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Page: Profile: Wren's Nest News Local
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Article: 17799
[Politics]
Date Posted:
4/30/2007
9:06:49 am EDT
Wvox Stats
Views: 8,214
RSS: 21,004
Comments: 12
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Government Fumbles Millions In Potential Katrina Donations
Author: Stephanie Sy Source: ABC News (US)
Title: GOVERNMENT FUMBLES MILLIONS IN POTENTIAL KATRINA DONATIONS
As the victims of Hurricane Katrina continue their struggle to recover, they are now learning that millions of dollars in promised aid from foreign countries never reached them.
According to government documents obtained by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), only a fraction of the nearly $1 billion pledged by foreign governments was ever collected, amounting to $126 million. And according to a Washington Post report, only $40 million has been used for the victims.
The amount of offers that poured into the State Department after Katrina was unprecedented, and an internal report last year found that there were not procedures in place to handle international assistance.
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Community Thoughts: There are 12 comments posted | Reverse Sort |
| Don't Forget... | May 1st. at 11:46:00 am EDT
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Sparrow (Chicago, Mississippi) - Email Me
that New Orleans wasn't the only place with extensive damage that didn't get the help we needed. Here in Hattiesburg, I believe that 80% of the streets were blocked and over half of the homes were severely damaged. Once aid finally arrived from outside, many of us heard, "well, actually, you don't qualify for aid, half your house is still standing." There are still people who have holes in their roof and mold spreading because the government wouldn't help and neither would their insurance. Of course, these people don't have the money to sue the insurance company because of their money is going to rebuilding their homes.
Most of us didn't even know that other countries were offering aid. We didn't have tv - or even power - and we were being told that they were doing everything they could - there just wasn't enough money. When the order was passed down for FEMA and the military workers NOT to pass out the much needed ice and water, they weren't even going to tell the people of one rural area - they were just not going to show up. Some of them would have died if the local sherriff hadn't taken the truck to the school where all these people were waiting. Bush condemned him. I have to say, though, people would have died without his help - my dad was one of them.
Yes, I can say without a single shadow on my conscience that Bush and his administration did wrong by many of us. I can say that many of our local governments were having to fight with FEMA - on the orders of our wonderful president - just to get the aid that had been sent to the people who needed it. The hijacked ice truck isn't the only time that needed supplies weren't going to be delivered, nor was it the only time that our local government went to bat for us.
I guess I'm just asking that those of you who watched about Katrina on the news not forget that not all of us that were affected by this storm lived in dangerous areas. Hattiesburg is 1 1/2 - 2 hours away from the coast.
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| The French | May 1st. at 6:18:39 am EDT
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Dolphin Myst (Redlands, California) - Email Me
The French had always known, the port would be troubled with storms and tidal surge from these storms. That they intended, for any part of the "city" to be further north and inland. With that, they concluded the harbor area and associated facilities would be a "Floating or Shifting" type harbor, sacrificed in the event of major storms. Though, this was there intent before the Louisiana Purchase.
I agree, the Federal Government dropped the ball when it took the President too long to react, let alone even survey the damage. Could it have been because he needed to rake a few more
leaves or muck the stalls, I think not. We the American people may never know the true reason or accounting to the Katrina Disaster debacle as to the foreign funds received, the FEMA being asleep at the switch. Time has shown, that the incorporation of FEMA into the National Security failed. I shall close here.
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| Situation Normal-all Fouled Up... | Apr 30th. at 11:46:43 pm EDT
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bigcat (peoria, Illinois) - Email Me
A heartfelt thank you to all those nations and people who gave or offered help for the Katrina disaster. It was badly botched, I'm sorry to say, and that is where our problem lies. With an administration more concerned with its own beauracracy that its own people, it is no wonder that even after all this time, no headway was ever really made. For that, we have to thank them-- properly.
