Hurricane Katrina

Hi People,

We've been keeping tabs on hurricane Katrina ... CNN (link below) so you can follow the news on this Category 5 hurricane (worst category) Winds 175 miles an hour, so far! ... whole NEW ORLEANS city/suburbs being evacuated. Thats oughy about one and a half million people.

The hurricane is expected to hit landfall on or before 08:00 Monday morning ... (high tide is at 05:00) its said could be 18 to 25 foot storm surge which would blow the dykes and flood the whole city. This is bad folks ... CNN Link below.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/08/2...ina/index.html

Karmen

Read the New Orleans current URGENT weather report:

URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA
1011 AM CDT SUN AUG 28 2005

...DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED...

.HURRICANE KATRINA...A MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE WITH UNPRECEDENTED STRENGTH...RIVALING THE INTENSITY OF HURRICANE CAMILLE OF 1969.

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.

THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL. PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED. CONCRETE BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE...INCLUDING SOME WALL AND ROOF FAILURE.

HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY...A FEW TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. ALL WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT.

AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD...AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITY VEHICLES AND LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE MOVED. THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS...PETS...AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK.

POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING...BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED. FEW CROPS WILL REMAIN. LIVESTOCK LEFT EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL BEKILLED.

AN INLAND HURRICANE WIND WARNING IS ISSUED WHEN SUSTAINED WINDS NEAR HURRICANE FORCE...OR FREQUENT GUSTS AT OR ABOVE HURRICANE FORCE...ARE CERTAIN WITHIN THE NEXT 12 TO 24 HOURS.

ONCE TROPICAL STORM AND HURRICANE FORCE WINDS ONSET...DO NOT VENTURE OUTSIDE!

[Jon Skagfeld]

According to a bulletin received via NOAA, through the Amateur Radio Emergency Service net, by 7 PM Wed, the hurricane's track will be hitting the Lake Ontario/Lake Erie area.

Not all bad news for us...by then the sustained winds will have diminished to 39 mph.

The bulletin put out by ARES is a heads up for possible emergency deployment.

(Personal aside...do I have to go through Hurricane Hazel again?)

[Ponysoldier]

I might be worthy looking at.Search noaa this has
the doppler radar and moisture content of this storm,
The reach of this storm is great noaa shows it covering
the entire Gulf of Mexico.Here in the greater SW
the rain and related thunderstorms could very well
reach here. While rain in the desert is a welcome
thing too much can cause severe problems.
Patrick

[Jon Skagfeld]

An update from ARES, via NOAA, has it that emergency services are on alert for the Grand River, at Cambridge, Ontario.

But, on Global news, it is reported that the main thrust of the storm will veer somewhat eastwards, below the Lake Erie/Lake Ontario line.

Regardless, my radio operator emergency kit is complete, as is my personal home emergency kit.

[Ponysoldier]

Greetings
Indeed that is the course that this is on.I believe that
the forecast is 72 hours in advance and there is a wide
danger area around this line So best batten down the hatches
cause its coming that way.
Stay safe
Patrick

I saw on the news that some action leftover from Katrina is headed our way too. Batten down the hatches and all that for some big winds and rain perhaps, but nothing life changing ... we're fortunate ...

The body counts are starting to roll in from Katrina ... and for everyone who has to rebuild lives ... I can only imagine the shock as everything slowly sinks in as the days go on and people are allowed to survey things once allowed to come back "home" again ... and life must go on. For many, that's starting from scratch ... literally ...

K.

[Ponysoldier]

Greetings
Ive been following the aftermath of this storm. As one
that responded to smaller scale floods and some riots
while on duty in the military,The destruction I see is
the worst I've ever seen it is as if an earth size bulldozer
went thru and leveled 150 or more miles.
There are now 11,000 national guard now on duty
the navy and marine corps are responding with swift boats
and helicopters.
They say now the deaths could climb above 1,000.
Such a terrible storm
Patrick

[Garry Shipton (RIP)]

Last year,I don't remember if it was on Discovery or PBS,there was a documentary on TV about New Orleans.An expert,who studied the area predicted exactly what would happen if a class 5 hurricane hit the area,especially with the weak levees.It's all come true.

Hi Everyone,

I'm sure most of you are following the Katrina aftermath stories ... it's all horrifying and tragic ... and really bad with the bad guys looters and shooters hurting the helping and progress. (this I know is HUGELY understated)

What kind of help has Canada officially offered (I assume Canada has!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Karmen

[John McGillivray]

A couple of days ago the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in a news conference stated that more than sixty countries have offered assistance to the US, but when press by reporters she admitted that the American Government has not accepted any foreign aid.

