Hurricane Katrina

[Pete Beck]

This post is going to ramble a bit as I really don't know where I am going with it...it is very hard to watch the news lately as I see places that are a large part of my past in such devastation as a result of Katrina. Most of you that know me know that I am in the Air Force and was stationed for 7 years in Biloxi, Mississippi...my kids call it home, even though we currently live in Colorado Springs. In about 6 years I will be eligible to retire from the Air Force, and the Gulf Coast of Mississippi was likely going to be my home. I till have many friends who live in the area and it is very hard to see what has happened there and not be worried about them as I have yet to hear from them...I am sure that getting a computer on the Internet is the least of their worries. They have a lot of other more important things to worry about...

Years ago I "ran" from Hurricane Daniel which was skirting the gulf coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi and finally put in near Mobile Bay in Alabama...Why bring this up? Well, I "ran" from Hurricane Daniel to catch a plane for Jamestown, New York because it GalactiCon was taking place that same day. Tom actually included this story in the GWF Files #1 (even though it is a little off in saying that I came from Nebraska...I still don't know where Tom got that from...not to joke but a Hurricane in Nebraska would be HUGE news!) My fellow Promoters in attendance gave me a pretty hard time about coming to Jamestown while my wife and kids were near a storm like that in the gulf. Now Hurricane Daniel was only a Category 1 Storm, so I really wasn't too worried that anything bad would happen to the family (I had people checking in on them as well) and by the time I got on the plane there was little chance it was coming into Biloxi. Trust me, if Daniel would have been worse, I would not have been in Jamestown...we'll I might have been, I just would have had the wife and kids with me...

I know everyone has seen the devastation that Hurricane Katrina has wreaked over the same gulf coast areas i mentioned above. What is going on in those areas is very serious and I thank God that nothing like that happened when I was living there. I am not sure if there are any Promoters in the areas that have been hit, but if there are, definitely say a prayer for them, as they will need it.

If any promoter out there gets the chance to help out, however small that it might be, trust me, the people you are helping out with be appreciative for life. I am not asking anyone to go out and donate, but if you find it in your heart to do so, it will be appreciated.

Thanks for reading...and stay safe all, you never know when something like this will happen again.

[gwffantrav]

I do think your words summed it all up Pete.

And thank you for your service to our country.

[Nemecys X]

Last year, we in Florida thought we had the worst luck, getting nailed by 3 hurricanes, one after the other. I realize now how lucky we were, since the first 2 (Charlie and Francis) were cat 1 when they hit, and Jeanne just edged us.

Seeing the news (which basically is every other channel) and hearing reports made me realize that we weren't even close to a disaster (although the season isn't over yet).

I missed a month of work, but these people have lost everything, including, in some cases, loved ones. I do plan to send Red Cross some $, as soon as I can get enough to send.

And although I haven't been a very religious person, I preay for everyone affected by this storm.

Jay

[dennish]

This is a tragic event, time's are going to be tough for the people who have lost everything with Katrina's destruction. I gave some $ for bottle water today to be sent out today. Pete I also thank your for serving our country, I have friends and family who have served our country.

[Chris Ingersoll]

Nemecys said:

Last year, we in Florida thought we had the worst luck, getting nailed by 3 hurricanes, one after the other. I realize now how lucky we were, since the first 2 (Charlie and Francis) were cat 1 when they hit, and Jeanne just edged us.

Plus Florida's used to this sort of thing and is prepared for it, more or less. The recent articles coming out regarding the shortcomings in Louisianna's preparedness -- and vulnerability -- suggest a different story over there. It was just compounded by the fact that they got steamrolled by a monster storm.

[gwffantrav]

Pete, I remember reading about surviving a hurricane from Nebraska. I always thought..what the heck!?!?

[Nemecys X]

Plus Florida's used to this sort of thing and is prepared for it, more or less. The recent articles coming out regarding the shortcomings in Louisianna's preparedness -- and vulnerability -- suggest a different story over there. It was just compounded by the fact that they got steamrolled by a monster storm

I think, if we got nailed by that think, the results would have been close to the same. True, we're a little above sea level and there are no levies. However we have a lot of canals and waterways.

