Jayrtfm's directory

Links

• INTERVIEW: One expert's opinion on why the levees failed. - You think New Orleans is bad? It's a cakewalk compared to what's going to happen if/when the New Madrid shakes things up again. There are no building codes. Every levee on the Mississippi from Missouri to Baton Rouge is going to liquify, and you can mark my words... a hundred years ago, with the last big quake, the Mississippi River ran backward for three days because of it.
• Airboaters stalled by FEMA - OrlandoSentinel.com: - up to 500 Florida airboat pilots have volunteered to rescue Hurricane Katrina victims, transport relief workers and ferry supplies Federal Emergency Management Agency will not authorize the airboaters to enter New Orleans \n \n
• DomeBlog - DomeBlog
• just returned from New Orleans on a hurricane relief mission in the C-130 - From every direction and in about 15 to 45 second intervals, helicopter after \nhelicopter continued to land right next to us. It was a mix of Army Blackhawks, Coast Guard helicopters as well as Marine and Army. They \nwere joined by what must have been 15 "Flight for Life" helicopters from \nhospitals all around the Southeast. I saw Miami, Arkansas, and many other names painted on the sides. This was not normal operations. These pilots were practically landing and taxing on top of each other. They came in fully loaded with sick personnel. Many right from the rooftops. One New Orleans Airport fireman took on the duty of aircraft marshaller and marshaled in choppers left and right. The helos would unload and then take right back off. It was not uncommon for a helicopter to be on the ground less than two to three minutes and then blast back off. We were basically parked in the triage area.
• S.F. man recounts chaos in the Dome - Alone, the New Mexico team -- and one doctor from New Orleans -- set up a full-scale acute medical-care clinic by 11 a.m. in the basketball and hockey arena, which is connected to the Superdome by a causeway. The sick and injured from the Superdome came to them. Some had head injuries. Some had gunshot wounds. Some had cuts on their bodies from walking through the water-filled streets. Some had gone cold turkey off their medications. \nIn the space of 40 hours, the staff treated 800 to 1,000 patients. Hesch said he sutured wounds under the light of his headlamp.

Alphabetical

• Current Chaos Manor mail - Following is from my oldest son Alex in response to correspondence on how the response to the Gulf of Mexico crisis response was not well handled:
• DDT Opposition Prolongs African Malaria, Misery, Death - Commentary: Activist DDT Opposition Prolongs African Malaria, Misery, Death - The Post Chronicle
• INTERVIEW: One expert's opinion on why the levees failed. - You think New Orleans is bad? It's a cakewalk compared to what's going to happen if/when the New Madrid shakes things up again. There are no building codes. Every levee on the Mississippi from Missouri to Baton Rouge is going to liquify, and you can mark my words... a hundred years ago, with the last big quake, the Mississippi River ran backward for three days because of it.
• just returned from New Orleans on a hurricane relief mission in the C-130 - From every direction and in about 15 to 45 second intervals, helicopter after \nhelicopter continued to land right next to us. It was a mix of Army Blackhawks, Coast Guard helicopters as well as Marine and Army. They \nwere joined by what must have been 15 "Flight for Life" helicopters from \nhospitals all around the Southeast. I saw Miami, Arkansas, and many other names painted on the sides. This was not normal operations. These pilots were practically landing and taxing on top of each other. They came in fully loaded with sick personnel. Many right from the rooftops. One New Orleans Airport fireman took on the duty of aircraft marshaller and marshaled in choppers left and right. The helos would unload and then take right back off. It was not uncommon for a helicopter to be on the ground less than two to three minutes and then blast back off. We were basically parked in the triage area.
• major hurricane strikes New York City - evacuation of 900,000 New Yorkers whose homes are in the path of catastrophic flooding in the event of a category-4 hurricane. They will provide shelter for nearly a quarter million. And while the storm is still far enough away that it could drift off course and miss New York City completely, a full evacuation may take up to 18 hours.