I don’t think that American pride and ego will allow them to accept much foreign help. Their politicians would see foreign aid as more of an embarrassment then as assistance. However, one can expect in the near future, that the right wing media will attack all foreign governments for their “lack of response or assistance” while bragging about all the foreign aid that the US gives around the world.

If one wants to help our friends to the south, one can send cash to the Canadian Red Cross, who will forward it to the American Red Cross.

http://www.redcross.ca/article.asp?id=000005&tid=003

[Garry Shipton (RIP)]

Well,we're sending the destroyer Athabaskan,the frigates Quebec and Toronto plus the Class 2 icebraker Sir William Alexander to New Orleans together with ,and wait for this,three Seaking helicopters!!Wouldn't it be better to send two Cormorants instead,that already have SAR capabilities??I mean,do we really want rescuers to be rescued?:

[Ponysoldier]

Greetings
Here in Phx the first of 1000 people have just started
to Land, we have sent Fire dept as well Police Dept.
Money is going thru the red cross and salvation army.
I would say that anything being sent would helpful
Patrick

[Garry Shipton (RIP)]

By the way,on board are 20 Navy divers from both coasts,engineers,to try get the electrcity going,plus our version of MASH hospital units.We already have experience from the Tsunami in Asia,so hopefully,our boys can help in their small way.Our airline,Air Canada.have already sent an Airbus to help airlift victims out of the area.We're glad to help.
Gaarry

[Jon Skagfeld]

So, where's our DART team, which was so miserably deployed during the tsunami gig in Sri Lanka?

Most probably can't charter air lift capability.

Only in Canada, you say...pity!

[Harry Moon]

Vancouver's urban rescue team has been there for several days already. Hydro workers left several days ago locked out telus workers are on there way too, and the left wingers will say Bush and the CIA sent the hurricane there and oh wait for it... they blew up the levies too.
It seems in every discussion somebady has to comment on the evil right wingers and mock Americans, sadley even here.

[Geoff Winnington-Ball (RIP)]

Guys like Jesse Jackson and his ilk have also been saying that the slow response is solely because the majority of victims were black. :

Too bad they haven't read their own constitution regards the separation of state and federal powers... however inept the DHS and FEMA might be, the feds can't move until called by the locals, who were moronically unprepared and incapable of handling the crisis. Note how efficiently the army was the moment it hit the ground? It takes a while to put that operation into action; it could have been there a lot sooner if the local morons had just recognized they were in over their heads (pun intended).

Jesse and the others who are screaming race ("it's all Bush's fault, Bush hates blacks") can go take a long walk off a short pier (2nd pun intended).

[Bill Murray]

Ah...my dear Sunray and others:

You have no idea the angst this is causing down here. Let alone the press, the bulletin boards, forums, blogs etc. etc. are just full of it.

And, it seems to be horribly polarizing and getting worse, and uglier if that is possible, by the hour.

I tried on a couple of forums to act as a little bit of "A voice of reason" and got shot down pretty well. As an example, I posted Femas website www.fema.org where their duties are very specifically spelled out (look on the left for their FY 2003 plan) and exactly as you said, they say again and again that the local and state authorities are responsible for the initial response to any manmade or nature caused disasters.

They further go on to say that they will provide support in a "reasonable time frame" or some such. Being that you could have read or heard a thousand times in the days leading up to the arrival of the storm that they were telling anyone staying behind to have at least 96 hours of essentials on hand you might infer that that was their "reasonable time frame".

If you go to the National Guard website, www.nationalguard.com amongst others, their protocols and capabilities are pretty well spelled out also. The National Guard is under the command of the Governors of the various States and can only be called up by the Governors affected unless the President calls some sort of National Emergency in which case they can cross state lines. It is also the responsibility of the local and state officials to have a plan in place both at the local level and when/if they call in the Guard so everyone knows what to do.

I also looked up Mike Brown's (Head of Fema) official biography on their site and then googled him to find not only has he never had any experience in running such an organization, he was fired from his last job for "incompetence" after 11 years as counsel to a horse racing association. This was NOT mentioned in his Fema bio. A cheap shot on my part, but stay with me.

