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Hurricane Katrina


Distressed I didn't know where else to post this. New Orleans and the American South and all of the world had just witnessed one of the worst natural disasters in human history while our Tsunami wounds are still fresh. My thoughts and prayers go to every American in Dubai worrying about a family member or a friend, and to the people of the United States. "We shall overcome"
stainless
Thanks Distressed! :)
My Mother, Step Father and Sister all reside around Biloxi. My mother place is fine and they are fine. My Sister, she is fine but they have not been allowed back to see her home, we fear the worse.
I am forced to wait for my business partner return before I can leave for the states to help... :x So if everything goes right, I will be US bound this coming week, inshalia.
Again thanks for your concerns and preyers.
Stainless BobbieMasoner thank.. my grandma and family are in mississippi. can't get through to them- last we spoke to them the roof of the bedroom andl living room were ripped off and the porch was gone.. that was 2 days ago, so still worrying.. hope everyone else is ok. Distressed Stainless .. It's good to hear ur intouch with ur family and that they're fine. I hope your sister's place was spared. BobbieMasoner .. God! I can't imagine being in your place bro, hope you get through to them.. Be strong! BobbieMasoner psst, i'm a girl 8) but er, thanks. just have to wait i suppose stainless
Hi Bobbie,
I am heading back to Mississippi, this coming week to help out with the situation. Since, I promised you the flowers or twisty cane planet :wink: Do you need me to take anything back with me? Hum... come to think about it I should open this as a new subject, just in case there are others. Not that I don't want to put you first or anything. :D
PM me or email me at dubaiforums (h)@ (REMOVING (h) for the address.)
Take care and hope that your Grand mother and rest of the family are ok.
Regards,
Stainless MaaaD my prayers go out to all who are in distress over this BobbieMasoner
Thanks stainless- can't send anything that'll be of use really... still waiting to hear if they're ok. Thank you though. Hope your family is well and healthy. Have a...hm..productive trip Distressed The U.S and its people have always been at the forefront of support and aid for people stricken with tragedy and disaster, expecting nothing in return. Now is the time we repay this proud and determined people, and offer whatever we can for help. Please donate here: MaaaD
I wouldn't be too flattering .. remember the tsunami aid fund when the US goverment only pledged $35 Million ? and the international community was outraged so it was increased to $350 Million ?
Anyway, I just thought of that when i read what u posted.
I am really surprised at how the world is reactiing to Katrina, although we are at a point in time where the US-love indicator is at an all time low. over 50 countries have pledged help including Sri Lanka (!!) .. I hope the goverment will appreciate that and stop trying to take over the world 8)
This was just a side note, Go on people donate !

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Nik Its crazy how slow the response has been from within the states, was watching the NBC coverage (is it just me or is NBC the anti-Fox? ie; they lean as much to the other side), and it just smacks of the political machinery just falling apart...ineffective leadership federally, and Bush's response just seems so shallow, even when he was visiting the site, it seemed like a PR campaign...supposedly a large number of buses and aid workers were sent that way, but no one has seen the numbers purported to be there! Well at least its picking up now, a little too late for some people though...The scenes were quite horrific, something like that should not happen in the US! The Democrats have been quick to criticize as well, and they're fully justified I think, cannot think of a more egregious lapse in responsibility than this.... one of the Democrat members of the house had a stark message for Bush 'God is not happy at what has happened' they had a message from the mayor of New Orleans, and boy was he pissed, they had to bleep quite a few words, he literally told the government to get off its ass HP [color=red]when someone ask from G.W.Bush , so many ppl r dying in Iraq , he used to answer "[/color]
[color=blue]there are few deaths and injuries but its not that serious ...........[/color]
[color=red] i am sure he must be saying same for US! I am sure he would blame to osama ben laden for this mishap.........
[/color] stainless
Look guys, I don't want this to turn into a political debate... But I want to point out a few FACTS; 9/11 Rudolph W. Giuliani handle a situation in a city of over 11 million people. He was not given one, two or three days notice, he was given ZERO notice. He took the bull by the horns and handled the situation, period. What can we say about New Orleans... the mayor had several days of warning, he has less then 2 million people to deal with, for that matter only about 200k at this point. We know that he is a person whom expect other to do, versus doing, he lacks leadership as he should have been providing guidance, hope, and getting what he needs for the people versus complaining. Within New Orleans there are at least 5 water bottling companies... he could have easily sent the cops to cut the locks and get that water distributed but did he? The media should NOT go after George Bush but this mayor and governor for not handling the situation themselves, that is why we pay local, city, county, and state tax!
