RIP Ike victims…

Please anyone facing a hurricane please evacuate. The idea that so many died when they could have evacuated is such a waste. You can get new things but you can’t do anything if you are dead or maimed.

So much unnecessary death on the Republic’s watch. Yet they feel no guilt and pay no price.

Let me second Anna’s plea.

I lived through the fringes of one low Category 1 hurricane as a kid in Hilo. We lived at about 500 feet ASL. It’s still scary stuff. I don’t want to experience another one, and for sure I don’t want to be anywhere near sea level if circumstances force another personal encounter with a hurricane.

It’s so sad, I can’t understand why anyone would try to ride out a storm as big as Hurricane Ike living in GALVESTON of all places. But I hope and pray that the residents are alive. But the words missing and presumed dead are so ominous.

Do you think the people of Texas are prepared for the death toll?
Or has the lid that authorities put on coverage leaving the population vulnerable for a hideous shock?

Please anyone facing a hurricane please evacuate. The idea that so many died when they could have evacuated is such a waste. You can get new things but you can’t do anything if you are dead or maimed.

I am living with my dad, I lost my mom and keeping him company, I have tried my best to get him to move with me to our family in other states

he will not leave this house, it is “your mother’s house”

if there were a storm comming and we were forced to evacuate, he would not, and I wouldn’t be able to leave him alone.

this is the way it is

With 90,000 people not heeding the mandatory evacuations….the number of missing could be staggering…this is just beginning to bubble up into people’s reality…also, considering the odd no fly zone, and the media blackout/brownout…this story is far from over:

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/259987

I have a relative who said re Katrina victims “well, why didn’t they just get in their cars and leave” - completely oblivious of the fact that poor people don’t have cars. I haven’t spoken to her since and don’t intend to.

A happy Ike story. When I went to Netroots Nation, I visited my friend in Houston first. Took he a pint of tomatoes I canned last year as a house gift. She finally got her electricity back (no damage to her house), and had to throw out everything in the refrigerator. So she used my canned tomatoes to make a sauce for dinner last night.

I think much more needs to be done to educate people about these hurricanes. This one was supposedly a Category 2 when it made landfall.

Category 2 hurricanes in the past were 50-100 miles across, and moved quickly, sometimes at speeds of up to 35 miles per hour in whatever direction they were going. Even if the eye passed directly over you, it wasn’t really that bad.

Nowdays, any hurricane is a whole different proposition. Ike was 700 miles across, and moving at 4 miles per hour. What this does is allow the storm surge to build up and be pushed ahead of the storm front. Estimates are that the surge was up to 25 feet tall - that’s a tsunami anywhere else. And while 100 mph winds are usually able to be withstood for a little while, they are not when they blow for hours on end from one direction and then turn around and blow for more hours on end from the other.

The storm surges appear to be causing most of the really horrendous damage now - and I think we need a better measure of those estimates and change how hurricanes are categorized that includes something about the surge.

Also - a mandatory evacuation should be just that. Even if the local officials have to drag people out at gunpoint and put them on buses. This is ridiculous - and after the storm these people who want to ‘ride it out’ are all yelling for someone to come rescue them and expecting other people to risk their lives in the process.

You would have to force him to leave…there’s just no other way around it…I do, however, understand how your father feels…it is echoed over and over, and I think many, many have perished for that reason. Perhaps while we are able to, we should really consider the concept of “detachment”. Detachment from material things..

Having been through a huge flood and lost almost everything I owned…I found out the hard way that you come out on the other side shocked, numb, traumatized, etc., and then a few years later you realize you have a bunch of stuff again…and are trying to actively get rid of a lot of it.

And don’t be fooled by the Category number of the approaching storm. Each and every storm is different. The Category just tells you the range of wind speeds expected. The Category tells you nothing about the storm surge. The storm surge can kill even in a relatively weak storm.

