I was watching the coverage on MSNBC last night. They were showing the thousands of people outside begging for help. There was something I saw that was particularly disturbing. Elderly people who had DIED due to exhaustion, starvation, or other conditions were LEFT in their wheelchairs, on the curb, wherever -with a NOTE attached with their next of kin's information on it. And they were left right out in the open with the LIVING. That can't be right or sanitary. :(

Website for safe victims
 

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2005/hur...ist/index.html


You can visit this website to see if those listed are people you are concerned about and you can also add the names of those you know for sure are safe.

Try sending a text message, even if they are not receiving calls. I got in contact with a few people through text. Hope this helps.

Damn that. I wouldn't let anything prohibit me in helping these people out. Forget about liabilities, forget about possibly losing my job, I'd help out anyway I could. Prohibit? I would find it very sad if some of these people weren't helping out in certain ways because they were prohibited to do so.

I understand I'm not there so it's hard to say exactly what I'd do. But I tell you this much, my duty as a human being is to help out others in need. My job would be the least of my worries in such a situation.

I would like to think that wouldn't prohibit me either, but who knows what those anchors are told, or what their contracts stipulate. Ridiculous, I know, but I don't know if everyone would be willing to sacrifice their livelihood like that. And for some it's probably easier to keep their distance and not become emotionally involved by helping. Why do so few people stop and help at accidents?

Finally!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Praise Jesus!!!!!!!!!
 

Convoy brings relief supplies to New Orleans

Friday, September 2, 2005; Posted: 12:53 p.m. EDT (16:53 GMT)

Programming Note: CNN correspondents throughout the region gauge the impact from the heart of disaster. (Program Schedule)

-- A convoy of military vehicles plowed through the flooded streets of New Orleans on Friday bringing food, water and medicine to the thousands of people trapped at a downtown convention center.

The relief effort came as President Bush toured the Gulf Coast to survey damage from Hurricane Katrina and shortly after the mayor of New Orleans said the city was "holding on by a thread."

Mayor Ray Nagin said in a statement that more than 10,000 people were evacuated from the city Thursday but that more than 50,000 survivors were still on rooftops and in shelters, in urgent need of help. (See video of the desperate conditions -- 1:56)


http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/02/kat...act/index.html

Yes they are trying, but to me its a day late and a dollar short. ITS THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF THE STRONGEST, WEALTHIEST, MOST POWERFUL COUNTRY in the world. Its not their job to try. An 18 year old who is flunking Algebra is supposed to try, not the government. Its their responsability to secure the lives of its citizens. Abe Lincoln, arguabely the founder of the Republican party said that its the governments responsability to do for it's citizens what they cant do for themselves.

The government isnt supposed to try. Its supposed to do. Thats its job.

It blows my mind that the doctors and patients holed up in Chartiy Hospital had to send text messages to people to let them know that they were there and needed help. No one knew or was looking. Charity is the largest hospital in NOLA. How could people not be looking for them or checkign on them. This was 3 days after the storm hit. I would think there would be a three-ring binder somewhere with a protocol of what to do 3 hours out, 6 hours out, 12 hours out, etc. When I worked at a school district we had an emergency plan that outlined everythign from hurricanes to school shooters. How is it a city of a million plus didn't?

I just believe its our job as an advanced socitey to take care of the weakest amongst us. In this task, we have clearly failed. And we shall be judged on it.

Well I guess I'm that type of person...

I do stop to help during accidents. Actually, I was late to work earlier this week because I stopped to help a woman and her two children who were hit buy a guy that ran a red light. But that's just me.

I'm not limited by contract or liabilities.

Then you're a better man than most, B, and I applaud you for that.

(FWIW, I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just offering another explanation of why some reporters don't seem to be helping as much as they could/should.)

Oh I know you aren't disagreeing with me and my posts aren't directed toward you. I'm just really angry at the fact that there are reports in this area that are more involved with capturing these horrifice events on tape as opposed to actually dropping the camera and helping anyway they can.

That's not to say all are doing it because i've heard/read reports of reporters and news crews doing anything and everything they could. I'm really ashamed with the action our government has taken thus far.

I'm just so frustrated right now. I have several friends in the area that I can not get in touch with. Nobody has heard from them and I fear the worst.

Exactly.

I wondered about this for a long time too -- news reporters talking to children in Bosnia, becoming friends with them, discussing their situations with them for months on end -- but never getting them out of the country! Things like that just blew my mind for a long time. The problem is that there is too much. You can fix one thing but there's still so much going on that overwhelms you. I finally understood this after reading an article about a photographer who had spent his entire life taking pictures of the poverty in Africa, trying to raise awareness about it. He ultimately ended up killing himself, and his friends and family all speculated that one of the major reasons was that he had surrounded himself with tragedy for so long that he just felt things were hopeless. One of his photos that I saw was a picture of a starving, sick child crawling across the ground (the caption said towards a humanitarian aid place where she could get food). It was pretty clear that the child was on the verge of death, and a number of the people who saw this photo were outraged that the photographer had thought to get a picture of this instead of/before helping the kid to get food. The rest of us argued that there were certainly others who needed the food just as much, and that the child in question probably wasn't going to make it anyway. I can't imagine being put in a position where you have to decide whether or not somebody's worthy of "being saved" -- and having to do it on a regular basis.

I think there have been reports of reporters in Iraq coming home severely depressed and affected by what they've seen there. I'm sure those who have reported on other overwhelming events have felt similarly. In cases where you're surrounded by so much destruction and tragedy, I think it can be almost necessary to keep a sense of healthy disattachment before you're too bogged down to function.

(You can say that if you were there, you'd be helping those people as much as you could. Maybe that's true. But IMO, if you felt that strongly about the situation, you'd be down there helping them NOW -- you wouldn't be sitting at your computers typing away about how nobody's helping them. Why aren't you down there? You've got a job to do, you've got commitments, you've got other priorities. So do they. They aren't any more heartless than the rest of us.)



On another note, I do think that this is more about class/money than race. But I also think that -- and for any of you who have been to New Orleans, this is pretty clear -- in this city, the two are inextricably linked. If something's about class, it's going to be about race. You can't separate the two.

A number of people have told me that reports from the NOLA convention center are radically different than the official statements we're getting on TV, and while I don't know enough about that to back it up, I have to say that it wouldn't surprise me if things were much uglier than we're being told.

They are.

Some of you more enterprising individuals may desire to root out some web sites that broadcast police-band radio via web . . . including from the NO area. Interesting stuff, sort of.

Exactly.

Thanks everyone for your prayers and suggestions!!! We finally heard from Troy and he is okay. He's been slowly making his way up north and is in Baltimore now and will be comming to Jersey in a few days.

Thanks again!