New Orleans is Doomed

geekster · Post by **geekster** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 8:15 am

Typical example heard on NPR this morning. Rescuer finds someone on a roof, calls for evac. 5 helicopters from 5 different agencies respond to rescue one person. Again, no central command. He should have called for rescue and one helicopter should have been dispatched from the command post. I certainly hope a mayor and governor lose their jobs, they certainly weren't there when their people needed them.

Kinetic IV · Post by **Kinetic IV** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 8:31 am

Hmmm...maybe it's time to send that donation to the DNC? There's some fertile ground for "regime change" down there.

Also I know NO missed the 30 foot wave, I was thinking Mississippi and posting about NO. It's a hazard of drinking and posting at 3 am.

But 5 helos for one call? No wonder the place is still jacked up.

geekster · Post by **geekster** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 8:49 am

Hmmm...maybe it's time to send that donation to the DNC? There's some fertile ground for "regime change" down there.

Huh? The mayor and the governor are Democrats. But I don't think party affilliation has fuck all to do with this. This is just plain lack of planning that has probably spanned local and state administrations for generations.

Kinetic IV · Post by **Kinetic IV** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 9:30 am

Sheesh...I did it again. Mississippi is what I'm thinking about as we're discussing PCS service restoration here at work this morning. It's really one of the main things on my plate.

geekster · Post by **geekster** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 10:16 am

I know that coastal Mississippi was hit pretty hard but I am not as well read on the response there by local and state authorities as there doesn't seem to be as much information out there about it. I have been trying to read the local papers but all I seem to get is a lot of cheerleading. Hard to get a good picture of what is really going on.

As for telecom networks in the area, I do know that most of the outages currently are power related. Until they get reliable power, cellular service is going to be spotty. Most of the telcos are reporting some damage to facillities and equipment from Katrina in the coastal areas and in many of those places they are talking about not only wholesale replacement of central offices, but there is no power grid left. The whole grid basically needs to be restrung in many areas. The areas right on the coast were in many cases scraped clean to the ground as far as infrastructure goes.

Kinetic IV · Post by **Kinetic IV** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 10:37 am

There are 2 cell sites that I know of where there is NOTHING there except 4 broken bolts and a concrete pad. The rest is gone.

Unofficially and off the record speaking as myself and not representing anyone else, the main issue is not power it's mangled cell towers and other issues. We've got generators and plenty of fuel in there now, in some places we rolled in SCOW's until the tower replacements arrive. But overall we're kicking ass on restoration. Each day brings substantial progress. But now we're switching to Rita restoration and what I saw this morning made me cringe. Plus the crews are tired and staring at another 2 solid weeks of long days, little sleep, and some downright miserable and treacherous conditions. Let's put it this way, if you fear snakes don't be on the restoration crews.

It will get done but there's some damn good people busting their asses to do it.

ZaphodBurner · Post by **ZaphodBurner** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 10:42 am

geekster wrote: Overall, I am amazed at what volunteers from outside the region have been able to do in spite of a total lack of coordination by the indigenous organizations.

A relative in Biloxi who is NOT a Burner became very excited when my mom mentioned that I'd been to Burning Man. They've heard of Burners now!

Everything around them is gone...looks like Hiroshima, they say...but she said it's profoundly amazing and inspiring to see so many people showing up with truckloads of food, water, gas, medical supplies, blankets.

Sometimes one forgets how many good, giving people there are in the world.

-c

geekster · Post by **geekster** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 10:46 am

My information comes mainly from the North American Network Operators Group (NANOG) when it comes to reports of outages. While most of that is related to Internet networks, we do get reports on general telecom too. Bellsouth and SBC are reporting that most of their outages are power related. There is a news story on it here:

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u ... phones_hk3

In areas directly on the coast, as I said, a lot of the infrastructure was scraped to the ground so having things like cell sites completely gone isn't surprising. There are also a few central offices in the immediate coastal area that are completely gone too and a CO is build like a fucking fortress.

