One year ago I took this snapshot from a NOLA webcam

[mogster]

... little did I know how big a disaster it was gonna be. Pic was posted at another board, with comment from that time.

Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2005 10:14 am

This webcam has problems


And then the disaster struck, and when the US woke up the next morning, it was chaos.

[shraby]

1. I was watching the webcams that night too,

up until they quit functioning in the wee hours of the morning.

[aquart]

2. I kept switching from one cam to another.

And then back to Jeff Masters' blog.

Because of the blog, I did know how big it was going to be...but I couldn't believe it and kept watching like having advance warning of a trainwreck, so you watch the tracks.

[FlavaKreemSnak]

3. OK this is going to sound weird, and maybe too controversial

But all that time after Katrina when they had even the people from Fox who are usually not too crazy about low income people yelling because of the way they had them all in the stadiums and on their roofs etc and it was like they were just waiting for them to die before they would let anybody go help them, to me the feeling was worse than 911. It seemed like people should have just gone there anyway. I actually wanted to go and just sneak in but I didn't have like a way to do it and when I would try to get other people to take me they were scared to, and some of them were just like, I don't know that is not really what I wanted to say about it.

What I wanted to say about it was that watching it to me was like a million times worse than watching 911 because it wasn't a thing of like you had questions, you knew we were doing it on purpose, one time they even had this guy from the government saying it wasn't happening and then they put it on the other side of the screen at the same time he was saying it. And since then I haven't felt the same about a whole bunch of stuff, and it is still a bad feeling because so many of those people still don't have a house, and they just like basically throwing out the low income people that didn't die.

The people that stayed with us were like semi low income and they knew they wouldn't be able to go back because it will be all just like hotels where their houses are, after they make it this expensive tourist place, and if you have ever been there you know what I mean, it was like we had this really cool thing and decided to just throw it away, like the low income people, and also if you talk to people who were really there they will tell you that a lot of stuff happened that we are supposed to believe didn't really happen. It is the most horrible thing maybe that we ever did, I mean the invasions etc are horrible, but they are so far away, I guess you can't say which is worse, or that it is worse because we are doing it to Americans, but the worst of all is that we are accepting it, or at least most people are, I'm not really able to say what I feel about it, and probably shouldn't, so I will shut up, it was worse than 911. That was mainly what I wanted to say.

[DoYouEverWonder]

4. Maybe it's because we were raised to believe

that in the event of an emergency our government is supposed to be there to help us and Katrina showed the world that the Bush government could care less. That's a hard pill to swallow for most people.

Hang in there, we will get through this.

:hi:

[FlavaKreemSnak]

5. No it is that they would help some people but not these people

And yes we were raised to think they would help but a lot of people were also raised to think some other stuff, when you think about how many millions of people who had cars and gas money etc and they didn't go even though they could see on TV that the government was just waiting for them to die. And there were some people who were also raised to think the government would help but when they saw they weren't going to they did go, there were these guys with boats that went and there were like FEMA troops or whatever that said no you can't help them even though they were close enough to hear people screaming please help us, and maybe because there weren't enough of them or maybe they were scared, but anyway they didn't say get out of the way those people are screaming, they took their boats and went back home. And also the Red Cross wanted to go help and the government said no don't take any food or water in there and they said ok we won't. So what happened was that most of the people just obeyed the government when they were saying these are black and low income people so they need to die, I mean they didn't say it with words, but think how many people saw it happening on TV for almost a whole week and just went oh, ok.

So we didn't get through it and we won't because we will always be a country that did that.

[Tsiyu]

6. You echo what is in a lot of hearts

including my own.

But there were many who did go despite the fear and the government's blocking of aid. Gore went, lots of Americans are still going to the coast to help. Down in the valley here in Tennessee, a restaurant owner closed up right after Katrina struck. The sign read "Gone to feed Katrina Victims. Be back in two weeks." That sign was like that for months because the people at that restaurant stayed on the coast until recently, and not for two weeks as they anticipated a year ago.

This was blatant chaos and neglect on the part of the Bush administration. Yes, we watched and allowed it to happen, but I believe it was a wakeup call. People will not say it out loud, but I believe Katrina was a defining moment for many Americans. For the first time, in Real Time, they could see the disconnect between reality and media spin. This is hugh!!111 because getting people to recognize the lies they are being fed for corporate and political expediency is vital to their perception of the truth.

Anyone who excuses or diminishes what happened in NOLA is racist or blind or both. But I believe the next time something happens under Bush's watch, people will not be stunned into complacence as they were during Katrina.


We are a people slow to mass anger. That is a good thing, because it keeps us from rioting constantly in this big country. But we will be stirred eventually like a nest of angry yellowjackets, with memories of Katrina as one of the leading motivations to get rid of incompetence in government. My hope is that November turns the tide in this nation.




WE should be ashamed of what this nation has become, and what it has NOT stood for in its time of greatest need.

[FlavaKreemSnak]

7. I decided to reply to you in my journal

Because I kept thinking about what you said, and my reply kept getting longer until it was too long to be a comment and I also had been wanting to write about poverty in my journal. Thank you for helping me do it. Here is the link.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2006422

[mogster]

8. You are right

A defining moment. I remember Stephaine's comment 'Bush won't survive this storm'. It still holds true, because a process started in many peoples minds by seeing the inefficiency and neglect of the administration. It has become their trademark.