Incident at the Superdome
Adam Brookes is a BBC reporter who also happens to be both a neighbor and a friend of mine. He was in New Orleans from just after Katrina hit until Labor Day last week.

Naturally, he had a lot of impressions of post-Katrina New Orleans, combination of being aghast at what he saw and extremely weary from covering the story almost nonstop once he got there; he described the Convention Center and Superdome in particular as 'the seventh circle of hell' and 'Dantean inferno.'

One image he related sticks with me: there was some kind of high-strength chickenwire fence separating people from pallets of food in a Superdome storage area (I believe, it may have been the Convention Center). So people there could see the desperately needed supplies were there, but they couldn't get to it. And unfortunately, they were never able to. The fence was too strong -- and after a few days, the wire was covered with the blood of people's torn up hands.

Another story is even more disturbing. Adam says he and a cameraman (and maybe another BBC employee) saw a black man on the sidewalk near the Superdome, amidst the chaos of moving some survivors towards evacuation boats. The man was clutching his chest, and while Adam wasn't sure, of course, it looked like the man was having a heart attack.

The disturbing part is that six state troopers were standing only a couple of yards from the man -- doing nothing, just chatting with each other. When he approached them and suggested they do something for the man, they basically just shrugged and walked away. He was able to flag down another policeman a while later to attend to the sick man.

In my view, survivors seem to have immediately become nonentities in the eyes of many of their supposed protectors. And it wasn't always just "simple" racism. In this case, Adam says he thinks one or two of the troopers were themselves black.

It's as if the supposed lawlessness of New Orleans was transmitted to these troopers. They felt excused from considering survivors to be citizens they had a duty to serve and protect. Instead, they were apparently either an enemy to be controlled, or not much more than animals whose life and death were of no importance.

There may be footage of this somewhere in the BBC. Someday, maybe the country will see it. We should. posted by Thomas Nephew at 4:50:00 PM -- |    

 
Katrina survivor stories
Alvaro, New Orleans, 9/1/05 (slideshow with commentary)

As soon as the French Quarter citizens saw the green, purple, and gold plywood boards accross the street from my apartment on Antoine's Restaurant windows, people finally began taking the storm seriously. I picked up my camera and, in a responsible manner, walked to work taking pictures along the way.

Larry Bradshaw, Lorrie Beth Slonsky, San Francisco, 9/1/05

As we approached the bridge, armed Gretna sheriffs formed a line across the foot of the bridge. Before we were close enough to speak, they began firing their weapons over our heads. This sent the crowd fleeing in various directions. As the crowd scattered and dissipated, a few of us inched forward and managed to engage some of the sheriffs in conversation. We told them of our conversation with the police commander and of the commander's assurances. The sheriffs informed us there were no buses waiting. The commander had lied to us to get us to move. [...]

Throughout, the official relief effort was callous, inept, and racist. There was more suffering than need be. Lives were lost that did not need to be lost.

Pascal Riche, Montreal, 9/7/05

The line [at the Superdome evacuation] was like the Paris metro at the height of rush hour. We were packed like sardines, we couldn’t even see our feet. We walked on garbage, diapers that exploded sometimes, bottles full, with urine, perhaps. There were also bottles of liquor. This lasted from midday Thursday until Friday morning, a total hell.
People fainted every two or three minutes. We heard cries of “somebody down.” They evacuated people towards the barriers. A pregnant woman’s water broke. Twice we heard gunshot and everyone dove for cover. We didn’t have anything to eat, only water. The soldiers didn’t car. Sometimes they joked amongst themselves. Once, a guy near the barrier had an epileptic attack. He was drooling and everything. We said to the soldiers, “Get him out of here for Christ’s sake!.” But a soldier said, “it will stop and he’ll be alright.”

One time, to amuse themselves, the soldiers threw bottles as hard as they could into the crowd, like in baseball. A woman was hit in the head. The Navy arrived and it was even worse: the soldiers did not stop yelling at us.

Katy Reckdahl, New Orleans, 9/9/2005

I started to push at midnight. Hector wasn't born until 4:14 in the morning. He was a cute, mellow little dude and we called some people to say that we were staying and then I fell asleep. About eight hours after I gave birth, the hospital was put on lock down, which meant no one could leave and no one could enter. So after that, I really didn't think again about evacuating.

About 6 a.m. on Monday morning, we were awakened by the head nurse. The hurricane came through--it sounded like a train--and she was telling everyone to move in the hallways. Originally, they had thought we would be okay in our rooms because the glass was rated for 200 mph winds. But after a few windows broke in the upper stories, someone decided all the patients would sit out the hurricane in the hallways.