The next time someone says "We'll take care of our own", I hope to the Powers we can. Because this was a SNAFU of the biggest order. And it was so unnecessary.
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| A Few Facts..... | Apr 30th. at 11:19:47 pm EDT
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Riverbend (New Orleans, Louisiana) - Email Me
New Orleans is ***50%*** below sea level, much less than what most people seem to realize.
New Orleans did NOT flood simply because it is low-lying. We flooded because levees and floodwalls built by the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT--not local, not parish (county) , not state--were poorly designed and could not take the stress of what was the equivalent of a weak cat 2 storm after we had been told for decades that they would hold in a hurricane up to cat 3. The Corps of Engineers' own post-Katrina reports very clearly and specifically admit that their poor designs were responsible for the flood. To understand this fully please read Ivor Van Heerden's book _The Storm_.
We also flooded because the shipping shortcuts that were built through the eastern side of the city "funneled" the storm surge right into the middle of town, blasting open those lousy, horrible, badly built pieces of crap generally referred to as "levees" and "floodwalls."
And oh yeah, the oil and shipping industries and the river levees have starved and torn our wetlands to shreds, leaving very little left to absorb the storm surge when it came.
Finally, to say disasters like this are somehow "unpredictable" is just ignorant. We all know that some areas are prone to hurricanes, earthquakes, whatever, and we need to PLAN for these things to happen, because they WILL happen eventually. Scientists at LSU have been creating computer models of storm surges for years that predicted what would happen to New Orleans in a big enough hurricane--but they were working with the possibility of the levees being *overtopped*, not BREAKING.
Yes it is perfectly valid to discuss the wisdom of (re) building in risky areas. But PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE get your facts straight before beginning the discussion.
And oh yeah, FEMA has utterly, thoroughly screwed up any number of times since it was created in 1979, not just in Katrina. Read some history on Hurricane Andrew for starters. The only time that agency was halfway competent was during the Clinton administration when he appointed James Lee Witt to run it--someone who actually had disaster management experience. When W took over it started to fall apart, then 9/11 happened and the agency was gutted down to a shell of its former self.
/rant :)
Find More info -- HERE
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| Of Course We Don't Know What To Do With Hand-outs | Apr 30th. at 6:57:11 pm EDT
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Shadowbear (Hillsboro, Oregon) - Email Me
We don't get them. This has got to be the 1st time any foreign country has come to us with their money and offered to help - we send our money and people to help other countries all the time - check any foreign disaster and our money and people are right there helping out. Why would we have procedures in place for a totally unexpected event?
We did not manage well with Katrina. This is true. We will not manage well with the next truly great disaster either. It is not possible to plan well for unknown disasters. We could do better - and I sure hope we will.
My next question is - why do we rebuild in places that are not suitable for human habitation? New Orleans is below sea level but we are rebuilding and hope the levees hold next time. When the Mississippi River completely changed its course, wiping out whole cities - did we live with the course change and rebuild to conform with the river? Nope, we put that nasty river back where we wanted it and rebuilt the cities where they were. Mother nature always wins guys, we can't keep defying her and expect to come out on top. How many times can you and I afford to rebuild after nature says NO!
It is my tax money and yours that goes for these rebuilding expenses and I am getting tired of supporting people's defiance of reality.
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| So................................ | Apr 30th. at 4:46:10 pm EDT
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Lorelei (Fort Lauderdale, Florida) - Email Me
where are our tax dollars going?
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| You Know, I Meet Quote A Few | Apr 30th. at 4:34:29 pm EDT
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Arachne Priestess (Cookeville, Tennessee) - Email Me
people here in Tennessee who went down there to help afte the worst was over. Alot of them were Christian Religious groups, but some were simple ordinary people going down there to help restore electricity, cable, and other resources.
My brother, who went back down after about 3 months to live again, told me that most of these people had to stay in the hotels downtown because, of course, there was no where else to stay. Ironically, he went back to his job, which survived because it was in one of those downtown hotels.
