7 Comments

Oh, you betcha. I think I probably got more “on the ground” news via blogs than on the news. It was absolutely ridiculous watching Geraldo Rivera acting as if a riot was about to occur any moment. We tuned in to Bill O’Reilly because we knew he would be tenacious in getting straightforward answers from guests (just watch that civil rights activist squirm when asked what he’d do to looters who were keeping 5 big screen tvs in the house . . . “well, they’d trade it for food”). All the while I was wishing that PJ Media was fully up and running. There are bloggers that deserve kudos – Brendan Loy, Josh Britton, Interdictor (at LiveJournal – his company is DirectNIC which has a data center in NO); there are others who should share kudos.

Here’s an op-ed that Kaye Trammell wrote for WaPo, titled “Slogging and Blogging, Through Katrina”.

Very rightly written article, it arrests the attention of the reader. The subject is outlined with clear understanding and focus.

DITTO

LL has to be careful about trashing Iraq, especially if it turns out OK against all their aid/comfort to the enemy on how we are losing this war.

Katrina gives op to openly Bush bash. SOB’s.

Anyway for those who know folks deploying to rescue effort, here’s a post I just sent to some of my associates here on the West Coast.

*****

FYI – Just sent this to Chief Bueermann Redlands PD re forum/blog site being used to post rescue messages. Wouldn’t hurt to pass on to your contacts in emergency response/recovery effort. (HT Instapundit)

Ron Wright

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Date: Sat Sep 03, 2005 04:09:58 PM PDT

Subject: PE Art – ESRI Deploying to New Orls

FYI – link to PE art re ESRI deploying “geek squad” to aid including rescue ops.

PE Link

Might consider giving Lou Nelson or J. Dangermond of ESRI link to blog site with info of folks needing rescuing I sent yst. [HT Instapundit]

[...]

This is readers’ forum site for The Times Picayune Newspaper. Apparently folks needing rescuing have taken it over and posting msgs here.

Here’s the latest post on this site.

Ron

PS This is example of high tech distributive com network at work.

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Saturday, September 03, 2005

Federal Employees trapped in St. Bernard

Ten federal employees are trapped on the roof of the police jury complex in St. Bernard parish in Chalmette, LA. St. Bernard parish has been hit harder by flooding than New Orleans. There has been no coverage. You can contact Kim Owens, who is on the roof, at 504.239.7105. They have a generator and can get cell calls and text messages. Please investigate why they haven’t been rescued or had supplies dropped to them. There have been many deaths in St. Bernard’s parish (county). Another contact is Christie Spegall at 225.664.2736 in Baton Rouge.

http://www.nola.com/weblogs/nola/

[Consider this an imperfect thought experiment]

Mayor Nagin instead of Giuliani. Enough said.

Over the years some cuts in the maintenance budget (by various owners) mean that the batteries in some of the smoke detectors aren’t changed as often — the significance is not apparent since the fire alarm & sprinkler system wa snever designed to deal with a 600mph plane carrying thousands of pounds of jet fuel.

Anyway, instead of forcing the above issue, major tenant sin the buidling have instead pushed for far more money to be spent on fancy sculptures for the building’s lobby to impress visitors (and put money in the pockets of their artist friends).

The planes are seen just before impact.

The majority of people escape by the elevators before they are shut down, then many switch to the stairs.

The freight elevators are not made available to carry people down.

There are many older, sick or disabled who can’t negotiate the stairs without help.

Instead of descending the stairs on foot, many choose to wait for firefighters to ascend and carry them to safety. Some are mislead by confusing announcements from the building management and don’t trust their own judgement. Others aren’t going to be “chicken” (or inconvenienced) and run away from their familiar stomping grounds. Still others just stay put figuring it is somebody else’s job to save them. Some figure a hundred helicopters will magically materialize and whisk them all from the roof.

Many people high in the building and fleeing through the streets start attacking the others out of “desperation”.

2/3 of police and firefighters bug out.

In the resulting chaos the feds are forced to fully take over causing further delays since the local experts they would be counting on are out of play.

