"Youre going to be dealing with the emotional damage of covering this tragedy for a long, long time. For now, dont let your personal hardships -- as powerful as they are -- affect your storytelling. Keep it in your mind, though, to get help later -- and as soon as possible. Im still dealing with personal fallout from the Murrah bombing, yet I knew not one person who died. Covering massive tragedies never leaves you." [again from Poynter Online]
02 September 2005
who failed New Orleans?
"'Politics may have failed the people of New Orleans. Politicians certainly failed them. They may have failed themselves by not demanding better. But their newspaper and other important segments of the American press did not fail them.'" [from the incomparable Poynter Online]
do your part
Liberal Blogs for Hurricane Relief... $115,926 collected so far... making steady progress towards the goal of $1Million
katrina vs camille
"This one sucker-punched us and made Camille look like a thunderstorm."[Q&A with mayor of Gulfport, MS]
notes from the frontlines
[Eye Of The Storm: Gulfport, MS] 1) For all those concerned with people and property south of the CSX railroad tracks, everything that we have heard and seen so far is that destruction is near total. For property, assume that it does not exist anymore. If it does, it is uninhabitable and probably missing most walls and/or roof. For people, hope that they moved further inland or to a shelter. Otherwise, they were probably swimming. 2) Between railroad and Pass Road in Harrison county- The rock fill that the tracks sat on acted as a berm. It slowed the surge, but did not contain it in many areas. Expect extensive flooding damage (in some places above the roof line). 3) North of Pass Road or 90. The surge did not get that far inland. Still many reports of flooding damage from rain and rising bayous/ waterways. Also expect wind damage. 4) North of I-10- seems to have faired relatively well. This does not apply to Bay St Louis, which sounds like it was leveled like the places south of the railroad tracks. It also sounds like Picayune got hit very hard. Water is coming back in some places. If you are in contact with people down here tell them DO NOT DRINK THE WATER. Several tons of frozen chicken was ejected from Gulfport docks into the water and surrounding communities. Also, at least 1,000 pounds of shrimp went into the water at D'Iberville. Both of those will release harmful bacteria into the water when they decay. There are also the bodies of people and animals in Mississippi Sound. Though this is not the drinking water supply, contamination of aquifers are possible. Also, broken mains have allowed foreign substances into the municipal water supply. Try not to flush toilets. As far as I know right now, very little power is being generated and sewage systems need electricity to power their pumps. Sewage will back up.
NG pours into Louisiana
"Thousands of National Guardsmen with food, water and weapons streamed into Louisiana on Friday to bring relief to New Orleans' suffering multitudes and put down the looting and violence. 'The cavalry is and will continue to arrive,' said one general. The assurances came amid blistering criticism from the mayor and others who said the federal government had bungled the relief effort and let people die in the streets for lack of food, water or medicine.Full Story"[from The Terrorism Research Center]
on the importance of forcing the Pak government to be truthful
"Pakistan Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Sherpao has said that so far no evidence linking any Pakistani religious party to extremism has been found" [we believe you]
on the importance of enforcing moderation at Pak madrassas
Pakistan's radical Islamist party Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam (JUI) was one of the several organisations in the country that had direct links with international terror outfit al Qaeda [full story here]
unsettling
As in all "natural" disasters, a far-from-natural logic asserted itself: Those who had the least to begin with stood to lose the most [full story: Katrina Exposes Racism]
01 September 2005
newsflash: terrorism is sexy, hurricanes aren't
The Independent Weekly: Disaster in the making
"If you talk to FEMA people and emergency management people around the country, people have almost been hoping for a major natural disaster like a hurricane, just to remind DHS and the administration that there are other big things--even bigger things than al Qaeda. 'This is an exposed nerve in the emergency management community, in the sense that resources have been shifted away from hurricanes, tornados and other kinds of disasters--the kind of disasters that are more likely to occur than terrorism."
hurricane katrina exposed the wounds
to FEMA, caused by DHS... and the residents of New Orleans are suffering mightily because of it.
staggers the imagination
I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did anticipate a serious storm. But these levees got breached. And as a result, much of New Orleans is flooded. And now we are having to deal with it and will. - George W. Bush, today on Good Morning America
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