• S.F. man recounts chaos in the Dome - Alone, the New Mexico team -- and one doctor from New Orleans -- set up a full-scale acute medical-care clinic by 11 a.m. in the basketball and hockey arena, which is connected to the Superdome by a causeway. The sick and injured from the Superdome came to them. Some had head injuries. Some had gunshot wounds. Some had cuts on their bodies from walking through the water-filled streets. Some had gone cold turkey off their medications. \nIn the space of 40 hours, the staff treated 800 to 1,000 patients. Hesch said he sutured wounds under the light of his headlamp.
• 'Sacked and accused of abuse - all because I smacked my son at home': Nurse who lost appeal for unfair dismissal | Mail Online - 'Sacked and accused of abuse - all because I smacked my son at home': Nurse who lost appeal for unfair dismissal | Mail Online
• 17th Street Canal levee was doomed - 17th Street Canal levee was doomed
• A nurse with a little bit of attitude - Hurricane Katrina update #3 - One night, the generator died in the front building. They had to hand bag (Ambu bag) the ventilator patients. Everyone took turns. Patients starting dying. Our trach patient wasn't doing too hot either, but we couldn't move them to ICU (because it was a floor down--the patient was bedbound and there was no generator for venilator use). The doc came in and made him a DNR--"due to emergency conditions, patient's condition deteriorating. DNR." Later the next day, the manpower basically ran out and the docs in ICU decided to put t-pieces on the intubated patients (so if they could breathe on their own, they could. we stopped bagging). We lost 4, I believe.
• Aaron's Room :: Editorials :: A Volunteer's View - really good account of a computer geek helping out the red cross
• Aerial survey of Katrina damage | MetaFilter - I saw: Canal Street flooded six feet deep. Stores had been looted already. Homes were flooded right up to the top of the ground floor, but otherwise untouched. Apparently there are still a lot of people in there. Nobody's in charge in the beginning; the official organizations don't get there until later. At first, everyone's looking for someone to tell them what to do, and initiative is everything. \n
• Airboaters stalled by FEMA - OrlandoSentinel.com: - up to 500 Florida airboat pilots have volunteered to rescue Hurricane Katrina victims, transport relief workers and ferry supplies Federal Emergency Management Agency will not authorize the airboaters to enter New Orleans \n \n
• Another Katrina Myth - the "Homeland Security" forces who, according to the Red Cross, turned away a shipment of food and water intended for News Orleans evacuees were employees of a Louisiana state agency, ultimately under the control of Governor Kathleen Blanco (D). \nThere may be valid reasons to criticize USDHS, but this isn't one of them.
• Asimov's Message Board - Military Education Thread Number One - It is an eight wheeled vehicle that looks like a moon buggy, automatic trans, all terrain capable and it is capable of operating in flooded areas. Almost every unit in the Army National Guard at the battalion level should have at least one, artillery units would have more \nConvoy regulations. Got any questions? Ask. If I can't answer them, I got a retired MP with me who can. \n.
• Breast-flashing video proceeds donated to Katrina victims - Yahoo! News - "Girls Gone Wild" will donate to the Red Cross the online purchase prices of each title or package set "that has anything to do with Mardi Gras," including "the very popular 'Girls Gone Wild Doggy Style'," with rapper Snoop Dogg, Horn said. \nNearly a third of the company's 19 titles are linked to Mardi Gras, Horn said.
• Brendan Loy's homepage - null
• Bush administration promises speedier response to national disasters - The Poor Man Institute
• C-SPAN.org:Douglas Brinkley - Douglas Brinkley, Professor of History at Tulane University, discusses Hurricane Katrina in a historical context by looking at disasters that other Presidents have had to deal with and recover from.