Louisiana had extensive damage from Ike and we were hardly hit at all compared to Houston and Galveston. Louisiana’s fisherman have taken a big hit and are trying to get back to providing a third of the nation’s seafood. The seafood/fisheries industry alone is estimated to have sustained in the neighborhood of 300 million in both lost revenue and infrastructure damage from Ike and Gustav.

Here is hoping that the season is done for the year so we can get things fixed but if one comes your way…get out of the way!

We all get attached to places with deep meaning and emotional connections. The danger comes when we can’t envision life apart from those places.

I’m glad you are able to care for your dad now, but I hope that if the day comes when that storm is bearing down on you both, you can convince him that evacuating is the right thing to do. Once the storm passes, you all can figure out the next steps — returning home or relocating permanently — but sitting in the bullseye of a hurricane does not honor the memories of your mother that the house may hold.

Peace to you and your family, perris.

feel no guilt and pay no price

It ought to be the official GOP motto…

(((perris)))
I can relate to your situation.

Yes, yes, and yes…the comments regarding the strength of the hurricane as reported are part of what caused so many people not to leave….yet, the barometric pressure of this hurricane was that of a Cat 4, yet the wind did not match it…it was confusing for the predictors…It produced a Cat 4 storm surge of around 20 feet with Cat 2 winds….Something needs to be done to get it out to the public that this has happened (the MSM is NOT addressing the hurricane other than in minimal sidelines here and there)…the country is completely unaware of the damage…because they thought it was a Cat 2…which it was..but it wasn’t. Again, the longterm toll that this has taken will most likely be staggering. The problem is, it is a political climate also, and they don’t want the publicity. We have a Repub Governor, who I think did a pretty good job BTW against all odds..they really tried. Fema? Not so much.

Agree.

The only question: Where would these buses come from?

A figure of 90,000 is being suggesred as a guesstimate as to the number who chose to ‘ride’ it out.

Assuming folks might want to take a little something with them, clothing, food, etc. even if only 25,000 had to be put on buses, that is still hundreds of buses … the is ‘Merkah, so who would ‘pay’ and who would be ‘responsible’ for doing the deed? The Homeland Security crew? The State? Details. Details.

But you are correct, sooner or later these, and other ‘details’ MUST be dealt with.

Probably wouldn’t happen under the Rethugs …

(((perris)))

Maybe you could talk about the idea that whether he stays or goes, what happens to the house will happen regardless. And the memories of your mother are what is important - the memories that he carries will stay alive as he does - he is the container of remembrance, not the house.

My best to both of you and I hope you never get put into that position of having to force him to leave.

loky

I read that 24,000 (40% of the population) refused to leave or couldn’t get out of Galveston (not even mentioning Bolivar Peninsula) at the time of the storm, because I was following it really carefully. 9,000 people reportedly left the island after the storm when they told people to leave and wouldn’t let anyone else back in. 2,000 were rescued by helicopters and such. Are you telling me that there are still 13,000 residents on Galveston as we speak…ummm…living where???

FEMA is the current incarnation of the Keystone Cops … or maybe the 30,000 Stooges, with none of the Fine Bros charm.

This is what real disaster planning is all about.

Each gulf coast community should have a disaster plan that includes evacuating how ever many people are in harms way. It should include cooperative agreements with inland communities to help with the evacuation (by sending buses or whatever for transportation). These agreements should include where the people are going to be sent, who is going to care for them while they are there, and provisions to bring them back home afterwards (provided they have a home to come back to. The plan should also have some long range plans to deal with communities where there is so much damage they cannot return - and how and who is going to assist people to find new places to live - either temporarily or long-term.

Evacuation plans should include pets, and also for people to bring personal belongings of a certain amount (bus with trailer or bus with big truck for possessions following)

Just some ideas.

But you are right - it won’t happen with Rethugs in charge. They WANT the government to fail - so they can point and say ’see - government can’t do anything so let’s get rid of it all.’

What I find frustrating is that after 9/11 the press couldn’t run enough stories on the missing and those who were seeking them. It seems like we had a pretty good handle pretty quickly on how many were missing.

I just don’t see any national attention on that effort for Ike victims and it is looking more and more like there will be more of them than 9/11 victims.

