Tired

Visited a friend's place in Lakeview today as she opened her doors for the first time to see what she could salvage. Be thankful that the wonderful smell that came from this place can't be transmitted via e-mail. Just walking into the place for 10 seconds puts this "stink" on you that you can't get off. It's bad.

Pictures:
http://www.mikeperrymedia.com/xib/20050929-kat/

Interestingly enough, the second floor was fine. But the first floor of the place was decimated. I don't think anybody has to worry about looting. The muck this crap has been simmering in is so vile it's just not worth even touching.

More tidbits:

FEMA SIGNS SWEETHEART DEAL WITH THE LOVE BOAT: FEMA recently signed a cushy
$236-million, six-month no-bid contract with Carnival Cruise lines to house
evacuees on ships. The half-filled ships are now anchored in the Mississippi
River and Mobile Bay. If you do the math on the contract, even if you had the
ships filled to capacity with 7,116 evacuees, the price per evacuee works out
to about $1,275 a week. Compare that to the price of an actual seven-day
western Caribbean cruise out of Galveston, which costs a mere $599 a person
(and "that would include entertainment and the cost of actually making the
ship move.") In related news, hundreds of lobbyists, corporate
representatives, and would-be government contractors met yesterday on Capitol
Hill to figure out how to get their share of the federal largess. The
so-called "Katrina Reconstruction Summit" was hosted by Sen. Mel Martinez
(R-FL) and sponsored by -- surprise, surprise -- Halliburton.

http://www.recordonline.com/archive/2005/09/29/nobid29.htm

--

On another note, I am not sure I'm going to be writing/posting much any more. All this has taken its toll on me and I'm probably as tired of talking about it as you all are hearing about it. You think by running around and keeping busy it helps, but I'm not sure if just doesn't delay the inevitable and compound your problems with the problems of everyone else. In any case, I'm feeling that burden and I think I'm going to try to get away from it for awhile.

A good example of why I'm burning out is on Slashdot today, there's a story about some church group in Lincoln, Nebraska who is organizing a mission to the Gulf Coast area to help victims. They have publicized their little "humanitarian" trip, which is to happen in a few weeks and want advice on what people need. It's way late for groups like this to come down here and offer any substantive help and it just pisses me off because you know they're not coming down to help victims of this disaster; they're coming down here after the dust has settled to make themselves feel better about themselves. And Louisiana residents are the new little "Citizen Ruth" that these groups can exploit. It really pisses me off and I'm sick of it. I'm sick of the national charities coming down here whoring TV time and then leaving everyone hanging. I'm sick of CNN and FOX and MSNBC marginalizing the people of the South to sell advertising for Pfizer. I'm sick of the pseudo-humanitarian efforts which are rooted in selfishness. If these people want to help, they'll go to one of the shelters in Texas or Arkansas and help people who really need help. We don't need them coming down here getting in the way of things stroking themselves.

I'm sick of it all.

I'm sick of watching my friends pretend that everything's ok, even though they've lost everything.

I'm sick of coming up with thoughtful words of comfort to tell my friends that trailer living is fun and that change is good for the soul.

I'm sick of watching the never-ending battle between detached federal idiots arguing with embedded local leaders trying to help out their citizens.

I'm sick of hearing about people who spend six different nights on six different peoples' couches.

I'm sick of watching New Orleans' mayor Nagin show up at a T-shirt shop on Bourbon street telling the Vietnamese proprietors that "customers will show up soon."

I'm sick of the one Burger King that's open only offering Combos number #1, #2 and #9. I'm sick that I'm actually admitting I ate at Burger King.

I'm sick of arrogant dumbasses proclaiming that since Ruth's Chris has moved corporate offices to Orlando, they'll never eat at the restaurant again.

I'm sick of breathing this air. I'm sick of showing credentials at checkpoints. I'm sick of having to watch TV to find out what time I have to be off the streets or else I'll be arrested.

I'm sick of partisian idiots from Kansas spamming Louisiana web sites with "impeach Blanco" propaganda.

I'm sick of seeing gun-totin' locals act as if this is the wild west.

I'm sick of the veiled racism that's inherent in the critiques of New Orleans' mayor's job. When he kicked ass and took care of his people.

I'm sick of the charity groups which have descended upon the city like roaches trying to exploit our suffering to pad their coffers.

I'm sick of caring, when I'm surrounded by so much phony superficiality.

I'm sick of feeling like I am not a "New Orleanean" when I worked on staff at Jazzfest for ten+ years, the world's fair of '84, Pontchartrain Beach, played in bands and performed everywhere from the Superdome to Jimmy's, HOB and the Saenger, graduated from Brother Martin, attended University of New Orleans; my grandmother was a teacher at John Mcdonough and my grandfather worked at Lykes, and my whole family has been ingrained here... and I still feel like a total outsider.

I'm sick of seeing the desolation. I'm sick of seeing "grey grass." I'm sick of having an opinion on what's wrong with things when nobody seems to give a damn. I'm sick of feeling that if I have anything critical to say, there's a contingent of loud-mouthed locals who think I need to leave.

I'm sick that while you might not find a place to stay, you can still get pot, coke and X.

I'm sick that I have been cursed with not having my house destroyed, so I get to have the ambiguity of my future spread out across the next three to six months to find out if half my clients will pay me and whether or not I'll be in business.

I am sick of it all. That's what I get for trying to be a trooper. I should have known.

It's time for me to sign off. I thank you all for listening to me and I wish everyone well.

- M

Mismanagement

A hot sunny day today in the city. The relief station on Airline is now closed down. That's unfortunate, but they stopped giving out MREs awhile ago, in favor of shrink-wrapped junk food, and with all the local businesses slowly starting to go back online, I guess it was time. Outback and Chevy's are open so there are finally places to sit down and eat, and probably in another week, things will be even more city-like.

Today Mayor Nagin cracked a good joke in his press conference. When asked about why he was making it difficult for people to enter the city, he responded, "We have the lowest crime rate we've ever had and I want to keep it that way." The audience of reporters erupted into laughter, at which point some lesser politician had to point out to everyone who was already aware it was a joke, that this is because the city is empty. Some people still don't get it. Nagin is much smarter than anyone else around.

There's still debris everywhere; no significant mail service (I seem to be getting new mail but more than a month's worth of old mail has DISAPPEARED), no trash pickup and problems here and there, but it's even worse further into New Orleans. As I drive around the city there are boats all over the place: on the edge of the interstate, in parking lots, and huge piles of debris, twisted metal and trees strewn about. Clean-up is coming along, but even a month later, the place still looks like a bomb went off.

However, the bigger bomb... Hurricane FEMA, continues to spread its devastation (and now) misinformation... check THIS OUT: This is a big story that the mainstream hasn't grabbed yet.


While everyone points fingers at state, local and federal authorities regarding how things went wrong in the Hurricane disaster planning, including claims by both FEMA and Bush that "nobody anticipated a disaster like this", truth is starting to seep out that this is complete BS. As the ex-FEMA director points fingers at the Louisiana Governor & others, insiders who were involved in the government's hurricane plan show who was really at fault.

The reality is, a company was contracted by FEMA to produce a new disaster-recovery plan for the almost exact situation presented by Hurricane Katrina. In their exercise, the now-infamous "Hurricane Pam" was the event which triggered deep analysis and logistical planning - a simulated storm which almost exactly took the path of Katrina. A project implemented by the federal government more than a year before Katrina hit involving dozens of agencies working together to figure out detailed, realistic plans on how to quickly rescue and restore the city. What went wrong? An insider posted a very revealing analysis of the project and points to FEMA as the main protagonist in making bold promises (and ultimately not delivering) during all stages, and even pulling funding in the final stages of the disaster recovery plans and causing things to potentially unravel after most of the hard work had been done.

Check it out here: The real deal...

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/9/9/192848/9052

So: Louisiana did have a hurricane plan, but was devising a new one, to be based on recommendation from the people who would actually be doing the work. The need to evacuate people from impact areas, including those without transportation or the means to obtain it, was discussed, despite media assertions to the contrary. The possibility of levee overflow was discussed (levee breaching may have been discussed at some point, but I was in the dewatering room, and I never heard it mentioned. A rescue and evacuation plan, including sheltering, was reasonably firm. There were and are officials in Louisiana, including New Orleans Emergency Management, who know the limitations of current planning and who have been trying to come up with a better solution.

The problem is FEMA, and by extension the Department of Homeland Security, which gobbled FEMA up in 2003. FEMA promised more than they could deliver. They cut off deeper, perhaps more meaningful discussion and planning by handing out empty promises. The plans that were made -- which were not given any sort of stamp of authority -- were never distributed or otherwise made available to those who most needed stable guidance; they vanished into the maw of FEMA and LOSHEP (probably when Col. Brown was removed from his command due to financial "irregularities" -- the project was tainted after that). Adoption of the National Incident Management System (NIMS) would have made most of the plans moot anyway -- FEMA's adherence to the untried NIMS is a primary reason for the chaos and ineptitude surrounding

their relief efforts.