• Cryptome - null
• David Baldwin's Trauma Information, Page 5 - Here, you'll find mental health handouts as well as links to external disaster web sites, disaster mental health guides, and other informative materials useful in assisting disaster victims
• Defense Tech: Why Katrina Matters - This is about all of our safety. Katrina, and the response to Katrina, has become a national security issue
• DenverPost.com - Diane Carman - On Aug. 30, rescuers picked him up in a boat and deposited him on an interstate. From there he rode in a truck to the New Orleans Convention Center, where he watched his friend, a diabetic, die for lack of food, water and insulin.
• DIY Disaster Relief - Los Angeles CityBeat - DIY Disaster Relief - Los Angeles CityBeat
• DomeBlog - DomeBlog
• Dr. Goodheart - Dr. Goodheart
• Eject! Eject! Eject!: TRIBES - This is about tribes, all right: not black and white tribes, but rather a battle between the capable and the culpable.
• Emergency Kits - Jump kits (Go bags). \nYou put 'em by the door for when you have to rock'n'roll
• FEMA City - FEMA City, a dusty, baking, treeless collection of almost 500 trailers that was set up by the federal emergency agency last fall to house more than 1,500 people made homeless by Hurricane Charley, one of the most destructive storms in recent Florida history. The free shelter was welcomed by thankful survivors back then; almost a year later, most are still there -- angry, frustrated, depressed and increasingly desperate. \n"FEMA City is now a socioeconomic time bomb just waiting to blow up," said Bob Hebert, director of recovery for Charlotte County, where most FEMA City residents used to live.
• FEMA: Hurricane Pam Exercise Concludes - Release Date: July 23, 2004 \nRelease number: R6-04-093 \nBATON ROUGE, La. -- Hurricane Pam brought sustained winds of 120 mph, up to 20 inches of rain in parts of southeast Louisiana and storm surge that topped levees in the New Orleans area. More than one million residents evacuated and Hurricane Pam destroyed 500,000-600,000 buildings. Emergency officials from 50 parish, state, federal and volunteer organizations faced this scenario during a five-day exercise held this week at the State Emergency Operations Center in Baton Rouge.
• Finestkind Clinic and fish market: Tired of CNN ? Blogs have a braoder picture of disaster - good links to under reported stories
• Forma Line: The twin demons of Forethought and Planning - Last summer, I was working in the Salt Lake City office of a consulting firm based in Baton Rouge. This firm specializes in emergency management and they do a good amount of Homeland Security and FEMA work. In the case of the "Catastrophic Hurricane" exercise, they produced some of the maps involved in the scenario, among other responsibilities. \nI work with spatial data. I have some training and education in Geographic Information Systems and I have had a good amount of experience with cartography. \n...last summer .... I was brought in to help finish the remainder of the work.
• From the Office of the Parish President - These were taken on Tuesday August 30, 2005.
• Gateway Pundit: More Hurricane Katrina: Folklore vs. Fact - Gateway Pundit: More Hurricane Katrina: Folklore vs. Fact
• GulfSails - Dad returned from Sam's with a brand spanking new $600 McCulloch FG5700AK Generator. \n \nWe truly appreciate that five days into surviving the aftermath of Katrina the fuel line ruptured leaking gasoline straight onto the very hot engine... we're lucky the entire damn house didn't burn down. \n \nAfter some handy repairing and running well for another day, all electric output CEASED. Oh and yeah we did everything possible regarding the fuses.
• helen99: Before today I had no idea who the mayor - Trust me when I say Nagin is right and ops there are a complete and utter clusterfuck. \nI have been listening to streaming feeds of police/National Guard scanners and ham radio nets since the disaster (very often you get news there that isn't reported widely). \nFEMA is not letting groups in that aren't on their preferred contractor list, even turning away a Florida group with *500 floatboats* that could have been used in rescue ops. They have turned away people with buses who are willing to drive them et al.
• Hurricane Katrina - Our Experiences - Bradshaw and Slonsky are paramedics frorm California that were attending the EMS conference in New Orleans
• Hurricane Relief: Press Access Strange at Astrodome - Gizmodo - She asked the FEMA employee if I was up there helping with the computers, and he said he didn
• Interdictor News Community - interdictornews has been set up to try and catch some of the comments that are not really comments to the post, but rather news/links/requests for aid/etc. The purpose of this is to make all these comments less confusing, and less redundant.
