BS: New Orleans/California?

Subject: BS: New Orleans/California?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 24 Oct 07 - 02:09 PM

No or little progress in New Orleans, but the Shrub promises great support to California. Is the explanation: -

1. He is learning?
2. He is lying?
3. He knows where his friends live?

Subject: RE: BS: New Orleans/California?
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Oct 07 - 02:14 PM

Childrens do learn

Subject: RE: BS: New Orleans/California?
From: Ebbie
Date: 24 Oct 07 - 03:34 PM

Not to mention that he promised the same help to New Orleans.

Subject: RE: BS: New Orleans/California?
From: Amos
Date: 24 Oct 07 - 04:13 PM

I think it is more that he values the political potential of Southern Cal more. And he is probably still smarting from the lashign he got for his failure to perform in Louisiana.

So far we have gotten a lot of logistical and supply help from the National Gyuard and the Navy. We have gotten several DOD water bombers, I believe. So something is coming from there. Arnie wants Georgie to declare the region a national disaster, which will spur Fed dollars into the repair of the situation.

A

Subject: RE: BS: New Orleans/California?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 24 Oct 07 - 04:40 PM

The homes around Lake Arrowhead will be reconstructed first.

Subject: RE: BS: New Orleans/California?
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 24 Oct 07 - 05:41 PM

Richard, I don't know about choices 1 or 2, but, being a Californian I strongly suspect the answer is not number 3. You might recall that GWB did piss-poorly in both elections in California. He barely even campaigned in the state, it was so far blue.

Subject: RE: BS: New Orleans/California?
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 24 Oct 07 - 05:56 PM

Just like New Orleans when the high water vehicles were in Iraq, where is California NG heavy equipment that could bulldoze breaks, etc.? Haven't seen this question being asked much yet.

Subject: RE: BS: New Orleans/California?
From: Azizi
Date: 24 Oct 07 - 08:09 PM

Here's a link to a dailykos diary about the subject of New Orleans/Hurricane Katrina and California/Wild fires:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/10/24/164141/61
"White House Says We're Lucky We're Not Haitians"
by BarbinMD
Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 02:50:20 PM PDT

Here's a number of quotes from the comments to that diary:

"...it helps even more
That the areas hardest hit by the fires are in republican strongholds.

New Orleans had three strikes against them, being largely poor, Black and Democrat."
-by PBCliberal on Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 02:57:51 PM PDT

**

"...The people of the seven counties [in California that are]affected by fire are wealthier, more mobile, and healthier by far than the poor and sick of New Orleans. And don't let ANYONE tell you otherwise..."
-Auntie Neo Kawn on Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 02:56:15 PM PDT

**

"It also helps that they all have CARS
Virtually everyone in Southern California has a car, or two."
-Grassroots Mom on Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 03:00:16 PM PDT

**

"It also doesn't appear to dawn on this administration that New Orleans and the Gulf Coast lost EVERYTHING...infrastructure, roads, shelter, gas stations, food supplies, you name it...almost IMMEDIATELY. I know fires move fast (as I said, I'm a former Californian), but they don't move THAT fast. It's a staggering number, but only one in three in San Diego County was evacuated. That makes the other two thirds of the county available to volunteer, to work pumping gas and selling supplies, to take in their friends, family and neighbors, and so on. New Orleans didn't quite work that way."
-Auntie Neo Kawn on Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 03:07:29 PM PDT

**

1800 officially dead [s a result of Hurricane Katrina]
there are still 750 officially missing.

Also, 82 BILLION in damage, compared to 1 or 2 billion in So Cal.

But of course, all of this is silly. People are suffering. Do we need to really argue how much?
-Buffalo Girl on Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 03:05:20 PM PDT

**

"you have a point, of course the scale does not compare, and the immensity of THIS event reminds us just how bad Katrina was, in some sense, because how could it be worse? But yet, it was SO MUCH WORSE..... And yet that doesn't make it any less horrible for people who have lost everything this week...."
-by Buffalo Girl on Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 03:15:08 PM PDT

Subject: RE: BS: New Orleans/California?
From: GUEST,California Geezer
Date: 24 Oct 07 - 08:17 PM

Perhaps the Governator threatened to terminate old dubblepew bush.
Meanwhile. . .At the daily press conference yesterday, the yoyo who's the head of homeland insecurity spent several valuable televised minutes saying absolutely nothing. Ole dubblepew, itself, is said to be flying into Sandy Aygo Thurs, for photo ops & promises of alleged this n that. Fema was already here.
   San Diegans who can have taken in family, friends & strangers; are dropping off food & supplies to local shelters for evacuees--human & otherwise; local Military & local officials have worked well together to handle the logistics of getting supplies to shelters from all over everywhere, military vehicles have helped so far with dumping water & chemicals on the fires.
   Air is lousy here in the middle of the city, but life goes on. The interesting part is yet to come.

