100,000 Dead??

[mamakimberly]

Re: 100,000 Dead??

All of us in the south should have places to plug in as psigna said.

There are hotels here in Arlington holding hundreds of refugees who need food, clothing, toiletries, etc..

It's the least we can do! So if you live in the south, PLUG IN!

Call a church, call a homeless shelter, call anyone who will listen! Plug in somewhere!

[Origam]

Re: 100,000 Dead??

I donated what I could and plan on donating more next paycheck.

I refuse to donate to the Redcross.. granted the may do some good, but they screwed the people in San Diego, CA during Firestorm 2003 and also another fire (I want to say Elven Forest?) not to long before that. They took donations that people made thinking it was going to go directly to help the people who needed help because of the fires.. but the money went into the Redcross "general" fund instead. Make sure if you donate to the redcross that you make a note on the check or anywhere you can what the donation is for specifically or you'll find your money going into the "general fund".

I'm hoping and praying hard for the people in New Orleans.

[Desertthorn]

Re: 100,000 Dead??

The real sad thing is the folks who can't find out information on their families. I have about 40 Marines here in Japan on my little base who can't get news, can't go home, and watch in horror their neighborhoods on CNN underwater. If I have 40, think about those troops stationed in Iraq who also haven't heard from their loved ones.

[Miss Phode]

Re: 100,000 Dead??

I refuse to donate to the Redcross.. granted the may do some good, but they screwed the people in San Diego, CA during Firestorm 2003 and also another fire (I want to say Elven Forest?) not to long before that. They took donations that people made thinking it was going to go directly to help the people who needed help because of the fires.. but the money went into the Redcross "general" fund instead. Make sure if you donate to the redcross that you make a note on the check or anywhere you can what the donation is for specifically or you'll find your money going into the "general fund".

A woman I work with was in the flood in 1977 (Johnstown PA I believe). She claims her and her family were stranded in their home without food and water for 3 days, and when the Red Cross arrived to offer their help, they made them pay $1 for each glass of water.

[sadie147]

Re: 100,000 Dead??

I am positive that alot of corporations are doing alot of things to help in this situation, you're just not going to hear about it in the news. My own company has many activities going on, both corporate and volunteer, to organize aid where possible. But to make a publicity scene about such things will just look wrong.
.

which is my point. if you read back in the thread, someone was asking why other countries are not helping, and i had responded that Canada has. But you (the us) have not heard about this apparently. same point. and it being my country i feel the need to defend it.

I'm glad to hear the large corporations are helping out. they really seem to need as much help as they can get. this all seems to be taking a very long time to pull together. I'm sure it seems like any eternity to those that are suffering. which is horrible.

[Iapetus999]

Re: 100,000 Dead??

You guys badmouthing the Red Cross should be ashamed of yourselves.

I can't think of any organization that's done so much good in this country and around the world.

This thread is about the saddest thing I've read all day.

[Finelly]

Re: 100,000 Dead??

Ok, now that I've posted that it's too early to kvetch about failed planning, I'm going to vent. I've had the news on all evening.

WHAT were they thinking?

They KNEW if a hurricane headed straight for New Orleans, the city would be destroyed.
They KNEW that at least 350,000 people were too poor to evacuate on their own.
They KNEW that electricity would fail, pumps would fail, etc. That they would have to rely on batteries. Yet they are out of radio dispatch batteries, cell phone batteries.....

The Mayor's office, which apparently doesn't watch cable news networks for the last 3 days, just announced that they had NO IDEA that Charity Hospital hadn't evacuated earlier......this after doctors, nurses and orderlies have been on every radio and tv show begging for help and are now manually pumping ventilators to keep their patients alive without electricity.

Some national guard unit flew over the hospital yesterday and dropped water on the roof. ALL of the bottles broke. SAY WHAT????????

The Mayor told people to move to the convention center, so they did. NOTHING was there. No food, no first aid, no water. Now he says he had no idea people went there.