• interdictor: Cluster F. - I am a 65 yr. old, white, republican, male, pissed taxpayer.
• interdictor: Heading to the Roof -user comment - Where was Nagins plan that FEMA could work from to start with? After all he is the Nayor and running the city and disaster planning were his job.
• interdictor: Last Night - Sometime around midnight, a squad of 82nd Airborne guys accompanied by a US Marshall busted into our Data Center with their M4-A1s to investigate the lights and movement.
• interdictor: Phones for City - If there is one thing Gov. Bush has a done really well is getting Florida ready for the worst nature can throw at it. I think it's because he saw first hand how powerful Hurricane Andrew was.
• Jabbor Gibson - eighteen-year-old Jabbor Gibson stole a bus in New Orleans. He didn't take his buds for a joy ride. He didn't raid the local Walmart and pack it with merchandise. He loaded it with a hundred stranded, homeless, desperate people and drove them to a shelter in Houston Texas, a seven-hour trip.
• JunkYardBlog: -southeast Louisiana evac plan supplement - Here's the southeast Louisiana evac plan supplement, most recently revised in 2000. Go to page 13, read paragraph 5. It states: \n5. The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles. School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating. \n \nWell, well. Can you say "smoking gun," Mr. Mayor? Mr. Ebbert? How about a smoking arsenal? I guess whether or not you decide to act is based on how you define "school and municipal buses" and "staging area." Or "hurricane." Or "mandatory," as in "mandatory evacuation."
• Katrina PeopleFinder Project - seeks to create a single database combining as many sources as possible from all over the web without interrupting existing momentum. \n
• KUTV: Utah Can’t Get Through Katrina Bureaucracy - Not only does Utah not have permission to take evacuees, but no one in Utah officials have been unable to find anyone to ask for permission to get evacuees.
• Magic Marker Strategy - New York Times - the Virginia rescue workers go door to door. If people resist the plea to leave, Mr. Judkins told The Daily Press in Newport News, rescue workers give them Magic Markers and ask them to write their Social Security numbers on their body parts so they can be identified.
• Making Light: Wheel, Re-invention of - Well, what with this and that, some clever buggers came up with the Incident Command System as an answer. Like Herman Wouk once described the US Navy: A system designed by geniuses to be operated by idiots. ICS allows multiple agencies over multiple jurisdictions to work together and actually accomplish something useful.
• Mayor Nagin’s “Kate Hale” moment - Disclosure: I
• Michelle Malkin: MICHAEL BROWN SPEAKS - Blanco and New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin performed poorly. But let's face it: FEMA's performance under Brown was a joke. Just read Brown's own words in today's New York Times.
• Mississippi evacuees board cruise ship turned shelter - The Federal Emergency Management Agency leased the 1,452-passenger Holiday and two other vessels from Miami-based Carnival Cruise Lines for six months for $192 million
• Mostly Cajun » Katrina - random thoughts - Mostly Cajun, All American and Opinionated » Blog Archive » Katrina - random thoughts
• Mr. Bill tapped to help save La. swamps - NEW ORLEANS
• nbc4.com - News - Relief Convoy From Loudoun Sheriff Ordered To Turn Around - A caravan of Loudoun County sheriff's deputies, loaded with supplies and volunteers willing to assist police in Louisiana in maintaining order, never made it out of Virginia after the sheriff said bureaucratic delays forced it to turn around early Friday.