Paul Harris, San Diego, 9/7/05

I would estimate that there were 10,000 people inside the Dome by the time the hurricane was supposed to hit Monday morning. Everything seemed orderly. Someone made an announcement Sunday evening about meals being served by section. In the crowd were many people who looked like they might have been homeless, and lots of families with children. Ethnically, the crowd was probably about 75 to 80 percent black, 15 to 20 percent Anglo and 5 percent “other.” People seemed to be getting along fine and integrating well. [...]

Food-line waits grew to two to three hours long. There was little control over them, and shoving matches broke out. There were some people who were the scum of the earth inside that Dome, sure—but the vast majority were good, law-abiding, caring individuals of all nationalities and races. Still, we all knew we had to get out of there soon—we were going stir crazy.

The toilets had all filled up with waste. I do not exaggerate when I say that all toilets on the first and second floors were overflowing with fecal matter. Urine permeated the floors and was tracked up and down the hallways by thousands of people. Elderly people and families with young children were forced to sleep for days on cardboard soaked with urine and feces on the tile floors. What began as a place of rescue was turning into a prison. We couldn’t leave. We couldn’t escape the horrific odor of human waste that spread throughout the building. People on respirators and with asthma had to endure others smoking in the bathrooms. More people poured in to the Dome, and still no good communication other than hearsay about—what else—"the buses were on the way."

(dates are publication dates)

=====
NOTE: Via Andrew Sullivan, Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Josh Marshall, Tom Tomorrow, Gary Farber, respectively.
UPDATE, 9/21: These and other eyewitness accounts of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath are collected at the Recording Katrina blog.
posted by Thomas Nephew at 7:30:00 PM -- |    

 
Esquivalience
It's not really a word:

esquivalience—n. the willful avoidance of one’s official responsibilities . . . late 19th cent.: perhaps from French esquiver, “dodge, slink away.”

But maybe it ought to be. Early 20th century sociologist Max Weber, quoted by Nathan Newman:

Office Holding is a Vocation: That is the office is a vocation finds expression, first, in the requirement of a prescribed course of training...Furthermore, it finds expression in that the position of the official is in the nature of a "duty"...Entrance into an office, including one in the private economy, is considered an acceptable of a specific duty of fealty to the purpose of the office in return for the grant of a secure existence. It is decisive for the modern loyalty to an office that, in the pure type, it does not establish a relationship to a person, like the vassal's or disciple's faith under feudal or patrimonial authority, but rather is devoted to impersonal and functional purposes...The political official -- at least in the fully developed modern state -- is not considered the personal servant of a ruler.

Newman adds,

Guess what was lacking at FEMA, with its untrained hacks acting not with duty to their office, but as vassals to Bush's political needs?

(links to the Washington Post and this blog added)

Now it seems FEMA chief Michael Brown is being relieved of Katrina duties -- but not fired outright. So there's still plenty of 'esquivalience' left to go around.

I think I'd be as hard on a Democrat turning the executive branch into a source of sinecures for unqualified, incompetent cronies as I would be on a Republican. So I don't think this is me being a hard-core, deep blue partisan of some kind. I just want a president and an executive branch that is committed to doing its duty and listening to the facts. We don't have that.


=====
NOTES: "Esquivalience" and the Newman post via Teresa and Patrick Nielsen Hayden, respectively.
UPDATE, 9/9: Georgetown law professor Mark Tushnet argues "Impeach Michael Brown. Impeach him now." U.S. Constitution, Article II, section 4. He's a civil officer.
posted by Thomas Nephew at 2:00:00 PM -- |    

 
God's will revealed again
The "Progress Report" notes in passing:

Rep. Richard Baker (R-LA) of Baton Rouge overheard telling lobbyists: 'We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did.'

Category 5.

Excuse my choice of words, but I suggest we let this pig know what we think of that. His web site is currently concerned, among other things, with Hollywood's effect on the moral standards of popular culture. Assuming this moral giant doesn't watch those nasty Hollywood movies, I'd say their effect is positive.

As far as Mr. Baker goes, I note the "Baton Rouge" as much as I do the "R". I suspect there's an "upstate" Louisiana vs. New Orleans dimension to the whole shameful, lethal, nauseating Katrina debacle that I have yet to see adequately discussed (although I have no doubt it has been somewhere). posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:15:00 PM -- |    

 
Coverup of the shame of New Orleans well underway
Reuters' Deborah Zabarenko reports ("FEMA accused of censorship"):

U.S. newspapers, television outlets and Web sites have featured pictures of shrouded corpses and makeshift graves in New Orleans.

