,200 additional troops announced by Bush on Saturday are scheduled to arrive within three days. They will come from the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C., the 1st Cavalry Division at Food Hood, Tex., the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton, Calif., and the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

The decision to employ active-duty ground troops and Marines was particularly significant given the administration's initial desire to limit ground forces largely to Guard units. Regular military troops are constrained by law from engaging in domestic law enforcement. By contrast, Guard troops, who are under the command of state governors, have no such constraints.

At a Pentagon news conference Saturday, Lt. Gen. Joseph Inge, the deputy commander of the Northern Command, said the active-duty ground forces would be used mainly to protect sites and perform other functions not considered law enforcement.

The Air Force is repatriating 300 airmen from Iraq and Afghanistan so they can assist their families back in their home base in Biloxi, Miss.

Law enforcement officials said order is beginning to be restored in the city. A temporary detention center has been set up in the city to house those arrested for looting and other crimes after the hurricane, and the city's court personnel have been relocated to neighboring jurisdictions unaffected by Katrina, said New Orleans U.S. Attorney Jim Letten. Trials are expected to begin within two weeks, he said. "We're going to bring these guys to justice," he said.

Members of federal law enforcement agencies are in the city, he said. More than 200 Border Patrol agents have been sworn in to reinforce New Orleans police, and state police officials said hundreds of law enforcement agents from other states are expected in the coming days.

Hsu reported from Washington. Staff writers Justin Blum, Dana Milbank, Jacqueline L. Salmon and Josh White contributed to this report.

--To all the private citizens who took thier boats to New Orleans..

You are not just decent human beings. You are True heros.

We will never forget you. Thank you and may God have mercy on the many whom have passed.

You left them there to die georgie. And they KNOW IT.

EVERYONE KNOWS IT.

Do not think it is over. Not for a minute.

The dying ain't done yet.--

"and that's how it started. He called for back-up and the next thing I know the military are down there throwing stun grenades."

From The British Press

'They're not giving us what we need to survive'

Jamie Doward reports on the fury of New Orleans residents who say they were ignored and mistreated by the authorities

Sunday September 4, 2005
The Observer


Only now, a week after Hurricane Katrina roared across the Deep South, leaving a trail of devastation across America's psyche, is the true story of the Battle of New Orleans emerging.
As convoys of commandeered school buses and Greyhound coaches transported tens of thousands of refugees out of the submerged city yesterday, in a belated and much-criticised relief operation, each vehicle brought with it new tales of horror.

Those trapped inside the two main shelters, the Superdome and the Convention Centre, paint a picture of a city that was subsumed beneath waves of violence, rape and death and accuse the police and National Guard of standing by, ignoring their pleas for help.

The claims are rejected by the federal and state authorities, who instead suggest the looting and lawlessness which followed the extensive flooding of the city was the result of a series of isolated incidents perpetrated by a few.

But it is clear from talking to survivors that what happened in New Orleans last week was far more extensive, bloody and terrifying than the authorities have admitted so far.

'We had to wrap dead people in white sheets and throw them outside while the police stood by and did nothing,' said Correll Williams, a 19-year-old meat cutter from the Crowder Road district in the east of the city, who waded two miles through waist-high water to make it to the Convention Centre after hearing on the radio it was being turned into a refuge.

'The police were in boats watching us. They were just laughing at us. Five of them to a boat, not trying to help nobody. Helicopters were riding by just looking at us. They weren't helping. We were pulling people on bits of wood, and the National Guard would come driving by in their empty military trucks.'

Williams only left his apartment after the authorities took the decision to flood his district in an apparent attempt to sluice out some of the water that had submerged a neighbouring district. Like hundreds of others he had heard the news of the decision to flood his district on the radio. The authorities had given people in the district until 5pm on Tuesday to get out - after that they would open the floodgates.

'We thought we could live without electricity for a few weeks because we had food. But then they told us they were opening the floodgates,' said Arineatta Walker, who fled the area with her daughter and two grandchildren.

'So about two o'clock we went on to the streets and we asked the army, "Where can we go?". And they said, "Just take off because there's no one going to come back for you." They kicked my family out of there. If I knew how to hotwire a car I would have,' Walker said.

Once inside the Convention Centre, Walker confronted a new hell. 'People were being raped, there were cries and screams, there were gunshots, but the police did nothing,' Walker said.

'The police were afraid to do anything,' said Chantelle, a black 22- year-old. 'They wouldn't come in. They took two white guys out one night but left the rest of us in here.'

Williams said: 'The floor was a swamp, you couldn't live in there. The police kept telling us buses were coming but they didn't. People started getting aggravated and then one policeman got mad, he caught an attitude with somebody and they caught an attitude back and started banging on his car, and that's how it started. He called for back-up and the next thing I know the military are down there throwing stun grenades. Everybody started running, bumping into each other, hurting each other.'

As the repeated promises of buses failed to materialise, people in the shelters started stealing cars. 'How do you expect people to act right when they're starving to death?' asked Williams. 'There were bodies all over. We were just throwing them out the front. They (the authorities) are blaming it on the people, making it look like it was the people's fault, but it's really their fault because they're not giving us what we need to survive. So now people are going and getting guns in order to fight back, in order to survive cos they don't want to help us.'

Outside the Convention Centre, where an estimated 15,000 people were seeking refuge, bodies lay ignored. A woman in a wheelchair and an elderly man on a chaise longue could be seen festering in the heat. On Wednesday, eight 11-strong teams from the Louisiana State Police entered the centre, where they were repelled by angry gangs, some of whom were armed. Yesterday scores of police officers were said to have resigned from the force, complaining their jobs had become too dangerous.

Until Friday morning only two buses had arrived at the Convention Centre to transport those inside out of the city, according to several trapped inside. The revelation suggests that the police and National Guard's inability to handle the crisis stemmed from chronic paralysis at the highest levels of the relief operation.

Outside the Superdome, which was at one stage home to some 25,000 people, a member of the National Guard was shot in the leg by his own gun as he was rushed by a crowd angry at the wait for buses to take them to Houston.

The authorities' failure to respond to the situation has prompted outpourings of national revulsion and calls for high-level resignations.

There was confusion yesterday as to why thousands of people had made for the Convention Centre. Officials said it was never intended that the centre be used as a refuge.

Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the much-criticised body charged with coordinating the relief effort, told US television networks they had not been aware of the crowds in the centre until Thursday.

'The federal government did not even know about the Convention Centre people until today,' New Orleans major Ray Nagin told CNN on Thursday evening.

The shock confession prompted calls for Brown to be fired. 'That was just a boneheaded statement,' said Mississippi Democratic Congressman Bennie Thompson. 'The President will have to change the leadership so that a response this bad will never, never happen again for the American people,' Thompson added.

On Friday evening 1,000 members of the National Guard and 60 police officers arrived outside the centre to restore order.

The chronic failure to resolve the situation in the Convention Centre - and to a lesser extent the Superdome, where the situation was apparently more calm - was described as a 'national disgrace' by the increasingly angry Nagin.

'You would think that on day five of the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States, and possibly the world, we would not still be waiting for troops and buses,' Nagin said on Thursday.



--People here in North Louisiana are SHAKING as they walk. Jerking with thoughts of PURE UNADULTERATED RAGE.

FURIOUS, FURIOUS rage.

America. You have a problem.--

Art Because... I need something to look at since the news is so overwhelmingly depressing

-

Chief Justice William Rehnquist Is DEAD

Oh.

My.

God.

UnFuckingBelievable

September 03, 2005
Link Here

If he could go to Baghdad, why didn't Bush go to the New Orleans Superdome or the Convention Center?

It was bizarre for all of the country and much of the world to be watching those scenes for days on our TVs and news reports, and for Bush's photo ops to be in areas that were far less critical. I know there are security considerations but his visit seemed extraordinarily hollow even by this administration's standard of ultra-stage managed events.

