Technology In Katrina's Wake

We've had many submissions about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It doesn't come easy writes "From 'the end justifies the means department', the BBC is reporting that bogus emails about the current situation in New Orlean contain links to websites that promptly infect the concerned reader's computer. From the article: 'The separate virus and fake donations bogus e-mails have been discovered by computer security firms SophosLabs and Websense Security Labs. They are similar to previous fraudulent e-mails connected to last year's Indian Ocean Tsunami.'" Less cynically, an anonymous reader writes "A Linux developer is organizing volunteers for a public 'web station' project to assist Hurricane Katrina victims. The plan is to create numerous Linux-based public kiosks that boot directly into the Firefox browser and display a special home page with links to various services. In addition to offering disaster relief information and news, the kiosks will provide basic email capabilities via Yahoo!, Gmail, Earthlink, MS Hotmail, and other web-mail services. They're looking for donations of time and money. If you're looking to donate more directly, tech companies across the country are maintaining pages with ties to respected charities. Yahoo is maintaining the Red Cross donation page, and everyone from Microsoft to IBM has a message on their frontpage."

Comments

Why?

[suso]

One thing that I'll never understand is why we (humans) continue to put important things in the most vulnerable places. This goes way beyond technology, but I'll use it as an example. Many large internet services companies are based on the west or east coast or in Texas. If you consider the worst (which is what just happend in New Orleans), there is a great potential for disaster in these places. However, in the middle of the country where the only natural threat is tornados, which don't affect everything together, there is very little. And so much
  of the Internet depends on those vulnerable regions. The aftermath of the hurricane is now threatening DirectNIC.

    Why do people keep building villages next to volcanos, museums with important artifacts in large cities, data centers in flood plains, major network hubs in cities.

    I'm guessing that the most likely reason this happens is because those places happen to be nice to live, better weather, etc. and it serves people's short term interests. But in the long term, I think we're just asking for Trouble (yes with a capital T).

    When a large wave comes in and knocks out the east coast with the next 100-1000 years, we'll probably have the same old excuses that we do now. And we'll be even more dependent on technology when it does.

Re:Why?

[TripMaster Monkey]

The short answer: humans are fundamentally lazy creatures with short attention spans.

I'm pretty sure that one day aliens will come across the remnants of our civilization and wonder "...but they had the beginnings of space travel...why did they all just stay on this one vulnerable planet? Didn't this species ever plan ahead?"

Re:Why?

[Drooling Iguana]

Why do people keep building villages next to volcanos,

Volcanic soil is quite fertile.

museums with important artifacts in large cities,

So that it can be seen by as many people as possible. That's kinda the point of museums. Otherwise they'd just stick all their priceless artifacts in unmarked boxes in giant wharehouses, like they did with the Ark of the Covenant.

data centers in flood plains,

Flood plains soil, like volcanic soil, is usually quite fertile, and cities are nearly always built near rivers due to the fact that a city's growth is directly dependant on its water supply. Data centers are built in cities because it's easier to find qualified employees there.

major network hubs in cities.

Again, they need to be built where people are, or it would be way too difficult to find qualified technicians to run them.

Re:Why?

[squiggleslash]

You build near the coast because historically that's where the trade is. The closer you are to a port, the closer you are to the big trade routes.

This is why New Orleans is where it is. It was perfectly located to take on large amounts of the shipping around the gulf. The fact that it was below sea level was seen as an engineering challenge.

As for why technological hubs are built in big cities, which in turn are often in vulnerable locations, that's where all the people are, and those locations also often contain the most technologically savy people, given they frequently contain - thanks to economies of scale - the institutions of learning and the most wealthy employers.

Re:Why?

[HTTP Error 403 403.9]

One thing that I'll never understand is why we (humans) continue to put important things in the most vulnerable places. This goes way beyond technology, but I'll use it as an example. Many large internet services companies are based on the west or east coast or in Texas. If you consider the worst (which is what just happend in New Orleans), there is a great potential for disaster in these places. However, in the middle of the country where the only natural threat is tornados, which don't affect everything together, there is very little.And so much of the Internet depends on those vulnerable regions. The aftermath of the hurricane is now threatening DirectNIC.

Why do people keep building villages next to volcanos, museums with important artifacts in large cities, data centers in flood plains, major network hubs in cities.

This message was brought to you by the Tulsa Better Business Bureau.

Re:Why?

[gardyloo]

I'm partially agreed with your points. On the other hand:
Why do people keep building villages next to volcanos, museums with important artifacts in large cities, data centers in flood plains, major network hubs in cities.

To the points of 'why place museums and hubs in cities'? Really: duh. That's where people are, to go to the museums, to research the artifacts, to work on the hubs.
      As to the 'villages near volcanos' point: On volcanic islands, you don't have a choice. And where people DO have a choice, volcanic soil is often the very best to grow things in. As long as it's not red-hot and flowing, of course.

Re:Why?

[Otter]

One thing that I'll never understand is why we (humans) continue to put important things in the most vulnerable places.

That's hardly a difficult question to answer -- major cities are built next to rivers and harbors because that was (and to a large degree still is) the primary route of major transportation. Museums are in cities so people can go to them. Technical centers are in cities so they can get workers for them.

There are rare cases where it's worthwhile to place something major in the middle of nowhere (Area 51, Arzamas-16, Los Alamos) but no one is going to pay what it would cost to run a major ISP in a place like that.

Re:Why?

[heatdeath]

One thing that I'll never understand is why we (humans) continue to put important things in the most vulnerable places.

Earth is vulnerable. We have floods, tornados, earthquakes, hurricanes, extreme heat, extreme cold, wars, famines. Humans are vulnerable. We have disease, murder, accidents, etc. Everything is risk management, not risk prevention. As you said, "it serves people's short term interests". That's how we operate. Long term, we're dead. Short term is how we plan. (Unless you believe in a heaven, then you do plan differently)

I mean, I don't know if you've seen much of the "safe" part of the country, but let me tell you, it's pretty boring. I've driven across the US 6 times, and while I was driving through the safe parts, like Iowa and Illinois, I wanted to chew my arm off, but I couldn't because I was too bored.

Plus, with the advent of multi-billion dollar insurance companies, stuff like hurricanes don't seem as devestating.

Re:Why?

[John Seminal]

One thing that I'll never understand is why we (humans) continue to put important things in the most vulnerable places

Because it looks pretty. Because there are developers who will buy it cheap and sell it high.

Plus, people never believe it will happen to them. How many people build million dollar houses on beaches on the atlantic ocean? And how many times do those houses get knocked down? Every 4 or 5 years? Every 10 years. There are some places it is next to impossible to buy home insurance.

The anwser is not to tell people not to build there. The anwser is not even to have strickter housing codes. Just let people know. Have a video of what Katrina did. Force people to see the damage. Will that make them want to build with materials and design that can withstand 150mph winds? Maybe not. Maybe they will go the cheap route and only build to withstand 120mph.

Nothing is an exact science.

Plus, there are many people who believe in God, that nature is under his control. Some believe the flood came to Sin City, the Big Easy because of the debauchery. When was the last major natural disaster in the bible belt? Many people are taking bets that if San Francisco marries one more homosexual couple, they will fall to the bottom of the ocean and all drown.

Re:Why?

[MaGGuN]

Population is usually consentrated around areas that offer some benefit, be it rich or fertile land or other opportunities. With population come added opportunities for service businesses. A business usually has benefit in being in close vicinity of its customers, hence why you will always have important "things" in those areas. People usually don't plan for events that might occur 50-100 year in the future. And the contemporary economic possibilities are too good to be ignored because of plausible events. You also have to remember that this is a storm that statistically occurs once in every 500-1000 years.

Re:Why?

[Uber Banker]

Many large internet services companies are based on the west or east coast or in Texas. The aftermath of the hurricane is now threatening DirectNIC.

It seemed pretty good that DirectNIC were based in New Orleans, and its still pretty good that they are - because we're talking loss given extreme events. You could assess the potential of extreme events vs. the cost of protecting against them. Much of California is precariously situated, New Orleans was thought to be a little less precarious, but the potential of damage in New Orleans was not the main consideration, it was that New Orleans offers diversification.

Another location could indeed offer greater diversification, but should something terrible had happened to California we'd be thanking DirectNIC for locating in New Orleans not becasue it was New Orleans but because things that affect it tended to be less correlated with California than other locations and that lack of correlation and dynamic redundancy is the real key. They could have located in Sao Paolo, and there are a few internet companies that are, but there is also the trade-off of local convenience (despite discorrelation, low pings are still seen as desirable) and ability to visit/inspect (due dilligence of anyone who is making a large investment).

If you can lower the probability of correlation of extreme events, then you've achieved a lot. Other locations could have been choson, potentiall at lower probabilities, but they were not and in the case of as disaster in California we'd the licking DirectNIC's ass!

Re:Why?

[Jeff Hornby]

Most cities were founded a long time ago when the potential for disaster was far outweighed by the cost of maintaining a city inland.

New Orleans, as an example, is still the most important port in the Americas because it sits near the mouth of the Mississippi. The same holds true for most large coastal cities.

Even now, being able to ship things into and out of a city by boat is much cheaper than by rail or truck. That's why interior cities can't compete with coastal cities. The cost of shipping food and other materials to a huge population in Denver would overwhelm the government's shipping subsidy programs (mostly spent on rail and road maintenance and subsidizing oil).

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Data centers are built in cities because it's easier to find qualified employees there.

True, but how about Cincinnati, Denver, Chicago, or Wichita? There are plenty of safer places with fewer catastrophic natural disasters. Although, I still don't get the "build where the experience is" thing. No matter where you build, the qualified will find you for the right price. If you build in Iowa, you might have to pay more to intice the epxerts, but it's probably still less than you're paying for rent and payroll in downtown LA or NYC.

I live in a rural area in the Midwest, and there are major companies with brand names your recognize in a second that host their HQ within 30 miles from here. If a terrorist wanted to take them out, they're too scattered to make a significant impact on more than one company.

Obviously, you can build a major oceanic seaports or oil platforms in Missouri, but I'd say thats the exception to the rule.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why New Orleans is where it is. It was perfectly located to take on large amounts of the shipping around the gulf. The fact that it was below sea level was seen as an engineering challenge.

Looks like they failed that challenge. They may have built a city there but by not allowing for an obvious and inevitable disaster they get an F for the job.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Plus, with the advent of multi-billion dollar insurance companies, stuff like hurricanes don't seem as devestating.

That's over the top even for Slashdot. I think a couple million people on the gulf coast will vehemently disagree with you on this point, or would if a FREAKING HURRICANE HADN'T DEVESTATED 90,000 SQUARE MILES!

Re:Why?

[greythax]

While you post largely correct, there is one simple economic point that a lot of people miss about location.

For most buisness models, close to the customer = less expenses. If you distribute food items to vending machines in a city, you will make more money the less you have to drive to your end customer.

In the case if internet buisnesses, you will get better deals on bandwidth in an area that already has lots of bandwidth for end customers (cities with broadband) than having a pipe delivered to a fallout shelter in the mountains.

Also, never EVER underestimate the market forces of "supporting the local economy." Sometimes the customers will find you because of that alone.

Re:Why?

[MikeyTheK]

People in the South ask this of folk in the North every winter. The 200+" of snow every winter, the temp. at -20F, the accidents caused by the poor conditions, the high heating bills, etc.
The fundamental difference between living (for instance) at the coast as opposed to inland, can be measured as death by one slice or a thousand slices. NO just got the one-slice treatment. However, if you take the same number of people in the north, and compute the negative cost of living there over the time since the last catastrophic storm to nit NO, and I would be willing to bet that things are pretty close to being equal.

Look at this another way. I was considering building a golf course a few years ago on 180 acres near my house. The land was unbelievably cheap. I got in touch with the USGA and ordered a book they have on the topic. The really weird thing that I drew from all of the analysis in the book is that overall a golf course in the north and a golf course in the south, at the end of the year, will be pretty close to each other in terms of their overall after-tax profit, including cost of land, cost of construction, etc. It was startling to review the analysis and be able to draw that conclusion. The longer season in the South is offset by higher energy costs, water, chemicals, operating budgets, and over the course of the year the revenue was only proportionally larger, compared to the length of the season and the expense of operating it.

None of this, of course, discounts the very serious discussion we need to have as a nation as to whether or not NO should be left fundamentally as-is and used as such, or drained and rebuilt.
Personally, from the standpoint of someone who knows what winter is and intentionally lives somewhere boring, I'd vote to not rebuild it. I'd also vote to not rebuild WTC, and to only reimburse victims in high-risk areas once, perhaps purchasing the land as part of the reimbursement and turning it into park or at-your-own-risk area.

In the case of NO, I would be particularly concerned that a terrorist could repeat this event with a cargoplane full of fertilizer and fuel oil, only next time there won't be 48-60 hours of warning to get out.

Re:Why?

[doxology]

Plus, there are many people who believe in God, that nature is under his control. Some believe the flood came to Sin City, the Big Easy because of the debauchery. When was the last major natural disaster in the bible belt? Many people are taking bets that if San Francisco marries one more homosexual couple, they will fall to the bottom of the ocean and all drown.

I'm screwed then; I live in Reno.

Re:Why?

[airrage]

...(humans) continue to put important things in the most vulnerable places...

Humans didn't put New Orleans there, the French did.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

"One thing that I'll never understand is why we (humans) continue to put important things in the most vulnerable places."

For example, a Bush in the Whitehouse.

Re:Why?

[MillionthMonkey]

Many large internet services companies are based on the west or east coast or in Texas. If you consider the worst (which is what just happend in New Orleans), there is a great potential for disaster in these places.

The worst isn't even New Orleans- it would be a gobal thermonuclear war! Which the early Internet was designed for. (Now most traffic goes through Sprint's backbone- so much for good planning.)

I'm guessing that the most likely reason this happens is because those places happen to be nice to live, better weather, etc. and it serves people's short term interests.

Well in this case the "short term" is on the scale of centuries, greater than a single human lifetime. The site for NOLA was originally chosen for being on high ground. That whole area is continually sinking and being replenished by silt from the river. With the real estate there, the replenishment stops but the sinking continues. And yet, even if we could build a time machine and go back to warn the old French settlers in 1718 that a huge hurricane would arrive in 2005, they certainly wouldn't have considered that a valid reason for deciding not to build a city there. I can tell you exactly what they'd say. "Ze people of ze future, if ze city sinks, surely they will build ze levees or something!"

And just look at us, burning all this irreplaceable oil that will surely be gone 287 years from now- and that might even become scarce within our lifetimes. And what do we say? Oh, surely we'll have switched to biodiesel. Or something.

Re:Why?

[Hosiah]

Well, show me large patches of land that have no vulnerability to any natural disaster whatsoever. It would help if nature designated large areas disaster-free zones and posted signs: "Safe to build here."

As a resident of Iowa, I'll tell you not to underestimate the destructive power of tornados. They happen every year, unlike earthquakes and floods. A tornado may be hit-and-miss, but if it hits your IT center, it's getting scattered in pieces just like everything else.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

what are you 13? Go back to social studies

Re:Why?

[corsican]

Port Muskogee, OK is on the Arkansas River, far, far from hurricanes, tsunamis, etc. You might get the occasional tornado around, but as was pointed out, these are quite limited in scope in comparison.

Not to mention the cost of living, which is much MUCH lower than say, LA or NYC.

And I must take issue with the implication that there are no experts in the Midwest. I'm in the midwest (not Muskogee, BTW), and I'm an expert. Now, do I make 6 figures, like I would if I were in LA? No. But I still have a 3,000 square foot house that is 10 minutes from where I work. You can't get that in LA for under a million. I've got all the same shopping, restaurants, and other conveniences that they have on the left coast. And I'm not afraid to go out at night. Yeah, I gotta say; the coasts are overrated.

Re:Why?

[shobadobs]

Of course they would. But people don't think rationally after disasters, so why would we listen to what they have to say? In fairness, maybe we will get some sense and realize that our number one enemy is still the laws of physics, not terrorists.

Re:Why?

[Arcanix]

I mean, I don't know if you've seen much of the "safe" part of the country, but let me tell you, it's pretty boring. I've driven across the US 6 times, and while I was driving through the safe parts, like Iowa and Illinois, I wanted to chew my arm off, but I couldn't because I was too bored.

I can tell you haven't been in Illinois or Iowa during one of the many tornadoes each year. I wouldn't exactly call the midwest "safe" from natural disasters.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

People build where they do because of historical reasons. Land use is currently changing and the risks are starting to outweigh the rewards as we move further and further into the information age but during the stone, bronze, iron, industrial, etc. age it was more important to be at the coast, near the natural resources, near the ports, etc. We put things where we do for historical reasons not for logical ones for today's environment...whether or not this will change long term I don't know but unless a location is utterly destroyed it's tough to make people move away from a location with an established infrastructure even if it was built at a different time for different reasons. Also some industries and hence some people and some cities will always be in harms way because there will always be some industries tied to natural resources of one type or another.

Re:Why?

[Midnight Thunder]

I'm pretty sure that one day aliens will come across the remnants of our civilization...

That's assuming that laziness is not universal.

Re:Why?

[roman_mir]

From point of view of evolution it kind of makes sense to be lazy until a disaster strikes, doesn't it? Being lazy saves a lot of energy in the short term. Now, when disaster strikes, the knee-jerk reaction is to overblow any other possible danger (the further away the memory of disaster is, the less careful and planning people are.)

From point of view of intelligent creatures, as we are pretending to be it makes sense to plan for such disasters well ahead, but people don't do that because the short term gain is much more interesting than long term planning.

Re:Why?

[Viper Daimao]

just what I was going to say DI, the answer seemed kind of obvious. Its only just now that we can have access to important things that are as far away from us to be safe, so perhaps in the future, with better planning we wont concentrate everything on the coasts, but when it was being built, thats just where everyone was that needed it.

Re:Why?

[ch-chuck]

How many people do you know have a philosophy that takes into account the life left behind after they're gone, or 'life after death'? A space-faring civilization would have to be a multi-generational endeavor, where people plan ahead and work for events to take place long after they're gone, but the prevailing mode of thinking, that I can tell, is personally selfish, life for yourself, enjoy life all you can while your alive and let posterity fend for themselves. Heck, rack up a big debt and pass it on, who cares, I'll be dead then, haha. Even today we live with the selfish wrongs and debts passed down from the past, like slavery, while enjoying the fruits of those who worked for a better future. Working for a trans-personal goal like space travel smacks of some kind of religion, which, oddly enough, is obliterated by a naiev application of the science and technology that would make it possible, and makes us selfish and shortsighted, with science used for ego and hedonist ends and we end up living like animals in the crunch, instead of living up to out higher ideals.

Re:Why?

[cheezit]

The reason important stuff like that is in the blue states is because the people who need to create and maintain that stuff don't want to live in the red states. Relocate those things to Kansas and you will have a hiring problem. Very few people I know want to live in a place where they put paper over the beer cooler on Sunday and the police chief is the brother-in-law of the town's most popular preacher. I sure as hell don't.

Many folks in the red states think that the almighty's grand plan is behind natural disasters, terrorism, and the like...but those things don't tend to affect Iowa. As Jon Stewart observed, Bush's re-election in reaction to NYC getting hit was the blue staters trying to protect the red staters...apparently from themselves.

That might seem like a troll but I'm semi-serious.

Re:Why?

[kb1cvh]

Jerry Oltion wrote in his short story -
"The Best Laid Plans", Analog SF September 2005
who:
http://www.sff.net/people/J.Oltion/
where:
http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/eBook32371.htm

About humanity starting the terraforming of Mars, and......

Re:Why?

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

unmarked boxes in giant wharehouses

Is that supposed to be some portmanteau of "warehouse" and "where's it housed?"?

Re:Why?

[Jim_Callahan]

There are two reasons:

1. Most large cities were placed before anyone had a real understanding of the occurrence of natural disasters in an area. Sometimes it was sailors from france who couldn't tell one big storm from another, and pretty much expected bad weather wherever they went occasionally. That's New Orleans. In other cases, the cities sprung up too fast for anyone to notice the patterns of natural disasters. That would be your fault-line cities and old gold-towns.

The second reason is that people like to eat. Farmers are going to build their cities in the middle of giant fields used for corn farming, which may happen to have tornados. Shippers and traders are going to set up shop by large bodies of water, because otherwise they'll lose business to people who do so, since those that are located on the water can ship much cheaper than anyone else. In both cases, the ability to feed and clothe your family will drive cities to be placed according to resource distribution rather than safety. Generally, people consider the continued survival of themselves and their children a long-term interest, you know ;).

Anyhow, sure, NOW we have the technology to transport food all the way across the country without spoiling it, and we have the technology to commute several hours to our jobs on the coast. (Note, of course, that both options come at a considerable increase in the cost of necessary materials for survival.) But have you ever tried to move a city that's already established? It's not even clear that the loss of lives (not death, necessarily, but complete loss of resources, which amounts to the same thing, really) is even any improvement over the corresponding loss due to natural disasters.

So the cities are located in, in modern context, really damned bad places, and they aren't going anywhere. Service technologies and institutions (museums and servers, etc) because... well, why would you put them anywhere else? It's simple cost minimization. And, logically, people will attempt to secure their living area, and protect your valuable whatever in the process.



...Or maybe they'll decide not to repair their faulty levy system despite numerous warnings, and their city will end up underwater. And then crazy /.ers will blame the current administration despite the fact that many of the warnings (and we're talking official engineering analyses, not crackpots in wolfskins-- Louisiana doesn't lack competent engineers, just money) were made a decade before the current executive administration, which isn't necessarily responsible for city infrastructures ANYWAY, took office. And then I'll bitch about them bitching, and make a relentlessly meta-post that references itself a billion times, but get bored and tell you to finish the cycle yourself... and so on.

Re:Why?

[justforaday]

It was perfectly located to take on large amounts of the shipping around the gulf.

You forgot one minor little part about NO's location. It's on the Mississippi, which, as you may or may not know, is a trickle of a river that cuts all the way up to the Great Lakes. I've heard that for some reason people found this to be fairly important for transporting goods...

Re:Why?

[bonius_rex]

The part the French built (the quarter) is above sea level. It's the sprawl that's now in trouble.

Re:Why?

[lemkebeth]

I happen to live on the East coast and the worst disaster to go through here in 30 years of living here was one tornado. Usually, it is just the usual Washington area blistering heat in the summer (DC used to be swamp land before it was drained).

Now to really have fun with your argument, in the Midwest there are plenty of disasters along the Mississippi region. Floods are the most common. However, parts of the Mississippi sit on top of a fault line where the continent had thought of splitting in two many millions of years ago. I think it was called the New Madrid fault (might have the name wrong).

Instead, you should argue against putting important things in disaster zones, like flood plains, fault lines, or along other areas of disaster.

Re:Why?

[drsquare]

I for one don't give a damn about preparing for 1000 years in the future. The way I see it, I've got a maximum of half a century to live. After that, I don't give a shit.

I look after myself. I have to, no-one else will. Why would I cut the standard of my living so someone in a millenium can go on holiday to Mars?

Damnit I've drunk too much, you know the point where you sort of feel sick, you can't go to sleep because when you close your eyes it makes you feel like you're going to throw up. I hate that. I should switch to spirits, beer and wine are the worst.

I couldn't give a damn about 'higher ideals'. Why should I care what future generations get up to?

The way I see it, you're only on this world for a very short time. Therefore you should make the most possible use out of it. This means doing what gives you the most benefit during your lifetime. Nothing else matters.

Argue if you want, but don't mod me down because you disagree, that's not what the mod system is for.

Re:Why?

[kumachan]

To provide Hollywood with story ideas

Re:Why?

[anagama]

Be careful, you are on your 7th life now. You do know it is impossible to drive across the midwest in one lifetime right? The monotony is actually lethal, and you are simply reincarnated slightly before you cross you hit a coastal region.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do people think bashing French is funny?

Re:Why?

[pomo monster]

Cost of living is lower, but earnings potential is also lower. Furthermore, I'd be more scared to go out at night in the middle of nowhere than at home in Manhattan. What happens when you get into an accident on a deserted country road? Can you rely on people being around to help you out? Can you rely on people being on the street 24/7 to deter people from breaking into your home?

Re:Why?

[sheehaje]

My brother always told me, if you invest, invest in land, because they aren't making much new land.

New Orleans is not the only place hit by Katrina, although it may be the most desperate because of population, lack of preparation because of ignoring what "worst case scenario" actually means.

I think most of the USA, and good portions of the world feel very vunerable. People on Slashdot can make a great case to just move somewhere else, but what should be coming off your TV, newsfeeds, and blogs is that anything can happen anywhere. New Orleans should've been prepared more, in hindsight. Maybe a huge stockpile of water, supplies, generators should be sitting not only at vunerable places, but at anything resembling a "shelter of last resort".

The irony of this all, is as much as we worry about technology/biology destroying natural things (nuclear bombs, chemical weapons, etc), this is a case of the opposite. A natural disaster happened, destroyed the technology saving lives, and the system is broken down. A "catastrophie" as was predicted.

We live on a planet with a lot of issues. Technology makes things safe for a time, and makes some of us too comfortable to think realistically about how we live (and especially in the US).

When do we start thinking about technology on the global level, and where and when can it break down the social, class, and political barriers? That is the damn question for ASK SLASHDOT.

No matter where we live, a disaster can happen. If New Orleans where hit like Mississippi, with the eye wall tearing concrete apart like a wet paper bag, we wouldn't question the technology breakdown, and levee breaches, and how to pump the city out. The storm was that powerful to knock 6 miles of costline out with storm surge and wind, not just levee breaches and flooding because of technology breakdown.

On Earth, where I think most of us live and are from, there is potential for "catastrophie" anywhere. We nitpick the systems and technology we develop to prevent these catastrophies. I think, in my eyes, and in the wake of the current situation, what technology do we develop to respond and assist in the wake of a widespread disaster. The biggest superpower in the world, which I live in, didn't do a good job. And in our time, and on our Earth, "catastrophies" will happen again, has happened before, and will get worse on all levels. How can we improve technology to not to make life easier, but to make life bearable in the next 200 years?

Re:Why?

[lpenz]

But they'll find a plaque that reads: "Humanity will be back!"

Re:Why?

[wan23]

I've got all the same shopping, restaurants, and other conveniences that they have...

I sincerely doubt that. Chicago is alright, but it really can't compare to LA (for shopping or restaurants at least). I'm not sure there's anything else in the midwest that compares to Chicago so... yeah.

on the left coast.

I've never understood this. Does it follow that the east coast is the right coast? I guess that means you live in the mid-left, east?

Re:Why?

[sootman]

Why do people keep building villages next to volcanos, museums with important artifacts in large cities, data centers in flood plains, major network hubs in cities.

A plane is flying over Arizona and at the pilot comes on the PA informing people that they can look out the window and see Meteor Crater. The pilot starts rattling off facts--that it's a mile in diameter, 500 feet deep, was caused by a 300,000-ton rock moving at 28,000 miles per hour... and a passenger says "Yeah, and it just missed the highway, too!"

Re:Why?

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Cost of living is lower, but earnings potential is also lower

True, but the relative earning power increses for things other than cars - houses and food are way cheaper for a 30% drop in salary.

What happens when you get into an accident on a deserted country road?

Same as in the city - make sure people know when to expect you. You think things are different in Manhattan, or would they just find your body sooner?

Can you rely on people being on the street 24/7 to deter people from breaking into your home?

Nope, you rely on knowing everybody in town so that it's less of an issue. I was in a small-ass town in Oregon in July, and I asked about crime. The guy I was talking to said that they get crime, but the cops already know who it is, so there's not much point.

Re:Why?

[cluckshot]

The disaster by Hurricane Katrina which left me without power for 3 days and now threatens my fuel supply indefinitely is for the most part a man made disaster. It is about 9 parts suicide and 1 part homicide. (Storm being the homicide) Please don't mistake me for having no sympathy with the hurt people. I care about them a lot.

Without going into many details, New Orleans put the kife in its gut over a century ago. It drove it deeper and deeper daily and ignored the consequences. It ranges from how the river was managed to the development of the Oil Industry which has pumped the city lower and lower every day.

The damage to America in general was the same. Our tax code told American Business to get rid of Inventory and to go to Just In Time(JIT) business models. Thus we lost any local stores of fuel and any national reserves. We lost our refinery capacity and we lost the reserves of spare parts for almost anything. JIT should be rephrased in an emergency to Just Immediate Termination. We have no reserves of medical supplies. We have no spare parts and we lack the basic supplies despite $3 Trillion in Homeland Security spending to do anything. Now the recovery is grinding to a halt for lack of fuel and the whole country is in danger of catastrophic economic collapse.

Storms will come and go but the INCOME TAX continues to grind America every day. It tells our industry to move out of the country and this disaster will accelerate the trend. The FAIR TAX will not do these evil deeds to us. It will allow fix for a profit because it allows profits.

Re:Why?

[heatdeath]

In fairness, maybe we will get some sense and realize that our number one enemy is still the laws of physics, not terrorists.

Don't worry, the Bush administration is on that.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

because it is

Re:Why?

[Rei]

Don't tell me you're another one of those hippie hurricane sympathizers! If we let ourselves become lazy, then the hurricane wins.

You have to understand - hurricanes *hate America*. Tropical cyclonic systems are a meteorological formation of hate. They're jealous of our temperate climate system, our freedoms, and our slower influx of surface moisture. Their principles (combined with the Coriolis effect) preaches that if they kill themselves flooding up innocent people, that they'll go to heaven where they'll have 70 million square miles of pristine open ocean as a heavenly reward.

The "Blame America" crowd wants us just to be lazy and accept hurricanes. Well, I say to the Michael Moores and Tom Brokaws of the country, if you like tropical weather systems so much, why don't you just move to the Tropic of Cancer from the western Carribean and western Africa between the months of June and November??? This is America - love it or leave it!

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cost of living is lower, but earnings potential is also lower.

The cost of living is lower, and the ability to not be fucking miserable in suburbia is priceless.