And I don't think there's any way to prepare for a storm like that. All you can do is either leave or pray.

What I don't understand is why they had so much trouble evacuating. I don't know the LA area, but aren't they land-locked on 3 sides? I thought there'd be dozens of roads going in and out of the are.

When we were told to evacuated for Francis last year, we had 3 choices: I-95, I-10, and US-1, with the latter being used only by emergency vehicles. That's it...2 roads! Don't they have more than that? Or was it just made difficult by the large population trying to flee at the same time?

Jay

[Omen]

Last Year I was in Polk County, Florida. If you saw the map of the stormtracks of the 3 hurricanes you would see a big X I was the X let me tell you it was not fun. They are still picking up the peices. I can well imagine what a Cat 4 1/2 like Katrina was would do. Yes I am "religous" I pray everyday for the world and Katrina is just one of the reason's . I have people over in Afganstan... The tsumami victims are still in need... then the famine in parts of Africa the no one thinks about ... I can still see the Twin Towers falling ... or Columbia burning in the sky... I don't need to preach but you can see for yourself..the need for prayer in Jesus' name Amen.

[Chris Ingersoll]

frank2 said:

Yes I am "religous" I pray everyday for the world and Katrina is just one of the reason's .

Not to belittle your (or anyone's) religion, but every time I see something like this it reminds me of a joke by Jimmy Carr, talking about this guy who told a news crew that he prayed for God to protect his trailer from an incoming tornado (instead of, y'know, moving the trailer or something). Jimmy's response was "Who does he think sent the tornado?".

Just one of those thoughts that keeps me from being religious.

[Mark 138]

Oookay. Putting personal theology aside I really hope that everyone in the U.S. who had a bleeding heart for the tsunami victims last year will find the same generosity in their hearts for their fellow Americans. I assure you that anyone who goes to help the hurricane relief effort will not find hostile natives who want nothing more than to take their money and wish them dead like those who went to help with the tsunami. And that's one hundred percent true. People from the University of Illinois(located right here in "good 'ol" Champaign Illinois) were told not to display a cross or an American flag or these helpers would be killed.

I implore everyone to lend a helping hand, whether it be monetary contribution or actual physical help. I know people who have lost everything because of this. I cannot fathom having to start over at this point in my life, but that's what they're having to do. Cars gone, home gone, job gone. Please though, DO NOT send contributions through the Red Cross. A good portion of the money never actually gets to the people you think you are helping. Please, only give to groups who can verify that 100 percent of your money will go to help.

Furthermore (to be longwinded), do not blindly trust anyone who says they are helping. I am in Illinois. Yesterday there were people in front of the local Sam's Club store claiming they were there from Louisiana taking food and money donations to help down there. People were blindly giving without even questioning the fact that these people were in cars with Illinois plates and offered no explanation as to why they were essentially panhandling hundreds of miles away without any proof of where they were really from. A call to proper authorities sorted them out and they were taken care of . But I wonder how many others are taking advantage of this situation to profit. Do not let them!

[Pete Beck]

All...almost 16 years ago i enlisted for a 4-year run with the Air Force, well lets just say that i liked it so much that i am more than happy to continue my service...I appreciate your gratitude.

I hope that i didn't be-little what has happened in the past in Florida and other parts of the South and East as there are many locations that have been hit and devastated by Hurricanes in the past...and unfortunately there will be more in the future. BTW...i don't think Florida is any better prepared for these storms. What has been good for Florida is that none of its major population centers have been hit this hard...since Andrew. Trust me if a Cat 4 + Hurricane hit Miami or Jacksonville with a 20 foot surge, we would be seeing the same after effects. Not that i want that to happen to anyone.