---

More FEMA debacles... Let's say you have people in need and you're FEMA. What do you do? You close down the aid center because, um, there are too many people who need help??? WTF?

Saying they were caught off-guard by the number of people in need, FEMA (search) officials closed a relief center early on Wednesday after some of the hundreds of hurricane victims in line began fainting in triple-digit heat.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,170711,00.html

I really am not trying to beat up on FEMA but every time you turn around, this agency does something profoundly bone-headed. This administration is complete chaos when it comes to protecting its people.

FEMA = Federal Emergency MISMANAGEMENT Administration

Wasteful Charity

Interesting article on the Red Cross and how rich their executives are:

"Red Cross' Top Person: Marsha Evans

Top Salary:* $651,957 (FY ending 06/30/03)

Total Revenue FY ending 6/2003: $2,946,000,000"

There is no one, repeat no one, that is worth that kind of money let alone members of a charitable organizations who can't or won't fulfill even their mandate let alone are befitting of all that dough!

Just like days of old when all were duped into thinking that the kings where above others but finally when challenged to prove that they indeed were better than others they could not do it.

In this gloomy picture there yet may be glimmer of hope - naturally you will not hear much about this if at all....

"...One charity has stayed above all this for 137 years. The Salvation Army is unique among all U.S. charities for many reasons. Let

20mph

The beginning of a new week. More and more people are coming into town. More and more people are wheeling-and-dealing to get into restricted areas of the city -- most people are not having problems getting in, and are finding that there's not much to salvage.

The next few weeks should be even busier around here. We have people staying with us on-and-off as they come into town.

Many of us are feeling lots of stress. Even though things are seeming to return to normal, the parade of people coming and going, the invasion of so many contractors and other foreigners in the city, the weird sense of distorted, ambiguous authority has all of us on edge. Even though most traffic lights are lit, almost nobody obeys the speed limit or follows the rules. Everybody seems to sense that there is no traditional traffic enforcement going on. A sign on my street says "20mph even for maggots!" - I'm not sure exactly what that means, but the lady on the corner is apparently fed up with people speeding.

Three trips in and out of Orleans today... each time you go through a roadblock, it's slightly different... some loose, some uber tight. Took some interesting pictures including a humorous poke at FEMA:
http://www.mikeperrymedia.com/xib/20050927-kat/index.html

Nice pictures of the crashed helicopter at Bayou St. John, Airline Hwy at the Orleans Parish line where they've created a levee across the highway to stop water, some erie dark clouds from Hurricane Rita as it passed nearby, and various random shots of debris and destruction, including a friend's beautiful hard wood floors completely buckled and ruined...

Tidbits:

Monday, St Bernard Parish residents were allowed to enter their city in select areas. Unfortunately, the Parish, according to NOPD and the State Police, didn't coordinate things with New Orleans and when thousands of evacuees on I-10 were stopped at the Orleans Parish border, things got nasty. State police refused to let the people from Chalmette go through Orleans to get to their homes, citing the interstate was for emergency vehicles only. So the St. Bernard people blockaded all of I-10 and refused to let any traffic through until the authorities let them pass through New Orleans. Several hours later, they got their way. For awhile, it was a very tense scene.

249 New Orleans Police Department officers went AWOL during Hurricane Katrina. The department is trying to figure out how to impose some sort of punishment/investigation against the police officers who didn't serve during the crisis.

Video montage of press & president during Katrina:
http://www.bushflash.com/wmf/leadership.wmv

Through-provoking montage of the New Orleans disaster situation with music by Bruce Springsteen:
http://theunitedamerican.blogs.com/Movies/Myhometown.html


Five people in Beaumont are dead after they were discovered in an Apartment; authorities suspect they died from carbon monoxide poisoning after running a generator indoors. Ok, Louisianians are notorious for being stupid enough to try to outrun trains and getting hit, but even a Louisianian wouldn't be dumb enough to run a generator inside their house. Darwin winks.

Rain, Snow, Sleet, Hail - Don't Expect Service from the US Mail

We're battening down the hatches and hanging here for Hurricane Rita. Hopefully it will not turn east. You can watch the action in the area here:
http://webcam.icorp.net/
(provided we have power or the generator is working)

Apparently I'm not the only one who is noticing the abnormal amount of incompetence of the Feds in managing things. There's now a web site collecting stories:
http://femahorrorstories.blog-city.com/

However, I did get an e-mail from someone who was working the phone banks for FEMA and wasn't happy at my characterization of the organization.

Let me qualify this. I honestly feel for those who are "in the trenches". I've never personally met a FEMA rep who wasn't a really nice person who wanted to help others. Unfortunately, these aren't the people who make the decisions and create the multi-layered bureaucracy. There's an inherent, definitive, decline in the efficiency of any organization which is directly proportional to its size. If you don't believe me, go into any chain store and tell someone there you aren't happy about something. Watch their surprise... not because they're concerned about an unhappy client, but because they can't believe that you'd think they could give a damn.

If that agency is a government agency, double the inefficiency. One thing that bothers me is that government pay scales are tied to levels of formal education and not real-world experience. Someone fresh out of college kid who has a bachelors degree and works for the government will get paid more than someone who never graduated, but has 20 years of experience. In the government, the more you can keep yourself out of the real world and a regular career, the more money you can make.

So you FEMA people who may be helping out, you have my empathy. I know it's hard doing what you're doing. I know it's even harder because half the stuff you're telling hurricane victims is probably BS, but that's what you've been told to say.

Speaking of the government, I don't understand why the USPS continues to suspend mail service to many areas of the city that are now beginning to thrive. Remember that saying? "Rain, Snow, Sleet or Hail, nothing will stop the U.S. Mail?" In my area, we should have full mail service. There is no good reason. But we're lumped in with New Orleans proper in the 700xx zip code and we should have had mail service restored more than a week ago but we don't. A huge portion of the city is moved back in and rebuilding, but nobody can get any freakin' mail! One post office near by house seems to be open, and I dropped by the other day and it was like something out of M*A*S*H. You had a huge group of people in a big line asking if there was any mail for them. Seriously, it was like some sort of military mail call, where a carrier would yell out someone's name or address and people would shuffle around.

I can understand that some home delivery may be delayed, but I have a P.O. box at a very big, undamaged post office which has remained empty. I'm still waiting for this month's issue of Penthouse Forum dammit! (A big shout out to my good friend Xaviera Hollander, who has stayed in touch and been quite concerned about how things are going down here. I hope all is well in Amsterdam.)

On more positive notes, Cafe DuMonde opened up in Metairie, and having a beignet was just the medicine I needed to remind myself of some of the good things New Orleans has to offer. We decided to purchase a big quantity of beignets and drove them over to the national guard relief station and give them to the soldiers. I'm not sure these kids knew what a beignet was, but I think they definitely enjoyed them and we enjoyed doing something for them -- they've been doing a wonderful job of taking care of us. If you have a hankering for a beignet, you can make your own - our online shop for Cafe DuMonde is up and working at: http://shop.cafedumonde.com/

Which reminds me, I really want to do more for the guard troops who are in the area. They're working their butts off. If anyone has any ideas or things to donate you think they would appreciate, let me know and we'll figure out something to do. In the mean time, I'm going to keep bringing them beignets and other little local things I can get ahold of.

My friend Kim had an interesting theory on mother nature I thought I might share:

It occurred to me tonight, listening to CNN....Much of nature contains self-correcting systems. Natural forest fires clear out brush while sparing the larger trees, resulting in forests that are less susceptible to fires. Animals that reproduce too rapidly end up competing for limited resources, and eventually enough die from competition or starvation to reduce their numbers back to sustainable levels. You get the idea.

Now, our own over-indulgence in fossil fuels creates global warming. Global warning leads to melting ice caps and rising sea levels, and possibly more, or stronger, hurricanes. (There is some scientific disagreement about that, but bear with me. Rising sea levels alone would make even normally-occurring hurricanes more destructive by bringing storm surge closer to the coastal cities.)

So these hurricanes totally whack the offshore oil rigs and refineries in Texas and Louisiana, disrupting the supply of petroleum products and sending costs skyrocketing. Gas could go up to $4 or $5 a gallon, more if there are other problems down the line, like say more hurricanes next summer, or over the next decade, for which they are predicting more active hurricane seasons.

The high prices encourage conservation and make it much more desirable to investigate alternate energy sources. Maybe they actually make the most petroleum-guzzling country on the planet use less. And given enough time, perhaps that leads to the reduction of greenhouse gases and an end to global warming.

