Where to Start?
A Short Technical
Synopsis of the Disaster
Katrina had already hit
Florida when it circled up the Gulf of Mexico, slowly, gaining power
over the warm Gulf waters. It hit Florida as a category 3
hurricane; it wound up to category 4 when it hit New Orleans.
Katrina made landfall on Monday August, 29th at the Louisiana
town of Buras-Triumph with winds speeds of 175 miles per hour. It
hit New Orleans at about 8:00 am; by 9:00 am the Ninth Ward was
flooded. There had been a mandatory evacuation, the only
sensible policy, but many people had no way to get out of town.
Katrina made landfall one more time after crossing inland water
bodies, in Mississippi. It took until 2:00 pm for official
confirmation that walls had collapsed on the Industrial Canal. By
noon the next day, it was obvious that the gaps in the collapsed
walls could not be plugged before the entire city was flooded.
Katrina had already hit
Florida when it circled up the Gulf of Mexico, slowly, gaining power
over the warm Gulf waters. It hit Florida as a category 3
hurricane; it wound up to category 4 when it hit New Orleans.
Katrina made landfall on Monday August, 29th at the Louisiana
town of Buras-Triumph with winds speeds of 175 miles per hour. It
hit New Orleans at about 8:00 am; by 9:00 am the Ninth Ward was
flooded. There had been a mandatory evacuation, the only
sensible policy, but many people had no way to get out of town.
Katrina made landfall one more time after crossing inland water
bodies, in Mississippi. It took until 2:00 pm for official
confirmation that walls had collapsed on the Industrial Canal. By
noon the next day, it was obvious that the gaps in the collapsed
walls could not be plugged before the entire city was flooded.
Saving New Orleans
Animals : An example of success
As the floodwaters disaster
progressed we, in the group, found out that the rescuers were forcing
residents to evacuate without their pets, they were forced to leave
their animal family members behind. What resulted was a animal
humane horror story, where pets were dying of thirst inside houses or
roaming the streets. Within a few short days of news reaching
us of this forced abandonment, congress enacted laws protecting pets
during time of disaster, forcing the rescuers to allow evacuees to
bring their pets with them.
A the time, this Katrina
forum was the number one source, ranked by Google, for
knowledge about the disaster. I structured the group to
concentrate on verifiable information, which could then be used by
us, and others, to force policy makers to act to protect people's
lives.
Activists tend to have
social communication structures, once called phone trees, that
disseminates information quickly for effective political
action. It is essential that the information spreading through
social networks, now enabled by the Internet and the web, be very
accurate. New information is built on older information;
inaccuracies in basic information can skew entire perceptions. There
is no question, in my mind, that the knowledge developed by the forum
was helpful, both, in enabling actions throughout the activist
community, and for our own actions.
A week after the disaster
began, we were further horrified to find that New Orleans policemen
were shooting the abandoned pets in the streets. The facts were
carefully comprehended by the group, and action was taken. And,
again, the purely illegal process by the police of gunning down loose
pets was almost immediately halted, because of highly coordinated
activist action. The level of activist coordination was
unusual, something I had never experienced; it did not surprise me
though, as I have long been aware of potential of digitally networked
communities.
I heard, many times, the
exact sentiments, word for word, on NPR, and from other media
sources; from various reporters, speaking in hushed nervous tones.
These sentiments contrast sharply to the general perception of
the crisis as I am finding it on the web today. I learned of
this contrast when I started the fact checking process; I can only
describe today's common perception of events as having been
“whitened.”
It is important to
understand the importance of animals in the activist culture.
Activists have a lot of empathy; they feel others' suffering.
Along, with prisoners, it is said that a culture's humanity is
measured by its treatment of animals.
I have presented, in full, a
description of conditions in New Orleans during the crisis by an
animal rescuer from Oregon who worked hard in the city in the
floodwaters. Through his description of his experience and the
dogs he rescued, you can get a feel for how life is for the poor
black communities in New Orleans.
The working data for this
piece is a time-line, but it is not Katrina time-line, it is a
time-line of the experience of our forum: how we learned things and
we researched them, and how we reacted.
This writing also part of a
plan to build an action research web community, like Care2, but more
specialized, called "The New Model for Just In Time Research."
It is a degree project.
Fact Checking
While reviewing the text
from the forum, I did frequent spot checking of sources. While
many conclusions were emotional, rather than factual, all the
facts that I checked were correct.
So, I am simply presenting
the information as was supplied, accepting it as truth. In some
cases, the facts are so stupendous, the I did some recent follow-up,
and ,again, found all the facts to be accurate.
The Katrina Perception
What is important for the
reader, as was for the forum members, is to understand the general
over-picture that one develops from reading this and the collected
information.
When trying to determine
what went wrong, we found many social weaknesses and technical faults
in the national rescue and protection system. In terms of
finger-pointing for to determine fault for the imposed suffering, it
is impossible to find a single point of failure; there was so much
hardship, and so many guilty parties. There were as many,
actually more, heroes; while the event and its outcome are
distressing, we must all take pride in the actions of the people who
actually saved the day.
My personal feeling is that
the experience of the tens of thousands stranded in the two huge
shelters, the Superdome and the convention center, is central to this
study. I felt, immediately, that these people were being
deliberately stranded. In reading the data collected by the
group, their forced isolation and deprivation was part bigger
problems affecting the American civilization. Corr ell Williams
who was trapped in the city reported,
"'The police were in
boats watching us. They were just laughing at us. Five of them to a
boat, not trying to help nobody. Helicopters were riding by just
looking at us. They weren't helping. We were pulling people on bits
of wood, and the National Guard would come driving by in their empty
military trucks.”
