Christy at FireDogLake has written a post about this year's hurricane season,
which officially started on June 1st.
New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf is still a disaster area:
watch the video
linked to above.
Disaster preparedness is far from where it should be.
The levee improvements are inadequate.
Reconstruction is mired in bureaucracy and stalled in incompetence.
The money promised has not materialized.
Only one-third of New Orleans residents have returned.
Christy links to a report put together by
Nancy Pelosi, detailing the incompetence and cronyism of the Republicans,
both in the …continue.
A friend sent me a Word document with a parody of the Department of
Homeland Security's Ready.Gov website.
I googled and found an HTML copy of the parody
here.
Seriously, there is some useful information on Ready.Gov.
Which reminds me that Emma and I are long overdue in putting together some
disaster planning.
Here are some links that I put together a while back:
If there's any lesson that should be learned from Katrina, it's that
you need to have your own …continue.
On Tuesday night, Emma sent this out to our list of friends.
Subject: Decision about evacuee housing
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2005 00:22:32 -0700
From: Emma Bartholomew
Hello all,
Thank you to everyone who has assisted George & me in our attempt to
ready our home for hurricane evacuees.
Regrettably, I have come to realize that I'm not emotionally able to
make this commitment after all. I thought I could open my home to
others, but I have sunk into a depression over the past few weeks that
has finally convinced me that I tried to bite off more than I could …continue.
The basement looks far better tonight than last night.
Yesterday, I removed all the lower panels along the entire front wall,
and filled in the cracks with concrete.
I also bought some inexpensive folding doors that will require some
framing.
Today, Chuck came over after the
BiNet Brunch
and helped me put back up the panels
and finish all the painting.
It looks intensely yellow.
The dark blue carpet will help tone it down.
After I've framed the doors,
the carpet can be layed.
I'm busy all next weekend,
at Tim Grey's Photoshop Seminar,
so I'll have to do it in the evenings.
I have not yet been able to order the window.
Although the window was …continue.
This afternoon I would have said that the basement was close to being finished.
The painting was almost done, the carpet was due to come in tomorrow,
and the window will arrive in two-to-three weeks.
But we've had a setback.
Since the last update, I have finished painting the spare bedroom.
Emma will move in there as soon as I finish writing this post.
She was waiting for the paint fumes to dissipate.
After Lowe's sent someone out to measure the new window hole,
I boarded it up with some plywood and 2x4s.
Dipankar came over Wednesday afternoon and helped me paint the
basement -- at least the parts that …continue.
Work on the basement proceeds.
Our neighbor Leo helped me out with carpentry in the basement on Saturday.
Emma and Delf went to Oregon on Friday for the
Flock and Fiber Festival,
and didn't get back until Saturday night.
Leo and I stablized the framing around the furnace,
put up all the paneling,
routed the TV cables above the ceiling,
and replaced the missing ceiling tiles.
On Sunday, we planned to paint the spare bedroom and the basement.
It didn't work out as planned.
Just before lunch, Emma fell off a stepstool while
priming the walls of the spare bedroom, and hurt herself.
She spent six hours waiting in the Emergency Room
at Swedish …continue.
Last weekend, we made good progress on the basement.
On Saturday, Dale and Ernest helped us out, doing some demolition
in the basement, and bringing loads to Goodwill and to the dump
in their truck.
On Sunday, Jill and Delf helped us clean the remaining stuff
out of the basement. Louise excavated a hole outside the window
that we're going to enlarge. Deb, currently hors de combat
with a pinched nerve, dropped by to provide moral support,
as did Frank and Lyndol. Delf spent nearly twelve hours with us that day,
and thanks to his experience in construction, he and I built
framing around the furnace.
Peter and Lucinda have provided …continue.
Shifting boxes
We've made some progress on getting our house ready to take in some
Hurricane Katrina evacuees.
On Labor Day, Emma and I thoroughly cleaned out the garage in the alley,
then put everything back much more efficiently,
so that we would have somewhere to store all of the stuff that was in our basement.
On Thursday, Emma made contact with Roy,
a doorman at her chiropractor's and a native of New Orleans.
Roy and his other family members in the Seattle area
are looking to bring up about 20 of their extended family.
Roy was very keen to learn that we were offering space.
Unfortunately, Emma forgot to get …continue.
In August 2001, George W. Bush ignored a warning that Osama Bin Laden
would attack the US. Thousands died.
In March 2003, Bush started an unnecessary war against Iraq.
Tens of thousands died.
In August 2005, Bush ignored warnings that a major hurricane
would strike New Orleans, and stayed on vacation.
He played guitar in Arizona while New Orleans drowned.
Uncounted thousands died.
Not until Wednesday did he return to Washington.
Even now, he has yet to show leadership.
Photo ops are not leadership. Platitudes are not leadership.
For four years, the Bush administration has played the terror card,
warning us again and again that terrorists would strike our cities.
Billions have been …continue.
A few hours ago, Emma sent this email out to our friends:
After long thought and a lot of heart searching, George & I have decided to
take in a family from Louisiana. We are now starting to look for someone
who can help us make arrangements to get people here. Meanwhile, we need
anyone who wants to volunteer to help us clean out our basement and fix it
up to house people. We have a guest room on our first floor, but we also
need to rearrange the entire house to allow us to add 4-6 people to our
lives for up to the …continue.