(Vanity) Katrina & Rita - 1 year later

Multiple Blogs ^ | August 13, 2006 | Liberty911

[Liberty911]

Katrina & Rita - 1 year later - Appeal for help from a resident near Ground Zero...

Let's see what the power of Freep can do to motivate the United States Government and it's legislators and beauracrats for 2 small Parishes (counties) in the United States of America compared what it can do for a hostile country roughly twice the size of Idaho (Iraq)

[ChessMan]

I have to agree some with Nathan on this. I can repsect you are upset at the govt for things (they are not perfect, which is why we want to shrink em instead of grow em) but I think it would do your cause more good to say something like:

"Hey, we have the follow issues needing fixed in X area. So far pleas to govt officials have not helped so we are turning to the folks here to help us" - WHICH, btw, is a good way to say if you are for smaller govt and more folks helping each other out, this is your chance to put your money where you mouth is while also quickly summarizing the problem.

The local/state govt should take a lead on this. Local taxes, tolls, etc were used to build and maintain the infrastructure there - any federal roads, parks, etc should be handled by the feds. They can, and often do, help out on issues as well - but the state govt needs to do it's part as well.

It would also behoove the senators from the state to push to get them help (that is why you put em in office), get on talk shows, bang some pots and pans etc.

Your post seems to whine that the US govt is spending more on Iraq, et al, while not detailing in a simple way the issues so that one could focus on whose repsonsibility it is to handle them.

So let's start over. What is/are the issue/s, what is the solution you see as best, and how can we assist you in getting said solution implemented?

[carmenbmw]

I have the most concern for you and the area, I think we all do. I am not sure what you want me, as an individual, to do to help out.
I dont have any more $$$ to donate, what else?

[Mad Dawg]

Sir,

You are coming here and telling us that we have some kind of moral obligation to do what you want. I clicked on your link, clicked on another link and there was referred to some more links.

I don't like being told I am failing in some moral obligation by someone who makes it hard for me to find out just what moral obligation he thinks I'm failing at and then criticizes me further for not following his maze of links.

As to Louisiana generally: First I went there and worked for 10 days for no compensation after Katrina and Rita. I would have stayed longer but the ARC seems to be run by jerks and I have a low BS tolerance.

Second, Louisiana has been the beneficiary of Federal funds both before and after the twin hits. Lousiana's own elected officials squandered the money. While I can see that it may be in the national interest to help repair some of the port facilities and the infrastructure to support them, I don't think there is a debt to people who have squandered previous funds.

There is always a moral obligation, as it were a debt to God, to help the needy. But the needy who have made themselves needy do not have the claim. We owe it to God, not to the poor, to help the poor.

Recently NPR or some other socialist radio station had a series about hwo simply marvelous Louisiana is and what a gem of cultural diversity and blah blah blah. And I personally find many aspects of Louisiana completely captivating.

But, damn it all! A whole culture develops below sea-level and in hurricane country. Federal dollars are poured in to build, raise, and maintain levees. Those dollars end up being controlled by corrupt boards and incompetent local politicians. When the inevitable disaster comes, the beneficiaries of those dollars come to us and tell us we owe it to them to give them MORE? Nagin is still mayor and I owe New Orleans a DIME?

I don't think so.

Make your case clear and accessible to those of us so far in the backwoods that we're still on dial-up. Show clearly how it is in our interests. And give some assurance that future aid will not go into the pockets of incompetent whore-mongers, and I'll listen and consider.

But tell me I HAVE to negotiate a rabbit-warren of high bandwidth links to find out that I OWE it to someone to subsidize the continued "roulant" of "les bons temps" and you've sure as shooting lost my attention.

What's the murder rate in the big easy these days? Is that my fault too?

[Liberty911]

There is so much, I as an individual don't know where to begin.

The primary thing is total waste and mismanagement by FEMA and lack of taking the controls of our locals.

For example, there are literally thousands if not tens of thousands who need FEMA trailers right now, STILL YET, and there has been approximately 10,000 FEMA trailers sitting in storage at some leased site (I think at an airport) in Arkansas since a month or 2 after the water-bombing, and these trailers are now rotting and infested with termites and insects from reports in the media. Also, They need to give more control to the locals over the logistics and what actually gets done (but at the same time watch them like a hawk because many are EXTREMELY greedy and outright dirty thieves).

I'm just trying to do what I can, it is very difficult to cope with but I am just trying to help people whom I know and have worked with for many years. I am a 20 year transplant here, but I have spent most of my adult life here and knew this day would come and warned many people whom pretty much blew me off, but now they know I knew what I Was talking about...

Again, I SINCERELY appreciate all that the people of this country have done for us, but our bureaucrats are making a mockery of all the volunteer efforts that have been put into recovery and reconstruction through total incompetence and back room dealings that in the end get little, if much at all accomplished for those whom are most in need of something as simple as having a trailer that has already been purchased by FEMA and just sits dormant many, many miles away from where it is most needed, all the while it is costing a LOT of $$$ to just keep it sitting there rotting and unoccupied...

[Liberty911]

Sir, *PLEASE* do not misinterpret me, I am not saying the people themselves have not done enough or owe us ANYTHING.

What I am saying, is YOUR bureaucrats are making a mockery out of the monies and physical efforts and volunteer efforts that people unselfishly made under some VERY extremely harsh and rancid conditions, I am merely pleading for help (how and exactly what I am unsure), but I just know the bureaucrats are miserably fumbling the reconstruction and recovery efforts, and a lot of politically connected people are getting rich while people such as a recent episode wherein a blind woman whose home IS GONE cannot even get a FEMA trailer after repeated requests for almost a year now while others whom obviously do not need them are repeatedly offered these trailers and other aid.

