Monica

The first describes how a group of refugees tried to leave New Orleans peacefully, only to be robbed and threatened by law-enforcement agents. They finally got out after getting some media attention. Lots more people could have been out much earlier if there hadn't been guards posted at the borders keeping refugees in and relief supplies out.

That was largely a problem of local authorities (aggrivated by lack of federal response). But FEMA itself is no better. The owners of a private camp that is being used for refugees were not allowed to bring in food and clothing for those refugees. They have been kicked off of their own property; meanwhile, according to this article, the refugees, once they arrive, are not allowed to leave. What gives?

My city volunteered a week ago to take in hundreds of refugees if they want to come. We have buses ready to drive down and get them. All we need is permission from FEMA. So far, no go. FEMA says no one wants to come, but I find that difficult to believe.

I no longer have the links for stories I've seen in the last few days about rescue workers sitting around in hotels waiting to be allowed to do something, and of the truckloads of water and food that were stopped at the border, or of the various private efforts that have been hindered from the get-go, or of how FEMA foresaw this problem years ago and did nothing. But that's ok; you probably saw them too. This ineptitude is not news to anyone, I suspect.

I am certainly no fan of large government. I think our federal government, in particular, is bloated and inefficient and often does not have the best interests of its citizens as priorities. But so long as we have this level of government, it is unconscionable that this disaster has been managed so badly. "Unconscionable" is mild; dare I say instead "grossly negligent"?

I am not among those who routinely criticizes the current government. I'm not a fan by any means, but I haven't gotten as worked up as many others I know. But it seems that the folks running the Katrina effort have done just about everything in their power to make the situation worse. How is it that we could get aid to tsunami victims more quickly than we could to Katrina victims? The blood of everyone who's died down there in the last week is on their hands.

Now, finally, stuff is starting to happen -- almost two weeks late. That better not be deemed good enough when Congress gets around to looking at what happened. And it won't be good enough if they just sack the head of FEMA and make no other changes. He may be an incompetent twat, but one incompetent twat can't single-handedly screw up this badly. There must be structural problems too.

(Thanks to magid and brokengoose for the links.)

Edited to add: This just in from siderea: timeline of the 1906 San-Francisco earthquake, for comparison.

He also pointed out a test to eliminate the TV: run the signal through a VCR. Yeah, it degrades the signal and that's not a permanent solution, but it's good enough for a test. Running a DVD signal to a VCR never occurred to me -- but then, bootlegging DVDs onto tape never occurred to me, either.

At Shabbat services we had both rabbis, for the first time in at least a month. We also had a large turnout, including some prospective new members. I guess that's one way to tell that summer is ending. :-)

This week, my rabbi said, pretty much all of the congregations in town (not just Jewish, everyone) started organizing efforts to relocate storm refugees to Pittsburgh. (Those that want to come here, that is. No one's insisting, but we do have space.) Apparently we've got hundreds of spots already and buses ready to go, just as soon as FEMA will let us talk to the refugees and drive those buses in to get the ones who want to come.

This map shows some of the bigger disaster risks in the US (funny). I forget who provided the link.

There have been lots of posts on some SCA lists trying to organize replacement SCA stuff for the folks hit by the hurricane -- new garb, scrolls, etc. Their hearts are in the right places, but most of this seems months premature to me. Let those people get housing before you start saddling them with stuff!

Why do so many people on mailing lists believe that a major event trumps the topic of the list? These people seem to think that somehow you won't find out about national news if you don't read it on the SCA kingdom list -- as if that was each subscriber's only source of information. Sheesh. The people on the lists I frequent are being better about this than they were for 9/11, but still... I've been deleting a lot of stuff from the moderation queue for one list.

Who will be eaten first? Not your usual Chick tract.

Today's letter from Rohrich VW informed me that it's time for scheduled maintenance and I should call them at my convenience to schedule it with them. I won't actually do it, but the candidate response that brought a smile to my lips was "my investors inform me that the time is not yet right for that diabolical ice-skating project, so I will have to decline". I do get my scheduled maintenance, but those guys are not going to touch my car again.

On a more serious note, with all the bad news about what's going on in the wake of Katrina, especially how the problem was foreseen and yet the government diverted most of the levee funding to Iraq (link from brokengoose), it's great to see that people from all over the country are offering crash space and sometimes travel assistance (link from browngirl).

Holy cow. Since when does NOAA use the word "will" in forecasts of destruction? At first I thought the quotes I was seeing from this report were fake, until someone posted a link to the NOAA site.

"MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER. AT LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL...LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY DAMAGED OR DESTROYED."

There was a storm just a year or two ago that was predicted to flood New Orleans and it missed, but this sounds awfully certain. I hope the people who didn't get out in time find some way to be safe in all that.

insomnia has been posting information and is trying to hook up LJ users with crash space, though at this point I gather the problem is getting out of the city at all.