This is why FEMA need to get this *&$% together....
 

Hurricane Maria forms over open Atlantic

Sunday, September 4, 2005; Posted: 9:14 a.m. EDT (13:14 GMT)

MIAMI, Florida (AP) -- Maria intensified and developed into the season's fifth hurricane on Sunday, growing stronger over warm water in the open Atlantic.

At 5 a.m. EDT, the storm had maximum sustained wind of 75 mph -- only 1 mph higher than the minimum threshold for hurricane status -- and was centered 645 miles southeast of Bermuda.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/09/0....ap/index.html

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Would we be able to sustain another hit from a strong Hurricane? :eek: :confused:

Maria is not expected to hit the US at all. She is moving NNW right now and they expect her to start moving more eastward, remaining over water until she reaches waters too cold for her to survive in.

However... No, we can't sustain another major hurricane hitting the US right now and we're in the peak of hurricane season. We also would be up a creek if there was a terrorist attack now.

I'm amazed that countries we're not on the best of terms with have offered their help. I do hope the US government takes some of these countries up on their offers. We could definitely use it!

For anyone interested my friend forwarded this website to me... the guy had a webcam up and running on Monday evening broadcasting from NO

http://www.livejournal.com/~interdictor/

The pictures and video are pretty incredible... and as you can see it didn't take long for the looters to go to work - kinda destroying the arguement that it was desperation.

Texas now has a quarter million refugees in the state, with more coming hourly. We're pretty much full and are now working with other states to take the newest arrivals, assess their situation, get them any medical attention needed; bathed, clothed and fed and then sent on via plane to other cities in the US that have offered to help. This will truely be a national effort. I bet there wont be any state in the continental US without NOLA residents.

NOLA.com now has a dateline on the story I mentioned above. It ran June 23-27, 2002 - three years ago. Yet the government had no idea. Maybe they just cant read?

It isn't so much as they can't read... it's the typical bureaucratic response that made a bad situation worse. 'Can't do it - it's not my jurisdiction', 'That decision is made far above my pay grade', etc., etc. and so forth.

And when the piles of fresh excrement strike the rotary oscillating air handler (what a bureaucrat would say instead of the more common 'the shit's hit the fan'), it doesn't take 'em very long to start pointing the fingers of blame to every other govermnent organization but their own. They're just too smug to admit 'they fucked it up beyond all recognition'.

I read in our paper today that groups of displaced people from the Gulf will be coming here to Wichita (KS). There are getting two unused elementary schools ready (the plan is to house one family per room).

Re: I'm sorry...
 

Monet, you are not alone.

For all of the reasons you list.

The last straw for me was Director Brown of FEMA telling Soledad O'Brien on CNN that they did not know that anyone was at the NO Convention Center until Wednesday or Thursday.

Everyone else did.

Beyond belief.

Sometimes politics can cause more damage that the hurrincance :rolleyes:

For example Castro is pretty pissed off (at least judging from the news conference) because the offer of 1600 Cuban medical personal trained in disaster relief has been pretty much ignored or rebuffed by the State Department.

Why would you turn down a genuine offer of humanitarian aid, no-strings attached, simply because of political differences.... oh right I forgot what administration is in charge...

And not to forget the rabidly vociferous and politically powerful Cuba en el Exilio community in South Florida and other large cities... They'd probably complain bitterly that those Cuban doctors are really Communist infiltrators sent to spread unrest among the poor population of New Orleans. Not to mention the 'Trading with the Enemy Act' that practically forbids the U.S. Government to have a one on one conversation with Cuban officials unless it's carefully scripted. While only Presidential authority is only required to change the status of a country from bitter enemy to 'most favored nation', it takes an act of Congress to change anything over the current official status of Cuba.

When New Orleans does rebuild, I'd imagine that the population would be half of what it was before the storm. My friend is a speech pathologist at an elementary school in Norcross, GA and was saying that they had almost 100 students from New Orleans register last week. I'll bet there's many other schools just like that around the country.

I have a concern or two after todays news events:

1) They got one of the pumps working.. that's good news, BUT.. all we've heard about is how contaminated this water is, with bodies, sewage, chemicals, disease, etc. So, they're pumping it all right into Lake Pontchartrain? What then? How do they clean the lake? Was it a fairly clean, usable lake before?

2) I heard one report that the Army now has permission to forcibly remove people who are refusing to leave. I understand that it is for their own good and I, personally, can't understand why they wouldn't leave at this point, but it seems wrong at the same time. I don't know what the answer is.. I guess sometimes, if we aren't saving ourselves, someone has to do it for us, but where will they keep those folks?

Volunteers needed in Mississippi

http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/12566827.htm