To give everyone an idea, for the 7 years that i lived in Biloxi, MS we had "hurricane" supplies on hand every year, just in case. Not only that, we had evacuation plans and numbers for hotels in various locations around the south depending on where the storm was coming from and where it was going to after it made land-fall. My family was an oddity in this case. I know many folks who thought i was crazy for doing all this work, but we were prepared...as prepared as we could have been. Katrina is a different storm and even with that prep we would have lost a lot of our personal belongings because of how "wet" she was. Even though i haven't seen a picture of the house i lived in, i am fairly confident from pictures i have seen of the area, it would have had 4 - 5 feet of water throughout. Back to the being prepared bit...you can tell just from the news that 90% of the area was not prepared for a storm of this magnitude. The residents were given ample warning (as much as they could be) to get out. I won't lie, when the Mayor of New Orleans came out and said to get out, i was shocked because most of the time those in charge will only tell those areas suspected to be in danger to get out...but to tell the whole city to get out...that meant it was bad....and people still didn't listen. One other thing about the folks down there...If a house had survived Camile or Betty (for New Orleans) there is no way the people were leaving because those were the worst of the worst...almost a bit of a stubborn southern attitude. My answer to that statement is that the house took a beating in Camile and now a small storm could take it out...let alone a Category 4 hurricane that pushed 20+ feet of water! Odd thinking, but i guarantee that there are some that will say this about surviving Katrina and have problems with another storm later. No matter if the city had gone out and bused everyone prior to the storm, people would have stayed...that is just how they are...not smart, but that is human nature to do as you want even when you should know better.

As far as getting out...from Biloxi, if you live south of I-10 you really have one interstate route out...and it has a draw bridge on it that is up for 30 minutes at a time to let boats into/out of the back bay. Once there you have to go east to Mobile to catch I-65 north or say on I-10 and head for the panhandle of Florida. If you go wast on I-10 then you will hit US Hwy 49 that will take you north to Hattiesburg where you can catch I-55 and continue north toward Birmingham, AL. From New Orleans the only Interstate that doesn't cross water is I-10 West, which is the way that they are busing the evacuees to Houston. If you go on I-10 east you have to cross Lake Ponchartrain (i always spell that wrong)...and in order to get on I-59 you have to go that way. You can also try to get on I-55 on the which connects on the west side on New Orleans to I-10 and heads to Jackson, MS. There is the causeway north...the long way across Lake Ponchartrain, but it only runs to the north shore and I-12 which is just a bypass for I-10...truckers mainly use I-12. I-10 is truly the only way out and in order to get 1.2 million people out, lets just say the Interstate system was not designed for it around that city.

As Mark T said, if you are going to donate, make sure you do so to an agency that has credentials...before you give you can asks for them, and if those asking for solicitations refuse to show/give you the credentials then don't give to them. Those that are trustworthy are more than willing to show you the credentials.

And finally on a lighter note...

Pete, I remember reading about surviving a hurricane from Nebraska. I always thought..what the heck!?!?

Don't ask me how Tom got Nebraska...I think i was re-telling him the story as Poke was talking to him as well...well Scott is from Nebraska (for those of you who haven't read the G-Corn posts...) and i think Tom just got confused on the tales...No big deal, just one of those things that when you read it you might find odd and have to re-read to make sure you got it right...Now the story is even better and if Tom ever puts it into one of his books, maybe well get his side of the story....

[Vidtek]

admin said:

"Who does he think sent the tornado?".

Just one of those thoughts that keeps me from being religious.

I'm a christian, but I don't think God sends storms like that. I don't think God sends storms at all. He created the weather and set it in motion. He knows what it will do, he doesn't stop it or cause it. Yes we get the cries of "How could God allow this to happen?" But the answer to that is simple. God does all things for his glory. This storm might pull us together as one nation under Him again, get people back into church and maybe save a few folks who wern't already. But then again as a mere mortal I do not try to contemplate the will of an omnipotent being.
Oh and for the record, I hear a lot of folks saying that this was a "Sodom and Gamora" type thing, that New Orleans had become a hotbed of sin and degredation so God whiped it off the map...I can't say they are wrong casue I don't know what God is thinking, but New Orleans did do a lot of things that God wouldn't have aproved of. Course I don't agree with those statements.