As with finger-pointing for
blame, it is impossible, in a few words to describe my intuitive
understanding; but, the feeling for me that there was a problem far
worse than bureaucratic disorder that become overwhelming when
working with the data.
The technical perception I
developed, is of government protection organizations that seem
to have failure built into their systems operations; these
organizations out did themselves with each of their successive
catastrophic failures. But as an animal rescuer mentioned, the
failures seemed to be by design.
"We
are hearing so much about thousands of people and companies
(Wal-Mart with trucks of water for just one) with trucks and
boats who came to help and were turned back saying they
weren't needed that its starting to look like it was by design."
But, to what purpose? If
the disaster was deliberate, coming down from the highest levels of
civic control, then the purposes for this deliberate disaster would
have to be related to capital. There is support in that idea by
the contradictory actions of the New Orleans mayor with respect to
real estate development.
"The
first few days were a natural disaster. The last four days were a
man-made disaster," said Phillip Holt, 51.
In the beginning of the
crisis, the worst-off of the victims were referred to as refugees;
community activists took umbrence to this. To the activists and
the victims, the proper term for the displaced was evacuee, a person
hopefully going back home after the crisis. There is strong
evidence, now, that many of them are now are, in fact,
refugees, the term they resisted. There is a strong effort to
keep the people evacuated last from returning. I also here that
the New Orleans evacuees are not necessarily welcome in their new
homes. A year later, as I do review the data, I here rumors on
the Internet of efforts in Texas to isolate Katrina evacuees, and
“run them out” of Texas.
The People
The forum group
The most valuable entries
into the group were from members who were actually in the area
helping people survive. One of them, Jeanie W. was a very
active, and brave, rescuer. While her many of the accounts may
not seem be purely factual with respect to the machinations of the
political crisis within the crisis, she shows an incredible awareness
of the events as they happened around her, and I feel she speaks for
the communities local to the affected area; she gives a good
impression of what people were then thinking on the scene. Her
text entires represent the greater truth of the Katrina experience
its aftermath. Her entries are kept in full, as are
contributions by other group members and activists loosely associated
with the group who were in the area.
Another group member in the
area member told us what she saw this during the early days of the
crisis:
“The poor hurt by the storm.
Neighbors going door to door helping one another.
Thugs and hoodlums going door to door looking for someone
vulnerable.
Ice and water being fought over as police tried to keep the peace.
Out of town volunteers coming with food and staying for now a week
still serving it.
The Red Cross doing a great job in the shelters.
The Salvation Army doing a great job in the community.
Four Hundred crewman from everywhere bring back the power to
homes, churches and businesses.
Lines at service stations a block to a mile long.
National Guardsmen patrolling the streets of Mccomb
Doctors, nurses and other hospital personnel working tirelessly,
even sleeping in the hospital.
People from all over the world giving what little they have and
pulling together.
When It comes down to it " We are all in this together "
The size of the forum ranged
from 120 to 130 members, the actual commentary group, the information
providers, numbered about 50, though that is a very rough estimate.
Some contributors added to the knowledge with a vast bulk of
information, others added only small but valuable entires. Some
added huge amounts of information, but lacked empathy necessary to
make actually contributing critical commentary. Some, were just
readers who joined the group to align with the cause. Of
course, there were the many people who used the forum as a news
source, and index.
I hoped to keep the group
focused, and I was successful in that. Here is one of my own
postings,
Goals
and Focus of the Group: The hope here is to collect information
about the failures of the President, FEMA and especially Michael
Chertoff the Homeland Security Secretary to provide support for the
hurricane Katrina survivors in New Orleans. With that
information we can create a variety of documentation directed at
congress with the hope of making these people and organizations
accountable.
I tried to keep the topics
in distinct topic threads. That was successful as well. My
other forums have been sloppy in that respect, possibly the urgency
of the crisis helped keep members focused on information structure.
The forum served many
purposes for its members: it provided a concise, history of what
happened, proved completely accurate through critical analysis by
members of each other's postings. It covered comprehensively,
the crises involving animals as Care2 is primarily an animal support
site. It provided for group members the ability to act, armed
with solid knowledge. Possibly most important, it gave many a way to
release their personal grief for the city, its people, and its
animals, in an effective way.
Many who worked on the group
had the free time to offer, as they are homebound because of
disabilities. The majority of these, I found out, suffer from
trauma disorders; trauma disorders can panic and depression problems
when sufferers are presented with the knowledge of traumatic stress.
Those members contributed greatly; I respect their courage;
involvement in the group may have been very difficult for them.
I have to mention, there
were people in the group whose actions were ultimately disruptive.
While they bedeviled me during the important period of the
group, their negative contribution, ironically, adds value to this
discussion, by opening discussion about the needs for some controls
in what is meant to be a purely democratic discussion environment.
As a moderator, or a “mod” in Internet-talk, I
would refer to these forum control issues as a “can of worms,”
but there is value in that discussion to help build knowledge for
democracy over the Internet, and in applying democracy to our
civilization. This “can of worms” happens to be a
central point of discussion within the Care2 community management
environment.
The White House
In Washington DC, there was
the President, who as the leader of the country ultimately
responsibility for the crisis, and his Vice President, Cabinet, and
emergency management appointees. There was Condi Rice,
Secretary of State; Micheal Chertoff, head of Homeland Security;
Micheal Brown, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Also
near the President were his family, who play a visible role; his
wife; father and mother; an apparent family friend the former
President, Bill Clinton, and you almost what to re-mention Condi Rice
who had referred to herself, jokingly perhaps, as the President's
wife.
