A reminder that not all is warm and happy on the Gulf coast this holiday

[Generic Other]

A message I received from Dr. Marble (The "fuck you Mr. Cheney" guy):

HAPPY THANKSGIVING FROM THE MISSISSIPPI GULF COAST!

There are literally thousands of homeless people who are basically having to 'camp out' at their former homesite and/or makeshift camp sites all along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. In fact a 19 year old boy in Ocean Springs, Ms. died from hypothermia this past weekend while camped out so if you have a roof over your head and a warm place to sleep remember how lucky you are.

[babylonsister]

1. This really enrages me.

I never thought my country could let down its citizens the way this one has, and I hold the BFEE and FEMA directly responsible.:banghead: :grr:

[kevinbgoode]

2. Would you mind asking Dr. Marble for some details. . .

of that young man's death? I'd like to reference that in letters/phone calls to my congressman and senator. Not one single American in this striken area should be dying of exposure, and I believe people should know about this, particularly our government.

[Generic Other]

4. A few articles I found that support his comments

“It seems that America and the world have forgotten Mississippi. There are over 300,000 people without homes, people living in tents and cars and on slabs, being exposed to the elements and getting sick. People are going in their ruined homes and clearing debris and getting exposed to the mold and getting tremendously debilitating lung infections that need treatment, and who are only getting continuous exposure to more toxins because they have to get their homes, or what is left of them, cleared up” said Elizabeth Gallup MD, CEO of Mississippi's Forgotten. “Today is Thanksgiving, and even in the face of the devastation and the ever increasing lack of hope – neighbors are still helping neighbors, churches helping churches and everyone is thanking God to be alive – but help is desperately needed” said Rain Cacon MD PhD, who is Mississippi's Forgotten President and Medical Director and who has been in Mississippi for four weeks and prior to that in New Orleans. “It is a tragic situation that is worsening” – said Mary Joiner, Mississippi's Forgotten spokesperson and an Ocean Springs, MS resident.

http://www.pr.com/press-release/4334

"My experience has been horrible," said Vanessa Posey, 44, who lives with her seven children in a tent in the front yard of her mother's home in East Biloxi, using a camp stove for heat and the back yard as a toilet. She said FEMA promised her a mobile home a few days after the storm. On Wednesday, she got two travel trailers instead, neither of which has electricity connected to it.

"I'm still over at the tent until I can get some power," Posey said on Friday, as she tried to convince the local power company to connect her trailers. "Every time I call the FEMA number that they gave me, I get disconnected. I don't know what to say. I know one thing, I'm disgusted, and I'm full-blown depressed."

Like Posey, hurricane evacuees complained about the grinding bureaucracy at FEMA. Promises of prompt delivery of trailers have gone unmet. Calls to FEMA for help have gone unanswered.

"FEMA is like a phantom organization: there's nobody to call," said Dave Segrave, 64, who built a makeshift patio outside his trailer on Vacation Lane in Waveland, a block from the beach. His trailer, which arrived late last month, is surrounded by trees snapped in two and the scattered remnants of cottages that were swept from their foundations.

http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/state/13094791.htm

[pitohui]

6. there's also a related thread on LBN today

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1946958

people have not even started rebuilding yet in pass christian and some of the other towns

they are waiting to see if they will be required to raise their new houses and if so, what elevations, what requirements will need to be met, what will FEMA and insurers will pay

meanwhile, if you are not rich, you are going to have trouble finding housing

one of my friends lost his home at bay st. louis, he has many millions of dollars, he plans to rebuild so isn't buying elsewhere, nonetheless, the closest he was able to rent was in jackson, now think of the people who can't afford to compete for the suddenly much reduced supply of rental housing and suddenly inflated rents

that's right, they're living in RVs or trailers or in tents or in friend's and family member's houses, and it's just a big mess

i was sad to hear abt the teen-age boy, i wish he had told someone but people are also being brave and letting others go ahead of them, there is a natural chivalry in many young teens and twentysomething men where they willingly sleep in the tent or on the slab to let a woman or a child get a place indoors, i wouldn't be surprised if it were something of this nature that happened here

we had a public shelter open in western st. tammany for the night of the freeze, only 3 people showed up, yet i have bicycled around and i have seen the tents, trailors, etc, that young men are living in quietly, without complaint, and without drawing attention to themselves -- and this area was no where near hit as hard as coastal mississippi

[Divernan]

3. FEMA/Washington lowballing personnel/funds/equipment to the field.

Career FEMA staff out in the field are being given arbitrary, impossible goals/targets/demands from headquarters - without the number of staff, or the budget to meet these "goals", and are being told that they are "on a list" to be fired if they don't meet these goals. When the FEMA troops point out that firing them will only put FEMA farther behind in arranging housing, compensation for losses, etc., they are told that there are "private contractors waiting to take over." FEMA employees in the trenches wonder why, if there are private contractors competent and ready to work on the problems, they are not immediately hired by the Washington office to address the problems.

Now some may respond that everyone in FEMA should be fired, and that's just the response the neocons want. The FEMA career employees, who did fine work under Clinton, are struggling with the largest disaster, and group of disasters, ever to hit this country, and they are doing so with far fewer personnel, imcompetent leadership from Bush's political apointees, and a budget gutted by diverting large amounts of it away from natural disaster response and recovery, and dedicating it to some non-specific counter-terrorism accounts.

The Cheney/Rumsfeld/Chertoff cabal never changes. Every disaster is just another opportunity to privatize govt. services into profit centers for their corporate cronies.

[Bellamia]

5. I received the same message.............

You were right to Post it, and you know, Christmas/Hanuka isn't going to be so great either in the Big Easy.

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