Dutch viewer Frank Tiggelaar writes:

There was a striking dicrepancy between the CNN International report on the Bush visit to the New Orleans disaster zone, yesterday, and reports of the same event by German TV.

ZDF News reported that the president's visit was a completely staged event. Their crew witnessed how the open air food distribution point Bush visited in front of the cameras was torn down immediately after the president and the herd of 'news people' had left and that others which were allegedly being set up were abandoned at the same time.

The people in the area were once again left to fend for themselves, said ZDF.


--This can't be real.--

"Congress and the president had better get the message: an extraordinary time is upon the nation."

Katrina's Assault on

Washington
The New York Times Editorial
Go to Original
Saturday 03 September 2005

Do not be misled by Congress's approval of $10.5 billion in relief for the Hurricane Katrina victims. That's prompted by the graphic shock of the news coverage from New Orleans and the region, where the devastation catapults daily, in heartbreaking contrast with the slo-mo bumblings of government.

There are dozens of questions Americans will demand to have answered once this emergency has passed. If the Homeland Security Department was so ill prepared for a natural disaster that everyone knew was coming, how is it equipped to handle other kinds of crises? Has the war in Iraq drained the nation of resources that it needs for things like flood prevention? Is the National Guard ready to handle a disaster that might be even worse, like a biological or nuclear attack?

One thing is certain: if President Bush and his Republican Congressional leaders want to deal responsibly with a historic disaster of this scale, they must finally try the path of honestly shared national sacrifice. If they respond by passing a few emergency measures and then falling back on their plans to enact more tax cuts, America will have to confront the fact that it is stuck with leaders who neither know, nor care, how to lead.

The pre-Katrina plan for this Congressional season was to enact more upper-bracket tax cuts for the least needy, while cutting into the safety-net programs for sick and impoverished Americans. These are the very entitlement programs most needed by the sudden underclass of hundreds of thousands of hurricane refugees cast adrift like Dustbowl Okies. Will Congress dare to go forward with these retrogressive plans in the face of the suffering from Katrina? Its woeful track record suggests that, shockingly, the answer may be yes.

GOP leaders are set to mandate billions in Medicaid and antipoverty cuts this month, while the Senate is poised to try again to repeal the estate tax, a monumental folly that will deprive the deficit-ridden government of an estimated $750 billion in vital revenue in the first decade. The theory is that over the long run, the missing money will "starve the beast" and force Washington to make huge cuts in federal programs. The public has never bought this, but as long as the economy held up, it was willing to ignore the long-term implications.

That can't be the case now, when those implications are sitting in filthy refugee centers, when the streets of New Orleans are under water and when the nation must take care of hundreds of thousands of homeless people. Yet President Bush has still managed to repeat his no-taxes mantra.

Senator Mary Landrieu, the Louisiana Democrat, is now fighting for every available dollar to restore her state. Republicans had been wooing Ms. Landrieu as a possible supporter of the estate tax repeal. Now, we presume, she has higher priorities.

Washington's inspiration must now be the individual rescuers in New Orleans, who have labored so bravely and selflessly, as well as the charitable deeds of local and state governments. Houston's offer of shelter at the Astrodome has put self-regarding national politicians to shame.

Congress and the president had better get the message: an extraordinary time is upon the nation. The annihilation in New Orleans is an irrefutable sign that the national tax-cut party is over. So is the idea that American voters cannot be required to accept sacrifice or inconvenience, no matter how great the crisis. This country is better than that.

-------

Bush faked levee repair for photo op yesterday

Via Americablog.com
Link Here

From a press release LA Senator Mary Landrieu sent out today:

"But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast - black and white, rich and poor, young annd old - deserve far better from their national governmeent."


And from Daily Kos
Link Here


BREAKING: Louisiana sent letter

begging Bush for help on 28th
by dumbya
Fri Sep 2nd, 2005 at 19:50:09 PDT
http://gov.louisiana.gov/Disaster%20Relief%20Request.pdf

This letter was written on Sunday. The GOP is trying to spin that the local and state government hadn't asked for help. Well, now we got the memo that proves that they did indeed ask for help. The President got an urgent appeal by the state of Louisiana urging him to allocate his resources to help the situation. Unfortunately, I guess eating cake and playing the guitar are far more important.

"New Orleans marks the end of the America I strove for."

New Orleans
Link Here

It is reported that black hurricane victims in New Orleans have begun eating corpses to survive. Four days after the storm, thousands of blacks in New Orleans are dying like dogs. No-one has come to help them.

I am a sixty-four year old African-American.

New Orleans marks the end of the America I strove for.

I am hopeless. I am sad. I am angry against my country for doing nothing when it mattered.

This is what we have come to. This defining watershed moment in America’s racial history. For all the world to witness. For those who’ve been caused to listen for a lifetime to America’s ceaseless hollow bleats about democracy. For Christians, Jews and Muslims at home and abroad. For rich and poor. For African-American soldiers fighting in Iraq. For African-Americans inside the halls of officialdom and out.

My hand shakes with anger as I write. I, the formerly un-jaundiced human rights advocate, have finally come to see my country for what it really is. A monstrous fraud.

But what can I do but write about how I feel. How millions, black like me, must feel at this, the lowest moment in my country’s story.

New Orleans Left to the Dead and Dying

Link Here

NEW ORLEANS - Thousands more bedraggled refugees were bused and airlifted to salvation Saturday, leaving the heart of New Orleans to the dead and dying, the elderly and frail stranded too many days without food, water or medical care.

No one knows how many were killed by Hurricane Katrina's floods and how many more succumbed waiting to be rescued. But the bodies are everywhere: hidden in attics, floating among the ruined city, crumpled on wheelchairs, abandoned on highways.

And the dying goes on — at the convention center and an airport triage center, where bodies were kept in a refrigerated truck.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco said Saturday that she expected the death toll to reach the thousands. And Craig Vanderwagen, rear admiral of the U.S. Public Health Service, said one morgue alone, at a St. Gabriel prison, expected 1,000 to 2,000 bodies.

Touring the airport triage center, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., a physician, said "a lot more than eight to 10 people are dying a day."

Most were those too sick or weak to survive. But not all.

Charles Womack, a 30-year-old roofer, said he saw one man beaten to death and another commit suicide at the Superdome. Womack was beaten with a pipe and being treated at the airport triage center.

"One guy jumped off a balcony. I saw him do it. He was talking to a lady about it. He said it reminded him of the war and he couldn't leave," he said.

Three babies died at the New Orleans Convention Center from heat exhaustion, said Mark Kyle, a medical relief provider.

But some progress was evident. The last 300 refugees at the Superdome climbed aboard buses Saturday, eliciting cheers from members of the Texas National Guard who had been standing watch over the facility for nearly a week as some 20,000 hurricane survivors waited for rescue.

The convention center was "almost empty" after 4,200 people were removed, according to Marty Bahamonde, a spokesman for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

At the convention center, where earlier estimates of the crowd climbed as high as 25,000, thousands of refugees dragged their meager belongings to buses, the mood more numb than jubilant. Yolando Sanders, who had been stuck at the convention center for five days, was among those who filed past corpses to reach the buses.

"Anyplace is better than here," she said.

"People are dying over there."

Nearby, a woman lay dead in a wheelchair on the front steps. A man was covered in a black drape with a dry line of blood running to the gutter, where it had pooled. Another had lain on a chaise lounge for four days, his stocking feet peeking out from under a quilt.

By mid-afternoon, only pockets of stragglers remained in the streets around the convention center, and New Orleans paramedics began carting away the dead.

A once-vibrant city of 480,000 people, overtaken just days ago by floods, looting, rape and arson, was now an empty, sodden tomb.