Louisiana and New
Orleans: the Governor and the Mayor
In Louisiana two major
governmental players were the Governor, Kathleen Blanco, and the
Mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin. The Governor was often blamed
for the slow response to the disaster, as was the mayor of New
Orleans.
The Mayor may, presently, be
best known for his statements during the crisis publicly telling the
Federal officials to "get off your asses"; he used other
profanity as well. But there is a lingering question about him:
he ordered an evacuation, but did not account for those tens of
thousands who would be stranded for reasons no fault of their own.
There is a photo of dozens of parked school buses partially
under water, indicating that he had no actual plan for the many who
would be stranded. As time goes on, he reveals himself to be
allied with real estate developers, creating city policies on behalf
of the developers to prevent returning Katrina evacuees from
fixing their lives, rebuilding their homes.
The Governor is held
partially responsible by some in the group, including Jeanie W., for
delaying the rescue effort, by adding to bureaucratic confusion for
reasons of regional politics. Arguments were made on the forum
that she didn't want to give control to Federal authorities, as she
would lose control herself over the situation. To me this
argument is moot, as in an emergency everybody should work together
on a personal basis to save lives; high levels of control are not
necessary during emergencies if there is a good group feeling.
I recall the Governor making
statement where she stressed a military need for the flooded city;
she seemed to have a prejudiced perception that the people who
remained had formed into mobs. I recall her saying that they
needed to be controlled with the threat of gunfire, as the mobs
consisted largely of crack addicts crazed by withdrawal (I am having
difficulty locating the references for these remarks of hers; I am
giving them to you from recollection). If, in fact, she had
this misconception--and this misconception disseminated through the
Louisiana national guard--then many of the actions against those
trapped in the city during the flood are easily explainable in terms
of bias.
To her credit, she took
matters into her own hands by “recalling” the Louisiana
National Guard from Iraqi duty, putting them in the flooded city; the
Federal response was a threat of court martials against the soldiers
as having deserted.
The Villains
Among the worst players in
the disaster were gangs, and other sociopaths, that went on psychotic
rampage while trapped in the big shelters, the Convention
Center and the Superdome.
What
was left here is the rape and murder of a 7 year old
little girl at the Dome, Thursday night. I hope they
find the creep who did that. Jeanie W.
Finding her body:
"There's
another one in the freezer, a 7-year-old with her throat cut."
To me, the triggering cause
of the mayhem in the big shelters, were the isolation, deprivations
and entrapment of those stranded in the shelters. Alcohol was
also contributor, as well. A particular organized gang
“broke
into the locked alcohol storage areas and suddenly had 50 cases of
hard liquor and 200 cases of beer”
"They
took so much, they couldn't drink it all," said George Lancie,
the manager of the center's food-service company. “there
were scenes of gangsters, drunk, groping after young girls, scenes
not far from the ones of women in corners, balled up, praying”
These victims had a horrible
choice, “the gangsters, or the floodwaters.”
Unfortunately, events like
these, are often used to tar African Americans with the same
criminal brush, every trapped victim in New Orleans may have viewed
as criminal.
"You
declare martial law," said Jazz Washington, a community
activist,
"and
to these gangsters that just means, 'We can kill you and keep on
moving.'
FEMA and Homeland
Security
Failure by authorities to
properly evacuate the city, before and after Katrina's landfall, was
an initial cause for the tragic deaths in the city. But, since
there were people left behind--how could there not be, New Orleans is
a world class city-those who denied help to the stranded were also
responsible for the deaths.
FEMA, the Federal Emergency
Management Agency, its leaders, its operators, and its parent
organization, Homeland Security, were responsible for the city from
the very beginning of the crisis; their actions, more than any
others, were ultimately the cause of suffering and death in the city.
There level of mis-management was so extreme, witnesses had to
wonder if the FEMA organization had ulterior motives.
FEMA, and the other
authorities, was aware from the outset of the dangers of the storm,
and they had guessed accurately the size of the stranded city
residents.
FEMA actions during its
entire life provides for us a list of fraud and negligence,
that by itself could be used as a study in systemic bureaucratic
failures. I am providing here only there list of misdeeds
during the crisis, and it is partial at that. I carefully
checked facts here, as the list is so long it is unbelievable. Mixed
in this list are actions by other authorities, who seemed to work in
concert with FEMA in assuring the rescue of the survivors would be a
failure. The volume of the negligence is so overwhelming that
it speaks to systemic indifference within the federal homeland
protection organizations, and government bureaucracies in general.
Excuses of bureaucratic failure so are consistently traced back
to the concept of red tape, that one begins to imagine truckloads of
rolls of red tape.
the list of deliberate
negligence is extreme, it is difficult categorize it all; it is
overwhelming.
Every problem FEMA caused,
there were so many, was logically traced back to the term "red
tape" to the point where that term no long has a specific
bureaucratic meaning. Being emeried in the mass of problems
they caused, makes one think in terms of truckloads of rolls of red
tape.
We learned that, on August
29, Michael D. Brown, head of the Federal Emergency Management
Agency,
"urged
all fire and emergency services departments not to respond to
counties and states affected by Hurricane Katrina."
They had to be requested and
"lawfully dispatched" by state and local
authorities. Whether because of this policy or not, vital help
of every kind was turned back.
There was sabotage of local
rescue communications equipment by FEMA:
“Yesterday
FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency communication lines.
They cut them without notice." The parish reconnects them
and protects them with armed guards. "No one is getting
near these lines,"said the sheriff.
Ham radio operators reported
that radio communications in and around New Orleans had being jammed.