And the system corrects itself. The only drawback is all the extensive pain and suffering required to get things back on track, when we could have just decided to do it ourselves without being forced into it by scarcity and high prices. Unlike the multiplying rabbits or the tinderlike underbrush putting themselves at risk, we have the ability to plan ahead and change our actions when we see trouble coming...if we are smart enough to do it.

"Throw Me Something Mister"

The other day I sent out more info on the bizarre antics of the Feds. I honestly don't know what's up with them, and it might seem like I have some sort of chip on my shoulder. I'd like to report that there's a lot of good being done and things are getting better organized, but I'm not seeing it, and every day I hear more frustrated people complaining. This isn't some group of welfare moms bitching about how the system they've never paid into owes them a Jaguar. These are government officials, local responsible media, and other people trying to make things work, and getting stuck neck deep in a bureaucratic mire that most of us can't imagine how it could be created even if it was intentional. Honestly, I don't think you could create this much of an unorganized mess if you air-dropped a bunch of employment forms over a third-world country and randomly assigned them positions in the government.

I can understand the Feds newfound, "F-U" attitude towards media. There was a lot of shoddy journalism going around relating to the Katrina disaster, but this was 99% from the national news.. NOT the local stations. But the local stations are in the mire, as CNN and Fox have retreated and started regurgitating file footage, the locals are dealing with the fallout and venom exhibited towards them because of asshats like Fox and CNN who made it seem like New Orleans was overrun by mini-Malcolm-X's shooting at anything in uniform.

Police Chief, Eddie Compass came on TV today and confirmed that to date, there are only six known homicides that occurred during the Katrina evacuation, and that even he, after watching the news, was led to believe there was some kind of mass, gun-totin' anarchy going on in the city. This was not the case, but that didn't stop CNN and FOX from painting a different picture.

But I'm probably too hard on the mainstream network news. I know it's "hard work" combing through the throngs of evacuees in shelters to find the most illiterate, 400 pound, black woman with a half-dozen bastard children to interview as a representative of your typical New Orleanean affected by the hurricane.

The degree to which the national media portrays evacuees is obviously slanted. Here's an example from some person whom I don't know who had my missive forwarded to him:

Why should the Federal government give this person anything? I don't

understand why they all want HANDOUTS! Tell him to GET A JOB! If

something like Katrina happened to me, I'd be looking to get

licensed in whatever state I was in and starting up another company

or at least I'd take a job with an established EC. I certainly

wouldn't be trying to MOOCH off of the government! The government

doesn't have any money! That money comes from my pocket and your

pocket. This entire $2000 handout thing was stupid to begin with.

Hell, most of the people are wasting it anyway! It needs to stop

ASAP!

The only thing the FED and FEMA will cover is the rebuilding of

infrastructure. It's TOO BAD that so many from New Orleans are

totally indigent and expect to be spoon fed for the rest of their

lives! Tell Mike (whoever he is) to stop his tantrums and GET A

FREAKIN' JOB!

Someone once said, and I hope you know who it was: "Ask not what

your country can do for you, but ASK WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR YOUR

COUNTRY"!

Get off of your ASS, MIKE, and GET A JOB!

Obviously this person doesn't know me. I do have a job. My job is to help hundreds of local businesses do their jobs, conduct online commerce, and communicate with the rest of the world. Under the present circumstances, it seems my job is even more important than ever, even though I don't know if any sizeable percentage of my clients will be able to pay me. My employees are spread across the country -- I'm not sure when or if we'll all come back together; they obviously have more pressing concerns right now. I haven't done billing since the hurricane; I can't get any mail service so I don't know if we have any accounts receivable but I'm pretty certain this hasn't stopped the bills from piling up, or our credit from going down the tubes because we can't get our bills, much less pay them at the present time.

While the above missive represents the kind of detached, ignorant opinion many people outside the area have as they sit on their fat asses and watch what some sleazy news network decides is representative of the area and its people, it's not very accurate.

Perhaps the cruelest blow to the people of the Gulf Coast is the destruction of their independence. It's very easy to sit far away and reason that if this happened to YOU, you'd know exactly what to do, but that's total BS. When I was displaced by the hurricane, there was no place to go. It didn't matter if you had a $100,000 in your pocket, the hotels were booked, and we, like many others were forced to impose upon others as we sat back waiting for the smoke to clear before we figured out our next move.

Another thing we all have in common is that we pay our taxes. We've seen our taxes go to help everyone from Florida hurricane victims to $800 toilet seats for the Pentagon, Star Wars defense projects that never ever worked, tax breaks for multi-billionaires, and bridges to nowhere in Alaska. New Orleans has always been a bastard child of the country... the kind of place people from outside like to go to, trash, and then leave. It's no wonder that our city is ranked in the top in both pollution and efficiency of trash pickup.

Many people from here have lost EVERYTHING except their lives. I don't think most people can fathom what this means. And a lot of us, who have been supporting every boondoggle, pork-barrel project from Iowa to Iraq now feel it's our turn to get some support. I have a friend who has applied for every government "handout" she can get, from food stamps to FEMA money. She's one of the hardest working people I know, holding down a half-dozen different jobs. She's not mooching. She's doing what she can to get what she needs. It's time for the system she's paid into, to give something back. The irony is that the minority, the low-income, uneducated evacuees aren't nearly as smart or resourceful to fully exploit the government programs that are available, and even if you add up all these financial liabilities, they are a mere shadow of the less-controversial pork barrel projects that we all pay for on a daily basis and think nothing of.

When you're sitting at a rest stop watching some church group hand you a brown bag lunch, the first thing you think of is how you can get back on your feet, NOT whether or not you can get more free lunches! This however, doesn't stop Fox news cameramen from finding the one group of black ruffians to slap all over the nightly news.

That being said, if anyone who was affected by this disaster can get anything from the government, that's a good thing. It's one less dollar that goes to Halliburton! If we don't grab it, this money is going to be spent anyway, on some big politically-connected outside contractor group that will screw everything up. If you gave the people in the New Orleans housing projects a million bucks, that would do more for the city than giving a hundred million to Kellogg, Brown & Root, who have instantly garnered tons of money from the Katrina disaster without going through any bid process.

Beyond this, as a taxpayer, I expect some degree of performance from the government I support. Pardon us if we expect proper "Emergency Management" from an agency that has this as its middle name. We don't want handouts. We want to see the results of the programs that we've been supporting for decades that are supposed to deliver what they say.

I got this note from someone who was forwarded my first "Hurricane FEMA" missive. I think this sums it up:

Just a personal note on my personal experience with FEMA. I applied online before I relocated to Pompano Beach, FL so my information had to be updated when I got here from Pensacola. I went online and updated the necessary contact information.

On Sept 2nd, I applied. On Sept 8th the emergency housing money ($2000) was deposited into my checking account. A few days later, I checked the status of my application and it said that FEMA had tried (and failed) to contact me despite being given 3 contact numbers beside the required phone number of my destroyed property. I called about 50 times before talking to a human who said she would correct the info even though I told her that I had corrected it online.

Today, I went online where I see my application has been "withdrawn" since they could not contact me. Well, somehow I managed to contact someone who pulls inspections for FEMA and they told me that they had tried ONE number... the number of my destroyed home.

How stupid can you get when I was required to give the number and then noted that that number was not functioning because my home was destroyed. Now I have to wait "3 to 10 days" for someone to contact me. This nightmare continues.

When I first tried to file a claim online, I noted that FEMA's web site didn't support Mozilla, so I even acquiesced and used Internet Explorer. Even so, half the time the web site was overloaded but when I finally got online to file an application, I got this weird, "unable to verify your identity" error... even though I've been living in the same house for more than ten years and all my information was accurate and in order.

Now, I'm in the IT field as a software engineer. What I do for a living is set up the kind of "mission critical" systems that you might have expected the FEMA online claim center to resemble. So maybe you can understand how unambiguously disgusted I am with the crap system they have. I could have done better, and probably charged about five million bucks less than what the feds probably paid for the second rate programmers who designed that system.

A friend of a friend filed a claim online the other day. They logged back in to check the status of their application, only to find out that HE was apparently a middle-aged Spanish woman who had no damage done to her home. Upon a painful and time-consuming investigation, it was revealed that apparently, a bunch of FEMA claim files mysteriously turned into middle-aged Spanish women that had no right to receive relief. Gotta love these programmers.

By the way, the $2000 FEMA insta-grant thing? Rumor has it that was a "fluke" and if you didn't get it already, forget it.

I've already resigned myself to the obvious probability that I'm going to get screwed by my insurance company, FEMA, Red Cross and every other "we're-here-to-help-you" group in the area. That's fine, but if I see another talking head desperately trying to do damage control while ignoring all the problems, despite overwhelming complaints to the contrary, I think I'm going to explode.

