Hurricane Katrina

[Siren]

Ah cool! Glad to hear they are going to get the attention they need there

[Isidour]

wouldn´t be better to rertrieve all the soldiers from Irak to help his own country?I mean, there in the US would be more useful than just waiting to be killed by some Iraqui guy

[Siren]

Now that would be a good debate. But not here and now. I rather not get off topic.

[Isidour]

Ok,let´s not

so...what stars will sing and perform on this "Help the hurricane´s victims" show?

[danamichelle]

wouldn´t be better to rertrieve all the soldiers from Irak to help his own country?I mean, there in the US would be more useful than just waiting to be killed by some Iraqui guy

No, that would not be a good idea. Some of the people in New Orleans are shooting at the rescue boats and helicopters. There are some people down there who just don't want to be rescued. A lot of the people do want to get out but the people who are shooting at the rescue teams and looting are making it a lot more difficult.

The soldiers need to stay in Iraq and finish the job they were sent there to do. If they come home, a lot more innocent people may die over there. I know first hand how tough it is for the soldiers and their families. My husband was sent to Iraq and Afghanistan and was gone for 1 year and 3 months. You can not start a war and not finish it.

Also, Texas is not the only people getting refugees. Some people from the Superdome were moved to Baton Rouge in the Centroplex.

[Siren]

No one ever listens to me.

Except you Isidour, your one of the few...the proud...the listeners

[MickeyMousePal]

Over at http://www.wwe.com

Ted DiBiase on helping the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Formerly know as "The Million Dollar Man".

Ted DiBiase is going home Thursday. And for that, he feels blessed.

DiBiase, who lives in Clinton, Mississippi with his wife and three sons, was in Tampa, Florida, when Hurricane Katrina rocked much of the Gulf Coast Monday. DiBiase, a WWE legend who now works with the company, had some anxious moments as he watched the horrible storm unfold on television while he tried to reach his family via phone.

“That was the most difficult time,” DiBiase said. “Those hours, not knowing exactly when it’s coming and then not being able to reach anyone because all the phone lines are jammed.”

Fortunately, the area of Mississippi where DiBiase lives avoided the brunt of Katrina.

“We got really lucky,” DiBiase said. “We went virtually unscathed. Just a couple of trees uprooted, limbs in the yard, things like that.”
Still, DiBiase, who wrestled frequently in the New Orleans area when he was younger and still has many friends in the city, has been shaken by the damage that he’s seen so far. In fact, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, a town just 80 miles from DiBiase’s home, was hit extremely hard by the storm.

“I started my wrestling career in the mid-south,” DiBiase said. “I’m very familiar with the area and it’s just a shock to watch it on television and realize the devastation that took place.”

DiBiase, who is also a minister, has a close friend who pastors a large church in New Orleans. DiBiase went as far as to offer his home to his friend, who eventually found shelter elsewhere.

“He called me the other day and he thinks they lost everything,” DiBiase said. “To have a storm that enormous so close to my home, I feel very fortunate.”

DiBiase plans to organize some fund-raising efforts once he returns home in connection with his local church.

“My heart goes out to those people,’ DiBiase said. “I’m going to get the word out through my ministry to raise money or supply food and clothing for the victims. Anything I can do to help.”

[Disneykid]

For the two people out there who may be wondering where the heck I am, the wonderful Hurricane Katrina destroyed all the internet connections in my area. I'm right now typing from my college, but since I only go to college part time, that's why I haven't posting regularly. My internet should be back up within a week. Besides my internet, everything else was fine. My house didn't get blown away to the land of Oz, so that's a relief. I'm really having withdrawals with this site (and the internet, period). Hopefully I'll be back on as usual soon.

[mila&breeze]

Hurricane Katrina is one of the strongest hurricanes that will hit the United States in history. Katrina is a Category 5 Hurricane stronger than Hurricanes Camille and Andrew, with winds currently 165 mph (even though before they were at 175 mph). Katrina will hit near New Orleans, Biloxi, and Mobile. The Hurricane is huge and will be devestating. I am keeping all the residents of the areas in my prayers.



However I feel the people of the area were unprepared. Jim Cantore (of the weather channel) said the people in New Orleans were unprepared. He said if this was Florida, it would be a ghostown by now, but in New Orleans it is gridlock with people trying to leave the city. The residents were saying yesterday that the storm is gonna miss them, its always done so before, and even then, they said how bad could it be? They have been unprepared. But hopefully they remain safe, and fare well through the storm.

The people of Miami and Fort Lauderdale however have complained too much about there little kiss from Katrina, when Katrina was category one. It was nothing. A category one is nothing to fret about. The people in Miami and Fort Lauderdale are crybabies. All I hear them crying about is how they don't have power. Big deal. I went 24 days last year without power due to Frances and Jeanne.

