I have a lot of family in the areas affected by Hurricane Katrina. Fortunately, my closest relatives — my mother, father, step-father, grandmother, plus some aunts, uncles, and first cousins — were not in the most heavily affected areas. Granny was visiting one of my aunts in New York. Her flight home was canceled twice, so she returned on Wednesday instead of Monday, but at least she has a home to return to. My mom rode things out at her house in Fairhope, with not much worse than power outages and downed tree limbs. My father stayed with friends on Sunday night, but stubbornly returned to his home on Dog River in Mobile on Monday morning, despite warnings of a possible 10′ storm surge.
But I also have some second cousins and such who live(d?) in Mississippi, mainly around Biloxi and Gulfport. The last we heard, one of my great aunts was heading up towards Jackson. We haven’t heard from her or any of our other relations in that area since last weekend. We’re hoping that they just don’t have a way to get in touch yet, and that they’re all safe.
A gentleman at our office is collecting supplies for victims of Katrina. He, in turn, will be passing them to another person, who has a box trailer which she is going to fill up with supplies and drive down to the Gulf Coast area. Susan and I packed up two boxes and a baby bag full of baby clothes, diapers, formula, bottled water, bottles, nipples, and other baby necessities. We can only hope that these things can help in some small way. We’re also going to make a cash donation to relief efforts, probably through a local television station that’s doing a joint Red Cross/Salvation Army collection. And as soon as I can, I’m going to donate blood.
Here in Metro Atlanta, the worst we’ve seen are short-term gasoline shortages, skyrocketing gasoline prices, and reports of people trying to steal gasoline from cars in parking lots. My mom says that there’s no gasoline to be found in the Gulf Shores area right now, and that grocery stores are starting to run low on a lot of staple items. In New Orleans, the Mississippi coast, and the surrounding areas, things are much, much, worse.
The last time that this country suffered a major disaster, people pulled together, unified. But in this emergency, we’re horrified to hear reports of looting, car-jackings, shots fired at rescue helicopters (!?!), and worse. How is it that some people in the midst of such a situation become nothing more than animals? No, worse than animals. I don’t know what to say. I try not to think about that aspect of things, and concentrate instead on the efforts of those who are trying to make things better. If you haven’t already done something to help, do so. Even a small donation to relief efforts will do some good.
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I live in Birmingham alabama and also have a condo in mobile AL. The entire area down there is in dire need of any supplies they can get. In case you haven’t found it yet, this guy is blogging from ground zero of New Orleans: http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/.
“Animals” isn’t even close. It shames me to think Americans would act like this towards others in the exact same situation they are in. My family and I said an extra long prayer as we sat down to a nice, hot meal last night and I cried thinking what I would be doing if it were my family in that hopeless mess…
It’s pretty crazy, Dougal. One of my co-workers has no idea about where his mother, sister, or sister’s family are in or around Biloxi. He’s going to drive down in the morning, but the MHP are turning folks with out-of-state plates back. If I still had a Mississippi tag, I’d take him down there.
It’ll be weeks before we even have a full sense of the devastation, and months before we turn a corner on returning towards normalcy.
I hope and pray that you’ll hear from your family soon, Dougal.
Thanks, Geof.
My mom was going to call the Red Cross and see if they could help us locate anyone. Glad to hear that your family was okay.
When you are treated like an an animal, many times you are reduced to acting like an animal… TO SURVIVE. If you’re diabetic, and you have a young infant who is dying of starvation and dehydration, at what point do you toss out your noble ideals and maybe loot a shop, or hijack a car in order to get to some help?
I was in the May 11, 1970 Lubbock tornado. The devestation began 2 houses from mine and continued for miles. I was fine, my wife was fine, but many people were killed and injured. Still, I couldn’t fathom what had happened, and tried to go to work. A national guard guy stopped me, after having driven miles over bricks and rubble. “Where are you going?” he asked. “To work,” I replied. “There’s no work.” said the guard.
I looked out over the flat desolation and realized, even the building I worked in was gone.
It makes you crazy when everything you know is gone. The Katrina disaster is 1000 times worse than that tornado. I know people are acting insane. Death and misery abound.
There is nothing so horrible that it cannot be made worse.
The telephone system around Central Mississippi is pretty much afu. I have my Dad in Jackson, as well as a step-brother and my step-dad is in west-central Alabama. Haven’t been able to get a phone call to any of them. Got an email from my Dad though. Go figure.
“When you are treated like an an animal, many times you are reduced to acting like an animal… TO SURVIVE. If you’re diabetic, and you have a young infant who is dying of starvation and dehydration, at what point do you toss out your noble ideals and maybe loot a shop, or hijack a car in order to get to some help?”