Furthermore, I'd be more scared to go out at night in the middle of nowhere than at home in Manhattan.

Once you get used to it, starlight isn't all that bad. Rural nightime is actually quite peaceful, and it's less likely you'll get mugged and raped walking to the nearest phone.

Can you rely on people being around to help you out?

Sometimes. Also, odds are if someone stops to help, they might have a familiar face.

Can you rely on people being on the street 24/7 to deter people from breaking into your home?

Crime?

Re:Why?

[Drooling Iguana]

No. I just can't spell.

Although apparently I type faster than Slashdot likes...

Re:Why?

[cowbutt]

Why do people keep building villages next to volcanos,

Because land near volcanoes is generally pretty fertile and good for arable farming.

museums with important artifacts in large cities,

Large cities are generally older cities, and so have more local history and related artifacts.

data centers in flood plains

At a guess, because the margins are low, and lots of space is required. Land in flood plains is presumably pretty cheap.

major network hubs in cities.

At a guess, again, because you need some fairly specialized skills, and you're more likely to find them in a city of 1mill+ than a village of 1000. Also, cities have more requirements for telecommunications, making peering relatively cheap and easy; the last time I looked, it was cheaper to get a leased line installed in Central London, than elsewhere in the UK.

Re:Why?

[mildgift]

One reason why so many datacenters are in exciting, disaster prone areas, is because the people who start the companies are there. They moved to these exciting places because they're the kind of people who like to be in these places.

I'm in Los Angeles doing internet and media work, and almost every person I've worked for, or with, has come from either another state, or a somewhat distant suburb of LA, but moved closer in to the city, and hang out in the city.

I am an LA native from the suburbs, and I find it's frikken weird! Normally, in LA, you go into an office to work, and it's a mix of races, with lots of Latinos. This is especially true with sales, accounting, tech, etc. But if you work in media (Hollywood) or some sectors of the internet, there's a lot more white people, and they're from the rest of America (and a few from Europe).

That's why there's all these data centers in high risk areas. It's the people who move here and start things.

Re:Why?

[greenrd]

Heck, rack up a big debt and pass it on, who cares, I'll be dead then, haha.

I was curious about what happens to debts when people die, so I looked it up. In the UK at least, debts aren't "passed on". If the estate you leave behind isn't enough to pay your debts, then any debts that can't be paid out of the estate are obliterated (except for any debts that are owed jointly, e.g. a mortgage where both a husband and a wife are responsible for repaying it). People should therefore be careful when considering lending to someone who is terminally ill, or old enough to die soon!

Re:Why?

[Cryshal]

Why do people keep building villages next to volcanos, museums with important artifacts in large cities, data centers in flood plains, major network hubs in cities. Because they are in denial, just as many people were in New Orleans.

Re:Why?

[sanctimonius hypocrt]

So would this be a werehouse?

Why has no one mentioned...

[Lordfly]

...this guy?

http://massivewinners.com/mgno/

He's writing a blog from within New Orleans.. he's running diesel generators to keep his company (I think it's a datacenter) running... he has a live webcam and hundreds of pictures of the disaster. It's about as close to the ground as you can get. Truly amazing...

Re:Why has no one mentioned...

[sockonafish]

Doing so would be a dupe.

Re:Why has no one mentioned...

[suso]

Well, I can't load the page that you're linking too, but I'm betting the person works for DirectNIC. They have a blog up on their site with pictures, etc. too.

Re:Why has no one mentioned...

[jjthe2]

Nice, the guy survived a major hurricane and you had to blow up his servers. Where's the compassion?

Re:Why has no one mentioned...

[xCepheus]

Great... this guy's web server survived _HURRICANE KATRINA_ and now you go and a post a link to it on slashdot.

Nice...

Re:Why has no one mentioned...

[Anonymous Coward]

One reason we have the current problem is that people did not heed the mandatory evacuation. Now we are encouraging the fool that not only stayed, but continues to be glorified, even while thousands of people are wallowing in thier own fifth just miles away.

A hurrican is an awesome thing. I have survied a class 3, and am sure that I would not survive a class 4. The best way to insure a low fatalitiy rate to encourage people to evacuate and riducule those that don't.

Many of those now stranded are stranded because they did not have the resources to get out. It is wonderful that thye can be looked down upon by the people with the resouces to remain in reltive confort, burning badly needed energy. It is enough to make you root for the looters.

The safety of the haves depends on the payment to the have nots. We are but two days from the greed at all ends from destroying us.

Re:Why has no one mentioned...

[FlopEJoe]

I know we like technology and blogs and all but I can't help thinking that the effort and diesel could be used for other purposes.

Re:Why has no one mentioned...

[interiot]

Link to the guy's posts on a webserver that can handle it, please

Re:Why has no one mentioned...

[kc0re]

Since they rejected my article about it, I'll post it here.

Interdictor, at http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/ (This is at Livejournal, they can handle the bandwidth) This guy is right down there in New Orleans, LA.

He's got live pictures, webcams, and live scanner feeds on the site. Support him, and give him some feedback. This guy is down there in the thick of it, and he's giving us some real feedback. Not what has been filtered through the media.

Re:Why has no one mentioned...

[alienfluid]

I suppose then Slashdot should be categorized as a Category 6 storm. Resistance is futile.

Re:Why has no one mentioned...

[hamburger lady]

why post it here? there is a /. story about it you know.

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/02/012023 4&tid=215&tid=126&tid=95

Re:Why has no one mentioned...

[kc0re]

Cause I'm a turd.

Re:Why has no one mentioned...

[Mr2cents]

It explains the explosions they're hearing, though..

Re:Why has no one mentioned...

[KlomDark]

You stupid fuck. Pull your head out of your comfortable middle class ass and realize that most of the people who did not leave were unable to leave.

To poor, too old, no transportation, no way out.

Oh wait, I read the rest of your comment now. You understand. Just threw me with your first sentence. I'm really pissed about the way the government is failing us. Wait till we start getting sick from the epidemic that's almost definitely going to start there in the next day or two. All that bacteria has been festering in the warm brown water there all week. All the bacteria from human feces has had well over 72 hours (The amount of incubation time needed for a few nasty bacteria to reproduce into an uncontrollable amount) to reproduce in perfect (for bacteria - warm, wet, and nutrition). People trudging through the filth down there are getting heavily infected right now, another 24 to 72 hours and they are going to be getting extremely sick, then with the evacuation, it's going to get spread all over the country. That's the big story they are hiding from us. I dread it.

Re:Why has no one mentioned...

[fm6]

Massivewinners.com is slashdotted. But this sounds like the same guy who owns mgno.com. And he got a front page Slashdot story just yesterday. For no obvious reason, he likes people to link redirects like mgno.com or massivewinners.com/mgno, instead of linking his LiveJournal direct.

Re:Why has no one mentioned...

[mjeppsen]

Camcorderinfo offers a fantastic interview with stormchasing videographer Douglas Kiesling.
Douglas has captured some incredible footage and images, all available at his website (link coralized so his server doesn't melt).
Other Katrina-related sites and info at FresHDV.

-MJ

Re:Why has no one mentioned...

[cojsl]

It was on the front page yesterday, though I'm glad you reposted it, as it's fascinating.

Re:Why has no one mentioned...

[pantycrickets]

I know we like technology and blogs and all but I can't help thinking that the effort and diesel could be used for other purposes.

Yes, just as the time spent reading countless Slashdot posts looking for one to reply to that makes you sound compassionate could have been spent doing something more productive.

The perspective he is offering as a resident in New Orleans I think is worth just as much as anything else he could be doing, personally.

Re:Why has no one mentioned...

[timeOday]

I know we like technology and blogs and all but I can't help thinking that the effort and diesel could be used for other purposes.

Really? Because I keep hearing officials blaming poor communications for this disastrously slow and uncoordinated response, and victims whose first thoughts are to contact their loved ones.

Re:Why has no one mentioned...

[FlopEJoe]

Well, before my last post, I just got back from palletizing water, diapers, food, toilet paper, etc. They needed police traffic guides because so many folks were driving up and dropping off. For four hours... on my day off... my freaking legs and back are killing me. So I feel pretty good about my contribution.

I think I'd know my answer to the question, "do you want your story to get out or would you like a truck to take you out of here?"

Re:Why has no one mentioned...

[LWATCDR]

No such thing as a Category 6. Category 5 is as bad as it gets. 155mph up to the sun going nova.

Re:Why has no one mentioned...

[unitron]

"For no obvious reason, he likes people to link redirects like mgno.com or massivewinners.com/mgno, instead of linking his LiveJournal direct."

If you'll go back and read his blog you'll see that he says something about someone else (perhaps anonymously) paying for LiveJournal for him, so apparently someone went into their own pocket to mirror him and conserve bandwidth at his (interdictor's) physical location. Maybe those other links are part of spreading out the bandwidth use as well, or are left over from before he got put on LJ.

Re:Why has no one mentioned...

[fm6]

Go back and read it yourself. He had a LiveJournal account already. That somebody upgraded the free LJ account to a paid account. He already had an LJ account before then.

This..

[MaGGuN]

..tragedy really has brought out the best and worst in people.

Re:This..

[XchristX]

Also has exposed the hypocrisy of american politics. When the tsunami hit South/Southeast Asia a few months ago, and relief efforts were under way, Americans resorted to libelous accusations of ethnic discrimination regarding the refugees. Now, with Katrina, and the deplorable and inhuman disregard and neglect with which the whites in America have treated the African Americans trapped inside NO, their dirty laundry is finally coming out.

bah.

[Anonymous Coward]

the US navy should get off their butts and bring in some LCACs (http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/lcac.htm) to pull every single stranded person out. all the browsers in the world wont help if youre stuck without food/water. and if youre poor and black, but thats another story.

Resilience

[jav1231]

Things like this bring out the best in some and the worse in others. Everything from looting to taking the opportunity to stake out political claims. The people will rebuild and do so despite what we do and do not do. I'm glad to see some are choosing to "do."

Re:Resilience

[timeOday]

I am glad you found a silver lining, because otherwise most of the response to the storm has been very disheartening IMHO. From the weak, slow Federal response, to the national guard which turned tail and ran when a psycho fired couple shots, to some significant fraction of the victims who went all Lord-of-the-Flies within two days.

OK, add me to the list for being judgemental. I mean to offense to the majority of victims who are not to blame. I'm just saying we have to change things and plan better for the next time while we have the political will. In a week or two the next big story will come along and we'll all forget about it. Keep that in mind as the powers that be deflect scrutiny by claiming that "now is not the time for partisan finger-pointing..." and so on.

Re:Resilience

[mc6809e]

I am glad you found a silver lining, because otherwise most of the response to the storm has been very disheartening IMHO. From the weak, slow Federal response,

Was it really that slow, though? Katrina was http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/graphics/AT12 /30.AL1205W.GIF>still in Mississippi Tuesday morning and still a tropical depression in Ohio Wednesday.

You have to figure that the bulk of the guardsmen are getting together Wednesday for the trip into the south. They got there by Friday with equipment and supplies. Is that actually slow for such an operation?

Re:Resilience

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there any reason they couldn't begin moving supplies and personnel into secure locations in neighboring states as soon as it became apparent that Katrina would hit New Orleans?

Special Place in Hell

[bigredradio]

There is a special place in hell for scammers taking advantage of this disaster. It's too bad.

Re:Special Place in Hell

[ackthpt]

There is a special place in hell for scammers taking advantage of this disaster. It's too bad.

The problem is not where they go in their afterlife (or lack thereof) but that we have to contend with them in this life.

On another track, it's great to be giving so much when these sorts of disasters hit, but where's the love the rest of the time? When I give blood, it's not because there's some horrible disaster in dire need, it's because there might be. The American Redcross and other agencies can only so so much if their coffers are low and something like this hits. It's a good thing to give before disasters so they have money and resources at the ready. Fewer scammers are likely to trip you up if you actually contact your favorite agency proactively and give.

It's sad

[ericdano]

It's sad to see people send out viruses, and spam, and other things in the wake of a disaster such as this. Same goes for the idiots in New Orleans who are walking around with guns, looting, raping, and whatever.

People like these should be tracked down, flogged, and then prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law!

Re:It's sad

[TripMaster Monkey]

People like these should be tracked down, flogged, and then prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law!

They're doing better than that...national guardsmen now have orders to shoot to kill. Pity we can't do the same to the scammmers.

Re:It's sad

[ericdano]

About time! There is really NO EXCUSE to be looting, raping, and shooting.

Re:It's sad

[ackthpt]

It's sad to see people send out viruses, and spam, and other things in the wake of a disaster such as this. Same goes for the idiots in New Orleans who are walking around with guns, looting, raping, and whatever.

It's also sad to see people killing others by the hundreds or thousands in the name of some faith and the belief that it's somehow going to create a better world.

People like these should be tracked down, flogged, and then prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law!

No, they should be tried, then flogged when found guilty. To do otherwise would bypass all peoples rights as guaranteed by the Constitution. We need less Gitmos, thanks.

Re:It's sad

[ericdano]

What the hell? Tried? What kind of justification does one have in walking out of a Walmart with BOXES of shoes? Or a TV set? They should be ordered to drop items, and failing to do that, shot. Period.

People shooting at helicopters, they should be shot as well. There is NO EXCUSE for this. No reason. It's insane. You want to try them for this? For shooting at a Helicopter trying to land at a hospital? What kind of defense are they going to give? Oh, instead of leaving New Orleans, and trying to go to a shelter, I decided to practice my shooting by taking some shots at a helicopter.

Insane. We need martial law down there. ASAP. I believe you should LOSE your rights when you take up arms against government back people providing support to fellow citizens.

Re:It's sad

[Anonymous Coward]

It's also sad to see people killing others by the hundreds or thousands in the name of some faith and the belief that it's somehow going to create a better world.

No kidding. It's time everyone sees the destructiveness of those perverting the Islamic religion by crashing planes into civilian buildings, bombing Iraqi policeman, British and Spanish subways.

Re:It's sad

[TheRealMindChild]

Plain and simple, a rapist should die. Any arguement at the chance of rehabilitation is countered by the horror of their crime. We don't need or want such people in society. Kill them. They have no place... even in jail.

And to go a little further, more people need to die. As much as the common man wants to believe that in the core of every person is good, I call bullshit. Committing a sex crime or a violent crime, especially against a child or mentally/physically challenged individual is proof enough that one has no soul... and with that, I have no problem in watching them burn.

Re:It's sad

[Anonymous Coward]

It's sad to see people send out viruses, and spam, and other things in the wake of a disaster such as this. Same goes for the idiots in New Orleans who are walking around with guns, looting, raping, and whatever.

If you can't walk around with a gun looting and raping after a disaster, then what good is a disaster?

Re:It's sad

[3nd32]

Depends on what you mean by looting.... Are these people grabbing new TVs, or are they grabbing bread? As for raping and shooting, a shoot to kill order seems appropriate.

Re:It's sad

[bfields]

They're doing better than that...national guardsmen now have orders to shoot to kill.

So there are some twenty thousand people stuck together without food or water, who don't believe they've recieved the emergency supplies and evacuation aid they were led to expect. This isn't a straightforward military problem that can be solved by going in with a lot of force and killing a few bad people. This is a political problem--these people need to cooperate so they can evacuate safely, but it's not obvious how to do that when they don't know who to trust.

Looked at as a solution to that political problem, sending in a bunch of national guardsmen with "orders to shoot to kill" sounds like a "solution" that could produce the worst possible results.

Re:It's sad

[Anonymous Coward]

Then the question is: will they shoot their own colleagues?

Re:It's sad

[HermanAB]

The looters should be rounded up and used to clean out the Toilet Dome.

Re:It's sad

[metaphorever]

Are these people grabbing new TVs, or are they grabbing bread?
This is such an important distinction, and it needs to be made. Now I'm not saying there aren't people who are stealing TVs but, what good is a TV when you have no electricity, when you have no house to put the TV in because your house has been destroyed? Why steal a TV when you have to carry it through so much water that the electronics in it will be ruined?
This is not a typical looting situation.
It's a twisted state of things when you have to choose between starving to death or being shot on sight for "looting" from a store whose entire inventory has been damaged so much that it will never be sold.

Re:It's sad

[senortaco]

It's sad to see people send out viruses, and spam, and other things in the wake of a disaster such as this.

Agreed. What are people coming to these days? It truly is sad to see people like these scammers immediately jump to capitalize on the suffering of others.

What goes on inside these people's heads that allows them to rationalize such behavior?

Re:It's sad

[scotch]

Committing a sex crime or a violent crime, especially against a child or mentally/physically challenged individual is proof enough that one has no soul ... and with that, I have no problem in watching them burn.

Which is proof enough that you have no soul.

Re:It's sad

[Anonymous Coward]

"This isn't a straightforward military problem that can be solved by going in with a lot of force and killing a few bad people."

Actually, when those people are shooting at the rescue helicopters, car-jacking ambulances, and killing the rescue workers, it can. You need security along with everything else, otherwise it becomes "survival of the fittest."

Re:It's sad

[Blakey Rat]

Yeah, but Bush was also right when he said that the people there need to take matters in their own hands. I'm sick of hearing, on CNN, that there are some dead bodies among the refugees in the Superdome... what the hell? Look at all the able-bodied there, and NONE of them have organized enough to stow the bodies somewhere out of sight? NONE of these people have organized to WALK out of the city? What, do their legs not work anymore? (If they can drive a bus up to the doors, people can walk out the same way the bus came.)

And the feather in the cap was the lady on the news, eating MREs dropped from a military helicopter, who said the food was hard to eat because it was cold! Come on!

These people are helpless infants, or at least they're sure as hell giving that impression to me when I'm watching the news. They need to stop relying on the government and take care of their own damn problems. Not enough buses? Then get off your duff and start walking... you'll make the bus's trip shorter, and you'll clear space for the people who aren't able-bodied and TRULY need a ride in a bus, the elderly and the sick.

Re:It's sad

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the whole thing is very sad. But if you have never been to war or never been through a disaster like this you can not relate so your condemnation of the looters is irrelevant. Normally the frivolity on this geek site doesn't bother me but the posted article and comments on this subject disgust me. Every geek with a smartass comment on this site would be a whole lot more humble if they had been in new orleans to ride out the storm and flood. Go slashdot red crosses ecommerce system by making a donation if you actually give a damm.

Re:It's sad

[bfields]

You need security along with everything else

Of course. But security is a lot more than just killing a few bad people. It's also figuring out who the bad people are and getting the cooperation of the vast majority that want to move forward.

Re:It's sad

[bfields]

Look at all the able-bodied there

"Able bodied" may be somewhat relevant when they're probably all a bit food-, water-, and sleep- deprived at this point.

NONE of them have organized enough to stow the bodies somewhere out of sight?

Where would you suggest that they put them? How are they going to clean their hands afterwards? (You understand the disease risks here, right?)

NONE of these people have organized to WALK out of the city?

I believe the superdome is surrounded by flooded areas. This means wading through rather deep water that, by this point, has a pretty good level of sewage, dead bodies, and weird chemicals in it. Given that, I suspect they're right to stay put.

And where are they going to walk out of the city to? How far? Where are they going to get food and water along the way?

There's a few details here that aren't clear to me.

Re:It's sad

[ericdano]

Ooo, that is a great idea! That and picking up all the trash in the city....

Re:It's sad

[ericdano]

Looting is looting. Period. They should have, um, maybe heeded the warnings that were given out?

Re:It's sad

[HermanAB]

Better: Give them buckets and let them bail out the city.

kiosk idea is great

[nantoka]

thanks for this post, I will do everything I can to get support for these projects

Re:kiosk idea is great

[Anonymous Coward]

What a waste of time. I mean seriously internet kiosks. I assume you will hire people to instruct the users how to operate them, that is if they aren't stolen. Maybe you can hire some armed guards to stand by them day and night.

What bothers me is how people can find new and novel ways to waste money in a time of need. Instead of putting up the $1000 per device, why not buy a $1000 worth of food for every device you thought you would need. Or rent a damn bus and deliver the people where they want to go. Everyone has an agenda whether it be some evangelist that will go down there to trade food for a conversion to god or some geek looking to get people to learn linux.

Fraud

[John Seminal]

If you donate, give to an organization you trust. Don't get ripped off by donating just because someone has a website set up. These fraud sites are run by scum, while there is a tragedy, they want to take money which should help people in need, and take it for themseleves.

And I don't get why every company now has a donation website for people? Why does Microsoft need a link for donating? Is it all PR bullshit? Is it in fashion to appear to be helping? Why doesn't Bill gates take some of his billions, and give? I am sure he will, but it seems like he can donate far more than the web page will raise. It is better to let the groups which have been around for so long do the job, the Red Cross and known charities.

Warric Dunn had a great idea. He is a running back in the NFL. He challenged every NFL player to donate $5,000. A drop in the bucket for guys making millions. It would raise over $8,000,000 for New Orleans. We will soon find out who the good guys are, and who the assholes are.

Re:Fraud

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Funny you should mention that. The third link on the FEMA.gov "Volunteer or Make a Donation" page, under "Donate Cash", just happens to be Operation Blessing, who's chairman is "MG Robertson," is none other than the Rev. Pat - Marion Gordon Robertson is his real name - while Pat's wife DeDe is vice president and son Gordon Robertson is also on the board.

I feel certain that 100% of any and all donations will go directly to New Orleans.

Re:Fraud

[alienfluid]

First of all, companies like IBM and Microsoft do not have donation websites - they have websites that have information about how to donate - and contain links to valid and legitimate organizations.

Secondly, Microsoft has already donated $1 million (so far) and is matching EVERY donation made by its full-time employees (that counts for something).

Thirdly, IMHO, companies put up these websites to display their solidarity with the people affected by the tragedy and to raise awareness through distributing FREE information on their HIGHLY popular websites (do you know how many hits the MS and the IBM websites get?).

Re:Fraud

[interiot]

Donations will go to New Orleans, diamond mining, and horse racin^H^H^H^H^H^H athleticism.

Re:Fraud

[DAldredge]

Does operation blessing have any scandles regarding the misuse of donations in its past? I mean the red cross has had scandles and I do not see you speaking out about them.

E

Re:Fraud

[DAldredge]

1 WHOLE Million dollars?

That is only 4-5 times less then the donation that Toyota made. One would think the most profitable software company on the planet could donate more.

Re:Fraud

[Hosiah]

none other than the Rev. Pat

How ironic, when every fundamentalist christian knows that the hurricane was God's punishment against us for harboring gays http://www.planetout.com/news/article.html?2005/08 /31/2 .

There's only one thing for enlightened America left to do: round up all the people with facial warts, and burn them at the stake as witches to chase the evil hurricane spirits away.

Re:Fraud

[christian.einfeldt]

Steve Hargadon came up with this idea. He has been active in LTSP for a long time, and has built thin-client labs all over the US. I did volunteer grunt work for him in San Francisco, and I can tell you that Steve Hargadon is a good guy.

Re:Fraud

[superyooser]

OB

Efficiency - Over 99.2% of OBI's spending goes toward humanitarian programs.

Excellence - MinistryWatch.Com ranks Operation Blessing International #2 (out of 451 charities) with its top 5-Star Financial Efficiency Rating.

High-Value - For every $10 you give, it helps us secure more than $100 of donated food and relief supplies (10 to 1 return on your charitable investment).

Re:Fraud

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

If you're going to give to a religious organization, give to an established church's relief effort (shoutout to UMCOR, since I go to a Methodist church). A lot of these strange organizations like Operation Blessing that you mentioned take a percentage off for "administrative expenses" - which in this case appears to be the Robertson family.

Not that I know that Operation Blessing is necessarily corrupt, just that Pat Robertson isn't exactly the most trustworthy guy (seriously, what "Christian" goes around asking to kill authorities? but I digress), and this type of organizational structure is also not that trustworthy. UMCOR, on the other hand, is volunteer run, and all its administrative expenses come from the regular offering plate in Methodist churches. Donations to UMCOR go 100% to the people who need them.

Re:Fraud

[Rei]

And the precious irony is that the French Quarter - you know, the heart of NO's lascivious nightlife, Bourbon St. et al - is one of the least damaged parts of NO north of the Mississippi. While parts of the city had almost twenty feet of water, the water on Bourbon St. itself was only waist deep (and is now empty), and other parts of the area had no water at all.

By the way - your quote reminded me a bit of Do Gays Cause Tornadoes? (a statistical analysis).

Too bad the 256th (Louisiana) and 155th (Mississippi) weren't in the US - they have key engineering and support battalions (the 256th being some of the best equipped in the US military) that could have been incredibly useful here. Who'd have guessed that the same logistics, engineering, and support skills that they have in Iraq would prove so important at home? :P At least (70%?) of the Louisiana National Guard was still there, even if their most applicable units weren't - they need all the manpower that they can get.

Re:Fraud

[drsquare]

So what? Bill Gates gives plenty to charity. Billions and billions and billions. And that's all over the world, to people in obscure countries, not just in big, rich countries like America where donations get more publicity.

How much has Toyota given to AIDS in Africa? It's easy to give to popular, flash-in-the-pan causes. There are people in the world whose daily lives are like in the current New Orleans, but most Americans don't give a shit about them.

Re:Fraud

[killjoe]

A fundamentalist Christian cleric recently called for a fatwah on a world leader urging his followers to assasinate him. Oddly enough not one prominent moderate christian leader or american political leader condemned him although some did say they personally had no plans to obey the fatwah.

You want to give this nutjob money? He later said he never called for an assassination even though it's on tape, you trust him to tell you the truth about his own organization?

Re:Fraud

[Guppy06]

" And the precious irony is that the French Quarter - you know, the heart of NO's lascivious nightlife, Bourbon St. et al - is one of the least damaged parts of NO north of the Mississippi. "

I'd wager it has more to do with experience than anything. The French Quarter is probably the oldest urban area north/east of the Mississippi and has been putting up with floods and such for long before they had the levee system. Atop of that, the buildings are older, lighter, and sinking at a slower rate.

"At least (70%?) of the Louisiana National Guard was still there, even if their most applicable units weren't"

There's something I've been wondering about when this debate comes up: of the NG units that have not yet been called up, where are their armories? Could all the units form up even if they wanted to?

Re:Fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently, he also puts "Dr. Pat Robertson" on the lables of cans of his diet shakes...yet he's only a lawyer and not a physician. Why do people like this guy?

Re:Fraud

[Matt - Duke '05]

Why does Microsoft need a link for donating? Is it all PR bullshit? Is it in fashion to appear to be helping... It is better to let the groups which have been around for so long do the job, the Red Cross and known charities.

Maybe because they actually care? Maybe because it "is in fashion" to actually help? Did you even click on the Microsoft link? They direct you to the "groups which have been around for so long to do the job." I don't know... maybe because posting the link (and sending out numerous internal emails) raises employee awareness, which helps the cause, because for ever dollar that an employee donates, Microsoft matches with their own corporate dollar? Maybe because Microsoft's employees, even in Redmond, have been mobilizing to help out people in need?

Re:Fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

All Donations will do, keep the Millionaires and Billionaires not losing their illgotten Money,prolong the Warmongering,Pork barrelling,Corruption,destroy the last Vestiges of a crumbling Infrastructure.
So Suckers,take my advise,save your Money.

Re:Fraud

[greenrd]

Does operation blessing have any scandles regarding the misuse of donations in its past?

Oh yes, it sure does!

You want scandal, I'll give you fucking scandal - from Wikipedia:

"Through his ostensibly charitable organization, Operation Blessing International, Robertson claims to have spent $1.2 million bringing aid to refugees in Rwanda. His critics, such as Palast, claim the money was actually spent to bring heavy equipment for Robertson's African Development Corporation, a diamond mining operation."

This is covered in Palast's book "The Best Democracy Money can Buy", which is a must-read for every Bush-lover out there.

Re:Fraud

[superyooser]

A fundamentalist Christian cleric recently called for a fatwah on a world leader urging his followers to assassinate him.

I wonder how many Americans support the Stalinist dictator who opposed our response to 9/11 in Afghanistan and mocked our need for help during this crisis of Hurricane Katrina.

Does anybody not want to harm Chávez?

Re:Fraud

[killjoe]

I too opposed our response to 9/11 and so did billions of other people. You want to kill everybody who opposed your response to 9/11? Typical American. Their only response to critisim to kill the other person.

By the way chaves did not mock your need for help. He mocked bush for his inadequate response. He was right. Bush sat on his ass and did nothing for a few days. What's worse bush had cut funding for the army corps of engineers who had done a study and wanted to fix the problem (by 80%). Bush also turned over wetlands over to the developers even though the scientists said wetlands would mitigate flooding in new orleans. Finally Bush sent a ton of national guardsmen to iraq to secure the oil wells and so there was a shortage of guardsmen in new orleans.

Bush deserved to be mocked.

If there is no power...

[NickCatal]

How will these kiosks work in the areas where they are needed most? What about internet access? etc.

Re:If there is no power...

[maxume]

They aren't needed most in areas that lack power. They are needed most in evacuation sites, places like the Astrodome. Huge amounts of infrastructure are gone. New Orleans won't be habitable for months, if it is even worth salvaging. Electricity is pretty secondary compared to clean water and sanitation. Sure clean water and sanitation are easier when you have electricity, but you can go quite a bit longer without electricity than you can without water and so on.

Re:If there is no power...

[bfields]

How will these kiosks work in the areas where they are needed most? What about internet access?

Unfortunately, it's probably too late for the average geek to help with, e.g., the people still stranded in New Orleans.

What they can help with is the wave of evacuees who suddenly want to find a new job, find a new place to live, replace all the necessities they left behind, get in touch with their scattered friends and relatives, and in general assemble the kind of support system they need for something like a normal life. Even if they eventually plan to move back to New Orleans, they're probably going to be living somewhere else for some time.

It's not hard to imagine that some cheap communications technology could come in very handy here.

--Bruce Fields

Re:If there is no power...