But on Tuesday, FEMA refused to take reporters and photographers along on boats seeking victims in flooded areas, saying they would take up valuable space need in the recovery effort and asked them not to take pictures of the dead.

In an e-mail explaining the decision, a FEMA spokeswoman wrote: 'The recovery of victims is being treated with dignity and the utmost respect and we have requested that no photographs of the deceased by made by the media.'

What a load of baloney. Pictures could easily be 'fuzzed' to protect a dead person's identity -- assuming there's anything recognizable about someone after floating for days in the stew of Lake George.

NBC's anchorman Brian Williams provides another account of outright hostility by the police and military to the media doing its job :

While we were attempting to take pictures of the National Guard (a unit from Oklahoma) taking up positions outside a Brooks Brothers on the edge of the Quarter, the sergeant ordered us to the other side of the boulevard. The short version is: there won't be any pictures of this particular group of Guard soldiers on our newscast tonight. Rules (or I suspect in this case an order on a whim) like those do not HELP the palpable feeling that this area is somehow separate from the United States.

At that same fire scene, a police officer from out of town raised the muzzle of her weapon and aimed it at members of the media... obvious members of the media... armed only with notepads. Her actions (apparently because she thought reporters were encroaching on the scene) were over the top and she was told. There are automatic weapons and shotguns everywhere you look. It's a stance that perhaps would have been appropriate during the open lawlessness that has long since ended on most of these streets. Someone else points out on television as I post this: the fact that the National Guard now bars entry (by journalists) to the very places where people last week were barred from LEAVING (The Convention Center and Superdome) is a kind of perverse and perfectly backward postscript to this awful chapter in American history.

On what authority is any of this happening? If there is a legal authority for this, it's a stupid law that should be repealed. This is not America any more. We should write our representatives, senators, and president demanding that the press have full and unfettered access to New Orleans and every element of the rescue, relief, and recovery process -- especially the body count and recovery process, and the growing number of stories of police and military mistreatment of survivors.* These were citizens of the United States, entitled to be treated with respect.

This catastrophe is being politicized and sanitized. Look for lots of "we may never know just how many died" as a talking point some time soon. If you just trust the government -- especially this government -- to tell you the truth while it's hampering or intimidating the press, you're a fool and a discredit to your country.

Maybe it's time to try to start compiling an independent roster of the dead and missing for a New Orleans "Portraits of Grief" like the New York Times did for the 9/11 victims. It will be hard and maybe impossible, since many of the dead may have no family and few or no records of their lives left. Maybe the Times Picayune will do it -- although I hope they won't make us click past a popup ad for Dell Computers to see it four years from now.


=====
* The stories of Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky (via Making Light) and Pascal Riche will make your blood boil: soldiers at the Convention Center throwing glass bottles as hard as they could at a trapped, tightly packed crowd of survivors. Sheriffs firing over the heads of survivors at the Gretna city line (government contacts available here). Police using helicopter downdrafts to break up the resulting makeshift encampment up the road. Bradshaw and Slonsky concluded:

Throughout, the official relief effort was callous, inept, and racist. There was more suffering than need be. Lives were lost that did not need to be lost.

UPDATE, 9/9: The New Orleans Times-Picayune missing persons database has 5519 entries right now. I wonder if operations research types might be able to estimate an equilibrium number of missing persons from the rates of cases added and resolved.
UPDATE, 9/9: Josh Marshall says CNN has filed a lawsuit against government agencies seeking to bar press coverage of victim retrieval process. posted by Thomas Nephew at 10:00:00 AM -- |    

 
Technical note: comments deactivated temporarily
I'm afraid I've made a bad mistake and deleted not just a nutty spam comment, but the entire "blogback" account comment file, meaning that unless the fellow who runs "blogback" has a backup, any comments after early June or so are gone. Argh. I value (almost) everyone's comments, and I'm very sorry about this. Serves me right, I suppose.

In case there is a backup, I think any new messages might complicate the process of restoring them. Also, the "blogback" system I've been using was going offline soon anyway. I'm temporarily deactivating it altogether while it while I look for a replacement service that I like and that I can import my old comment XML file into. You can reach me by e-mail if there's something you want to tell me.

