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njmcgee
Unregistered guest
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, September 01, 2005 - 07:56 pm: | 
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As someone who lived in New Orleans for three and a half years years, it's hard seeing the city in such a state, but I will say this, people better recognize that it's open season on Black folks based on the ignorant behavior of a few. I've actually heard the FEMA director say "these people chose to stay" when some of them are so poor they had no choice. And then he had the nerve to say "Maybe next time, they'll heed the warning and leave." How dare he blame the poor and the destitute for their misfortune. And let's be real, what city really wants hundreds of thousands of Black people moving into their city? Get ready for some comments and situations that will make you want to SCREAM!! But first, pray for the people of New Orleans.
God, I hate the fact that some fools are "looting and shooting" because once again, the stupid few (i.e. ones going after shoes as opposed to food) are giving an excuse to the media and rescue workers not to help. As in buses not wanting to go into the city because of "unconfirmed reports" of shootings, rapes, etc. Now the government is using the safety issue as an excuse to their slow-ass response times (like people in the ghetto aren't use to slow response).
And then to see my people surrounded by national guard with rifles in their faces when people are dying all around them? This is madness and an opportunity. Because this is the Black peoples' Tsunami, and we are going to have to come together and help our own, because if we don't, the other people involved, such as the "sympathic FEMA director" are going to treat the people just like one man at the NOLA Convention said, "Animals!"
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Kola
Moderator
Username: Kola
Post Number: 2090
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, September 01, 2005 - 09:52 pm: |
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My heart is breaking watching this on t.v. The people have nothing.
Alligators and snakes are pouring into the city's water canals....dead bodies are floating everywhere.
I see black babies crying their heads off---no milk, no diapers, their mothers don't have any power over the situation and are scared shitless of both the Authority and the fools acting up.
You're right.
It's open season and in catastrophes like this---people's true colors show.
I am REALLY praying.
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Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 238
Registered: 07-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, September 02, 2005 - 12:32 am: |
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"It's open season and in catastrophes like this---people's true colors show."
The only people who are not surprising me are the street thugs. The government and media are unbelievable. I am not naive, but I have to admit that I'm surprised.
Tonya
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Roxie
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Roxie
Post Number: 146
Registered: 06-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, September 02, 2005 - 08:27 am: |
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New orleans, the Ghetto, Rwanda, Sudan, Haiti, Uganda, it's all the same. Nobody wants to save the pathetic negroes.
It's times like these that the african diaspora truly need unity! |
Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 682
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, September 02, 2005 - 11:52 am: |
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an excuse to the media and rescue workers not to help
There is no excuse. Not one. Do not be tricked into believing this is a valid excuse for not helping people who are being left to die in the streets like animals.
As in buses not wanting to go into the city because of "unconfirmed reports" of shootings, rapes, etc.
Again. No excuse. We are in IRAQ. WIth suicide bombers. But we cannot help in the face of danger within our own borders?
No excuses, folks. Do not make any. Do not accept any. |
Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 240
Registered: 07-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, September 02, 2005 - 12:18 pm: |
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Yvette -- trust me -- those BITCHES haven't said ANYTHING to me that's even come CLOSE to an excuse -- trust me.
Tonya |
Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 683
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, September 02, 2005 - 12:28 pm: |
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Good, Tonya. Stay in focus, everyone. Put your grief and anger to work for good. Stay well.
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Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 241
Registered: 07-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, September 02, 2005 - 12:32 pm: |
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"("unconfirmed reports" of shootings, rapes, etc.)"
Exactly, there maybe some crime, but -- trust me -- it's being exaggerated.
Even still, there should be no excuse. |
Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 242
Registered: 07-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, September 02, 2005 - 12:51 pm: |
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"Put your grief and anger to work for good."
Oh, no, I aint gonna go out and do nothing stupid or start no riot or anything
like that, but you're right -- I am mad.
Tonya
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Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 1405
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, September 02, 2005 - 01:29 pm: |
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Well, they showed what their priorities are--pulled cops off search and rescue to protect rich folks' property.
The truth comes out |
Anonymous
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, September 02, 2005 - 04:01 pm: |
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The people who were "looting" with guns and shooting people ARE THE DRUG ADDICTS!!!
It is NOT the regular thugs on the block...
It is the people who are getting desperate for drugs and they are starting to go to hospitals to try and steal drugs.
But they won't tell you that. |
Africanqueen
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Africanqueen
Post Number: 214
Registered: 02-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, September 02, 2005 - 08:42 pm: |
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Roxie: New orleans, the Ghetto, Rwanda, Sudan, Haiti, Uganda, it's all the same. Nobody wants to save the pathetic negroes.
It's times like these that the african diaspora truly need unity!
Me: You've got that shit right.. All I see when lookin at the Katrina survivers is BLACK PEOPLE.
Ain't this suppose to be America, the white man's land... yet we're the ones experiencing their invaded land's angry nature. I mean could it be that white people were smart enough to get out as soon as they heard this was going to happen? Did they get out first?
Personally, I would have rode my car out of their if I had one.. If not, I would have walked my ass out of their, bus, something... Or perhaps the people didn't know it was coming, were some of them ignoring the consequences even though the city is below sea level....
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Roxie
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Roxie
Post Number: 152
Registered: 06-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, September 03, 2005 - 10:20 am: |
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Africanqueen,
Katrina WAS predicted and , as usual, the warnings were ignored:
------------------------------------------------
Monday, August 29, 2005 - Page updated at 12:00 AM
Warnings of the "big one" ignored for many years
By MATT CRENSON
The Associated Press
When Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans today, it could turn one of America's most charming cities into a vast cesspool tainted with toxic chemicals, human waste and even coffins released by floodwaters from the city's legendary cemeteries.
