Hurricane Katrina aftermath - worst natural disaster in US history

[Jake]

This is a goddamn joke. Those people are so incompetent that I don't feel bad for many of them. Allow me to elaborate on my often racist, always mean, and overall evil opinions....

New Orleans sits at the mouth of the largest river delta in North America and th area is nothing more than a swamp. It sits at sea level in a region that suffers hurricans impact every 3 years on average. A MANDATORY EVACUATION ORDER WAS IN EFFECT--->IF YOU CAN UNDERSTAND ENGLISH YOU SHOULD KNOW WHAT TO DO. So even if you can't comprehend 135mph winds (which is enough to knock down many skyscrapers) you should get the idea when there are cats and dogs running away in the same direction. CNN cites the reasons for many people not leaving were: elderly people couldn't leave ( I can understand that), some didn't have cars ( figure something out but that's ALMOST excusable, not enough money for gas ARE YOU ****ING KIDDING ME????!!!!

All people stealing anything other than food should be shot in the head.

I heard India offered the US water purifying technology. What a shame.

People in front of the Superdome were living (and dying) among dead bodies <---15,000 people there and they can't organize anything.

People are still refusing to leave their homes.

A little look at the future of a region that has historically done the same thing for the last 200 years --> Give us food, build shelter for us, drive us to that house, give us wellfare cuz we can't get jobs

I absolutely HATE any human being that dies without a struggle to survive.
For a brief time I actually felt ashamed to be American.

Neither situations nor people can be altered by the interference of an outsider. If they are to be altered, that alteration must come from within.

Phyllis Bottome (Survival)

FEMA isn't a 7-Eleven, you have to wait for help to get organized. Surive until it does....or perish.

RIP all the good people.

[WorkShed]

This is a goddamn joke. Those people are so incompetent that I don't feel bad for many of them. Allow me to elaborate on my often racist, always mean, and overall evil opinions....

So don't be surprised if I have a few opinions of my own...

New Orleans sits at the mouth of the largest river delta in North America and th area is nothing more than a swamp. It sits at sea level in a region that suffers hurricans impact every 3 years on average. A MANDATORY EVACUATION ORDER WAS IN EFFECT--->IF YOU CAN UNDERSTAND ENGLISH YOU SHOULD KNOW WHAT TO DO.

Not everyone had the means to get out. Living on about $5 an hour take home really takes a hit on the old gas budget. It's not like they were giving free flights out of New Orleans or anything.

Yes, they did know that there could have been a flood like this. However, a category 5 hurricane in Louisiana is rather rare. Conditions have to be absolutely perfect for such a storm to hit the area. Which is why it hasn't happened until now.

The mandatory evacuation was only given a couple of days before the storm. Not many people can get the funds to evacuate everything that they have. Many misunderstood the disaster ahead of them. Some could have simply not known, not that it's an excuse.

So even if you can't comprehend 135mph winds (which is enough to knock down many skyscrapers)

Where's your info on this one? It takes quite a bit to knock down skyscrapers, which are anchored deep into the ground.

you should get the idea when there are cats and dogs running away in the same direction.

Again, where did you get the info on this one? The Day After Tomorrow doesn't count.

CNN cites the reasons for many people not leaving were: elderly people couldn't leave ( I can understand that), some didn't have cars ( figure something out but that's ALMOST excusable, not enough money for gas ARE YOU ****ING KIDDING ME????!!!!

Again, try living on $5 an hour AND trying to raise a family. See how much money you have to spend on an impromptu trip.

All people stealing anything other than food should be shot in the head.

You're not there, so you don't know the reasoning.

I heard India offered the US water purifying technology. What a shame.

Why?

People in front of the Superdome were living (and dying) among dead bodies <---15,000 people there and they can't organize anything.

They were starving and dying. When so many are sick and dying, it's kind of hard to get the energy to cleaning the Superdome. Let alone having the willpower to get rid of dozens of bodies amid child rapes, murders, and suicides. I guess that could make a few people a little hopeless.

People are still refusing to leave their homes.

But most are leaving.

A little look at the future of a region that has historically done the same thing for the last 200 years --> Give us food, build shelter for us, drive us to that house, give us wellfare cuz we can't get jobs

I don't think we had welfare in 1805.

I absolutely HATE any human being that dies without a struggle to survive.