[puzzled]

  Nick,

    If you're related to Susan, Wayne, Michael, Molly, and Pete Catalano please drop me a line - they were last heard from at their home in Chalmette on Monday. They were on the second floor of the house with water rising fast and they've not been heard from since.

  Sissy, Pat, David, and Leslie Durnin made it safely to Omaha and they're very worried about the rest of the family.

    bliss at ignorant dot org if these people are at all connected to you ...

Re:If there is no power...

[Not_Wiggins]

More importantly, with people shooting at rescue helicopters, how the heck can one deploy any of these boxes? Let alone protect them from the rampant looting?

Great intentions, but perhaps not exactly what the people need right now. How about instead of internet access drop these people food.

Re:If there is no power...

[DanishE]

We are actively looking to hire network technicians in the Lafayette area who are from New Orleans. We eventually want to be involved in rebuilding New Orleans, and are trying to position ourselves by hiring N.O techs to help them for relocating back to N.O. This may sound greedy, but we just want to help out as much as we can. We see people all over the city that need some sort of employment and a place to stay. All the hot spots are flooded with people trying to figure out what to do. Its crazy! Send emails to support@synergyitg.com and we will try to help whoever we can.

Re:If there is no power...

[Jellybob]

People are already dropping food, and providing medical attention.

No one is suggesting that internet access be installed instead of dropping food, they're doing it as well as dropping food.

Hindsight is 20:20

[Valiss]

Gatta love the understatement of the week on his blog:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/2005/ 08/27/

If only they knew then...

where they go

[reconn]

If this is the same guy who got noted on Boing Boing a while back, he wants to set these kiosks up in the Astrodome where the 30,000 displaced Superdome residents will be staying for a while.

Re:where they go

[christian.einfeldt]

No, this is not the same guy as the boing boing guy. The guy who started this idea is Steve Hargadon, who has been active in LTSP for a long time. Steve is a real guy with real good intentions and good ideas.

Web services and Firefox browsers are great

[Jugalator]

But from how I understand it, what they need now isn't technology, not even electricity, but to be moved out from their hell hole and get some food, instead of starving to death in the heat on their roofs or have their children raped by armed criminals.

In Related Geek News

[Quirk]

Wired ran an article that in part reads as follows:
"Virtually everything that has happened in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina struck was predicted by experts and in computer models, so emergency management specialists wonder why authorities were so unprepared."

While I'll do what I can, I find the fact that the scenario had been modeled disturbing in light of the disorganized response. The more so since President Bush has said no one predicted the levees being breached.

Re:In Related Geek News

[doxology]

Yeah,I was reading this a little while ago and it's amazing how prophetic it is.

Re:In Related Geek News

[Hosiah]

Maybe his aides handed Bush a hurricane warning, but it was bundled together with a terrorist warning, so he didn't read it.

Re:In Related Geek News

[Red Flayer]

Attn: Slashdotters -- this post is partly flamebait, partly offtopic, and not really funny. I just wanted to warn you, since it is a Friday evening on a holiday afternoon in the US, so there are probably not a lot of mod points left in circulation.

"I find the fact that the scenario had been modeled disturbing in light of the disorganized response"

What I find disturbing is the disorganized response in light of the fact that the scenario had been modeled. :)

The POTUS said it wasn't predicted... that makes it truth, no?

Just like no one could have foreseen you-know-what in 2001, no one could have foreseen the post-invasion instability in Iraq... I could go on.

I'm sure that I'm preaching to the choir here. But just because I can't foresee something, doesn't mean I should run around saying that no one could have foreseen it.

Re:In Related Geek News

[Jherek Carnelian]

The more so since President Bush has said no one predicted the levees being breached.

Its just political CYA and misdirection. He, or at least someone in his cabinet (Rice?), said that no one predicted that someone would fly a jet into the wtc either. Don't believe a word of it.

I heard today, on the Rush Limbaugh show of all places (they had a guest host so that might explain the surprising level of veracity), that new orleans getting hit by a hurricane was in the top 3 "expected" disasters that FEMA publically anticipated - earthquake in San Francisco and a third which I don't remember were on the list ahead of it.

Re:In Related Geek News

[Anonymous Coward]

In the last year I saw two disturbing shows.

One was an hour long episode of Nova which essentially covered how screwed NOLA would be if hit by a huricane.

The other one was a fictional simulation of what the next huge energy (oil in particular) crisis would look like. It was on Discovery if I remember correctly and the show started with a hurricane hitting NOLA.

Re:In Related Geek News

[pommiekiwifruit]

The third was a terrorist attack in new york (on the list made in 2001 anyway). Oh wait...

Re:In Related Geek News

[Jim_Callahan]

Because, you know, engineers doing analyses of civic infrastructure definityl file reports directly to the commander-in chief of the american armed forces... stop being an ass, man, Bush has said a lot of stupid shit, but it is the responsibility of a political figurehead to say comforting things like "we all feel the loss" and "No one could have seen it coming". Any other president, regardless of political leanings, would say the same. Except maybe Coolidge, who would have come up with a pithy one-liner off the cuff. Man, Coolidge was awesome.

bah to you

[stoolpigeon]

USS Bataan (LHD 5)
USS Iwo Jima (LHD 7)
USS Harry Truman (CVN-75)
USS Whidbey Island (LSD 41)
USNS Comfort (T-AH 20)

And those are just the big boys and that is just the Navy. Bataan has been active since almost day one. More info in my journal (not much but a little).

Re:bah to you

[Anonymous Coward]

i dont see any hovercraft rescuing people, do you ? a heli can lift 1-2 people, a hovercraft 200+.

Re:bah to you

[stoolpigeon]

There are hovercraft working in the gulf coast to deliver supplies. They are not capable of going in amongst the homes and pulling people out. They don't work like that.

Re:bah to you

[Anonymous Coward]

> Bataan has been active since almost day one.

That is a lie. Bush ordered the Bataan to leave the area. He personally has prevented the Bataan, like he has personally prevented the US Army, from helping. How about checking on your facts before repeating Bush lies?

Skinner

For the real story on the Bush Holocaust, go to
http://www.democraticunderground.com/

Re:bah to you

[stoolpigeon]

I stand corrected - your thread on a Hate Bush site with the title 'If this is true....' is much more credible than my personal knowledge of Naval operations and the photographs I have looked at of operations underway. I don't know what I was thinking.

Re:bah to you

[Anonymous Coward]

You just fell for a troll, genius.

Re:bah to you

[Anonymous Coward]

I know I was, but someone must stand-up to the idiots that worship Bush. The 'moran' claimed the Bataan was helping. It is not, and anyone that has been paying attention knows that. We have to fight against them. They are destroying this country.

Skinner

Someone has.

[maxume]

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/02/012023 4&tid=215&tid=126&tid=95

Good enough?

Pre-emptive post

[lpangelrob]

From reading other sources out there, I know this subject will come up, so I'm going to go at it first.

The federal/state/local government wasn't prepared for Katrina (yes, even in spite of the drills) because the last Category 4 storm, Hurricane Charley, wasn't all that bad. I get the feeling that every single government agency in the country was gearing up to respond to that type of event.

Katrina has ended up like Charley^2, mostly due ot her size. And there's not nearly enough workers, rescuers, or responders to be able to deal with the situation.

In addition, Charley did not hit Tampa, Florida directly.

It seemed that all the meteorologists knew the impact of Katrina, even in the 18 hours before when we knew she would hit New Orleans, but that this didn't get through to the government that everyone is now blaming for failing to respond.

Re:Pre-emptive post

[Fiver-]

But the actions needed post-hurricane are much the same actions required after an attack with chemical or bio weapons. We're very unlikely to have advance notice of any attacks, much less 18 hours, so the response has to be fast to be effective.

Is anyone impressed with this display of preparedness and response?

Re:Pre-emptive post

[LWATCDR]

Actually they thought that they had prepared. The told people to evacuate. They told people that went to the SuperDome to bring five days of food and water.
What they where not ready for was 25+% of the people not evacuating. Why didn't the state use every school bus and truck to get the people the heck out?
I really feel for these people but they should have gotten out of New Orleans.

And the state of LA should have done more to get them out.Maybe the National Guard should have been called up before the storm to get the people out.

Re:Pre-emptive post

[squidsoup]

They didn't make the effort because that 25% are black and poor.

I'm utterly disgusted by all of this.. there is NO excuse for losing this many people - in what is supposedly a developed country (not to mention the wealthiest).

The people of Ache were fucked - there wasn't really much anyone could have done to have saved them. The loss of life on this scale in NOLA could have been prevented.

Re:Pre-emptive post

[Red Flayer]

"It seemed that all the meteorologists knew the impact of Katrina, even in the 18 hours before when we knew she would hit New Orleans, but that this didn't get through to the government that everyone is now blaming for failing to respond"

What do you mean, it didn't get through to the government? The government has its own meteorologists, who were just as aware of the storm's status as anyone else.

Is it private industry's responsibility to report things that might be of concern to the federal government? No, it is the government's responsibility to get that information.

In the government's defense, the storm surge did not hit New Orleans directly -- that was the event that was most feared, that surge water would rush in from the Gulf. I think the government backed down the response when it was realized that N.O. was west of the storm center.

Someone in the chain of command should have realized, though, that a direct hit by storm surge was not the only event that could have flooded N.O. -- levee failure should have been prepared for.

Re:Pre-emptive post

[Jim_Callahan]

They were poor, but the problem is not so much that they were poor as that louisiana is poor in general. No real resources to evacuate people that can't evacuate themselves. There's also a very low level of family spread in Louisiana. Rich or poor, very few people in the state have relatives 300 miles away that they can go off and stay with for a week, whereas there's probably not a single person in, say, Houston, that doesn't have an aunt or old buddy in Dallas or El Paso. So families are more likely to be screwed over en masse, and thus unable to support each other in the way they might in many other states. I do wish that cities would take public works projects like 'repairing the levees that keep your city hall from becoming a swimming pool' a little more seriously, though. Going the long way and relying on federal aid is not the way to go.

Re:Pre-emptive post

[LWATCDR]

" They didn't make the effort because that 25% are black and poor."
Gee that very statment is in it's self racist. The Mayor of New Orleans is black. He did not use the cities buses to haul people. He did not scream that he needed the National Guard before the storm. He did not station enough police in the convention center and the Superdome. He did stock the Superdome and the convention center with enough food and water. He was telling everyone that it was going to be okay. Now he is blaming everyone else.
The person that is most responsible for the shelters and the people in New Orleans is the mayor of New Orleans.
I really do not think it was because he was black but because he is an idiot. He like way to many people where in denial. People in New Orleans had some strange fantisy that it could never happen to them. It wasn't just the poor and black but tourists that couldn't get out. And they where mostly white and well to do.

Journalists finally starting to do their job!

[wass]

Journalists are finally starting to see through the misleading statements of federal officials who are claiming everything is jus' fine down in N'awleans, and are reporting the actual reality on the ground.

Too bad it took a disaster for this to happen. But when you see people dying in front of your eyes and your own government waiting 4 days before really attempting to help out, your sense of conscience grows.

CNN has a special page contrasting the statements of officials about how great things are going versus the reality. Read the article here.

Re:Journalists finally starting to do their job!

[TripMaster Monkey]

Wow. Excellent article. Thanks for the link.

Re:Journalists finally starting to do their job!

[lpangelrob]

It's not misleading, just clueless.

Consider that it's been widely reported that New Orleans is under 20 feet of water. Of course that's not an average depth -- the French Quarter is above ground, and therefore not underwater.

I have yet to hear anything regarding the not-flooded southern suburbs of New Orleans, and I suspect that not much is happening over there... just a lot of wind damage.

It is very disturbing that the federal government doesn't know about the New Orleans Convention Center situation, which leads me to believe that initially, they thought the state of Louisiana could handle things. This is a rational initial assumption to take, even with a Category 4 hurricane. This has been proven to be incorrect.

Re:Journalists finally starting to do their job!

[fireduck]

That was indeed a powerful article. I had read it moments before you posted. And it got me thinking. What do we know about Mr. Brown, the head of FEMA?

Well he's a lawyer with no experience managing disaster relief, who was promoted when the Homeland Security department was created. Contrast that with his predecessor, Joe Allbaugh, also appointed by Bush, but who had overseen a number of disasters prior to coming to the position. Prior to him, James Witt, a Clinton appointee, has previous disaster management at the state level before being elevated to the national position.

The real question is: Why in the hell do we have, as THE man in charge of disasters, someone who's entire emergency management experience consists of "serving as an assistant city manager with emergency services"?

Re:Journalists finally starting to do their job!

[fermion]

The other day on NPR they had an army corp guy saying how they would get the breeches closed in a day, and even if they didn't it would not be a big deal as the city would drain a bit as the river receeded. On tuesday Homeland security was like the city would be evacuated in a day.

Friday afternoon and the city is still under water. People are getting murdered, children are getting raped, and and an epidemic is inevitable. The dome is full and we are about to start filling the entire complex in houston with people. The schools are ready and willing to take of the children, but where do we put them, and who is going to get them here. One gun shot and our gaurd runs away. Refugees are being turned away from military bases.

I think the most depressing thing is that we have this new fangled Homeland security office that we paid dearly for, both with money and personal freedoms. They are supposed to help us with stuff like this, but all that has happened is talk. We will do this, we will do that. A week is almost gone, and we are still waiting. I know everyone is doing thier best, but honestly sometimes ones best is not good enough, and one has to be big enough to admit it. Texas was ready to help. The feds, however, are still on vacation. The benifit of being a rich country is quickly mobilizing aid to those in need. These people are in need. I don't care about the price of gas. I don't care about the effect on the economy. I just want help sent to those standed people. I just want the feds to stop jerking off, stope trying to minimize the impact to save political face, and do the job they are paid to do.

Re:Journalists finally starting to do their job!

[Anonymous Coward]

It is very disturbing that the federal government doesn't know about the New Orleans Convention Center situation, which leads me to believe that initially, they thought the state of Louisiana could handle things. This is a rational initial assumption to take, even with a Category 4 hurricane. This has been proven to be incorrect.

Of course it's incorrect. In any situation involving a large population of niggers, civilization is going to go out of the window and you're going to be left with a total clusterfuck.

What planet do you live on that you haven't figure that out by now?

The best possible thing to do now would be to barricade all the exits from New Orleans, and just clean up the mess after they're done killing each other.

Re:Journalists finally starting to do their job!

[MegaFur]

The other day on NPR they had an army corp guy saying how they would get the breeches closed in a day, and even if they didn't it would not be a big deal as the city would drain a bit as the river receeded.

I'm glad you heard that too, now I know I wasn't halucinating or something. Later on, via some weblink, I heard the deeply disgruntled mayor of New Orleans saying he flew over the area where they were supposed to put those special, huge sand bags in place, and nothing had been done yet.

I think the most depressing thing is that we have this new fangled Homeland security office that we paid dearly for, both with money and personal freedoms. They are supposed to help us with stuff like this, but all that has happened is talk. We will do this, we will do that. A week is almost gone, and we are still waiting. I know everyone is doing thier best, but honestly sometimes ones best is not good enough, and one has to be big enough to admit it. Texas was ready to help. The feds, however, are still on vacation. The benifit of being a rich country is quickly mobilizing aid to those in need. These people are in need. I don't care about the price of gas. I don't care about the effect on the economy. I just want help sent to those standed people. I just want the feds to stop jerking off, stope trying to minimize the impact to save political face, and do the job they are paid to do.

I agree completely.

Re:Journalists finally starting to do their job!

[Guppy06]

Because it's a political appointment. The president appoints, and the Senate confirms, based on a persons loyalty to The Beloved Party. For an organization as large and well-funded as FEMA, it's not about how good you are, it's who you know.

Don't like it? Keep that in mind next November.

LiveCD

[bmsleight]

There is a excellent liveCD ready for this, based on firefox.Or the locked-down kiosk version LiveKiosk.

Kiosks, excellent idea!

[PhotoBoy]

What with the vast numbers of people without homes, food or water the ideal solution is clearly to make sure everyone has internet access ASAP so that they can check their email before starving to death or collapsing from dehydration.

Re:Kiosks, excellent idea!

[Anonymous Coward]

There's enough idiots and freaks with guns there without adding stung-out Internet addicts in search of a fix. In fact, air-dropping Grand Theft Auto or FPS battery consoles might calm the whole situation down.

Dept. of Homland Security has almost nothing?

[geoff lane]

Why is this page still empty five days later?

I can't imagine the web staff are qualified to do on site rescue work so can't be so busy that they can't produce something for the public.

Re:Dept. of Homland Security has almost nothing?

[Anonymous Coward]

They are still trying to figure out a way to blame it on 'the terrorists'.

Re:Dept. of Homland Security has almost nothing?

[BuddyJesus]

I can't imagine the web staff are qualified to do on site rescue work so can't be so busy that they can't produce something for the public.

Gee, did you think on clicking the link called "Press Room"?

Re:Dept. of Homland Security has almost nothing?

[interiot]

Zoinks! That's not some obscure out-of-the-way webpage either. Go to http://www.dhs.gov/. On the top navigation bar, there's an obvious "Emergencies & Disasters" link, click it. That page is basically completely empty.

http://www.fema.gov/ has lots of stuff up, but dhs.gov doesn't. How weird.

Re:Dept. of Homland Security has almost nothing?

[Hosiah]

They're powerless until they can come up with a color-coding system for the National Natural Disaster Threat Advisory System. They don't want to use the same colors for the Terrorist Threat System (currently at orange) because it'd be too confusing. All the other colors look too "swishy".

Why???

[maxrate]

The terminals will just get shot at or stolen.

Re:Why???

[Anonymous Coward]

or raped

Okey Dokey. Exactly where..

[Karma_fucker_sucker]

am I supposed to set these things up?

The plan is to create numerous Linux-based public kiosks that boot directly into the Firefox browser and display a special home page with links to various services. In addition to offering disaster relief information and news, the kiosks will...

Should I set it up in the middle of the street in New Orleans or in Houston?

I don't mean to "Troll" here. This guy had his heart in the right place, but there needs to be a little more leadership here or some suggestions, other than promoting Linux as the savior of victims. In other words, the folks in New Orleans do not have the resources to set this up. Is this guy trying to get folks in Houston and other refugee centers to set this up? I'm here in Atlanta. Can I do something?

Re:Okey Dokey. Exactly where..

[Requiem Aristos]

You follow the link and RTFA. The idea is that the refugee centers need this, not NO. A list of what's needed and how you can help is on the linked page.

Re:Okey Dokey. Exactly where..

[munchymuncher]

I think the people in shelters would like to communicate that they are alive. Evacuees and others would also like to try to find friends and family that they can not contact. If you are looking for someone that was in NO,LA then phone won't help much. A database of names, pictures and locations would help.

I am in Houston and am an out of work Network Engineer. I don't have anything to donate but my time. So, if anyone wants to arrange to get Kiosks to the Astrodome or other shelters, I am willing to lead that effort.

Send emails to brandonvne@yahoo.com

Re:Okey Dokey. Exactly where..

[christian.einfeldt]

The thing to do would be to go to the Desktop Linux site where they are organizing things, and help out. You might start by making a list of schools and other public places based on your google search where things like this might potentially be set up. Someone is going to have to create a map of potential sites, which will then go into a database so that we can track what places are available.

http://www.desktoplinux.com/cgi-bin/board/UltraBoa rd.pl?Action=ShowBoard&Board=katrina

Money?

[Anonymous Coward]

Im sorry but i cant understand why did you spent 8bld in a war and you dont have money to save those guys.
Im sorry...i must be really dumb.Could someone explain me?

Re:Money?

[jav1231]

No one said we didn't have the money. In our country, we have TELEVISIONS and NEWS ORGANISATIONS and they are reporting that the GOVERNMENT has just allocated $10.5BILLION in aide for this tragedy. Sorry about the caps, but it turns out you really are stupid.

Re:Money?

[segedunum]

Yer - and a fat lot of bloody good it's going to do those people right now.

Re:Money?

[jav1231]

Yeah if you're American and/or Bush you just can't fuckin' win for losin' it seems.

Sweet words don't match reality

[Anonymous Coward]

The reality on the ground is that hundreds of people are dying in New Orleans and the surrounding areas. Thousands are dead. And currently 4600 troops are in louisiana, 2000 of which have already been working full time for the past few days. Remember, these troops have to sleep too. They can't work full time, and the roving armed gangs make the area a nightmare.

Re: Warrick Dunn

[KURAAKU Deibiddo]

I was a big fan of Dunn when he played for the Buccaneers. It's nice to see that not only is he a good player, he's also willing to donate part of his salary to help others.

Professional sports (and other handsomely paid professions) could use more people like this.

Communication is very important.

[elucido]

You are right, they need food, they need security, but they also need communication.They need access to the outside world, to the internet. I'd say that should be the number 1 priority. If they had internet access a while ago perhaps we'd have better been able to coordinate rescue attempts.

Dealing with armed criminals should be the easiest part. Are you telling me with all of laser guns and sophisticated technology we can't arrest a few criminals? How can we be so sure the government even wanted to rescue them in the first place?

Re:Communication is very important.

[Jugalator]

They need access to the outside world, to the internet.

How would that help any of those trapped on the roofs now, or those still stuck in the Superdome?
Those in the worst situations will still not be helped from what I can see.

If they had internet access a while ago perhaps we'd have better been able to coordinate rescue attempts.

I agree on this, however, at this point? Should they really start a brand new strategy now on establishing Firefox terminals, or is the time in the very future better used otherwise? Is putting up terminals really the best way to most quickly get aid to all these people? From what I keep hearing, the place isn't even safe enough to work with establishing IT infrastructure, at least it wasn't yesterday according to a blog by that DirectNIC Crisis Manager, and I trust him at the situation more than fellow Slashdotters.

Are you telling me with all of laser guns and sophisticated technology we can't arrest a few criminals?

I think the people there would tell you so by now. I keep hearing it on the news anyway. Actually, almost exactly like in your words too -- "we're the richest nation in the world, we can precision bomb any place on Earth, we can fly to the moon, and we can't evacuate people from a place in our own country". But they can probably be arrested, sure. Some day.

The gulf coast has taken one in the shorts...

[suitepotato]

...and the only thing on the minds of thousands of Slashdotters is whether computer and network technology is involved and if so does it involve Linux, Firefox, and Open Source Software.

Fro crying out loud people, who gives a damn?! Thousands are dead, many thousands more injured, and most of them and thousands more homeless and an even larger amount without drinkable water and an even larger amount without electrical power. WHO CARES if Linux is involved?

I swear, the shallow and selfish opportunism never ceases to amaze me. I bet if Bill Gates donated $50M to relief efforts there would be an immediate post proclaiming it an attempt to buy influence and derail criticism while a small effort of Linux geeks to raise a few donations via PayPal would get endless glowing praise. As it is I fully expect the tragedy to be laid at the feet of the Bush administration without regard to the local government evidently collapsing on itself in the crucial first hours of the aftermath.

Re:The gulf coast has taken one in the shorts...

[daniil]

WHO CARES if Linux is involved?

Uhh, the readers of a 'tech news' site maybe? Or at least the Linux fanboxen in the readership.

Re:The gulf coast has taken one in the shorts...

[Knome_fan]

and you are trying to create a MS vs. Linux flamewar on /.
Disgusting.

Ah, and also already starting the "its everyones fault but Bush" game, now ain't that nice.
Again, disgusting.

As you rightly say, people are dead and people are dying right now and the response to this disaster was anything but adequate, as is plain to see and that's all you care about?
Pathetic.

Re:The gulf coast has taken one in the shorts...

[joeljkp]

Fro crying out loud people, who gives a damn?! Thousands are dead, many thousands more injured, and most of them and thousands more homeless and an even larger amount without drinkable water and an even larger amount without electrical power. WHO CARES if Linux is involved?

Amen to that. My RSS reader is full of tech sites, and the past week has seen a giant void of relevant postings.

Re:The gulf coast has taken one in the shorts...

[Deadstick]

Puts me in mind of my late mother-in-law's stories of nursing in China in the 1920s and 30s. She was working for the Rockefeller Foundation which was spending loads of money, but it was a drop in the bucket for a third-world population that size. One day she was working frantically to fight an epidemic, rationing her scarce supply of medication out to the patients with the best shot at survival and letting the hopeless cases die, when what should arrive but a big, shiny new truck.

Driven by smiling missionaries.

And loaded with bibles.

rj

Re:The gulf coast has taken one in the shorts...

[Anonymous Coward]

...and the only thing on the minds of thousands of Slashdotters is whether computer and network technology is involved

Well, you know what they say - if you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Re:The gulf coast has taken one in the shorts...

[mikael]

Read this article
  in the LA Times.

Instead of using experienced gained by international aid agencies like the Red Cross, Microsoft is being asked to develop software to help reunite families.
Maybe its simply a web page with name indexing, but it doesn't seem to make sense to have to wait several weeks to get a reliable system up and running.

Re:The gulf coast has taken one in the shorts...

[Idarubicin]

Fro crying out loud people, who gives a damn?! Thousands are dead, many thousands more injured, and most of them and thousands more homeless and an even larger amount without drinkable water and an even larger amount without electrical power. WHO CARES if Linux is involved?

So...what would you suggest we do? Sit around solemnly shaking our heads and saying "Sad. So very sad."?

Slashdot posts a story with information about:

1. Katrina-related frauds that we shouldn't fall for;
2. A project to help the hurricane victims get in touch with family and friends (and yes, it runs Linux); and
3. Links to genuine donation pages for those of us who are able to pitch in some cash or supplies.

This is a technology news site. This is technology news. Slashdot has thoughtfully provided links to hurricane-related charities so that readers can contribute.

Was Slashdot supposed to close its doors so that Taco can lug around some sandbags? Should the entire state/country/continent/world stop doing anything that's not Katrina-related until after New Orleans is above water?

Re:The gulf coast has taken one in the shorts...

[Blakey Rat]

Are you saying that you think the Red Cross is more qualified to write the software? I don't get the point of your complaint...

Re:The gulf coast has taken one in the shorts...

[Anonymous Coward]

"2. A project to help the hurricane victims get in touch with family and friends (and yes, it runs Linux)"

The poster's problem was with spending money / time / effort on items that are currently not of primary concern. Other major efforts backed by both disaster agencies and major companies that have experience with these types of things are underway. There is no need for something like this at this point in time and it is just a waste of time and effort. Never mind the fact that some change and access to a payphone will do the same thing. What is needed right now are funds to help the responible agencies, not spurious projects started up by folks who have no experience with logistics of this level.

"Was Slashdot supposed to close its doors so that Taco can lug around some sandbags?"

No, but cut the guy some slack, he has a right to an opinion, in that the idea of a project like the kiosks is idiodic...

Re:The gulf coast has taken one in the shorts...

[mikael]

The Canadian Red Cross already have used such technology in previous relief operations.

Restoring Family Links Program

Re:The gulf coast has taken one in the shorts...

[version5]

So...what would you suggest we do? Sit around solemnly shaking our heads and saying "Sad. So very sad."?

Just do what everyone else does. It seems like some individuals want to make humanitarian catastrophes more relevant to the tech community by inflating the value of their favorite obsession, and by extension, themselves. This is called narcissism. A tragedy strikes, and the main efforts go into highlighting the unique contributions of the tech community and congratulating ourselves for the vital role we play in society.

You have clearly misunderstood the parent post. On the contrary, you should go about your business as normal, and not try to invent an important role for yourself or your community beyond what you actually contribute.

Re:The gulf coast has taken one in the shorts...

[Anonymous Coward]

As it is I fully expect the tragedy to be laid at the feet of the Bush administration without regard to the local government evidently collapsing on itself in the crucial first hours of the aftermath.

So given that you hold that opinion, can you explain to me what I pay federal taxes for? And given that this evidently is one of the worst natural desasters in US history, do you truly think it's reasonable to expect a local government to handle the situation?

I think you sir, need to check your logic.

Re:The gulf coast has taken one in the shorts...

[spisska]

As it is I fully expect the tragedy to be laid at the feet of the Bush administration without regard to the local government evidently collapsing on itself in the crucial first hours of the aftermath.

Well, it's not Bush's fault there was a hurricane, but FEMA is a Federal Agency under the control of the executive branch, and FEMA has made a complete cock-up of the situation, so yes, it IS the Chief Executive who deserves the blame (not to mention the soon-to-be-former head of FEMA). There's one reason this lands squarely on Bush's desk.

Another reason is the inexplicable four-day delay in getting any significant numbers of National Guard on the ground. They should have been mobilized in numbers before the storm, and deployed to NO and surroundings in force by Monday night, not Friday. The National Guard is under the control of the Commander-in-Chief, so this also lands squarely on Bush's desk.

Bush also deserves a sound slapping for continuing to say that 'no one could have predicted this', when in fact, the very scenario we are witnessing has been predicted numerous times by academics, Federal agencies, climate specialists and others, and reported to the President on a regular basis going back at least to the Clinton administration.

This is not to say that local and state officials are blameless, but Bush is a president who likes to model himself as someone who 'gets things done', and he has not got things done. He was still on holiday Wednesday morning.

Bush is also a president under whom no one is ever held responsible for any mistakes, quite the contrary. The executive branch pressed the CIA into fudging intelligence on Iraq so the war case was stronger, so who took the fall when the snow job melted? Cheney? Rumsfeld? Wolfowitz? How about high-ranking folks at Langley who were warning all along that the WMD case wasn't airtight, high-ranking military leaders who said the US would need a hell of a lot more that 150k troops and a few months to secure Iraq, and pretty much everyone in upper levels of government who disputed the 'they'll toss roses at us' vision of the Iraq occupation.

Not to mention that there would be a whole hell of a lot more help on the ground if our National Guard (which isn't really designed for fighting offensive wars and occupying foreign countries) wasn't off fighting offensive wars and occupying foreign coutries. This is Bush's fault.

And not to mention that, whether or not it would have made any difference, the storm defence system of NO was not as strong as it could have been because the budget for it had been repeatedly slashed in order to pay for costly offensive wars and foreign occupation. This is absolutely Bush's fault.