The exact number of dead won't be known for some time. Survivors were still being plucked from roofs and shattered highways across the city. President Bush ordered more than 7,000 active duty forces to the Gulf Coast on Saturday.

"There are people in apartments and hotels that you didn't know were there," Army Brig. Gen. Mark Graham said.

The overwhelming majority of those stranded in the post-Katrina chaos were those without the resources to escape — and, overwhelmingly, they were black.

"The first few days were a natural disaster. The last four days were a man-made disaster," said Phillip Holt, 51, who was rescued from his home Saturday with his partner and three of their aging Chihuahuas. They left a fourth behind they couldn't grab in time.

Tens of thousands of people had been evacuated from the city, seeking safety in Texas, Tennessee, Indiana and Arkansas.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry warned Saturday that his enormous state was running out of room, with more than 220,000 hurricane refugees camped out there and more coming.

Emergency workers at the Astrodome were told to expect 10,000 new arrivals daily for the next three days.

Thousands of people remained at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, where officials turned a Delta Blue terminal into a triage unit. Officials said 3,000 to 5,000 people had been treated at the triage unit, but fewer than 200 remain. Others throughout the airport awaited transport out of the city.

"In the beginning it was like trying to lasso an octopus. When we got here it was overwhelming," said Jake Jacoby, a physician helping run the center.

Airport director Roy Williams said about 30 people had died, some of them elderly and ill. The bodies were being kept in refrigerated trucks as a temporary morgue.

At the convention center, people stumbled toward the helicopters, dehydrated and nearly passing out from exhaustion. Many had to be carried by National Guard troops and police on stretchers. And some were being pushed up the street on office chairs and on dollies.

Nita LaGarde, 105, was pushed down the street in her wheelchair as her nurse's 5-year-old granddaughter, Tanisha Blevin, held her hand. The pair spent two days in an attic, two days on an interstate island and the last four days on the pavement in front of the convention center.

"They're good to see," LaGarde said, with remarkable gusto as she waited to be loaded onto a gray Marine helicopter. She said they were sent by God. "Whatever He has for you, He'll take care of you. He'll sure take care of you."

LaGarde's nurse, Ernestine Dangerfield, 60, said LaGarde had not had a clean adult diaper in more than two days. "I just want to get somewhere where I can get her nice and clean," she said.

Around the corner, a motley fleet of luxury tour buses and yellow school buses lined up two deep to pick up some of the healthier refugees. National Guardsmen confiscated a gun, knives and letter openers from people before they got on the buses.

"It's been a long time coming," Derek Dabon, 29, said as he waited to pass through a guard checkpoint. "There's no way I'm coming back. To what? That don't make sense. I'm going to start a new life."

Hillary Snowton, 40, sat on the sidewalk outside with a piece of white sheet tied around his face like a bandanna as he stared at a body that had been lying on a chaise lounge for four days, its stocking feet peeking out from under a quilt.

"It's for the smell of the dead body," he said of the sheet. His brother-in-law, Octave Carter, 42, said it has been "every day, every morning, breakfast lunch and dinner looking at it."

When asked why he didn't move further away from the corpse, Carter replied, "it stinks everywhere, Blood."

Dan Craig, director of recovery at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said it could take up to six months to get the water out of New Orleans, and the city would then need to dry out, which could take up to three more months.

A Saks Fifth Avenue store billowed smoke Saturday, as did rows of warehouses on the east bank of the Mississippi River, where corrugated roofs buckled and tiny explosions erupted. Gunfire — almost two dozen shots — broke out in the French Quarter overnight.

In the French Quarter, some residents refused or did not know how to get out. Some holed up with guns.

As the warehouse district burned, Ron Seitzer, 61, washed his dirty laundry in the even dirtier waters of the Mississippi River and said he didn't know how much longer he could stay without water or power, surrounded by looters.

"I've never even had a nightmare or a beautiful dream about this," he said as he watched the warehouses burn. "People are just not themselves."

___

Associated Press reporters Kevin McGill, Robert Tanner, Melinda Deslatte, Brett Martel and Mary Foster contributed to this report.

Finally

Louisiana residents displaced by Hurricane Katrina who need help getting federal and state benefits can now call a single toll-free number.


It was set up jointly by three state departments: Health and Hospitals, Labor, and Social Services. The number is 1-888-LAHELPU, or 1-888-524-3578; it will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. They can get information about these programs:


--Food Stamp Benefits, including Disaster Food Stamp Benefits

--Medicaid or WIC

--Mental Health Counseling

--Addictive Disorders

--Developmental Disorders

--Social Security Benefits or Social Security Disability Benefits

--Child Support

--Foster Care Program

--DHH Optional State Supplement Checks

--Louisiana Rehabilitation Services

--Unemployment Benefits and Disaster Unemployment Benefits


Displaced Department of Social Services employees may also call the number to report their whereabouts or ask about their jobs. Officials ask for patience because they expect a lot of calls, especially during the first days.

My email to Air America

I have for over a year now said I believe Bush will attack to our south. As in a Latino country.

That is why Homeland security now has the ability to suspend ALL laws on the border. Up to and including murder.

If Iraq is about oil, then just because we can not sustain IRAQI oil does not mean they no longer need to steal oil. Chavez knows its coming too.

At this point they CAN NOT sustain Iraq oil and they will LITERALLY have to invade an oil rich nation close to us to pay the bills.

We can't afford NOT too.

I have said for a year VERY publicly, on my site, that bush will invade to the south. It just occurred to me a few days ago he would HAVE TO stage any such invasion from..New Orleans.

Katrina gave him the opportunity hes been planning for all along. LOOK back at the posturing.

THAT is why what is happening on the ground in NO is happening. They are preparing a military build up.

New Orleans Evacuation Picks Up Steam, but Help Comes Too Late for Untold Number

By Allen G. Breed Associated Press Writer
Published: Sep 3, 2005

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Thousands more bedraggled refugees were bused and airlifted to salvation Saturday, leaving the heart of New Orleans to the dead and dying, the elderly and frail stranded too many days without food, water or medical care.
No one knows how many were killed by Hurricane Katrina's floods and how many more succumbed waiting to be rescued. But the bodies are everywhere: hidden in attics, floating among the ruined city, crumpled on wheelchairs, abandoned on highways.

And the dying goes on - at the convention center and an airport triage center, where bodies were kept in a refrigerated truck.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco said Saturday that she expected the death toll to reach the thousands. And Craig Vanderwagen, rear admiral of the U.S. Public Health Service, said one morgue alone, at a St. Gabriel prison, expected 1,000 to 2,000 bodies.

Touring the airport triage center, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., a physician, said "a lot more than eight to 10 people are dying a day."

Most were those too sick or weak to survive. But not all.

Charles Womack, a 30-year-old roofer, said he saw one man beaten to death and another commit suicide at the Superdome. Womack was beaten with a pipe and being treated at the airport triage center.

"One guy jumped off a balcony. I saw him do it. He was talking to a lady about it. He said it reminded him of the war and he couldn't leave," he said.

Three babies died at the convention center from heat exhaustion, said Mark Kyle, a medical relief provider.

Some 20,000 refugees had been waiting for rescue for nearly a week at the Superdome, with as many as 25,000 more at the New Orleans convention center. National Guard Lt. Col. Bernard McLaughlin said the number may have been closer to 5,000 to 7,000. Most were finally taken out by bus and helicopter on Saturday.

At the convention center, thousands of refugees dragged their meager belongings to buses, the mood more numb than jubilant. Yolando Sanders, who had been stuck at the convention center for five days, was among those who filed past corpses to reach the buses.

"Anyplace is better than here," she said.

"People are dying over there."