Ironic, I hate human beings who feel nothing for a group of people struggling to survive.

Again, it's pretty easy to say that people are dying without struggling when you aren't even there. Volunteer and go to help. We'll see how much goddamn struggle you see, *******.

For a brief time I actually felt ashamed to be American.

No one is forcing you to stay here, you selfish bastard.

FEMA isn't a 7-Eleven, you have to wait for help to get organized.

One to two days was enough to bring SOME relief. Five days is unacceptable.

Surive until it does....or perish.

We'll see how well you'd survive.

RIP all the good people.

That's one thing that we agree on.

[Jake]

I'll try to do this in order,

I love a good discussion, even if I'm proven wrong in the end.

1) Evacuation plan: for $20 any of the Ford F150 drivers will give you a ride in the back

2) Skyscraper Info, I work on the 28th of a skyscraper which is designed to withstand sustained winds of 140 mph. In the South building codes require a building to withstand winds of only 110 mph at most. In addition structures built before 1987 don't feature much hurricane technology that is in place today. The trade center was built to take 160 mph, an absolutely absurd number for the 1970s. That means that Katrina would've seriously rocked that building. Anything tall that is left there now is there by sheer luck or extremely good structural engineering. Skyscrapers are anchored in bedrock, NO is soft soil.

3) A leading scientific therory states that animals feel meteorological warning signs. They can sense vibrations and pressure changes, so can we. Ask someone who has Arthritis, they'll often tell you when there will be a T-storm.

4) Stealing, explain to me the reasoning or something I can't understand about people stealing HDTVs? Will they use them as floating devices or follow the weather channel? I can understand food because that is a necessity but besides a few other items what can you justify as "not stealing" We had a blackout in NYC, what if I was breaking into Best Buy to get a flashlight?

5) I don't know what to say to someone who doesn't have ANY money to evacuate his family. How is that possible? How were they living in teh day before the hurricane?

6) It's a shame India is offering technology that we have. If they shipped it FedEx overnight that'd be nice. We have more money more people more everything and closer to the disaster site than anyone. Help is nice but unnecessary. But with helicopters being shot at and hospital evacuees facing sniper fire I wouldn't want to go down there.

7) Most are leaving, it took X feet of water to convince them. It will take the Cholera to convince the rest, right?

8) Why is there rape and murder there? 15000 wild cavemen at the superdome who can't organize some sort of order? I know why, it's because anyone with half a brain wasn't in a coastal marsh when a Category 5 hit.

9) Why I felt ashamed? Because we hold our heads high in this country and get to work. What will we do now? <---It's not in our spirit. You don't give up and wait for help, you get the hell up and take care of yourself. Thousands of people had 7 buildings drop on their heads in NY. They got up and started digging. I know when you're 300 lbs and there'e no Hershey bar in sight times are tough but what can I say?

10) We didn't have wellfare in 1805, we also didn't have free-loaders who collected my tax money to buy themselves stuff that I can't afford. The Govt isn't there to bail people out all the time. It's Social Darwinism. This isn't the USSR.



Like I said, majority of those people deserve help and I do hope it will work out for them BUT surviving is not sitting on your *** at the superdome crying "where's FEMA?" Surviving is that guy that took his kids into a car and drove north because he thought "I'm not gonna take ANY chances when it comes to my family"

Trust someone who has been here for a great tragedy and let me tell you, sometimes you have a small chance to do something and save your life. If you don't you might have to face 10 million square feet of space collapsing on your head.

[Kal-el]

Like I said, majority of those people deserve help and I do hope it will work out for them BUT surviving is not sitting on your *** at the superdome crying "where's FEMA?" Surviving is that guy that took his kids into a car and drove north because he thought "I'm not gonna take ANY chances when it comes to my family".

Absolutely, Jake......

[WorkShed]

I'll try to do this in order,

I love a good discussion, even if I'm proven wrong in the end.

1) Evacuation plan: for $20 any of the Ford F150 drivers will give you a ride in the back

Unsubstantiated.

2) Skyscraper Info, I work on the 28th of a skyscraper which is designed to withstand sustained winds of 140 mph. In the South building codes require a building to withstand winds of only 110 mph at most. In addition structures built before 1987 don't feature much hurricane technology that is in place today. The trade center was built to take 160 mph, an absolutely absurd number for the 1970s. That means that Katrina would've seriously rocked that building. Anything tall that is left there now is there by sheer luck or extremely good structural engineering. Skyscrapers are anchored in bedrock, NO is soft soil.