Subject: RE: BS: New Orleans/California?
From: GUEST,pattyClink
Date: 24 Oct 07 - 09:03 PM

Tia, SoCal is crawling with giant dozers and things because of the vast construction industry. I imagine they are using them quite a bit, but the winds were ripping so fast they were staying ahead of anything a steel behemoth could accomplish. It takes time to push dirt around enough to make a firebreak.

Subject: RE: BS: New Orleans/California?
From: GUEST,saulgoldie
Date: 24 Oct 07 - 09:09 PM

It is simple. San Diego is white, rich, and Republican, as is the governor. New Orleans is black, poor, and the governor is a Democrat. I don't know how anyone could miss the obvious.

Subject: RE: BS: New Orleans/California?
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 24 Oct 07 - 09:20 PM

Obvious to whom? People always looking for the worst in folks? BTW, many Republicans aren't sure the governor is really a Republican, by Democrat by injection. No, I'm not one of them.

Subject: RE: BS: New Orleans/California?
From: Amos
Date: 25 Oct 07 - 01:24 PM

Also, Saul, a very large percentage of people in San Diego are NOT rich. And a very large, intersecting percentage are NOT white. And a large number are not Republican.

But regardless of these distinctions between sets of people, the bottom line is that everyone in this county is helping.

The fact that ordinary people left to their own devices manages quite well is something the Neocons should takre note of, as they seem to overlook it.


A

Subject: RE: BS: New Orleans/California?
From: GUEST,DooSay
Date: 25 Oct 07 - 11:25 PM

"Just like New Orleans when the high water vehicles were in Iraq, where is California NG heavy equipment that could bulldoze breaks, etc.? Haven't seen this question being asked much yet."

Well that one's easy enough. Everytime there is even a mention of cutting a fire break or removing the underbrush, that fuels so many of the fires in California, the environmentalists go into a rage and/or get a court order to prevent it.

In addition to this, the National Guard are not trained as firefighters. Some of these flames reach 30 to 40 feet high. Combine that with winds up to 70 mph and changing directions frequently and you have a deadly mix.

Oh... incidently... the evacuees need help and many are helping each other along with "first response" teams. I won't go into the questionable judgement of people who choose to do little more than look for someone to blame.

Subject: RE: BS: New Orleans/California?
From: Barry Finn
Date: 26 Oct 07 - 12:04 AM

It seems that Arnie is so far doing what he can & he's got Bush in a good spot too, he's draging him the whole 9 yards & for all he's worth too but that ain't much.
One group I'm not hearing about in FEMA, I guess they've been silently replace by Homeland Security????? That 's gonnabe a mess if there's blame later to be tossed about but for the time being it appears that everyone involved deserves at least the respect due for so far handling it properly without the scapegoating,,,,,,,yet

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: New Orleans/California?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 26 Oct 07 - 02:09 AM

FEMA has not been "replaced" by Homeland Security. FEMA was placed under the newly created Homeland Security Department from the git-go, shortly after 9/11 and well before Katrina, and it was and still is a very small group within a huge bureaucracy.

It didn't help us in New Orleans that the newly emasculated Federal Emergency Management Agency was promptly purged of its professional staff and turned into a patronage mill for prominent contributors to Cheney/Bush campaign coffers. (If "Heck-Of-A-Job" Brownie was the newbie best qualified to head up the agency, one can only imagine how incompetant the rest of the gang must have been!)

If FEMA has been even partially restored to a respectible level of competency, that's good news for the fire victims. Unfortunately, an entity that used to be a functional independent agency remains a diminished little office lost atthe bottom of Homeland Security's organizational chart. Their performance will be better this time around for the Californians, but it will still be hampered by stifling red tape, and I'm afraidn that a lot of citizens will feel that theie government will have failed them.

It is not necessary to involve the new disaster victims in California into the comparison to demonstrate the shamefully partisan manner in which the Bush administration has seen fit to distribute recovery funds.