I AM NOT George Bush fan, I didn't vote for him. But it is NOT his fault, it takes days to call up national guards, the guard is nothing more the US citizens that volunteer and go out one weekend a month for "practice"... at the same time, you have to clear road ways, secure the area, clear the airport landing strips, get generators in place, wiring, etc... this is NOT a 24-48 job, but closer to 72 hours.
And the whole black thing... don't even get me started on that. 62% of New Orleans is black, of course you going to see mostly poor blacks on camera. What I hate is the so many of them are LAZY, look at India, Sri Lanka, etc were the people have so much less and they band together to solve this type of problem. These people... "Give me, give me give... you owe me!" BULL SH!T, get off you lazy as@es and get together to fix the problems versus complaining about it.
The main reason I am not freaking out is because my step father is a "Good'Ol Boy" and he built the two story house him and my mother live in and its very nice, has his own garden, hunts, fishes etc... he is resourceful... not rich but resourceful and I know that he will rebuild everything if required, while providing basic necessities for my mother, himself, etc.
So as an American, I really get PISSED when I see people complain like this... put them in the middle of Africa, India, Sri Lanka and see how long they live. My money would be on less then a week! So many of them are lazy c*nts that expect the government to take care of them, and most of these people don't pay taxes. But boy they are so quick to say its a color, poor, etc issue, when in fact it is a personal issue with themselves.
Stainless Nik I dunno stainless obviously you know the situation better since you're more directly affected, but IMHO the federal government has a bigger responsibility here...Though 9/11 was obviously bigger in magnitude, it was still localised to an area, and the rest of New York came to the rescue; In this case the entire city (not to mention the other states affected) has been consumed and brought to its knees by this....There's nothing wrong in expecting help from outside, that's the whole point of being in the federation right? From what they showed (again can't stress enough that I have a very limited view), the mayor did seem to be doing as much hands on as he could, he was expressing his frustration coz the government was falsely claiming to be send all this aid....Good point about the bottled water bit, though I heard some companies were stopped from providing any more bottled water and told to give monetary aid instead Have to commend you and your folks for taking all this in your stride though, do hope your resourcefulness pulls you through these tough times stainless
Nik,
Thanks for the concern...
people are already pointing fingers when the problem is far from solved. Yelling, shouting, cursing is not going to solve the problem, for that matter it is counter productive! You are right that 9/11 was not on the same magnitude as this but when times are hard you need a leader that understands everyone looks to her/him for guidance and it is their responsibility to lead by example. So having these elected officials pointing fingers, cursing up a storm, etc. goes to show that there is a chink is a democracy system, not that other systems are better, but a flaw none the less. An other sample of this is the mayor of washington DC... he was caught on camera smoking crack cocaine but was re-elected after serving his time!?! Anyway, additional to all of this is the fact that the media is mostly covering New Orleans, yet... Mississippi was worse hit. So, my word to the N.O. mayor yelling, "Yes mayor of New Orleans... your city will have to wait until the harder hit areas are taken care of first and YOU sir have to front up to your plate and deal with it, until we can get around to solving your problems (being that you can't!), that is what you where elected and paid for, so do your job!"
The Federal government is the third in line to fix this type of problem, the US government is set up that way purposely, so that we don't have "communistic" country. Firstly the City has to deal with the issues it best can, at which point the County would help, then the State, and lastly the federal government. This is a CLEAR chain of command and the Federal can do anything without the request of the State and the State is limited until requested by the County or City, and the County and City responses by the people request. I know that in the end, everything will work out and Bush has already announced that bureaucracy can no longer be the limiting issue to solving these types of problems. But at the same time, we the people can not simply hand over the power to the federal government.
I hope that this clears this up for some people and Nik, please don't take this as an attack on your comments... it is just my writing style. :?
