Southern California Fires - Another Katrina?

Some news outlets are reporting that the Chimperator is trying to avoid another Katrina like fiasco in the wake of the devastating fires in Southern California that have forced nearly 1 million residents to evacuate. From news coverage last night, this is the largest displacement of residents in this country since the Civil War. Personally, I don't trust the Chimperator to manage anything well, based on his track record. Moreover, many stories hinted that the lack of National Guard personnel who are in Iraq was hampering the fire fighting efforts. California's lieutenant Governor reportedly asked the Chimperator to NOT visit. GOP Governor Schwarzenegger will also likely get some blame. Here are some highlights from the Los Angeles Times ( http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-fire24oct24,0,5795853.story?coll=la-home-center):

Exhausted and sometimes discouraged, firefighters struggled for a third day Tuesday to wrest control of more than a dozen wildfires in Southern California that threatened such familiar landmarks as the Mt. Palomar Observatory and the resort communities around Lake Arrowhead.Fire crews threw everything they had at the fires, but though there were notable successes, the toll of acreage, homes and lives lost continued to rise -- as did the volume of criticism from those who said the region was woefully unprepared for the cataclysm.

"If we had more air resources, we would have been able to control this fire," said a frustrated Orange County Fire Authority Chief Chip Prather. "Instead we've been stuck in this initial attack mode on the ground where we hopscotch through neighborhoods as best we can trying to control things."Prather spoke at a news briefing Tuesday morning less than a mile from what had been an idyllic residential enclave at Modjeska Canyon, near El Toro in eastern Orange County. As he spoke, the canyon was erupting in an inferno that forced firefighters to retreat and destroyed an undetermined number of homes.

In a story that was repeated in many places throughout the region, there simply were not enough firetrucks to chase down the fire that swept from Running Springs into the steep, winding roads of Fredalba on Tuesday morning, said Brian Savage, a division supervisor with the Culver City Fire Department who was among the first to begin battling back the flames.

The White House, eager not to repeat its experience in Hurricane Katrina, announced that President Bush would travel to Southern California on Thursday to tour damaged areas and monitor the federal government's response. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and R. David Paulison, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, arrived in California on Tuesday."The world is watching how much of . . . the southern part of the state is on fire," said White House press secretary Dana Perino. "The federal government is very concerned, [and] the president is concerned himself. The Bush administration was harshly criticized for reacting too slowly to the threat from Hurricane Katrina and botching the jobs of evacuation and reconstruction once the storm had devastated New Orleans and other Gulf Coast communities.

Of course, New Orleans was/is majority black, while Southern California is not and includes some GOP strongholds (e.g. Orange County). Just a coincidence that Bush is more concerned? Also, I wonder how much fire equipment could have been purchased with the billions squandered in Iraq and not even accounted for ($1.2 billion in the case of one contractor)?

Reckless Abandonment By Bush

I generally lament the disaster the regime of Chimperator Bush has been in terms of (1) subverting the Constitution and (B) creating a foreign policy and military fiasco in Iraq. He has created an equally horrifying disaster in failed recovery efforts for New Orleans. An editorial in today's Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/24/AR2007082401209.html?hpid=opinionsbox1) details just how huge Bush's sins have been in this regard:

Two full years after the hurricane, the Big Easy is barely limping along, unable to make truly meaningful reconstruction progress. The most important issues concerning the city's long-term survival are still up in the air. Why is no Herculean clean-up effort underway? Why hasn't President Bush named a high-profile czar such as Colin Powell or James Baker to oversee the ongoing disaster? Where is the U.S. government's participation in the rebuilding?

The Corps has been busy fixing the three principal holes that opened in August 2005. Its hard work has, in fact, paid a partial dividend. A decent defensive floodwall is now on the east side of the Industrial Canal, attempting to protect the Lower Ninth Ward. Unfortunately, that is where the upbeat news nosedives. The federal government has refused to shut the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet canal that helped cause the Katrina "funnel effect" flooding two years ago. In addition, entire neglected neighborhoods still have no adequate flood control.

Bold action has been needed for two years now, yet all that the White House has offered is an inadequate trickle of billion-dollar Band-aids and placebo directives. Too often in the United States we forget that "inaction" can be a policy initiative. Every day the White House must decide what not to do.

New Orleans appears to be largely abandoned by the Department of Homeland Security, except for its safeguarding of the Port Authority (port traffic is at 90 percent of pre-Katrina numbers) and tourist districts above sea level, such as the French Quarter and Uptown. These areas are kept alive largely by the wild success of Harrah's casino and a steady flow of undaunted conventioneers.

But what makes the current inaction plan so infuriating is that it's deceptive, offering up this open-armed spin to storm victims: "Come back to New Orleans." Why can't Bush look his fellow citizens in the eye and tell them what seems to be the ugly truth? That as long as he's commander in chief, there won't be an entirely reconstructed levee system.