[Chris Ingersoll]

adamsmasher said:

admin said:

"Who does he think sent the tornado?".

Just one of those thoughts that keeps me from being religious.

I'm a christian, but I don't think God sends storms like that. I don't think God sends storms at all. He created the weather and set it in motion. He knows what it will do, he doesn't stop it or cause it.

That's probably a good an explanation as any, although there are passages in the Old Testament that would argue against your "doesn't send storms" argument (hello, Great Flood?).

[Vidtek]

admin said:

That's probably a good an explanation as any, although there are passages in the Old Testament that would argue against your "doesn't send storms" argument (hello, Great Flood?).

Yeah, but that was Old Testiment. We don't get many plagues of Frogs or water turing into blood, hands writing on walls, or bushes burning and yet not being consumed anymore either.
Anyway. I hear they are letting some folks back in to the city to get their things, that's a step in the right direction I think...

[Chris Ingersoll]

adamsmasher said:

admin said:

We don't get many plagues of Frogs or water turing into blood, hands writing on walls, or bushes burning and yet not being consumed anymore either.

Yeah, I think that's a major factor in the decline of God's popularity polls: he just doesn't seem as hands-on as he used to.

[Vidtek]

Ok Chris, I gotta admit. That was funny.

[gwffantrav]

Bored at work and saw this article, on all places, the LA Times. Shows the media likes to get everone in a uproar saying all blacks were left to die.

So, before you go by what your papers/television say, wait and look at facts.

THE NATION
Katrina Killed Across Class Lines
The well-to-do died along with the poor, an analysis of data shows. The findings counter common beliefs that disadvantaged blacks bore the brunt.

By Nicholas Riccardi, Doug Smith and David Zucchino, Times Staff Writers


The bodies of New Orleans residents killed by Hurricane Katrina were almost as likely to be recovered from middle-class neighborhoods as from the city's poorer districts, such as the Lower 9th Ward, according to a Times analysis of data released by the state of Louisiana.

The analysis contradicts what swiftly became conventional wisdom in the days after the storm hit — that it was the city's poorest African American residents who bore the brunt of the hurricane. Slightly more than half of the bodies were found in the city's poorer neighborhoods, with the remainder scattered throughout middle-class and even some richer districts.

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"The fascinating thing is that it's so spread out," said Joachim Singelmann, director of the Louisiana Population Data Center at Louisiana State University. "It's not just the Lower 9th Ward or New Orleans East, which everybody has heard about. It's across the board, including some well-to-do neighborhoods."

Because New Orleans was one of the nation's poorest cities, where more than one in four residents lives below the poverty level, many of the victims were still found in neighborhoods that were impoverished by national standards. But by the standards of New Orleans, those neighborhoods were economically stable, and deaths citywide were distributed with only a slight bias for economic status.

Of the 828 bodies found in New Orleans after the storm, 300 were either recovered from medical facilities or shelters that offer no data on the victim's socioeconomic status, or from locations that the state cannot fully identify. Of the 528 bodies recovered from identifiable addresses in city neighborhoods, 230 came from areas that had household incomes above the citywide median of $27,133. The poorer areas accounted for 298 bodies.

The state official in charge of identifying Katrina's victims, Dr. Louis Cataldie, said he was not surprised by the findings. "We went into $1-million and $2-million homes trying to retrieve people," he said.

The information used in The Times analysis was incomplete, due to difficulties in gathering data in the days after Katrina struck and to bureaucratic problems that followed.

The private company that was contracted to collect bodies was supposed to mark the GPS coordinates of each recovery, but state officials said they soon determined that data was "worthless." They had to reconstruct the locations where bodies were found but in some cases could provide information no more specific than "Canal Street." Although it is the most comprehensive data they have released on storm fatalities, state officials acknowledge that the information is still riddled with errors and probably will be corrected constantly in coming months.

The state data also include locations such as the interchange of I-10 and I-610 where rescuers in motorboats were directed to deposit bodies they found floating in the floodwaters. There is no way to determine where some of those 19 bodies came from, and all have been excluded from The Times analysis.