• new mexico - The Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT) was deployed on Sunday and has been providing medical treatment to patients at the Superdome in New Orleans. DMAT is a 35 member team of volunteer medical professionals, doctors, nurses and others, who help local hospitals and medical personnel in the affected disaster areas. \n
• New Orleans and AstroDome audio and video feed listing - New Orleans and AstroDome audio and video feed listing
• New York Daily News - Home - Errol Louis: The ugly truth - Ten billion dollars are about to pass into the sticky hands of politicians in the No. 1 and No. 3 most corrupt states in America. Worried about looting? You ain't seen nothing yet
• News from Agape Press
• Nitro-Pak.com - Preparedness Gear - Unlike most "virtual" companies, we have over 80,000 products in stock. Nitro-Pak offers the most affordable and complete selection of emergency preparedness gear and food storage products on the planet. We've been here for 18 years and counting!
• No plan ever made to help New Orleans' most vulnerable | ajc.com - in that article National Geographic predicted with eerie accuracy that more than a million people would evacuate, but some 200,000 would remain, including "the carless, the homeless, the aged and infirm." \nThe New Orleans Times-Picayune ran its own series in 2002
• Operation Flashlight - another blog
• OpinionJournal - Wonder Land - We fail to use well what we know because we rely too much on large public bureaucracies. This was the primary lesson of the 9/11 Commission Report. Large public bureaucracies, whether the FBI and the CIA or FEMA and the Corps of Engineers, don't talk to each other much. They are poorly incentivized, if at all. Budgets, the oxygen of the acronymic planets, make bureaucracy's managers first responders to constant political whim.
• Physician who told Cheney to go F*ck Himself - Dr. Ben Marble, a young emergency room physician who plays in alternative rock bands and does art on the side, needs our help. Since he was the one who told Dick Cheney to "go fuck yourself" on Sept. 8, that's the least we can do.
• pumps - Decrepit Old Fool
• Real Stories of Hurricane Katrina - web md
• Rescuers empty squalid refuges in New Orleans - NBC's Michelle Hofland, reporting from the convention center, said she approached National Guardsmen about an elderly man who was trying to reach his daughter across a barrier because she had his diabetes medicine. When Hofland returned to talk to the man, he had passed away. \nThree babies died at the convention center from heat exhaustion, said Mark Kyle, a medical relief provider
• Richard Walden: How Much Is Too Much? | The Huffington Post - ...giving to Red Cross would be fine if the Red Cross were paying for the cost of the 80,000 people they are expertly sheltering in 240 designated shelter sites; but FEMA and the 4 affected state governments (including Texas which will shelter up to 75,000 people) are reimbursing the Red Cross under pre-existing contracts for emergency shelter and other related services. \n...If they take care of 80,000 people as they are at present, that works out to between $12,500-$25,000 per victim.
• RSOE HAVARIA Emergency and Information Service - RSOE HAVARIA Emergency and Information Service
• TCS: Tech Central Station - Where Free Markets Meet Technology - null
• The Blog | Richard Walden: The Red Cross Coming Home to Roost: Remember 9/11, Anyone? | The Huffington Post - Americans have a short and forgiving historical memory. Most can remember last year's Super Bowl champs and World Series winners, but few seem able to remember a $1 billion scandal involving the American Red Cross following 9/11, America's most disastrous terrorist or military attack on its homeland. \n
• THE FULMINATER: Politics served up with a smile And a stilletto. - I can
• The Interdictor - This journal has become the Survival of New Orleans blog. In less perilous times it was simply a blog for me to talk smack and chat with friends. Now this journal exists to share firsthand experience of the disaster and its aftermath with anyone interested.
• The Interdictor - The Interdictor
• The latest report from from Ian at Entergy - We had dinner tonight with some cops from NOPD. They had some interesting things to share. First of all, Blanco has no fans down here right now.
• The Un-Missing National Guard - No less a personage than the exquisitely coiffed Howard Fineman baldly carries the water for the Left: \nNational Guard officials insist that they have enough men and women on hand to do the job, but common sense tells you that they could use the others stationed abroad. \nActually common sense tells you nothing of the kind. \nRead on.
• Think Progress $7.74 - Let
• TPMCafe || CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE AND KATRINA? - the Administration ignored it's own plan for dealing with a threat like Katrina.