Nearby, a woman lay dead in a wheelchair on the front steps. A man was covered in a black drape with a dry line of blood running to the gutter, where it had pooled. Another had lain on a chaise lounge for four days, his stocking feet peeking out from under a quilt.

By mid-afternoon, only pockets of stragglers remained in the streets around the convention center, and New Orleans paramedics began carting away the dead.

A once-vibrant city of 480,000 people, overtaken just days ago by floods, looting, rape and arson, was now an empty, sodden tomb.

The exact number of dead won't be known for some time. Survivors were still being plucked from roofs and shattered highways across the city. President Bush ordered more than 7,000 active duty forces to the Gulf Coast on Saturday.

"There are people in apartments and hotels that you didn't know were there," Army Brig. Gen. Mark Graham said.

The overwhelming majority of those stranded in the post-Katrina chaos were those without the resources to escape - and, overwhelmingly, they were black.

"The first few days were a natural disaster. The last four days were a man-made disaster," said Phillip Holt, 51, who was rescued from his home Saturday with his partner and three of their aging Chihuahuas. They left a fourth behind they couldn't grab in time.

Tens of thousands of people had been evacuated from the city, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry said as many as 120,000 hurricane refugees were in 97 shelters across the state, with another 100,000 in Texas hotels and motels. Others were in Tennessee, Indiana and Arkansas.

Emergency workers at the Astrodome were told to expect 10,000 new arrivals daily for the next three days.

Thousands of people remained at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, where officials turned a Delta Blue terminal into a triage unit. Officials said 3,000 to 5,000 people had been treated at the triage unit, but fewer than 200 remain. Others throughout the airport awaited transport out of the city.

"In the beginning it was like trying to lasso an octopus. When we got here it was overwhelming," said Jake Jacoby, a physician helping run the center.

Airport director Roy Williams said about 30 people had died, some of them elderly and ill. The bodies were being kept in refrigerated trucks as a temporary morgue.

At the convention center, people stumbled toward the helicopters, dehydrated and nearly passing out from exhaustion. Many had to be carried by National Guard troops and police on stretchers. And some were being pushed up the street on office chairs and on dollies.

Nita LaGarde, 105, was pushed down the street in her wheelchair as her nurse's 5-year-old granddaughter, Tanisha Blevin, held her hand. The pair spent two days in an attic, two days on an interstate island and the last four days on the pavement in front of the convention center.

"They're good to see," LaGarde said, with remarkable gusto as she waited to be loaded onto a gray Marine helicopter. She said they were sent by God. "Whatever He has for you, He'll take care of you. He'll sure take care of you."

LaGarde's nurse, Ernestine Dangerfield, 60, said LaGarde had not had a clean adult diaper in more than two days. "I just want to get somewhere where I can get her nice and clean," she said.

Around the corner, a motley fleet of luxury tour buses and yellow school buses lined up two deep to pick up some of the healthier refugees. National Guardsmen confiscated a gun, knives and letter openers from people before they got on the buses.

"It's been a long time coming," Derek Dabon, 29, said as he waited to pass through a guard checkpoint. "There's no way I'm coming back. To what? That don't make sense. I'm going to start a new life."

Hillary Snowton, 40, sat on the sidewalk outside with a piece of white sheet tied around his face like a bandanna as he stared at a body that had been lying on a chaise lounge for four days, its stocking feet peeking out from under a quilt.

"It's for the smell of the dead body," he said of the sheet. His brother-in-law, Octave Carter, 42, said it has been "every day, every morning, breakfast lunch and dinner looking at it."

When asked why he didn't move further away from the corpse, Carter replied, "it stinks everywhere, Blood."

Dan Craig, director of recovery at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said it could take up to six months to get the water out of New Orleans, and the city would then need to dry out, which could take up to three more months.

A Saks Fifth Avenue store billowed smoke Saturday, as did rows of warehouses on the east bank of the Mississippi River, where corrugated roofs buckled and tiny explosions erupted. Gunfire - almost two dozen shots - broke out in the French Quarter overnight.

In the French Quarter, some residents refused or did not know how to get out. Some holed up with guns.

As the warehouse district burned, Ron Seitzer, 61, washed his dirty laundry in the even dirtier waters of the Mississippi River and said he didn't know how much longer he could stay without water or power, surrounded by looters.

"I've never even had a nightmare or a beautiful dream about this," he said as he watched the warehouses burn. "People are just not themselves."

---

Link Here

Americans Open Wallets, Homes to Refugees

By ANGIE WAGNER
Associated Press Writer

September 3, 2005, 4:31 PM EDT


For Steve Smith, it was the radio story about a family staying at Reunion Arena in Dallas with a 1-month-old infant. A father himself, he couldn't imagine living in an arena with a newborn.

Smith, 34, fired off an e-mail to friends and co-workers and raised almost $4,000 in two days to put up families in a Dallas hotel. He also got his company to donate food for a month and negotiated a cheaper hotel rate.

I never step out on a limb like this," said Smith, a manager for a manufacturer of video conferencing systems. "But there's something about this that has really turned me into this philanthropist."

Across the country, Americans of all races and income levels are opening their wallets, their homes and their hearts to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. They are outraged over the atrocious living conditions flashing across their TV screens. They ache for the wounded, the weak, the hungry babies and the shell-shocked kids. Most of all, they want to help.

Children have set up lemonade stands, families planned to open their homes and volunteers headed to the disaster zone, eager to bring back the weary. Bottled water was flying off the shelves, snatched up by people willing to send it to Katrina's victims. Workers pooled donations and got their companies to match them. Cities and towns readied community centers, schools, dorms and abandoned strip malls to host refugees.

"You see those people, they hurt," said Donna Smith of Lindenwold, N.J. "You can't sleep, you can't eat because you feel guilty. Here you are in the air conditioning."

Smith, 46, and her two sons took an American Red Cross volunteer training class Friday and were preparing to head south to help.

Hundreds of people have already contacted the Web site of the New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper to offer their homes to the displaced.

"I feel guilty because I can't go down there and do anything else," said Nick Barnes of Upper Sandusky, Ohio, who is offering his three-bedroom house on the Internet.

Michigan Rep. Mike Murphy, a minister who heads the Michigan Legislative Black Caucus, planned a caravan to Baton Rouge, La., to bring back up to 125 people to stay in a public school no longer in use.

The red kettles of the Salvation Army came out early this year in Minnesota, collecting money for food, water and supplies for hurricane victims. Those set up at the Minnesota State Fair were especially productive.

"Every single person coming out of the stands put money in there," said Salvation Army spokeswoman Annette Bauer.

The small town of Union, S.C., wasn't waiting for refugees to come to them. Four people headed to Atlanta on Friday to pick up five homeless families. They will be given a place to live, groceries and utilities for at least two months, said organizer Vicki Morgan.

"We want these families to be able to sit down at a meal with Momma cooking at the stove and become a family again," she said.

In Buffalo, N.Y., those who knew what it was like to be displaced reached out, even amid their own struggles. Refugees from Myanmar, Nigeria and other troubled countries planned an international bake sale for the hurricane victims.

Sarah Lund-Goldstein of Ravenna, Ohio, said her family put off their holiday plans and instead organized a toy collection for Gulf Coast children.

"I sat on the living room floor and cut my son's Matchbox cars in half. I said, 'You're going to keep these, the rest can go,'" she said, choking back tears.

Colleges and universities have offered to waive tuition for students from schools closed by the hurricane. Radio and television stations hosted benefit broadcasts. The tourist town of Branson, Mo., was trying to come up with 50 to 100 jobs to offer to refugees. Ham radio operators volunteered to relay messages for the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other aid providers.

No donation was too small or too big. While the Central Arkansas Library System decided to send its overdue book fines to the hurricane relief, professional athletes and Hollywood celebrities pledged donations that ran into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

For some, the call to help came out of anger that not enough is being done. Pastors of black churches and other leaders in Nashville, Tenn., were disturbed that President Bush moved too slowly and FEMA looked too disorganized.