The sustained winds were around 90mph, with gusts well over 100mph.

3) A leading scientific therory states that animals feel meteorological warning signs. They can sense vibrations and pressure changes, so can we. Ask someone who has Arthritis, they'll often tell you when there will be a T-storm.

Trust me, I know about the arthritis thing. Besides, the animal-thing is only one scientific theory, but a well-founded one. The thing is, I didn't hear any reports of animals going haywire before the storm.

4) Stealing, explain to me the reasoning or something I can't understand about people stealing HDTVs? Will they use them as floating devices or follow the weather channel? I can understand food because that is a necessity but besides a few other items what can you justify as "not stealing" We had a blackout in NYC, what if I was breaking into Best Buy to get a flashlight?

I don't know why you have such a problem with the looting. Insurance won't pay unless everything is destroyed. Some owners will come back JUST to destroy their businesses.

5) I don't know what to say to someone who doesn't have ANY money to evacuate his family. How is that possible?

With unemployment as high as it is, it's pretty damn possible.

How were they living in teh day before the hurricane?

For arguments to hold any water, proper English is preferrable. I don't even know what you are trying to say here.

6) It's a shame India is offering technology that we have. If they shipped it FedEx overnight that'd be nice. We have more money more people more everything and closer to the disaster site than anyone. Help is nice but unnecessary. But with helicopters being shot at and hospital evacuees facing sniper fire I wouldn't want to go down there.

More money, more people, more everything, but thousands are dying. We need help. Having that argument that we don't need help is exactly what got so many Russians killed during Chernobyl and one of their submarine accidents.

7) Most are leaving, it took X feet of water to convince them. It will take the Cholera to convince the rest, right?

Some are stupid, yes. But A LOT are gone. You have to take those numbers into account. A thousand people out of hundreds of thousands doesn't mean much.

8) Why is there rape and murder there? 15000 wild cavemen at the superdome who can't organize some sort of order? I know why, it's because anyone with half a brain wasn't in a coastal marsh when a Category 5 hit.

Everybody is panicing. That's what I told you before. When you have no food and no water, you get desperate.

9) Why I felt ashamed? Because we hold our heads high in this country and get to work.

After five goddamn days, we get to work. Bush didn't even notice a problem until around day four.

What will we do now? <---It's not in our spirit. You don't give up and wait for help, you get the hell up and take care of yourself.

That "everyone for themselves" mentality creates choas and death.

Thousands of people had 7 buildings drop on their heads in NY. They got up and started digging.

When it was over, it was over. For the most part, they had clear weather. New Orleans is dealing with one of the greatest floods in a concentrated area that the United States has EVER seen. It's not that easy. I'm not making light of 9/11, I'm merely stating that those are two completely different events.

The death toll for the hurricane is much higher.

I know when you're 300 lbs and there'e no Hershey bar in sight times are tough but what can I say?

Again, you aren't there. These types of arguments have no point.

10) We didn't have wellfare in 1805, we also didn't have free-loaders who collected my tax money to buy themselves stuff that I can't afford. The Govt isn't there to bail people out all the time. It's Social Darwinism. This isn't the USSR.

Um, we did have taxation before those times. It's what caused the Revolutionary War.

So now you can't afford things? What about DVDs, HDTVs, automobiles, gasoline? These things are so easy to come by for you. Guess what? A lot of poor people pay taxes as well. To place them all simply into a neat little pile and stamp "freeloaders" on their heads is to dull the argument. Things are more complex than that.

Like I said, majority of those people deserve help

Sure doesn't sound like it from your standpoint. You're backtracking.

and I do hope it will work out for them BUT surviving is not sitting on your *** at the superdome crying "where's FEMA?"

We'll see what you do when people are dying all around you and the government says that help is on the way. How would you have felt if terrorists kept attacking NYC and the government never came to help?

Surviving is that guy that took his kids into a car and drove north because he thought "I'm not gonna take ANY chances when it comes to my family"

Surviving is a lot of things.

Trust someone who has been here for a great tragedy and let me tell you, sometimes you have a small chance to do something and save your life. If you don't you might have to face 10 million square feet of space collapsing on your head.

