Hurricane Katrina

I HAD three topics in mind this morning to write about and could not decide which one to go with.

The choices were:

1. An update on that New York subway perv (pictured below) who has been arrested following his picture showing him in full flagrante being posted onto Flickr.com


The offending pic with offensive half cut out


After his capture

2. The devastation in New Orleans.
3. Without sounding flip after leading with two such serious issues and following with this, but the young wan’s room is another scene of devastation, DESPITE, tidying/gutting and clearing it out for the last FOUR days. ARRGGGHHHHH

Anyhow I decided that after seeing Bush on the news last night speaking about the disaster and the ‘you loot, I shoot’ policy, I am opting for number 2.

I cannot believe the pictures and stories we are hearing from New Orleans, it is like a movie only at least in the movie there is a plan, a rescue operation and the heros survive at the end of the day.

I don’t think that will happen in this instance, where are the action movie heros when you need them? Indeed where is the disaster action plan when you need it. As people are starving, dying and being left to the watery grave that is New Orleans now, those in charge are standing scratching their arses.

Again, I don’t mean to sound flippant or uncaring, who could not be moved by the images?

And who could not have been moved to scream abuse at their television during the Bush interview last night, where smiling he said that he would take a zero tolerance stance on looting. Though I find the definition of looting somewhat dubious.

He said it is important to protect the vulnerable from those looting food, shop items (whatever they may be), people who will commit insurance fraud or anything else that he could tag in there.

But wait a minute, someone who steals food and water because they have none ARE the vulnerable in my book, so who is going to protect them against Bush?

I was floored last night because the only white faces I saw last night were the reporters, I didn’t see one white face in the crowds at the Lousiana Superdome. I am sure they are there, but I didn’t see one, not one.

I caught pictures of this hurricane from beforehand on Flickr.com where people who were able to posted pics, as the time when on, the images became worse and worse.

I read one of the warnings from the meteorological society that sounded like an apocalyptic warning and prelude to a doomsday scenario, and unfortunately it did not exaggerate, as we can now see.

Borrowed from http://www.flickr.com/photos/renteria/

What I do not understand is that the powers that be knew the hurricane was coming, they knew it was a scale five, they knew the potential devastating powers of a storm of this magnitude, so why were so many people left in the worst affected areas.

How can people be advised to evacuate a city without putting on appropriate transport facilities. Every available bus, train, plane, helicopter should have been sent there to get people away.

Like everything else, the majority of those who were left behind were the poorer ones, the sick, the disabled, the old, etc, etc, oh and the vast majority were black.

It’s like they were left to fend for themselves. And where is Bush? He was on holiday and is due to visit today, how many days later?

Bring a load of battleships down to the gulf and get all the people who have been sardined into the Superdome onto them and onto safety. I don’t understand why the might of the Americans is not being directed to the region by their Government.

It's solution is to tell officials to shoot looters!!!!!! Wow compassion overload. I am not even going to go into the breakdown in society, the lawlessness of which we are hearing so much, and the free availability of weapons.

I realise I am being very simplistic, but I really do not understand why more wasn’t done ahead of time to try and minimise the damage and more could have been done.

People are desperate, they are trying to survive and it’s going to get much worse, before it gets better. What we have seen so far is nothing to how bad it will get. My thoughts are with them

See more amazing, emotional and startling pics from the New York Times

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