For those of you who live closer to the region, have there been any estimates from Red Cross or from the state on how many reports they have received so far for people who are missing? I realize peterr describes how many of those reports will be generated, but you would think that virtually everyone who was lost would have at least one friend or family member who would have started notifying authorities by now about them.

Bolivar Peninsula is not any more. It is Bolivar Island due to the surge washing the land ‘bridge’ out.

And ‘living there’ isn’t the term I would use - I believe that’s why people are so concerned - those people are the missing. A 20-foot high wall of water is not something you can ride out.

The weird thing about this situation is that it looked like they had done a good job of staging the supplies ready to go…they needed 1 million MRE’s “per day” to dole out…then after the storm..they hesitated and threw the whole shebang into the hands of the “state” and told them that they would deliver the contents of the trucks to one place, and that the state had to distribute them, which threw the state into a hissy fit…Then, they said that they are no longer, as of 2007, responsible for bringing ice to any disaster area…meanwhile, truckers are parked as we speak outside of the needy areas…like Beaumont, etc., getting paid $1,000 per day, and the people are hungry and thirsty with no power still. Same in Louisiana.

This story is such a redux.

It’s awfully hard to say that people are actually missing when the evacuations (when people were actually put on buses and things) were not orderly and people did not even know where they were going on the bus, and with all the utilities being disrupted phones aren’t working in a lot of areas either.

They were supposed to take names and stuff but they didn’t have any organized method of doing that and so it wound up just like Katrina - people were just randomly put on buses and sent to wherever.

Most excellant ideas, loky.

That is the sort of humane planning this nation MUST embrace, once again.

All we need is a viable social contract and grown-up human beings who CARE about other life beyond their own, their kin, and their cronies.

Blame the meltdown of the financial markets.

Katrina didn’t have any really sucky news to upstage it.

There has been news of numbers, some updated & quite low, of those known dead. Today there is news that some return into Galveston will start next week. But I do not think, maybe wisely, there has been any speculation about numbers who may in the destroyed areas.

There have been several interviews with the miracle souls rescued/coming out; those who had not left. Traumatized, of course. Most of what they say is that nothing was left. They had just made it through somehow.

It’s still too early, in many cases, even to get a handle on it. A lot of folks do not have phone or electricity, so they may be fine but have no way of letting anyone know about it.

Here’s an example.

The Lutheran bishop for the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod (ELCA) had to relocate his office and staff to a church. Meanwhile, they are trying to contact all clergy in the Synod (aka “diocese” or “district”) to see how they personally are doing, and to check on the status of the various congregations. Even now, a week after the storm, they have yet to be able to contact everyone — and not for lack of trying.

Some of the pastors with whom they have had no contact are in places along the coast. I’m praying that they are simply out of touch . . .

And they finally buried the last of the Katrina victims, I think 83 of them, whose bodies were never claimed.

Many of the communities who lived on the outer banks hunkered down. Many are local workers and wanted to protect what little they had, plus, many had the attitude that they could just ride it out, because it was just a Cat 2. If groups of those people are missing…there really aren’t a lot of people around to call them missing in the first place, unless relatives from other parts..if they are close to them..report them missing.

The missing hotlines are just beginning. You can be sure that the information blackout will continue for awhile.

This administration will do anything to avoid a situation that is publicized as having casualties greater than 9/11, because that has been the lynchpin of their entire agenda. Same for Katrina..you can be quite sure that a lot more people were actually killed than officially reported.

(((Peterr)))

Peterr, did you notice the typo in the title? AFTER …

You raise an important point that I forgot about…During the evacuation of Ike, they stopped taking names and info when people boarded the buses to leave..those were buses out of Houston…they supposedly would get that info when they arrived at whatever shelter they were taken to..but who knows if they even did that.

The area in question of huge loss is Bolivar Peninsula and Galveston..both of which are destroyed.

oh LS you must be beside yourself.