In addition, perplexed ham radio operators who were enlisted by the
Federal government during the WTC attack in 2001 were being used for
hurricane Katrina Federal relief efforts
Senator Mary Landrieu,
Democratic of Louisiana, complained “that the U.S. Forest
Service had water-tanker aircraft available to help douse the fires
raging on our riverfront,” and that FEMA refused the aid.
Endless fleets of trucks,
both government and Federally contracted, were kept out of the city
and in holding areas out of reach of the those in the crisis.
In among the worst examples
of neglect FEMA refused Amtrak offers to use trains to evacuate
victims, this was far and away the most efficient means to get people
to other cities. FEMA ignored offers for medicine,
communications equipment and other desperately needed items.
Also amazing was FEMA's
blocking of access to the city by the Red Cross. As ARC
(American Red Cross) officials said “Access to New Orleans is
controlled by the National Guard, and simply cannot enter New Orleans
against FEMA orders.”
"The state Homeland
Security Department had requested--and continues to request--that the
American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans following the
hurricane. Our presence would keep people from evacuating and
encourage others to come into the city,” according to ARC
officials.
FEMA blocked Federally
funded mobile medial units: a state-of-the-art mobile hospital,
developed with millions of tax dollars for just such emergencies were
marooned in Mississippi.
"We
all got off work and deployed," said a surgeons, Dr. Preston
"Chip" Rich of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "We
have tried so hard to do the right thing. It took us 30 hours to get
here," he said. “now that we're just a few miles
away we couldn't get in.” He said, "is just
mind-boggling."
The group reported that
"Slow Response was really No Response." The
feeling was that the government “set people up,
deliberately preventing supplies from coming.” The
vast majority of "looters" were desperately hungry and
thirsty people.” “It was shown on TV that boxes
of food were behind a fence, withheld from the trapped evacuees."
The Military at the
scene Wanted to Help
Military personnel, at the
Scene, wanted to help. Maj. Keith Waddell, commander of the
769th Engineer Battalion, said his unit was never asked to help. "The
idea of helping with the convention center never came up,"
he said. "We were just preparing ourselves for the next
mission." "I feel confident we could have
controlled it, with the numbers we had."
Many of the guardsmen had
recently returned from Iraq, they encountered virtually no violence.
There were only people desperate for food and water.
"A lot of the people
at the Dome said we should have been there earlier,"said
Spec. Keithean Heath of the Arkansas Guard's 39th Infantry Brigade.
Soldiers faced little
interference as they moved to help frail and elderly people in
wheelchairs in urgent need of care, women cradling tiny infants and
others about to give birth. The soldiers set up food lines to hand
out bottled water and packaged military meals, and people lined up to
receive them.
It was the military command
refused to allow troops to help the stranded and restore order. Col.
Stephen C. baddie, chief of staff of the Louisiana National Guard,
said the engineer units were "not designed to secure the
convention center." Commanders blocked a medevac
helicopter response because they worried the crowd would rush
helicopters.
The Evacuation, The
Rescuers
Rescuers were told not to
give aid to those who wanted to weather out the crisis. Some
residents stayed to protects their property, others did not want to
leave their family pets behind. Some wanted to stay to help. A
rescuer commented:
“Some
rescuers are not taking any more food and water to those who have
decided to stay in an effort to force them out.”
"Did
you see the men who were approached by rescuers at their homes and
were told that they would be fed and clothed if they came along and
left all of their worldly goods behind? They chose to stay and
defend what they have worked for all of their lives. Rescuers
just shrugged and moved on. (Why didn't they have some supplies
on-board to leave behind?)
“Those
men still need food and water. Who will look after them?”
Our own Jeanie reported:
“There
are animal rescuers down here, not many but they are here. I am
not able to state more than that, I am not here for the
animals my job concerns human life, I am not saying that we
have not rescued some of these animals but we are
really not supposed to. That is just the way things are.”
The most remarkable
evacuation story, that I can remember, was of a six year old boy who
lead five toddlers through the chaos that was one of the only escape
routes. He lead them down the causewayholding a 5-month-old;
the toddlers followed him around as their leader.
Citizens who took
action
Spencer, from the group, and
personal friend of mine, went to Louisiana for the crisis, and then
onto Texas along with evacuees:
“I
worked with a New Orleans resident in a Baton Rouge, LA service
center for a major relief agency. This person explained her
experience at a cash-out line at a Wal-Mart. She had her order
together and was about to pay. Her charge card from a Bank in
New Orleans was rejected. When the person in front of her and
behind her heard of her plight. They each handed her $100.00 to
cover her order.”
He
also says, “A man I was talking with in Houston, TX where he
was staying in a hotel told me about his car hitting the curb blowing
a tire and damaging the rim. He went to a garage, the garage
could not fix it, but made contact with another one that could. He
was also handed $100 to help cover the cost out of the person's
pocket.”
“People
in Baton Rouge were welcoming strangers into their homes. Red
Cross had shelter housing for 25000 or so people. The city had
adsorbed 250,000 people from New Orleans in homes etc. The
population of Baton Rouge doubled causing traffic problems, school
crowding, limited phone service and store shelves that were empty.”
“So,
look to the positive. Do not expect the Government to be the
only solution. It is not! People are the solution and
they are good at it too!”
On the Road Again, an animal
transport group linked to groups on Care2, had a bus (seats removed)
with a/c loaned to them, to take the animals out of the Katrina
hurricane area to safety with rescues. Joanne, our contact on Care2,
had been taking a bus load out daily (In spite of the fact that her
home was damaged by Katrina, too!). From our forum,
“She
really needs some help with the gas. Please help us keep the bus
rolling & save as many lives as possible, while there's still
time!”