Once the immediate issues of health and human saftey have been dealt with, there will be plenty of blame to go around, believe me. And Bush will do everything he can to protect himself and his loyal lieutenants.

But make no mistake, Bush has already failed this one for the reasons above and many more. I have never been a supporter of his, but I did view him with a grudging admiration for the way he rose to challenge in September, 2001. It is September, 2005, however, and he has simply dropped the ball. I sincerely hope that, for once, he has to pay the price.

Re:The gulf coast has taken one in the shorts...

[spisska]

What is needed right now are funds to help the responible agencies, not spurious projects started up by folks who have no experience with logistics of this level.

Unfortunately, at the moment FEMA looks rather like a "spurious project set up by folks who have no experience with logistics of this level."

Also, I was under the impression that the phones weren't working, nor any other form of communication and that this has been one of the biggest problems.

Re:The gulf coast has taken one in the shorts...

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason for that is, YOU ALL READY KNOW ABOUT IT.
It would be quite redundant.
Whereas I feel the BBC should not have had this as the main story for the last week, I have got the picture, everyone knows about it. It is like seeing "Today 4 people died from cancer in London" on the news.

That being said it is wrong to use such things to increase market share, be it for linux, bsd, mac os or even windows.

And now I now I am going to get modded down (-666 evil heartless little man, that just happens to be waring red horns).

Re:The gulf coast has taken one in the shorts...

[greenrd]

Newsflash: Slashdot is mostly a tech site. Posts about non-tech topics are the exception not the rule.

I don't think CmdrTaco really cares what your RSS reader is full of. He is running a tech news and discussion site, primarily.

Re:The gulf coast has taken one in the shorts...

[greenrd]

It seems like some individuals want to make humanitarian catastrophes more relevant to the tech community by inflating the value of their favorite obsession

I'm sorry, I must have missed the part of the post where it said: "Look at how Linux has saved millions of lives! Isn't it brilliant - and aren't we Linux users brilliant too?"

Lesson learned: If a disaster happens, don't mention the L-word.

Re:The gulf coast has taken one in the shorts...

[joeljkp]

Which explains the Politics topic...

Re:The gulf coast has taken one in the shorts...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well they had to wipe their ass with something, didn't they?

You're the only one. ;-)

[suso]

You know TripMaster Monkey, I think you're the only person on Slashdot who ever understands what I'm getting at. Everyone else takes me so literally and mods me down as overrated.

Re:You're the only one. ;-)

[patio11]

Oh, yeah. Thats the ticket. Fix all those problems with volcanoes and hurricanes by flying all of humanity to a place where a 1/8th of an inch scratch in our hull means we all die. Sweet deal. Maybe we can put our webservers into low orbit where their status will be Up, Down, or Barbecued By Solar Flares.

Re:Why? - Because we are human!

[case1984]

Have you ever been to New Orleans? It's a great city - not like any other city I have been in.

I think your reasoning is flawed. By your way of thinking, one should not live or place any item of importance on/in:
the coast of any continent
any major city
along national borders
along fault lines
    or anywhere near any of these places.

We are human and we make choices that are sometimes not the most logical, but are based on other more intanglible things.

I think the flaw in your post can be summed up in this quote:
"Why do people keep ... museums with important artifacts in large cities...?"
Because people want to look at them and major cities are where the people are! What good would they do you if they were hermetically sealed in a vault in a mountain somewhere?

Follow the logic:
1. you post on slashdot
2. your computer must be important to you
3. you must know something about computer security
4. there is only one way to guarantee your computer will never be compromised... Don't put it on the net
so, therefore, why is your computer on the net? Because you want to get on the internet, and the risks are overshadowed by the benefits of the internet.
Same with new orleans, california, etc.

At first I thought you were being sarcastic, but then you got (Score:3, Insightful) and I had to post.

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[HTTP Error 403 403.9]

Where did this cut and paste article come from ?

http://www.nationalreview.com/robbins/robbins20050 9020719.asp

HA! The National Review Online. HA!

wesley clark

[crabpeople]

General Wesley clark sounds off on the disaster.

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/9/1/123536/7907

time for one of them good ole friday flamewars

Re:wesley clark

[Hosiah]

Friday Flamewar? Oh, goody! *Grabbing his nachoes and beer, putting on flame suit*

OK, you are in a maze of twisty postings, all different. You hit the Windows troll with a Linux rant. You miss. The Windows troll hits you with a snotty retort. His snotty retort hits you for three karma points. Your fan hits the Windows troll with a meta-moderation. He strikes a glancing blow, modding the troll -1 "over-rated". A MacIntosh poster joins the melee, hitting everyone with a Scroll of Impeccible Logic. You recover with a Potion of Hackerly Wisdom....

Re:wesley clark

[demachina]

The problem with Clark's blog is he does the same thing Democrats always do these days. Criticize Bush a bunch, offer some nebulous statements about leadership, challenging people and sacrifice, about how they would do better but they never actually offer a better alternative.

Maybe Clark wouldn't have invaded Iraq if he had been President, no one with a half a brain would have done that, unless they are a Straussian neocon, but now that the U.S. is stuck there the Democrats offer no solution other than put in even more troops and dig a deeper hole. There is in fact no good solution at this point.

The alternative the Democrats offered in 2004 was so ridiculously bad that we got stuck with the same nitwit we had for another 4 years and he and his administration really looks like a nitwit this week. I saw him touring the disaster area today and the sound bite I heard was him saying how great it was the Colonial pipeline was going to do better than 40 some percentage of capacity. Shows you where his head is, not on the fact people are dieing of thirst, but that Exxon and Shell get their money machine going again.

Maybe after the disaster thats been this first year of his second term people will just throw the Republicans out next time, no matter how bad the Democratic alternative is but that is a pretty sorry way to pick your leaders. If your leaders are bad its a serious drag on everything your nation does.

All very nice...

[jpardey]

DISCLAMER: I have not read the article

Aren't there better things to do with what money is available? How about food? Water? Better equipment for ham radio users in the affected areas? Communication is nice, but a central database server and a computer (and an operator) for every camp could connect families who don't have email accounts already. Although it could be useful, I think there are better uses for money, rather than a touchy-feely-linuxy thing.

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[wass]

Nice propaganda, you are a good patriot for drinking the laced Kool-Aid. Now can you be so nice as to tell us from which unbiased source you plagiarized your post?

Anyway, you are buying the statements of federal officials hook, line, and sinker. Read this article by CNN that contrasts what Bush administration officials are saying versus the realities on the ground.

Here's a snippet to demonstrate your propaganda is just that, propaganda.

Chertoff [Director of Homeland Security]: In addition to local law enforcement, we have 2,800 National Guard in New Orleans as we speak today. One thousand four hundred additional National Guard military police trained soldiers will be arriving every day: 1,400 today, 1,400 tomorrow and 1,400 the next day.

Nagin [Mayor of New Orleans]: I continue to hear that troops are on the way, but we are still protecting the city with only 1,500 New Orleans police officers, an additional 300 law enforcement personnel, 250 National Guard troops, and other military personnel who are primarily focused on evacuation.

Amazingly, journalists are starting to wake up and report actual news instead of repeating the carefully prepared statements of federal officials. Unfortunately it took a tragedy to get to this point.

And look..

[DiarmuidBourke]

... who doesn't have a link? http://www.google.com/

Re:And look..

[DiarmuidBourke]

Ok, maybe that was a bit blunt. It's just that google is a very popular website, normally set as a users homepage. Google having a link would attract attention to the aid movement and also point towards their "do no evil" motto. It's nice to see /., M$, IBM, Yahoo and other major online Companies supporting Organisations dealing with Human Catastrophes. If only large organisations did this more often.

Re:And look..

[coolGuyZak]

Sure looks to me like they have a relief effort link up...

Re:And look..

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't believe no one has mentioned:

1. No power in New Orleans

2. Where do you think you're gonna find a network jack in the Superdome???

Re:And look..

[DiarmuidBourke]

I see no link on googles homepage. Or am i recieving an old page?

MOD PARENT UP

[mkcmkc]

...and call your Congressmen...

don't know who to blame...or if it is necessary

[ubuntu2005]

don't know who to blame, but the federal government were definitely slow in acting (why the f*ck was Bush on vacation until Wednesday when he declared Louisiana a disaster area before the hurricane hit Louisiana?). I was one of the fortunate ones to evacuate on Sunday and staying in Houston with my family in a hotel. The gravitude of the situation is sinking in, realizing we cannot go back home for months. Don't have enough money to stay past next week at the hotel, no idea if our house is up in New Orleans. I was in school in New Orleans, no idea when it will start again. It is scary situation...

Re:don't know who to blame...or if it is necessary

[Anonymous Coward]

> why the f*ck was Bush on vacation until Wednesday

Because it was black people that were stuck in NO rather than white people. His actions again show just what kind of person he is. Dozens of times he has killed blacks by the thousands. This is just yet another instance of the same. He even called-off the army's repair of the dikes. That's what caused the damage in NO, not the hurricane. NO was fine until Bush flooded it. His direct actions have caused this damage. He is responsible.

Skinner

PS: For the real story on what is happening visit:

http://democraticunderground.org/

We know the racism of the US government personally. Many of us have lost loved ones to the Bush junta. We know what Bush is like. He has killed many of us. Dozens of our members are in concentration camps (yes, Gitmo *is* a concentration camp). Please help us. We need it. Bush is slowing destroying us. We are the only ones fighting against him. Please help before it's too late, and we're all in camps.

Re:don't know who to blame...or if it is necessary

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does it matter where Bush is? What can he do, really? There are entire departments of the government (FEMA) dedicated to this. All the President can do is slow things down - they would have to assign resources to escort and protect him, taking away from the relief effort. Do you think the President actually mircomanages this stuff?

Re:don't know who to blame...or if it is necessary

[ubuntu2005]

He could have certainly been in his office, yelling could have been acting in the urgent / organzied manner that they are doing today (Friday Sept 2) on Wednesday (August 31), which would have made a world of a difference. Bush doesnt micromanage, but do you think it is a coincidence that the manpower and relief is flowing in immediately prior to his visit to the area?

Re:don't know who to blame...or if it is necessary

[Anonymous Coward]

Think about it. Bush didn't come until today most likely because the region wasn't stable enough. Supplies didn't come until the region was stable enough. The commonality between the two? The region wasn't stable enough. The Federal government can only clean things up so quickly, especially after the local governments (the mayor and the governor) screwed up so badly. It was their job to prepare, and they didn't. If you know that your city will flood if it is hit by a bad hurricane, you don't ask people to leave, you force them to. Commandeer all the school buses and get the poor people out of town. Now that none of that was done, you have a mess that is 100x worse, all the fault of George Bush.

Re:don't know who to blame...or if it is necessary

[ubuntu2005]

Meant -- He could have certainly been in his office, yelling at FEMA and the other agencies to act in a more urgent / organized manner like they are doing today on (Friday Sept 2), on Wednesday (August 31) - rather then coming back from vacation ...which would have made a world of a difference. Bush doesnt micromanage, but do you think it is a coincidence that the manpower and relief is flowing in immediatgely prior to his visit to the area?

Re:don't know who to blame...or if it is necessary

[mc6809e]

don't know who to blame, but the federal government were definitely slow in acting (why the f*ck was Bush on vacation until Wednesday when he declared Louisiana a disaster area before the hurricane hit Louisiana?).

Slow? The storm was still in Mississippi Tuesday morning and still a depression in Ohio Wednesday. Just how quickly do you think they can move in with the storm still working it's way through the country? There were probably still guardmens in their homes Wednesday riding out the storm.

And don't forget that the federal government can't just yell "emergency" and send troops in to take over a state. It doesn't work that way. It's the governor that's mostly in control.

Re:don't know who to blame...or if it is necessary

[ubuntu2005]

I think between Monday and Wednesday security and emergency relief should have been swarming into Louisiana, if the hurricane was still somewhere in Ohio...no reason logistically they could not send it in from the west, unless the country is strung out from deployment to other countries, or the they did not just act in a prudent manner. Anyways when a majorj catastrophe like this strikes 5 days to start to fully deploy is unacceptable, I would have thought after Sept. 11, and Homeland Security the organziation would have been far more efficient.

Re:don't know who to blame...or if it is necessary

[mc6809e]

Anyways when a majorj catastrophe like this strikes 5 days to start to fully deploy is unacceptable

The hurricane was still in Mississippi Tuesday morning. They certainly could not move in earlier than that. They arrived Friday. Is 3 days too long? Maybe. But considering they need to get men and equipment to a city that's flooded and nearly surrounded by destroyed bridges, it's not slow at all.

That aside, the blame really should be placed in the hands of the Mayor and Governor. They had since Friday night to begin getting food and water into the shelters and into the dome. They even had over 200 school buses they could have employed to help evacuate people, but they left them to get flooded.

You want someone to blame? Blame the Mayor and Governor. They should have been the most interested in protecting their city, but seem to have been the least interested until it was too late.

google maps and locate people dying/needing help

[Anonymous Coward]

what about cross referencing
the google map there:
http://www.scipionus.com/

and these stories :
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/artic le_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001054091

more specifically:
http://www.nola.com/weblogs/nola/

The reasons

[zippthorne]

People tend to congrate in areas which can support the most people. Areas that have things like arable land, freshwater supply, and access to trade routes.

Volcanic soil is about the most fertile soil on the planet, which means that a society which uses it to develop its food supply can grow quite without having to import as much food.

Sheltered deepwater ports allow for large amounts of trade via the most efficient way of transporting things: huge barges.

Cities will even pop up at crossroads of sufficiently well-traveled trade routes, but cities that rely exclusively on overland trade tend to be smaller than their deepwater counterparts.

Coastal regions tend to have more moderate climates than further inland and subsequent longer growing seasons.

Ample freshwater supplies are another reason for the springing up of cities.

People don't just say, "let's put a city here." Cities just happen. Think of a petri dish randomly splayed with varying concentrations of nutrients here and there. Populations will grow accroding to available resources. One of those resources could be good urban planning resulting in a sane transportation system for instance. Eventually you'll notice that some areas have dense cities and some do not.

New Orleans is on the Mississippi river delta. It is the gateway to trade between a handful of states and the rest of the world. Being at the mouth of a huge, silty river, the ground should be almost as fertile as the volcanic soil previously mentioned, with plenty of fresh water filtered from the river or taped from the huge freshwater lake it was so recently a victim of.

Kansas on the other hand has one resource in abundance: land. There is plenty of acceptable but not very exciting farmland. There are other resources which must be mined scattered throughout the state and transportation is not as cheap as for port-cities. This does not particularly lend itself to concentrations of people.

Re: Warrick Dunn

[John Seminal]

Warrick Dunn was a stud at FSU. I can't remember how many games he had where he rushed for 150 yards and 2 td's, plus the extra 40 or 50 yards recieving per game. He was easily one of the top 5 running backs in college football history.

What is even more amazing is, now that he is in the NFL, he is not like most flash in the pan running backs. He is not demanding to be the most paid player. He even works with others. He is everything a team player should be. Compare him to someone like Maurice Clorette.

Warrick was raised the right way. He cares about other people. It is nice to see when God gives someone so much natural ability, that the person feels blessed and wants to contribute to others.

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[squiggleslash]

A year ago after Hurricane Charley, the president was accused of responding too quickly, allegedly to curry favor with Florida voters.

I don't think he was accused of any such thing, but that said, it's an interesting contrast, isn't it? Two months before an election, he's right there from the get-go, promising help to anyone who wants it in his Brother's swing state.

Ten months after the election, however, with no more elections for him to win, he plays the guitar, makes a few (non-relevent) speeches, and acts, essentially, as if nothing's happening. At some point on Tuesday afternoon, after the floods have started, and 36 hours after the hurricane actually hit, he announces he's cutting short his vacation. But he didn't actually get back to work until Wednesday afternoon.

And remember, while the floods may have only started on Tuesday morning, the Hurricane itself did immense damage, leaving hundreds of thousands of people across three states without power, in seriously damaged, often to the point of uninhabitability, homes. The hurricane itself - not its rains that caused the levies to break - caused astonishing amounts of distruction on Monday, more so than anything that hit Florida (and I live in Florida, in Stuart as it happens, where two of last year's hurricanes hit) - that's all been kind of pushed aside as we concentrate on looking at New Orleans.

And, you'll forgive me, but at least on Wednesday, the feeling I got from the White House was that gas prices were the primary concern of everyone there.

I'm sorry if this sounds like partisan bitching to you, but, well, call it constructive criticism if it hurts.

Re:This one is for all that voted Bush.

[b3x]

DAMN that GW Bush and his EVIL hurricane machine. Notice how Crawford,TX never gets hurricanes? Coincidence? No, no ... the Religeous Right have mastered hurricane generation and are working feverishly in underground laboratories (Pat Robertson's basement and whatnot) on unleashing these natural disasters in attempt to rid the world of poor blacks and gays. San Francisco is next ... the meterologists are going to shit a brick.

That's freakin' ridiculous!

[Anonymous Coward]

Web Stations???? That's almost as ridiculous as the free Wi-fi until Sept. 2 idea.

When you're starving to death, living in a toxic cesspool with dead people floating by, with raping and pillaging all around you, the LAST freaking thing on your mind is "maybe I'll go browse at the kiosk for a while"

Give to the red cross; they're trying to save lives. The kiosks, while I'm sure an honest effort to help, is simply not going to make as much impact as the same amount of money allocated to getting food and drinking water into that hellhole.

Re:That's freakin' ridiculous!

[Knome_fan]

They want to set it up in the refugee camps so that people there are able to communicate and maybe, hopefully find family members and friends they haven't heard from yet.

What exactly is wrong with this idea?

Re:That's freakin' ridiculous!

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair to T-Mobile, they are doing more than just offering free WiFi:

Following highlights some of the efforts that T-Mobile has initiated to help in recovery efforts:

Beginning Saturday, September 3: T-Mobile plans to offer those displaced by the storm and evacuated to the San Antonio Alamodome free phone calls to family and loved ones.
Currently: T-Mobile is providing free phone calls and phone charging services to those affected by the storm at open retail locations in the hardest-hit areas, including Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Gulfport, Mississippi, which was the first business of any type to re-open in downtown Gulfport.

Additional relief efforts will be announced as the situation progresses.

Discover Card page on donations

[Anonymous Coward]

In a nutshell, Discover Card is not keeping any transaction fees for donations done through Red Cross's donation area, and if you want to assign your Cashback Bonus, they'll add on an additional 20% (1/5 matching) to your amount:

http://www.discovercard.com/discover/data/disaster relief/

Media Coverage

[Anonymous Coward]

I cannot fathom what the national coverage of this event is going to be like.

Watch the evening news tonight.

It is bad.

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought I'd follow your cut and paste job up with one of my own:

Friday, September 2nd, 2005
Vacation is Over... an open letter from Michael Moore to George W. Bush

Friday, September 2nd, 2005

Dear Mr. Bush:

Any idea where all our helicopters are? It's Day 5 of Hurricane Katrina and thousands remain stranded in New Orleans and need to be airlifted. Where on earth could you have misplaced all our military choppers? Do you need help finding them? I once lost my car in a Sears parking lot. Man, was that a drag.

Also, any idea where all our national guard soldiers are? We could really use them right now for the type of thing they signed up to do like helping with national disasters. How come they weren't there to begin with?

Last Thursday I was in south Florida and sat outside while the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed over my head. It was only a Category 1 then but it was pretty nasty. Eleven people died and, as of today, there were still homes without power. That night the weatherman said this storm was on its way to New Orleans. That was Thursday! Did anybody tell you? I know you didn't want to interrupt your vacation and I know how you don't like to get bad news. Plus, you had fundraisers to go to and mothers of dead soldiers to ignore and smear. You sure showed her!

I especially like how, the day after the hurricane, instead of flying to Louisiana, you flew to San Diego to party with your business peeps. Don't let people criticize you for this -- after all, the hurricane was over and what the heck could you do, put your finger in the dike?

And don't listen to those who, in the coming days, will reveal how you specifically reduced the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for New Orleans this summer for the third year in a row. You just tell them that even if you hadn't cut the money to fix those levees, there weren't going to be any Army engineers to fix them anyway because you had a much more important construction job for them -- BUILDING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ!

On Day 3, when you finally left your vacation home, I have to say I was moved by how you had your Air Force One pilot descend from the clouds as you flew over New Orleans so you could catch a quick look of the disaster. Hey, I know you couldn't stop and grab a bullhorn and stand on some rubble and act like a commander in chief. Been there done that.

There will be those who will try to politicize this tragedy and try to use it against you. Just have your people keep pointing that out. Respond to nothing. Even those pesky scientists who predicted this would happen because the water in the Gulf of Mexico is getting hotter and hotter making a storm like this inevitable. Ignore them and all their global warming Chicken Littles. There is nothing unusual about a hurricane that was so wide it would be like having one F-4 tornado that stretched from New York to Cleveland.

No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It's not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh! Race has nothing -- NOTHING -- to do with this!

You hang in there, Mr. Bush. Just try to find a few of our Army helicopters and send them there. Pretend the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are near Tikrit.

Yours,

Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
www.MichaelMoore.com

P.S. That annoying mother, Cindy Sheehan, is no longer at your ranch. She and dozens of other relatives of the Iraqi War dead are now driving across the country, stopping in many cities along the way. Maybe you can catch up with them before they get to DC on September 21st.

Books of the Names of the Missing

[happyfrogcow]

What I think would be useful would be to have stations set up where you can give your name, where you are, and where you are heading. Maybe also a list of relatives you are separated from. These lists are then transmited to other such stations and lists are compiled. Eventually you can find out if someone is still alive, where they last where, and possibly where they are heading.

I'd hate to see these abused, for instance people giving incorrect names leading to false hopes. But even in those rare cases, the benefits might outweigh the faults.

With the lack of food and water, the uncertainty of loved ones isn't helping the morals of the displaced.

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[Limburgher]

Even if that were true, and not just ripped-off National Review agitprop, the question remains: Where are the supplies and equipment the Guard should be using?

Oh yeah, Iraq.

regarding communications...

[johnny cashed]

Gives new meaning to the phrase "dry pair".

Internet news reporting....

[BigBadBus]

This was on our company intranet. Made me stop and think:

Interesting contrast in the reporting of "looting" - it appears that black people loot:
http://news.yahoo.com/photo/050830/480/ladm1020830 1530

whilst white people "find":
http://news.yahoo.com/photo/050830/photos_ts_afp/0 50830071810_shxwaoma_photo1

Re:Internet news reporting....

[bastardoperator]

From what I was able to find the photoghrapher in the picture actualy saw the black man go into a store and come out with food. While in the second photo the people were outside of the store and just grabbing the food as it floated through the no existant doorway. http://www.flickr.com/photos/triciawang/38922728/ there is more info at the above site.

Re:Internet news reporting....

[Hosiah]

Jesus! The logic being that you have to dog-paddle outside the building hoping some food floats out and then it's OK, but if you reach inside: "That's a looter! Shoot to kill!" ???

Re: Warrick Dunn

[Darth_brooks]

Dunn really is a nice guy.

(Though not a top 5 all time college back. Not even close. There are way to many guys from barely Division I "Northwest Podunk State A&M" type schools that rack up big numbers against poor teams)

Dunn's a mensch. He's always giving to charity, leading by example, and just generally doing the right thing the right way.

Now, if he'd only stop screwing every fantasy football that drafts him, he'd be an ok guy.

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Prepare to be modded into obvlivion. It might have been slightly better received if you left the Michael Moore and Cindy Sheehan parts out. If you wanted a positive response, you're not going to get one from right-wing appologists that make up Slashdot. Try posting it on Fark.

I think he's off on several accounts, but I mostly agree with him. It sure seems strange that we can mobilize relief to Southeast Asia a lot faster than we can for our own. At least the peeps down there in NO aren't wearing OBL T-shirts.

How come your starting score is zero?

[davidwr]

BTW, I hope you get to +2 or +3 funny.

Re:How come your starting score is zero?

[b3x]

my karma is a result of a zionist conspiracy ... they are trying to silence me!!!!!! honestly, i dunno. i got one offtopic, and it took me down to 0. i dont post enough to really care though.

Way ahead of you!

[DanishE]

This has already been down in Lafayette, LA as of Wednesday at the Cajundome. Setup numerous recycled workstations with a Linux distro on each of them. People had Internet access so they could post on sites they were okay and to search for others. We also setup VOIP phones for users to call out for free. We are presently trying to get Bellsouth to bring in some more Internet connections to allow for the heavy load we are consuming. Even Laura Bush was here today asking to use our services (public appearance ploy!) I suggest they do the same in Houston and Baton Rouge.

With everyone "pitching in"

[sgant]

What about the oil companies? Oh, I don't know...call me cynical but wasn't the gas we're putting in our cars today bought, paid for and process a long time ago? Why aren't we paying those prices instead of prices today?

I'm not Mr. anti-corporation or anything...but since these companies are experiencing the biggest profits in years (before this crisis btw) couldn't they just come out and say "we're going to do our part and drop the price of gas a whole dollar until this crisis is over". Right? Couldn't that help a hell of a lot of people?

Meh...just wondering. I'll admit I know nothing about finance or big business or how these things work. I'm just a simple back-woods farmer from a small town in Virginia.

Re:With everyone "pitching in"

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason we pay gas prices related to difficulty today is because noone understands the gas scenario in any other terms. IF the companies were to sell gas based on the cost to them initially, you would have price swings still, but they would be on opposite cycles as what caused them.

As it stands today the company charges you more today, because the cost is higher to them today and when the cost to them goes down next week/month/year, you will expect an immediate decrease in the price.

Re:With everyone "pitching in"

[dr_dank]

I'm not Mr. anti-corporation or anything...but since these companies are experiencing the biggest profits in years (before this crisis btw) couldn't they just come out and say "we're going to do our part and drop the price of gas a whole dollar until this crisis is over". Right? Couldn't that help a hell of a lot of people?

The shareholders of said company would oust that executive before he finished that sentence. These people run companies to maximize shareholder profit, not play Mother Theresa with one of the most valuable commodities on the face of the earth.

Re:With everyone "pitching in"

[MyNymWasTaken]

but wasn't the gas we're putting in our cars today bought, paid for and process a long time ago? Why aren't we paying those prices instead of prices today?

It's called replacement costs. In order for the Acme Filling Station to be able to afford to re-fill their holding tanks, they have to charge for the already-purchased gas what it will cost to replace it.

"we're going to do our part and drop the price of gas a whole dollar until this crisis is over"

Gas stations are running at a loss because of consumer sentiment, and price wars.

Re:With everyone "pitching in"

[jratcliffe]

"just a simple back-woods farmer from a small town in Virginia."

Since that's the case, and the people in New Orleans need food, which will tend to drive up food prices across the country (similar situation to gas, production capacity's been reduced, supplies have been destroyed), I'm sure you're lined up to cut the price of the crops you produce for the next year. Right?

Re:With everyone "pitching in"

[ptbarnett]

Oh, I don't know...call me cynical but wasn't the gas we're putting in our cars today bought, paid for and process a long time ago? Why aren't we paying those prices instead of prices today?

Because tomorrow, the gas station operator will have to buy more gas to replenish his inventory -- unless he planned to shutdown his business instead.

Wholesale gasoline prices have gone up rapidly in the past week. If he were to sell the gas for just enough to pay for his previous gasoline shipment, plus his operating costs and a small profit, he would have to borrow money to be able to pay for delivery of more gasoline to replenish his inventory.

This same scenario plays out all the way up the supply chain to the wellhead.

Re:With everyone "pitching in"

[bigpat]

Well, simply put supply is now less than what demand would be naturally, so the increase prices serve to decrease demand. It is probably the most efficient system of rationing around, no centrally deciding who is the most deserving, no handing out ration cards, no overhead, just increase prices and whomever can still afford it gets it.

Sure it screws over people who don't have the flexibility to absorb increase costs like that, but it is far less a hit to the economy than the inneficiency of some sort of political system of rationing or having gas availability be unreliable.

Sure we could choose to cap prices, but then fewer people would be dissuaded from using gasoline and thus the supply would run out more quickly. So, we choose, would we rather have gas cost more or would we rather be uncertain when we leave for work in the morning whether there would be enough gas available to get home.

Re:With everyone "pitching in"

[dR.fuZZo]

...call me cynical but wasn't the gas we're putting in our cars today bought, paid for and process a long time ago? Why aren't we paying those prices instead of prices today?

Because the gas stations are going to use the money they make selling gas today to buy the gas they'll sell tomorrow? And the gas they buy tomorrow may cost a lot more than what they paid for their last batch?

...couldn't they just come out and say "we're going to do our part and drop the price of gas a whole dollar until this crisis is over". Right? Couldn't that help a hell of a lot of people?

It's called supply and demand. Demand is really high, so the price follows. One thing that really bugs me is that I hear a lot of people blaming the gas stations or the gas companies for high prices, and they don't focus enough on the fact that we have such a huge demand for oil. If there weren't so many vehicles on the road that get 12 mpg, I'm guessing our gas prices would be a lot better. For that matter, if oil companies somehow gave us a big temporary price drop, I think you'd be well on your way to more gas shortages as people stock up on it while it's cheap.

Re:With everyone "pitching in"

[Anonymous Coward]

> Gas stations are running at a loss because of consumer sentiment, and price wars.

Yeah, right. Not the owners I know.

Re:With everyone "pitching in"

[sgant]

I give my food away...at least the parts I don't eat myself...

bah...okay...you found me out. Actually I'm a Graphic Artist from a small town in Michigan.

Re:With everyone "pitching in"

[Jim_Callahan]

Yes, because dropping gas prices would defeinitely help people in a region where THE BLOODY ROADS ARE UNDERWATER OR SWEPT INTO THE BOTTOM OF THE GULF OF MEXICO.

Re:With everyone "pitching in"

[sgant]

All the roads are? Didn't see that every road in the South was underwater or at the bottom of the Gulf.