The playing of the race card, expecially by the likes of Jesse Jackson, in my humble and personal opinion, goes so far over the line as to be dangerous. I sincerely hope that the more radical elements down here, of whatever race, do not cause another Watts/Detroit/Washington series of racially motivated riots as we saw at the end of the sixties.
Think what you may of us Yanks, and we certainly have fringe elements that are radically racist on both sides, we are not that bad of a nation. Tensions, certainly, but I live here and I can tell you that it is unthinkable and undoable for us to provide assistance based on race.
As an example, one small story that got buried in all the others, the manager of the top hotel in the French Quarter managed, for $25K, to hire some busses to get his well heeled clientle out of Dodge. The authorities commandeered the busses to get people out of the Superdome. Doesn't sound like racism to me.

So as not to bore you all to death, may I just say that in my personal opinion what was lacking was a kick ass, take charge person to have cut through all the rules, bureaucratic bullshit and egos and do what needed doing.

Apparently that persona in on the scene in the person of LT. General Honore, a Lousiana native but he arrived one Thursday too late. The Mayor did not act, the Governor did not act, the head of Fema did not act and, sadly GWB did not act in the proper time frame given that everyone did in fact know the shit was going to hit the fan and just about everything everyone planned for happened, just in a different sequence.

Let me say that again, everyone in a position to either be affected or to provide assistance knew pretty much what was going to happen when a Category III, IV or V storm hit NO or anywhere close to it. It is one of Fema's 3 worst scenario disasters to prepare for; it is mantra for the Corps of Engineers that the levees would fail at Category III or above. Local authorities have been negotiating for decades with the Corps and our Congress for upgrades to the levees.

A sad time indeed for us Americans, definitely not "Our Finest Hour". We knew what to do, we knew how to do it and we let the red tape screw the whole thing up. With the help of so many nations, including my beloved Canada, we are now doing what we could have done a week ago.

Sad, Sad indeed, my dear friends.
Bill

[Keith Webb]

G'day Bill

Thanks for your contribution and insight.

Your post was better than anything I've yet read in the media and I was impressed not only by the way you use language, but by your ability to get to the nub of the problem, that of a lack of a good leader.

I don't get involved in US politics, but I must admit I have been wondering where the real leaders were as this unfolded.

The official response has been a SNAFU on a huge and tragic scale. Quite apart from the human and physical side I think there will be serious political rammifications for a long time to come.

On a closer to home note, one of my friends was until about a week before the hurricane working as musical director on one of the cruise ships operating out of New Orleans. His timing was incredible.

Originally posted by Keith Webb

I don't get involved in US politics, but I must admit I have been wondering where the real leaders were as this unfolded.

I think the guy for the job who'd get it done , no BS, is that John Wayne guy ... Lt. General Honore !!!

[Richard Farrant]

Originally posted by Bill Murray
[B] sadly GWB did not act in the proper time frame given that everyone did in fact know the shit was going to hit the fan [B]

Geoff,

How did you get involved in all this ?

Richard

[Bill Murray]

Richard:

In my impassioned state, I missed the connection.

On the other hand, given our Geoff's equally passionate positions on subjects of importance, maybe he would have been just that kick ass guy we needed.
Bill

[Richard Farrant]

Originally posted by Bill Murray
Richard:

In my impassioned state, I missed the connection.

On the other hand, given our Geoff's equally passionate positions on subjects of importance, maybe he would have been just that kick ass guy we needed.
Bill

Bill,

I did not mean to raise a funny over this serious catastrophy, but the initials brought Geoff to mind first. As you say, he would probably have responded more promptly.

Richard

[Geoff Winnington-Ball (RIP)]

Bill -- thank you for that. It corresponds with everything I've heard elsewhere as well. I don't know what I can say except that one would hope this experience would lead to an obviously needed reorganization of both process and organizations. I'll stand with Yappy in saying I have never seen (or met) a more capable, effective leader than General Honore... hell, I wish I could work for a man like that rather than the idiots who pay my salary! If General Honore had been in this from the beginning, things might have evolved quite differently. If he ran for public office, I'd vote for him.

Thanks for your compliment, Bill, but I'm not your man, albeit I can put the rhetoric together when called upon to do so... but I'd work for General "John Wayne" Honore anytime!

Richard -- This is a constant source of amusement and confusion on other sites as well... I never know who the hell they're talking about or to!

<edit to add> Yeah, I believe in the NON-PC concept of "kick-ass-and-take-names". Ancient concepts of responsibility, leadership, accountability. If that makes me a dinosaur in this day and age, well, piss off, I don't give a damn!