"An enormous failure of the system has clearly been exposed, but this system failure is associated with the long-term failure of this country to deal responsibly and effectively with the structural problems of poverty in America," Michael Grant of the NAACP said in Nashville.

A tractor trailer of emergency supplies was on its way to Louisiana and the pastors were donating part of their salaries to pay colleagues in the storm areas.

Dorothy Washlick was another new Red Cross volunteer, moved to help after seeing a photo of an exhausted young woman sprawled with several children in a Gulf Coast shelter.

"Your hearts go out to these people when you see the despair on their faces," said Washlick, of Mount Laurel, N.J. "People like me assume they're being taken care of once they get to a shelter, but they're not. The Red Cross is absolutely overwhelmed."

Link Here

Venezuela convinced of US invasion

September 4, 2005 - 5:49AM


Venezuela has uncovered plans for a US-led invasion and is preparing to defend the country against invading forces if necessary, President Hugo Chavez said in a report carried by the state-run news agency.

The Bolivarian News Agency reported that Chavez made the comments during an interview with CNN. It was unclear when the interview was to be aired.

"If it occurs to the United States to invade our country - Fidel Castro said it and I agree - a war will start here to last 100 years," Chavez was quoted as saying. "Not only this country would be burned up, but a good part of this continent; they shouldn't make any mistake about it, we are preparing to repel an invasion."

Chavez has made similar claims in the past, and US officials have repeatedly denied them as ridiculous. Venezuela is the world's fifth largest oil exporter and a major supplier of fuel to the US.

"We discovered through intelligence work a military exercise that NATO has of an invasion against Venezuela, and we are preparing ourselves for that invasion," Chavez was quoted as saying.

He said the military exercise is known as Plan Balboa and includes rehearsing simultaneous assaults by air, sea and land at a military base in Spain, involving troops from the US and NATO countries. US officials in the past have said such training is meant to prepare troops for general scenarios but not for a specify military action.

The state news agency, commonly known as ABN for its initials in Spanish, said according to Chavez the invasion plan focuses on western Venezuela and also includes a wave of bombings over Caracas and the cities of Maracay and Valencia.

"It's known they have everything planned out to capture the oilfields of the west and the east, the south," Chavez was quoted as saying.

Chavez repeated his threat that if the government of US President George W Bush were to attempt an attack, his government would immediately cut off oil shipments to the US. For this reason, it's important there is an effort to improve relations, Chavez said, according to ABN.

"It isn't us who should take the first step; the aggressor is the one that should show it is capable of sending some signal," Chavez was quoted as saying.

"The signal we have sent is enough: express our willingness to recover diplomatic, political relations, at least to the normal level that existed not long ago with the government of president Bill Clinton."

Tensions have grown in recent months between Chavez, who has emerged as a leading voice of the Latin American left, and a US government that has expressed concern about his close ties to Castro and what Chavez's opponents call an authoritarian streak.

The former army paratroop commander accuses the US government of backing a shortlived coup against him in 2002, another claim that US officials have repeatedly denied. Chavez, who was first elected in 1998, is up for reelection next year, and polls suggest he is strongly favoured to win.

Link Here

Venezuela has almost as much oil as Iraq
Big Oil wants to take it out and not give too much back.
The wealthy oligarchs enjoy their lives opulently
While most Venezuelan people live in abject poverty.

Chavez was elected promising to help the poor
Big Oil wasn't paying much; Venezuela wanted more.
Of billions that they took in oil they paid a small percent
Big Oil fat-cats' wallets is where most of the money went.

Bush and all his big-oil friends said, "Now what do we do?"
Bush sent the CIA down there to orchestrate a coup.
For two days no one knew where Hugo Chavez Frias went
In 24 hours Bush welcomed Venezuela's "New Government"

Outraged millions filled the streets, protesting emphatically
For return of the leader they elected democratically.
Egg on face, with damage control the issue then most pressing,
Condaleezza Rice said, "I hope Chavez learned his lesson!"

Next US helped the opposition organize a recall
It worked with Schwarzenegger, they could get Chavez to fall!
Venezuelans by the millions stood for hours to have their say,
Overwhelmingly the country said their President could stay. Chavez didn't hesitate to put his plans in action.
He drives US and Oil Interests deeply to distraction.
His country provides a lot of oil to our United States,
He promises it will be cut off if Bush assassinates.
Now Bush's people on TV paint Hugo as a mad-man.
"Why should he acquire weapons? Only the US can!"
More Venezuelans reading, more children having food,
The idle rich may be irate, but for more people life is good.


It won't stop Bush from trying, though, to lie to you and me
And tell us Chavez is a threat to true democracy.
Why shouldn't Chavez try to protect his nation from attack?
He saw the lies that led to the invasion of Iraq.

Homeland Security won't let Red Cross deliver food

Saturday, September 03, 2005

By Ann Rodgers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette



As the National Guard delivered food to the New Orleans convention center yesterday, American Red Cross officials said that federal emergency management authorities would not allow them to do the same.

Other relief agencies say the area is so damaged and dangerous that they doubted they could conduct mass feeding there now.

"The Homeland Security Department has requested and continues to request that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans," said Renita Hosler, spokeswoman for the Red Cross.

"Right now access is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities. We have been at the table every single day [asking for access]. We cannot get into New Orleans against their orders."

Calls to the Department of Homeland Security and its subagency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, were not returned yesterday.

Though frustrated, Hosler understood the reasons. The goal is to move people out of an uninhabitable city, and relief operations might keep them there. Security is so bad that she fears feeding stations might get ransacked.

"It's not about fault and blame right now. The situation is like an hourglass, and we are in the smallest part right now. Everything is trying to get through it," she said. "They're trying to help people get out."

Obstacles in downtown New Orleans have stymied rescuers who got there. The Salvation Army has two of its officers trapped with more than 200 people -- three requiring dialysis -- in its own downtown building. They were alerted by a 30-second plea for food and water before the phone went dead.

On Wednesday, The Salvation Army rented three boats for a rescue operation. They knew the situation was desperate, and that their own people were inside, said Maj. Donna Hood, associate director of development for the Army.

"The boats couldn't get through," she said. Although she doesn't know the details, she believes huge debris and electrical wires made passage impossible.

"We have 51 emergency canteens on the ground in the other affected areas. But where the need is greatest, in downtown New Orleans, there just is no access. That is the problem every relief group is facing," she said.

"America is obviously going to have to rethink disaster relief," said Jim Burton, director of volunteer mobilization for the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention.

The Southern Baptists, who work under the Red Cross logo, are one of the largest, best-equipped providers of volunteer disaster relief in the United States. Most hot meals for disaster victims are cooked by Southern Baptist mobile kitchen units. Burton is a veteran of many hurricanes.

"Right now everybody is looking at FEMA and pointing fingers. Frankly, I have to tell you, I'm sympathetic. When in your lifetime have we experienced this? Even though we all do disaster scenario planning, we have to accept the reality that this is an extraordinary event. This is America's tsunami, that struck and ravaged America's most disaster-vulnerable city," he said.

Because New Orleans remains under water, it is different from other cities where Katrina struck harder, but where relief efforts are proceeding normally. Agencies place workers and supplies outside disaster areas before storms, to move in quickly. But there are always delays, Burton said, because nothing is deployed until experts survey the damage and decide where to most effectively put relief services.

The Southern Baptists operate more than 30 mobile kitchens that can each produce 5,000 to 25,000 meals daily, as well as mobile showers and communications trucks equipped with ham radios and cell phones. They are supporting refugee centers in Texas and Tennessee, and doing relief in Mississippi and Alabama. They have placed mobile kitchens around New Orleans to feed people as they come out.