The trend of strong hurricanes is very bad over the last year, which were all Cat 3 or above.
Charley (Cat 4)- Punta Gorda/ Port Charlotte, Florida
Frances (Cat 3)- Port Saint Lucie/ Stuart, Florida
Ivan (Cat 4)- Pensacola/ Mobie area Florida/ Alabama
Jeanne (Cat 3) - Port Saint Lucie/ Stuart, Florida
Dennis (Cat 3)-Pensacola/ Mobie area Florida/ Alabama
Emily (Cat 4)- Yucatan Peninsula
and Now Katrina.

Hopefully the trend does not continue.

Please keep the people of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama (as well as anyone else that will be affected) in your prayers!

i live in the north so no worry for me after this happened feel sorry for people in south i hope ur okay if still alive

[Isidour]

by the way, does anyone know how many petroleum plattaforms were damaged or destroyed by the hurricane?

[Spongebob Squarepants]

The Mississippi coast is completely devastated. The people who lived in Gulfport and Biloxi basically have nothing to go back to. Not only have they lost their homes, they have no jobs to go back to. Tourism and the casinos were their main source of work. The casinos have been wiped out along with everything else, and tourism won't be back for a long time. Mississippi is a very poor state, and there aren't any jobs anywhere in the state for the displaced survivors to find.

The storm has caused damage through out the state. Most of the state lost power Monday. My family from Hattiesburg had to abandon their city yesterday. There's no food, no water, no power, and no gas there. Hattiesburg has completely shut down. They don't know when they will be able to go back home or to work or to school. They lost part of the roof of their house. Just take a look at the map below, and you can see the distance Hattiesburg is from the coast. There is major damage in the state from the city of Meridian down. I can't even imagine what it's like on the coast.

My cousin was watching the news reports today, and he was telling me a man in Hattiesburg shot and killed another for a bag of ice!! A BAG OF ICE!! It's just crazy.

I too am in Mississippi Cj! And my sister lives in Hattiesburg! She just happened to be home for the weekend and now can't go back home! What pasrt of Mississippi do you live in!? We got alot ogf winds too up here and the power had been for a couple of days! My prayers go out for these people on the coast and in New Orleans...we may have not had power but they are in worst shape then we are! And I hope the best for your family CJ!

[TashieGirl]

This is horrible. What makes it more worst is the fact that Katrina is my
Middle name(it's actually spelled with a C).

Anyway, I hope Katrina doesn't do much more damage.

[CJ]

I too am in Mississippi Cj! And my sister lives in Hattiesburg! She just happened to be home for the weekend and now can't go back home! What part of Mississippi do you live in!? We got alot of winds too up here and the power had been for a couple of days! My prayers go out for these people on the coast and in New Orleans...we may have not had power but they are in worst shape then we are! And I hope the best for your family CJ!

I live in Greenville, Spongebob Squarepants. This is one time I am thankful that I live in the Delta and not further south. My area was one of the few parts of the state that didn't lose power. The winds were strong, and we got a lot of heavy rain. But we needed the rain, and it wasn't anything we couldn't handle.

Greenville is full of refugees from the coast and New Orleans. All the hotels are booked, and local churches have opened shelters. Local churches, restaurants, and our Walmart have been donating food and other necessities to them.

My cousin is thankful that he had a place to go. They have begun to pick up the pieces. It'll be a slow process, but they will get through it. When they are able to go back home, the rest of my family will go with them. We plan to help them repair their house. Luckily carpentry skills run in our family. For now, it's the waiting and not knowing about their home and city that is worse.

Spongebob, I hope your sister will get to go home soon.

[Little Red Henski]

by the way, does anyone know how many petroleum plattaforms were damaged or destroyed by the hurricane?

I think 10. I didn't know how bad it was over there! Too bad all those soldiers are in Iraq when they could be helping out over there.

[castleinthesky]

Accusations that race was a factor in the slow response
One source of blame for the slowness of the federal response is based on the fact that poor urban blacks have not supported the administration of George W. Bush. Rev. Jesse Jackson, upon visiting Louisiana, stated, "Many black people feel that their race, their property conditions and their voting patterns have been a factor in the response." This point was asserted more bluntly by Kanye West, during a September 2 NBC Telethon to raise funds for hurricane victims. West stated, "George Bush doesn't care about black people," and that the U.S. is determined "to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off as slow as possible." He concluded by stating, "They've given them permission to go down and shoot us."

When federal response did start arriving, much of it was focused on stopping looters, some of whom had reportedly delayed the delivery of vital relief. Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco sent a directed warning that incoming guard troops "have M-16s and they're locked and loaded ... [and they] know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so, and I expect they will."