Do you think the population of the really devastated areas of Galveston were kinda closed; by that I mean known to each other but perhaps not to many outside the area, therefore their disappearance would not be known to the ”outside world”

I’m getting the feeling from your comments that Texas and the rest of US are not prepared for reality here.

Thanks!

I hope no one died.

I hope all the people who said they would stay didn’t.

I hope this hand-wringing is for naught.

And I hope that the republicans in Texas decide that “caging” the democratic voters from hard-hit areas in Galveston and Houston really would be beyond the pale. Oh, and doG, could you also please keep the people from Michigan foreclosures from being caged?

I also hope that doG will save the world and give us everlasting peace.

Amen

It’s akin to the difference between big cities everywhere and the small rural places around them. In Katrina, it was one thing for New Orleans and something else for the parishes to the southeast. The cities get the big attention from the media (and everyone else) because there are big numbers of people there. The folks in the small towns, or outside the small towns . . . not so much.

Unfortunately, Primrose, this is just the thing that will help the Rethugs to ‘cage’ dem voters in those areas. If their houses are all destroyed, they obviously are not at that address and so…no housie - no votie.

Exactly.

Ian’s up

Thanks, Peterr. I just checked at the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance website and it doesn’t look like they have had a chance to complete their evaluation of the area either. They are usually pretty quick to put out news about congregations that need help (and also to note when entire buildings have been destroyed), so I think they are missing much information, too. This has to be really tough because I know many of the pastors know one another quite well.

Yes, I have a friend in a tiny burg outside Houma LA. She is okay - but they still have no electricity from Gustav - and her stories of the snafus with the MREs and ice deliveries are absolutely horrifying. There were obviously no evacuation plans for the residents of this place, and most of the people there live in extreme poverty.

The gov told them that the people already on food stamps would get $63 more for this month. And if you weren’t already on food stamps you would get $200. WTF?

Of course people died…the count is up in the 50s.

The point is you can’t hope it away, pray it away, or anything like that. People need to know the reality of the disaster. Miles and miles and miles of nothing left..nothing…for miles…

So that next time, people heed the warnings. It’s too late for Galveston and Bolivar. People need the truth.

Peterr, thanks for putting this post up - and hopefully we can keep it front and center in importance beyond lipstick and crap like that.

Exactly. I think the governments all did everyone on the Gulf Coast a big disservice by pretending that the only people who got killed were all those lazy drug-addict black bums in the 9th Ward and that if you are white it obviously won’t happen to you. The media was complicit in this as well, all the pictures of the evacuees were all of black people, and the bodies floating in the water, and everything they talked about and on and on.

The truth is that any person living on the coast is at risk - no matter if you are rich or poor, or what color or background.

i’ve been following this very closely as well and am very concerned that the press isn’t allowed into the area or even over the area. it’s been clear to me from the numbers that many many people are unaccounted for. i’m assuming most of them have died. tens of thousands, i’d bet. i think the lack of info is highly political at this point.

i was in the convention center in austin every day for katrina right from the beginning. an extensive system was quickly set up for finding people. an evacuee could report in where they where located. and a person wanting to know about someone could ask about them on the other hand. many people found each other this way.

a system like this could easily be set up again. it would not only help people to find each other but also help to know who’s still missing.

damn these politicians!!

The thing is, some of the evacuations in these small towns were likely “I’m going to stay with my cousin . . .” kind of things, and not “let me get on the bus to San Antonio.” Last minute evacuations were likely along the lines of “Hey you on the porch — I’ve got room in my pickup for one more” and they headed for the next patch of high ground.

Right now, things are still a mess. But the mess will get sorted out relatively soon, leaving us with “missing and presumed dead.”

I think there was a good deal of that too. But, overall, I’m with GW. Enormous losses. The problem is that they compartmentalize the information…we may never know.

Thank you Peterr for posting about this…

they can still report in or ask in to one system if it is set up the way they did for katrina. i don’t remember if it was the red cross or fema’s system, but it really worked well and was easy to use.