Guess the gas stations that are gouging people with 6 dollar gallons of gas while they're trying to drive away from the area aren't really there then.

Re:With everyone "pitching in"

[Qzukk]

This is what everyone should really be doing. And that was published on August 16th.

Re:With everyone "pitching in"

[sfjoe]

I'm not Mr. anti-corporation or anything...

Well, I am Mr anti-corporation and I am guaranteeing record progits from the oil and gas industry in the next quarter. They paid good money to own the US Congress and President and they expect to profit from it.
Although you may be a simple, backwoods farmer, it's very easy to understand finance and big business:
Maximize profits no matter what. You are beyond the reach of any moral obligations and cannot be held personally liable for the most egregious of behavior. Whatever profits you made last quarter must be increased next quarter. Pretty simple.

Re:With everyone "pitching in"

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>I'm just a simple back-woods farmer

At harvest time, do you price your crop based on what it cost you to grow it, or do you sell at the market price?

Even if the market for gasoline were as free and competitive as the market for your crops, we'd still be seeing big price spikes in conditions like these.

Re:With everyone "pitching in"

[unitron]

"As it stands today the company charges you more today, because the cost is higher to them today and when the cost to them goes down next week/month/year, you will expect an immediate decrease in the price."

Expect whatever you want to but prepare to be disappointed.

The chain that owns the station down the street from me sent people out in early August to replace parts on the overhead signs so that the dollar numeral could be flipped over to read "3" (and I fear they've got at least a "4" under there as well. Prices were headed up even before Katrina formed as a tropical depression, the word just hadn't gotten out to us peons yet.

Heard one of Bush's economic advisers on C-SPAN saying that after awhile gas prices would go back to normal. Ain't gonna happen. What we're seeing now *is* the new normal. And unless China suddenly discovers themselves sitting on another previously unknown underground supply as big as the Saudi's, then in a year or so we may be looking back with longing at gasoline for under $4 a gallon.

How many web pages do you have to eat...

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

...before you've consumed enough calories to stay alive for another day?

Save New Orleans Now

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a story " Save New Orleans and the Gulf Coast " that lays out what should have been done already and what must be done now. It was written several days ago. Some of what that story calls for is now finally being done. But federal govenment aid still is far behind where it ought to be. People are dying and suffereing. call and/or e-mail your U. S. Congressperson and Senators and the White House too. Let them know you are angry at the Federal government's failure to adequately, timely, and effectively respond to the New Orleans and Gulf coast tragedy. And let them know you are tired of the excuses and the what-they-are-going-to-do stuff. We need results now, not promises. Let them know you want it done now! Thank you.

post

[sal_paradise42]

My brother lives Ocean Springs MS which is right next to Biloxi. No one heard from him until my sister in law that evacuated (he stayed) got a hold of this my posting here SunHerald post and replied that everyone was ok.

I'm *ashamed* as an American

[Anonymous Coward]

...with what I saw on TV last night.

1) The head of homeland security got on TV last night and whined about how hard his job was. Goodness, if its too hard, maybe he should take a job elsewhere! He offered no plan, and was the proverbial deer caught in the headlights.

2) Then the president, his father and Bill Clinton got on TV to beg for money to pay for relief. The richest nation on earth reduced to begging money to offer relief to one of its most important coastal cities. Think about the implications of that.

3) The federal government knew a category 5 hurricane was headed directly for NO, and its response was to, apparently, watch TV and find out about what's going on via CNN.

4) After a couple days of people looting, starving, dead floating around, people trapped inside a stadium, they decide maybe its a good idea to send in some troops. DAYS later.

5) Some reporter with some b*lls ought to get on TV and say this "If our government can't get relief to a city 1 day's car trip from D.C., what makes you think you can rebuild Baghdad or any other part of Iraq?

6) I looked at NO on TV and what I saw was a third world country. Not because people were standing around hurt, bewildered and confused, but because we apparently no longer have the means to help the citizens of our own country in a real time of need.

We need to insist on answers to these questions. I would start off by firing the head of homeland security, getting 20,000 troops in New Orleans within 12 hours, and tell the Army Corp of Engineers they have 5 days to have a temporary solution to the levee breaches. Maybe if we didn't have a chickenhawk pretend President that was competent, we could actually get some stuff done.

Re:I'm *ashamed* as an American

[bshensky]

"5) Some [reporter] with some b*lls ought to get on TV and say this "If our government can't get relief to a city 1 day's car trip from D.C., what makes you think you can rebuild Baghdad or any other part of Iraq?"

You're in luck. The N.O. Mayor did, in effect. Listen:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/02/nagin.transcript/ index.html

A listen to this was the clarifying moment that caused me to get up off my ass and donate to the Red Cross, for starters...

Please don't report false accusations...

[toupsie]

Chris Graythen wrote the caption for his photo of two hurricane survivors with bread and soda. "I believed in my opinion, that they did simply find them, and not 'looted' them in the definition of the word," he writes. "The people were swimming in chest deep water, and there were other people in the water, both white and black. I looked for the best picture. there were a million items floating in the water - we were right near a grocery store that had 5+ feet of water in it. it had no doors. the water was moving, and the stuff was floating away. These people were not ducking into a store and busting down windows to get electronics. They picked up bread and cokes that were floating in the water. They would have floated away anyhow.

This is Just Utterly Ridiculous

[segedunum]

This is so bad now it just isn't funny - at all. Would somebody mind telling me how donating money is going to help the people of New Orleans right now? These people need help four or five days ago, they need the military backing them up and they need FEMA getting off their arses and justifying their ridiculous multi billion dollar budget.

Our business teams are working with local and state governments, businesses, and educational institutions to help them repair their information technology systems as quickly as possible.

Do these people actually know what's going on, or are they really that devoid of any intelligence? They do not need a hundred fucking Thinkpads from IBM, and they do not need useless technologists from Microsoft - they need extremely basic life-saving stuff. There's no technology, IT or computers to save - only lives. I just don't think that seems to matter to anyone in the US these days, or they simply don't understand what lives actually mean. I've watched in utter disbelief as news helicopters hover above watching people struggle to stay alive. Sick. There's no other word for it. It is a mark of just how utterly disconnected from reality the US is these days.

Everybody, do yourselves a favour and save your money, because it will never go anywhere near the people who would need it (it simply isn't what they need right now - there's no way it can even be spent for these people to make any difference). Anyone ever wonder what happened to their Tsunami donations and that huge cash pile? I'm sorry to say that a lot of these so-called charities are nothing more than a very, very sick joke now. They insult the kind hearted well-meaning people who donate, and they insult the very people who that money is supposed to help.

They are all charity scams.

Re:This is Just Utterly Ridiculous

[the_rev_matt]

FEMA's budget has been largely eliminated, and they were ordered to stop disaster preparedness operations in the spring, as that function was going to be assigned to some not yet created agency.

I'm all for trashing FEMA's legendary incompetence, but you can't blame them much for this one, except their douche-bag of a spokesmonkey who spouts out "oh, all things considered I think it's gone pretty well" nonsense.

The failure to respond lies 100% in the lap of the Department of Homeland Security.

Re:This is Just Utterly Ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

you are an absolute shit hat.

Money IS needed to rebuild thousands of homes and business.

Re:This is Just Utterly Ridiculous

[kybred]

You don't understand what the Red Cross does in these situations. They give victims money to pay for hotels rooms, necessities, etc. And the RC also sets up food lines at the relocation sites. All of this takes money to do.

Re:This is Just Utterly Ridiculous

[Thu25245]

It's not just downtown New Orleans. Millions of people were affected by the storm, and hundreds of thousands, in Mississippi, Alabama, and the rest of Louisiana need food, water, and medical supplies. The people evacuated to the Astrodome in Houston need help now. The hundreds of thousands already in shelters need help now. After the people still in New Orleans get evacuated, they will need help too. Many will get these things from the American Red Cross before FEMA can even get down there.

Yes, the people stranded in the Superdome and Convention Center need immediate help that only the government can provide. But those people are not the only victims, despite what CNN might have you believe.

The US Government does not pay for, staff, or organize these shelters on its own, and it does not feed these people solely out of our tax money. I don't know where that FEMA budget goes, but it only comes into play days after a disaster. The government bureaucracy is reactive; private charities like the Salvation Army and Red Cross are proactive.

After Hurricane Hugo, it took a week for FEMA to get off it's collective ass. The Salvation Army was there. The Red Cross was there. The state and local governments were pleading for federal assistance. I was living there at the time, and I luckily did not need any aid. If it'd been up to FEMA, hundreds would have died before getting help.

It's your money. Give it to whomever you want. Keep it. Use it to pay your taxes, I don't care. But don't tell people that donating money to private charities won't help. It may not drain New Orleans or airlift those people out of the Superdome, but that doesn't make it a scam

Re:This is Just Utterly Ridiculous

[segedunum]

When people see such disasters as that of the Tsunami in Asia, several billion is collected and no appreciable help whatsoever is given to the people who need it (during or after) then I'm afraid a scam is exactly what you can call it. Who would notice a million, or even a billion, here and there going missing in amongst that lot? That's the name of the game. Sad, but true. That has certainly been the situation in Africa for many decades.

You may want to ask what FEMA is doing, because it certainly isn't an emergency organisation.

Re:This is Just Utterly Ridiculous

[DigiShaman]

Let not forget the total breakdown of law enforcement. Not that I blame them really. If I was in that enviroment wearing a badge and surrounded by thugs, I would shit my pants too...twice even.

But seriously, give me a fucking gun and let me go in there. I may be stupid as fuck for doing that, but I'm as full blown of a vigilante as they get. Call it civil war, call it what you want. But NO ONE rapes and murders for pleasure and gets away with it as far as I'm concerned!!

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[swimmar132]

Uh, the guy that you're responding to never said "1,400 today, 1,00 tomorrow, and 1,400 the next day".

Tell me, where are the inaccuraries in the guy's post? Are his numbers wrong?

Re:Great

[Jupiter9]

Mod this up, he's actually correct. It's sad (well, perhaps not *that* strong of a word) that flame wars and other offtopic discussions get out of control on Slashdot.

Re:This one is for all that voted Bush.

[Anonymous Coward]

dangit. the thread didn't show properly. the 'drop dead' comment is in reply to the original post, not the 'idiocy' response.

Not really contradictory, even worse

[geekee]

"CNN has a special page contrasting the statements of officials about how great things are going versus the reality. Read the article here."

If you actually read the article, there isn't much contradiction. It's more like The feds keep saying they're not going to comment since they don't know what's going on, or they've heard that too, so they're going to try and do something about it.

There was a lot of looting after the collapse of the Iraqi govt. after the US invasion. You'd think they'd have learned from that that without security services in areas with poor people, looting and violence will occur. It's the same thing in New Orleans all over again.

Re:Not really contradictory, even worse

[wass]

If you actually read the article, there isn't much contradiction.

Oh really?

Chertoff [Homeland Security Director]: In addition to local law enforcement, we have 2,800 National Guard in New Orleans as we speak today. One thousand four hundred additional National Guard military police trained soldiers will be arriving every day: 1,400 today, 1,400 tomorrow and 1,400 the next day.

Nagin [Mayor of New Orleans]: I continue to hear that troops are on the way, but we are still protecting the city with only 1,500 New Orleans police officers, an additional 300 law enforcement personnel, 250 National Guard troops, and other military personnel who are primarily focused on evacuation.

---

Brown [FEMA Chief]: I've just learned today that we ... are in the process of completing the evacuations of the hospitals, that those are going very well.

CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta: It's gruesome. I guess that is the best word for it ... There is no electricity. There is no water. There's over 200 patients still here remaining.

Dr. Matthew Bellew, Charity Hospital: We still have 200 patients in this hospital, many of them needing care that they just can't get. The conditions are such that it's very dangerous for the patients.

---

Brown: I've had no reports of unrest, if the connotation of the word unrest means that people are beginning to riot, or you know, they're banging on walls and screaming and hollering or burning tires or whatever. I've had no reports of that.

CNN's Chris Lawrence: From here and from talking to the police officers, they're losing control of the city. We're now standing on the roof of one of the police stations. The police officers came by and told us in very, very strong terms it wasn't safe to be out on the street.

Re:Not really contradictory, even worse

[interiot]

Learn how to read.

New Orleans isn't some third-world country who just got out from under the rule of a greedy tyrant, that's stuck on the other side of the world surrounded by countries who are only helping us because we're giving them enough money. The food and gas supply chain doesn't have to pass through hundreds of miles of insurgents with improvised explosives.

This is the US. This is FIVE days after the hurricane went through, and FEMA still doens't have their story straight.

This is gross incompetence.

Re:Not really contradictory, even worse

[Anonymous Coward]

This is gross incompetence.

I'll say. Not only is our government so incompetent that they've totally bungled this disaster, they're incapable of covering their asses. How many DAYS did CNN cover the people who were ordered to go to the convention center to get on busses that never came? Even the most fucked up government guys would have responded immediately after the newscast by getting the guys out of there, then proceeding to stand around and smile for the photo-op to prove that everything is "ok", but no, our government sat around with their thumbs up their asses.

How sad is that, when the government can't even find it's ass with both hands and a map, just to cover it?

Re:Not really contradictory, even worse

[interiot]

Not to mention that FEMA is under the Department of Homeland Security now, and responding to an event four days later, war-zone conditions or not, is really unspeakably incompetent, given that the DHS is supposed to be prepared to respond to chemical or biological attacks very very quickly. Apparently they're not remotely prepared.

Re:Not really contradictory, even worse

[interiot]

And FEMA now controls the Nuclear Incident Response Team too! So apparently we won't be responding to nuclear incidents for at least four days either. I'm getting a warm and fuzzy feeling already.

Re:Not really contradictory, even worse

[MegaFur]

New Orleans isn't some third-world country

But it sure seems like one right now, doesn't it?

This is gross incompetence.

I agree completely.

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[wass]

The first words in the post are "Where are the guardsmen? Right where they ought to be."

Yet the mayor of the city says there's only 250 guardsmen in the whole city, and has meanwhile sent out an S.O.S. and called for tens of thousands of guardsmen. So yes, I'd say the original post is way the hell off mark.

Relief funds?

[phorm]

I'm not really sure about donating to any things like 'relief funds' for the very reason that many helpful organizations are burocracies (sp?) that tend to get very little capital to the end recipients (the victims).

That's bad enough, but add to this the scamming bastards and others (gas companies anyone) taking advantage of this disaster... and I wish I could pay somebody to break the knees of these scammers. I hope that the government pays very close attention to the popular scam sites, and makes a very, very strong example of them... like maybe dropping them in the middle of New Orleans survivors and letting everyone know about their scammy websites...

Re:Relief funds?

[leesweet]

Many sites have info on the 'validness' of organizations and how much of what you donate actually is spent on the program you want (such as Hurricane Relief). Easy to decide if the one asking for money is valid and a good choice! See http://www.charitynavigator.org/ for example.

Re:Relief funds?

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

The Red Cross turns 92% of donations over. The other 8% is used to pay the employees and keep the orginisation open. That's one of the (if not THE) best place to donate.

Re:Relief funds?

[Red Flayer]

However, donations to the Red Cross go into their general fund, and are not earmarked for specific disasters.

Also, it should be realized that the 8% overhead pays for administrative employees and other admin costs. Pay for employees actually doing the relief work in the field is included in the 92% that they "turn over".

They are still, however, one of the most reliable and trustworthy charities to give to.

Using tanks against looters? You're evil!

[toupsie]

Even if that were true, and not just ripped-off National Review agitprop, the question remains: Where are the supplies and equipment the Guard should be using? Oh yeah, Iraq.

Are you seriously advocating the use of Louisiana National Guard 256th Infantry Brigade's equipment, stationed in Iraq, in New Orleans? Man you are cold blooded! Their equipment consists M1 Abrams tanks, M2 Bradley, and M109 Paladin howitzers. You right wingers are crazy. You want these guys rolling down the streets shooting looters with tank rounds?

Dude....

[Karma_fucker_sucker]

I saw the link. What these people REALLY NEED is FOOD, WATER, A DECENT PLACE TO SLEEP, and for those POOR PEOPLE STILL IN NEW ORLEANS is a RESCUE. GOT IT. NOT A STUPID FUCKING WEB SITE!!!!!

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you seen the mayor on TV? He is the most illiterate and ignorant politician I have ever seen. Anything he says is a joke.

Maria...

[Anonymous Coward]

Was just at weather.com.
Tropical storm Maria is forming in the Atlantic.

Might want to make sure those Servers are up on a couple of cinderblocks.

How is the parent a troll?

[Anonymous Coward]

The parent is correct, while the convienance of contact with others would be nice there are far more important goals at hand.

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[jav1231]

**YAWN*** You so silly!
Funny, you linked to CNN. I think that tells us all we need to know.

google sets

[tm1rules]

"everyone from Microsoft to IBM..."

Yeah, Microsoft to IBM.
The only companies that could be considered "between" those two companies are:
Intel
Novell
Oracle
Compaq
Apple
Netscape
Sun
Lotus
Cisco
HP
Dell

But come on, don't use those two companies as a catch-all.

Re:google sets

[Anonymous Coward]

It depends on how you defined "operator ".

Maybe they're sorting companies in alphabetical order?

Or maybe by number of letters?

Or maybe by geography?

Or maybe by how linuxy the company is?

But yeah, if you look at companies based on revenue, it doesn't include very many companies.

(Isn't it interesting that Google didn't show up on your list...maybe because IBM seems so much less relevant today)

Re:google sets

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, they should've said "from Apple to ZSoft."

A Long History of Bipartisan Neglect

[Cr0w T. Trollbot]

Setting aside for a moment the question of whether the Federal government should be in the business of providing intra-state flood control, any honest look at the history of Louisiana flood control projects show a long history of bipartisan neglect stretching back more than 30 years, none of which has to do with the war in Iraq or global warming:

• "June 1, 1999: Though Congress authorized West Jefferson to complete its levee projects in 1996, the state hasn't made matching money a priority the past three years because the weather "really didn't show us the potential dangers we had until the storms last year ... showed the seriousness of it," said Rep. John Alario, D-Westwego."

• "February 17, 1995: An Army Corps of Engineers "hit list" of recommended budget cuts would eliminate new flood-control programs in some of the nation's most flood-prone spots - where recent disasters have left thousands homeless and cost the federal government millions in emergency aid. Clinton administration officials argue that the flood-control efforts are local projects, not national, and should be paid for by local taxes. Nationwide, the administration proposes cutting 98 new projects in 35 states and Puerto Rico, for an estimated savings of $29 million in 1996."

And there's a lot more evidence in than vein. This was a collective failure of all bracnhes of governments, local, state, and national, over the past 30 years.

Crow T. Trollbot

Re:A Long History of Bipartisan Neglect

[the eric conspiracy]

Setting aside for a moment the question of whether the Federal government should be in the business of providing intra-state flood control,

That comment RIGHT THERE immediately and completely discredits anything else you have to say.

Re:A Long History of Bipartisan Neglect

[Blakey Rat]

How does it? Elaborate, please?

I live in Washington State, and we don't rely on the federal government to provide flood control. If we have a problem with a low levee along the Snohomish River, we budget for it and fix it ourselves.

Re:A Long History of Bipartisan Neglect

[the eric conspiracy]

If we have a problem with a low levee along the Snohomish River, we budget for it and fix it ourselves.

Looks like there is plenty of federal involvement to me.

The Snohomish River flood control plan listed as a USDA project with a $2.7 million dollar FEDERAL budget? And there are documents describing dredging operations by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers.

http://www.nws.usace.army.mil/ct/ebs/Solicitations /W912DW-05-B-0002%5CSpecifications/05B0002.PDF
http://www.wa.nrcs.usda.gov/technical/RDT/RDT-proj ects/sno-flood.html

Re:A Long History of Bipartisan Neglect

[HTTP Error 403 403.9]

Just another "bipartisan" way to say it's Bill Clinton's fault.

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[swimmar132]

Have you heard any statements from anyone saying that there's not enough military equipment available in the states?

Yahoo not the only one hosting Red Cross donations

[Anonymous Coward]

Currently, the donation traffic on redcross.org is being split between the above yahoo link and Convio.

Donating from the UK

[pagaman]

One thing I find really weird is that there haven't been any adverts here in the UK asking us to help donate? Does anyone know why??

I looked on the British red cross page, and they have suggested donating money to the american red cross directly. Still no-one here is telling the population how to donate money. You have to find out for yourself.

Can we have some sort of publicity drive or something?

Re:Donating from the UK

[st964p62]

Hey, As a U.S. citizen, albeit one not affected by this tragedy, I just wanted to say thanks for the sentiment. I wish there was more like it! Regards.

Re:Donating from the UK

[dajak]

One thing I find really weird is that there haven't been any adverts here in the UK asking us to help donate? Does anyone know why??

I know that in the Netherlands the association of disaster relief organizations made a statement that they don't believe the US is short of money, but only of equipment, qualified people, and a plan.

The reason we aren't helping yet is because the US didn't ask for any help and the government doesn't want to insult the US.

The government did offer two teams of diking engineers, but heard nothing from the US. We have a lot of experience controlling dike breaches, and huge amounts of equipment for that purpose. They also sent a disaster relief frigate from the Netherlands Antilles towards the Louisiana coast in order to have a launch platform for assistance ready just in case the US asks for help.

And just what role did these people play?

[xactuary]

http://www.katw.com/

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[swimmar132]

There's a lot more than 250 guardsmen in there right now.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/02/katrina.impact/in dex.html

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[Red Flayer]

"So is the war in Iraq causing troop shortfalls for hurricane relief in New Orleans? In a word, no. "

But if you think about it, yes.

Plenty of Guardsmen are still available for deployment. So why aren't there more troops in NOLA & environs, knowing that they might be able to do some good? Because it costs money. The war on Iraq is a huge drain on resources, resources which could be used elsewhere.

You can talk about troop numbers available, but the meaningful number would be deployments available. Equipment (such as helicopters, amphibious vehicles, and heavy trucks), food (for the troops), cash on hand for payment, and everything else necessary for deployment.

"It is hard to understand what more should, or realistically could have been done up to this point.

I can think of a couple things off the top of my head that could, and should, have been done:

(1) Better planning. Transportation, shelter space, medical care -- all of these things were/are woefully inadequate. Contingency plans were not done well at all.

(2) Implementation. We knew the hurricane was coming; why was the response not in full stride the day after it hit? Yes, you say 9k troops were on the ground within 24 hours. Why were they not on the ground before it hit? Why are they continuing to "trickle in" as you have pointed out, rather than there already? Why was the DOD pre-staging supplies only after Katrina hit?

The bottom line is, we need to choose, as a people, where our resources are being expended. Every military dollar spent in Iraq is a dollar not spent here -- and yes, that translates to number of troops deployed.

Searchable Database for Katrina Survivors

[strutton]

A group of web developers at EarthLink whipped up a page last night designed to aid in finding Katrina victims. I know there are many of these popping up. This site is searchable by last name and also includes links to many of the other survivor lists. The site was done solely as a public service...katrina.earthlink.net

Company website screenshots

[alienfluid]

For those of you who are interested, I have put up a compile of company website screenshots on my website. It seems that a lot of companies (in the computer industry at least) are displaying solidarity with the hurricane victims. Screenshots

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[wass]

Nice try to twist the words. Yes, the guard is there today, but why did it take five days? The key point is that there were only 250 guardsmen when FEMA chief declared there were several thousand.

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Great! Only 5 days after the storm and after Bush sees dead bodies floating by the camera on TV he says "Hmmmm...this looks superillicious! I should coagulate!" And then he sends in the Guard.

Way to be on top of things, Mr. President. What a fine leader you are. No wonder Iraq is a complete fuck up.

Someone has beaten you to it

[rsae718]

It looks like someone has already beaten you to it. http://apnews.myway.com//article/20050902/D8CC8H7O 0.htmlPhones, Computers Coming to Astrodome

Don't forget some the best tech working - the hams

[Anonymous Coward]

Let us not forget all the ham radio operators who have been working continuously since even before the hurricane made land fall, whether they are working in RACES, ARES, SATERN, the Hurricane Watch Net, or just volunteering their time on their own in the disaster area. There has been far too many ignorant dolts, especially with regard to the topic of BPL, who trivialize ham radio as some special interest hobby that should go away so that we can get subpar internet access to places where it is feasable to get better service otherwise. Where are your cell phones and internet service now jackasses?

Here are a few stories: 1, 2, and 3.

Not That I Don't Trust These People, But...

[http101]

...with their current track record, we can't afford to sit idly by and watch our equipment be stolen/vandalized. Our corporate area is guarded 24-7 and is complimented by an array of cameras so we can keep an eye on our facilities. Some may see this emergency situation as a bad thing, some may see it as a good thing, but I can only trust people as far as I can kick them. No offense to the rest of the /. community, but we need to protect our assets and see to it that WE still have jobs and homes with a family to go to each night. I understand losing your home, your valuables, and everything that ever meant a damn to you is a serious, life-changing event, but please stop crapping up MY home! There have been reports of people vandalizing the Houston Astrodome, rapes, and "peeping toms" in the female locker-rooms. A few fights have erupted over cots and a vast amount of trash is now blowing freely down Kirby Drive next to the dome. Your homes may be no more, but don't ruin mine! Have some civility!

Re:Not That I Don't Trust These People, But...

[cranos]

Okay one, two, three, awwwww poor baby. I'm sorry but really if your going to bitch about Houston taking in refugees then really I couldn't give a flying fuck about you.

You really have no sense of reality do you? These people have been through hell, compounded by an inept rescue operation and society falling around their ears, the last thing they need is some whiny little toad complaining about garbage on the street. Those who commit crimes (rapes, murders) will be dealt with but don't tar the whole population.

Re:Not That I Don't Trust These People, But...

[http101]

Thanks Cranos, I really appreciate you putting me straight. I'm glad you don't give a "flying fuck" about me, but I'd still help you if you were in peril.

I think the lesser-intelligent breeds have missed the point of my post. My point is, while alive and not quite so "kicking", I appreciate it if you'd put refuse in the refuse bin and stop discarding it wherever in the streets. Not only does this cause traffic problems, but also health problems when a superfluous amount of garbage has accumulated. See example A: Louisiana.

I have every sense of reality, but your lack-luster arguement is even less of a reason for these people to verbally, if not, then physically assault shop-keepers in the area when their "needs" are not met. I haven't "tarred" the population, they've done a magnificent job of that themselves.

Re:Not That I Don't Trust These People, But...

[cranos]

Oooh "Lesser Intelligent Breeds" well that just shuts me up doesn't it.

If you are going to bitch and moan about garbage in the streets please don't site as an example a state that has been reduced almost to rubble. You entire original post reeked of "Ewww poor people, take them somewhere else" complete with Valley Girl whine.

I would like to see where your priorities would lie if $DIETY forbid you were ever caught in the same situation. Though I'm pretty sure I know what it would be: Me, Me and bugger the rest of you.

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[HermanAB]

Uhhh, as as far as I know your country's constitution, the President actually has no jurisdiction over any of this - he is responsible for foreign affairs and defence. It is the State governments and Congress that are supposed to act. The president can only step forward and help after everybody else fucked up...

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[amightywind]

Read this article [cnn.com] by CNN that contrasts what Bush administration officials are saying versus the realities on the ground.

You berate the original poster because he cites anonymous sources, then you cite CNN, the ultimate left wing shill. LOL! You should ask yourself why you hate your country so much as to wish for the failure of its noble mission in Iraq.

What's with the news?

[zippthorne]

How many people remain in New Orleans and how many troops are required to evacuate them?

I ask this because I feel for the victims and am very disturbed by the news coverage from the region. Every agency I've seen so far has discussed looting, rioting and gunfire aimed at rescue personnel. They replay the footage of the crowd standing around chanting "help us" over and over again. Angry citizens are shown shouting about the failure of the government to provide for them. A distrought woman was shown saying, "Who's in charge here? It seems like no one. This is rediculous." The trash building up at the dome. Not a single report has been made of a group of victims getting together and doing something about their plight: Finding somewhere to put the garbage at the stadium rather than wallowing in the filth. Getting a neighborhood together to walk out of town or at least setting up some way to collect fresh water to tide them through until rescue.

Is there not a single boy scout in the entire town? Are we to believe that everyone has given up and is waiting angrily for rescue or death. Surely everyone realises that the person with the greatest responsibility for their survival is themselves!

I choose to believe that the media is showing us only the victimy victims to some editorial end because the alternative, that the entire city of new orleans thinks we owe more concern for their very lives than they do is too disturbing to consider.

Re:What's with the news?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can always recognize a post by an American; the complete and utter contempt for other human beings is very distinctive.

Re:What's with the news?

[Anonymous Coward]

"I choose to believe that the media is showing us only the victimy victims"

not at all. if you watch the reports, you'll see that the take-charge, save-yourself people are called "looters".

i'd love to see you in a crisis situation where everything you depend on is gone and the water's up to your roof, you've got kids and a wife screaming at you to work out the solution and you're completely exhausted and strung out and you have nothing, where innocent people are being shot at for christ's sake.

america is the most bizarre country on the planet. it's the richest and most powerful, it spends tens of billions to invade other nations and patrol the planet (yes, let's "HELP" Iraqis be free even if it costs 100 billion) and yet here's third-world anarchy inside it in a situation that was predicted (hey why can't these people should help themselves even if their taxes are paying to "HELP" Iraqis)

america, you're being ripped off!

Re:What's with the news?

[unitron]

"... if you watch the reports, you'll see that the take-charge, save-yourself people are called "looters"."

The lower classes are looting, the upper classes are "commandeering" necessary supplies. :-)

Forget New Orleans & Katrina

[ktulu1115]

As sorry as I am for all the victims of Katrina, I'm sure many Slashdotters are aware - there is a much larger at-risk area - namely Silicon Valley. San Jose and the like are practically right on the San Andreas fault IIRC. Once it finally ruptures, it'll be all over like nothing we've seen before.

Response

[Anonymous Coward]

Responding with money is the capitalist way. Sending in FEMA or the military would be too socialist.