None of that really explains why women where raped… people robbed… attacked, shot at, even killed.
Yes, if it happened to me, I’d break into a store for food. But I really can’t see that I’d rape a woman just because of the situation. The people that did that are no more than scum and you CAN’T defend that behavior under any circumstances.
It’s called mob mentality. A sort of group temporary insanity.
We studied the subject a bit in college and it’s one of the reasons seemingly normal/law abiding people will go crazy, loot, steal, and yes, even harm other people. I’m not saying it’s right, and that it happens in every situation…but usually needs to fan the flames.
I’m just focusing my prayers on everyone returning to some level of normalcy and rebuilding their lives.
Dougal, I hope you get word from your family soon so you will know they are all safe…if it had been my family up there…I shudder to think.
Many families or friends are seperated in this disaster. There is a new public free service that is accessable by toll free 877-help-kat;
It is very simple to use. A family member (brother) calls into that number then enters his regular phone number (as search key). For example, the family home number is 504-111-2222. Then, brother can leave his current phone number (say 662-333-4444 of a temporary shelter) and his birth-date (1201, Dec 1th) to identify himself to other members. Later, if Sister calls in and enters 504-111-2222, the system will announce the existing entry that would also allow her to connect to his phone automatically. It is a free public service. Please spread the words so evacuees can use them to register and find their loved ones.
Your analogy between 9/11 and Katrina would be more fitting if conditions in New York City had continued to deteriorate for several days after the attack - perhaps as a result of more attacks or nearby buildings crumbling on top of people, and if the government’s response had come several days later instead of several hours.
Looting did occur in NYC. People shoot each other and law enforcement on a regular basis in NYC. The difference between 9/11 and Katrina is that the people of New Orleans are _just now_ beginning to see a glimmer of hope, whereas the people of NYC had that a mere half-day after the attacks.
That said, I don’t support the behavior of people who are shooting and looting, but I can understand the mentality that leads to it: hopelessness and fear, and then some attempt to survive through wielding power.
I hope all of your family turns out fine, by the way.
Jacob, your contrast of 9/11 v Katrina can be made to cut both ways.
“Government response” in the case of NYC wasn’t held up be the absence of roads or bridges. First responders from surrounding areas could simply hop on their trucks or other rescue vehicles, and drive to the affected area (which was very limited in scope).
In the case of Katrina, first responders from surrounding areas are also part of the devastated area. The “cone of destruction” from a Category 4/5 hurricane is hundreds of miles wide, and hundreds of miles long. Since there are no surviving (functionally) local first responders, it takes time to marshall an out-of-state, or federal response. Nobody ever accused the federal government of being nimble.
Cries denouncing the Feds are misplaced, and harmful to the greater cause. Mistakes have been made, and they will continue. Such is the magnitutde of the problem. Accussations of deliberate neglect? Ridiculous.
Lastly, stealing food and water, or other basic necessities is not looting. Stealing flat-panel TVs is… There’s a difference, and everyone that isn’t wearing their racial blinders recognizes this.
So … nothing like having folks turn your comment space as a place to rehash Meet The Press and talk radio, Dougal. Me, I think I’ll stick with my P-list status rather than your spot on the B-list.
Heard anything from the fam? I got to spend a good half-hour getting to know some of my very extended family yesterday, finding out that even more of my Mississippi family came out okay. [How extended? Try my dad's first cousin's husband's niece. Two marriages in between the two of us, but we actually are out of the same generation ... even if she does have kids my age.]
Yeah, I’m glad I refrained from making some of my own political observations here when I first posted. I started to say something about how I didn’t like all the finger-pointing, and people trying to blame the federal government (The city and state goverment are far more to blame for the chaos, IMHO), but I edited that out before I posted. I knew that the topic would draw too much fire, and I wanted to concentrate on the plight of the people still there, and the positive efforts being made to assist them.
I think there were two major problems that made this situation worse than it had to be: 1) There wasn’t an evacuation plan to handle the people who were unable to evactuate on their own (due to lack of transportation, money, or whatever). The local government should have already had plans in place to get as many of those people out of there as possible. 2) The near-total failure of the communications systems, especially for the emergency personnel themselves. I’ve heard time and time again that the emergency personnel (police, firemen, doctors, etc) lost communications with the outside world and with each other. Why don’t they have better communication? Ham radios have quite a reach, they should have had access to some. I think that the communications problems led to a lack of clear leadership, which in turn led to some of the lawlessness.
About our robbing, looting and raping in our Ole New Orleans. On a regular Thursday night we have 4 murders. We have so many robberies and rapes, we are not even fazed by that behavior. Shooting at military helicopters though is a new one on us.
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