ZaphodBurner · Post by **ZaphodBurner** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 10:57 am

Badger wrote:
I think it's not quite right to compare earthquakes and huge-scale flooding like we saw with Katrina.
Yeh, except that just getting back from Mississippi myself I've concluded that bay area folk are FUCKED if for a minute they expect that Red Cross to be anything but a bunch of bumbling...

Badger, first:

On behalf of my mom's family, in Gulfport and Biloxi, and myself, THANK YOU.

Second, please elaborate on your experience there. The apartments I lived in long ago were right about where the casino came across the road, my school is gone, the house I lived in is gone, the oceanarium where my relatives worked and where I played as a kid are gone...pretty much everything I know of there besides the Friendship Oak (FUCK YOU KATRINA, BADASSES DON'T DIE) and the lighthouse are gone. I recently started a new job, got special arrangements for the Burn and now I can't get time off to go down there. It's fucking killing me.

-gatt

geekster · Post by **geekster** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 10:58 am

Here's an article out of Mississippi that expects to have residential service completely restored by the end of October. It appears that a good amount of service is already restored. There are lots of problems, though, when it comes to a major disaster like this that people to not count on because nobody ever takes into account the scale of regional disasters.

A CO can not function without power. It does have backup generators. Generators need fuel. With the region's refineries damaged or out of comission, along with roads and bridges washed out or damaged, fuel can be a hard thing to come by. It is possible to have a fully functioning CO that is unable to provide reliable service because it's fuel supply is spotty. They can restore outside plant all day long but without the power to light the circuits, there isn't a lot they can do.

This has happened to some smaller data network centers in the area too. They have not taken any structural hits but power is out, they have run out of fuel, and they are low on the priority list for refueling after emergency responders, hospitals, telcos, etc. In other words, they will get their fuel once there is enough to go around. In the meantime, they are dark. One enterprising web hosting center did an interesting thing. They backed up all the hosted sites in the storm areas and are serving out of an emergency backup facillity farther north (Wichita, KS I believe).

Having a backup generator isn't worth a pinch of owl shit if you can't refuel it.

geekster · Post by **geekster** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 11:01 am

That link from Mississippi:

http://www.picayuneitem.com/articles/20 ... phones.txt

ZaphodBurner · Post by **ZaphodBurner** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 12:07 pm

geekster wrote:There was no 30 foot surge in NO. It survived the initial hurricane just fine.

Wasn't he referring to the Gulf Coast? IE, Bay St. Louis, Long Beach, Pass Christian, Waveland, Gulfport, Biloxi, Ocean Springs...

-c

Badger · Post by **Badger** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 1:47 pm

Zaphod,

Send me e-mail and I'll fill you in. I'm almost hesitant to even provide this link but here goes:

http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/katrina/KATRINA0000.HTM

It's a special link to a NOAA Quickbird satellite that has some pretty damn good images. Far better than Keyhole sets and the Katrina links are 48hours post-Katrina arrival. I suspect you'll figure out how to nagivate around and your questions will most likely be better answered by the images vs. my conveyence of the scene.

geekster · Post by **geekster** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 4:00 pm

Damn. Looking at the upper right of this one:

http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/katrina/24614721.jpg

it looks like every single structure is gone. And looking at some of those pictures of Biloxi right on the beach, it looks like not only are the debris fields huge, but in many places it looks like ever damned tree there is gone. And judging by the size of those trees, you can tell it has been some time since anything that bad hit there.

Holy crap.

Fat SAM · Post by **Fat SAM** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 4:36 pm

lurker wrote:
"does not want to work with any Bush midigated organizations'

WHAT? If the rescue comes from someone you disagree with politically you don't want to help? People can die because Bush might be affiliated with an agency and you don't want your precious hands tarnished?

You sicken me.

It was the Bush administration that turned down doctors that Cuba offered to send. Damitty damn damn.

He sickens me.