Therefore the media tell us it’s all the President’s fault.

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Some explanations if you’ve only watched network news:

freight elevators = 300+ city buses and 200+ school buses in NO not used by the *city* govt to evac those without cars.

smoke detectors = some levee projects (which levees were long ago only designed for Cat 3 anyway) cuts made by Clinton and Bush

lobby sculptures = federally funded porkabarrel projects pursued by La. congressmen & senators worth MANY times the levee budget item cuts (Convention Ctr expansion, Canal St. Street Car line, etc — many hundreds of millions of $$s)

Lay the Blame where it Belongs

KATRINA – Fed response may have lacked in some areas but indecision/inaction appears to be more in the realm of the state and local political entities of Louisana.

OK for the poltical writers. Here’s an intelligent comment posted at Blackfive Blog. Don’t have permlink to comment. Just scroll down the comment thread it’s not that far down.

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I ran a load of generators and drum fuel down below Baton Rouge earlier in the week. 42 hours from Meridian, MS and back out again. Interesting trip and one that will be henceforth and forever left to someone much younger than me!

This blame game just simply disgusts me frankly. Those are AMERICANS in dire straits. The finger pointing and political backbiting could’ve held off until we had everyone out of harm’s way but thus goes the absolute hatred that has divided our Country. Attacking a President while New Orleans flooded!

Since it has begun in earnest I do have a couple of my own observations though. First of all there were assets on the ground as early as Monday and Tuesday that were not allowed to be utilized. The Governor of Louisiana refused to give the go ahead for use of force. She refused to declare martial law and place her assets in place. From what I’m gathering from the stuff I’m seeing on tv it was politically based. I just have to shake my head in wonder and amazement. I met some highly irritated folks that had their hands tied and watched the blame game begin as early as Monday. Martial law was not declared until the afternoon on Tuesday and even then the forces were not activated.

You have to be from Louisiana to understand the total corruption of any form of government in the state. The fingers are being pointed to the Feds yet millions and millions of dollars have been boondoggled and squandered over the years for the very projects that are trying to be blamed for elsewhere. Do not be fooled. The consequences lie squarely with the local and state government of the state and no one else. Period! New Orleans itself has been a cesspool for 200 years and there was no big surprise over the behavior that followed a disaster. All you would have to do to understand is attend a Mardis Gras down there one time at street level to see what you are dealing with. The local political machine used the police departments as a jobs program even going so far as to only hire officers that lived within the city limits and doing away with other qualified personnnel simply because of address. The corruption of the entire chain of government is nothing new nor out of the ordinary for Louisiana.

You have to ask yourself why these same problems were not evident in the other parts of the Gulf Coast that was decimated. Look at how quickly those states managed their assets and placed their areas under martial law. Backed up by force. The inpouring of aid to those areas began quickly and have increased daily. Not so in the areas controlled by a government that even refused to use their own evacuation plan to remove their own citizens and now want to place the blame on the Feds and military. Something about glass houses huh?

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Read it All 2nd comment right under trackbacks

BLOGOS BRINGS ORDER TO NOLA RESCUE OPS

Update to my post re The Time Picayune Forums Site, NOLA View, used by victims to summon aid.

The LA Times’, “Column One” piece today (link below) is about The Times Picayune forum site. The article indicates that “officialdom” is beginning to watch/respond to these pleas for help.

http://www.nola.com/weblogs/nola/

This is exactly my thoughts re decentralized, organic/dendritic networks, that build from the bottom. They don’t have to wait for the bureacrats to first become aware of danger/ disaster, assess priority, developed ops plans, and then give orders to carry out plans. Anyone in area that can offer assistance can immediately act e.g. like radio “mesh” tech now emerging.

I’ve commented on this before here, re the tremendous power of the Blogos. This concept can be applied to our domestic response in the GWOT. I’ve termed this, “Mission Focused Strategic Communications.” This is just plain common sense to any experienced street cop but you know everything must have a buzzword nowadays:

RLS Link

LA Times Link [LA Times requires free subscription but this article should be open for the rest of today]