In Mississippi, where there was terrible damage to hundreds of homes within a few miles of the shoreline, the feds have granted nearly double the dollars per capita in comparison with Louisiana, where tens of thousands of homes were destroyed ~ AND where the vast majority of the damage was caused not primarily by the forces of nature, but by the failure of shoddily constructed levees and other structures designed, built, and "guaranteed" by the US Federal government.

The populations of Louisiana and Mississippi are fairly similar in terms of racial and economic diversity. The only discernible reason that Mississippians have been granted comparatively generous funding and have long since had the funds in hand ~ while most devastated Louisianans are still buried in red tape as they continue to wait for their stingier compensation ~ is that the disaster presented an irresistible opportunity for Cheney and the Bushites to punish citizens who had the temerity to elect a Democratic governor.

*******************

A few months after Katrina, as some of us began to trickle back into our neighborhoods, I attended a meeting where we heard from a half-dozen guest speakers from Southern California, members of a disaster-survivor organization that grew from the experience of surviving a wildfire incident several years earlier. They were very helpful and very perceptive. They told us how we would have to organize among ourselves to get through the next few years, that we could not expect or depend upon the government, the insurance companies, etc., to help us if we fail to help ourselves. And they related how their experience as a community and as individuals had brought them to a place where they felt a need to pass along what they had learned, and to share the benefit of their experience with victims of subsequent disasters (like us).

Something they all said, and constantly repeated, was that the scale of devestation they were witnessing here in New Orleans was something for which they had been completely unprepared, that the sheer numbers of flooded homes, mile after mile, just struck them as unimaginable. A whole other order of magnitude compared to their small secown little burnt-out subdivisions.

So, I have nothing but sympathy for the citizens and homeowners in California who, this week, are losing every material possession they own. How could I not? One thing we all have learned hereabouts is that a huge public disaster is an equal-opportunity destroyer, ruining the lives of rich and poor, black and white, conservative and liberal, all equally. (Indeed, I have developed a new political sympathy for those more affluent than myself, a sentiment that had never before occurred to me. Most Americans, even the upper-upper-middle class, are living pretty much paycheck-to-paycheck; the more privileged group lives on a bigger budget, of course, but their bigger and newer houses are paid for with higher mortgage payments, their multiple nice cars represent more big monthly bills, etc. Put a sudden end to anyone's home and job, and they will soon be broke and depressed. (The less affluent, in many cases, are better off than the pampered rich, insofar as they're normally more resilient, better prepared for adversity, and better able to see an end to the trouble and the beginning of some kind of recovery.)

I'd like to hear from those blovating neocon commentators and politicians who suggested that my neighbors and I are "stupid" for living in the path of hurricanes, that we should not be aided in rebuilding, or perhaps not even be allowed to reoccupy our own hard-earned property.

Will they exhibit the same gall this time around, and declare that San Diego and Los Angeles, too, should be left to rot? After all, they have to deal with those nasty seismic faults in addition to the annual risk of wildfire, much of their land was artificially reclaimed from desert by water-engineering projects ~ the whole area is just about as much of a "folly" ever to have been developed as is New Orleans...

Subject: RE: BS: New Orleans/California?
From: GUEST,pattyClink
Date: 26 Oct 07 - 09:47 AM

Great post, Poppagator. I was thinking about San Diego, seems like those folks are going to have to form little volunteer fire/flood/quake/slide organizations in their own neighborhoods to get some kind of control back over their destiny. Wouldn't it be great if some real communities were born out of this stress and destruction? The only good thing about Katrina was how many people tried to help their neighbors.

Subject: RE: BS: New Orleans/California?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 26 Oct 07 - 01:37 PM

The front page of this morning's New Orleans Times-Picayune features an article about how a large number of local flood victims have begun to offer help and advice to the folks in California. I didn't have time to read the whole article before dashing off to work ~ just saw the headline on the front page ("below the fold," i.e., this was not the day's major top-of-the-page headline, but it did make a small corner of the front page, to be continued on another page after a brief pararaph or two).

The newspaper's website is www.nola.com ~ the article is sure to be there today, and maybe for a few more days.

Nobody can possibly know what it's like to be caught up in this kind of situation except others who have had similar experiences. Once a person has been through it, there's a special empathy for anyone else encountering similar difficulties. So it should be no surprise that each new group of victims attracts the attention of those who have preceded them, having been devasted by earlier incidents.

