What has changed in five years since Katrina?

People are still free to ask stupid questions. And they do. One Facebook rant included a list of stupid Katrina questions that I appreciated, recently. Stupid questions Katrina peeps endure-rant went something like this……”Why didn’t you evacuate?”, “Is New Orleans still under water?”. Stupid questions people ask, but none worse than,

“Why did you (See August 28th’s post)?” I’m still angry at that statement. This didn’t change.

There is a 2006 study of telecommunications failures published by Lafayette University that I revisited today on the net. It was interesting to re-read the problems that the State Patrol and others had during Katrina. I wonder if these issues were ever addressed. I wonder how many telecommunications businesses have been affected, closed up, created, bankrupt, or improved since Katrina? How many radio stations and tv stations are better prepared? Did anything change?

One change: I increased my personal debt by 3,200% and the US National debt increased, too.
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/
The estimated population of the United States is 309,004,608 so each citizen’s share of this debt is $43,264.60.

It appears that the crime rate has gone up, particularly in 2006; as well as the unemployment rate and the price of everything else.

The media hype during Katrina and its immediate aftermath are superseded by media hype of the flaws in the various systems, organizations and entities established to deal with Katrina. That didn’t fix issues brought forth in the 2005 post Katrina media. It’s like the media covers what it wants to cover, but refuses to follow through to the end of the story…..to the resolution. The media stops mid swing more than enough times to sit on the bench. Katrina hype just snowballs into an oil vat. Maybe, these are bad analogies. The media didn’t change.

QUESTION: Do we need Congress to investigate baseball and steroid use? ANSWER: No.

So why are they wasting my time and money? Congress didn’t change.

One thing is certain. Laura Curtis. A self proclaimed, “New Orleanian” who authored, Go golfing, Mr. President got my attention with that piece. While I do not agree with everything she has written in the article, I have to cheer her on with the point she drove home on August 19th.

If you refuse to enact meaningful reform and continue to attack our economy, then on August 29th, go play some golf, Mr. President.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/Examiner-Opinion-Zone/Go-golfing-Mr-President-101081469.html#ixzz0xpkhBO85

It’s obvious to me that he just can’t play ball.

So what has changed in the five years since Katrina?

Nuthin’ Not one stinkin’, cotton pickin’ thing. Not one.

Which hoops did you have to jump through?

The New York Times ran this opinion article on page A 34 recently. Not that page A 34 made headlines in the way that Hurricane Katrina did just a few short years ago. It galls me to this day that big shot newspapers like the NYT can have opinions about Katrina without having to experience it first hand. And they don’t even know where to begin pointing the finger, either.

Editorial
Some Sense, at Last, About Katrina

Published: February 11, 2009

The Obama administration seems to have learned the lessons of the Bush team’s disastrous bungling of the resettling of Hurricane Katrina’s tens of thousands of refugees. Under former President Bush, the task of resettling those whose homes were destroyed by the storm and floods in 2005 was initially given to the Federal Emergency Management Agency instead of to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which has a long history of housing poor and displaced people through its voucher program.

That grave mistake led to a plan that turned many survivors into wanderers who moved from place to place, cut off from jobs and schools. Washington will need to be more helpful if New Orleans and the Gulf region in general are to recover, not just from the storm, but from the damage wrought by federal mismanagement. Now plans to build affordable-housing developments have run afoul of the credit crisis. Without those developments, low- and moderate-income workers will be forced to pull up stakes and go elsewhere.

That message seems to be hitting home at President Obama’s HUD. For starters, the department’s new secretary, Shaun Donovan, has overturned a potentially disastrous decision that would have ended badly needed temporary rental assistance to about 31,000 households at the end of this month. The last thing the Gulf region needs at this point is more homelessness.

The point of the new policy is to keep low-income families on temporary assistance until they can complete the complicated process of qualifying for a permanent Section 8 housing voucher, which allows them to seek homes in the private real estate market. The hope is that many people being housed under the temporary program would be able to use the vouchers to remain in their homes. This would be especially helpful since rents in the city have skyrocketed since the storm.

The Bush administration wanted the vouchers primarily limited to the elderly and disabled. But Mr. Donovan has wisely expanded them to include all low-income people who are eligible under federal guidelines. This will require more money from Congress. But the expense would be well worth it if it prevents a new wave of homelessness and sustains the Gulf restoration project through turbulent economic times.

More Articles in Opinion » A version of this article appeared in print on February 12, 2009, on page A34 of the New York edition.

The NYT did not publish that FEMA subcontracted agencies to contact Katrina Victims. It galls me that no one realizes what these subcontracted agencies did with the FEDERAL MONIES they were given by FEMA to HELP Katrina victims. The agencies, of course, did not contact victims in anything that would be considered “timely”. Victims were then required to “fill out the necessary paperwork” to see if they “qualify” for assistance. What? After everything that I have been through already, you people want ME to fill out MORE paperwork so that YOU CAN DETERMINE, whether or NOT I deserve YOUR ASSISTANCE? So these subcontracted agencies go on with their non-profit status collecting the FEDERAL MONIES for their so called “JOBS” thereby sucking and blowing just like Katrina with FEDERAL FERVE.

What is a Federal demotion?

Would everyone please turn to page 152  or ESF #6-1 of the National Response Plan dated December 2004 and strking from the 426 page document the words American Red Cross effective March 2008 and noted on January 22, 2008. The revision dated January 22, 2008, is also now referring to the National Response Plan as the  National Response Framework.

• (a demotion) The American Red Cross is NO LONGER a primary agency for mass care.
• This responsibility has been given to DHS/FEMA.

I’ve also looked up S3721 the Post Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act 2006.  Some of the issues present should have been grandfathered in in order to assist, however, it appears that S3721 takes effect January 1, 2007.   I’m happy to read that it gives the appearance of assisting victims in the future whereas eviction and divorce are concerned, but it basically does nothing for Hurricane Katrina victims.

I appreciate the removal of the American Red Cross as a Primary Agency, due to certain FAILURES of the AGENCY.

Is this a call to arms or a call to vote or both?

“It is hopefully within the citizens of the United States’ power to address the failures of our laws and agencies,” he said. “If not, it is certain that another tragedy such as this will occur again.”

~Judge Duval on his ruling concerning the levy lawsuit.  (from:  Thanks-Katrina, “This Sucks”)  You can read more about the issue from Sandy @ Levees. org.

I can see this happening again, but I can also see that action is in the hands of Americans at Levees.org.  I don’t foresee much being done on the subject.  It’s like is another billion dollar toilet seat subject or something.  People elsewhere are not really concerned with the levees in Louisiana enough to motivate politicians or local leaders into changing what has occurred. I wish more Americans would fix America.