UPDATE, 9/8: no backup at "blogback." In the scheme of things, this is a small loss, but I feel it, and I apologize to all of you who've commented here over the last few months. posted by Thomas Nephew at 8:00:00 AM -- |    

 
We pause for a quick laugh
,
Curious George via the brilliant eRobin, images link to her post and one about the firefighter photo-op by Josh Marshall:

As specific orders began arriving to the firefighters in Atlanta, a team of 50 Monday morning quickly was ushered onto a flight headed for Louisiana. The crew's first assignment: to stand beside President Bush as he tours devastated areas.

I like how he's rollin up his sleeves, it means he's going to pretend to do some Hard Work. posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:15:00 AM -- |    

 
Are we being insulted, is Bush an idiot, or both?
Bush Pledges to Investigate Himself

Sure, it's yesterday's news, I'm just going on the record here. I used to wonder what the jingosphere would say about it, but that would involve forcing myself to read them. Traveller's tales from LGF, Instaman, etc. are welcome... oh what the heck, let's go see for ourselves:

LGF -- nothing on this yet that I noticed; the general line is "Bush bashing backfires again."
Insta -- nothing on this yet that I noticed; cites Max Boot decrying the "blame game."
Powerline -- nothing on this yet that I noticed; writes that "European dirigiste model" didn't do so well either with that heat wave, so there! Predicts the "inevitable commission" -- yet no satisfied update that the president will do it himself!
Malkin -- nothing on this yet that I noticed; she reacted to Hillary Clinton's proposal with "Not another damned commission." All over Al Franken instead, much linked elsewhere.
Captain's Quarters -- nothing on this yet that I noticed; worries that a Senate Katrina probe will turn into a smear campaign.

Not the usual chorus of hosannas to Mr. Hard Work's latest brainstorm. Hmm.


=====
UPDATE, 9/7: USAToday, via Stygius:

[House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi] related that she had urged Bush at the White House on Tuesday to fire [FEMA director] Michael Brown.
"He said 'Why would I do that?'" Pelosi said.
'"I said because of all that went wrong, of all that didn't go right last week.' And he said 'What didn't go right?'"

UPDATE, 9/16: Tom Burka: Bush To Investigate Self -- Will Ask "Where was I?" and "What was I doing?" posted by Thomas Nephew at 10:30:00 PM -- |    

 
Please, no
Shelbyville, Tennessee's Times-Gazette is running a story about a local funeral director being deployed to the Gulf coast (Funeral director deploys to hurricane region):

"'DMort is telling us to expect up to 40,000 bodies,' Dan Buckner said, quoting officials with the Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team, a volunteer arm of Homeland Security."

Oh my god.

I hope this is a mistake. And I hope no one will get suckered into feeling relieved if it's "just" 4,000 bodies.

Via Talking Points Memo. posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:44:00 AM -- |    

 
Are communications with New Orleans being cut off? Why?
Disturbing news continues to surface that free communications with New Orleans are being hampered. First there's the now-famous Aaron Broussard Meet The Press incident. Lost in all the emotion of that poor man talking about his mother's death was the very serious charge Broussard made:

Yesterday--yesterday--FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency communication lines. They cut them without notice. Our sheriff, Harry Lee, goes back in, he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards on our line and says, "No one is getting near these lines.

Tim Russert immediately changed the subject, of course. Now, I'm learning via the Wayne Madsen Report:

Ham radio operators are reporting that communications in and around New Orleans are being jammed. In addition, perplexed ham radio operators who were enlisted by the Federal government in 911 are not being used for hurricane Katrina Federal relief efforts. There is some misinformation circulating on the web that the jamming is the result of solar flares. Ham radio operators report that the flares are not the source of the communications jamming.*

(via Patrick Nielsen Hayden and China Mieville) Madsen adds updates suggesting that cell phone and satellite phone transmissions are having unusual difficulties as well, supporting the idea of a "technology blockade" designed to produce a monopoly on information in the affected area. Given the apparent political uses that Bush et al are putting emergency response to, it doesn't take too much more cynicism to imagine there's news out of New Orleans that we're gradually being walled off from.

Like the body count, for starters.

The information lockdown works both ways, and the lack of information on the scene was apparent to reporters on the scene as well. Brian Williams:

Complaints are still rampant in New Orleans about a lack of information. It's one of many running themes of the past week: There were no announcements in the Superdome during the storm, none to direct people after the storm, no official word (via bullhorn, leaflets or any other means) during the week-long, on-foot migration (and eventual stagnation) that defined life in the downtown section of the city for those first few days. One can't help but think that a single-engine plane towing a banner over the city would have been immeasurably helpful in both crowd and rumor control.