Subject: RE: BS: New Orleans/California?
From: Amos
Date: 26 Oct 07 - 02:08 PM

Todays paper had a sympathetic article on the individualists, scattered all over the region of rruination, who stayed to battle the fire on their own property despite direct orders to evacuate. The Fire Marshals were sympathetic to such passion int he protection of home and land, and pointed out that it is not a crime to disobey an evac order. There were dozens of these people, some with garden hoses and some with fire hoses, who came much closer tot he brink of personal disaster than any of us in the safe regions of the county, and put thie rlives on the line to save their homes and succeeded. Only one person -- the first known victim of the Harris fire -- was killed as a result of trying to save his hom ein Potrero.

A

Subject: RE: BS: New Orleans/California?
From: Peace
Date: 26 Oct 07 - 02:35 PM

Some disasters are not perceived to be so until what was a simple 'grass fire' becomes a full-blown creature generating lots of heat and its own winds. When it becomes a disaster, that's when things go to hell in a basket really quickly, and creating order from chaos takes time, training and cooperation.

There was a big forest fire near Slave Lake, Alberta about eight years ago. People were angry with the fire department there because they lost some houses. Of course, they had brush/bush/dry grass/trees right up to their domiciles, despite many notices advising that in the event of fire those very things would lead the fire to their door. The effect of fire at the urban/rural interface can be mitigated with pre-planning (in this case cutting back the brush, etc). It should also be noted that forest fire firefighters do a very different job than their fellow structure fire firefighters--very different.

Seems the situation has improved there, Amos. That is great news.

Subject: RE: BS: New Orleans/California?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Oct 07 - 02:36 PM

Yes, I can definitely sympathize with those who stayed behind to defend their own homes, although I understand there are various practical issues about it. A person has the right to risk their own life to defend their own home, in my opinion.

Subject: RE: BS: New Orleans/California?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 26 Oct 07 - 02:50 PM

Links to daily newspaper articles are only good for 24 hours, so I am copy-and-pasting this from today's paper, as posted on nola.com:

Appreciative locals itching to help Californians

Friday, October 26, 2007
By Bruce Nolan

Wounded New Orleanians helped by the kindness of strangers two years ago are looking toward fire-ravaged Southern California with an urge to help, but local disaster managers are urging them to wait until it is more clear exactly what the stricken communities need.

"I'm getting phone calls: 'Can we go? Can we go?,' " said Archdeacon Dennis McManis, operations director of the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana's office of disaster response. "I'm telling them, 'Let's sit back and see what they need.' "

Officials with major faith-based relief organizations said they are asking disaster agencies in the San Diego area what they can do to help families affected by the wildfires, which have destroyed more than 1,500 homes in eight counties in the past week. Catholic Charities USA sent its top disaster official to San Diego to do reconnaissance and make a list of specific needs.

Images of families distraught about their losses have particular resonance in the New Orleans area, where tens of thousands of families received large and small gifts of aid, housing and other gestures of generosity in the weeks immediately after Hurricane Katrina.

"But we also remember how we got inundated in those first days with people wanting to give us stuff -- often stuff we didn't need. Or people coming here and just telling us what they could do for us," McManis said.

Some agencies, such as Catholic Charities USA and the Episcopal Church USA, are soliciting donations for Southern California on their Web sites, www.catholiccharitiesusa.org and www.episcopalchurch.org/elife/.

Mark Jones, the local disaster director for the Salvation Army, said that agency is in California caring for homeowners and firefighters. While it certainly will remain involved for months, the agency is not yet asking for special aid from other parts of the country, he said.

Elsewhere, the Archdiocese of New Orleans said its teachers would organize collections of toiletries for shelters based on early word that those items would be useful, spokeswoman Sarah Comiskey said. At least one school, Pope John Paul II in Slidell, is raising money. Comiskey said the archdiocese also is exploring the possibility of "twinning" a few healthy New Orleans-area church parishes with some fire-damaged church parishes in Southern California.

Tim Martin, executive director of Building Better Communities, an evangelical relief organization building houses in Central City, said he is headed back to San Diego, his hometown, to check out conditions and see what help his organization can offer.

"We know there are going to be needs, but until we get on the ground there, it's hard to say what they'll be," Martin said.

Meanwhile, the nonprofit agency's leadership has decided to canvass its Hurricane Katrina donors nationwide for help for California families affected by the fires, said Pastor Rick Grover of Journey Christian Church, which sponsors Building Better Communities.

"Tim's trip out there is to confirm, not whether we can help, but how we can help," he said.

. . . . . . .

Bruce Nolan can be reached at [e-mail] or [phone].