Remember -- if there's any attempt at helping people in a centralized fashion, the Reds win.

High tech voice communications idea

[Anonymous Coward]

I pitched this to the OpenWRT guys about an hour or so ago. Web kiosks are nice and all, but with high-gain antenneas, custom AP software (like OpenWRT), WIFI, and VOIP adapters and an AP link, you could have mobile kiosks providing free phone calls. The equipment is tiny, low-power and relatively low-cost. The users just need to know how to use a phone. A pickup/car/van with 1 AP and 20 adapters could allow 20 people to contact friends/family/loved ones for 5-10 mintues at a shot.

I'd think Vonage could provide the circuits (it'd be cheaper than all that advertising they do). Or if not, one for $29 people could "sponsor" an adaptor for a month or two. :) T-Mobile offered free hot-spot access or another provider could work.

WRT54G AP + Custom FW + VOIP Addapters + Phones = VOIP kiosk. One could plug 10 or 20 adapters and phone into one AP (with a hub of course) and you've have instant phones.

I mean the guys at DefCon could go 140 miles with an antennea. Setting up some antennas on some high places with some high-gain (read 24dBi) anteannas should allow great coverage.

Re:High tech voice communications idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Part-15.org is on it:

http://www.part-15.org/emergencyrelief/katrina.htm l

High technology is not always the answer

[shanen]

This disaster is a perfect example of high tech irrelevance. (Most of this entire /. discussion, too.) The technology of building levees is really old, and quite mature. The engineers (mostly the responsibility of the Army Corps of Engineers for many years) knew New Orleans was vulnerable, and they knew the levees needed more work all the time. Dubya had other priorities, and after a couple of years of neglect, this is the result.

Here are some simple facts. Over the last few years before 2000, they spent over $400 million on flood control for that area. They (the engineers) recommended spending about $250 million over the last 5 years, but that was reduced to a much smaller amount, and was going to be cut again next year. The levees were never going to "heal themselves". The trend line of deteriorating levees, reduced maintenance, and periodic hurricanes could only end exactly where it did--in a major disaster.

The direct costs of cleaning up the mess will be in the billions of dollars. The indirect costs of "losing" an entire major city are surely going to be enormous, but we don't have any basis to really estimate those, since America has never had to shut down an entire major city before. I can't even imagine what costs we should attribute for all those dead people.

Now for the punchline. In 2004, the voters of Louisiana voted in favor of continuing the policies that led them to this disaster. Accurate voting is another low-tech technology.

Right now the technologies they need are called food, clothing, and shelter.

Re:High technology is not always the answer

[Blakey Rat]

Why would Louisiana and New Orleans expect the federal government to pay for THEIR levees? If the federal government refused to provide funds, they should have found a way to fund it on their own.

(Besides, the levees that actually broke weren't some of the ones covered by that new proposal... even if they had shored up the levees in that proposal, New Orleans would be in the exact same state now.)

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[squiggleslash]

Nope. The President is in charge of the Executive part of the Federal Government, which includes FEMA, the armed forces, etc. FEMA is a critical part of any disaster recovery operation.

They didn't do a bad job last year (people got upset, naturally), but on the other hand it just wasn't this bad.

ICU and Kidney Dialysis patients...

[Karma_fucker_sucker]

are dying or are dead. There are people dying and we're worried about having Linux based web services for the refugees.

Unfucking believable! I'm really sick of you people right now!

I see noone understands Maslow's Heirarchy

[WillAffleckUW]

of Needs.

Expecting people to be angels when you haven't satisfied their primary needs of:
1. Water - yes, this is 1 - and potable too;
2. Food - and it has to be ethnically acceptable too;
3. Clothing - and sitting around in 110 degree temperatures when you may not have been dressed for it in the first place ...
4. Shelter - this basically means dry shelter;

but basically, if you haven't met at least the first seven levels, and it sounds like most people there haven't even had the first four levels met, you will act in ways that few people would believe.

Add that to seeing bus service laid on to evac the hotel guests while they wouldn't even use the trains to get you out, and you might be a bit miffed - and you can forget about civility.

But, hey, I'm just repeating my Army training guidelines ...

Re:I see noone understands Maslow's Heirarchy

[http101]

This is still no excuse for committing illegal acts in another city. Their needs are being met, they have services installed to provide for these people, yet, they are still allowed to roam the city, panhandle, and attempt to "shake-down" local businesses.

1 - Water, provided in the Astrodome, additional sources being transported in as needed.
2 - Food, provided in the Astrodome, additional sources being transported in as needed.
3 - Clothing, being donated to the evacuees by several sources including local and national; both public and private.
4 - Shelter - *ahem* ASTRODOME.

While Maslow's Hierarchy is a good THEORY, I suggest you do some reading because what you outlines is NOT what I found. While this is a good THEORY, theories have been proven wrong time and time again.

Now, stop littering.

Re:I see noone understands Maslow's Heirarchy

[WillAffleckUW]

1 - Water, provided in the Astrodome, additional sources being transported in as needed.

Five days later - after three days without potable (drinkable) water - and now almost all water in the area is contaminated with E.coli (many sources report this, including the Wall Street Journal).

2 - Food, provided in the Astrodome, additional sources being transported in as needed.

Five days later - again, when I posted it at the time it was not the case that people could get food.

3 - Clothing, being donated to the evacuees by several sources including local and national; both public and private.

Help up by national authorities - some of it is still, more than a week later, being held up by federal authorities. Source - print edition of today's (Tuesday Sept 6th) Wall Street Journal.

4 - Shelter - *ahem* ASTRODOME.

You obviously haven't been paying attention. Maslow talks about safe and secure shelter. Obviously not the case for almost an entire week.

Here's an experiment. Let's airdrop you into someplace and impose the same conditions on you. Then see if you "lose your cool" in a city with more weapons than people. We'll give you food, half a day's travel from where we leave you, after five days, and water after six days. All the local supplies will have rotting corpses, sewer backwash, and debris.

I doubt you'll be as rational as you think from your safe and secure posting place.

And....Bush bashers...

[Karma_fucker_sucker]

Who gives shit! Right NOW, it doesn't matter who's fault it is! They need help!

Oh Fuck IT!

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[AtomicRobotMonster]

Damn Michael Moore beat me to the punch. That is the question though - while I'm pretty sure the US has enough "troops" to throw at the disaster area. There appears to be a real "shortage" (i.e. not enough available) of rotary-wing assets capable of getting into the disaster zone. Just wondering (i.e. does anyone here know) if Guard deployments to Iraq consist of a greater proportion of equipment such as helicopters than for a non-deployed Guard unit? Anyone?

No help/aids to small places...

[antdude]

CNN said:

"BOND, Mississippi (AP) -- This place isn't a town or a city, just a name on a green signpost along the highway that means little to people who don't live here..."

Re:This one is for all that voted Bush.

[st964p62]

I see you got your copy of the DNC talking points for today. ;)

Useful services techies can provide remotely

[WillAffleckUW]

Let's say you live in Seattle or NYC. Other than donations to a reputable group, another useful thing you can do is help with a project that sets up a way for the survivors to locate friends, relatives, and family - either to live with them (cause many have no homes anymore), to contact (to say they're alive), or to get peace of mind (knowing who lived or died in their family).

Cell phones are one thing, but they don't list who your relatives are or let you search or update.

Other than that, maybe drinkable potable water supplies, but not everyone knows how to do that.

Re:Useful services techies can provide remotely

[Rycross]

At this point I think that setting up more projects for locating survivors would be a bad thing. Wouldn't it be better to congregate the searches into a few places, so they don't have to look all over?

Re:Useful services techies can provide remotely

[WillAffleckUW]

Good point, but the goal is that you plug into one of those projects and help them out, with things like uploading the city directories of names, or whatever.

Redundant do-gooders

[fm6]

A Linux developer is organizing volunteers for a public 'web station' project to assist Hurricane Katrina victims.

Craigslist has a dozen different people "organizing volunteers" for web sites to help Katrina victims. As if nobody else could have thought of it. At best, all these sites will confuse people and repeat each others efforts. At worse, they'll hinder each other.

Most of what needs to be done is dreary and low-tech: helping load trucks, sorting blankets, etc. So if you want to help, call up the Salvation Army or the Red Cross and offer your time.

Re:Redundant do-gooders

[bill_mcgonigle]

Craigslist has a dozen different people "organizing volunteers" for web sites to help Katrina victims. As if nobody else could have thought of it. At best, all these sites will confuse people and repeat each others efforts. At worse, they'll hinder each other.

No, that's at worst. At best, they'll all be unique and helpful.

I have to admit I'm somewhat biased, as I build KatrinaFloodNews.com last week and have coordinated with other groups to get word of the site available to flood vicitims. So far, thousands of people are telling me with their web requests that they find it useful.

Yes, helping load trucks is admirable. Yes, you should donate money and time. But once food, water, clothes and shelter are taken care of, people are going to want to know about their friends and family and they're going to want to start the process or rebuilding. To deny them that is an injustice.

We could have sent Oppenheimer to the Pacific Theater with the infantry, but that wouldn't have been the best way to make use of his talents.

Re:Redundant do-gooders

[fm6]

I didn't say there was no point in doing online help for Katrina victims. But when you see a lot of different people announcing that they're going to found exactly the same Help Katrina Victims Web Site, you tend to get a little sceptical as to how many of them are going to be effective. Does it help Katrina victims to throw provide them with a couple dozen half-assed web sites, all trying to provide the same services?

As for Oppie in the Pacific -- there were undoubtedly many guys out there who could have headed up the scientific end of the Manhatten project. (And many others who would have told you they could if you asked them!) But only one guy actually got to do it. The Oppies of the world are important, but not everybody who's qualified to be Oppie gets to be him -- to say nothing of all the people who think they're a scientific genius and aren't.

As for your web site -- I could be wrong, but I'll bet you didn't start out with a Craigslist post. You just sat down, maybe with a couple friends, and did it. That's fine, and not at all what I was criticizing.

Re:Redundant do-gooders

[bill_mcgonigle]

Thanks for the clarification. You're right, there is a problem of 6 'I survived' sites - each dilutes the others.

Perhaps it would be useful for you to contact the people asking for volunteers with a link to the existing site? I know, it sucks that there's no official coordination of these things.

Perhaps it's best to redirect their enthusiasm to the existing sites, but we don't want to to quell it. The survivors site everybody is linking to is asking for .NET volunteer programmers to help them stay afloat.

Saying "HA!" Doesn't Refute the Facts Presented

[Cr0w T. Trollbot]

Saying "HA!" just because the source of information is from a publication whose political leanings you are opposed to does not refute the facts presented in that article. This is the Fallacy of Exclusion combined with Guilt by Association. Why not try to refute the facts presented, rather than suggest they must be wrong because of the source they come from? Or would you argue that mainstream conservative opinion is by definition always wrong?

Crow T. Trollbot

Re:Saying "HA!" Doesn't Refute the Facts Presented

[tootlemonde]

Why not try to refute the facts presented, rather than suggest they must be wrong because of the source they come from?

The problem is not necessarily with the facts themselves but in their selective use to support a political position.

Publications like the National Review with a political bias will typically make selective use of evidence. Therefore, knowing the source of the article makes one aware of how much credibility one should assign to its conclusions.

In this case, the article concludes "The process has been functioning remarkably smoothly under the circumstances." President Bush himself disagrees as does the Mayor of New Orleans, both of whom would be in a position to know.

Re:Saying "HA!" Doesn't Refute the Facts Presented

[Jim_Callahan]

They key is "under the circumstances". The reactions of Bush and the Mayor are 'holy shit, this is bad. No way we're doing enough." This is true in the absolute. It's also true that the response has been about as good as it can possibly be under the circumstances. Ever driven on a Louisiana road? I can tell you, after a hurricane and a flood, there are probably no roads left in the entire southern half of the state, much less passable ones. Considering this, our government-run relief efforts have been doing a damned good job. However, in the absolute sense, the loss of a single American life under any circumstance other than "90 years old in a bed surrounded by firends and family" is (rightly, I'd think) a tragedy in context of our national morality. So, yeah, in the absolute sense that your political figureheads are coming from, a single death means we're not doing well enough. In the realistic sense that the, you know, trained rescue teams that do rescues in disaster areas constantly use, yeah, it's going as smoothly as possible.

And posting any comment about 'selective use of evidence' in a complaint about another news site posted to /. cannot really be taken seriously. Have you ever read an article summary and compared it to the actual article, or an actual article and compared it to the actual study the article references? Pot and kettle, man.

Re:Saying "HA!" Doesn't Refute the Facts Presented

[learn fast]

Oh, you want guilt by association?

ATTN: SUPERDOME RESIDENTS [Jonah Goldberg]
I think it's time to face facts. That place is going to be a Mad Max/thunderdome Waterworld/Lord of the Flies horror show within the next few hours. My advice is to prepare yourself now. Hoard weapons, grow gills and learn to communicate with serpents. While you're working on that, find the biggest guy you can and when he's not expecting it beat him senseless. Gather young fighters around you and tell the womenfolk you will feed and protect any female who agrees to participate without question in your plans to repopulate the earth with a race of gilled-supermen. It's never too soon to be prepared.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/05_08_28_corner-a rchive.asp#074466

It would be a logical fallacy not to trust any other the material that this magazine chooses to publish just based on this one cruel, sadistic diatribe?

Re:Saying "HA!" Doesn't Refute the Facts Presented

[HTTP Error 403 403.9]

Saying "HA!" just because the source of information is from a publication whose political leanings you are opposed to does not refute the facts presented in that article. This is the Fallacy of Exclusion combined with Guilt by Association. Why not try to refute the facts presented, rather than suggest they must be wrong because of the source they come from? Or would you argue that mainstream conservative opinion is by definition always wrong?

Sometimes a HA! is just a HA!

BTW, from the /. FAQ

What about comments copy-and-pasted from other sources?

If someone copies text from elsewhere and doesn't mention that it's copied or name the source, it's plagiarism.

Re:Saying "HA!" Doesn't Refute the Facts Presented

[tootlemonde]

It's also true that the response has been about as good as it can possibly be under the circumstances.

The dikes and levees were designed to withstand a category 3 hurricane and Katrina was a category 4. Under those circumstances, the National Guard and the relief effort should have been mobilized as soon as the there was a chance Katrina would hit New Orleans, not after it hit.

Ever driven on a Louisiana road?

New Orlean's international airport survived the hurricane intact. Under those circumstances, you would expect aid to be pour in there, particularly considering the U.S. militaries air transport capabilities.

And posting any comment about 'selective use of evidence' in a complaint about another news site posted to /. cannot really be taken seriously.

For the record, I did not complain about the selective use of evidence. My point was that knowing the source of an article allowed the reader to know the article's bias and be able to take the selective use of evidence into account.

Black people loot, white people find?

[metaphorever]

You linking to a story on Boing Boing reminded me of something that caught my attention on there a couple of days ago. The Post shows two almost identical pictures of people carrying bags of items taken from stores. The difference is that the picture of a black person with a bag has a caption says they were "looting", the caption of the picture of the white person with a bag says they "found" the items.

Re:Black people loot, white people find?

[Blakey Rat]

The reporter who took those photographs commented on that. The newspaper policy is that you can only call a person a "looter" if you personally witness them looting from a store. And it makes sense, considering the libel laws in this country... since the reporter didn't personally witness the white woman stealing from a store, she was not described as a looter.

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[Waffle Iron]

It is the State governments and Congress that are supposed to act.

Congress did act, years ago. It directed the president to create agencies like FEMA. Now it's the president's responsibility as executive director of these agencies to make sure they effectively do the job that congress envisioned for these circumstances.

Jesus Christ...

[Anonymous Coward]

"If they had internet access a while ago perhaps we'd have better been able to coordinate rescue attempts."

If people could get in to set up these Kiosks were the trapped people need them, they could have even more easily just gotten those people the fuck out of there.

Did you read what you wrote? The LAST thing these people need is Internet Access. Jesus fuck!

Dumbest Idea Of The Week

[the eric conspiracy]

Web Kiosks? Are you kidding? How are they going to work underwater and without power?

Re:Dumbest Idea Of The Week

[Bill Kendrick]

These kiosks are for the people who are displaced... say, to the Astrodome in Houston, TX. Not for people in the middle of water, you dumbass.

From Steve's "Call For Help" in the day or two before he got things up and running:

"Many will be unable to return home for weeks or months. Free, readily-available public access to the Internet during this time can provide a crucial lifeline for them during this time."

In other words, you pack 10s of 1000s of people into a stadium, it might be nice to have more than one or two computers for them to track down family, tell people they're safe and alive, etc.

If companies are willing to offload their 'useless' Pentium IIs, this Linux+Firefox solution can instantly turn them into a usable system for this purpose.

So where the fuck are they?!

[0xdeaddead]

Why did it take so damed long? Let me guess the floods.. Too bad the "best army in the world" apparently cannot handle 6 foot of water.

Shame on you, you silly appologist.

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[Martin Blank]

Presidents do not ever take vacations the way that you or I might take them. When we go on vacation, we can end up out of contact entirely by leaving our phones behind, not providing information on where we're going, or simply ignoring the outside world.

Every single day of the week, no matter where they are, what holiday it is, or how tired they are, they get a briefing of the state of the nation and the world.

Every single day of the week, no matter where they are, what holiday it is, or how tired they are, they are in contact with their advisors to keep the nation running.

Every single day of the week, no matter where they are, what holiday it is, or how tired they are, they have to make decisions that affect, directly or indirectly, the lives of the people in this country.

Every single day of the week, no matter where they are, what holiday it is, or how tired they are, they are within a few minutes of being able to contact virtually every single federal official, member of Congress, and senior judiciary.

Whether in Kennebunkport, Martha's Vineyard, California, Camp David, Crawford, or whatever other place a president chooses to spend some time away from the office, he is always, at every moment, the president, responsible to the American people, and in contact with the rest of the government. This president, Clinton, Bush Senior, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, and Eisenhower at least were all subject to this. Truman may have been the last president with any capacity to "get away from it all" for a short time, if even he was able to do so.

Heartbreaking

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not easilly be moved, but those stories left me speechless:

http://www.nola.com/weblogs/nola/index.ssf?/mtlogs /nola_nolaview/archives/2005_09.html#076287

Irritated.

[deemaunik]

What pisses me off, is that considering we've blown something like two hundred billion in Iraq over the time we've been there... and the Government's saw fit to expend that much... What have they done to correct this? Bureaucrats are wonderful at throwing money at problems to either solve them or make them go away. Considering the 200B we've blown in a war we shouldn't be involved in, if we, in contrat, took ONE PERCENT of that, Two Billion, how much of a difference would that make? I fail to see how whenever natural disasters happen, the responsibility falls on the hands of Nonprofit Organizations and Celebrities, or big Companies like Office Depot who, as of this morning, had a logo emblazoned on their main page stating their benevolent actions of donating a million. Wonderful advertising schema, really.

Re:Irritated.

[WillAffleckUW]

What pisses me off, is that considering we've blown something like two hundred billion in Iraq over the time we've been there... and the Government's saw fit to expend that much... What have they done to correct this? Bureaucrats are wonderful at throwing money at problems to either solve them or make them go away. Considering the 200B we've blown in a war we shouldn't be involved in, if we, in contrat, took ONE PERCENT of that, Two Billion, how much of a difference would that make? I fail to see how whenever natural disasters happen, the responsibility falls on the hands of Nonprofit Organizations and Celebrities, or big Companies like Office Depot who, as of this morning, had a logo emblazoned on their main page stating their benevolent actions of donating a million. Wonderful advertising schema, really.

Very good points. As someone's who has actually built levees and other flood control mechanisms - and built bridges, airports, and roads when they were destroyed during my service in the Army - I find it extremely aggravating that noone was airlifting clean potable water supplies - or even setting up water treatment centers - for almost five days.

That, to be explicit, is insane.

Failures like this shouldn't be tolerated.

Don't wait for permmission!

[SgtSnorkel]

what they need now isn't technology, not even electricity, but to be moved out from their hell hole

Yes, those are critical needs. I wish I could help with that! I can't, and besides, they don't want me (I already checked). There are massive organizations of responders set up to take care of the immediate needs.

So what can I (you/we) do? We can get warmed up on the secondary needs, the things that will help these folks get their lives back on track:
o help reconnect seperated families
o help victims communicate with relatives
o find places for them to stay
o find transport for them out of the area
o find a way for them to replace lost identity papers
o help them track down their cars and other belongings
o build a system to help submit and track insurance claims
o find a way for them to get their mail/paychecks/bills
o help them find jobs to keep the money rolling in
o let them register skills that might help in the relief effort o organize a cell-phone drive
o organize a day-care center
o set up a classroom for the displaced kids

Hell, I bet a TV projector and a stack of DVDs would be welcome over the next few weeks -- but even better if someone could round up dozens of them, all the same, packed into kits with instructions, and ready to ship.

These kinds of things are tough logistical problems! (And they might just be the kind of thing we techies do best!)

You want to do something? Get an effort organized yourself -- don't even bug the busy people with the "What can I do to help?" nonsense. The guy running the Astrodome relief shelter would much rather hear "I have 1500 cell phones with batteries charged and 10 hours credit. Where do you want them?"

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Michael Moore is an astounding asshat.

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh please...CNN hasn't been liberal for a long time now. They're doing everything they can to look like Fox News since Fox has the ratings. I've watched CNN since before the first Iraq war and it's a very different network now than it was then.

In the first four years of "W" I watched CNN waiting for them to jump his sorry, incompetent ass but they never did. They softballed and usually ignored even his most heinous offenses. However, when Clinton was in office they covered every tiny misstep he made in every detail. I can't watch any of the major news networks anymore they are completely deviod of any attempt at unbiased reporting.

The only people who still think CNN is still a liberal mouthpiece, are the people who watch Fox News all the time which is rediculously right wing.

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[stupidfoo]

where do you get 5 days? 5 days ago the hurricane was still in the gulf of Mexico.
4 days ago the hurricane was over land
roughly 3 days ago the levies broke

Yea like maybe the police looting...

[Anonymous Coward]

in uniform at the local WalMart Superstore. Truly disgusting.

http://www.frycookonvenus.com/index.php?name=News& file=article&sid=1068

US Government depending on radio

[leighklotz]

The US government making extensive use of terrestrial radio (not sat phones, not cell sites) to communicate in this disaster:

The US Government SHARES service reports that radio HF, VHF and UHF radio are the only means of communication available. "SHARES was used in numerous cases [August 29] to facilitate communication coordination for both federal and military agencies, and also rescue efforts for stranded civilian personnel," John Peterson said.

Peterson said SHARES, which is part of the National Communication System, will continue to be a major communication facility for federal government agencies and military units responding to the Katrina emergency, and "SHARES stations should be prepared for extended operations." He encouraged any and all reports from affected areas.

SHARES is continuing operation 24/7 on government communication frequencies of 14.3965 MHz days and 7.632 MHz nights throughout the disaster response.

For more info on amateur radio assistance (as opposed to government work) see ARRL.

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[stupidfoo]

Are all liberals fucking idiots?

5 days ago the storm was over the fucking gulf of mexico.

It wasn't till the levies broke (which was when, late Monday or early Tuesday?) that things started to get bad. And then later on in Tuesday things got pretty bad.

Guardsmen have full time jobs you know. They aren't just sitting in the back of a transport truck waiting to be shipped out to do flood and crowd control.

But, you're right. It's Bush's fault. Your hatred for the man blinds you.

Not all can help ICU and Kidney Dialysis patients

[WillAffleckUW]

actually, the people who should be dealing with ICU and Kidney dialysis patients are those trained to do that - most people don't have those skills - but a lot of slashdots have the skill to create Linux web services for the refugess - and it's something you can do remotely to help as well.

Listening to the chaos

[zdarnell]

People seem to be setting up quite a few feeds for listening to the radio traffic dealing with Katrina. A few of the pages are:
http://www.dailygrunt.info/
http://www.radioreference.com/wiki/index.php/Hurri cane_Katrina

Somewhat off topic, but I'm sure people will be interested in this, it gives a good idea of what people are having to deal with down there.

Where's RedHat?

[elsrod]

Re: "everyone from Microsoft to IBM has a message on their frontpage," I'm surprised to see nothing from RedHat, who hosted their first ever summit in New Orleans this year. In fact, their end of conference parade went right by the convention center. It would be nice to see them contribute to this kiosk effort.

No, troll...

[Anonymous Coward]

...the contempt is for those who don't live up to their capabilities, for those who rely on government handouts as opposed to doing for themselves (NB: this is not about those who CANNOT do for themselves but rather those who REFUSE TO do for themselves): something you, being from the UK, wouldn't understand since socialism is a major tenet of the Euro fabric.

Ingrate. Chances are Americans (who you so clearly loath) bailed your ass or your ancestors asses out at some key point in history.

Re:Donating from the UK MOD THIS UP PLS

[pagaman]

No worries. Can some mods please mod up my post? I've managed to donate via the american red cross so It's possible for UK citizens to donate money. No-one is telling us Brits this though...

Use of UAV's to search for stranded people in NO

[t35t0r]

Since it pertains to this /. topic and it probably will not be accepted as a separate article, here is a story about the use of UAV's in looking for stranded victims in NO:

http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?typ e=technologyNews&storyID=2005-09-02T214938Z_01_MCC 278591_RTRIDST_0_TECH-WEATHER-KATRINA-DRONES-DC.XM L

GPS enabled phones

[Anonymous Coward]

might help in a future diaster. You use them to provide early assessment reports, where survivors are and what their situation is, which go into a computer database with their GPS coordinates. These are assessed and prioritized to cooridinate and direct help and rescue efforts in an efficient manner. It's about getting information quickly and being able to organize it quickly. It should scale in either direction very well so it can be used for local normal rescue situations so rescue personnel will be familiar with it when a major disaster strikes.

Refugee database

[iainmcphersn]

The one thing I have heard the most from the refugees interviewed is not knowing where their families are or wanting to let everyone know they are OK. I would think that a web based solution would be best due to the chaotic nature of the situation and the fact that people are scattered thoughout the southeast.
Any suggestions?

John

The disaster was predicted...

[vandoravp]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3204/02.ht ml
They didn't know exactly when, but they knew it was inevitable.

http://www.alternet.org/story/24871/
...and certain people didn't listen (or didn't care).

Re:The disaster was predicted...

[munchymuncher]

I think the prediction was made a little earlier:

"In 1718, French colonist Jean Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville ignored his engineers' warnings about the hazards of flooding and mapped a settlement in a pinch of swampland between the mouth of the Mississippi River, the Gulf of Mexico and a massive lake to the north."

Re:The disaster was predicted...

[mimio]

Popular Science had an article about it last April: http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/22040b4511b84 010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html

It's sad when these tragedies are announced and still happen.

Re:The disaster was predicted...

[unitron]

"In 1718, French colonist Jean Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville ignored his engineers' warnings..."

How droll that his last name translates (*very* roughly) to Le Moyne "of good city".

Hey, as one of the first familes of New Orleans maybe he has rich descendants that we can sue for his mistake! :-)

Re:The disaster was predicted...

[dajak]

"In 1718, French colonist Jean Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville ignored his engineers' warnings about the hazards of flooding and mapped a settlement in a pinch of swampland between the mouth of the Mississippi River, the Gulf of Mexico and a massive lake to the north."

On the positive side the settlement would have been very easy to defend against attacks, as it is surrounded by water on three sides and its position beneath sea level makes it easy to inundate areas - making those areas impassable for artillery, cavalry, and ships. In the 18th century that would have been the more pressing concern; "Fortress Holland" was a success before the invention of planes for the same reasons.

New Orleans was built in one of the best possible locations in America from the perspective of a relatively minor colonial power like France.

I say we back the fuck out of Iraq

[Anonymous Coward]

Cut off aid to Africa, remove troops from Europe and the middle east, and use the resources that the citizens pay for.

We could really, really use those billions of dollars that are being thrown at other countries. The people who are sitting in the Dome right now paid for it.

Why its good to donate via Microsoft (and others)

[wsanders]

Maybe MS isn't but other companies (like my employer) maybe are matching contributions.

More importantly, lots of sites, Salvation Army in particular, are slashdotted, and the corporate sites can aggregate the contributions.

I tried donating directly via salvationarmyusa.org just now and I never saw a confirmation for my transaction. I'm going to have to wait a couple days all call my CC and see if to went through.

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[wass]

where do you get 5 days?

Have you watched the news at all? All people questioning the slow federal response make mention of the 5 days.

For example, take the following snippet from a Bloomberg news article :

" In Congress, Democrats including House Democratic Caucus Chairman Robert Menendez are stepping up their criticism, and the Democratic National Committee today issued a statement under the title, ``Where is the leadership, Mr. President.'' ``Why is it that five days after hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast many of our fellow Americans are still without food and water, living in squalor in dangerous, inhumane conditions?'' the statement said. "

Linux Zealot though I am...

[Hosiah]

The reactions to the storm show characteristic American resistance to clues, including the idea that touchy-feely-Linux can make it better. These people need the necessities, and once we get the necessities handled, it will be time to worry about communications. Of course, if it gets put to the use of helping rescue effort's communications co-ordinating food drops and matching up survivors, then I suppose it can't be all bad.

But some posters are correct in stating that at least some of the terminals will get looted. Folks, we have nearly a whole state existing in Anarchy. Right now, it's packs of people roving around with nothing but survival on their minds. You know how cranky you get when you miss breakfast? Multiply that times a thousand per person.

I know that in their place right now, I'd be in a state of panic to save the lives of my family, and about ten million times as impatient with stupidity as I normally am. Anybody handing me anything but food and water and medical supplies at that moment might get killed out of pure pique. Anybody obstructing me would get swatted out of the way like a bug. *That's* how these people feel, and they can't help it. Survival instincts are still hard-wired, despite generations of American sheep-conditioning.

Re:Linux Zealot though I am...

[WillAffleckUW]

You know how cranky you get when you miss breakfast? Multiply that times a thousand per person.