Gary McLaughlin, an outside
helper got a school bus and headed straight for the New Orleans
shelters, By Sunday evening he was driving loads of evacuees from the
New Orleans Airport to a rescue shelter in Covington, La.
Symphony orchestras across
the nation have adopted Louisiana classical musicians, brought them
to where the symphony is located, and given them jobs so that they
can support themselves and their families.
David Perez from California,
used $200,000 of his own money, to charter a Boeing 737. Upon
arriving in Louisiana, he unloaded supplies he had purchased and left
with 86 weary hurricane victims.
Jeanie W. contributions were
short and factual; this is her only prose. She paints for us
her departure from New Orleans in a medevac helicopter:
“miserable
truth is that this has more to do with the outcome of
this hurricane than anyone factor in the matrix. I
saw the desperation for all of the days I was there. I finally got to
leave about 7 last night, it was welcomed believe me, but
that is a small piece of personal part of this.
The
body count is already in thousands the stench can be smelled as
far away as LaPlace, ( a bedroom community across the
BonneCarre Spillway/Lake Ponchartrain, headed west on I-10.
To
address the issue of why you will not being seeing the dead on
TV, it is grizzly , floaters are not pretty corpses and some of
the bodies that are in buildings are full of maggots, I really cannot
believe any one would want to see this .
Baton
Rouge has turned into a zoo, it used to take us 30 minutes to go
across town to where we pick up our trucks down there. I was
so ready to take a real shower with hot water, I was un-phased
by all of the delay . I have to come back to Baton Rouge , in about 2
weeks after I am immunized for all the possible diseases I was
exposed to due to that nasty toxic soup in the streets of New
Orleans.
I am
grateful I got out before Chaney's arrival today, I don't think
I could stomach another day of photo-op's for people from
Washington, who do not give a damn about this city.”
Racism
Racism became an issue early
on in the group discussion, when, at the Superdome, a group of
wealthy well dressed hotel guests is put ahead of the group that had
been stranded there for days for getting on buses.
''How
does this work? They are clean, they are dry, they get out ahead of
us?'' exclaimed Howard Blue, 22, who tried to get in their line. The
National Guard blocked him as other guardsmen helped the well-dressed
guests with their luggage. The 700 guests, who were put on
buses had been trapped in the Hyatt hotel, near the Superdome.
There was a report of a
police swat team that was dispatched to extract whites from the
Superdome. As, I mentioned, my feeling is that racism was the
motive behind isolation and deprivation of those deliberately
trapped in the big shelters. I feel it is unfortunate that I
cannot find the comments by the Governor which helped me form this
opinion, but statements from another area of governmental authority,
the White House, support my suspicions that a prejudicial mindset
influenced authorities to be against the poor of New Orleans. Linda
Chavez, from Mr. Bush's administration, heads the President of
the Center for Equal Opportunity and former head of Bush's U.S. Civil
Rights Commission. She says,
“In
New Orleans, you are dealing with the permanently poor - people who
don't have jobs, are not used to getting up and organizing themselves
and getting things done and for whom sitting and waiting is a way of
life. This is a natural disaster that is exacerbated by the
problems of the underclass. The chief cause of poverty today among
blacks is no longer racism. It is the breakdown of the traditional
family”
From what Chavez says, the
underclass did the disaster to themselves, maybe for not being able
to leave in time. An editorial from a Florida newspaper offers
this opinion,
“It
wasn't a racial thing, if it were really about poverty, as Bush
defenders claim, then his administration wouldn't spend so much time
cleaning up his record on blacks”
By “cleaning up,”
the editorialist probably probably means something like this quote,
“President
Bush so wanted minority voters to believe that his administration 'is
working very well for them' that a report by the Agency for
Healthcare Research and Quality was changed last year to downplay
that ethnic and racial 'disparities are pervasive in our health-care
system.'”
In the US today, more than
ever, highly successful politicians come in family units, because of
this, as well of the unquestionable cohesion of the now-ruling Bush
family, I enter into evidence a comment by the President's mother,
and former First Lady, Barbara Bush. She made this comment soon
after the crisis started.
"And
so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were
underprivileged anyway, so this (she chuckled slightly)--this is
working very well for them."
During my life, the most
visible examples of racial struggle in the US have been police
beatings and killings of blacks. There were two examples during
the period of activity for the forum. In the first, a 64 year
old Black man was beaten by police for resisting arrest and being
drunk. He was a retired school teacher with no criminal record;
the beating was captured on video. On the tape, the officer
threatens the videographer, as he was taping the incident. Davis
said,
"At
no time did anyone indicate I was under arrest, I hadn't had a drink
in 25 years. don't know what caused it. I don't want to say
this, but it was probably racially motivated.
Constitutional
Losses
There were intense
constitutional losses during the crisis. During the rescue period,
reporters felt the city was being militarized and were suffering from
government crack-down on their reporting work. FEMA rejecting
requests by journalists to be embedded in rescue teams searching for
storm victims. Journalists were asked not to photograph any
dead bodies in the region. Police officers had been seen aiming
their weapons at members of the media. National Guardsmen are
under orders to turn all journalists away at entry points to the
city.
A Federal Judge, Keith
Ellison, issued a temporary restraining against the "zero
access" policies of FEMA and the military they controlled.
Military then claimed it had been a misunderstanding, after
all; what they meant was that no media would be allowed to be
embedded, however, recovery groups would not prevent reporters from
doing their jobs.