Initially they tried to drive a tractor-trailer kitchen into New Orleans from Tennessee. It was stopped by the Mississippi Highway Patrol because the causeway it would have to cross had been destroyed, Burton said.

His agency has planned for missing bridges. The Southern Baptists' worst-case planning is for reaching Memphis after an earthquake on the New Madrid fault, which in 1812 whiplashed at a stone-crushing 8.1 on the Richter scale. Burton envisions the Mississippi without bridges.

So when state and local Southern Baptists raise money to build a mobile kitchen, he tells them to design it to be hoisted in by helicopter.

After Katrina, he thought he would have to airlift a feeding unit to one isolated town, but a road was cleared, he said. He doubts that dropping a kitchen into the New Orleans' poisoned waters, filled with raw sewage, dead bodies and possible industrial contaminants, would do any good. It made sense to prepare meals outside the area and truck them in or bring people out.

"The most important thing is to get the people out of that environment," he said.

He expects unusual problems to continue, because victims of Katrina flooding will need emergency food for far longer than the usual week or so. He's planning on at least two months.

Like the military, relief work requires a supply chain. Because business management favors just-in-time inventory, rather than stockpiling goods in warehouses, there isn't a huge stock of food to draw on, he said.

"When you go into a local area, it doesn't take long to wipe out the local food inventories," he said.

The Red Cross serves pre-packaged food, including self-heating "HeaterMeals" and snacks, that require no preparation. Yesterday the Red Cross was running evacuation shelters in 16 states, and on Thursday, the last day for which totals were available, served 170,000 meals and snacks in 24 hours.

While emergency shelters typically empty out days after a hurricane or other natural disaster, in Katrina's case they are becoming more crowded, Hosler said. People who had evacuated to the homes of relatives or hotels are moving in because they're out of money or want to be closer to what is left of their homes.

Link Here

National Guard insists Iraq war not hampering hurricane response

BY PHILIP DINE

St. Louis Post-Dispatch


WASHINGTON - (KRT) - The catastrophe wrought by Hurricane Katrina is sparking a vigorous debate about whether the National Guard is hampered in helping because of its large-scale deployment in Iraq.

Those who deny that there's a problem note that some 300,000 Guard troops are in the United States and available if needed.

"There are plenty," said Lt. Col. Mike Milord of the National Guard Bureau. "There are about 331,000 Army National Guard and 106,000 in the Air Guard, so nationwide about 437,000. Subtract 100,000 for all deployment operations, and you still have 337,000 National Guard available."

But those who say there is a direct impact on the ability to respond to the disaster on the Gulf Coast note that the states most affected - Louisiana and Mississippi - have their top Guard brigades in Iraq.

Of the National Guard's 45 brigades, only a handful are considered "enhanced," and those include two from Louisiana and Mississippi in Iraq, said Lawrence Korb, who handled personnel and Guard issues as assistant secretary of defense under President Ronald Reagan.

"They had their crack troops there in Iraq. They have the best equipment, the best training," Korb said. "It may be only 30 percent that's over in Iraq, but it's the best 30 percent."

As a result, he said, Mississippi and Louisiana had to wait for other states to supply additional troops. Friday, four days after the storm struck, the Guard arrived with food, water and weapons, to bring some relief and order.

Missouri sent 1,000 Guard members to New Orleans. After a series of arrivals over the weekend, only Pennsylvania, with 2,500, and Texas, 2,397, will have more in place.

In any crisis, affected states generally call in help from other states, said Heritage Foundation military expert James Carafano. Affected states seek to avoid depleting their own forces while benefiting from the skills other states possess. For example, he said, Louisiana's units lack sufficient trucks or helicopters to be helpful in hurricanes.

Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo., dismissed any link between Iraq and delays getting the Guard involved in New Orleans.

"I've heard that claim made, but that's complete baloney," Bond said. "Sixty-five percent of Louisiana's Guard members were available, and 60 percent of Mississippi's were available. There's still far more Guardsmen and women available than are overseas."

Asked why out-of-state Guard units didn't come to the gulf earlier, Bond said Missouri's troops were "in place and ready to move" but "they weren't requested."

But Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., like Bond a Senate defense appropriator, said the effect of Iraqi deployments on the Guard's hurricane availability is worth examining.

"There's clearly been a breakdown when it comes to responding to this disaster. I don't know if it's a lack of leadership or resources," Durbin said. "Seventy percent of the Illinois Guard either served in Iraq or is serving there, and they leave the major equipment over there for a year; and by that time it's depleted. So our units don't have the supplies and equipment they usually have on hand for a situation like this."

Durbin also said that lawmakers need to ask, "Do we have the resources, the personnel, to respond to emergencies at home when we have been stretched so thin by the war in Iraq?"

As of Friday, 15,000 Guard troops from around the country were helping in the storm zone. By Monday, that is expected to rise to 30,000 - 17,000 of them in Louisiana, Milord said.

Missouri's units include the 175th - a military police battalion from Fulton - and two field artillery battalions, the 1128th from Columbia and the 1129th out of Maryville. Two C-130 aircraft from the 139th Airlift Wing arrived late last week in Kansas City, with 31 children and their families from a New Orleans hospital. That mission was requested by Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City through Bond's office.

The size of Missouri's contingent is attributable to several factors - Missouri's general proximity to Louisiana, Missouri's large Guard force and its mix of units skilled in security, transportation, communications and medical operations.

Illinois is sending 300 Guard members to New Orleans. Illinois National Guard spokesman Lt. Col. Tim Franklin said they are from the 3637th Maintenance Company in Springfield and the 126th Maintenance Company in Quincy. Also sent were 50 five-ton trucks to be used in New Orleans to haul cargo and equipment.

Illinois has 9,000 Guard members, with 1,400 in Iraq, Franklin said, leaving plenty of personnel available to help.

Missouri has 1,600 Guard troops in Iraq, of a total of 10,000 Guard members. Missouri Guard officials said the state provided everything Louisiana sought. But the Missouri State Emergency Management Agency said Louisiana sought 2,000 from Missouri while the state was able to provide half that number.

Also sending Army National Guard troops to New Orleans were: Alabama, 325; Arkansas, 446; Colorado, 404; Kansas, 25; Maryland, 65; Michigan, 250; North Carolina, 300; Nebraska, 50; New Hampshire, 450; New Mexico, 694; Nevada, 89; Ohio, 320; Oklahoma, 740; Oregon, 150; Rhode Island, 150; Tennessee, 300; Vermont, 20; West Virginia, 240; Washington, D.C., 100; and Puerto Rico, 80.

Of Louisiana's total Guard force, 6,505 were in state and available to help, and 4,725 have been called up, Milord said. The state also has 2,700 Guard members in Iraq.

David Segal, an expert in military organization, at the University of Maryland, said the National Guard are being deployed in ways never intended, leading to "a tug of war between state governments and the federal government."

Their heavy use in Iraq has worried governors, particularly in states hit by forest fires, Segal said. Concerns rose during the base-closing process, with some states - including Missouri and Illinois - arguing that federal officials have no right to close Guard bases without a governor's approval. That debate will now expand, given Katrina, he said.

"I think the discussion has started," Segal said. "Originally it was a backroom discussion, but this will increasingly force a more public discussion about the role of the National Guard."

Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee, said mounting strains on the military require a probe of how such crises and the Iraq war affect military readiness.

---

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Rapper Kanye blasts Bush

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS


It began, fittingly enough, with jazz from New Orleans natives Harry Connick Jr. and Wynton Marsalis. But "A Concert for Hurricane Relief," a heartfelt and dignified benefit aired on NBC and other networks Friday night, took an unexpected turn thanks to the outspoken rapper Kanye West.
Appearing two-thirds through the program, he claimed "George Bush doesn't care about black people" and said America is set up "to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off as slow as possible."