This seems of a piece to me with Bush's curious choice of words that the Convention Center had been "secured," as if it had been in the hands of Iraq insurgents -- class war indeed. I might have given Bush the benefit of the doubt on that phrase once -- maybe he just meant "100% safe" from bad guys. Except much of the "bad guys" reporting turned out to be hyperbole at best. That no doubt still left some real danger from armed looters and criminals, but the overreaction seems to have unnecessarily frozen the relief response and turned it ugly.

A reporter I know who just got back from New Orleans said the scene around the Convention Center after National Guard and state police reinforcements arrived was tense and dehumanizing: the refugees were generally approached at gunpoint or not at all, armored vehicles swept past bristling with weapons, offers by leaders within the Convention Center refugees to try to organize the desperate throng were discouraged. The New Orleans blog "The Interdictor" reports similar impressions:

The disconcerting thing is that these authorities always have their guns at the ready and look like they're enjoying intimidating the people. Two of us have already had guns aimed at us by police -- Brian by the Federal Cops guarding the Boggs Federal building while we were waiting for the resupply, and me when we were delivering the router to City Hall.

The reporter's verdict: the approach taken was to control surviving New Orleans citizens, not rescue or relieve them.


=====
UPDATE, 9/7: Stryker at "digitalwarfighter" notices a somewhat similar story about the military cracking down on soldiers blogging from Iraq. There are of course good reasons to restrict some information from reaching enemies, but it's also arguably a similar attention to "increasing control of communication" from a place that's not generating precisely the desired good news. Stryker:

I’ve talked to several people here who, when they were in Iraq, were actually instructed verbatum about what to say to the press and to folks back home. In fact, one person who gave a telephone interview with the LA Times was told to read prepared statements off of index cards held by a PAO.

Denying a FOIA request for Viet Nam era papers seems to fit under the general heading of a Bush "information blockade" as well. And yes, I suppose this all may put me in the market for a comfortable, stylish tin foil hat; any recommendations? posted by Thomas Nephew at 10:20:00 PM -- |    

 
Pat Robertson keeps on the sunny side
Pat Robertson, connecting the Katrina and John Roberts stories, and presumably seeing God's hand at work:

Out of this tragedy, the focus of America is going to be on these victims, and inflamed rhetoric in the United States Senate is just not going to play well now because this is a time of healing and compassion and reaching out to people, and if they start going on a vendetta against Roberts in the Senate, it's just going to hurt them. And I think they know that, so, I mean, Judge Roberts can, maybe, you know, be thankful that a tragedy has brought him some good.

(Via Media Matters)

Let us greet with a song of hope each day.
Though the moments be cloudy or fair.
Let us trust in our Saviour always,
To keep us, every one, in His care.

Keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side,
Keep on the sunny side of life.
It will help us every day, it will brighten all the way,
If we'll keep on the sunny side of life. posted by Thomas Nephew at 10:01:00 PM -- |    

 
Sort of scary
...that this is the "First Mother" Barbara Bush, talking about New Orleans evacuees in the Houston Astrodome to NPR's "Marketplace" :

Almost everyone I’ve talked to says we're going to move to Houston. What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this is working very well for them.

Via everywhere. So dial down the hospitality stuff, Houston, or those leeches from New Orleans will want to stay! posted by Thomas Nephew at 10:00:00 PM -- |    

 
Katrina links
Resources

New Orleans Times-Picayune -- breaking news
scipionus.com -- "This map is intended for the use of people affected by Hurricane Katrina who have or are trying to find information about the status of specific locations affected by the storm and its aftermath."
Hurricane Katrina Images (NOAA) -- very detailed (1 pixel=1.2 ft) airborne digital imagery of areas after Katrina hit.
New Orleans Flood Map by C&C Technologies Survey Services -- "Click on the map above for water depth information ... Water depths reported are the average of a 100x100ft region around the point you click."

Bloggers

Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden -- the first bloggers I know of to immediately sound an alarm about what was coming: Katrina: not your usual weather disaster story, Katrina (practical links to message boards, etc.), Then Again (levee breach); Yahoo News Photos (likely Internet origin of "White people find things. Black people loot things" re Katrina coverage); Welcome to your dystopian future.

Kathryn Cramer -- Katrina archive, including some very innovative use of online mapping tools to help residents, friends, and their families determine which New Orleans addresses were probably flooded.