You gotta admire and respect people, religious or otherwise, who volunteered their time, money, and energy to reach out and help, just like they did in 9/11.
At the same time, one can not deny the many mistakes and breakdowns of communication that went on at that time. It was not just one link in the chain that failed here, but all of the links, all of the levels of government; city, state, and federal. And its not about party alignment here, its about who failed the American people and those who lost everything in Katrina? At the very top is our President and it trickles down from there.
So yes, I reinterate, he is an Anti-Christ Wanna-be, because no one in real authority would give him the job of messiah or anti-christ.
Beyond party alignment, put blame for this where it belongs, on those in the local and state Louisiana Government, Fema, and, yes, the Bush Administration.
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| Red Tape, No Experience, Why Wait For All That? | Apr 30th. at 4:16:28 pm EDT
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Silverwing (Colorado Springs, Colorado) - Email Me
I agree - forget the liberal versus conservative political leaning stuff. This is no time to be spending energy in the blame game. I remember when Katrina hit. There were lots of small, people-driven groups trying to get in with food, supplies, talent, skills, ideas, help and money. They were being turned back because the expectation being set was that the government agency, FEMA, was going to manage this. This was FEMAs charter. That being said, let's head back to the "simpler folk" like firefighters, cops, construction workers, medical personel and just plain folk who had dropped everything to assist. There was even a Wiccan group, "Officers of Avalon" who were geared up to do their small part. With lots of small parts, there are less bureaucratic strings to tangle people up and trip them up when trying to get things done. I was sad to see lots of professionals and willing hands turned away. They could have broken this mess into smaller pieces and started chipping away at the problem. Maybe they could not have done it all but they could have done something. As it is, there were house trailers left over, trucks loaded with ice in parking lots as far away as Nebraska and other things that all shrieked to me (at least) that something wasn't working. Debit cards were being handed out like candy at a party in Texas for those who could get there. Fraud and inefficiency were rampant.
Now is the time for all of us to take a look, irrespective of political rhetoric, party alignment, etc, as members of a population that took one big hit and may have more in the future. If we can do a "lessons learned" drill (without taking a year and lots of committies and funding) we may be able to come up with some reasonable solutions. We may also be able to figure out how to let "mere mortals" (not nameless, faceless agencies) help out when stuff like this goes down. I think there is a place for all of it. I just think this was the first really massive hit. Not like we have not had hurricanes and things before on a smaller damage scale. We need to learn and improve and use ALL our resources. We have lots of them and lots of intelligent, skilled, willing folks ready to rock on stuff like this if we could just figure out how to get it done.
Leave blame in the ditch. Learn, evolve, improve.
Link below for Officers of Avalon (ref: Kerrr Cuhulain)
Find More info -- HERE
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| Big, Small Corrupt Is What It Was | Apr 30th. at 3:30:39 pm EDT
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WitchPoet (Claremont, California) - Email Me - Web
Forget about conservative or liberal rhetoric. I don't want to hear it!
Almost two years later and we still are struggling to have stability again.
Theoretically we coud get more from FEMA but the number of hoops to jump through and the pounds of paperwork and proofs of this and that make it about as realisable as walking to Hawaii. So we cope with what we have; Stress a determination not to end up in a rubber room at taxpayer expense.
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| I'm Sorry But This Pisses Me Off | Apr 30th. at 12:35:27 pm EDT
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Arachne Priestess (Cookeville, Tennessee) - Email Me
I grew up in new orleans and I watched my brother's home get wiped out because of Katrina. While that idiot is over playing war with his 'toy soldiers' in the white house, how many people in this country lost their homes, family, livelihoods, and pets to Katrina? It was one huge devastating mistake after another, and the only ones to pay for the government's mistakes are us!!!
And personally, if there is a devil, I think he's the only one who would ever be willing to talk to GWB!! Anti-Christ Wanna-Be!
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