The show, simulcast from New York on NBC, MSNBC, CNBC and Pax, was aired live to the East Coast, enabling the Grammy-winning rapper's outburst to go out uncensored.

There was a several-second tape delay, but the person in charge "was instructed to listen for a curse word, and didn't realize (West) had gone off-script," said NBC spokeswoman Rebecca Marks.


West's comment about the president was cut from NBC's West Coast airing, which showed three hours later on tape.

The host was NBC News' Matt Lauer, who invited viewers to contribute to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund by phone or on the Web. Some 18 presenters performed musical numbers or gave information on the tragedy's huge scope.

Louisiana native Tim McGraw teared up as he told Lauer, "I know the citizens that weren't affected by this directly are gonna stand up and do good things for people." He sang two songs, then became the first of the evening's stars to sign a Gibson Les Paul Special guitar to be auditioned online.

Faith Hill, a Mississippi native, sang "There Will Come a Time," with the inspiring lyrics, "The darkness will be gone, the weak shall be strong. Hold on to your faith."


New Orleans son Aaron Neville performed Randy Newman's soulful "Louisiana 1927" with the memorable chorus, "they're trying to wash us away, they're trying to wash us away."

New York governor George Pataki presented the Red Cross with a check for $2.5 million and promised, "This great state will do far more."

"In terms of property damage," said actress Hilary Swank, "the estimate is at least $26 billion in insured losses and perhaps twice that in uninsured losses over a 90,000-square-mile area - approximately the size of Kansas."

Other speakers included Lindsay Lohan, Eric LaSalle, Glenn Close, Richard Gere, John Goodman and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Comedian Mike Myers was paired with West for a 90-second segment that began with Myers speaking of Katrina's devastation. Then, to Myers' evident surprise, West began a rant by saying, "I hate the way they portray us in the media. If you see a black family, it says they're looting. See a white family, it says they're looking for food."

While allowing that "the Red Cross is doing everything they can," West - who delivered an emotional outburst at the American Music Awards after he was snubbed for an award - declared that government authorities are intentionally dragging their feet on aid to the Gulf Coast. Without getting specific, he added, "They've given them permission to go down and shoot us."

After he stated, "George Bush doesn't care about black people," the camera cut away to comedian Chris Tucker.

Concluding the hour a few minutes later, Lauer noted that "emotions in this country right now are running very high. Sometimes that emotion is translated into inspiration, sometimes into criticism. We've heard some of that tonight. But it's still part of the American way of life."

Then the entire ensemble performed "When the Saints Go Marching In."

In a statement, NBC said, "Kanye West departed from the scripted comments that were prepared for him, and his opinions in no way represent the views of the networks.

"It would be most unfortunate," the statement continued, "if the efforts of the artists who participated tonight and the generosity of millions of Americans who are helping those in need are overshadowed by one person's opinion."

Friday's program was the first of several TV benefits planned through next weekend.

NBC and the five other major commercial broadcast networks, along with PBS, plan to unite next Friday for a special. The same night, BET will air a benefit. And on Saturday, Sept. 10, the MTV networks will air a special.



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Dangerous Incompetence

By Cindy Sheehan
t r u t h o u t Perspective

Saturday 03 September 2005

George Bush has been an incompetent failure his entire life. Fortunately for humanity, he was just partying his way through school, running companies into the ground, and being an alcoholic and cocaine abuser for most of that time - and his incompetence was limited to hurting the people who worked for him and his own family. The people in his life who were hurt by his incompetence probably have been able to "get on" with their lives. Now, though, his incompetence affects the world and is responsible for so many deaths and so much destruction. How many of us did not foresee the mess he would make of the world when he was selected the first time? We saw what he had done to Texas. How many of us marveled and were so discouraged and amazed when he was "re-elected" the second time? We saw what he had done to the world. Dangerous incompetence should never be rewarded, let alone be rewarded so handsomely as in George's case.

The Camp Casey movement has been struggling with how best we can help the government-ravaged people of New Orleans and the surrounding areas. We sent a busload of supplies into Covington, La., which is a poor, African-American town across Lake Ponchartrain from New Orleans. I had the privilege of visiting Covington with my friends, Buddy and Annie Spell last July. It was a community filled with love and laughter.

The Bring Them Home Now Tour bus that went into Covington is the Veterans For Peace Impeachment Tour bus that I rode in and out of Crawford on. They took about 10,000 pounds of leftover Camp Casey supplies and we had 2 trucks filled to the brim with leftover water from the camp to Covington. The tour bus also has satellite, so it is the only communications that Covington has with the outside world now.

This is an email that our tour received from Gordon, who is one of the bus drivers who bravely drove to Covington. I left it intact without editing:

I can't recommend coming here but, if you must, we do need help! During the day we are going out into the community with water and baby supplies and lunch foods. But, there has been an attack on the Armory and the cops are scared. We have move into Covington middle school, and we are giving the red cross our assistance with medical supplies and food services. Until we arrived, they only had MRE's. They just brought in 5 new born babies from the hospital as they are expecting more casualties. We brought in a generator and solar powered lights, no power, no phone service here, our satellite link is the only connection to the outside. The Marshal Law enforcement that will be coming to New Orleans with the Army, could create mass panic. That will lead to more refugees, we have twenty right now and room for 100. Don't come here unless you're prepared to work!.
I should say, stay out on the road and raise money for the relief effort. But make up your own minds.

We need to keep the public aware of what is going on here and all over SOLA.

If you want to help go an established refugee camp and provide your internet access to document who is there and what they plan to do to the website. Use your satellites access to maximize the story of the relief effort!

Gordon

There it is.

I think we should finish the tour so we can talk about what an abject failure this administration is. The unnecessary tragedy in New Orleans is directly related to the unnecessary tragedy in Iraq: Unnecessary being the operative word.

Innocent people are dying daily in this world. In the crush of the hurricane story, the fact that 950 people (mostly women and children) were trampled to death in Iraq was buried in the back sections. Those are 950 people who would still be alive if George Bush were not president. 950 people in Iraq and how many thousands in the Gulf States died while the emperor strummed a guitar and knocked a golf ball around? Additionally, eight of our brave and wonderful soldiers have been needlessly killed in Iraq since Monday.

I really believe that George and his band of incompetent and dangerous thugs need to resign. It would be the only honorable and competent thing to do. But wait....

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About the art..

I know a lot of people come here to see art from my collection of images.

Because of current events and work I have really not found anything artfully appropriate. I apologize if you missed the art and I promise I will start posting them again soon.

What Happens When Journalists Get Georgies Ass Off Thier Tounge

The Rebellion of the

Talking Heads

Newscasters, sick of official lies and stonewalling, finally start snarling.
By Jack Shafer
Posted Friday, Sept. 2, 2005, at 2:36 PM PT
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A former deputy chief of FEMA told Knight Ridder Newspapers yesterday (Sept. 1) that there "are two kinds of levees—the ones that breached and the ones that will be breached." A similar aphorism applies to broadcasters: They come in two varieties, the ones that have gone stark, raving mad on air and the ones who will.

In the last couple of days, many of the broadcasters reporting from the bowl-shaped toxic waste dump that was once the city of New Orleans have stopped playing the role of wind-swept wet men facing down a big storm to become public advocates for the poor, the displaced, the starving, the dying, and the dead.

Last night, CNN's Anderson Cooper abandoned the old persona to throttle Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., in a live interview.

"Does the federal government bear responsibility for what is happening now? Should they apologize for what is happening now?" Cooper opened.

As if campaigning before the local Democratic Ladies' Club lunch, Landrieu sing-songed back, "Anderson, there will be plenty of time to discuss all of those issues, about why, and how, and what, and if." She went on to thank President Bush, President Clinton, former President Bush, Senators Frist and Reid, and "all leaders that are coming to Louisiana, and Mississippi, and Alabama, "for their help.