• TPMCafe || Dr. Phil and Loathing - There he was turning a horrible nightmare into DRAMA for his show.
• TWT Forums - New Orleans- The Big Nasty - first hand report by an emt worker
• U.S. Army Survival Manual FM 21-76 - null
• Varifrank: What If? - can't improve on this paragraph from the NY Times, so I wont: \n \n \n"Can you imagine how it would have been perceived if a President of the United States of one party had pre-emptively taken from the female governor of another party the command and control of her forces, unless the security situation made it completely clear that she was unable to effectively execute her command authority and that lawlessness was the inevitable result?" \n \n \nThis article from the New York Times is titled "Political Issues Snarled Plans for Troop Aid". It doesnt jump out and say so, but those "political issues" are the very constitution that we all hold dear.
• Weather Underground: Katrina: an unnatural disaster - Its not just the current administration--every elected government since the days of Eisenhower has failed us. As I've outlined above, the problem is not likely to go away until the amount of money a candidate raises is no longer the primary factor determining who gets elected. Our elected officials won't care for the poor, as long as it is the rich who determine who get elected. \n \nWhat can we do to help prevent such a disaster from recurring? Well, I encourage all of you to support election reform initiatives such as public campaign financing and Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) over the coming years.
• Whatever: Being Poor - null
• When the New Orleans Democrats want to move people they do it - We found it, though, in the New Orleans Times Picayune of November 9th, 1996, and basically what happened there was that Mary Landrieu was trailing badly in her race with Woody Jenkins for the Senate, and they found out that the inner city of New Orleans had not voted something to the tune of 186,000 people. They pulled out all the stops.
• where's my wife? on Flickr - Photo Sharing! - will sent his wife and kids ahead of him before katrina made it to new orleans. he was going to stay behind and protect their house from damage and looters. when he did not hear from his wife on the third day he feared the worst and left new orleans for baton rouge. he made it to the shelter and was helped in his search for his family by the police and other officials. he finally found her ... in indiana. turns out that she wanted to leave him and figured the storm was as good a time as any.
• Whiskey Bar: The Potemkin President - Of course, calling Bush the Potemkin president is in fact a gross insult to the genuine article -- Prince Grigory Potemkin, the man who allegedly had fake villages constructed on the shores of the Dnieper River in order to impress the Czarina Catherine during an official inspection tour.
• WSJ.com - Blame Amid the Tragedy - ...As a former state legislator who represented the legislative district most impacted by the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980.... what isn't fair is to dump on the federal officials and avoid those most responsible -- local and state officials who failed to do their job as the first responders. The plain fact is, lives were needlessly lost in New Orleans due to the failure of Louisiana's governor, Kathleen Blanco, and the city's mayor, Ray Nagin. \n \n \nThe primary responsibility for dealing with emergencies does not belong to the federal government. It belongs to local and state officials who are charged by law with the management of the crucial first response to disasters.
• WSJ.com - Crisis News Tracker - null
• WWLTV.com | News for New Orleans, Louisiana | Local News - null
• [IP] A Bit of Political & Economic Reality - The problem is the US is full of dozens if not hundreds of such "0.5%" events. Each one, if it happened, would be a monumental loss; each one, taken separately, has a favorable ROI if that event happened.
• [IP] FEMA mail server lacks MX record, bounced mail during emergency - null
• [IP] Hurricane Katrina Analysis - CFR Global Health Program - Laurie Garrett is back, with remarks of even more intense interest to Viridian readers. Especially if you live anywhere within mosquito range of the NOLA eco-disaster zone. \nThe pull quote to remember, above all: "If government cannot inform, there is no government."
• [IP] more on - Let's see...1953...more than 1,800 Dutch citizens die when a massive storm hits The Netherlands. They respond by completing the Deltawerk in about ten years. Do we build a levee system around New Orleans that will protect the city against a Category 5 hurricane? We didn't then, and 52 years later the answer remains no.