"The data you have leaves a lot to be desired," Cataldie said in an interview Friday. "I don't know if it'll ever be 100%."

Of the 1,095 people killed by Katrina in Louisiana, the state has formally identified and released demographic data on 535. Many other victims are tentatively identified, though 93 remain unidentifiable. A couple of bodies are recovered every week, and officials say other victims may have been swept into the Gulf of Mexico, never to be found.

Medical and dental records were destroyed by the storm, and many corpses are so severely decomposed that traditional identification methods such as fingerprints are useless.

Even with the majority of the bodies identified, the state is unable to determine when most died, or how. Many death certificates bear the date of Katrina's landfall — Aug. 29 — even though the victim could have died days later. Given the severity of damage suffered by bodies in the floodwaters, cause of death is also extremely difficult to determine and will never be known for many victims, Cataldie said.

New Orleans was the site of most of Katrina's fatalities; the state reported that 76% of storm deaths statewide occurred in the city. Of the 380 bodies from New Orleans that have been formally identified, a moderately disproportionate number are white. New Orleans' population was 28% white, yet 33% of the identified victims in the city are white and 67% black.

"The affected population is more multiracial, multiethnic and multicultural than one might discern from national media reports," said Richard Campanella, a Tulane University geographer who has studied which parts of the city were hit the worst by flooding. His research showed that predominantly white districts in the city were almost as likely to flood as predominantly black ones.

Campanella said he was not surprised at the even distribution of bodies between the city's poorer and more affluent neighborhoods. He noted that 70% of the identified Katrina victims in New Orleans were older than 60, frequently lifelong residents who had ridden out other hurricanes and refused to evacuate. Elderly people are more likely to be wealthier and to live in wealthier neighborhoods.

Many of the city's wealthier neighborhoods sit on Lake Pontchartrain in the lowest-lying sector of town, Campanella said. For example, Lakeview, a predominately white neighborhood that contains mansions valued at more than $1 million in addition to crowded streets studded with modest bungalows, fronts the lake and is adjacent to the 17th Street Canal. When the levee collapsed, the neighborhood was destroyed. The only neighborhood with comparable destruction, the Lower 9th Ward, sits on higher ground but was unluckily flanked by two broken levees.

Katrina "really knew no bounds," said Ashley Casey, an aide to Lakeview Councilman John Batt. "I don't think it's over yet in any neighborhood."

Singelmann, of the Louisiana Population Data Center, said New Orleans was unique among American cities because, despite pockets of poverty in places such as the Lower 9th Ward, the city was remarkable for its integration of blacks and whites of different incomes living in close proximity.

He cited Read Boulevard East, a neighborhood of expensive new homes clustered around a 36-acre lake, as well as streets of more modest homes owned by middle-class whites and blacks. The data indicate a high concentration of recovered bodies from the neighborhood.

On the other hand, Singelmann said, poor African American neighborhoods that straddle the prosperous Garden District show a much higher concentration of recovered bodies than the Garden District itself. One reason, he said, may be that low-income residents lacked cars to flee in or the resources to pay for a safe refuge outside the city. And the Garden District sits on some of the city's highest land.

Not all white residents who died in the storm were well-to-do; not all African American victims were poor.

William S. Porter Jr., a 75-year-old African American, for instance, worked as an embalmer and funeral director for a New Orleans funeral home.

He died at a home in the rapidly gentrifying Gentilly neighborhood during the storm — not because he lacked the means to flee but because he refused to leave, his son said.

Porter, who called himself "the Bishop," owned a home in the Lower 9th Ward but was moving into a second home in Gentilly.

Porter earned about $40,000 a year, said his boss, Cal Johnson of Littlejohn's Funeral Home. He also earned rental income from two homes he owned in the Lower 9th Ward, his son said.

"He was not a pauper by any means," Johnson said of Porter. "He lived quite well."


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Times staff researcher Maloy Moore contributed to this report.