I need a vacation obviously. I've been in this mess too long. We actually booked reservations at an event in Disney World in October -- and until recently realized that we never booked the hotel because we got wrapped up in the Katrina thing. I wonder if Disney would give me a discount? Ooops, that sounds like a handout doesn't it? I'm such a mooch for inquiring as to whether or not there's any chance of paying less than $300/night at a hotel in Florida.

"None Of Your Business!"

Where are we going? "None of your business!" All that's missing is a black bag over evacuees' heads.

The military arm of FEMA apparently has been issued orders from "higher ups" to not cooperate whatsoever with the press. First during the press conference today held by Ray Nagin, when the General in charge of the Rita evacuation was asked where citizens would be bussed, his response was (and I kid you not), "None of your business." When asked by a WWL reporter whether this meant they didn't know where the evacuees would be taken, the general called the television reporter "stupid" and refused to answer his question.

Later when WDSU reporter Richard Angelico took his crew to do a story on the busses set up for the Rita evacuation, the people in charge told him he was trespassing (he pointed out to the guy from Florida, that he was a Louisianian on public prooperty) and ordered him to stop filming and leave, or else they would contact FEMA and the State Police to have them removed. When Angelico told these dorks FEMA officials gave him directions on how to get there and the State Police also assisted, this guy didn't know what to do and just said he had orders to not let any media take pictures from his superiors.

I don't know what's going on, but apparently the administration has no intention of letting the media ask such invasive questions as, "When you take evacuees out of the city, where are you taking them?" I guess such a question like that, according to the general in charge, is none of our business, and we're stupid for daring to ask.

What's really scary now is the undeniable amount of contempt the Feds seem to have towards local officials and the media... as if it's our fault they screwed up everything! I guess it's our fault for figuring that out and they resent it, so now they're acting like New Orleans is Afghanistan.

FEMA where are you?

My girlfriend had an appointment with a FEMA rep to inspect her house this morning. The guy called last night and said he would meet her between 8 and 9am. She had to get up at 6:00am and drive 70 miles to her home to meet the FEMA rep, and guess what? Yep, the guy never showed up.

Red tape hinders family's struggle

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tporleans/archives/2005_09_20.html#081119

FEMA Cuts Housing Plans In Half, Has No Plan

Federal Emergency Management Agency spokesman David Passey said the agency is now planning to bring about 50,000 trailers to Louisiana, down from last week's estimate of 100,000.

The first temporary trailer parks will not be ready to accept evacuees until next week, when 580 units are expected to open in the town of Baker, just north of Baton Rouge. Several more are expected to be up and running in the weeks ahead, and still others could take months to get established

Hurricane FEMA

"I don't have a problem with the disaster.
I don't have a problem with mother nature.
What I do have a problem with is paying my taxes,
and coming home and seeing this,
because they couldn't control the levees that they knew were weak to begin with."
- St. Bernard resident Denise Edwards

The scene was heartbreaking on the local re-broadcast of WWL.

I can't watch the national news any more. It's even more misleading than normal, the homogenized selection of clips, the fancy logos, the calculated heart-wrenching music, the nationalist undertone, with an occasional bone thrown in to remind you regular people have been affected -- cut to the commercial selling copy machines. But it's obvious the main spin right now is: money. Not money to help people. How will Hurricane Katrina affect the high-class white populace? Ohmygod will the Fed raise interest rates? Before the Feds have even done anything significant, the network news spin seems to center around "How are we going to pay for Katrina? And how/why are these sad faces on my tv screen going to impact gas prices?" Why wasn't this as big a deal when we were blowing four times more money dicking around in another country?

The local news is a lot different than the national news. Noticeably absent from the mainstream broadcasts is the remarkably consistent parade of citizens, local and state officials complaining about FEMA, even after the removal of their top guy. The national news seemed to wash over all this with a series of ass-kissing homages to how wonderful and impressive the new General Thad is. AS IF, the top guy in the organization is the only problem and now everything is solved. Meanwhile people in the trenches who were led to believe that the organization was capable of actually doing something significant in situations like this, continue to ask for help, are flooded with insane bureaucracy, or completely ignored.

The other day Parish officials from St. Bernard were on television pleading to get some relief. They have deputies patrolling the parish who have lost everything and they can't even afford to make payroll and have absolutely no resources and FEMA made promises and delivered nothing.

The bigger disaster in New Orleans is HURRICANE FEMA. This "act of God" is even more insidious. When Katrina bore down on the Gulf Coast, it didn't falsely promise relief to people. Hurricane FEMA did. People knew what to expect with Hurricane Katrina, but Hurricane FEMA was an insidious, double-talking, snake-in-the-grass which has caused even more suffering over a longer period of time than was ever capable of Hurricane Katrina.

I know there's a contingent of people who have no sympathy for "stupid Southerners who built houses below sea level" (We in the South might ask why someone would put a city on top of an earthquake fault line, or on a coast where tsunamis could hit) and who think the Federal government seems to exist solely to bail out corporations who can't seem to remain solvent, but I am among those that believes a situation like this exemplifies the time when the federal government should be stepping up and making a difference. This is what we pay for as taxpayers! This disaster transcended state boundaries. The feds controlled the army corps of engineers who have been saying for years, the levee system needed more attention. This is not something state and local authorities could ultimately do much about.

If we could, we should declare the area a "double disaster area". But who do you call in to protect us from the damage of Hurricane FEMA? The Red Cross? They're just as bad. For an organization that seems have collected more money than Bill Gates, they can't seem to deploy any significant resources where they're most needed. I personally suspect that there are approximately four people manning their disaster relief hotline... either that or they just knocked the phone off the hook and are out partying with Nora Jones in some penthouse suite.

Supposedly Red Cross helps out at shelters, but I believe this is misleading - they "appear" at or near shelters, delivering supplies -- usually when there's a CNN person around. I don't know where their billions of dollars go. I think the majority of it pays for an amazing cloaking/un-cloaking shield their reps use that allows them to instantly appear for an interview when a news camera shows up, but then instantly disappear when someone asks for help. Totally useless.

I sound bitter and cynical. Yes, I am. This isn't because I've had the pleasure of enjoying the endless busy signals and run-around by FEMA and the Red Cross. It's not about me. But it's profoundly disconcerting to see public officials incapable of doing their job because the promised relief was turned away at some checkpoint, or some idiot says 18 forms need to be signed and approved by some guy nobody can reach before they can unload a generator from a truck ten feet in front of them. This is bullshit. This is unacceptable. You know how bad it really is? Bush admitted there was a problem. Think for a moment how bad something needs to be before the present administration actually acknowledges acts of incompetence, then multiply that exponentially and you have a small view of how truly out-of-control the situation really is.

The only shining bright spot in the whole relief effort are the troops. They've done their job since day one, totally professionally. The National Guard from all around the country have stepped up and taken care of people and the city. Every other federal agency, even traditionally efficient ones like the post office, have stumbled. Generally speaking, it seems the smaller groups are making a difference. The modular, platoon-like structure of the guard works well. The bloated, useless hierarchy that is the Red Cross and FEMA do not.

Who do we call to save us from Hurricane FEMA?

Exodus

Life in the city, each day, seems to normalize a little more. Ironically, my plan is to leave once things get back to normal, at least temporarily. While many people have taken a break up until now, and are coming back to rebuild, after weathering this mess, I am hoping to get away from it all and recharge my batteries. Unfortunately, I don't know when exactly that may be, but hopefully some time soon.

I met up with some friends from St. Bernard yesterday. The girl I dated through high school that I met when I worked at Pontchartrain Beach. Everyone in her family lost everything. Their homes and apartments were under twelve feet of water. Today they take their first venture into the city to see if anything can be salvaged. As Pam lamented over the loss of her photos, I dug up an old album where we found I had copies of many historical pictures that she thought were gone forever.

Pam and her sister were sleeping in an office building in Metairie last night. At least it had electricity. They dropped me a line and we went and brought them some supplies and offered more resources which I think they may take us up on. Many of her family got out of St. Bernard with no money and little but the clothes on their backs. Her family had a modest house that, at least from my perspective, they seemed to have forever resided within. Now it's all gone.

If there is one thing that's consistent in my observations thus far, it's the bizarre tranquility that I've observed from those who were hit worst by the storm. Somehow, having much less ambiguity over the loss of ones' material possessions seems give all those I've witnessed, more peace of mind. Someone such as myself, who didn't have it all taken away, and who has more ambiguity over the future of my business and career in this area, seems to have more to worry about than others whom you'd normally think are more deserving to be wallowing in concern for the future.