I think it's more likely dehydration and the lack of a potable (drinkable) water supply - people start having problems after 72 hours without water, but you can survive more than a month without food.

That plus seeing lots of busses take all the fancy hotel guests away while they get left to rot, and seeing lots of helicopters go by without dropping any food and water ...

let's make a bet..

[conJunk]

I've got $5 says suitepotato is running windows

If it's the Dumbest Idea Of The Week

[WillAffleckUW]

Web Kiosks? Are you kidding? How are they going to work underwater and without power?

Floating bathtubs with fuel cells and a solar cell array of course!

Oh, and an outboard penguin.

.

.

Of course, you can always get a sealed unit, in plastic, with a battery for power, but most of the survivors are no longer under water - those are the ones who didn't survive that are under water.

Another possibility is airdrop them onto the tops of buildings, which solves all the problems, with a standard battery and solar cell like those ones you see on the highways. Use wireless to negotiate and cache the results so it can burst the info and survive on low power.

Seeing as how FEMA has no money left, they can probably use the help the next time a US city is hit.

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[Anonymous Coward]

You fuckwit, do you realise how long it takes to mobilize and move troopers and equipment. Do you not realize how hard it is to get accurate information in a time of crisis? You just want to turn this into a bash bush event. OMG t3h 3vi1 Bush created a hurricane and then didn't care about the aftermath. Go back to moveon.org.

Re:Great

[OrangeSpyderMan]

Yes No doubt he's right. Now CNN isn't normally a news source I'd quote but read :

THIS

Now what's not political about this whole thing?? The root cause is about the only thing that is no longer political. This sickens me, and I'll burn karma to prove it : the so-called "president" just doesn't care as much about thousands of americans dying as he does about being a "war president" (reference in Michael Moore's film Farenheit 9/11). Sorry folks, but this time you did vote for him, so I guess you're happy.

quoting OB to show how nice OB is????

[Anonymous Coward]

You're quoting the organization itself to support claims about the efficiency of the organization? Hello, circular logic. Maybe OB are saints (... though I highly doubt it given the Robertsons' collective involvement; televangelists are never a good sign), but don't you think that maybe looking for a third party rating might be a better idea?

Re:quoting OB to show how nice OB is????

[superyooser]

You're quoting the organization itself to support claims about the efficiency of the organization? Hello, circular logic.

And the parent quoted whom? Nobody. Hello, hate-mongering bigotry.

don't you think that maybe looking for a third party rating might be a better idea?

Here you go.

OB is the largest U.S. charity after the Red Cross and Salvation Army. They had their giant supply trucks in Mississippi days before the Feds got there. I saw them on TV.

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[jav1231]

You must get a TOTALLY different CNN than I've been seeing...just this week....

If you were in school in NOLA - a resource

[WillAffleckUW]

I was in school in New Orleans, no idea when it will start again. It is scary situation...

I just got an email today that the http://www.uwnews.org/article.asp?articleID=11910" >University of Washington and other universities and colleges will take students from the disaster area here, so they can complete their studies while the city is being fixed up (at least thru the end of the semester that starts

Desperate Situation

[mimio]

I got this impressive email yesterday from a coworker (I removed the name):

"To my fellow Professions Community members, please pardon my use of this forum. The situation in New Orleans is desperate and a few moments of your time could make a significant impact.

To those of you based in the United States, I ask you to please immediately contact your US Senator and US Representative (http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/) and implore them to lobby for an immediate mass security effort in New Orleans.

New Orleans needs the National Guard and the Military. I just returned from New Orleans this morning bringing supplies of gasoline, ammunition and food to my neighbors who are bunkered in their homes. Neighbors have joined to create pseudo-militia to protect the neighborhoods. Local small-town mayors have asked heads of households to return to provide a presence to deter against AK-47 armed gangs who roam the streets.

Tell your Senator and rep that the security situation on the street is more dire than they are hearing from the National FEMA director. The search and rescue is hampered by the lack of security. Thousands of good people are still in their homes in the 20% of New Orleans that did not go under water. They are under constant threat.

Thank you for your time.
--Xxxx Xxxxxxxx
Resident of New Orleans"

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[Anonymous Coward]

For as much advance notice of the danger as there was, the first units should have been ready to hit the ground the moment the winds fell.

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are YOU a fucking idiot? SERIOUSLY, DIPSHIT!

5 days ago the storm was in the fucking gulf ABOUT TO FUCK OVER OUR COUNTRY. Why were we NOT PREPARED?

They aren't just sitting in the back of a transport truck waiting to be shipped out to do flood and crowd control.

When you have ADVANCE WARNING that a hurricane is going to RIP AMERICA A NEW ONE, they better fucking be READY AND WAITING! Park them in Texas! Park a fucking carrier in Florida and stock it full of supplies to move in after the hurricane!

Despite the fact that you think it's all about Bush, it ain't all about Bush. Every level of government failed the people of New Orleans, from the cops turning in their badges and fleeing, to the state being helpless and having to beg for help to the federal government who took a week from "hey neat, theres this big storm going to hit the gulf coast!" to "Holy shit! Raping and plundering in new orleans for days! Maybe 250 guardsmen hiding in the police stations with the cops isn't enough to keep order!"

Ah, that ranting felt good, didn't it?

That said, the Bush administration crippled FEMA by merging it with D'OH!S and then appointing a lawyer to manage it. The Bush administration cut funding for the levees (yeah yeah, I heard that "but the projects that got cancelled wasn't for that levee" bullshit... guess what, maintaining levees isn't like waiting for the lightbulb to go out, it's a continuous process requiring continual monitoring and repair, completely seperate from the cancelled Corps of Engineers projects). And military response was utterly pathetic. 7500 troops to patrol and restore order to Louisiana AND Mississippi's coastlines? That's "commendable?" New Orleans alone is almost 200 square miles including suburbs (built in marshes and where conditions are the worst). If all 7500 landed in NOLA and took command, that'd be about 37 soldiers per square mile to patrol, if you worked them 24/7, more realistically would be three 16 hour overlapping shifts for about 22 working while the rest slept. This is a patrol?

Your love for Bush blinds you. The entire past week has been one continuous fuckup, and bullshit like the original post claiming everything "went smoothly" doesn't help anything.

if you were in school in NOLA - a resource (fixed)

[WillAffleckUW]

I was in school in New Orleans, no idea when it will start again. It is scary situation...

I just got an email today that the University of Washington and other universities and colleges will take students from the disaster area here, so they can complete their studies while the city is being fixed up (at least thru the end of the semester that starts

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[LtOcelot]

It wasn't till the levies broke (which was when, late Monday or early Tuesday?) that things started to get bad.

Of course, that event had been anticipated well in advance.

Are all liberals fucking idiots?

No. Are all whatever-you-ares fucking incapable of planning to meet immediately forseeable contingencies?

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mr. Moore must feel great posting this from his rich person's fat farm that he is currently attending in Florida. Why isn't Mr. Moore out saving lives and helping the downtrodden? I know, he must hate black people. It's all about race!

Honestly, how much is he donating to help the effort? Is it too much to ask of him, or will that bother him too much as he sits in his air conditioned room trying not too eat too much while the people of NO are starving.

"No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It's not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh! Race has nothing -- NOTHING -- to do with this!"

Um, it is the mayors/governors responsibility to make sure all those poor get out of town. Because they royally screwed up a lot of people are going to die.

Katrina Makes Me Nervous

[Castar]

The thing that scares me most about Katrina is the behavior of people involved.

I have lived for a few years in an earthquake-prone area (the SF Bay area). I know that, eventually, there's going to be a big earthquake here. I don't own property, I don't drive a lot, and I'm pretty confident in the buildings in which I spend most of my time. (Although I've never really been in an earthquake before - maybe I'm just naive).

However, I'm not at all confident about the people around me - not any more. I can't believe that all it takes is a little chaos to make people start turning mean. I can undertand and even to some level condone looting food and medicine. But raping people? Shooting at rescue workers and fellow citizens? It's like the only thing keeping some people from being bestial is the veneer of soceity. Strip that away, and anything goes.

I'm even more worried about larger disasters - peak oil? I don't know if it's going to happen, but if it does it will be nation- or world-wide. Nowhere to go to escape the chaos. The only thing we can count on is people behaving rationally and morally - but it looks like that's not going to occur.

What about the rise of the sea level? If that happens, it's going to make cities all over the world worse than New Orleans right now. We'll have more warning, but it will still be ugly, as masses of people try to adjust to being packed in a smaller space.

What if we do hear of a meteor headed our way? I'd like to think that everyone would hunker down and figure out ways to divert or destroy it. But I suspect even if we did, the devastation from people's actions would be horrific.

I guess I've lost what little faith I had in humanity's ability to pull together in a disaster, and in the fundamental moral compass. I'm starting to understand the survivalist nuts.

Katrina

[redeyeowl]

What happened in New Orleans is a tragedy and the people there do need help. But let's not forget the people of Florida who have not yet recovered from last years 4 hurricanes. They need as much help today as they did before Katrina. Don't send all the funds to New Orleans Peter Kuhn Lakeland Florida doublewidetrailer@gmail.com

Re:Katrina

[Anonymous Coward]

are you kidding...
help yourself because no-one else is going to.
they couldn't get it right for this one.
and suddenly they're going to help you?

I wish you the best of luck...

The effort to coordinate public web stations is...

[christian.einfeldt]

here: http://www.desktoplinux.com/cgi-bin/board/UltraBoa rd.pl?Action=ShowBoard&Board=katrina Please don't go there just to chat. Please only go there if you think that PublicWebStations.com is a good idea and you want to support the effort to help people in the affected area get connected again with the outside world.

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[mc6809e]

Have you watched the news at all? All people questioning the slow federal response make mention of the 5 days.

For example, take the following snippet from a Bloomberg news article :

" In Congress, Democrats including House Democratic Caucus Chairman Robert Menendez are stepping up their criticism, and the Democratic National Committee today issued a statement under the title, ``Where is the leadership, Mr. President.'' ``Why is it that five days after hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast many of our fellow Americans are still without food and water, living in squalor in dangerous, inhumane conditions?'' the statement said. "

The funny thing about this is how you go through the trouble to cite an article that cites congressmen that made an obviously "incorrect" statement.

It's very easy to check where Katrina was 5 days ago and it was in the Gulf of Mexico.

It was still in Mississippi Tuesday morning.

StupidChildren.com -- Help Out By Buying A T-Shirt

[jpiggot]

Like everyone else, the folks who run the humor site StupidChildren.com were deeply saddened at the destruction to befall the Gulf Coast.

We thought it'd be a cool idea to donate all the proceeds from the sales at our online store (now until September 15th) to the American Red Cross. That way, people can buy a "Cinnamon Ass-Man" shirt, and strangely enough, feel good about it.

We're not Google or Yahoo, and we won't raise millions of dollars, but we've already raised a couple of hundred. And regardless, if everyone just helped out a little, did anything (donating $5 online somewhere, or buying a shirt from us) those little gestures add up. In the face of overwhelming devastation, it's hard to think that a small gesture could help, but it does.

That's how we've used technology to help. Hopefully, people will remember that you don't have to be a huge corporation to help.

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[Anonymous Coward]

By the way, if you want to wrap your little mind around just how pathetic 7500 soldiers showing up is, the Canadians landed 14000 people in 24 hours on the beach on D-Day, under fire and constraints of secrecy (we were still maintaining the false attack front elsewhere when the invasion began).

And we could only field half a division in our own country? Just pathetic.

gas prices were the primary concern

[Anomalyst]

> the feeling I got from the White House was that gas prices were the primary concern

Considering their ties to Big Oil. I assume they feel the prices are still to low by a factor of five?

Re:Yes, it's terrible but.. well...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you aware that the average Joe in Louisiana has absolutely no say in where his government's military is deployed? Eurotrash jackass...

KatrinaShelter.com

[GreggyBUIUC]

We started up this site to act as an aggregation service for all the housing info that's out there. If anyone has any LAMP skills or experience interfacing with Google Maps we would absolutely love to talk to you.

admin@katrinashelter.com

The Red Cross is questionable in its effectiveness

[Scareduck]

This blog post makes it pretty clear that the American Red Cross is rather iffy in terms of its effectiveness, and certainly in terms of its ability to forward contributions to those most in need. The kicker is this Toronto Star article indicating that about 40% of the money raised following 9/11 went to administrative overhead or non-9/11 projects. Even though that means the majority of the money went towards relief, it raises substantial questions as to whether the ARC is a trustworthy charity, or merely a vehicle for its own self-perpetuation.

Re:The Red Cross is questionable in its effectiven

[Qzukk]

What it means is that while there are terrible disasters that no-one should ever face, the rest of the world doesn't stop for them, and there are still other people in crisis situations around the world that still need help despite what other problems people are facing.

How would you like it if you were on top of a roof in New Orleans, and a guy in a helicoptor lowered a rope down to you and just as you were about to grab on, they raised it and flew off to save some tsunami victims somewhere else?

Re:I am shocked!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, this is what happens when you raise a generation of people used to sucking from Uncle Sam's tit. They think they're ENTITLED to take whatever the hell they want from whomever they want. The city's infrastructure has been completely wiped out, and all of a sudden there's no one to exchange their food stamps for cigarettes or a 40oz bottle of malt liquor.

Hardly. Bush had to tell 'em to evacuate

[Anonymous Coward]

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said that President Bush had called and urged the state to order the evacuation.

So says the Google cache of a CNN story about Katrina from before it hit. Why the hell does the President have to tell the Governor of Lousiana how to run her state in an emergency? And why hasn't the media picked up on the story of how utterly incompenent the folks in charge of New Orleans are?

Maybe because they're too caught up in trying to blame Bush?

And FWIW, I lived through Hugo hitting Charleston, SC back in 1989. If you've never been through such an event, you have no fucking idea what you're talking about. The infrastructure to even get help to those people (dumbasses, really) still in the area a severe hurricane strikes is gone. Bridges - gone. Roads - blocked by trees. Airlift? How? If the runway isn't under water what are you going to do with the big pile of supplies the C-17 drops at the end of the runway? There's no trucks to move it around and the roads are blocked anyway, and the people can't get to where the supplies are.

When you see all those individual pictures of devastation and despair they're very powerful. But that's nothing compared to actually being there and having it all shoved into your consciousness in parallel. It's not "That's a destroyed house", "This street's flooded", "That bridge is gone". It's more like "TheHouseIsGoneTheBridgeIsGoneTheLandIsFloodedTheT reesAreAlmostAllGone ThisEntireForestWasSnappedOffFifteenFeetAboveGroun d AllTheTreesLeftHaveHadAllTheirLeavesRippedOffThere AreBoats20MilesInland TheWindPickedUpHalfInchStonesAndShatteredEveryDamn Window" in-your-face.

Nothing functions. Not even disaster relief.

And Katrina was far worse than Hugo - the city Katrina hit is below sea level. Not many in Charleston were dumb enough to build in places like that.

Most people in the US lead such sheltered and pampered lives that quickly forget that there are no guarantees in life.

Thank You

[humankind]

As someone who lives and works in New Orleans and just tonite finally found a place with electricity and net access, I want to say thanks to everyone who is helping with the efforts. Things are really bad for many people.

Interestingly enough, our main NOC is located in the CBD of New Orleans and is still online as of now, running on a generator. I don't know how long it will last -- but since our generator is located no more than 10 feet above the street level, the water can't be that bad down there.

Two days ago we donated our generator for the backup NOC to a group that was doing search and rescue - it created a small outage of a few web sites that happened to be situated there (that we're mirroring now to servers out of state), but we felt it was better to put the generator to use to directly help people save lives, as opposed to keeping a few web sites up advertising restaurants that may or may not ever open again.

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[Chatmag]

I just returned from a trip to Birmingham and Montgomery, Alabama. I drove down I-65, and passed three convoys of National Guard heading south.

When I got to I-10, there were convoys of National Guard, tree services, electrical companies, various Sheriffs Departments, State Police, and tractor trailers with supplies going into the disaster area.

I both grew up and served in the US Army, and my sense tells me that when there are enough assets on the ground, there will be a combined local, state and Guard effort to go into New Orleans and clean out the criminals.

During the Watts riots of the '60's, it took 15,000 National Guard troops to cover a 50 square mile area. And that included the local and state law enforcement working with the Guard.

New Orleans is 180 square miles. To cover that area proportional to what was used in Watts, it will take 54000 National Guard and combined other law enforcement agencies. Granted, not all of the city will have to be covered. I doubt the Army will want to go in with anything less than what it will take to do the job right the first time.

The Army will not let New Orleans become our Mogadishu.

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[Qzukk]

OK, I know you're up on your high horse and probably chanting that people shouldn't live where hurricanes have hit, and you've probably never even seen a hurricane in your life or had to use one of those fancy tracking charts you seem to like to wave around there.

It's very easy to check where Katrina was 5 days ago and it was in the Gulf of Mexico.

The CENTER of the storm was in the Gulf of Mexico. Do you understand what that means? Maybe you should take some time out and look and see what a hurricane looks like.

Scroll down there, to that one picture of the hurricane stretching from Central America to Florida. Now, tell me again just where exactly the hurricane was 5 days ago?

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[Qzukk]

At least he had the honesty to cite his source.

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[Qzukk]

Once upon a time the Louisiana National Guard had amphibious personnel carriers. I guess the magic armor fairy went around making them disappear, since those were probably not in Iraq and they certainly failed to make an appearance in the submerged parts of New Orleans.

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[wsherman]

For the amount that Bush is spending on his charity project of bringing democracy to Iraq (roughly 100 billion) he could give each of the people trapped in New Orleans (roughly 100,000) a million dollars. That would be enough to house them in thousand dollar a night hotels for a year and still have enough left to provide them with half million dollar houses.

The problem is that the people trapped in New Orleans are poor people and Republicans believe that one of the worst sins that can be committed (right up there with seeing naked people) is to provide poor people with the basic necessities of life (food, shelter, etc.).

Bush isn't dragging his heels because he doesn't have the resources. He is dragging his heels because he can't stand helping poor people.

Disaster-planning and -management technology

[davidwr]

Here's where technology can help in the face of disaster:

In planning and recovery.

Databases and workgroup tools can help in planning and drilling for disasters.

Battery-operated PCs and handhelds, satellite phones, long-distance 2-way radios, and 2-way walkie-talkies can help the "boots on the ground" stay coordinated.

Portable-infrastructure technologies like portable solar generators, portable self-powered water purifiers, and even "low tech" items like water filters and water-purification-tablets and the like can help those who are stranded. Helicopters and boats can deliver these if they aren't already at evacuation centers.

Cameras and PCs with satelite radios can get the message out to the world, a message that will prime the pump of cash donations.

Battery-powered emergency radio beacons that self-activate during a disaster can identify homes where people too sick to travel are located, to assist rescue crews.

There are lots of ways technology can help in a disaster. These are but a few.

Re:Disaster-planning and -management technology

[Anonymous Coward]

and you did what?!?!?

(I can't wait to see more of you...)

RFID tracking disaster victims

[whitis]

Wristbands with RFID/barcode/human readable serial number could be used to (voluntarily) track victims like packages. This would, among other things, reduce load on cell phone networks from (often futile) attempts to deterimine the location of missing people or reassure family members. Serial number must include checkdigits at the very least. A random password is also printed on the reverse side (for logging in remotely after leaving area).

Wristband serial #12345678

• 2004-08-29T1200 Wristband assigned to victim on board helicopter NG1234 after retrieving from rooftop at latittude/longitude. Status: uninjured
• 2004-08-29T1205 Audio recording of victims identity recorded (enroute). lat/long.
• 2005-08-29T1210 Data uploaded to FEMA webservers via Wifi-Satelite uplink ABC123 at New Orleans Superdome (as helicopter approached)
• 2005-08-29T1211 Email address assigned: 12345678@victims.fema.gov
• 2005-08-29T1213 Western Union Cash Transfer ID assigned KAT12345678 (this allows people to wire money without knowing the destination. Strong crypto required on RFID tag for verification in case wallet lost).
• 2005-08-29T1212 Leaving helicopter at latitude/longitude. destination: new orleans superdome.
• 2005-08-29T1213 data upload
• 2005-08-29T1220 Swiped entering new orleans astrodome lat/long
• 2005-08-29T1300 Audio recording transcribed (in, for example topeka, kansas). Spelling errors likely. Name: Jon Q public
• 2005-08-29T1330 Friend/family member registered for status notifications: Bob Public bpublic@sprintpcs.net
• 2005-08-29T1400 Name/address entered at data entry station DEF456 at new orleans superdome
  Name: John Q Public
  Address: 1234 Bourboun Street, New Orleans 12345
  Medical Alert: none (private field)
• 2005-08-29T1430 Checked email at email station QRZ100 at new orleans superdome. station lat/long
• 2005-08-29T1435 Public message recorded at email station QRZ100. station lat/long.
  Public message:
  I am ok but my cat drowned. Lost my wallet evacuating house. Don't have my address book.
• 2005-09-02T1000 Leaving new orleans superdome station XYZ456. station lat/long. Destination: bus
• 2005-09-02T1015 Boarding bus #1234. station lat/long. Destination: Houston astrodome
• 2005-09-02T1017 Data Upload
• 2005-09-02T1800 Leaving bus #1234 Destination: Houston astrodome portable station lat/long.
• 2005-09-02T1812 Entering houston astrodome station lat/long
• 2005-09-02T1830 Checked email. Email Station UIP888, houston astrodome. station lat/long.
• 2005-09-02T1845 Visited mobile western union station WU-K-101. Location: houston astrodome lat/long.
• 2005-09-02T1917 Leaving Houston Astrodome lat/long. Destination: taxi to airport
• 2005-09-02T2000 Logged into FEMA via internet (from kiosk at houston airport). Public Message: I am taking UA flight 456 to Tucson, AZ. I will be staying at my brother bob's house: 444 main street, tucson AZ 11111, phone: 987-654-3210, email: bob@tucson-online.org
• 2005-09-02T2100 Logged in via internet. Email Forwarding address set to jpublic@earthlink.net
• 2005-09-02T2102 Logged in via internet. Snail mail forwarding addre

Directnic is SAME as looters and gaugers

[Anonymous Coward]

These guys at directnic are as bad as looters and gaugers. One of them is shamlessly plugging modeling girlfirend's website link and asking people to hire her. Where does this fit into this situation. It makes me sick. It makes me sick to see all they worry about are their servers. It makes me sick they are taking advantage of the situation for their material gain (just as looters). Shame, shame, shame.

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[Qzukk]

Yes, you say 9k troops were on the ground within 24 hours.

Of that 9k troops that arrived on "the scene", a whopping 250 of them or so were assigned to NO. The rest were spread out over the entire Louisiana and Mississippi coastline and well onto land. Ignore the original poster's spin, the whole article he plagarized is useless.

New Orleans Not Scaleable

[gamer4Life]

People often assume that the original settlement was built below sea level, when in fact, it was not. The French settled there in an area ABOVE sea level. The town eventually grew, and they needed space, so they drained the swamps and built levees and pumps to keep the water out.

This is analagous to building a software program that handles a problem, but can't scale very well. Instead of redesigning the program from scratch to accomodate new specifications, they add patch after patch, until it eventually crashes.

Re:if you were in school in NOLA - a resource (fix

[ubuntu2005]

thanks ...I was in law school 2nd year...but at the moment just looking for immediate work, location does not matter, although in law school highly proficient in computer system management with linux and winblows as well.

all your bones...

[mrs dogbreath]

Are bleached in the sun

Katrina beats Slashdot

[Deadstick]

Just noted that the Salvation Army has opened up five servers to handle Katrina donations...and all five are slashdotted.

rj

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[YrWrstNtmr]

So prior to each and every hurricane, we should crank up a carrier battle group? And put it where? IN the Gulf? Yeah...thats exactly the place you DON'T want your fleet. Right in the path of the storm.

Where and when would you have put a CVN group for this hurricane? Here is the track and strength prediction since last Tuesday, when it was north of Cuba, and still avery minor hurricane. Saturday night, it was still a Cat 2/3.

Where, specifically, would you have put a carrier group. And when? Which carrier group, coming from where, and loaded with supplies when?

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[mc6809e]

OK, I know you're up on your high horse and probably chanting that people shouldn't live where hurricanes have hit, and you've probably never even seen a hurricane in your life or had to use one of those fancy tracking charts you seem to like to wave around there.

The CENTER of the storm was in the Gulf of Mexico. Do you understand what that means? Maybe you should take some time out and look and see what a hurricane looks like.

I've lived in Florida for 20+ years. I've seen plenty of storms. And don't try to play stupid semantic games with me. The position of the storm is defined as it's center of circulation. That center was in the Gulf of Mexico and not in New Orleans 5 days ago as these congressmen claimed. They were bullshitting and you cited it.

Scroll down there, to that one picture of the hurricane stretching from Central America to Florida. Now, tell me again just where exactly the hurricane was 5 days ago?

Even if I grant you that the hurricane was "in" New Orleans 5 days ago based on it's size, then you have to concede that it was still in New Orleans Tuesday morning based on its size.

Given that, it's understandable why the bulk of the movement of troops and equipment would begin Wednesday after the storm passed. That means it took two whole days to get to New Orleans through the broken roads.

That's twice as fast as the Andrew mission. It took four days to get into Homestead.

Donation links on front pages

[glass_window]

everyone from Microsoft to IBM has a message on their frontpage.

You mean, "Everyone from (A) Apple to (Z) ZDNet has a message on their frontpage."

Belleweather

[Doc Ruby]

New Orleans was built in 1717 by French explorers who got lost in the new territory they claimed. But they found a tribal trail from a giant freshwater lake to a stable part of the river that led up into the entire continent, the entire area they called "Louisiana" (from Texas to the Appalachians, from the Gulf to the Great Lakes). They built a walled city for trade and conquest, which prospered. And survived: at high ground, it hasn't been destroyed by any of its frequent storms, though a fire under its 34 year Spanish rule meant rebuilding in the late 1700s.

It's in a great location for shipping and connection to rail, road and the abundant farmland. The Mississippi River moves a bit, but the value of its strategic location (near the Panama Canal and Venezuela's oil terminals) is vastly superior to any other alternate location for its purpose, with a location more protected from the weather than most of the rest of the Gulf Coast (though now obviously not enough). Development is a question of alternatives, and New Orleans has been the best option for development for literally centuries.

The city was secure, even under the threat of major hurricanes, through the 1930s. That's when the Army Corps of Engineers installed the wall holding back the lake, with levees, insufficient to withstand a Category 4 (or 5) hurricane. And failed to compensate for the destruction and development of the buffer zone of wetlands between the city and the Gulf. With those centuries-tested natural relief buffers, the city wasn't nearly as threatened by catastrophe. Of course there have been huge benefits from reclaiming land from the lake, though the waste of the Gulf wetlands has little upside beyond real estate agents and vacationers. But those benefits were bought with IOUs to Nature, which has eventually called in the chits. We could have paid more for better systems, but we tried to get off cheap.

People are talking about replacing New Orleans like it's somehow something that you just do. Like replacing a 50-year heart with a bionic one. Well, people don't do that unless we're forced to, usually after the old one has failed, and a heroic effort is necessary to save us. Which we then do, even after we've raised kids, produced in our careers, had our fun. A city is vastly more than just its economic function, both to its residents and the people who care about them. New Orleans is unique, and irreplaceable.

The much better question is how America took the city for granted, letting it down in every way, though we've known this catastrophe was inevitable. Along with (Republican) House Majority Leader Dennis Hastert saying it should just get bulldozed, we've got (Republican) president Bush saying "no one could have anticipated the levees would fail" (echoing his lies about the 2001 planebombings of New York City). Those people, and their subordinates, along with the Democratic Senators from Louisiana, and (until last year) the Republican Governor of Louisiana, have blood on their hands. They, like everyone else in charge, abandoned their duty to protect New Orleans. American development is always entirely devoted to the sale to the first customer, regardless of the hidden costs to people left holding the bag. Now we've got our heart ripped out. And so much of our rotten understructure is revealed to the world.

Yes, we should look at the big picture, at tomorrow's risks we deny when we're making today's sales. We have to look at "total cost of ownership" of more than just Linux, but at whole cities. But we can't blame the victim so much, here: New Orleans, which has delivered so much to American and the world from its unique location. But which has always been shortchanged, paid in scrip. Now that she's destroyed, we have to first look to save her as much as possible. Then look at who's got her blood on her hands, and deal with them. And in the longer term, look at how we let her down, and let ourselves down by losing her. Because New Orleans was possibly the most human city in America, warts and all. How we deal with her and her fate is how we deal with all of our fates.

Truth Be Told

[Anonymous Coward]

While it is fun to do the geek thing and figure out some sweet technical solution, what we really need is people to pick up trash, help the infirm go to the bathroom, serve food, and unload trucks.

If you aren't up for that, we need money and stuff -- glucometers, test strips, pediatric supplies, meds, antidepressants... the works.

After the refugees have been fed, clothed and showered, there may be a place for a cool technical hack.

Sign me... Karl @ The Astrodome -- 36 hours in 3 days

Technology for Katrina victims housed in Astrodome

[eudaemon]

At the risk of swerving off-topic from discussions about fertile flood plains and partisian politics:

Technology for All is installing a 40 computer 'Computer Technology Center' (CTC) in the Astrodome for Hurricane Katrina victims.

If you'd like to read their blog discussing their efforts, show up and volunteer: http://texasctcs.blogspot.com/

If you just want to donate hardware or money:
http://www.techforall.org/

Back to your regularly scheduled squabbling... carry on.

Place to post status and whereabouts....

[drake50]

Hurricane Katrina has displaced thousands of people. We've seen a barage of people desperately trying to find out if their friends and family are okay. Usually survivors think to connect with their closest relatives but they are often unaware that there are many other people who are concerned about them and their safety.