Austin firefighters coming into Austin. Said when they could get to Galveston there was Nothing there. Told of a man in a truck; they watched him wash away. Est that 35, 000 missing/perished. These are the men on the ground who have returned.

Sydney Schanberg has an important article about how McShame likes to treat the “missing, presumed dead”. Bury evidence about them, lest it come back to haunt him politically. Schanberg writes about McShame’s (and others’) shameful treatment of Vietnam era POW’s who didn’t come home, but the McShame pattern is clear and would likely apply to the real people hurt by Ike and their families, friends, neighbors, and communities. Fuggedabout’em.

file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/DK/Desktop/schanberg09182008pt1.htm

Bad link, earlofh.

RevBev: Where did you hear that?

That was on the local Austin news; the CBS station. Interviews with the firemen who have returned. Sort of closing line that free counsel for trauma due to what they’ve seen will be available.

Also - a mandatory evacuation should be just that. Even if the local officials have to drag people out at gunpoint and put them on buses. This is ridiculous - and after the storm these people who want to ‘ride it out’ are all yelling for someone to come rescue them and expecting other people to risk their lives in the process.

Um, no. This is Texas. Anyone trying to “drag people out at gunpoint” runs a serious risk of being met with more firepower (and, in one truly bizarre case, a live lion: http://www.dallasnews.com/shar.....1a2dd.html). I think people down here were told quite explicitly that they needed to leave, and that they were risking their lives if they stayed. Many decided that the risk to their lives was minimal compared to the risk to their property if they left it behind. I think that they made a very bad choice, but it’s hard for me to fault public officials for this.

Here’s the correct link:

http://www.nationinstitute.org.....9182008pt1

oh you dumb-o-crats make-a-me siiiiiiiiiiiiick! these people chose to stay in an area where nearly 12,000 people died in 1900 from a hurricane. i have sympathy, but it is not up to the sensible to constantly have to save the senseless. survival of the fittest is the thing. those who wanted to leave had plenty of time - those who chose to stay got what was coming to them - dead or alive. i’m so tired of paying for other people’s calculated mistakes. grow up, or die stupid!
Go Palin! (and McCain!)

I’m curious — what does “I have sympathy” mean to you?

Amazing article. I know thisis in deep EPU, but I’m glad you shared it. It should be front page here and everywhere.

the animals should be saved - they don’t get the weather channel.

Link, after link, compiled by Al The Spook, PeanutButter, Betsy and others.
Yes, likely tens of thousands if not more, dead.

GreenWarrior, thanks for saying it, someone had to.,

http://www.relaxedpolitics.com/?p=2982

Read the links, look at the video, the photos.

Entire places wiped out, places where people were ‘hunkered down’. They won’t show up except for body parts further down stream as sharks feed on the dead bodies.

And the suppression of the news of the deaths? Same as the suppression of the news of the faulty delivery of post Ike services that both Chertoff and Texans Governor were claimed were all in place pre Ike and ‘we have it under control’.

And let’s not forget, the waters of the Gulf are now covered with oil slicks from damaged oil rigs and drilling areas . . . slicks that will kill sea life, ruin fishing and in general expand the already deadly DEAD zones that bloom from the Mississippi disgorging it’s toxins from way up north all down the line to the Gulf.

Tens. Of Thousands. Dead.

140,000 all told in Texas, along the coast, were said to have stayed behind.

Bolivar Peninsula is now three Islands. Wiped out, completely. A house here and there. Same for many parts of Galveston.

Where are they? They’ll be washing up on the shores of Corpus Christi for a year, like they did with Katrina and NOLA’s uncounted dead.

Property will be claimed by the ’state’, and rezoned, and developed for the rich. And all the hotels and casino’s in a few years, they’ll need poor people for employees, and build sub standard housing for them, too.

Till the next big one comes. But poor people are recyclable. And so is their land. History has proven it.

Make sure you read every link:

http://www.relaxedpolitics.com/?p=2982

Satellite images from NOAA:

How in the world did the Republicans have anything to do with the foolish decisions to ride the storm out? This is just a really silly statement.