Why am I left with the sick feeling that if these still devastated areas had been affluent white neighborhoods instead of low income black neighborhoods, that the White House response would have perhaps been considerably different?

Report details US refusals of foreign aid after Katrina

Many of you have perhaps read my post about my experience traveling to the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. Having seen the disaster first hand and witnessed how inadequate the aid to residents was, it leaves me incredulous that the US Government turned down huge quantities of relief aid. The lives of many Katrina victims could have been better but for such huburistic conduct:

A new report reveals the US government turned down offers of help from across the globe in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, telling one diplomat "human assistance of any kind is not on our priorities list."

The report from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington relies on a review of 25,000 documents obtained from the State Department. The report reveals the US was interested mostly in cash assistance and materials, rather than direct aid from foreign relief workers and doctors, after Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast in 2005.

"A review of the State Department documents reveals distressing ineptitude," CREW's executive director Melanie Sloan said in a prepared statement. "Countries were trying to donate desperately needed goods and services, but as a result of bureaucratic bungling and indifference, those most in need of these generous offers and of aid never received it."

Offers to help came from 145 countries and 12 international organizations. The US did accept help from its top allies around the globe, but CREW's report shows it left unclaimed hundreds of thousands of prepared meals, water pumps, doctors and medicine.

As of today, thousands still are displaced and areas of New Orleans look little different than shortly after the storm. These images are images of Chimperator Bush's America. He allowed special chartered flights to remove members of the Bin Laden family from the USA after 9-11, but denied foreign assistance to US citizens.

Hurricane Katrina Evacuee Adventure

Since we are in the midst of hurricane season (June 1 through November 30), I wanted to recount an adventure Raymond and I had Labor Day weekend of 2005 in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Having lived on the Gulf Coast and loving the City of New Orleans, in the aftermath of Katrina, Raymond and I were so so sick of watching the television images of Hurricane Katrina victims that Raymond felt we had to do something. Perhaps it was craziness in some ways, but what followed is a trip I will never forget.

Raymond began calling the Red Cross and various telephone numbers shown on TV seeking to find a way to bring some evacuees to live in our house and/or assist in getting back on their feet. Finally, he made contact with a woman in an office in Baton Rouge assisting evacuees. Through her, we had a contact and arranged to go to Baton Rouge to pick up people to come back to Norfolk. Thinking that we had firm plan in place, we rented a van and drove south, carrying extra tanks of gasoline (some given to us near the Alabama border by a Baptist Church team head back to Georgia) and slept in rest areas during the trip. We got as far as Jackson, Mississippi and hit a wall. Our contact who was supposed to meet us in Baton Rouge disappeared in the confusion generated by Chimperator Bush's PR visit to Baton Rouge the day we were to arrive.

Unable to confirm any arrangement, we were reluctant to drive another 120 miles each way to Baton Rouge where chaos was in full reign. Hence, we went to the Jackson Mississippi Coliseum where the Red Cross was warehousing evacuees like animals. Our volunteered assistance was turned down by the Red Cross because of "liability concerns." Next we headed northward to Meridian, Mississippi where a large Methodist Church had several hundred evacuees. We nearly had a family decide to go with us, but the father - who was a basket case - in the last resort wanted to stay in the false hope of being able to return to New Orleans.

Leaving Meridian, we finally stopped at a cute little restaurant called the Santa Fe Cafe in the tiny town Forrest, Mississippi, since we had not had a normal meal in several days. Upon being seated, the waitress immediately says to us "You boys aren't from around here, are you?" Thinking we were probably about to be beaten up or killed, we explained the basis for our quest. When the waitress told other employees, we soon had them all talking to us and we ended up with food - a fabulous southern style buffet - on the house. They refused to let us pay for anything. Anyone traveling from Meridian to Tuscaloosa should look up this restaurant, which is just off the interstate.

Finally, we wound up visiting a Red Cross relief event at the Talladega Speedway in Alabama. There, we met some evacuees who gave us the phone numbers of several evacuees stranded in Atlanta who were about to run out of hotel vouchers. We finally picked up seven evacuees in Atlanta - by chance all seven were gay - and drove back to Norfolk. Some of the members of our church, First Lutheran of Norfolk, began helping the evacuees with funds and support. One older couple took in three of the evacuees since nine people in our house was madness.

We and our evacuees were very frustrated—having faced adversity at every turn as they try to find jobs and housing in the area. It was a maze of bureaucratic red tape since day one. People have been very critical of New Orleans officials and they way they handled things, but from what I saw, the Norfolk area would be just as bad if it happened here this year at some point.

An account of our adventure was printed in the Virginia Lawyers Weekly which can be found here:http://www.virginialaw.com/subscriber/archives_FTS.cfm?page=VA/05/9260548.htm&recID=350101&QueryText=hamar. Without a doubt, I have to be one of the most out attorneys in the Commonwealth of Virginia after that September 2006 article.