You want a medal?

[carl]

Trust someone who has been here for a great tragedy and let me tell you, sometimes you have a small chance to do something and save your life. If you don't you might have to face 10 million square feet of space collapsing on your head.

[htitos]

Sorry for most of you guys, but I have to agree with Jake on this one. This is based on my experience, I live in a small island in the Caribbean and in my life I survived 4 direct hit Hurricanes. (I even lost my house in one of them)

• Before the Storm is even form, the news track them down even weeks ahead. So there is plenty of time to prepare for it.

• If life and your family are important, you grab whatever you can and leave the area, you don't stay there to see how it happens.

• If people help each other instead of fighting each other or wait for the government to do something. Come on, DO SOMETHING!!

• And why the heck to steal electronics???? You are starving and the first thing that comes into your mind is to go in Radio Shack??

I know that not all people are like that. I know that there are good people struggling to survive and my prayers to them.

[ZUBi]

Slideshow (1 album)
Five Days with Katrina - Alvaro, 9/1/05
http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slidesho...Uy=nyvoby&Ux=1

[Jake]

OK, actually that slideshow just showed me that this whole thing has been blown out of proportion.

Everyone watch this slideshow.

This guy wasn't too smart for staying but THIS IS WHAT I MEANT ABOUT BEING RESOURCEFUL

This is me at my apartment. Scott, Kat, Jeff, and Andy (all friends) had just been informed that the situation was getting progressively worse around the city. We made a plan to leave as soon as we could. Jeff broke into his boss's sports car and asked Scott to come along. They would leave as soon as morning broke. Scott couldn't leave his girlfriend behind (Kat) and her two dogs. So it was decided that they would all ride on a two seater. We got in touch with Special Relief Forces and as many police men as we could. We were told that early morning there would be buses coming from Houston to pick people up at the Convention Center. Andy and I decided to make sure we got on one of those buses.

I don't know her name, but she works for MSNBC. My apologies for my wordage, but this wench didn't know what the hell was going on. She made up 75% of what she was saying and exaggerated about 95% of everything that she did know. The message: do you want to be a reporter? All you need to do is have a pretty face and buy a Thesaurus!


I looked around under dim light for anything. I didn't know what I was looking for, but I had to do something. In the back of the wharehouse there was a small window. Behind the window was a small office. Inside the office, there was a small box that said "truck keys". I grabbed a metal pipe, and quitely, but succesfully smashed the window. There was only one key... to truck #25. The trucks that were there, were #6 and 25. I don't remember much after I turned on the ignition. We drove towards the Westbank where we had "heard" that there was a way out. It was true. However, we had no gas and the tank was on "E". Thirty miles outside of Baton Rouge, and 45 minutes after riding on "E", we found a gas station... they didn't take cash. A man paid for our gas with his credit card and for 5 others. The next stop... Houston, Texas. I don't want to say this was all Divine Intervention... but it's not too late to start believing... - Alvaro R. Morales Villa

oh and they did take credit cards (LMAO)

[Lestat]

Wow, alot of good points here, including Jake. Although everyone appears to be against you on this one pal.

I do have a question for you:

5) I don't know what to say to someone who doesn't have ANY money to evacuate his family. How is that possible? How were they living in teh day before the hurricane?

I've heard You say in previous posts That You live in New York, as I do.
Ever go into the city and see anyone who is homeless? How are they living?

[Jake]

I've heard You say in previous posts That You live in New York, as I do.
Ever go into the city and see anyone who is homeless? How are they living?

I know, but come on we're talking about maybe a small percentage of those who stayed. According to the NY Department of Homeless Services there are 34,080 homeless in NYC. Factor in that there are over 8 million in NYC and 21 in the metropolitan area and you have about 4/10th of 1% of the population homeless. And also add the fact that we're a major city where it's much easier for homelss people to get by than elsewhere, (subway panhandling money, returning cans, etc)

So assume that it was WAY higher in new orleans, even 5% or so which is impossible but that would still put their figures at very low numbers.

redbear: I agree 110% with you, during 9/11 and the blackout crime in NYC was nearly record low. Normal decent Americans don't go robbing their neighbors during a crisis.

[Kal-el]

That slideshow was incredible....

[redbear]

Bush was indeed a very busy man while in New Orleans ....