Times like these really illuminate the disparity between those who are truly good hearted:

Pam's parents, having lost everything, fled to the Columbus, Mississippi area. They're at a gas station, waiting to meet with a real estate agent about finding an apartment, and a woman drives up and asks them if they're evacuees. They respond yes, and she explains to them that she has a second home her and her husband hardly ever use; they've been looking for someone to offer it as a place to stay and Pam's family looked nice and they wanted to see if they might be interested in the offer. Long-story-short, they end up moving into this home of a stranger, who proceeds to stock the fridge with food, give the family gift cards so they can get clothes, hooks up a satellite tv, barbecue pit, takes the kids out on boat rides, and otherwise does everything they can to make their new adopted family feel comfortable. I'll tell you they couldn't have picked a nicer group of people to offer such generosity towards and in times when everyone seems to be so wrapped up in themselves, to see someone going so out of their way to help others is really nice.

Exodus

While the local media keeps harping on the "rebuild our city" mantra, I continue to get more and more reports of people saying Buh-Bye to New Orleans for good. The scope of this exodus is being downplayed locally, but from my observation it's substantive. I get the feeling that the New Orleans area will take two major demographic hits: the low-income evacuees who were shipped out and will probably settle wherever they end up, and a sizeable portion of the skilled upper-middle-class and high-class who have moved elsewhere and are already hooked into new jobs in new cities. What's left will be a predominantly middle-class group. The professional class will be noticeably absent in the coming years IMO. I'm not sure what's going to come of the city when it has always had marginal professional representation and now may not have a proportion of these people worth even mentioning. Tourism will of course come back, and all the traditionally locally-oriented businesses will return, but I don't see any new industry that would want to come here. There will be a construction boom, but that doesn't generate the kind of equity the city really needs in order to become a world-class city; New Orleans has always needed a higher representation of well-educated white-collar industries, and what little we had, I fear, are now on their way out.

Nowhere is this more poignantly illustrated than when watching mainstream media prop up a New Orleans figurehead like Anne Rice, Harry Connick Jr., or Branford Marsalis, as they harp about "their city" and how beautiful it was and will be.... never mind the fact that all of these people moved out of New Orleans a long time ago.

The Threat of Rita

I suspect many locals have been so busy they haven't had time to look at the local weather reports and the looming threat that tropical storm Rita may turn into a hurricane and hit the Gulf Coast area. Obviously, those of us still digging our way out of the Katrina mess are very worried about the threat of another hurricane coming our way.

Irony Department

Word has it that Elmwood Fitness Center in Harahan is open. Those of you who aren't getting enough exercise moving furniture and pieces of trees can visit the club and work out.

Fast food places are opening: Burger King, Rally's, Lee's Hamburgers, Bud's Broiler on Clearview, and Baton Rouge's own oil-encased-fried-breaded-chicken-thingie-with-yucky-sauce, Raising Cain's are now open to pander to your high-cholesterol needs.

-----

More tidbits:

Map of affected mail delivery areas:

http://www.usps.com/communications/news/serviceupdates/zipmap.htm?from=bannercommunications&page=katrinamap

Louisiana District (Current as of 9/19/05 - 10 a.m.)

New Orleans Processing and Distribution Center operations remain suspended until further notice. Retail and delivery services remain suspended for most Post Offices in the City of New Orleans (701 ZIP Code range

Mike In The City, V9

Another busy day. This is going to be brief. I've got a LOT to report in the next installment, but I'll send this off now and write more later.

First off, I am getting lots of inquiries from people who want me to check their homes and stuff. It's just not practical for me to do this, and to those people I say, go ahead and do it yourself. The truth is most of the city is accessible now, and the media reports of closings and checkpoints are greatly exaggerated. I do not want to suggest that anyone go against the dictates laid down by state and federal officials. I will just say that people are getting to their houses fairly easily, despite news in the media to the contrary. Every person I've spoken to who has decided to risk getting turned away, to get to an area that is publicly claimed to be "closed", has been able to get there.

Now realistically, it might not be worth it. The damage in flooded areas is extensive, and I do believe there are many good reasons for the media spewing inaccurate information about how restrictive access supposedly may be, however, there are other reasons why it might be better to wait. Forget about pollution and toxins. Just trying to get into your place, you could get hurt. There is debris everywhere. Cars are getting flat tires from driving down the street. There are no public utility services of any kind in most of the city. Ceilings have collapsed. And the water has warped and destroyed almost anything made of wood. People come into their homes and find their furniture has literally fallen apart. Just trying to get your front door open might require a crowbar and a battering ram.

More and more places are opening. But this is still a tiny fraction of businesses. Winn Dixie is open in three locations in the Kenner area, but having to subject oneself to their ridiculously high prices is more abuse IMO, but when you have a craving for fresh food, you have to put up with it. I don't understand why more businesses are not rushing to open... there's lots of people that need supplies and still not enough outlets. I imagine that most stores' employees are scattered and even if you want to open, you might have to re-hire new staff. But there seems to be no shortage of people who are looking for work in the area.

The "army of contractors" has also started to flood the city. People need to be careful about who they're doing business with and not pay anyone in full up front. I'm also noticing that many seem to be taking advantage of malfunctioning traffic signals and preoccupied police forces to drive through the city like maniacs, ignoring rules and speed limits. More unnecessary dangers.

As everyone complains about FEMA, I have to jump on the bandwagon. After trying to file my claim online ten times, and getting a plethora of ambiguous error messages, I gave up and use the phone. The wait wasn't that bad and the person online was friendly but I haven't been able to find out if I was approved.

I have more contempt for Red Cross, which I haven't seen do s**t in this city as far as I'm concerned, but they seem to have no shortage of people to appear in the media to talk about the "good work" they're doing. I want to see their CEO, who gets $450,000 a year salary trudge around in the muck and help people. Then I'll have some respect for that organization.

---

Choice quotes:

"I don't want to alarm everybody that, you know, New Orleans is filling up like a bowl. That's just not happening."
- Louisiana Republican Senator, Davit Vitter, one day after the hurricane hit the city

---

Factcheck.org has compiled a "Katrina Timeline" based on media and documentation. It appears to be the most factual and comprehensive outline of who reacted how leading up to and after the disaster:
http://www.factcheck.org/article348.html

On most of the New Orleans-based forums, the racist contingent is gearing up for more attacks on Nagin, citing various questionable references, including this:

8:30 p.m. - An empty Amtrak train leaves New Orleans, with room for hundreds of potential evacuees. "We offered the city the opportunity to take evacuees out of harm's way

Lake Harrison, Stuck Doors & Bird Calls

It's been two days and I haven't written anything. That's not because nothing's been going on. Quite the contrary. Things have been so busy that I haven't had the time to write. Let me fill you in on things.

First, most of the human rescuing efforts are over. Now comes the throng of frantic people who have left their pets in their homes, trying to get in touch with others to rescue them. Most of the shelters, even the regional ones, are overflowing with animals and there is no place to drop off rescued animals. Due to some sort of beauracratic snafu, some temporary drop-off areas and triage spots have been shut down. The larger animal groups (with the big bucks) seem to have blown in, and blown out. They showed up, got some airtime, rolled into local shelters, then disappeared, leaving a scattered group of individuals and small groups holding the ball.

One day, there's no crates to hold animals and tons of people ready to do rescues. The next day there's 200 animal crates and no people to do rescues. This would be more depressing than it seems have there not been literally thousands of animals secured from homes and neighborhoods who are now either in a shelter, or en route to some far off place. All-in-all, everyone's been working really hard to make sure "no pet is left behind."

We're not just talking about dogs and cats. I've seen people rescuing frogs, lizards and everything else. It's pretty weird to see someone calling in to see if someone can get their Iguana. Personally, I was hoping to do a rescue of an Amazon or a Macaw, but didn't get any bird calls. (ha ha, bird call, get it? Ok, it's lame)

The last two days have had us running around responding to directives to rescue this or that pet. Many times, we'd get to a house, only to find no pets, or we'd find pets that had so much food and water, they could last another month, or we'd find pets in outdoor areas where someone was apparently taking care of them, so you wonder whether you should leave them or pick them up. One problem is there is no central authority tracking the rescue calls, so you don't know if someone already went there and picked up the animals. We were instructed to leave a note indicating an animal was rescued and by whom, but many of the places we visited had no notes. Other places were impossible to get to, or to get in. Now that much of the water has subsided, doors and windows have warped and become one with the structure. Try prying open a door that's been submerged in water for a week, then baked in the hot sun. It seems some rescue crews have taken to knocking holes in walls to check houses -- it's easier than dislodging bloated doors.