[Richard Farrant]

Originally posted by Geoff Winnington-Ball

Yeah, I believe in the NON-PC concept of "kick-ass-and-take-names". Ancient concepts of responsibility, leadership, accountability. If that makes me a dinosaur in this day and age, well, piss off, I don't give a damn!

Geoff,

I agree wholeheartedly, this PC crap is virulent in UK and Europe as well, and I have no time for it.

Richard

[Bill Murray]

Richard:
I knew exactly what you were saying. This is too tight knit a group for me to think you were having fun with the situation.

Geoff: There are some signs of hope. I am just now watching CNN, which has been scathingly critical of the whole mess, and I mean really critical.

They are now jumping back from covering the repairs to the levees to the pumping out of the flooded areas to the continuing rescue of stranded folks. Their attitude is now totally positive and encouraging "quoting Wolf Blitzer of two minutes ago".
To repeat myself, it is truly sad to me that we are now doing exactly what we are capable of doing, maybe as good as anyone in the world but it is a bit late.

To ease off a bit on the locals, particularly the role of the National Guard, it does appear that the Iraqi conflict had stripped the various National Guards of a lot of equipment that could have been used to get things going faster, better.

One rather ironic part of this whole story is that goodness knows how many TV and radio networks managed to get into all of the affected areas and were able to move around and communicate extremely effectively while the various support organizations seemed to not be able to operate at all prior to the last day or so.

To close this post, Keith, thanks for your kind words.

I am a patriotic American, as all of you are patriotic citizens of your respective countries. I was still emotionally involved but decided that I needed to do some research before totally trashing my own country. Could we have done better, yes. Are we now doing what we are capable of, yes.

BTW, for all of you non US types, you will have to live with our own specific acronyms for a while. GWB, NO, LA, NG, Fema, etc. which are second nature to us

I can only hope that a measure of reason will prevail as we do what has to be done.

Thanks to all for your concerns.
Bill

[Geoff Winnington-Ball (RIP)]

Jesse's shooting his mouth off on CNN yet again... : ... at least Lou Dodd managed to rip him a new asshole (and I don't think Jesse even noticed)...

I just hope all those stranded black folks who were rescued by all them white honkys kind of have an appreciation of their fellow man and that man's regard for them as human beings. The assholes who are trying to make political/racist hay from this disgust me.

We've been flicking back & forth between CNN and Fox the last few days, and it's been illuminating to say the least. Our hearts are with y'all down there.

[Harry Moon]

Seems to me the the blame, if there should be blame, belongs to those who had the responsability to enforce the evacuation. If the thousands of people had been properly evacuated before the storm hit, there would have been a lot less loss of life and the disaster response could have been less over burdened.
GWB to blame because New Orleans cops joined in the looting.. come on give me a break.

Originally posted by Harry Moon
Seems to me the the blame, if there should be blame, belongs to those who had the responsability to enforce the evacuation. If the thousands of people had been properly evacuated before the storm hit, there would have been a lot less loss of life and the disaster response could have been less over burdened.

Those are my thoughts too, Harry, except I'd rephrase to "PROVIDE" EVACUATION rather than enforce it. There was no transportation plan or vehicles immediately provided for transporting evacuees when the "mandatory" evacuation was given.

Thousands of people would not, will not have suffered and died, had the order come WITH the means of evacuating.

I'm stunned, still, and horrified at what can only be incompetance and irresponsibility with peoples lives.

The powers that be that didn't fulfill their responsibilities along the "loops" certainly owe a huge debt to these people they failed ... nothing in the world can make up for deaths that never had to be.

Yes, I'm extremely disturbed by the mind-boggling not handling, and bad handling at the local level ... and the consequences on those who have lost their family and loved ones.

As for "John Wayne" Lt. General Russel Honore ... hot damn, can they clone him and put many "hims" in charge of everything? If so, our world will work and have heart.

Karmen

[John McGillivray]

I was wrong. According to the CBC news at 9pm, the US government has accepted the offers of assistance from other countries. The first plane load of Canadian aid has already landed in the US. More aid should reach America later this week from around the world. But to save face the American government pointed out that they did not ask for the assistance.

In a form of indirect aid, the Canadian Forces are also sending some CH146 Griffon helicopters to Boston to take over the routine Search and Rescue missions normally flown by the USCG in that area.

As for the blame game, it is just politics as usual down south. I think that the response to the hurricane, as well as the finger pointing, would have been more or less the same, regardless of who (GWB or JFK) was in the Whitehouse.

Things could get worst down there. This is only the middle of hurricane season. There is a very real possibly that the US could be hit by another major hurricane in the next two months.