Katrina's aftermath

My wife's supervisor's mother died when the power went out. She had been on life support.

One of the rumors about the looting in downtown Baton Rouge by evacuees was acknowledged by another source, but it's not THAT big of a deal. I still don't get the impression that anyone was hurt.

As far as I can tell, every effort was made to tell people what the situation was and how they could hopefully get to safety. I'm not sure what on earth could have been done differently or why we're having this discussion at all. Call me nuts, but I don't see 99% of the people having stayed, given past history in every other storm ever, to have done so because they were either entirely ignorant of conditions or were incapable of leaving. The fact that New Orleans was able to get as many people evacuated as they did in the time frame that they had is a testament to a hell of a job.

That's too bad. They could use the labor building the proposed Astrodome theme park / luxury hotel:

http://images.chron.com/content/news/photos/05/08/18/astrodome.jpg

Of course, its more realistic to imagine that virtually everyone who stayed (about a quarter of the population) is too poor to afford a vehicle and too socially inept to have any contact with family or friends in the area who could transport them out. But please, go on and mock actual facts over wild speculation, because god knows its the more sensible thing to do.

10 pounds! that's a lot of shrimp.

http://us.news3.yimg.com/us.i2.yimg.com/p/nm/20050901/2005_08_31t214537_450x333_us_bt_weather_katrina_poverty.jpg?x=380&y=281&sig=S3zIeRa1ctHTuHYiW3_cuA--

also, i hope all the boater guys who're helping out have enough gasoline

I'm sorry. I should just blame the Louisiana government for not being able to get everyone out in time and keeping everyone stupid, because that was clearly their intention. I'll buy that 60% of that remaining 300,000 were there because they were too poor to get out, but no more than that.

the bad news: they lost everything.

"work"

Your saying it makes it fact, Al. Thanks.

And others: god stop bickering over semantics, go to the Red Cross website/hotline and GIVE MONEY AND GOODS, NOW.

Picture galleries of my wife's hometown, Hattiesburg MS:

http://hattiesburgamerican.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=HURRICANE

Unbelievable.

*insert "water hazard" joke here*

Gave money to Red Cross tonight, planning to give more as soon as I can.

According to the 1999 census, the economic makeup of the city was pretty damn bleak:

INCOME IN 1999
Total Households: 188,365
Less than $10,000 - 39,617, 21.0% of total
$10,000 to $14,999 - 17,991, 9.6%
$15,000 to $24,999 - 29,760, 15.8%

23% of Total Families (nuclear, out of 27,000 total) below poverty
43% of Families (single mother, out of 20,000 total) below povery

SELECTED CHARACTERISTICS
Lacking complete plumbing facilities - 1,856, 1.0%
Lacking complete kitchen facilities - 1,900, 1.0%
No telephone service - 8,292 4.4%

Also, in that year 27+% of households didn't own a car

If you want to believe that every single poor person in the city of New Orleans couldn't get out because they lacked the means to, plus about 10-15% over the poverty line, that's fine with me. Believe whatever you'd like.

That's a fantastic strawman to come up with and throw at me.

Of course not. Probably a good percentage were though. Probably near half. I'm not stupid. I saw the people lining up into the Superdome just like everyone else.

https://www.redcross.org/donate/donation-form.asp

is it a good or bad thing that you now have to specify where ALL the money has to go? I mean, yeah, they got shit for suspected shenanigans with donations 4 years ago, but at some point, they do need to come up with funds for infrastructure(walkie talkies, envelopes, gasoline, bandwidth costs, etc)

Could have foo--- nevermind.

A) Other people have automobiles. Rich white people weren't the only people driving out of the city, for god sakes. Its statisically impossible unless you believe significantly more than the estimated 300-400,000 are left are currently in New Orleans. There were also various forms of transportation bringing people both outside the city and within the city to "shelters of last resort", such as the Superdome. Its not like its some concealed fact.

Tell you what: You look at the figures, and you give me a rough idea of how many people you think stayed, and how many of those people chose to do so versus those who were forced to. We've got a ton of information at hand here, so let's see you give it a shot. I'm sure you'd rather just criticize, however, and offer no realistic alternative, other than "you're an idiot" and "you're a dumb italian", which is basically all you've done.

(In picking a charity, its smart to send cash (its spent much faster than a check) and to designate what the cash is for. charities do use events like this to take portions of donations and put portions away for future events, so this pretty much guarantees its use for what you want)

I'm betting 7-8%.

-- Alan Conceicao (deadandrestles...), September 1st, 2005.

Also, in that year 27+% of households didn't own a car

-- my name is john. i reside in chicago. (econjoh...), September 1st, 2005.

Alan, your initial theory was obviously based on a gross misunderstanding of the level of poverty in New Orleans, as shown here. Yet after a few people have corrected you, you persist in that same false reading of the situation based on the same false assumptions. Who's foolish?

how many of that number are

-too young to drive
-handicapped in some way that impairs them from driving (e.g. blindness)
-have had their licenses revoked because of traffic violations or unpaid parking tickets
-have nonworking or faulty cars that wouldn't survive an evacuation

xpost

haha new orleans only HAS a population of half a million!

does louisiana law prohibit the elderly from driving if they're of sound mind and have good vision and can reach the pedal and stuff?

absolute anarchy and lots of people of color doing "illegal" things.

what, exactly, is meant by this?

Honestly now: do you believe that New Orleans is so poor that 10-20% of its citizens are completely incapable of transporting themselves or finding transportation from others out of the city? That they're so completely impoverished, that they only have access to their local neighborhood?

to quote from the Clarion Herald, the official newspaper of the New Orleans Diocese (Catholic):

“According to a survey by the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center, the median household income for Orleans Parish residents in the year 2000 was $27,133, compared to $32,566 for Louisiana residents and $41,994 for the U.S. population as a whole.

"The national poverty level in the United States is 12.4 percent, based on the 2000 census showing a population of 273.9 million. In Louisiana, the poverty level is 19.6 percent for the state's 4.3 million residents. In New Orleans, the poverty rate is an astounding 27.9 percent for the city's 468,453 residents.”

Pick any city in the US. Any city. Hell, what about Detroit? Its the poorest city in America, according to a poll that just got released.

wrong again, alan, it’s Cleveland.

thanks for the good thoughts people. alan, go fuck yourself.

Like I said before: If you want to believe that *everyone*, or at the very least, the overwhelming percentage of people in New Orleans that stayed did so because they had no other choice, fine. I see no reason to anticipate this being de facto given past history of other, similar disasters in North America. Even with the figures that we have from 1999. I'm sorry, it doesn't. And no matter what's said about it now, there's not much that could have been done then, and its all bellyaching at the moment because its not making a difference now. I still don't see what about the hurricane makes it similar to a dirty bomb, nor do I see any vast deficiency in the efforts of the city of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana to warn its citizens.

If 1.3 million people live in the New Orleans metro area, and approximately 1 million left (according to the mayor of New Orleans and Governor Blanco), that leaves about what?

my best to your family, stence, and everyone else as well. Thanks for checking in, badgerminor.

does louisiana law prohibit the elderly from driving if they're of sound mind and have good vision and can reach the pedal and stuff?

-- stckhlm cnd (theundergroundhom...), September 1st, 2005

I dunno, I more just meant elderly folk possibly being too feeble or scared to jump in the car and head away from town.