Stainless rdoug4 stainless, You have a very good understanding of the problems and the US system. Now if more US people could understand it. I am from the states and have been living in Asia for the last two years. I made the same comment to friends here about the average person from the US having no clue what life is like in a large part of the world and that some people in the states are very fast on the, oh my look what happened to me, what are you going to do for me mister govermentman. The lessons that the people of the United States of America have been learning over the last couple of years are hard ones but are ones that I hope the people are learning from. A large amount of people in the states have forgotten what the county is built on and what made it the strongest country in the world. “And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” Everyone in the world needs to change the last word in the above quote from country to state, city, neighbor, and stranger. We all must help each other in the world be it just by respecting a person and/or culture, to helping by action. Chocoholic Hello All, My thoughts and prayers go out to all those affected and hope they all find help and safety soon. Sadly it just goes to show that natural disasters are still worse than anything else. On the political side, didn't Clinton put aside a fund and task force that would have been ready to swing into action should something like this happen? And then Bush scrapped it? - Well Done! I truly can't imagine what these people are going through it must be horrific, and the fact that some take advantage of the situation with looting and lawlessness. Fair enough if you're taking badly needed supplies but TV's and DVD players, jewellery etc it's a shame. New Orleans is an incredible city and I hope that it will once again return to greatness. BrownEyez What up y'all. I'm so pissed at this racist US government! :evil: They had all my people stuck in NOLA for 5 damn days without food, water, and medical support THEN denied free aid to come in and help these people. F*** America. rdoug4 That works well brown eye, get a life. And get off this my people crap, it's all one "people" :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!: :!:
sa4877 At the outset, my sincere condolences to all the american people wh ahve ost their dear ones in this tragic incident. I can imagine the trauma that the people have gone through in the last few days Having said that I think the biggest highlight of the last few days is the sheer mess that the govt. made in triggering off emergency nad rescue operations. There is no excuse about lead time required to organise national gaurds.. that is why its called an 'emergency and rescue operetaion'!! George Bush can also not get away from the ownership for the mess. Isn't he the man in charge of the country? Its a terrible shame that the USA could not handle this emergency. May be USA should look eastwards towards countries like India and Sri Lanka which did a fantastic job of handling the IMMEDIATE emergency. I am sure that with its financial resources, USA will be able to recover much faster that the other countries. But what is importat to note is that Bush and Company screwed it up big time. Akasha Sadly BrownEyez is right, the US government is coming under increasing critisism because there is a total disorganisation in getting aid to those that need it, which in this case those that need it the most are the black and poor areas of New Orleans. It shouldn't matter at all as these are human beings in a time of need, I think the response and the speed at which 'Emergency Aid' has been given is appallling. stainless Hey BrownEyeZ and sa4877, Read the entire thread before posting your opinion or is it that you are so small minded all you care about is yourself and getting heard? It is this close-mindedness that causes additional problems in the wake of the real problems. I can understand people in/at the situation to be frustrated and not seeing the full picture but you two don't have an excuse for not even trying to see the whole situation! Look at the forest and not just the tree that the media is pointing at. Stainless Distressed When I said the U.S has been at the forefront of helping people in suffering, I meant People and Government. The contributions of American aid organizations are felt in every country in the world that has been under such circumstances. I don't think it is fair to compare the way NO's mayor dealt with the hurricane to the way NY's mayor dealt with 9/11. A terrorist attack is way too different, and the funds available for Guliani were massive, unlike what was available for New Orleans and the poor southern states in general. I suppose what Katrina may have accomplished, is a wake-up call to the American people, that the inequalities in the system will come and bite the adminstration and the people in the ass. If the Mayor and the Governor couldnt step up to the challenge I think the nation will turn to its leader, unfortunatley the man supposed to be the leader is George W. Bush. His government has not even acknowledged the problem of Global Warming which can be a major factor in the intesnity of Katrina, so in that respect Bush is to blame. I don't know much about the demographics of the Southern states, except Texas ;). So I can't really tell if there was a race issue. The one thing I can say is when white folks were on tv they were looking for food, when black people were on tv they were looting. The bias is incredibley clear. --- I think the American people and the media shouldn't be concerned by who to blame for the catastrophe just yet. Its time to unite behind the leadership however incompetent this leadership might be, and show the kind of moral and financial support that was prevelant 4 years ago next Monday for the victims. Akasha Good point Distressed. Another thing I was wondering about and it might seem silly but if you know you live in an area which is affected by hurricanes and tornados on a yearly basis, apparently these places average around 6 a year. Then why on earth are many of the buildings still constructed of wood and materials which are easily destroyed? stainless
Akasha,
Sadly, people are not reading the entire thread or read my explanation to the WHOLE situation, and I have family in the middle of it. So for these people to simply go off on and continue harping about the racist part of it is ludicrous. DOES ANYONE REMEMBER, the earth quarks in California, Mount St. Helen, or any of the many other catastrophes the US has been in? Did the US government respond within 24-48 hours? NO THEY DID NOT! It took days and in some cases weeks to organize military assistance. Please look into the history of these things before going off on what the media and a few people are so quick to focus and going off on.
People of many docents; Black, White, Hispanic, Asians, German, French, and more, are all in the middle of this not just one color but all colors. The problem is not getting better by making a single color issue. If you want to turn this into a racist thread, please open up a new subject in the forum, as this is NOT the thread to discuss this. stainless
Hi Distressed,
Your last paragraph correct and right on target.
The one thing I would like to point out is that it is the MEDIA making these comments and not the government, which is a HUGE difference.