Gary Farber -- week of 8/28/2005, week of 9/4/2005; a wide-ranging gazette of history as it happened.

Sisyphus Shrugged -- the Lake George link dump; a commented, organized collection of links as the history happened.

The Interdictor -- New Orleans blogger(s) posting frequent updates and photos.

Brendan Loy -- a.k.a. "Irish Trojan," posted an early call for an evacuation, and has followed the story closely and well since then.

Great work!

See also Recording Katrina, a blog collecting survivor and eyewitness stories told in their own words. I post there occasionally.

Magazine and news articles

Washing Away, New Orleans Times Picayune special report, 6/23-6/27/2002
Thinking Big About Hurricanes, Chris Mooney, The American Prospect, 5/23/2005
Drowning New Orleans, Mark Fischetti, Scientific American, 10/2001
The Sunken City, John McPhee, The New Yorker 2/23/1987 (excerpt from The Control of Nature: Atchafalaya)
Poor, Black, and Left Behind, Mike Davis, 9/2004 (reprint in Common Dreams):

The evacuation of New Orleans in the face of Hurricane Ivan looked sinisterly like Strom Thurmond's version of the Rapture. Affluent white people fled the Big Easy in their SUVs, while the old and car-less -- mainly Black -- were left behind in their below-sea-level shotgun shacks and aging tenements to face the watery wrath.

Accountability, planning

Katrina timelines (Washington Monthly roundup) -- cites Kevin Drum (January 2001-,) Josh Marshall (8/25/2005-), Brookings Institute (8/24/2005-) and more. See also the "Day by Day" tab of a very detailed New York Times map and graphic page, "Draining New Orleans" (8/25-9/10/2005 and counting). More timelines: ThinkProgress, About.com.
Hurricane Pam -- FEMA/LSU exercise in July 2005:

"A White House staffer was briefed on the exercise," said van Heerden. "There is now a far greater awareness in the federal government about the consequences of storm surges."

City of New Orleans Hurricane Preparedness -- Nursing Facilities section:

The transportation method that will be used to transport patients and staff to the out-of-town facility in case of evacuation. Signed and current contracts are necessary to fulfill these criteria.

Southeastern Louisiana Catastrophic Hurricane Plan -- excerpts of FEMA document, via Josh Marshall

Donations, Assistance

Acorn: this highly effective, national poverty advocacy organization had been headquartered in New Orleans, and needs help rebuilding a new headquarters in Baton Rouge and working on behalf of New Orleans survivors. (9/9: Nathan Newman has this and similar suggestions for supporting local organizers in the affected areas.)
American Red Cross; 1-877-LOVED1S (help finding survivors)
hurricanehousing.org -- find/offer housing for survivors
KatrinaHousing.net -- find/offer housing for survivors
Katrina Refugees United -- "If you are a victim of Hurricane Katrina, register with this site to let the world know how to contact you. [...] This site is designed to be a central collection point for information on anyone impacted by Hurricane Katrina."
NAACP Disaster Relief Fund
Charity Navigator: "How You Can Help The Victims of Hurricane Katrina," with a list of "4 star" charities they consider reputable and effective.

This post will be updated and edited periodically as my own place for gathering information.


=====
EDIT, 9/9: I was persuaded by listening to a New Orleans woman interviewed on NPR the other day that "survivor" is a better word for these taxpaying citizens of the United States than the bedraggled-sounding "refugee," and I've made the change here. posted by Thomas Nephew at 10:30:00 AM -- |    

 
Responses to a national disgrace
Having spent a good deal of time ranting among the figurative weeds of the Katrina catastrophe, I'm trying to put to words where the events of the last week have left me.

It seems unarguable to me that one of the chief political results of the Katrina aftermath ought to be the shaming and marginalization of what I'll call "Norquistism" -- the simplistic battle cry of fools that "government is bad, shrinking it is good, period." The questions, of course, have always been: bad for whom? And good for whom? Brett Marston:

The practical effect of libertarian, anti-state-power arguments (married to the political power of an anti-urban right) is not more efficient provision of public services. The practical effect is the withdrawal of public services and the severe and fatal underprovision of disaster management planning resources.

The disdain for government breeds, I think, a disdain for any function, not merely the wasteful or misdirected ones, so that even questions of war, peace, intelligence, or disaster readiness are mere opportunities for profit, cronyism, or political spectacle. Thus the position of the head of the Federal Emergency Management Administration becomes a bauble dispensed to a campaign contributor's unqualified college roommate. Levee repairs and upgrades go begging even while there is enough money for an ill-conceived war of choice that billions of dollars can be lost somewhere in the sofa cushions, as it were. Hurricane planning is ignored or neglected, but rescue operations are used as visual candy for TV viewers and their president.