A more worrisome
constitutional issue came up with respect to the rights of those
wishing to stay in the city. In dry neighborhoods, people like
contend that the Mayor's evacuation order would violate their
constitutional rights if he forced them out of their homes them. One
couple explained that they have a dog to protect them, a car
with a full tank of gasoline should they need to leave quickly and a
canoe as a last resort. They said they themselves had used the canoe
over the first week to rescue 100 people.
"Federal
State disaster law does not supersede either the state or federal
Constitutions. What I suspect is that if they do forcible
evacuations, the authorities will tell the residents that they must
leave and that they will arrest them if they don't,"
Had they been arrested, they
would have had to travel to Baton Rouge, where the federal judges
from the Eastern District of Louisiana were sitting, to challenge
their forcible evictions. What rescuers don't realize, is that
the deliberate denial of sustinance vital to life to force people
into leaving against their will, carries a further constitutional
weight; they were threatening these people's right to life. The
deliberate negligence is defined as depraved indifference, a form of
homicide, such as in the case as leaving an injured person to die.
This constitutional crisis
brings up another issue, it had become oblivious to the forum members
that the future of New Orleans would be in the hands of developers.
A few months after the initial crisis ended, homeowners
returning to New Orleans were blocked by the city from repairing
their houses. This was part of a plan crafted by the Mayor to
destroy large parts of the damaged city to hand them over to real
estate developers.
Animals
Animal welfare is of key
importance to members of the Care2 community, as well as the majority
of activist that I know. To many of the forum group, wildlife
and the well being of pets is almost equal in importance to human
life. A week after the group had started posting about the
crisis, we found out that New Orleans police were shooting the dogs
that had been abandoned as a result of the FEMA policy to exclude
pets in the forced evacuation. Sophia Dalle posted to the
group,
"i
just heard on cnn they are going to start shooting animals, remaining
pets, on the street can anyone verify?"
From an an animal rescuer,
“Authorities
have informed our rescue team that they have three days to rescue all
dogs before they start shooting them.
They
believe that dogs are eating dead bodies to stay alive and
need to eliminate them. We are outraged.
Animal
rescue groups were not allowed into the water until last Tuesday. To
give us just another 72 hours to get a job, of biblical
proportions done, is ludicrous.
We
are our best to beg for more time. We would ask you to call or write
to someone but frankly, the lines of communications are so poor, we
have no clue where you can begin.
Because
our team is on the ground, they have direct contact with law
enforcement. If we have to, we'll work 'under the radar' to get
the job done.”
Jeanie W reported the
rounding up and killing of a group of dogs behind a school by a
policeman. She hoped the policeman would get prosecuted for
that cruelty.
Suffice to say we got into
action quickly, along with other activists; the shooting was stopped.
Keep in mind the scope of our actions, we were up against one
of the most corrupt, least paid municipal police departments in the
US.
This reportwas sent to the
group, indirectly, from New Orleans by a rescuer from Oregon. While
he describes the situation the animals were facing, he also,
obliquely talks about poverty in New Orleans through the suffering of
New Orleans animals, even before Katrina landed; it is one of many
stories of humanity from the crisis.
“I
was part of a rescue expedition from Portland, Oregon (including a
veterinarian,) that spent the past week (Sept. 24th through Oct. 2nd)
on the streets of New Orleans, breaking into homes for 12-14 hours
per day to try to save any animals still alive and trapped in their
homes without food or water. “
“It
was a difficult job. We were in extreme heat, without much sleep or
food. We saw hundreds of trapped, dead animals. Still, hundreds of us
stuck it out, because we knew how many had already died and we wanted
to try to save the remaining live animals. “
“When
all was said and done, our group brought five of the rescued dogs
back to Portland with us. The dogs are positive for heartworm.
This is a fatal parasite infestation, carried by mosquitoes and
rampant in the southern region of the country. It is usually
treatable (if caught in time) but treatment is not cheap, nor is
prevention. These infected dogs have been shipped all over the
country, and are being happily reunited with their owners from
Louisiana and Mississippi, who can scarcely piece their own lives
together, let alone afford to test or treat their dogs for
heartworm.“
“The
prognosis is only months. Approximately 9 out of 10 dogs are
positive. These dogs come from an impoverished community that cannot
afford preventative care for their dogs. We are told they are
educated about this epidemic problem and the outcome, but can't
afford prevention.”
“While
in New Orleans, I noticed none of the thousands of dogs we saw had
been spayed or neutered, and all were very young. I hadn't put it
together in my head until just recently. Almost all dogs in Louisiana
die before they reach age two. They wander the streets, have a few
litters, then die from heartworm (a very unpleasant way to die.) The
only reason there is a population of dogs left in Louisiana must be
that they have a few litters before they die.”
Winding Down
the Group
There is no real end to the
Katrina story, at least not as I write this. I hear that the
evacuees are finding trouble settling. In the words of a Bush
administration member, who chose to be unnamed, “New Orleans
has fallen so far off the radar, you can't see it.” There
were two more important discussions in the group. One was about
the congressional hearings, which only confirmed our findings. A
surprising fact to come out of the inquest, was that none of the
major players in Washington DC use email to communicate; this
includes both Micheal Chertoff, who nearly got fired after the
hearings, and Micheal Brown, who was fired less than two weeks after
the crisis started.
There is no doubt that Mayor
Nagin is unconcerned about the evacuees who have yet to return to New
Orleans. His priority is real estate development: besides
displacing the poor for real estate ventures, he appears to have no
concern for the environment. This goes to a more practical
concern than the pure empathy of our forum members, Louisiana is
losing its coastal wetlands very quickly; this is important, because
the wetlands are the buffer that protects New Orleans from storms.
