NYC also has a page on a Home Emergency Supply Kit.

Bush is on TV. He. keeps. calling. reufgees. 'folks'.

Heather's head explodes

He walked through the debris with the woman and a girl, his arms around their shoulders, and told them to "hang in there."

The itty bitty pieces of 'sploded Heather head explode

"We'll do both (help the Gulf Coast and those in Iraq), we've got plenty of resources to do both," Bush said.

And at the same time, pass yet another tax cut that will only help the wealthy.

There are still students stranded/trapped at Xavier University.

There are guests who are stranded/trapped at the NO downtown Marriott.

All sorts catching up.

Sorry, -t.

You know, it occurred to me that the last time there was a refugee situation this big in the US, it was the Dust Bowl. And we all know how well the Okies fared -- you may remember a little book called The Grapes of Wrath (which if anything, understated the problem).

As an Okie... yeah, it's similar, but there are differences. The biggest one is that they lost their homes due to economics and not disaster, and it took two years of drought before the exodus began. NOLA people lost their homes and have to go somewhere now. Also, NOLA people are being welcomed or at least tolerated by neighboring states, where Okies... you've all heard Woody Guthrie's "Do-Re-Mi," right? And, of course, the exodus size is larger: 500K from Oklahoma/Texas/Kansas, as many as 1M from NOLA and Mississippi.

But, you know, they are similar in this sense: After the Dust Bowl, only about 50% of the people who went west returned to Oklahoma. Most remained in/around Bakersfield, many others moved to LA. Some kept going up the coast until they arrived at the Boeing plants in Seattle. After Katrina, we may be looking at a similar rate of diaspora in NOLA and the surrounding regions. 1.2M people live in the metro area; I wouldn't be surprised if by 2010 it were only 800K.

After the Dust Bowl, the Soil Conservation Corps did a lot to try to prevent the disaster from ever happening again. They planted immense tree breaks of cottonwood across western Oklahoma to stop the winds. They advocated contour farming. Unfortunately, most of these lessons have been forgotten. Tree breaks are rare nowadays, chopped down for more crop land.

My grandmother told me that when she was a teenager in SE Oklahoma in the late 30s, she'd leave the house for school and there'd be a layer of dust coating everything outside. The color would change depending on where the black blizzard was; some days red, some days brown.

BTW, this is one of those times when I wish the US had a parliementary system, because I don't think Dubya could win a no confidence vote right now with a lot of horse-trading.

If I were president, I would have Chertoff's and Brown's resignation letters by now. They need to go RIGHT NOW. It can only help the situation.

This never would have been this bad under Clinton. He probably would have driven an 18-wheeler full of supplies and Jesse Jackson in himself.

Hell, I think Reagan could have done a better job.

Wouldn't it be great if we were living in a parliamentary system about now so the opposition could call for a vote of no confidence, like, now?

That would imply that we have an opposition party willing to show some leadership. I'm not seeing any evidence of such.

Hell, I think Reagan could have done a better job.

Hell, where's Nixon when we need him?

Hell, where's Nixon when we need him?

Or even Ford. He has the advantage of still being alive.

In sum (LA Times):

**********

WASHINGTON — When disaster strikes in the United States, Americans expect a full-throttle response from the government, with whatever it takes to help to the victims — food, water, rescue teams, emergency medical supplies, helicopters, and National Guard soldiers to protect property and life. And the response is expected to be fast and efficient.

That's not how it worked out this time.

Three days after Hurricane Katrina struck Monday, rescue workers still had not reached numerous storm victims on rooftops and highway overpasses whose unanswered pleas for help were captured by news crews. Gunfire kept some rescue workers from devastated sections of the city, and police said they could not guarantee the workers' safety.

News reports showed a crowd of refugees, including children, stranded without adequate food, water or medical attention at New Orleans' downtown convention center, even though it had been designated a shelter after the Superdome filled up. When Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff was asked on National Public Radio why no help had been sent, he said he was unaware of the problem.

And the Federal Emergency Management Agency was using trucks and buses — not airplanes — to transport many of its highly trained units to the New Orleans area, although California had responded immediately to a federal request for urban search-and-rescue teams, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said Thursday.

FEMA told her staff that this was "standard operation procedure," Boxer said in a letter to the agency, but "standard operating procedure is not what we should be following during this time of crisis."

How could such problems bedevil an area long identified as a disaster waiting to happen? Why were federal, state and local officials surprised by the flooding when experts had repeatedly pinpointed issues? How could the federal agencies that are charged with preparing for such emergencies — and have often reacted effectively in the past — have apparently stumbled so badly?

The questions were all the more serious as it became clear that most of the suffering was not in the storied precincts of Bourbon Street, the Latin Quarter or the Garden District, but in predominantly black, working-poor neighborhoods that New Orleans tourists seldom see.

You know all those universities that are accepting enrollments?

Just got an e-mail from my place of work; we're working rapidly to try and get two Tulane students enrolled in our programs.