[poobear]

I keep hearing your mantra of $6.00 per gallon. Listen, having taken several direct hits from hurricanes during my lifetime in Florida I suggest you get your local and state reps to get off their @sses with our tax dollars (over $200 BILLION) so far. Almost a year after this tragedy and they are still haggling over closed bids, who gets what, whatever!

Frankly, and I'm speaking for myself, the passion drys up after I keep hearing "we need more money" from you guys in LA. The problem is LOCAL!

[Larry Lucido]

So how does increased government spending alleviate "$6.00 a gallon gas"?

[Liberty911]

I have personallly loaded probably 50-75 million of gallons of propane and butane in the disaster zone which was delivered to, FLORIDA! AND also, I worked for 3 years at the *Tampa Electric* (TECO) Coal transfer terminal in Davant, LA in Plaquemines Parish that ships nearly all of the coal your power plants burn in Florida.

Is that getting a little closer to home for you now?

Your propane, butane and electricty are going up too my friend...

[carmenbmw]

It does sound as though the problem is more local as anything else. Yet Nagin, et al, were voted back in. ???
Perhaps the issue of what in LA will be restored (only to be destroyed again?) vs. what can be done to make the best of a bad situation, regroup, and rebuild in a different, better way needs to be addressed.
I know that you are frustrated and that you have been through so much. Continue to focus on what we need to do to help.
I cant come down and clean up the local politics myself, but....
Suggestions?

[Liberty911]

By protecting the infrastructure.

[StAnDeliver]

"What I am saying, is YOUR bureaucrats"

No sir, the problem is your bureaucrats, a coterie of insatiable grifters all the way from Leander Perez to the present with the incompetent Gov. Gramma and the Landrieu Mafia.

[StAnDeliver]

"Also, They need to give more control to the locals over the logistics and what actually gets done (but at the same time watch them like a hawk because many are EXTREMELY greedy and outright dirty thieves)."

As if FEMA could ever dissuade the history of lagniappe grift that runs deep in the bone. Forget it.

[Liberty911]

I agree with you TOTALLY on the locals, and if you only knew what has been done to me in fighting these dirty people and what they do AND DID TO MY CHILDREN IN RETAILIATION FOR EXPOSING THEM.

BUT, since the citizens of this state cannot seem to come together and effectively overcome the political mafia down here (and the people are even more fractured and disorganized now), I honestly think and believe, after MUCH AND LONG study and analysis, that the Federal Government needs to do more in taking control of the situation, or giving more control to lower level people and local officials, but at the same time watching them like an extremely hungry bear or American bald eagle and when they catch them stealing or dealing, whack them as hard as they can with a Federal gavel...

[poobear]

Liberty, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your help during our crisis' in the past. Personally my family and several others made 3 caravans to MS & LA last year with full trailers of food, money, clothing, generators and building materials. That's what good neighbors do. You sound spent on telling me that if we don't do more for LA it is our fault if petroleum prices go up. BullSh*t! You could build a small nation with the tax dollars allocated for LA. Deal with your problems locally. Florida did!

[carmenbmw]

With all of the problems that we have going on all over the world I wonder if LA alone could drive up the price of gas to 6$ or whatever.

[Mad Dawg]

What I am saying, is YOUR bureaucrats are making a mockery out of the monies and physical efforts and volunteer efforts that people unselfishly made under some VERY extremely harsh and rancid conditions,

You're not a citizen of the US? They're not OUR bureaucrats?

I'm leaving this thread. You tell us we have to help, we have to wind our way through link after link to find out how to help, if we don't help gas prices will go up, and blind women will be homeless. It's incoherent, or at least I'm not smart enough to understand it.

I'm not sure that almost a year after the disaster FEMA should be involved any more. I'm not sure that we shouldn't cut out losses on at least part of the port capabilities. I AM sure that if New Orleans can reelect Nagin, they can kiss my enthusiastic cooperation goodbye.

My advice, free and worth every penny, is take a deep breath, wait a day, CLEARLY articulate your concerns, your argument, and your appeal, and then try again. All you've done today is make me angry.

[Liberty911]

poobear, I go back 6 years here on Freep, and MUCH longer elsewhere, and I have responded MANY times to people in distress and crises all over this country.

Your claim to "deal with it ourselves" could have VERY easily given me a very selfish impression of Floridians, but then I am above that mentality and know better...

MANY times in the past, knowing the effects of hurricanes, the people of Plaquemines Parish have sent funds, supplies and people to hurricane stricken areas MANY times in the past, because we knew first hand...

[poobear]

If you'd bother to read my post Liberty, you'd know that I too am a charitable neighbor and friend. Your constant whining for more money has me and the entire nation losing interest.

Something about 'Give a man a fish and he eats for a day...'. I suggest you and the local authorities spend the federal money wisely. If LA fails to do so, this FReeper won't be the only one with harsh words for the good people of LA.

[poobear]

Now this guys giving me a lecture on charity. He's barking up the wrong native Floridian tree! Is there something in the water in LA? Is it really my fault the place is a natural swamp? The native Indians knew better than to build their villages there!

[Liberty911]

"I suggest you and the local authorities spend the federal money wisely. If LA fails to do so, this FReeper won't be the only one with harsh words for the good people of LA." That's one of the primary issues I would guess we need help with, that the Federal Government (whom should be vigilantly overseeing the spending and handling of Federal monies) and the locals are pilfering the monies and resources that are being sent, BUT ONE point in case:

St. Tammany Councilman Joe Impastato indicted AGAIN (AFTER THE FACT)