Brown out in DC, and Black out in LA
Punnish ironies abound, as Mike Brown, (former) head of FEMA, resigns... and Los Angeles electricity goes black. Related? Probably not, but it makes for an amusing headline.
Brown's resignation was no surprise; he's been weathering heavy fire as the scapegoat for mishandling of emergency efforts in the wake of Katrina, but what's going on in LA is still a mystery. Yesterday, ABC aired a supposed tape by someone claiming to be an Al Qaida member, threatening in an impeccable American accent to hit LA... and Melbourne (of all places!)
Addendum: As of thirty minutes ago (17:44:24 EDT), Brown's profile was de-linked from the FEMA "Senior Staff Bios". Listed as "Acting Under Secretary" is R. David Paulison.
Where will they all go?
According to the 2000 Census, there are (or were) over 480,000 people in the city of New Orleans. With at least 80% of the city underwater, and a government-ordered evacuation, where will all those displaced people end up? Today, tens of thousands of evacuees began being bused 300 miles from the Superdome to the Houston Astrodome, but by early evening Houston officials said they had reached capacity, or as CNN.com's new screaming banner announced, "ASTRODOME: NO MORE ROOM!"
San Antonio may be next, and then where? Will there be refugee camps set up for months and months, while the Big Easy dries out and rebuilds?
The Boston Globe reports that rebuilding NOLA may cost the staggering amount of over $75 billion. And that's just part of the cost of the devastation wrought by Katrina. Along the Mississippi coast, entire towns were said to have been wiped out, and no one has a real clue on the loss of life there. The final tally of human suffering has yet to be imagined.
Take a gander at this frightful photo taken on August 31, from a Navy helicopter of the flooding around downtown New Orleans, including the Superdome. (Original at: http://www.navy.mil/view_single.asp?id=27553)
addendum: Dateline NBC is reporting that as many as 750,000 people are displaced and "on the move" right now.
Technorati Tags: New Orleans, Hurricane, Hurricane Katrina, Katrina
Int’l Blogging for Disaster Relief Day
It's the stuff of nightmares: the destruction, death and displaced lives left in wake of Hurricane Katrina. One blogger, Andy Carvin, "tossing and turning in his bed" last night hit upon an inspiration: unilaterally declare tomorrow "International Blogging for Disaster Relief Day."
In the recent past, the Internet has been a mainstay of up-to-the-second reporting on events, particularly catastrophes like the tsunami of the past year. The response to Katrina has been slow to develop, so spread the word and contribute what you can to charitable groups such as the Red Cross or your local relief efforts.
See:
- FEMA Donations list
- Katrina Help Wiki
- Andy Carvin's entry into his Waste of Bandwidth Blog
- Katrina's Aftermath Blog, also by Andy Carvin, listing latest updates.
- News.com Blogma post about Blogging for Disaster Relief Day
Technorati Tags: Disaster relief, Hurricane, International Blogging for Disaster Relief Day, Katrina