Yesterday we did an epic run through Lakeview and Mid City. Lake Harrison Avenue is still happening, but if you can get through the myriad of checkpoints on Metairie Road, you can come around the back way via Marconi to get into higher areas of Lakeview. Canal Blvd at the railroad crossing is still underwater, but other areas are passable. Security is still real tight. We can't respond to requests to pick up things in friends and family's houses... it's still technically not allowed and I don't want to go through a checkpoint with a vehicle full of stuff and get into a bunch of trouble with the National Guard, who are checking people going out of, as well as into Orleans Parish. (But this should be comforting news for people who are concerned about looting -- we really haven't seen any indications of such from private residences) Generally-speaking, I think anyone with a house up high, or a two story number, will be able to retrieve a lot of their belongings. We didn't see as much mold as people seem to expect, but this is probably due to the toxic waters tending to kill anything they touch, but this could change in the next week as once submerged places now turn into humidors.

Much of City Park is now a swamp. Some of the pictures I took look half in color, half in black-and-white, as the floodwaters tended to turn everything grey. There's debris everywhere, but the initial reports of many of the old oak trees being decimated might be exaggerated. There's lots of tree damage, but there's just as many 100+ year old oaks still standing tall.

I put up some high-res pictures of the areas here:
http://www.mikeperrymedia.com/xib/20050914-kat/index.html

The other day power was restored to my house (Yay!) and we're once again with refrigeration and A/C. I can finally give my generator the break it needed. That little unit ran like a trooper almost continually for a few weeks. As far as I know there's still a boil order for water in Jefferson Parish, and they say there are many damaged sewerage lines, so the appearance of normalcy might not be the way it really is. People are warned to be cautious about using water facilities, and that there may be mingling between water and sewerage, or worse yet, you could flush a toilet and what goes down, might come back up.

Every day, East Jefferson is looking more and more normal. Kenner has a lot of businesses open and I suspect in the next week, most of Metairie will as well.

More later..

Tree Huggers R Us

Well, today's been a tough day. I'm very mentally burned out. I didn't write last night because it was tough too. My neighbor was working in a house pulling up the floor when he was hit by a board and shattered all the bones in his face around his nose. He got out of the hospital late last night and has gone back to work because he needs money. He has his face all taped up and looks like "Jason" from the horror movies.

It's only 3pm and I feel like I've been wrung out. I have this one client, my "client from hell", a flower store owner, who drives me nuts and acts like I'm on this planet to be his personal computer tech and whipping boy. He's already paying a fraction of what he should for the internet services I provide, but that's never enough. He is having problems with one of his five e-mail accounts on my server and I've checked everything a hundred times and spent countless hours trying to help him, and he still constantly harasses me. Yesterday when I was working with the pet rescue folks when my "client from hell" called me up and demanded that I drive to Baton Rouge and help him with his computer. When I told him I was busy doing some Humane Society stuff, he left me voicmails and then sent an e-mail today demanding I stop everything and fix his computer (which isn't my job), saying, "I know saving the animals and hugging a pine tree is very important to you..." Well that was the last straw and I lost it. I told him I didn't want to hear from him unless it was to terminate his services, pay us what he owes, or apologize for being a total asshole. It's amazing how someone in the business of helping lift peoples' spirits can be such a self-absorbed, insensitive prick.

It's been a rough week and I'm burning out. Everybody around here is on edge. The craziness of the city and the people anxious about trying to make something out of the twisted wreckage is finally starting to get to me.

Today I ventured into Lakeview. That area is appropriately named because it's one big lake now. A festering cesspool of black ooze that smells like an oil-infused prehistoric peat bog. Veterans Blvd at the 17th street canal has become a four-lane boat launch. The water is still 6+ feet deep even at the edge of the area. It appears to have receded about 3-4 feet but you can pretty much write off EVERYTHING in the area.

Earlier in the week I remarked about how people, when confronted with a refrigerator in their homes that had been hot for a week, were opting to duct-tape the unit and drag it into the curb without even venturing within to see if there was anything salvageable. Well, if you live in Lakeview (and related areas), you might want to seriously consider the same approach with your house. I hate to say it, but I was getting nauseous just standing at the edge of this humongous septic tank which has swallowed the entire area. None of these homes will likely ever be habitable. They'll probably have to completely bulldoze everything. It's that bad.

I haven't been able to get in touch with my "Aunt Marilyn". Her home is smack in the middle of this mess, as is my bookeeper, Susan's and many other friends. It makes me recall the time when Marilyn moved into her neat new home in Lakeview and we had a celebratory dinner at Tony DiAngelos - also in the area; also destroyed... and I realized I still have pictures online from that event (http://www.mikeperrymedia.com/xib/200311-marilyn/Page2.html) The pictures are from about 2 years ago, and basically every place pictured, the restaurant and Marilyn's new house are gone.

Amidst all this toxic soup, you have a rag-tag group of animal rescue people, mostly women, who are bravely going into the neighborhoods with maps and addresses given to them by people who have reason to believe there may be animals trapped within. They're navigating streets like canals, donning hip-waders and respirators, risking their own lives just to make sure a cat or stray dog has a chance to make it.

When my client trivialized the entire operation, he didn't see what I saw. How brave these people are. Many of these people were also rescuing people, and now that they're out, they're going after pets. I saw crying broken women begging to be let on a boat so they could check to see if a pet they left behind was alive. When you look into the lake that is Lakeview now, it's probably not unlike watching people venture into Hiroshima after the bomb. Everybody is inherently aware of how totally dangerous the whole area is. One worker went so far in, that she couldn't get out before curfew and ended up sleeping in a small boat until morning so she could find her way back out. These people are amazing, and even the military guys have respect for what they're doing. When you see them come back with a scared, rescued animal, it's really a refreshing ray of light on this otherwise dark day.

The Humane Society has been having a hard time getting boats. I had a friend whose neighbor has one, but they won't let us use it because they're afraid the boat will be commandeered. We're still trying to secure more resources.

I've got some pictures of the area. I'll post a few more later.

http://www.mikeperrymedia.com/xib/20050912-kat/index.html

My webcam is now up and running here: Not that much to see but it's the best I can do right now. We plan to move it downtown but that'll be later.
http://webcam.icorp.net/

Yesterday I got all my credentials. A pass as part of the "Jumpstart Jefferson" project, and I also have a letter from the Governor's office authorizing me as a representative of the Public Utilities Commission to be granted full access at all checkpoints in the area. I have as much access as anybody now in the city, but unfortunately I don't have the desire to drive around. A friend got sick from the inoculations and I'm not keen on getting shots for Tetanus and Hepatitis. But at some point, probably tomorrow, I will venture downtown.

Power is starting to come in in lots of areas. Still not here, but at this point, it's no big deal. I've gotten used to living with no A/C. It's really not that bad at all. I used to look at those vintage pictures of New Orleans with people walking around in suits and think they must be nuts, but it makes sense now. You adapt. 90 degrees can be comfortable if that's what you're used to.

There's a series of very nasty, misleading e-mails trying to pin the blame for the Katrina disaster on Mayor Ray Nagin and Governor Blanco. Snopes.com has all the details of this mean-spirited internet myth:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/katrina/nagin.asp

Worth revisiting: Scientific American ran a story last year on hurricanes and whether they can be controlled:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000593AE-704B-1151-B57F83414B7F0000

Hey everybody,

Today was a busy, hectic day. Lots of phone calls; lots of things to do with clients and stuff. I'm falling into a daily routine of picking up supplies, making gas runs, taking pictures and then hunkering down and working on the computer at night. I was supposed to go downtown into the city today but decided against it as I wanted to attend Aaron Broussard's press conference and talk with some of those guys about what's going on.

Lots of news today. Last night we set up donation links on the Humane Society's web page and then I proceeded to do some online promotion, calling attention to HSL's need for supplies. Within seconds donations started rolling in. They collected over $10,000 in online donations within the last 24 hours!

As a board member with the Humane Society of Louisiana, I went to visit one of the Triage units for rescued pets today. Jefferson Pet & Feed on Jefferson highway has opened up and is a center staffed with lots of medical personnel who are treating wounded animals. There are lots of problems with the pet rescue efforts right now. Most notably they are short pet carriers and are limited in how many pets they can contain. The inner-city pet rescue efforts are also suspended because the main destination for rescued pets is now full. The Lamar-Dixon Expo Center in Gonzales has a large section of it dedicated for housing rescued pets and livestock. Unfortunately it's now jam-packed, and until they transfer animals to outlying shelters, there is no place to house rescued pets. There are large roving bands of animals in parts of the city. I witnessed lots of dogs and cats that were being treated and everybody is lacking resources to properly care for the animals. The big thing people need are dog crates.. particularly large and medium-sized. If you have any, visit http://www.humanela.org/ for contact info on how you can help, and of course, any donations are most certainly appreciated. I'm hoping to come along on some of the pet rescue missions in the coming days. Some of these animals are really suffering and need to be rescued ASAP.

Pictures from this trip here:
http://www.mikeperrymedia.com/xib/20050910-pets/index.html
Recognize anyone's pet?

