Salt Lake Tribune - Utah

Salt Lake Tribune - Utah

""As New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin pleaded on national television for firefighters - his own are exhausted after working around the clock for a week - a battalion of highly trained men and women sat idle Sunday in a muggy Sheraton Hotel conference room in Atlanta.
Many of the firefighters, assembled from Utah and throughout the United States by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, thought they were going to be deployed as emergency workers.
Instead, they have learned they are going to be community-relations officers for FEMA, shuffled throughout the Gulf Coast region to disseminate fliers and a phone number: 1-800-621-FEMA.
On Monday, some firefighters stuck in the staging area at the Sheraton peeled off their FEMA-issued shirts and stuffed them in backpacks, saying they refuse to represent the federal agency.

"There are all of these guys with all of this training and we're sending them out to hand out a phone number," an Oregon firefighter said. "They [the hurricane victims] are screaming for help and this day [of FEMA training] was a waste."
Firefighters say they want to brave the heat, the debris-littered roads, the poisonous cottonmouth snakes and fire ants and travel into pockets of Louisiana where many people have yet to receive emergency aid.
But as specific orders began arriving to the firefighters in Atlanta, a team of 50 Monday morning quickly was ushered onto a flight headed for Louisiana. The crew's first assignment: to stand beside President Bush as he tours devastated areas.""

To this all I have to say is somebody, lots of somebodies, need to be seriously and completely fired. This is completely absurd.

FEMA Blocks Photos of New Orleans Dead

FEMA Blocks Photos of New Orleans Dead

That's how to solve the problems. Make it so nobody can see them. This is how the dead coming back from Iraq are covered- no coverage, no pictures. Out of sight out of mind. It's a wonderful way to run a totalitarian government.

Sen. Landrieu Threatens to 'Punch' President if He Keeps Hitting Local Response to Katrina

Sen. Landrieu Threatens to 'Punch' President if He Keeps Hitting Local Response to Katrina

I actually watched This Week on ABC and it's funny how the spin on this little helicopter tour with George Stephonapolis goes. In the news reports it's about the 'spunky' Landrieu wanting to punch the president if he dares to criticise the abysmal efforts of her own home state. What struck me about the piece is that she takes George over to her summer beach home and to show how completely out of touch she is with regular folks breathlessly imparts the earth shattering information that you know, some of those beach houses are actually the homes of some people, and not just their second homes. Wow. We have the solution to the problem. All those people whose houses are destroyed can go to their winter homes and wait for the insurance checks to roll in. Incredible. So completely out of touch that she doesn't even realize how out of touch she is. And her weak ass promise to punch George Bush will be excused because she's a woman. And her fake little cry at the end was just upsetting.

Think Progress � “One of the Worst Abandonments of Americans on American Soil Ever”

Think Progress � “One of the Worst Abandonments of Americans on American Soil Ever”: "RUSSERT: You just heard the director of homeland security’s explanation
of what has happened this last week. What is your reaction?"

Broussard then discussed the difficulties local authorities had with FEMA, including one case where they actually posted armed guards to keep FEMA from cutting their communications lines:

Three quick examples. We had Wal-Mart deliver three trucks of water. FEMA turned them back. They said we didn’t need them. This was a week ago. FEMA, we had 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel on a Coast Guard vessel docked in my parish. When we got there with our trucks, FEMA says don’t give you the fuel. Yesterday — yesterday — FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency communication lines. They cut them without notice. Our sheriff, Harry Lee, goes back in, he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards and said no one is getting near these lines…

Finally, Broussard told the tragic personal story of a colleague, and broke down:

I want to give you one last story and I’ll shut up and let you tell me whatever you want to tell me. The guy who runs this building I’m in, Emergency Management, he’s responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, “Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?” and he said, “Yeah, Mama, somebody’s coming to get you.” Somebody’s coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody’s coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody’s coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody’s coming to get you on Friday… and she drowned Friday night. She drowned Friday night! [Sobbing] Nobody’s coming to get us. Nobody’s coming to get us. The Secretary has promised. Everybody’s promised. They’ve had press conferences. I’m sick of the press conferences. For god’s sakes, just shut up and send us somebody.

Heads will roll. Heads better roll starting from the top on down.