Jim Henley, a flag bearer of principled libertarianism, clarifies that he too decries "vulgar privatization" -- perhaps a nod to the inadequacies of Norquistism -- and points to an item titled "drawing the line" as "one of the most important pieces of writing in response to the disaster." That author's post concludes:

The events of last week demonstrated that we can’t afford the idea that there’s no such thing as good government. But as a first step towards getting it we need to define its responsibilities, to drag it into the light. That might encourage it to behave more responsibly. And if we feel that our formal institutions can be trusted, we may trust ourselves to create stronger informal, voluntary and mutualist networks.

That's "can", not "can't" in the final line. The author, jamie k., argues for the necessity (or at least the great value) of institutions and leadership in catalyzing decent individual behavior. He cites the perfect example -- the rescue of Danish Jews by their fellow citizens during World War II -- beginning with a quote by historian Simon Tupner:

…it seems the Danes were brave because their leaders were. The King made a public commitment to the Jews, Danish political leaders refused to take even the mildest measures against them, pastors read letters in church opposing their persecution, and so an atmosphere was created in which ambulance drivers and fishermen saved their lives.

The point is about leadership, but the leaders cited were leaders of institutions, and these institutions brought Danes together and helped give them the courage to act as individuals.

There's a bridge from this to my own attitude, and Diana Moon expresses part of it:

...we have laws to protect the weak...because we are all weak with respect to someone or something, and after a certain age, we are all limping along on one limb (literally or figuratively).

Henley was (at least initially) more chastened by the rapacious behavior of some of the New Orleans survivors than I was; he seems to have hoped for better, while I did not. It's true that there are now competing accounts of what might be fairly called "illegal pluck" -- foraging for food, water, and even transportation to the Houston Astrodome, in direct response to the absence of such services from "above." But there remains an undeniable "Lord of the Flies" feeling of many survivors quickly disposing of social norms, and instead creating (or recreating) a struggle of all against all.

The Norquist program of "starving the beast" has become instead merely (inevitably?) a program of feeding a different beast -- a state that fancies itself to be like a corporation, outsourcing some functions to semi-official corporate extensions with names like Lockheed, Blackwater, or Halliburton, a state with the same "we don't have to care" attitude but with fewer of the annoying features of accountability or representativeness that seem to irk our current rulers. Yet the peasants continue to expect accountability and representativeness, and the basic services of government, among which are its good offices in protecting and rescuing them from outside harm.

In this, this government has plainly failed. But worse, this society has plainly failed. While I find the Bush administration's performance so outrageously incompetent, disgraceful, and deceitful as to second calls for impeachment, Henley is right: there's sadly even more blame, disgrace, and dishonor to go around. A city that could leave fleets of buses unused as the storm approached. A FEMA that seems to be in an undeclared war with local agencies, rather than trying to help them. A National Guard that could put Hyatt Regency survivors ahead of Superdome and Convention Center survivors when buses out of "Lake George" finally became available. And those Hyatt Regency survivors who accepted such favors ahead of others with similar or greater need.

To call this a national disgrace is no mere figure of speech. It's national, and it didn't just come out of nowhere last week. Sure, it's the incompetents and liars up and down the chain of command, from the Oval Office to the Governor's Mansion to City Hall -- but it's you, too, and me, when we delegate power and prestige to such people, and when we tacitly accept decisions that doom thousands upon thousands of our fellow citizens to the sudden disaster of a hurricane, or the slow motion disaster of poverty that helps trap them in its path. When we give those citizens nothing of value, we shouldn't dare be surprised that they owe us nothing in return. When we treat them like an enemy, we shouldn't dare be surprised that some begin to act that way.

It's in shame and fury that I wonder: what is really so great -- what ever was -- about this country, if such things can happen here? I'm still inclined to believe that I'm looking at a nation that is simply worn down and ill-served by its current leadership. But there's a different, grimmer diagnosis: that we are a country if not of locusts, then by and for them, ill designed to look much beyond the next main chance, with neither leadership nor institutions fit to prepare us for the storms and winters ahead. If so, our turn to fight for scraps and float in the waters is surely coming.