At 11:30 today, Parish President Aaron Broussard called a press conference which included all the mayors of neighboring parishes (minus Orleans) and various other elected officials and police chiefs. This was to announce their new "Operation Jumpstart Jefferson." (http://www.jeffparish.net/JeffParish.nsf/vwWeb/OtherJumpStart) This is an ambitious project whereby the neighboring Parishes, spearheaded by Jefferson's aggressive desire to be "operational" within three weeks, have implemented a program whereby local businesses can gain early access to the Parish and expedited bureaucratic processes in order to restore "essential services" to the city.

The project centers around a new web site that allows businesses in select categories to register online and receive credentials to get past the checkpoints. There are also several locations in the area where permits can be obtained in person. I went and filled out the form and already got my credentials, so I am impressed with how quickly they've managed to get things implemented, and the program isn't even supposed to start until Monday. Good work Mr. Broussard!

As part of the project, there are obvious "essential businesses" that are on the list, such as telecommunications and construction, but also things like "accountants". When Broussard was asked what type of business was not considered essential, they pondered over whether "hair salons" would fit into that category but decided that "movie theater" was a better example. Considering the disasters at the box offices, I'd tend to agree.. why make people who've survived Katrina suffer through The Dukes of Hazzard?

Perhaps the best part of the press conference was seeing the prototypical "crazy dude" pestering the mayors with inane questions and statements that seemed to make no point. I also watched Ronnie Harris, the mayor of Gretna corner the Red Cross representative and complain about how they can't seem to get through to the Red Cross to get any assistance. And a nice quote from Broussard off camera where he said, "I need to go see the new head of FEMA. I know we got a good one now."

After the conference I had a discussion with some of the councilmen about how they planned to approach Orleans-parish businesses. My concern is that every day, more and more New Orleans-area businesses are setting up shop in Baton Rouge and other areas. While Operation Jumpstart Jefferson is geared towards established Jefferson businesses, I suggested they act fast to prep the area as a staging ground for displaced New Orleans businesses as rapidly as possible and they completely agreed and said that in the coming days, they will be making announcements to address this specific situation.

While many businesses are setting up in outside areas, things look very good for Jefferson Parish to experience a huge boom in business as they'll be online long before Orleans Parish residents and businesses can even get a chance to look at their property.

Miscellaneous tidbits:

Amazing photo-pictorial of French Quarter hotel employee, Alvaro Morales, and his tale of staying through the first five days of the hurricane in the French Quarter and just barely escaping:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=14ewb3ap.b147fdut&Uy=nyvoby&Ux=1

Funny picture of the hurricane situation:
http://www.bsalert.com/artsearch.php?fn=2&as=904&dt=1

I'm cross-posting my notes on this blog:
http://mikewisdom.blogspot.com/
Unfortunately, I have been on a bunch of different computers, so I don't have the earlier posts. If anyone has them, send them back to me.

Another dark night in the city. But you get used to it. The moon is rising. As much as I want electricity restored, I'd be even more excited about seeing what the dark city looks like under the full moon.

It's just me and my dog. It reminds me of that movie with Don Johnson, "A Boy and His Dog". If I could train my dog to stand in fuel and food lines, that would rule.

The last week and a half has been quite twisted. Here I am in Metairie, in my house and my old neighborhood, and there's nobody around. The whole city is pitch black. And even during the day after awhile you yearn to see familiar faces. When I was in exile in Baton Rouge, I'd run into people I knew everywhere - it was so bizarre. I was in a Wal Mart in Zachary, Louisiana and saw a friend; I'm in the coffee shop in Baton Rouge and Jonathan Ferrara, art gallery magnate and new owner of Royal Street B&B/R Bar was right behind me. It's even more ironic because I used to do the R-Bar's web site, and when they sold the bar to Mr. Ferrara, he had his own web guy who yanked the business from us. I was pretty upset since we'd done a ton of work for the old owners who were great friends. In an interesting twist, Jonathan asked me to help him get his laptop working in the cyber cafe and I went so far as to set it up so he could route mail through my servers... even though I lost his business many months ago. It makes me realize the casualty-rate of doing business virtually. When he was sitting there struggling to get things working, there was no way I was going to say, "Well, if you were my client, you wouldn't be having these problems..." I think this catastrophe has really helped to soften a lot of the selfish, jaded attitudes all of us have had towards each other.

So while Baton Rouge seems to be the new New Orleans, Metairie is a ghost town. There are just a few of us around and we check in with each other now and then. While I haven't seen any looting first hand, I, like most people brought that paranoia with me into the city after watching television from afar, and I've had my share of encounters with strangers who didn't know whether to share their life story with me, or pull their gun and run me out of the neighborhood.

Today St. Tammany residents were "allowed back into their homes." You gotta love the media. We toured St. Tammany right after the hurricane and nobody stopped us. The same thing for the "forced evacuation" innuendo in Orleans Parish. I'm no lawyer, but I suspect technically, the city can't really drag people from their homes without exposing themselves to a bunch of liability and this is more of that crazy media manipulation. I'm not complaining that much about it. The pseudo-threats they spin in the media probably help keep people out so they can get things done, but the problem is it's the law-abiding people who follow the rules, so the people that end up left in the city are either crazy nutjobs or criminals. I'm slightly skeptical as to whether the wisdom of these media threats are ultimately productive.

At this point, if I were an Orleans Parish resident, I'd be more concerned about rescue workers kicking in the doors and windows to my house and spray-painting graffiti on the doors and walls. As they go "searching" door-to-door for "victims" to rescue, they're basically systematically breaking into every house. You see video of them kicking out windows and beating in doors with sledgehammers, but you don't see any indication of them securing the houses afterwards. If there are any looters, they shouldn't have any problem getting into any house they want now. Keep in mind, while lots of O.P. is underwater, there are other areas, especially those near the river levee that probably didn't get any flooding, but the teams of rescuers from a thousand different areas of the country, will probably cover the entire area. Imagine, if you will, when they finally do decide to let Orleans Parish residents get to their property, that's when the real looting will begin as everyone's homes will already be cracked open. There will be a mad dash to get to your property and protect it as fast as you can.

When you walk outside at night now, there's this lingering waft of death in the air. I can differentiate between the stench of someone's refrigerator, and someone's pet or other living creature, and there's definitely a smell of death in the air. Part of this may also have to do with this huge pipeline they've now built on the eastbound lanes of Airline Highway where they're pumping out flood waters from Orleans parish.

Speaking of someone's refrigerator, this seems to be the new fad. Instead of cleaning out your fridge, you just duct tape it shut and drag it into your front yard. In the Parish there are hundreds of refrigerators and freezers sitting out on the curb.

When you're alone in a dark city, your mind just starts to wander. For the last few nights I've had an overwhelming urge to set up my drum set in my front yard and just launch into a half-hour monster drum solo. Imagine it. Nobody around, no electricity and no other noise than just drums playing. It would be heard for miles. It would be so cool. Who's going to complain? I swear I'm going to do it. If you don't hear from me, it means I've been arrested.. not sure what it would be for, but it would probably be worth it.

Signing off for the night... and going to dig up my Iron Butterfly CD.

- Mike

PS...Interesting Items of Note:

The American Institute of Philantropy has a good article on which charities are worth supporting using their criteria of grading charities based on how efficient the organization is and how much of your money actually goes towards helping people:

http://www.charitywatch.org/hottopics/hurricane_katrina.html


When VP Dick Cheney came to New Orleans, the media picked up on a local who said, "Mr. Cheney Go Fuck Yourself!" That man was Dr. Ben Marble, an ER Physician with a newborn baby who lost everything he owned, and wasn't too happy with the way the administration handled things. For his exercise of free speech he was tracked down by military police, handcuffed and detained.

Details here:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_jackson__050909_physician_who_told_o.htm

Hey everybody!

Today is a scorcher. I debated on whether to keep my house closed up rather than let the heat in. The difference is only a few degrees though, so maybe it's moot.

I made my run for relief supplies this morning. The folks there are so nice. Now they have national guard troops manning the operation and they're all decked out in full combat gear, packs and M16s slung over their shoulders. They're helping lug ice, water and MREs into peoples cars while they're fully loaded with gear. One of the soldiers jokes about how he was jealous of the other volunteers wearing t-shirts. They're all in good spirits though and it's impossible to not have tremendous respect for these guys doing what they're doing under these conditions.

One of the most frustrating aspects of all this is not knowing exactly how to help. I'm doing my part helping local residents, but I wish I could provide some assistance to the assistants. The problem is you don't want to get in these peoples' way. At least with the city evacuated, it's not crowded and most of us who are here are very diligent in going where we need to go and avoiding any tangles with federal groups.