WWLTV.com | News for New Orleans, Louisiana | Katrina Aftermath

WWLTV.com | News for New Orleans, Louisiana | Katrina Aftermath: "As authorities struggled to keep order, police shot eight people carrying guns on the Danziger Bridge, which spans a canal connecting Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River, Deputy Police Chief W.J. Riley. Five or six were killed, Riley said, adding that he had no other details."

Yes indeed. Taking the city back from the armed gangs. The good thing is that these thugs are nowhere near armed enough to stand up to the forces coming after them. As the eight people carrying guns found out, they may be sufficient to terrorize unarmed old people and various nonviolent types of people but the real authorities can and will make short work of them. One good thing, if you can call it that, about this event is that anything a terrorist can do in any attempt at mass terror, including a nuclear attack, cannot be as bad as this has been and will continue to be. A nuclear bomb being set off in Newark or New York will cause a lot of damage but as with the 9-11 attack, the infrastructure which allows the quick response will be much less damaged than it has been from Katrina. A week from today is the anniversary of 9-11 and if there is anything planned for that day, I think it will pale in comparison to what has already happened by the force of nature. At least in that case we can take out our frustrations on Syria or Iran in response. With Katrina there is nobody to blame except ourselves. I also am hearing the reports of dysentery happening among the survivors. This disaster will not end soon.

Marine Corps Times - “This place is going to look like Little Somalia,” - Brig. Gen. Gary Jones

Marine Corps Times - News - More News:

NEW ORLEANS — Combat operations are underway on the streets “to take this city back” in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

“This place is going to look like Little Somalia,” Brig. Gen. Gary Jones, commander of the Louisiana National Guard’s Joint Task Force told Army Times Friday as hundreds of armed troops under his charge prepared to launch a massive citywide security mission from a staging area outside the Louisiana Superdome. “We’re going to go out and take this city back. This will be a combat operation to get this city under control.”

Taking refuge in the Astrodome - NEWSCHANNEL 5

Taking refuge in the Astrodome - NEWSCHANNEL 5: "HOUSTON -- Thousands of refugees of Hurricane Katrina were transported
to the Astrodome in Houston this week. In an extreme act of looting,
one group actually stole a bus to escape ravaged areas in Louisiana."

I saw this story on Greta Van Susteren's show last night. Amid a world of horror this one guy did a 'bad' thing. Yes, he stole a bus but he did something when everyone else was doing nothing. He stole a school bus and picked other refugees up to take them to Houston. Thank goodness. Someone doing something. The article says it remains to be seen if the young man will get in trouble. He better not get in trouble. All the horrors in the country right now and if some prosecutor wants to charge this guy who took people to safety it will turn out very badly for the government people who take that fight on.

Live police/radio scanner from New Orleans

Live police/radio scanner from New Orleans

Thanks to Digg.com I am listening to a live feed of police radio in New Orleans. The whole catastrophe is showing how the world will end, how civilization ends in the face of natural disaster or man made disaster. I'm thinking that the Governor of Louisiana has now become a KKK hero, someone who has killed more black people than any Klu Klux Klan member could ever hope to kill. Her inaction, her inability to mobilize and to begin to deal with this foreseeable disaster has doomed hundreds, thousands of people. Thousands of poor people, predominantly black. The lawlessness is astounding but foreseeable. The reaction to that lawlessness was initially to ignore it. The proper response was to call in every available and unavailable policeman, national guard and military. Instead we get told in seriousness by smooth talking suit wearing 'officials' that the military cannot help because of laws prohibiting their use. These are the same bastard politicians who have no problem ignoring graft laws and nepotism laws and any other law which lines their pockets and suddenly they can't break this one law? Well, you know if ever there was a time to break the rules now would be the time. Let the judges make whatever rulings they want about how illegal it is to have the military working to ensure order and lawfulness after law and order is established. Damn it, this is a complete clusterf*&k. The President needs to federalize this problem and give the area over to the military to control. They will still have to go through the city house to house to get the gangs and thugs out of town and into jails where they belong. Those people are not leaving, they are Lord of the Flies, they are kings of the cesspools and won't be easily taken out. This problem is being ignored, the people aren't being moved quickly enough, people are dying in the streets. People dying in the streets in the United States of America. The President needs to have a map brought to him and he needs to find a place near New Orleans and begin to build a new city because there is no way you can put all these people in sports arenas for any length of time. It's crazy and they are making small time fixes to long term problems. They need to dig up a real President like FDR who would get things done. This is just unacceptable.