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NOTE: Unattributed links above: "bauble": Joshua Micah Marshall (Mike Brown story); "begging": e-Robin ("Hurricane Stories the Corporate Media Won't Tell"); "transportation": Gary Farber (Jabbar Gibson story); "calls": Brad DeLong ("Impeach George Bush. Impeach him now"); "impeachment": Diana Moon; "fleets": Mark Kleiman ("Paying the price of feckless local government"); "war": Mark Kleiman ("Unbelievable"); "Hyatt": Atrios ("America")
EDIT, 9/6: removed speculative "perhaps in the mistaken belief that better help was on the way" re the unused buses. Archpundit suggests the city didn't have people lined up to drive them.
UPDATE, 9/6: The Hyatt story changes for me somewhat on learning that buses from Hyatt arrived on Wednesday with supplies (well before any FEMA help did). These buses were presumably then used for the evacuation of remaining Hyatt guests and employees, and the Convention Center may have simply been the best or only place to drive them (the New Orleans Hyatt is located close to the Convention Center). Via Crooked Timber. An odd point remains that the original story refers to "school buses", which wouldn't be what I'd expect Hyatt to have sent. And even if they weren't on publicly provided buses, they still got out first; it's a reprise of the whole New Orleans story in that respect.
posted by Thomas Nephew at 2:15:00 AM -- |    

 
German TV: Photo op rescue/relief work in Biloxi
Laura Rozen ("War and Piece") posts this comment by a reader about German TV network's coverage of the event Senator Landrieu is complaining about:

ZDF News reported that the president's visit was a completely staged event. Their crew witnessed how the open air food distribution point Bush visited in front of the cameras was torn down immediately after the president and the herd of 'news people' had left and that others which were allegedly being set up were abandoned at the same time.

The people in the area were once again left to fend for themselves, said ZDF.

(via Kevin Drum) This apparently wasn't the only "Potemkin" rescue effort noted by ZDF. Asked about residents' reactions to Bush's visit to Biloxi, Mississippi -- characterized as a "Stippvisite" (perfunctory visit) by the moderator -- German ZDF-TV reporter Claudia Rueggeberg said they differed; while one resident said that one such symbolic visit was better than nothing, but that another became very angry and said, "such a staged visit didn't help." The reporter continued:

Indeed, this morning there were suddenly rescue teams [Hilfstrupps], people who cleared debris and looked for corpses in the houses, but only along the route of the president. About two hours ago, the president left Biloxi again -- and with him, all the rescue teams.*

I've also found another ZDF clip** referring to Bush speaking with "surprisingly calm victims," and viewing a "hastily set up aid station."


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* Her part of the clip begins at about 3:00 minutes.
** Beginning at about minute 4:50.
UPDATE, 9/4: Rozen readers FD and DZ point to the same clip I found; also, she writes that a Daily Kos reader notes a similar clip about Biloxi at ARD, another German TV network. Thus, neither that post or this one specifically confirm her first reader's "fake open air food distribution" story yet, but both point to a similar one.
NOTE, 9/4: The literal translation for "Hilfstrupps" is "help troops"; I chose the phrase "rescue team."
UPDATE, 9/6: The translation of Christine Adelhardt's Biloxi report on ARD by dKos reader 'vanguardia' is basically accurate. The "press baggage" translation for "Pressetross" looks odd, but the word "Tross" translates to "baggage"-- in a military sense, where it means the supply train and whores accompanying an army. "Press entourage" would be the usual English phrase, but reviving this particular usage of "baggage" does not seem so far off the mark.

UPDATE, 9/7: I largely agree with this analysis by Rivka ("Respectful of Otters") which is crossposted at her "Idealistic Pragmatist" colleague's blog: the original claim hasn't panned out yet, and Laura Rozen's Dutch correspondent, Frank Tiggelaar, may have gotten the Biloxi report and a second one mixed up. I think the best candidate for what Mr. Tiggelaar saw is the second ZDF clipI mention above ("Menschen warten auf Rettung" -- "People wait for rescue") , where Bush is said to speak with "surprisingly calm" victims in a "hastily built aid station" (around minute 4:50 of the clip). That does rather imply something fishy is going on without coming right out and saying so; however, no mention is made of tearing down the station immediately after Bush's departure. It's possible, though, that Mr. Tiggelar heard a stronger claim made in a different version of this report, or of the particular "aid station" part of that report. I've got a query in to ZDF asking whether there is a report precisely like what Mr. Tiggelaar remembered, but have not received an answer. posted by Thomas Nephew at 2:30:00 AM -- |