Stainless BobbieMasoner spoke to my family last night, they're all safe :D houses are gone- but that was the least of our worries. Time to start again Distressed Finally! A positive post. I'm so glad to hear that ;) .. BobbieMasoner AND i'm going to be an aunt for the second time in a couple weeks :) thanks distressed :) Akasha Bobbie, That's great news. Stainless, I apologise, with the current slant the media are putting on it, it's easy to forget that so many people are caught up on it, I guess it's the angle they're taking right now. I had to laugh at some news footage yesterday though, where all the streats were flooded and there was a family playing in the swimming pool of their back garden just waving at the camera, seemed a really bizarre thing to be doing. stainless
Congratulations Bobbie!
It can be so stressful to have to wait and hear and of course we only hope and prey for the best. It wonderful to hear not only one but two bit of great news! :D :D :D
Regards,
Stainless sa4877 Oops.... someone seems to have missed the point. First and foremost... Bobbie.. great news... amidst all this it must be fantaStic news! Being an aunt a second time. Guys I need to reiterate... I fully agree with the magnitude of the tragedy and understand all this stuff about forests and treeS. A lot of stuff has already been written by several people. Unfortunately, there are some who take pleasure in taking personal jibes. Now that Katrina has happened, the entire world needs to chip in and do their best to resolve the crisis. HOWEVER, LETS US NOT LOSE SIGHT OF THE FACT THAT THE EMERGENCY AND RELIEF MANAGEMENT PROCESS DID NOT WORK (infact was screwed) If you miss this point... there will be lots more NOs in future. Any country and specially USA is 'expected' to have into place a formal DISASTER MANAGEMENT PLAN which works on a single point trigger. The moment this trigger is activated, ALL RESOURCES as defined by the process NEED TO MOVE IN IMMD. eg. the defined no. of NG personnel, medical facilities, food supplies etc. including the 'owners' for each activity. THIS UNFORTUNATELY DID NOT HAPPEN IN THE CASE OF NO. So lets not deviate attention from this (racism, poverty, desease, elderly yak yak yak....). HOPEFULLY USA WILL HAVE A MORE RELIABLE DISASTER MANAGEMENT PLAN INTO PLACE. AND IF THEY CANNOT DESIGN ONE, MAY BE TURN TO THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES WHO HAVE DONE A BETTER JOB IN THE PAST. stainless Just an update for those whom gave thoughts and preys for everyone. I just spoke to my Mother and Sister via her cell, they just got the area cell back up but they still do not have power. They are running off a generator, my Mothers home sustained slight damage, but nothing that can't be repair quickly and easily. My Sisters home is a different story, they just let her into the area where her home was located and it is partly there but pretty much destroyed. The roof was ripped off and all the wood has sustained water damage. Though her home is on stilts, the flooding pushed the floors up and damaged most of it. She parted her car with some of her important personal possessions that she couldn't take with her at a local church that is higher above sea level and it is fine. One window was broken out, apparently after the hurricane as nothing inside is wet or missing, we assume it was either other evacuees looking for transportation out or rescuers checking to make sure no one was inside the car. More then likely the lather. I am waiting to finalize transferring my shares of our company to my business partner, to which will allow him to move forward as he see fit and will free me up to fly to the states and help out. But until the shares are transferred I can not leave. :( :( I will continue to post updates as they come, even after I leave and arrive in the states. Again thanks for all of your concerns, thoughts, and preyers. Stainless Chocoholic Hey Stainless, Going back to something I posted earlier in this thread, which people obviously missed. Bill Clinton DID have in place an emergency fund and emergency evacuation procedures for disasters such as this, but Bush scrapped it all. So that's really where the buck stops. Also I really with the press would stop calling people Refugees! They're not refugees, they're not fleeing their country or being evacuated for asylum anywhere, these people live there. I read a tragic story today that as the flood waters were going down in Violet that rescuers found 20 bodies roped together, where they had tied themselves together with rope to stop being swept away and to help each other, sadly their rope got wrapped around a pole and they were all dragged under the water and drowned - awful! This is absolutly heart wrenching. MaaaD
Actually International humanitarian law defines refugees more broadly (than the UN definition) including displaced persons who have fled their homes during environmental destruction and didn't necassirly cross international borders. stainless
Hi Choc,
I agree and thats why I referred to the person that might have broke my sister car window as an "evacuee"... great minds think alike. :D
I just got to a point with the news that I stopped watching it as it will for the next six months stay mostly focused on the death, destruction, and other negative aspects, of course with the occasional positive spin.
Stainless
PS. I have not replied to you first comment, not to be rude, but just don't think this thread should be focus on that aspect of the subject.



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