Experts have warned for years that the levees and pumps that usually keep the city dry have no chance against a direct hit by a Category 5 storm.
That's exactly what Katrina was as it churned toward the city. With top winds of 160 mph and the power to lift sea level by as much as 28 feet above normal, the storm threatened an environmental disaster of biblical proportions, one that could leave more than 1 million people homeless.
"All indications are that this is absolutely worst-case scenario," Ivor van Heerden, deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, said yesterday.
The center's latest computer simulations indicate that by tomorrow, vast swaths of New Orleans could be under water up to 30 feet deep. In the French Quarter, the water could reach 20 feet, easily submerging the district's cast-iron balconies and bars.
Estimates predict that 60 percent to 80 percent of the city's houses will be destroyed by wind. With the flood damage, most of the people who live in and around New Orleans could be homeless.
"We're talking about in essence having — in the continental United States — having a refugee camp of a million people," van Heerden said.
"New Orleans is never going to be the same," National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield told The Miami Herald.
Aside from Hurricane Andrew, which struck Miami in 1992, forecasters have no experience with Category 5 hurricanes hitting densely populated areas.
"Hurricanes rarely sustain such extreme winds for much time. However we see no obvious large-scale effects to cause a substantial weakening of the system and it is expected that the hurricane will be of Category 4 or 5 intensity when it reaches the coast," National Hurricane Center meteorologist Richard Pasch said.
As they raced to put meteorological instruments in Katrina's path, wind engineers had little idea what their equipment would record.
"We haven't seen something this big since we started the program," said Kurt Gurley, a University of Florida engineering professor who works for the Florida Coastal Monitoring Program, which uses mobile weather stations to make detailed measurements of hurricane-wind conditions.
Experts have warned about New Orleans' vulnerability for years, chiefly because Louisiana has lost more than a million acres of coastal wetlands in the past seven decades. The vast patchwork of swamps and bayous south of the city serves as a buffer, partially absorbing the surge of water that a hurricane pushes ashore.
Levees won't help
Experts have also warned that the ring of high levees around New Orleans, designed to protect the city from floodwaters coming down the Mississippi, will only make things worse in a powerful hurricane. Katrina is expected to push a 28-foot storm surge against the levees. Even if they hold, water will pour over their tops and begin filling the city as if it were a sinking canoe.
After the storm passes, the water will have nowhere to go.
In a few days, van Heerden predicts, emergency-management officials are going to be wondering how to handle a giant stagnant pond contaminated with building debris, coffins, sewage and other hazardous materials.
"We're talking about an incredible environmental disaster," van Heerden said.
He puts much of the blame for New Orleans' dire situation on the very levee system that is designed to protect southern Louisiana from Mississippi River floods.
Before the levees were built, the river would top its banks during floods and wash through a maze of bayous and swamps, dropping fine-grained silt that nourished plants and kept the land just above sea level.
The levees "have literally starved our wetlands to death" by directing all of that precious silt out into the Gulf of Mexico, van Heerden said.
It has been 40 years since New Orleans faced a hurricane even comparable to Katrina. In 1965, Hurricane Betsy, a Category 3 storm, submerged some parts of the city to a depth of 7 feet.
Since then, the Big Easy has had nothing but sideswipes. In 1998, Hurricane Georges headed straight for New Orleans, then swerved at the last minute to strike Mississippi and Alabama. Hurricane Lili blew out its strength at the mouth of the Mississippi in 2002. And last year's Hurricane Ivan obligingly curved to the east as it came ashore, barely grazing a grateful city.
Louisiana historically has had weak building codes and questionable enforcement. New Orleans' housing stock is virtually all wood-framed, and often aged and dilapidated. Many structures have been weakened by a relentless exotic termite infestation.
The prevalent hurricane code in Louisiana has been what engineers consider the bare minimum — that buildings be designed to withstand 100-mph winds.
Homes are doomed
"There's a lot of older homes, most of these homes are below sea level, most of these homes are termite ridden," said Capt. Lou Robinson, a training instructor with the City of New Orleans Fire Department. "The newer homes, construction-wise, they just meet minimum requirements. You know, just for cost effectiveness, they scrimp. The roofs are manufactured with trusses or lightweight metal but they just don't hold up under extreme conditions."
Worst-case scenario? The city could lose half its homes, Robinson said.
Robinson said he doesn't expect to have a home after the storm passes. He built his home in 2000 himself to the strongest codes, but it's outside of the levee system.
"It's just not going to handle this level of wind and water," he said.
Levitan noted that a new state task force was supposed to meet for the first time this week to begin developing recommendations for strengthening Louisiana's building codes and practices.
"Our thought was we could be proactive and not have to wait until after we got smacked," Levitan said. "I guess that's not going to happen."
Information from the Miami Herald on building codes is included in this report
Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company
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Ejackson5
Newbie Poster
Username: Ejackson5
Post Number: 3
Registered: 08-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, September 09, 2005 - 09:49 am: |
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This web site (http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature5/) has an article about the hurricane published in October of 2004. It's very interesting how this warning was published. You will see that the warnings were clear and have been almost since New Orleans was built. After the tsunami and the destruction of parts of Florida, I would think that anything coming toward New Orleans would have been taken seriously. But, then there comes the consideration that many people there didn't have anywhere to go, any family outside the immediate area, or money to go anywhere. Someone else said that it's easy to sit up here in dry Michigan and comment on how I would have high tailed it out of there at the first sign of a hurricane. However, when you don't have enough money to afford bus fare, you're stuck! We need to quit complaining about who's to blame and wondering why they didn't take heed. It happened and it's over now, so where do we go from here? Anyone who's still down there, what, specifically, can we do to help? |
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