Some have asked why I'm still here (mainly my mom, who keeps insisting I need to go to Tallahassee) but there is work to do around here with the business. While we've managed to successfully migrate most of our clients' services to servers in Dallas and San Diego, it's a tedious process making sure, when you build a bank of servers from scratch virtually, that things don't break down. It seems every time I fix one problem, three more show up. But as the days go on, things are getting smoother. Our POP downtown in the CBD is still cranking along, and as soon as I'm finished extracting data from the servers in Metairie, I'm going to move a few boxes downtown to the Amoco building. Right now, it's very efficient having physical access to the network here. I do not want to lug these computers all over the place in my car, so staying put, and powering the network up is the best way to restore and migrate services. The bottom line is that I'm not leaving until I'm sure all my clients systems are working... it may be moot as I don't know how many of them will be in business, much less when we can get paid from them, but since I do have the ability to control this aspect among the chaos, it keeps me busy, it seems to be the right thing to do, and if ICorp has any chance of coming out of this solvent, it needs to be done.

As to how I'm getting around in the city, generally I'm staying away from Orleans Parish. When runs need to be made into the city, it's not difficult to talk some people into providing access. My friend the other day flagged down some national guard troops doing a patrol in his neighborhood and got them to organize a convoy downtown to pick up some servers. There seems to be a lot of locals now concerned about the Parish "lock out" rule. Some have been here since the hurricane and have cash and want to run into LaPlace to get supplies, but are afraid they won't be let back in. Their argument is, they don't have to take the relief supplies if they can be allowed to come and go. I'm not taking any chances and have a stockpile of supplies to make sure we can tough it out if we need to in light of the lockdown. But if fuel becomes more scarce, I'll be quite upset, especially when things are getting better every day. They have some traffic lights up now on 18th street near Lakeside. I keep expecting to see the Morning Call open.. I'm not sure if it has ever been closed before now.

Earlier in the week, I was all over the place trying to get some sort of "official" [sic] pass to come and go in various areas of the city. It's simply a nightmare trying to figure out who's in charge and who can do what, much less find anyone to communicate with who really has any authority. My sister company, with whom we share the downtown NOC has credentials from the Public Utilities Commission that can authorize us, but the documents are not where we need them and after talking with my associates, we found the best way to approach legitimacy in the area was to just "look official". So Earlier in the week I went to Kinko's in Baton Rouge and printed up some signs that had the company names and "Disaster Recovery", laminated them and taped them to the doors of my vehicle. This did the trick. Others seem to have the same idea... I saw an SUV the other day that had "TV" in masking tape outlined on all sides. Ironically, the press seem to have the best access. But my clients in the local media don't seem to be as organized, so we're just taking matters into our own hands and doing what needs to be done. The bottom line is that if you look official, and you're not interfering with anybody else, you don't get hassled.

More random notes:

Drago's restaurant is serving people free food in Fat City. The other night I had a dream I was eating a sandwich... fresh bread is something I can't even remember how it tastes anymore. So when I heard Dragos was open, I went by. Oh boy! Red Beans & Rice, Chicken Pasta.... so good! It's wonderful to see more in the community helping everybody out. Apparently the folks at the Butcher Block gave Dragos their meat products and they're cooking it all up.

There are spots around the city now giving out Tetanus, Hep A and B shots. There is no charge; they merely need to see an ID.

West bank of Jefferson Parish has had its boil water order lifted. On the east bank where I am, residents are still instructed to boil water before use.

If you've seen sat images of the area, you probably know all of West End is just GONE. Wiped off the map, including the Dock and Brunings. We wish our good friends at Brunings the best of luck -- they say they will try to rebuild. The last big storm wiped out their 100+ year old restaurant and they never fully-recovered from that and had been in a battle with the insurance company. Now everything is gone, including their two homes that were on the other side of the 17th street canal (They owned the house at the end of the land between West End and the Coast Guard station -- now if you want to see what it looked like, rent the movie, "The Big Easy" which had a Fais Do Do scene filmed on the property.)

Neat flood map:
http://mapper.cctechnol.com/floodmap.php
click on the area of the map to find out how high the water was and what the current water depth is

I'll probably write more tonite. I'm working on setting up a live internet camera at this location, but am not sure how interesting it would be. We'll see. In the meantime, work continues...

Katrina Tale, Vol 2

Since I'm in the New Orleans area hanging out and maintaining our backup network, if you don't mind, I'll send out these occasional missives on what's going on.

I feel so behind the times because being in the middle of the hurricane aftermath, I was unable to tune in much television or radio. Most of us down here in the middle of this area aren't watching much news because it's happening all around us. I tune in every once in awhile, but as I've said before, half of what the media is reporting is not true, half of it is not as bad as they say, and half of it is much worse than they say.

The other day we finally got the Humane Society's web site up. I'm hopeful that there will be more active efforts to help all the stranded animals throughout the city. Now almost all our clients are back in operation. Many other local sites are still dark. I know of at least a half-dozen major ISPs who just dropped off the planet and we've been working hard to help friends and associates. Today I heard from Acme Oyster House and we helped them migrate to a new mail server they set up. A few other clients have asked that I put up "closed" signs on their web sites since they are unable to process orders. Many others haven't said anything -- but our systems are still online taking orders for products from everybody from French Market Coffee to Cafe DuMonde, Tropical Isle, Ruth's Chris, Melinda's, Cajunland Seasonings, and more. Since I have no idea to what degree many of my clients' businesses have been affected, I have no idea whether my own company will be able to survive since the majority of our clients were in the disaster area. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Today, Metairie is looking up. They opened the Lowes on Veterans Blvd and it is loaded with generators and gas cans and all the supplies people need. They're not letting people wander though -- you approach the front and they assign an employee to take you where you need to get what you want. Another gas station opened on W. Metairie and Clearview - this one is "cash only", which is a pain in the ass... As I went in to pay, someone else pulled in front of me at the pump and there was confusion over who was pumping gas that who paid for. This is one of those Discount Zones that are run by some middle eastern conglomerate (IMO -- they bought up a bunch of the now defunct Time Savers awhile ago). Why they're doing "cash only".... well, that's kind of suspicious if you ask me.

Today it's hot. I can run A/C in my back building, and I'm doing so for the sake of the remaining wine that isn't ruined, but I can't afford to get used to a cooler temperature now that I've acclimated more. A little fan is enough to be comfortable around here. The thermometer on my wall says 88 degrees in the living room. Could be worse. Dax, being the true "inside dog" that she is, would rather stay in the house, than the cooler back yard. Then again, after being left in Baton Rouge for a week and sleeping in four different peoples' houses, she's probably afraid to leave her home.

There are lots of dogs loose in the neighborhood I've noticed. I rode around on my bicycle today and these two dogs tried their best to intimidate and chase me. When they ran at me barking and growling, I just stopped the bike and stared at them. I think that messed up their whole, "let's run this guy off our turf" plan. The bigger dog stopped and stared at me like, "Hey, when are you going to start riding off so I can act tough again?"

More random thoughts:

The scene here at night is so weird. I keep hearing phones ring, but there aren't any phones ringing. Sometimes you think you're deaf because you see lots of police cars with lights flashing and no siren and it's very quiet.

My satellite tv is working. That's just amazing. Even through the hurricane, my dinky little dish just hung in there. I feel sorry for people still using cable. I ran into a guy who worked for Cox and he says they were ordered out of the Parish and are not planning on working on restoring cable any time soon. It makes sense since they need the poles to be up, so people with cable tv are going to have the longest wait for restored television. Reason # 87,323 why you should switch to DirecTV. And for those of you who couldn't have satellite because you had too many trees, that problem may now be solved.

A friend's house burned down today. They suspect arson, and the ex-wife of the guy. I saw the fire trucks rolling and the thick black smoke. Then I got a call from my friend who told me that was a guy we both knew whose house was completely totalled. An ex-JP cop who sold me my AK-47.

More web sites online tonite: BSAlert.com, LAWineClub.com. I noticed that neworleans.com's web site has been wiped and they have a new server up with a little information. I suggested Kim contact Tom Fitzmorris and Tim McNally and see if they want to move their forums over to our system. This would be a great coup for us, to get the number one wine and food critic forums hosted on our servers. (http://forum.lawineclub.com/) Susan Mays has graciously agreed to help moderator a new Hurricane Katrina messageboard we put online where we're going to compile information helpful for residents and evacuees. She's been kicking ass researching all the agencies and what to do. I suggested she put that info online so that others can benefit. So check the forums and contribute.

Oh, I found the transcript of Charmaine Neville's harrowing experience online, complete with video... not for the faint-hearted but well worth watching:

Chamaine Neville's Tale
http://www.wafb.com/Global/SearchResults.asp?qu=charmaine+neville&x=14&y=13
Transcript:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/7/182431/8610

Ok, back to work... I hope everyone is well..