August 2006 (I): Counting

One year after Katrina, Greg Palast reports from New Orleans for Democracy Now: video segment starting at 13:00, and transcript here.

Among Palast's interviewees is Steven Smith—

Like 127,000 others in this town...he didn't have a car in which to escape...Stranded in the heat on a bridge, he closed the eyes of a man who died of dehydration after giving his grandchildren his last bottle of water.

Palast reveals that FEMA's supposed evacuation plan had been contracted to an outfit called IEM, for "Innovative Emergency Management"—which had no disaster experience, but did have an owner who made big contributions to Republicans. And after awarding IEM the contract, FEMA never received a plan.

After being ejected from IEM's office, Palast interviews local scientist and hurricane expert Dr. Ivor van Heerden. Pre-Katrina, he and colleagues at the Louisiana State University Center for the Study of Hurricanes were shut out of the FEMA planning process, and van Heerden's job was threatened when he persisted in his efforts.

Another interviewee, lawyer and former city councilman Brod Bagert, reacting to the suppression of van Heerden's warnings—

Ongoing protection that should have been occurring was...done negligently. Not only wrong, negligently. And not only negligently, but reckless negligence, the kind of negligence for which an individual would be indicted, prosecuted, tried, convicted, and spend their life in jail. Negligence that killed people, lots of people...Old ladies watched the water come up to their nose, over their eyes, and they drowned in houses just like this in this neighborhood, because of reckless negligence that’s unanswered for.

Anger is an understandable and cogent reaction. But there are many possible responses to trauma.

An 8/9/06 item (no longer online), from Editor & Publisher:

...John McCusker, a photographer for the Times-Picayune in New Orleans - and a local jazz expert - was arrested Tuesday night after a car chase ended with McCusker begging the police to shoot and kill him. He cited what could be called post-traumatic stress syndrome from experiencing, and covering, the impact of Hurricane Katrina.

Thanks, Katrina posts about the story, including this from a recent interview with McCusker—

"Imagine going to bed one night, and waking up and everybody in your entire neighborhood and everybody that they know and everybody that they know is gone and you don’t know where they are. And some nights, you know, I gotta tell you, some nights that just in despair you lay in your bed, and like you’re a three-year-old and you just lay there and say, Oh my god. I want to go home. And you can’t go home."

Followed by a photo McCusker took during last year's traumatic events.

Toxic FEMA trailers have begun to get some national notice—

Are FEMA trailers 'toxic tin cans'?

For nearly a year now, the ubiquitous FEMA trailer has sheltered tens of thousands of Gulf Coast residents left homeless by Hurricane Katrina. But there is growing concern that even as it staved off the elements, it was exposing its inhabitants to a toxic gas that could pose both immediate and long-term health risks.

Just as there's a countdown to Bush's leaving office, NOLA needs a count up—to note the passage of time since August 2005, as victims continue to be denied any measure of justice.

Clever Sister alerts me to one bit of the regime's campaign to smother reality under mountains of organization-speak. Among the official publications CS has found—

Report on Gulf Coast recoveryPresident's Council on Integrity and Efficiency

Lessons learned for protecting and educating children after the Gulf Coast hurricanes Government Accountability Office May 11, 2006

The federal response to Hurricane Katrina: lessons learnedExecutive Office of the President, 2006

The last two are only part of the "lessons learned" motif that CS is seeing over and over. As in—

Lessons learned during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom, and ongoing operations in the United States Central Command Region : hearing before the Committee on Armed Services, United States Senate, One Hundred Eighth Congress, first session, July 9, 2003.

"Lessons learned," as in, "been there,done that/it's history/move on"...