Commentator Lou Dobbs of CNN, has claimed that local officials should bear some responsibility saying that "the city of New Orleans is 70% black, its mayor is black, its principle power structure is black, and if there is a failure to the black Americans, who live in poverty and in the city of New Orleans, those officials have to bear much of the responsibility."

Characterizations of "looting"
In addition, there has been controversy over racially biased captioning of photographs featured on Yahoo!'s newswire. Criticism began after Yahoo! featured similar images of New Orleans residents carrying off supplies from a grocery store. One image showed an African-American man "after looting a grocery store," while the other featured a Caucasian man and woman "after finding bread and soda from a local grocery store" [24] Yahoo! summarily removed the offending images and issued an apology. The two images were taken from separate news sources, and Yahoo! claimed no fault as "we [Yahoo!] present the photos and their captions as written, edited and distributed by the news services with no additional editing at Yahoo! News."

The photographer who captioned the AFP photo in question had this response to the controversy:

"The people were swimming in chest deep water, and there were other people in the water, both white and black. I looked for the best picture. there were a million items floating in the water - we were right near a grocery store that had 5+ feet of water in it. it had no doors. the water was moving, and the stuff was floating away. These people were not ducking into a store and busting down windows to get electronics. They picked up bread and cokes that were floating in the water. They would have floated away anyhow." This would seem to indicate that the original premise that there were racial overtones to the captioning of the separate photos was false, and that the photos were taken in different contexts.

Kanye West also commented on this at the NBC Telethon, stating, "If you see a black family, it says they're looting. See a white family, it says they're looking for food."

I can't believe Kayne West for saying these things. I hope all his records get banned and taken off radio stations. He was totally inapropriate.

He says white people are being racist to him. He is the one being racist. Where was he to help the victims of the 4 Florida hurricanes of 2004 or Hurricane Dennis. I didn't see him anywhere. Wait, its becasuse the population isn't 50% or more African?

[TashieGirl]

He says white people are being racist to him.

He didn't say whites were being racist to black people.He just said Bush was being racist if I recall. The reason Kayne didn't help out the victims in Hurricane Dennis or any other hurricanes in Florida was because they didn't do much damage as Hurricane Katrina.

[castleinthesky]

He says white people are being racist to him.

He didn't say whites were being racist to black people.He just said Bush was being racist if I recall. The reason Kayne didn't help out the victims in Hurricane Dennis or any other hurricanes in Florida was because they didn't do much damage as Hurricane Katrina.

So I guess the demolition of many parts of Pensacola by Ivan and Dennis wasn't damaging? I guess Punta Gorda's near entire destruction by Charley was okay? What about the destruction of many houses near Vero Beach, Port Saint Lucie, Fort Pierce, and Stuart, by Frances and Jeanne wasn't devastating either. I guess the thousands that died in Haiti because of Hurricane Jeanne wasn't important either.

The 5 major hurricanes and 2 tropical storms (not including Katrina) that have hit Flordia over the past year and a half, have torn Florida's tourism economy, destroyed many citrus crops, by both wind damage, and the spread of the canker disease, has cost Florida and the U.S. more money than any other natural disaster in United States history. It has also changed the lives of millions of people.

[Siren]

There was a woman on CNN today over the phone, she had her and her 2 sons, 17 and 23 living in a motel. They lost everything. She went to the Red Cross and FEMA and she said they didn't even treat her like she was a human being. She is African American. She also felt they treated the victims of the Tsunami better.

I don't know the full story. Perhaps she was an unreasonable woman with FEMA and Red Cross. But racisim is alive and well, especially in the deep south, smack dab where she's at. Whatever is going on there, I don't know. But with all the crimes of desperation and greed going on there, why wouldn't there be racial tensions as well?

Its the "Them or Us" and "Every man for themselves" syndrome.

Though some bittersweet pictures stories have come back from there. Two young African Americans helping a white elderly man through the water, holding him up. An elderly woman trapped in her house tells the rescuers to come back tomorrow, and to save her neighbor nextdoor who has young children. She won't go unless they take the family first. Disasters can bring out the best and the worst.

[Little Red Henski]

Kayne West you are a true American Hero! It took a lot of courage to say what you did. Why did Bush wait until after the hurricane hit to end his vaction? All Kayne West did was use his freedom of speech. It not like he started a war under false reasons. I can't believe you still like Bush after he and his brother screwed your town! Bush only loves rich people!

[Starion]

by the way, does anyone know how many petroleum plattaforms were damaged or destroyed by the hurricane?

The US Coast Guard says that 20 oil rigs are missing. That's all I know.