Her condescending filibuster continued: "Anderson, tonight, I don't know if you've heard—maybe you all have announced it—but Congress is going to an unprecedented session to pass a $10 billion supplemental bill tonight to keep FEMA and the Red Cross up and operating."

Cooper suspended the traditional TV rules of decorum and, approaching tears of fury, said:

Excuse me, Senator, I'm sorry for interrupting. I haven't heard that, because, for the last four days, I've been seeing dead bodies in the streets here in Mississippi. And to listen to politicians thanking each other and complimenting each other, you know, I got to tell you, there are a lot of people here who are very upset, and very angry, and very frustrated.

And when they hear politicians slap—you know, thanking one another, it just, you know, it kind of cuts them the wrong way right now, because literally there was a body on the streets of this town yesterday being eaten by rats because this woman had been laying in the street for 48 hours. And there's not enough facilities to take her up.

Do you get the anger that is out here? …

I mean, I know you say there's a time and a place for, kind of, you know, looking back, but this seems to be the time and the place. I mean, there are people who want answers, and there are people who want someone to stand up and say, "You know what? We should have done more. Are all the assets being brought to bear?"

Landrieu kept her cool, probably because she's in Baton Rouge, while the stink of corpses caused Cooper to tremble in rage all the way to the commercial break.

Yesterday, on NPR's All Things Considered, Robert Siegel didn't get medieval on Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, in part because the microphones there are specially fabricated to decant all emotion from the voices of their reporters. But Siegel aggressively blocked every escape route that Chertoff took to evade hard questions about "corpses" and "human waste" piling up at the city's convention center, where thousands were stranded without provisions. (Siegel gets tough at about minute four in the audio clip.)

Siegel kept asking Chertoff how long it would take to serve or rescue these people, and a couple times Chertoff answered that the government was doing a great job at the Superdome.

When he cautioned Siegel about the danger of relying on "anecdotal" "rumors" of people in dire straits, Siegel said, no—these are facts presented by reporters who have covered war zones. There are 2,000 people at the convention center in need, he said. Having finally broken through the steel plate that is Chertoff's skull, the secretary confessed he hadn't heard those reports—reports that the television networks were documenting, live, with their cameras. Chertoff promised he'd look into the matter.

Continues...

Wake of the Flood

When the levee breaks
------Led Zeppelin

If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break, [X2]
When The Levee Breaks I'll have no place to stay.

Mean old levee taught me to weep and moan, [X2]
Got what it takes to make a mountain man leave his home,
Oh, well, oh, well, oh, well.

Don't it make you feel bad
When you're tryin' to find your way home,
You don't know which way to go?
If you're goin' down South
They got no work to do,
If you don't know about Chicago.

Cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good,
Now, cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good,
When the levee breaks, mama, you got to move.

All last night sat on the levee and moaned, [X2]
Thinkin' about me baby and my happy home.
Going, going to Chicago... Going to Chicago... Sorry but I can't take you...
Going down... going down now... going down....

By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t Perspective

Friday 02 September 2005

All last night sat on the levee and moaned,
All last night sat on the levee and moaned,
Thinkin' about my baby and my happy home.

-- Led Zeppelin, "When the Levee Breaks"

This will come as no surprise, but columnist Molly Ivins has again nailed it to the wall. "Government policies have real consequences in people's lives," Ivins wrote in her Thursday column. "This is not 'just politics' or blaming for political advantage. This is about the real consequences of what governments do and do not do about their responsibilities. And about who winds up paying the price for those policies."

Try this timeline on for size. In January of 2001, George W. Bush appointed Texas crony Joe Allbaugh to head FEMA, despite the fact that Allbaugh had exactly zero experience in disaster management. By April of 2001, the Bush administration announced that much of FEMA's work would be privatized and downsized. Allbaugh that month described FEMA as, "an oversized entitlement program."

In December 2002, Allbaugh quit as head of FEMA to create a consulting firm whose purpose was to advise and assist companies looking to do business in occupied Iraq. He was replaced by Michael D. Brown, whose experience in disaster management was gathered while working as an estate planning lawyer in Colorado, and while serving as counsel for the International Arabian Horse Association legal department. In other words, Bush chose back-to-back FEMA heads whose collective ability to work that position could fit inside a thimble with room to spare.

By March of 2003, FEMA was no longer a Cabinet-level position, and was folded into the Department of Homeland Security. Its primary mission was recast towards fighting acts of terrorism. In June of 2004, the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for levee construction in New Orleans was cut by a record $71.2 million. Jefferson Parish emergency management chief Walter Maestri said at the time, "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay."

And then the storm came, and the sea rose, and the levees failed. Filthy sewage-laced water began to fill the bowl of New Orleans. Tens of thousands of poor people who did not have the resources to flee the storm became trapped in a slowly deteriorating city without food, water or electricity. The entire nation has since been glued to their televisions, watching footage of an apocalyptic human tragedy unfold before their eyes. Anyone who has put gasoline in their car since Tuesday has come to know what happens when the port that handles 40% of our national petroleum distribution becomes unusable.

And the response? "Bush mugs for the cameras," says Kevin Drum of The Washington Monthly, "cuts a cake for John McCain, plays the guitar for Mark Wills, delivers an address about V-J day, and continues with his vacation. When he finally gets around to acknowledging the scope of the unfolding disaster, he delivers only a photo op on Air Force One and a flat, defensive, laundry list speech in the Rose Garden."

Newsweek described it this way: "For all the president's statements ahead of the hurricane, the region seemed woefully unprepared for the flooding of New Orleans - a catastrophe that has long been predicted by experts and politicians alike. There seems to have been no contingency planning for a total evacuation of the city, including the final refuges of the city's Superdome and its hospitals. There were no supplies of food and water ready offshore - on Navy ships for instance - in the event of such flooding, even though government officials knew there were thousands of people stranded inside the sweltering and powerless city."

Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert twisted the knife on Thursday by bluntly suggesting that we should not bother rebuilding the city of New Orleans. "It doesn't make sense to me," Hastert said to the Daily Herald in suburban Chicago. "And it's a question that certainly we should ask. We help replace, we help relieve disaster. But I think federal insurance and everything that goes along with it ... we ought to take a second look at that." This sentiment was echoed by the Republican-American newspaper out of Waterbury, CT: "If the people of New Orleans and other low-lying areas insist on living in harm's way, they ought to accept responsibility for what happens to them and their property."

This is it, right here, right now. This is the Bush administration in a nutshell.

The decision to invade Iraq based on lies has left the federal government's budget woefully, and I daresay deliberately, unprepared for a disaster of this magnitude, despite the fact that decades worth of warnings have been put forth about what would happen to New Orleans should a storm like this hit. Louisiana National Guard soldiers and equipment, such as high-water Humvees for example, are sitting today in Iraq while hundreds or even thousands die because there are not enough hands to reach out and pull them from the water. FEMA - downsized, redirected, budget-slashed and incompetently led - has thus far failed utterly to cope with the scope of the catastrophe.

Actions have consequences. What you see on your television today is not some wild accident, but is a disaster that could have been averted had the priorities of this government been more in line with the needs of the people it pretends to serve. The city of New Orleans, home to so much of the culture that makes America unique and beautiful, is today drowning underneath an avalanche of polluted, diseased water. This, simply, did not have to happen.

Remember that the next time you hear Bush talk about noble causes, national priorities and responsibility. This has been an administration of death, disaster, fear and woe. The whole pack of them should be run out of Washington on a rail. Better yet, they should be air-dropped into the center of New Orleans and made to see and smell and touch and taste the newest disaster they have helped to create.


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