All over the state, there should, by now, be water trucks and people distributing mre's to feed people. The Red Cross and FEMA should have tent cities set up and medical people going everywhere to triage.

I'm really embarassed for America right now.

[Iapetus999]

Re: 100,000 Dead??

They KNEW they didn't have enough buses in an emergency to evacuate the people with no other transportation.
All the phones including cell phones are out.

The mayor's office has no electricity (and how do you think cable TV works BTW?)

BUT they KNEW these communication breakdowns would occur so they should have had sat phones that ran on regular batteries.

[Finelly]

Re: 100,000 Dead??

If they can get 500 buses now to evacuate the superdome, they could have requisitioned every city bus and every school bus to help evacuate last Saturday.

[sadie147]

Re: 100,000 Dead??

CNN is reporting now they're turning away the buses arriveing at the Houston astrodome. it's full. there not even close to the 25,000 ppl they had said it would hold. they dont' know yet where they're being sent.

Wow.

Edited to add: as i'm watching this i'm wondering is this not FEMA's purpose? to prepare for emergencies, catastrophes etc? Not being American i dont' really know much about it but this is what I have gathered from the news reports.

[Iapetus999]

Re: 100,000 Dead??

You make some good points but the actions of the city in the hours before Katrina struck will probably be forgotten compared to the fact that they knew this disaster would happen yet the budget to fix/prevent it was slashed every year....to pay to rebuild Iraq instead.

Our nation's infrastructure is crumbling and we'd rather play war.
Why not worry about the fragility of domestic oil production instead of Iraq's non-existant oil infrastructure?
Hey maybe the gubment will now actually look at the desperately needed earthquake retrofitting out here instead of saying, "wish we'd funded that" when I-5 lies in pieces.

[Desertthorn]

Re: 100,000 Dead??

OMG, I don't know if you know it but I have worked for an volunteered for the Red Cross since 1970s and I hate to see so much bad publicity about the Red Cross. If someone told you that the Red Cross changed for any disaster service its a lie, I have worked on Hurricane George, Hurricane Hugo, Earthquakes, floods and down to little house fires and never in all those years as anyone asked for a penny from the victims. I know what happened in San Diego and that was wrong and sad, but the whole organization should not be blamed for the actions of one stupid person. Do we always do things right, no, 98 % of us are VOLUNTEERS who get no money work long hours and train on our own time. Does our money come from the government, absolutely not, it is all donated dollars from folks like you.
Don't badmouth and organization because someone said something that you cannot verify, expecially hurting a lot of great volunteers who are just trying to help their fellow man out. I am proud to say I donated a big chuck to the Red Cross yesterday and I also donated a chunk to the Salvation Army cause they both are great worthy organizations and need my support. This is not the time to bad mouth anyone, this is a time to help our neighbors.

[Desertthorn]

Re: 100,000 Dead??

You make some good points but the actions of the city in the hours before Katrina struck will probably be forgotten compared to the fact that they knew this disaster would happen yet the budget to fix/prevent it was slashed every year....to pay to rebuild Iraq instead.

Our nation's infrastructure is crumbling and we'd rather play war.
Why not worry about the fragility of domestic oil production instead of Iraq's non-existant oil infrastructure?
Hey maybe the gubment will now actually look at the desperately needed earthquake retrofitting out here instead of saying, "wish we'd funded that" when I-5 lies in pieces.

This would be a good excuse to bring our troops home. They are needed here.

[Iapetus999]

Re: 100,000 Dead??

People are taking a good hard look at "Homeland Security" and wondering if this porkbarrel is really doing anything worthwhile.
Instead of patting down old ladies at airports and checking their shoes maybe they could have thought about "disaster response" just a little bit more...

[Amenia]

Re: 100,000 Dead??

And, what about the rest of the world? Why is it the US is the first in line to offer assistance in a disaster but when it hits us we have to go it alone?

I read an article yesterday, where the president of Venezuela offered to help by sending water and food. From what I understood from it, we turned down the help because of a longstanding grudge... I could be wrong though.