The Mayor seeks the widening of a huge water way that has been
blamed for sending a fatal surge of water towards the city that broke
the canal walls. He seeks new airports and refinery type
development. If you know the city, it is almost entirely
surrounded by sea water and salt water marshes; the only way to
develop these days is to damage marshes.
More about the Group
The group was not without
internal conflict. One of the members, SarahJane, was a co-host
for the group as well as one of my other successful groups, which was
about computer freedom. She was a tireless worker, yet at
times, she would criticize me in ways that would make me wonder what
I had done. If I took any bold steps, made any controversial
comments, where controversy is a staple of web communications, there
was always the risk of her lashing out.
For more than the year, I
worked with her, always giving her the benefit of the doubt. My
work with her may sound like a personal problem, which it was, but
the problem grew in scope when I introduced structural
guidelines. As a co-host of the group, SarahJane took the ideas
to heart and began enforcing them as rules, she berated people for
being sloppy and moved messages around in such a way that forum
members thought their work was being deleted.
I tried to gently get her to
calm down in her zealousness, but that only made her angry with me,
and she let the world of Care know about it with a long series
of posts ranging from mea-culpa apologies personal attacks against
me. This was causing some members to leave, which happens when
groups devolve into pointless arguments. I consulted
other group members, and they all suggested that I get back control
of my group; I gave her an ultimatum. This cased her to
ask that I remove her as host.
I took away SaraJane's
hosting privileges, giving her co-host spot to Jeanie W. SarahJane
had told me that she had some kind of mental issues at one point,
knowing she was so angry with me, I felt there was a slight
risk she might damage the group's hard work, I was uneasy about her
during much of the Katrina crisis.
Because the group consensus
was that racism was the major factor in the punishment of those
trapped in New Orleans during the flood, the topic was discussed at
length from that perspective. Knowing that New Orleans is in
the South, and that the legacy of slavery has made racism a perennial
issue in the Louisiana, it should not be surprising that someone from
Louisiana would take umbrage to the group consensus on the topic.
This happened, and in the
censusing debate with the new dissenting member, Dynamite, SarahJane
decided that Dynamite needed to be protected against me. This
worried me greatly, partly because I had to take strong action
against SarahJane previously, and the topic strayed over to the most
contentious possible ground for conflict: racism. Had this
discussion been a simple debate over facts, there would not have been
a problem. But, I suspected that Dynamite joined the group
specifically to disrupt it. After carefully reading her
postings, I concluded that she was, at best, misleading the group
about here actual location in Louisiana, claiming to be in a town
that was hit very servilely. I also suspected she was lying
about other things; for one thing, she said she had been beaten by
Blacks-this sent up a huge warning flag for me.
Being somewhat
confrontational in nature, I called her on her statements and gave
her a few opinions of my own. Dynamite then threatened to quit,
further congealing support against my leadership of the group.
Seeing her as a threat to the efficacy of the group, not to
mention her being a huge stress in my life, I removed her from
the group.
Dynamite attacked the
integrity of the group by saying that we were victims of the press
that we were being mislead. The group took great pride in the
discussions and we were all in agreement about our conclusions about
the causes suffering in New Orleans, with the expectation of
SarahJane, who, inexplicably, supported Bush throughout the period of
the crisis. I say inexplicably, because SarahJane has told us
she is a Scottish Socialist, a party particularly unhappy with
American Republicans. I imagine she has alienated many
Socialists where she lives, if she openly supports Bush.
I think part of SarahJane's
anger may have resulted from her confusing Dynamite with another
Louisianan, Jeanie W. Jeanie seemed to have some apprehension
about being in Black neighborhoods, and sometimes defended
controversial decisions by authorities in opposition to the group
consensus, especially if the authorities were Louisianan. But, she
was a valued asset to the group, and she was respected.
Two other group members who
had been big contributors also voiced displeasure with me. Their
impatience with me became apparent after my problems with Dynamite,
though nobody except SarahJane, mentioned Dynamite. One,
Sunshine complained that I changed things too much, and then, to my
surprise, took a statement I had made out of context to accuse me of
being an American nationalist. The statement was that I felt
the issues surrounding Katrina were becoming increasingly American,
meaning that America has internal problems only Americans can solve,
ultimately, I meant America needs to pull together. Sunshine
took this to mean that I lack respect the work non-Americans had done
for the group; Sunshine is Canadian. To defend myself, I
mentioned in the discussion that I support the relaxation of border
restrictions between Canada and the US, as well as general
Canadian-American solidarity. I have proposed this idea in
Canadian Care2 groups, so there is plenty of evidence to support my
feelings. This, oddly, angered Sunshine. She told me that
I no business involving myself in Canadian issues; in fact, she told
me she thinks Americans should stay out of Canada.
There was another member,
Barbara, who made a viscous attack during a debate between Jeanie W
and a member named Robert. In my opinion, Robert and Jeanie
were having a blue ribbon argument. Both were obviously nettled
by each other, but neither was uncontrolled. The ensuing
information was brilliant; Robert did research based on what Jeanie
told him, and Jeanie spoke from opinion. The discussion was
based on an often mentioned picture from the media, of dozens of New
Orleans school buses showing only their roofs in the flood. The
obvious question was, why didn't the Mayor find drivers for them, and
use the to truck out the evacuees? As I mentioned, Jeanie tends
to defend local officials; she is a loyal Louisianan; she put all the
blame to Federal government for trapping the evacuees. Robert,
on the other hand, wanted to understand the Mayor's and Governor's
roles, and therefore, appeared to protect the President and FEMA.
