Hurricane Rita: No Room at the Inn and Politicial Mouthing !
Letters to the Editor
Austin American Statesman
Get ready for neglect
I live six miles off the Gulf near near Long Beach, Miss. We decided to stay as Hurricane Katrina approached. We faced no flood threat, even though I suppose high winds or a tornado could have destroyed our house and killed us. That didn't happen, and we actually sustained minor damage.
I had no intention of joining the masses on the roads and spending an eternity in traffic. Nor was I going to sit somewhere for weeks until local officials decided to let me come home. I had a generator, plenty of gas and food, and I'm glad I stayed.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Texans were prepared for Hurricane Rita, but massive traffic jams seem to indicate that another politician has let his mouth overload his abilities.
If the folks who left think leaving was hell, just wait until they try to return. If the storm hits the Texas coast, your hell is just beginning. Just as we are finding out, the government does a mean job of talking assistance, but has a hard time delivering it.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency only helps low-income families. If you have money and insurance, you are on your own. And if your house floods, you better hope you had flood insurance. If not, your insurance companies aren't going to give you a dime. Welcome to reality, Texas. May God help you and your neighbors. If you wait for government to do anything, don't hold your breath.
ROBERT HAYES
Long Beach, Miss.
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Enjoy the festival
For all of Austin's supposed liberalness, how in this time of need can we be so selfish? How many hotel rooms are not available to Hurricane Rita evacuees because the promoters of the Austin City Limits Festival didn't want to cancel? How many were asked to leave Friday because of people who have reservations for the festival?
I don't care whether the weather was a factor or not —millions evacuated, and many came our way. If I were one of those who had travelled 12 or more hours to get here only to be told there is no room, I wouldn't think much of our fair city.
They should have canceled this concert so that evacuees could have as many rooms available to them as possible. I hope everyone has a great time. I'm sure the Texans who ended up in Oklahoma wouldn't want it any other way.
BRIAN CURRIER
Austin
source: http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/09/24Letters_edit.html
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Note from Steve: It was really good to see and hear Texas Governor Rick Perry telling TV viewers how well things were going regarding the mass evacuation from the Houston Area. Thank God the network offered me a split screen where I could see for myself how well things were going (
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Sept. 25, 2005, 6:25AM
After terrifying drill, it's time to answer questions
By RICK CASEY
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
Video, graphics courtesy Associated Press and KHOU; free Real Player, Flash plug-in and Acrobat Reader may be required.)
I'll make a deal. If politicians will follow two simple rules, I'll put the blame game under a two-week moratorium.
• Rule #1: If you're not one of the elected officials who has operational responsibilities, do NOT elbow your way into a news conference simply for the pleasure of getting face time with a television camera.
We need to hear details from the governor, the county judges, the mayors.
We don't need to hear every member of Congress or City Council congratulate each other for the wonderful work they're doing.
We don't even need to hear from the majority leader, thank you Mr. DeLay, or a ranking Democrat, thank you Ms. Jackson Lee.
Hold some hearings instead.
• Rule #2: Even if you are the governor, county judge or mayor, waste no time talking about how well everything went. It will only make us even angrier.
The most important thing that went well, for us if not for Port Arthur and Beaumont, is that Rita turned right. And you had nothing to do with that.
What you did have something to do with was the largest automotive traffic jam in world history.
That's not to blame any single official. I said I'd declare a moratorium and I meant it.
I'm here to celebrate that traffic jam, not to blame someone for it.
The celebration
First, we can celebrate the remarkable spirit of the people who were caught up in it, sweltering in heat, panicked about running out of gas as a Category 5 hurricane appeared to be chasing them, frantic about their children, their elderly parents, their pets.
These people were frustrated and angry. But to their credit, they did not take out their anger on their neighbors.
They cursed the authorities.
They had some reason. Authorities knew their evacuation plans had weaknesses.
Bill King, the former mayor of the waterfront town of Kemah, had been a voice in the desert for years on the issue.
I talked to him three weeks ago, shortly after Katrina hit New Orleans. He made several suggestions, ones he has repeatedly made to other officials.
Time for a post-mortem
The first one: "There needs to be a plan in place to make sure that gas stations have gas. Companies stop sending jobbers (gasoline haulers) in during an evacuation. There needs to be a plan to get them in and out."
He had suggestions about school buses and nursing homes. He said we need annual drills — not computer exercises in a closed room like the one conducted earlier this year, but full-fledged drills designed to check our systems, to clarify roles and to educate the public.
Ironically, that's what Rita gave us: the most thorough emergency drill imaginable.
Now we need a post-mortem on that drill.
The most important thing is to ask the right questions, to learn the right lessons.
The wrong lesson would be to be afraid to order evacuations. The right lessons would tell us how to do it effectively.
Here are some starter questions, based on conversations with King:
Were the lines of authority clear and effective?
Could the sequence of evacuation have been more effective? Could, as King suggests, the highly vulnerable coastal areas have been evacuated the first day, with Houstonians and other area residents in less vulnerable places being told to wait a day or two before deciding to leave?
Were hospitals and nursing homes properly provided for?
And why the hell wasn't there enough gasoline?
Was it the failure of individuals, or the failure of systems? Or both?
We need to know the answers, and quickly. Rita not only gave us this drill, she reminded us that these days, hundred-year events can happen every three weeks.
After we get the answers, those who want (and I confess I may be among them) can play the blame game.
But the only way we all win is if this most painful drill leads to a better response next time.
source: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/3368518
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Katrina Redux? Beaumont Paper Finds Federal Storm Failure in Texas
By E&P Staff
Published: September 25, 2005 9:50 PM ET
NEW YORK In Beaumont, Texas, claims that federal relief agencies learned their lessons from Hurricane Katrina and are on the ball in the aftermath of Hurricane Rita are apparently ringing hollow. The Beaumont (Tex.) Enterprise reported tonight that disaster response coordinators in the area hard hit by Rita say they are seeing the same foot-dragging federal response this weekend witnessed two weeks ago in New Orleans and Mississippi.
Jefferson County Judge Carl Griffith and other local leaders, "haggard after days of almost non-stop work with little sleep, pleaded with the federal government to get itself in a higher gear," the paper said. Griffith said he wanted to return services to residents who remain but that "it seems like they can't figure out how to get it done."
"There's a drastic shortage of generators in Beaumont to provide emergency power," Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said. "There are generators at Ford Park, and FEMA is withholding their release. They want to finish their damage assessment."
Jefferson County officials had a plan to distribute Meals-Ready-to-Eat from local fire stations, the paper said. However, Griffith said the MREs, like the generators, were being withheld by FEMA.
"They won't let us have them," Griffith said. "They said we had to go through the state - which we already did - to get them. I'm going over there (to Ford Park) now to figure this out."
Looters have struck in town, but had to be let go because there is no safe place to jail them right now. Officials have asked FEMA to provide temporary jail quarters.
The Enterprise has not published a print edition this weekend but provided PDFs of a scaled-down version on its still-active Web site. It included a note there Sunday: "We will publish a home edition as soon as we possibly can."
Griffith said he's sending fire officials to local stores to get supplies, including propane to cook with. "We're going into stores and taking food out," Griffith said. "We're going to do what we got to do to get the job done....
"There's just a breakdown in the state and federal government that you saw in Katrina and you've seen in other disasters," Griffith said. He said he hopes to see a change "so at least the next people that have to go through it ... will have some kind of process that makes sense that can immediately deliver what people need."
source: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001180626
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"We can't help it if politicians come here and just want to be seen by the media,"
source: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/topstory/3371052
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