Badger · Post by **Badger** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 6:14 pm

You should have seen the woman in the gold Mercedes that had the '7th Day Adventists Rescue sticker on her car door. 100 degrees and 98% humidity and she was driving around with windows up and the A/C going full blast. Would pull up to a clothing drop off bin crack her window and toss out a few pair of socks. She WASN'T about to get out of that car.

Pretty fucking disgusting.

Then there was the Scientology group. I won't even go there....

Seemed like damn near EVERY church group charity was making more of an effort to be seen and counted rather than just making a selfless effort.

spectabillis · Post by **spectabillis** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 7:08 pm

Its strange to look at an ariel pic and see boats in trees.

geekster · Post by **geekster** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 8:37 pm

Seemed like damn near EVERY church group charity was making more of an effort to be seen and counted rather than just making a selfless effort.

I remember something similar many years ago when Agnes tore up the Baltimore area, though not nearly as bad as Mississippi has it now. It seemed like this one guy must have been following the TV cameras around because he managed to get interviewed by every channel in town.

But it doesn't surprise me. I just can't go down there right now, maybe if my kids were older I could. But I had an idea. From what I have been reading, Badger, the community that the BRC groups are reaching out to is mainly a Vietnamese immigrant community. We have several people from Vietnam at work and several Vietnamese markets in the area here in San Jose. I was thinking that it might be nice if I bought some supplies of a nature that might offer them a little comfort in their circumstances. Maybe a few cases of fish sauce, some rice of a variety and brand they might normally get, some vietnmanese green tea, stuff like that. In other words to try to put a little bit of the familliar back in their life. I suppose I was thinking that while people have been very generous in giving, I wonder if they are getting what might be their more traditional or cultural staples or maybe just a comfort food item. I could get with one of my coworkers and maybe put together a list of stuff to get, find a local market and get the stuff and maybe add it to a shipment if one was leaving the Bay Area.

Maybe other needs are more pressing, I don't know. My thinking was that they have been through hell and something familliar might help to raise their spirits.

Badger · Post by **Badger** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 9:54 pm

Great idea(s) Geekster. Tom Price ('Thumper') is currently down there and hanging with the Temple folks. The Rainbow folks aren't all that far away and word continues that they're busting ass feeding folks and making sure they don't go to bed hungry.

PM me at my e-mail addy and I'll hook up with Tom to see what's needed in terms of 'comfort food.'

Anyone else into doing this please drop a line. This seems like just another thing we can make happen.

Who's in?

geekster · Post by **geekster** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 10:22 pm

Mail sent. I will get with my coworkers tomorrow. I am interested in things like table spices, sauces, varieties of tea, rice, other things I haven't thought of and have never heard of that they might know about that can be shipped and keep without refrigeration but might make their upside down world a little less alien.

ZaphodBurner · Post by **ZaphodBurner** » Tue Sep 27, 2005 8:26 am

geekster wrote:I know that coastal Mississippi was hit pretty hard but I am not as well read on the response there by local and state authorities as there doesn't seem to be as much information out there about it.

The local authorities on the Gulf Coast are hurricane veterans, as are the residents. Most of them expected something like Camille would come along someday and wreck everything...but I don't think they literally meant "wreck everything," but it's what they got. When I was a kid in Gulfport we used to do hurricane drills in school. They've been expecting a disaster for a long time.

My cousin called from Biloxi yesterday and said "Everything you hear about FEMA, believe it!" She says there is more food in her cupboard than before the hurricane but it's because of the unending generosity of private citizens coming into town with truckloads of supplies. (She's familiar with the Burner presence down there.) She also says the military units responded effectively and with generosity and compassion, but the Red Cross was largely a no-show when they were needed the most.