StillSafe.net is a website dedicated to helping people find out if their loved ones have made it out safely. v Most visitors to StillSafe.net are desperate to find out if someone they know is safe. Often even when victims have made it to safety, they have contacted their family and think everyone who matters knows; but there are still people out there who may be worried sick about them and haven't yet received word of their condition.

Please help us to get the word out that StillSafe.net is seeking to assist people find out where their loved ones are and it's imperative that survivors status and condition be posted so that those people who are so worried about them can get relief.

For those who are extremely motivated, there are many survivors staying in local motels and hotels. Contacting these people and assisting in posting their information would be a great help.

Thanks so much for your help!!!

Why?-Nature: 1, Man: 0

[Anonymous Coward]

"This is why New Orleans is where it is. It was perfectly located to take on large amounts of the shipping around the gulf. The fact that it was below sea level was seen as an engineering challenge."

Pompeiian's must have like challenges.

Anyway I find the digging of the Panama Canal a greater engineering challenge, than filling in a big hole in the ground.* As opposed to just plopping a city in it (they could have put the city on the other side of the lake).

*And lest anyone forget. The Japanese have proven that one can claim land from the sea.

Thank You For Modding This Fucktard a Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd also like to extend a Big American Middle Finger to the rest of you assholes cackling with glee.

With everyone "passing the buck"

[Anonymous Coward]

"The shareholders of said company would oust that executive before he finished that sentence. These people run companies to maximize shareholder profit, not play Mother Theresa with one of the most valuable commodities on the face of the earth."

[Said at the Nuremburg trials]
"But, I was only following orders."

--
The "are you a script" word for today is forego.

Seriously?

[gexen]

Fuck web kiosks! The people fucking need FOOD and WATER! Jesus people, get your priorities straight.

"George Bush Hates Black People!"

[Anonymous Coward]

Did anybody hear that rasist bastard standing next to Mike Myers on the NBC hurricane relief special.
He was spouting about how black people were dying more than white people and how we are now sending troops in to shoot the blacks or some crap.
But then after Mike Myers talked a little he started saying that "George Bush hates white people!" and they cut him off.

I do not know who he was but he must be famous and I would lke to know so I can boycot his work in the future. If he had been white and said Jesse Jackson hates white people his career would have been over and he might have even ended up in jail for hate speech and slander.
I hope NBC never hires him again.

Sure more blacks are dying than whites, but 70% of N.O. is black so that is just the math. It is not a racist conspiracy from whitey.
people like him give Black people a very racist image.

Re:I am shocked!

[Anonymous Coward]

Its because Sri Lanka and Indonesia have fewer niggers than New Orleans. HTH

Re:Hardly. Bush had to tell 'em to evacuate

[Guppy06]

"And why hasn't the media picked up on the story of how utterly incompenent the folks in charge of New Orleans are?"

Dude, it's Louisiana. Widespread croneyism and nepotism, deep-seated coruption... for Louisiana, especially New Orleans, this is not news.

A few years back, umpteen term governor (for life) Edwin G. Edwards finally got sentenced on federal corruption charges, sending him up the river to Texas. The most his supporters can say is "Yeah, he was crooked, but he didn't do that particular bit of crookedness." The only reason he's not still governor is newly-enacted term limits in the state's consitution.

Ever heard of him? Of course not. "Dog bites man" doesn't make the newspapers.

Saying the folks in the federal government aren't as bad as Louisiana isn't exactly a good defense, and certainly isn't flattering. If anything, it damages the federal government for being compared to Louisiana.

" There's no trucks to move it around and the roads are blocked anyway, and the people can't get to where the supplies are."

Again, this is Louisiana. Boudreaux can get on out there in his pirot (which happens fairly often, considering all the flooding the area gets). This would be a great application for the "brown water" Navy we don't seem to have.

Re:The Red Cross is questionable in its effectiven

[johansalk]

Who should I donate to if not the Red Cross? would you suggest a "trustworthy charity" please?

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[Anonymous Coward]

After 9/11, it was 3 days before the president visited the site.

After the levee broke this week, it took 3 days before the president visited the site.

Although he was harshly criticized both times, there's another thing to consider... in the hours and days immediately following the disaster, shouldn't he let the local officials do their jobs instead of giving them the additional burden of dealing with presidential security?

So perhaps he should have waited a few days after Charley. But then he would have been criticized for waiting too long. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
New Orleans was a special case in that the city government, which should have been handling the situation, simply collapsed within hours. So then the question becomes, "should the federal government be able to take control over a city at the drop of a hat?" Though it may have helped in this situation, we need to think about the possible implications of that...

Re:Don't forget some the best tech working - the h

[frank_adrian314159]

Let us not forget all the ham radio operators who have been working continuously since even before the hurricane made land fall...

Don't worry. After we get BPL crammed down our airwaves they can all take a nice long rest. Not to be opportunistic, but I hope that the Hams are taking this opportunity to make sure the FCC knows they are helping here and the fact that if equipment is unusable during times of non-emergency, it's unlikely to be there when another emergency hits. BPL is a really stupid idea and I hope that this will wake the idiots up who think it's just the cat's PJs.

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[unitron]

"He is dragging his heels because he can't stand helping poor people."

Well how can you expect him to have any sympathy for people who are committing the unpardonable sin of being poor? :-)

The coast has taken one in the shorts-Grab Bag

[Anonymous Coward]

"Uhh, the readers of a 'tech news' site maybe? Or at least the Linux fanboxen in the readership."

A group who's fondest wish is to be "taken in the shorts".

Salvation Army

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

The Salvation Army is famous for being cost-effective.

The straight dope...

[JRHelgeson]

So, let me get this straight about Nagin and his expletive filled rant today. This moron of a mayor can't get his city evacuated or prepared in 3 days BEFORE the storm hits and the levees break but everyone is supposed to come from around the country and do it in 20 minutes after the place is broken by the storm and floods?

This is what passes for 'leadership' in that city (which by all reports was barely under control in the best of times)?

Disgusting. I think Nagin's performance leading up to this is boarder line criminal. I bet in the aftermath we are going to find a lot of money that was supposed to be used for disaster preparedness went 'missing'.

It is very important that the country be able to distinguish Democratic blather from reality after this calms down. As far as I can see, Bush and the feds did everything by the book, as soon as danger was coming. The mayor of N.O. did absolutely NOTHING to prepare for this.

Drudge is currently showing a parking lot full of flooded school buses. Why weren't they sent through neighborhoods to pick people up? Why was the Superdome not stocked with at least minimal supplies? I have no answer, but I think when this is analyzed that the local government will be the culprit. But for now, the Dems are going to make every effort to make Bush look bad. Political posturing during a tradgedy is something I find simply disgusting.

All I have heard on the news is blaming the Feds for slow response to New Orleans.

But the preparation and execution of an evacuation of New Orleans in the event of such a disaster (which has ALWAYS been a possibility... a known issue) lies squarely on the municipal and state government... not the Feds.

It's so easy for the N.O. mayor and the LA governor to blame the Feds. It takes the spotlight off them and their incompetence. Just compare their preparation and response to other cities like NYC, SanFran and LA to their disasters.

But... eventually, a post mortem on all this will occur... and I think the N.O. mayor and the LA governor's incompetence will come into full view.

In the meantime, the Feds have basically taken over Louisiana and New Orleans... as they have no effective, competent government.

When Northridge earthquake took place; did everyone sit around waiting for the feds to come rescue them? Hell no, people pulled together and helped each other. In NOLA, people pulled together and... helped themselves to some new shoes and whatever else they could get their hands on. Now we're going to see endless news reels of these "poor helpless criminals" who "couldn't help themselves".

The RED CROSS has said that they're holding back on delivering food until they have adequate armed escorts to protect them going into this war zone.

Re:The straight dope...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, this is just how a lot (not all) of the deep south operates. Make huge mistakes...cover it up with political maneuvering later. Just like the I-26 development in SC...years after a miserably failed evacuation of the coast there.

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[stupidfoo]

Everything you read in the news is true! And correct! Especially when it's a politician trying to attack Chimpy McBushHaliburtonHitler!

The fact is was it was in the Gulf of Mexico. Whether you want to come to grips with that is your decision. See the link from the other response. This isn't something that is even open to debate.

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[stupidfoo]

That is perhaps the most worthless argument ever. The planning for "D-Day" did not start on "A-Day".

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[stupidfoo]

Yes, they had advanced warning. That's why Bush personally called the Louisiana governor and asked her to evacuate New Orleans.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco, standing beside the mayor at a news conference, said President Bush called and personally appealed for a mandatory evacuation for the low-lying city, which is prone to flooding.

The commander of the Army Corps of Engineers says even if certain water and flood-control projects in New Orleans had been fully funded, they would have been no match against Hurricane Katrina.

Live audio stream of radio traffic

[leighklotz]

This is the live audio stream from the West Gulf ARES Emergency Net which is handling emergency amateur radio traffic for areas hit by Hurricane Katrina. The net is active 24 hours per day.

Let me get this straight...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bush called the governor and said "you should do something about this"?

That was his disaster recover plan?

Wow.

I had no idea the kind of resources he dispatched prior to the incident. I mean, some presidents might have sent down about a 1000 buses to help, but that would only clutter the road. No, Bush made a phone call.

I hope that didn't take him away from his vacation for too long. After all, the guy is under constant pressure with the Iraqi thingy going on and the gas thingy going on and the N. Korean thingy going on, or that weirdo woman always complaining about her dead son.

Why, its enough to make a man drink or start snorting cocaine!

MOD PARENT DOWN - OVERRATED

[NMZNMZNMZ]

Get over yourself. This is a TECH NEWS SITE. I don't come here to learn about what's going on down in Louisiana. I come here to learn about what's going on in the world if IT. The world of computers. The world of Linux. The world of Microsoft, C++, GCC, AMD, Intel... COMPUTERS. Sure, what's going on down there is sad, but I still have a life that I plan on living. This life involves reading /. for TECH NEWS.

tl;dr Get off your high horse.

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN - OVERRATED

[Anonymous Coward]

>>This life involves reading /. for TECH NEWS.

And you call that "A LIFE"?

Jesus!

Hams

[Mark_MF-WN]

Ah, Hams -- the geeks' geeks. Could we love 'em more?

As far as communications go, it would be nice if the feds had real mechanisms and contingency plans in place for ensuring communications during disasters. But given that the US wont be giving in to such dangerously socialist ideas anytime soon, thank god for hams going to such great lengths to help.

Corps

[Mark_MF-WN]

Agreed. Corporate charity is nice when it happens, but it absolutely can't be counted on in any way. Social support has to be provided by either the government (reliable but inefficient) or by well-funded non-profit societies (unreliable but much more fiscally efficient). Corporations should just be relied on to do what they do best -- generate wealth. Assuming that they'll do ANYTHING else is foolish and naive.

Sahana

[rediguana]

Just want to plug a project that I've become involved in that was started during response to the recent earthquake and tsunami in Asia. In Sri Lanka, they built web server applications to manage victim information and many other aspects of disasters.

We're now restarting from scratch with proper planning to develop disaster management software for the (L)AMP platform. We're currently going through design and prototyping.

This sort of FOSS is really needed as there is currently nothing like it that we have found. If you are interested in helping develop this software, please visit the Sahana project page and sign up to help!

http://sahana.sourceforge.net/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/sahana/

MOD THIS UP PLEASE

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's how to donate:

RED CROSS
Online:
https://give.redcross.org/?hurricanemasthead

Phone:
Call
1-800-HELP-NOW
(1-800-435-7669)
English speaking

Call
1-800-257-7575
Spanish Speaking

Call
1-800-220-4095
For TDD Operator

SALVATION ARMY
Online:
http://www.salvationarmyusa.org/USNSAHome.htm

Phone:
1-800-SAL-ARMY

In Person:
Visit your local Wal-Mart or Sam's Club to donate to The Salvation Army's Hurricane Katrina relief effort.

I'm posting anonymously. I don't want your mod points. I don't care about your politics. I don't even care if you live in the US. I want this MODDED UP because these people desprately need your help! I want us to slashdot the funds to help these people. Katrina's damage in money is estimated at over $100 billion. The toll in lives is so much higher. Let's save as many as we can. HELP NOW, PLEASE!

If you can actually transport people or supplies, I beg you to offer to drive your bus, semi, or even pickup truck for one of these organizations. If you have supplies to donate, any and everything you can offer is appreciated. They need water, food, clothes, medicine, and sanitary items. If you want to help with money, give money, don't buy supplies. These organizations can bypass many of the local consumer markups. If you have a business, allow your customers to donate somehow at the checkout. Ask your employer if they can donate anything.

Please re-post this information to your friends, e-mail lists, companies you work with, and websites your frequent. Put the donation links in this post in your signatures.

There is also something else you can give that is very precious right now. Give them hope. If you have any contact with those affected, such as a member of the press or a telephone, let them know:

YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN!

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[demachina]

So this would suggest it would take a staggering large number of soldiers to restore ordering in a city of .... I dunno .... maybe the size of Baghdad .... or maybe the whole country of Iraq. How exactly is the military keeping a lid on an entire country with 130,000 soldiers. You might retort the Iraqis are helping well there are at best 100,000 of them and they are badly trained, motivated and their ranks are filled with spies and saboteurs.

The Army invaded all of Iraq and in particular Baghdad which is a huge city with millions of armed residents in the middle of a shooting war with at most 3 times the force you are saying is necessary to contain one smallish American city which is at this point mostly empty. How come? Your numbers really don't add up. Of course we know Baghdad and Iraq descended in to anarchy too, the entire country was looted and it set the stage for the flourishing insurgency there is still there today.

There seems to be a trend. This administration does anarchy and looting EXTREMELY well.

You heard it here 1st.......

[Anonymous Coward]

LSUMC and associated units have ordered 50,000 body bags for New Orleans dead - Know that they can fill 11,000 as of afternoon of 9/2/2005

No, Bush had to yell at the Gov of Louisiana

[Anonymous Coward]

Read this, dumbass:

http://www.nola.com/newsflash/louisiana/index.ssf? base/news-18/1125239940201382.xml&storylist=louisi ana

Gov. Kathleen Blanco, standing beside the mayor at a news conference, said President Bush called and personally appealed for a mandatory evacuation for the low-lying city, which is prone to flooding.

This story is dated Sunday - the day before the hurricane hit. Why isn't this being played on CNN?

Re:No, Bush had to yell at the Gov of Louisiana

[silverkniveshotmail.]

George W (as in winner!) Bush finished a hard day of work on sunday with a telephone call informing the mayor of New Orleans to evacuate. All the mayor had to do was get every single of the 469,000 residents that were still hanging out there in a day great how the AC's are most commonly the ones calling people dumbasses.

The transportation infrastructure was under water

[Anonymous Coward]

I think between Monday and Wednesday security and emergency relief should have been swarming into Louisiana

You "think"?!?!? That's certainly a self-serving exaggeration.

Just how the hell were all the security and relief workers to get to New Orleans anyway? Roads were blocked, bridges destroyed, airports submerged.

And how often have you been involved in the mobilization of tens of thousands of people to be able to tell us all how long it should take to do such a mobilization and then move them thousands of miles in come cases to actually get to New Orleans. For some reason, I suspect your answer to that is "zero"?

Please, do us all a favor and grow a brain - maybe then you will be able to "think". Because you sure as shit can't do it now.

This on top of the mayor and the governor delaying ordering an evacuation until Bush told them to do so - they waited until only one day before Katrina hit despite the whole world knowing how powerful the storm was.

And you totally ignored the part about the feds not being in power. The blame for the tragedy lies entirely with the pols in Louisiana. When Florida got hit by three powerful hurricanes in succession last year, none of this crap happened despite the rapid-fire progrssion of multiple hurricanes. Same feds, but different state.

But of course saying all that doesn't make political points for Bush-bashing.

Belleweather - MOD PARENT UP...

[Mad_Rain]

Thanks for the excellent summary of the history of New Orleans. While I'm throwing in a "me too!" response, I'd also add that the people on slashdot who are suggesting that we bulldoze New Orleans are failing to realize how important that infrastructure was to the economy as a whole, let alone the value of the human life that lived in that city. They were a major part of the country's agriculture and gas/oil distrobution network - something that just simply can't be packed up and rebuilt somewhere else.

While I'm ranting, I'd love to see a point-by-point comparison between the president's handling of this hurricane with the previous major hurricane in Florida last year. It still seems like a tremendous mismanagement of the situation when previously it seemed like the country could handle it.

Re:Belleweather - MOD PARENT UP...

[Doc Ruby]

How about a comparison between Bush watching the National Guard and military take a WEEK to trickle into New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf, and his swift action authorizing the National Guard and military to mount yet another assault in Iraq? Where he announced the "end of major combat operations" two years ago.

How about a comparison of the despair of New Orleanians with the smirking fratboy showing up for his 1 minute photo-op in an airport miles from the city:

"I believe that the great city of New Orleans will rise again and be a greater city of New Orleans. (Applause.) I believe the town where I used to come from, Houston, Texas, to enjoy myself -- occasionally too much -- (laughter) -- will be that very same town, that it will be a better place to come to."

Ask New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin to compare Bush's priorities.

How about a comparison between Bush's America in 2006, 2007, 2008, when disaster #3, "Giant California Earthquake" hits, and OUR America, after he's impeached, resigned, any way to get this miserable failure out of the critical path of administering our country?

We need to demand that the government mobilize the Homeland Security we've spent $BILLIONS on, sacrificed our rights for, to protect us, mobilize it INSTANTLY. We need to send help, money and time, to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, to save these people from the government that let them down, that abandoned our people when we needed it. We need to fire every one of our representatives in the House of Representatives next year, in November 2006, when they're all up for reelection, and the Senate - where 1/3 is up for reelection, if they did not do what they could to fight the neglect and demented failure to plan and assist the mitigation of this total disaster. After the criminals who built this house of cards now collapsed in New Orleans are fired, we need them to prosecute the impeachment of Bush, Cheney (where the hell is he, anyway?), Homeland Security's Chertoff, FEMA's Michael Brown, Army Corps of Engineers' boss Rumsfeld, Grand Inquisitor Gonzales, and the rest of the gang of preoccupied thugs. The worst of them deserve jail, even the traitor's noose. As for Bush himself, only suicide by slow torture could begin to approximate "justice" for his crimes. But getting him and his dynasty out of control is absolutely the least that could possibly be adequate.

Re:Hardly. Bush had to tell 'em to evacuate

[Anonymous Coward]

As part of the Patriot Act, Bush Nationalized disaster response. According to that act, from August 31 onwards FEMA was in charge.

Who knows what the political and bureaucratic motives for that were, they might range from a petty bureaucratic power grab to the modern Republican's communistic type instinct to centralize everything to an attempt to label the NYC local response as inadaquate. The bureaucratic motive is the most likely as we now know today that the Patriot Act was written years before 9/11, and had been waiting for an oportune moment to pass it.

But regardless of that, if you take over the problem you are responsible for the result.

It may not have been logistically possible to move that many carless and medically immobile people out of N.O. even if they had started evacuating two days earlier. However, rounding up people stuffing them into a make-shift concentration camp filled with feces, rapists, possibly murders, and rotting bodies of the sick and then denying them exit at gun point is not American. Well, maybe we did that to some Indians back in the day. Regardless, if a disaster hits YOUR city tomorrow, are you going to show up at the official FEMA refugee site ?

Two Americas

[Doc Ruby]

Check out some comparisons by CNN between cheerful government status reports and apocalytic reality. Even if Bush surfed a professional response in better-funded, whiter Florida for his brother Jeb's mediagenic benefit, I wonder just how many people just curled up and died there, too. Without the media consensus that the storms were a catastrophe to which top newscasters must be sent, despite ruining their Labor Day weekend, how much critical coverage would they apply to Florida's hurricanes? So how much failure in Florida never got on TV? If FEMA director Michael Brown can lie to the cameras about New Orleans and Katrina, when everyone's screaming bloody murder, why expect them to do anything but lie easily about Florida?

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[squiggleslash]

To be sarcastic, well, in that case, what's the fuss? Katrina, as I recall, didn't hit New Orleans at all (there were some strong gusts that caused a little bit of damage here and there, but it wasn't in the center of the storm, so there can't possibly be any kind of disaster there. Right?

The problem right now is that by Sunday afternoon it was obvious that there was going to be a serious problem in that area of the country. Even if National Guard troops weren't going to be sent there right away, you'd have wanted them on standby, ready to send. I know this in part because I checked NOAA that day, was absolutely horrified to see a storm that was an extremely strong category 5 (so strong that if there was a category 6, based upon the usual 20mph steps that separate the other categories, this would have been a cat 6), and posted a JE.

You don't have to be a liberal to know that Louisiana had to be prepared for the worst then then or even earlier. A new meme that's spreading in right wing blogs is that the mayor should have started evacuating the city on (Saturday/Sunday) using fleets of schoolbusses that are, today, sitting in water. There are logistical problems with that "solution", obviously. Some of it's a matter of getting fuel, drivers, and places to go. Some of it is that, as you and I as people that have lived through this before (you said in another post you live in Florida, I live in Stuart - Frances made landfall 15 miles south of here, Jeanne made landfall here) know, a huge proportion of the public simply wouldn't have left. They'd have wanted to stay behind or stay close so that they can get back to their homes as quickly as possible once the danger subsided. But, the point is, operational planning (ie getting the resources mobilized) for this disaster should have started last weekend. Not on Wednesday. And creating the plans for this disaster should, of course, been done a long time ago.

So the five days comment is perfectly reasonable.

I compare LA to FL last year and see a massive difference both in scale and in preparedness. I appreciate the scale means they can't be that easily compared, but at the same time, I sincerely believe the LA horrors were more easily predictable than anything that happened here. The LA "scenario" was always going to be the same regardless of how you looked at it. Levies would be breached. The lower part of the city would flood. If you were very unlucky, there'd be a full scale hurricane occuring at the time of the breach. If you were increadibly unlucky, most residents would be at home at the time of the breach. Neither of these scenarios actually came to pass, which is why it baffles me that the country is unable to secure a mostly evacuated city and ensure those that are left, who are in a handful of centralized locations, receive the food, water, hygene, and care they need.

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[mc6809e]

You don't have to be a liberal to know that Louisiana had to be prepared for the worst then then or even earlier.

I don't think they were. The Governor even admitted that it was George Bush that phoned her and asked her to call for a mandatory evacuation. From an article published here:

The mayor called the order unprecedented and said anyone who could
leave the city should. He exempted hotels from the evacuation order
because airlines had already cancelled all flights.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco, standing beside the mayor at a news
conference, said President Bush called and personally appealed for
a mandatory evacuation for the low-lying city, which is prone to
flooding.

If you're the Mayor or the Governor and your city is about to get smashed, you don't wait for the president to tell you to get the hell out of there. These people had information available to them, if they were paying attention Friday, that the city was in trouble, yet waited until George Bush asked them to declare a mandatory evacuation. Imagine that: George Bush had more clue than they did, apparently. That by itself proves they're idiots.

A new meme that's spreading in right wing blogs is that the mayor should have started evacuating the city on (Saturday/Sunday) using fleets of schoolbusses that are, today, sitting in water. There are logistical problems with that "solution", obviously. Some of it's a matter of getting fuel, drivers, and places to go. Some of it is that, as you and I as people that have lived through this before (you said in another post you live in Florida, I live in Stuart - Frances made landfall 15 miles south of here, Jeanne made landfall here) know, a huge proportion of the public simply wouldn't have left.

And yet someone actually did take a school bus and drove 100 people to Houston -all without needed the Mayor's or the Governor's or the president's say-so.

So you go ahead and ridicule the idea of using school buses to evacuate, but there were some people that took the idea seriously are are better for it. If one kid can steal a bus and carry 100 people to safety, then it must be possible for the government of New Orleans to have done the same in an organized way.

Over 200 buses were available. With 100 people on each bus, that's 20,000 that could have gotten out.

So the five days comment is perfectly reasonable.

No. It was a lie by congresspeople trying to score political points. And it's an easy lie to detect since it's well documented that Katrina was still in Mississippi Tuesday morning. That means there was about 3 days, not 5 days, delay.

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[squiggleslash]

So you agree with me that the preparations should have started by Sunday, but then claim it's a lie to score political points?

Give me one good reason why I shouldn't foe you.

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[mc6809e]

So you agree with me that the preparations should have started by Sunday, but then claim it's a lie to score political points?

Your original comment:

Have you watched the news at all? All people questioning the slow federal response make mention of the 5 days.

And the quote of the congresscritters you cited:

``Why is it that five days after hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast many of our fellow Americans are still without food and water, living in squalor in dangerous, inhumane conditions?'' the statement said. "

The response was not 5 days after the storm, as I proved. And preparations for and event are not the same thing as the response to an event. The event was still occuring on Tuesday as I also showed.

And yeah, I agree preparations should have been done sooner. And guess what: they were. FEMA was already beginning to move resources into place Saturday and Sunday.

The only people not preparing, apparently, were the Mayor and Governor.

So my answer to your question is yes and yes. Preparation should have been done before the storm, as FEMA did and New Orleans did not, and yes, the congresspeople lied to score political points by implying that the storm had been over for 5 days. It had actually only been over for about 3 days if by "over" we mean "finished wrecking Mississippi" (sometime Tuesday morning).

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[squiggleslash]

After 9/11, it was 3 days before the president visited the site.

After the levee broke this week, it took 3 days before the president visited the site.

Are you shitting me?

The President hasn't "visited the site". He's flown over it.

After 9/11, after 3 days (in which time Bill Clinton had flown in from New Zealand and gotten to New York City and done his visit a day before Bush had), Bush actually stood on a pile of rubble and made a speech to applauding locals.

After Frances, he flew in and helped his brother distribute water and ice (a photoshoot, to be sure) in Fort Pierce. Many locals were just glad of the water.

The man cannot visit New Orleans. He cannot go to the Convention Center and distribute food and water. There aren't enough secret servicemen in the country to ensure his safety in that environment. People were willing to buy the myth of Bush the Leader in 2001. The victims of this latest tragedy cannot feel the same way.

Although he was harshly criticized both times, there's another thing to consider... in the hours and days immediately following the disaster, shouldn't he let the local officials do their jobs instead of giving them the additional burden of dealing with presidential security?

First, don't lie. He wasn't "harshly criticised" for visiting either. He was criticised for his lack of response to 9/11, arriving well after Bill Clinton who wasn't even in the FUCKING COUNTRY when Atta and his fellow religious wackos attacked. But that's the exact opposite of what you're suggesting.

Secondly, you help by offering help. If you see someone in the street suffering a heart attack, you don't wait to see if they have a defibulator. Nobody has proposed that the President should have gone to LA, and take direct charge of the situation. But that doesn't mean there's nothing the President could have done.

The President, at the very least, should have ensured the resources necessary were on stand-by. They weren't on Sunday when it was know that this was going to be a serious storm. They weren't on Monday when the storm hit and the first wave of catastrophic damage hit LA, Mississippi, and Alabama. They weren't on Tuesday, when Katrina's rain finally caused the levies to break. They weren't on Wednesday when the scale of the disaster became obvious to everyone.

We need a new President. LA needs a new governor. I'd say New Orleans needs a new mayor, but frankly it's too late for that. FEMA's Director should also quit or be fired. If any of these people have any decency, they'll finish the job, as best as they can, and then do the honourable thing.

There is no excuse for what just happened.

Community Wireless Network Infastructure

[mailseth]

The project that I'm working on now, CUWiN (Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network), would be useful in setting up the last-mile network down there.

Here is the home page:
http://cuwireless.net/

Here is the latest documentation (that I am working on, tell me how you like it):
http://pricepages.org/temp/doco_outline.html

Warning: It's not even beta quality yet...

Internet Storm Center has a coverage suspicio list

[jjMick]

SANS ISC has list about suspicious domain names with descriptions collected by their handler team and volunteer readers. There are about 250 domains including words hurricane, disaster, Katrina, victims, help, donate etc. at http://isc.sans.org/katrina.com.txt . Some of these sites was used to fake donations. Now ISPs have killed those raudulent websites, ISC reported recently at http://isc.sans.org/diary.php?date=2005-09-03 Diary.

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[Anonymous Coward]

The mayor is in way over his head. He's very emotional, but totally unqualified for the job.

Saw this on the Drudge Report:

WHY DIDN'T YOU DEPLOY THE BUSES DURING THE MANDATORY EVACUATION, MAYOR?...

Louisiana disaster plan, pg 13, para 5 , dated 01/00

'The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles. School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating'...

Methinks the mayor's emotional rantings now are just his way of covering up his incompetence. People DIED because of this man's ignorance. He should be held accountable!

Re:if you were in school in NOLA - a resource (fix

[WillAffleckUW]

thanks ...I was in law school 2nd year...but at the moment just looking for immediate work, location does not matter, although in law school highly proficient in computer system management with linux and winblows as well.

They specifically mentioned law school for both the UW and SU locally. Assume the same goes for many other fine law schools.

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Over 200 buses were available. With 100 people on each bus, that's 20,000 that could have gotten out."

That was only ONE parking lot shown in the photo. In reality there were several THOUSAND buses available. There are about 100 city schools in New Orleans and about 100 more in the parish.

Only 200 buses? Think about that one again. And then add in the buses from the transit system, and the buses from churches and volunteer organizations. In short, there were enough buses available to evacuate nearly everybody who had no way of their own to get out. IF the IDIOT mayor had just started earlier and used them!!!

Re:Where are the Guardsmen?

[GreyWolf3000]

Your post is so subjective and devoid of fact that I can't possibly begin to describe how illogical and unsubstantiated it is. You've made sweeping judgements about the character of Republicans that you just cannot back up.

Here's a clue: not wanting the federal government to aid the poor does not equate to believing that aiding the poor is a sin. While someone might believe both of those statements, it would take a lot of evidence to convince me that Bush specifically agrees with both of them. I'm not even sure he believes the first.

You embrace your views as dogmatically as Pat Robertson. I advise that you begin to look at all things critically. Skepticism is a virtue. Don't believe everything you hear. Look at the evidence and draw your own conclusions. Don't be a sheep.