Barbara made a vicious
attack against Robert, because he appeared to protect Bush. The
attack was vitriolic, that her statements appeared irrational; she
was ignored.
SarahJane, Sunshine, and
Barbara all did volumes of work of the group, collecting information.
Yet the all showed antisocial behavior. I looked at their
postings, and although the added volume to the group (which, by the
way, kept the group's ratings high), their inquiry into the issues
was weak, their arguments often sounded paranoid. While
researching the discussion threads, I began to ignore their postings.
SarahJane, as I mentioned,
was a tireless worker in another group of mine, a computer support
forum for activists. In that group, members, including myself
complained about the outsourcing of computer jobs to India, that it
was preventing us as computer professionals, from working in our
chosen field. SarahJane decided that were making statements
against Indiansand that we needed to be corrected for our racism.
This ended it for me with SarahJane; I removed her completely
from all my groups.
Another prolific member
became angry with me, and let me know in uncertain terms. She
is Patt. Unlike the others mentioned, Patt's posting are
amazing, her research is tireless, she could dig up scandal in a
pastor's pea-patch. She helped me greatly in building knowledge
supporting the concept that systemic racism was a contributing factor
to the suffering in New Orleans.
I unintentionally angered Patt with a
particularly bold move I made in changing the group direction,
though with out communicating the concept very well. The
group had been originally discussing a concept of international
relations; I called the group Matrix of Trust. Prior to that, I
called the group Eminent Domain. It was a changing group; my
theory as to keep the group active and alive by expanding the scope
of knowledge while staying centered on vital national issues.
Since one of the members of
the group is a moderately liberal Democrat, Evan Bayh, I decided to
try to involve him in the discussion by making the group a discussion
about him. Then, once he is securely in the group, the group
could brag about having a senator in their pocket, giving it validity
and power. We would then move onto other vital topics, while
remaining loyal to the evacuees of New Orleans, and especially
animals.
As I mentioned, I did not
communicate this idea to the group very well. It seemed
brilliant to me, but many in the group felt that I was somehow
forcing them into supporting Evan Bayh for president in the 2008
elections. Well, if Evan was going to respond to the desires of
the group, then, hey, what is wrong with that?
As I said I didn't
communicate the idea very well, and I failed to respond to criticism
because, simply, I didn't have reliable Internet access at the time.
In my absence, I was called a traitor or worse, and a racist by
Barbara who was upset with me for booting SarahJane. One
member, David C, made many personal baseless attacks against me,
specifically calling me a turn-coat; I booted him. I imagine he
meant to say I was a now a FEMA supporter.
I was surprised by the
attacks, yet tried to show the group the wisdom in my plan, but it
was too late. I relented, but only after removing the mutineer
and chastising others. The volume of postings picked up
somewhat, then declined to almost nothing. What I didn't know
all along, was that another Katrina group had formed, and that
discussion activity had, for the most part, moved over there. This
group formed months before my attempted Bayh maneuver, and I only
found out about it from a web posting put up outside of Care2 by
SarahJane. Only members who I would call true friends still use
this Katrina group.
The attacks by SarahJane and
Sunshine may have been designed to damage my Katrina group in favor
of the other one. At this point, I would put nothing past her.
Care2 can be, at times, a highly Machiavellian community. This
is fitting; Care2 it is based on politics as much as anything else,
and the Internet is made up of, if you think about it, unfeeling
electrons.
All this bickering seems to
be silliness in the extreme, and that is exactly what it is.
However, disruption can destroy an otherwise great group online
or a group that meets in face to face meetings. When I defended
the group, and myself, I was really defending the knowledge that we
built. When I morphed the group towards Evan Bayh, I was
attempting to make it powerful, even though it didn't appear that
way.
The existence of other
Katrina groups does not bother me, the initial purpose of the group
was to expose Michael Chertoff and FEMA. In so doing, we
created for ourselves, possibly the only comprehensive and accurate
perception of what really happened.
With more work, I will be
able to create tools to see even better into the knowledge we
created, and the social workings of the group. These tools will
be applicable to all of Care2's groups. In fact, if I had been
aware of the sheer size of the knowledge base, I would have created
these tools at the outset!
Today, the group is
called Katrina: In Memoriam, and has about the same number of
members it always has had. Actual Katrina veterans now often
post information there about what is happening in there lives. Part
of the importance of the group is sensitivity to trauma suffering.
Dedicated to
Jeanie W.
Of course this discussion is
about the heroes of Katrina, especially our own: Jeanie W.
New Model
Site for Just In Time Research
An important reason for this
discussion of the Katrina group it so reflect on how well it worked.
And, how to repeat the effort but with web community software
specifically designed to support information collection and
reflection; which will include tools for the delivery of
activist knowledge as a sort of non-violent weapon of change.
It wasn't the hurricane that flooded New Orleans. It wasn't broken
levees, as you might imagine, that flooded New Orleans. Broken walls
along some un-used canals flooded the city. These canals, whose
structures failed, inexplicably run through centers of the city, a
sea-coast city below sea-level.
When I
heard Michael Chertoff's military-sounding statement, I knew then that
there was trouble; it felt to me like an a tactic in a military offensive; part of a long held
struggle to eliminate a remarkable culture, brought here from Africa as
slaves. 
As it turns out, we have here an amazing history of an equally amazingly thin slice of time.
I
am building, here, a history of this group. It is not a Katrina
time-line, but as a time-line of our
experience: how we learned things and we researched them, and how we
reacted. I am also building a plan for an action web
community called "The New Model for Just In Time Research"; it is for my degree