Subject: RE: BS: New Orleans/California?
From: Peace
Date: 26 Oct 07 - 02:51 PM

The only thing that disturbs me about that LH is that people can sometimes see fire as an 'enemy' rather than a thing that requires heat, fuel, oxygen and sustained chemical reaction to stay 'alive'. As Dave Swan pointed out on another thread, the intent of water bombers is to wet down the area in front of the fire so as to slow the burn rate. There are times when fire departments rely on the decisions of pump operators and attack teams to know whether the 'fight' will be offensive or defensive. Too often the press looks at what was lost as the barometer of a department's abilities. They ought to be giving mention to what was saved.

(Drifted off there for a bit.) Anyway, it's a danger when the homeowner doesn't know when to get out. Fire is not an enemy. It is an exothermic reaction, and many people do not treat it with the 'respect' it deserves or the understanding it requires.

Subject: RE: BS: New Orleans/California?
From: Peace
Date: 26 Oct 07 - 02:57 PM

('Fire also creates endothermic reactions' he said, before the pedants arrived.)

Subject: RE: BS: New Orleans/California?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 26 Oct 07 - 03:06 PM

We had plenty of "individualsists" here in New Orleans who stayed home to protect their property. Those in lower-lying areas wound up perched on their roofs, waiting for helicopter rescue; those on relatively higher ground did, in some cases, succeed in protecting their homes, not from the flood, but from the looters.

However, almost everyone was eventually dragged out of town, kicking and screaming if necessary, after it became clear that the entire fabric of the city's infrastructure was disfunctional.

There was a short period of time, maybe about a week after the storm, when there were virtually no local private citizens at all, anywhere in town ~ only rescue workers and government employees (including local police and firemen as well as representataives of FEMA and other federal agencies).

Subject: RE: BS: New Orleans/California?
From: Amos
Date: 26 Oct 07 - 03:36 PM

Hell, it's not like there's a lot you can do to fight back against rising water, above a certain point.

I too sympathize with those who stayed and fought and won -- as one of them told me about receiving the mandatory evac call, "Well, we're not the "mandatory" type. At the time I thought it was conceited of him to put his family at risk, but despite that, I understood his passion for a house he basically designed from the ground up. At the same time, misestimating the situation can ruin your lifetime, as witness the two charred corpses found in an outbuilding where they had gone to try to escape the flames that surrounded them. Hard way to go.

A

Subject: RE: BS: New Orleans/California?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 26 Oct 07 - 05:14 PM

So, Amos, you really don't think the concentration of Republican Congressmen in Southern California had anything to do with the alacrity of the federal government's response--in contrast to New Orleans? That would be heartening, if true--and I imagine you can judge better than most of us.

Subject: RE: BS: New Orleans/California?
From: Bobert
Date: 26 Oct 07 - 06:13 PM

The entire purpose of my "KatrinaGate" thread, which BTW reached about 800 posts, was that the Bush administration has always been long on ***talk*** when it comes to our homeland being protected but short on ***walk***...

I believe that SoCal is about to get the lesson that N.O. got...

Our country is ***not*** up to the task of dealing with these kinds of catastrophies... Sure, the churches will chip in... The Red Cross will chip in... The Insurance companies will drag their feet but when the smoke clears we'll find that the Bush adminstartion has been caught yet again just hoping that nothing would happen to expose their total incompetence in running our federal governemnt...

Stealing our tax bucks for the military/industrialists seems to be about the only thing that these crooks can do well...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: New Orleans/California?
From: Peace
Date: 26 Oct 07 - 06:20 PM

"Stealing our tax bucks for the military/industrialists seems to be about the only thing that these crooks can do well..."

When it's in the name of patriotism, it's easy to do well.

Subject: RE: BS: New Orleans/California?
From: GUEST,AMos at the APple Store
Date: 26 Oct 07 - 11:28 PM

I can't say, Ron; California is a blue state, but San Diego has a large military-industrial sector. I know a few Republicans, about 10% of the people I know. On the other hand I don't mingke with 'em so there may be more if 'em. Kinda like tarantulas, they come out when you're not lookin'.

A

Subject: RE: BS: New Orleans/California?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 27 Oct 07 - 07:54 AM

I think California has something like 19 Republican congressmen--out of 53, I think---but they're often way out in Right field--staunch Bushites--or worse--- and heavily concentrated in southern California.

Subject: RE: BS: New Orleans/California?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 27 Oct 07 - 07:55 AM

Jan says she likes tarantulas--but doesn't feel the same about Republicans.