Nearly everybody seems to believe the Mississippi government responded immeasurely better than Louisiana's and the feds.
-c

geekster · Post by **geekster** » Tue Sep 27, 2005 9:25 am

I still am disappointed, though, that FEMA is considered a first responder relief organization. It isn't. FEMA is for things like getting a low cost loan for rebuilding your house well after the disaster. What happened in this case is that the state and local governments of Louisiana (Mississippi's local government seems to have fared much better) was completely paralysed. They then started acting like it was FEMA's responsibility to be a search and rescue and law enforcement agency. It just isn't. I am no big fan of huge bureaucracy such as FEMA or the Red Cross or most other huge bureaucracy but in all fairness and honesty, in this disaster the news media have led people to believe that the role of FEMA is something that it isn't. Mainly it is designed as a support mechanism for state and local government, it isn't designed to step in and REPLACE them.

For example, FEMA recommeneded over and over to the New Orleans governor to place the state National Guard under federal control so they could be mobilized at federal expense. She refused saying it would weaken her appearance politically if she gave up control of the Guard. Also, what is now coming out in hearings is that the state and city of NO were bitching at each other and not getting anything done right up to the time the hurricane hit.

FEMA is NOT designed to come in and manage an emergency. I wish people would get that expectation right out of their head. It is like blaming the FBI for local looting or something. So far in the hearings what has mainly come out is the former director said he should have realized earlier that the state and local government in Louisiana and NO were completely dysfunctional and unable to handle even evacuation. I don't think anyone expected both the lack of preparation and lack of ability to act as was seen there.

That the mayor of NO was talking about 10,000 dead in the city is a perfect example of how completely clueless he was of the situation. In fact, the death toll is a little over a thousand and that includes Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

Kinetic IV · Post by **Kinetic IV** » Tue Sep 27, 2005 10:47 am

Unofficially things are getting back to normal for the company I work for.
85% coverage restoration for Baton Rouge
70% coverage restoration for New Orleans excluding areas impacted by new flooding
95% coverage restoration in Mississippi. (A major source of pride right there!)
Houston, TX = 90%
Lake Charles, LA = Assessment in progress. The reality is there's not much to assess, bring in new stuff and set it up cause the old stuff is either gone or beyond repair. It's mostly gone.
Retail opens today in places like Slidell...which is a major development right there.

It's all good signs that the area is fighting it's way back.

geekster · Post by **geekster** » Tue Sep 27, 2005 1:09 pm

Okay

Just had lunch with Ha and Duc at work. Ha is willing to go with me tomorrow morning to a Vietnamese supermarket in downtown San Jose to get stuff. More along the lines of showing me what to get. Interestingly, he says his community sent a bunch of people to Biloxi a couple of weeks ago, including medical personnel. He was beaming when I told him what the BM guys were doing down there and he also understood when I asked him to keep it quiet, that this wasn't being done for publicity.

Here is what he suggests getting in a generic sense, I will have more specific information such as varieties and brands later after I actually get my hands on some of it:

Rice
Vietnamese tea
Fish sauce
Red (hot) sauce
Soy sauce
Canned sardines (in tomato sauce is most popular, oil will do, probably not mustard)
Dried fish (very popular, keeps well without refigeration)
Dried shrimp
Salt shrimp
Noodle cups (the vietnamese noodle cups, not ramen cups, but the same basic idea)
Vietnamese noodles

I have in mind to get some things in two different quanties. Some bulk rice, for example, the rainbow people can cook up and maybe some smaller portions that can be put in the store and people can take away if they have means to cook it if they are staying someplace else.

Anyhow, I can deliver this stuff someplace so it can get on the next truck east. I am not going to have a whole terrible lot as I have only a small Toyota pickup so I am not talking about enough to fill a large truck or anything. I just need to know where it needs to be and when it needs to be there.

karine · Post by **karine** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 8:30 am

Hello Friends!

I have started a non-profit organization to help other non-profit GRASSROOT organizations that have begun clean-up and action in and around the New Orleans and Katrina devasted areas. I believe the link below can tell you more information.

Thanks to all of you for ALREADY supporting your southern neighbors. There are so many burners down there- this is awesome!

You too, can personally add to help in the effort, even if you feel like you can't "up and leave". See this link:
http://www.geocities.com/karinedch/index.html

Love, Karine

Grassroots Katrina Effort
Help Neighborhoods affected by Katrina clean-up and stay in action