Frustrated: Fire Crews to Hand Out Fliers For FEMA
Not long after some 1,000 firefighters sat down for eight hours of training, the whispering began: "What are we doing here?"
On the Al Franken show this afternoon this article from today's Salt Lake Tribune
which tells the story of about a thousand firefighters from around the
country who volunteered to serve in the Katrina devastation
areas. "They've
got people here who are search-and-rescue certified, paramedics,
haz-mat certified," said a Texas firefighter. "We're sitting in here
having a sexual-harassment class while there are still [victims] in
Louisiana who haven't been contacted yet." But when they arrived in
Atlanta to be shipped out to various disaster zones in the region, they
found out that they were going to be used as FEMA community relations
specialists. And they were to spend a day in Atltanta getting training
on community relations, sexual harassment awareness, et al. Then they would be shuffled throughout the Gulf Coast region to disseminate fliers
and a phone number: 1-800-621-FEMA.This of
course while life and death situations were still the order of the day
along a whole stretch of the Gulf Coast. On
Monday, some firefighters stuck in the staging area at the Sheraton
peeled off their FEMA-issued shirts and stuffed them in backpacks,
saying they refuse to represent the federal agency.
It's an article you've really got a to read to appreciate the full measure of folly and surreality.
"It's a misallocation of resources. Completely," said the Texas firefighter. "It's just an under-utilization of very talented people," said
South Salt Lake Fire Chief Steve Foote, who sent a team of firefighters
to Atlanta. "I was hoping once they saw the level of people . . . they
would shift gears a little bit."
Also
of concern to some of the firefighters is the cost borne by their
municipalities in the wake of their absence. Cities are picking up the
tab to fill the firefighters' vacancies while they work 30 days for the
federal government.
Firefighters
say they want to brave the heat, the debris-littered roads, the
poisonous cottonmouth snakes and fire ants and travel into pockets of
Louisiana where many people have yet to receive emergency aid.
But the graf at the end of the piece really puts everything in
perspective, and gives some sense what the Bush administration really
has in mind when it talks about a crisis. The paper reports that one
team finally was sent to the region ...
As specific orders began arriving to the firefighters in
Atlanta, a team of 50 Monday morning quickly was ushered onto a flight
headed for Louisiana. The crew's first assignment: to stand beside
President Bush as he tours devastated areas.
A British tourist stranded for five days with his
wife and seven-year-old son in a New Orleans hotel has called the US
relief operation a "shambles".
Ged Scott, 36, of Liverpool, told BBC News that hotel staff and guests had received no help from the authorities.
Police officers had taken "souvenir" photographs of stranded people begging for help, he added.
He told BBC News he had helped to mount security patrols in the hotel while shots rang out nearby.
"We saw people making their way down the rivers that
were streets, dragging their last belongings with them," Mr Scott, a
bus driver, said.
He told BBC News he had been on his annual holiday at
New Orleans' Ramada Hotel with his wife Sandra, 37, and their
seven-year-old son, Ronan.
Snapshot photographs
Without their driving licences they were unable to hire
a car and flee the city ahead of the storm and decided to remain in
their hotel after being warned the Superdome would be too dangerous.
The handling of the relief operation had been "horrendous", Mr Scott added.
"I could not describe how bad the authorities were -
taking photographs of us as we are standing on the roof waving for
help, for their own personal photo albums, little snapshot
photographs."
He said at one point a group of girls was standing on the roof of the hotel lobby and called to passing rescuers for help.
"They [the authorities] said to them 'well show us
what you've got' - doing signs for them to lift their t-shirts up. The
girls said no, and they said 'well fine', and motored off down the road
in their motorboat.
"That's the sort of help we had from the authorities," he said.
Mr Scott added: "The only information we got from
anybody in authority was if a policeman came past and we shouted to
them out of the windows.
Patrolled
"The only information we ever got off them was negative, 'Do not go here. Do not go there'.
"There was no, 'Are you OK? Are you safe? Have you got water?'.
"Most of the time they would ignore us."
At night, the police presence disappeared altogether, leaving the stranded guests and staff to defend themselves.
"You would hear shots ringing out during the night and
that was one of the most worrying things, because we had no security,"
Mr Scott said.
"We patrolled the halls and checked the doors throughout
the night in the hotel - but if someone had wanted to come in, there
was not much we could have done about it."
[.....]
Nevertheless, the staff and guests had managed to chase one group of looters from the building, he added.
He then had had to wade waist-deep through the filthy water to barricade the hotel's doors.
"It was like wading through an open sewer.
"It reeked to high heaven and made you want to vomit.
"Outside I could see bodies floating in the water."
Mr Scott told BBC News he had ripped wires attached to
speakers from the walls of the flooded hotel bar and tied tables and
chairs together as makeshift barricades.
Bayonets
He had then run back upstairs for "the best wash I have ever had" - using water from the toilet cistern, he added.
Looters also tried to sell the stranded guests mobile phones, radios and clothes.
When they were finally rescued it had been by Louisiana
game wardens, who had entered the hotel with rifles and fixed bayonets,
Mr Scott said.
Now back in the UK, he said he was worried about the effect the experience had had on his son.
"He was fantastic - but he has been exposed to things no
seven-year-old should ever see and it is bound to come out in the
future."
In an earlier response to calls by former US president
Bill Clinton for an inquiry into how the federal government responded
to Hurricane Katrina, Linda Saccia of the Federal Emergency Management
Agency said it was too early to criticise the relief effort.
"There are 30,000 responders, rescuers, recovery people,
law enforcement that are working night and day and I wouldn't say
anything or even quite frankly think anything that would be negative
towards their hard work.
"The studies that will be done afterwards will prove and show what did and didn't go well," she said.
"If
you are a victim of Hurricane Katrina, register with this site to let
the world know how to contact you. You can give as much detail as you'd
like. Then anyone visiting refugeesunited.org can quickly find out how
you are doing.
If you are looking for a victim in the Gulf Coast
region, you can search for your loved one's name and location. In the
very near future, you will be able to post your questions to this site
so that your query will be visible to anyone visiting
refugeesunited.org.
This site is designed to be a central
collection point for information on anyone impacted by Hurricane
Katrina. Tell everyone about refugeesunited.org. We're here to help."
If you have a blog, please
post this info and the link to the site. Help get the word out so these
folks can find their friends and families. No central record-keeping of
names has yet been created, and currently many people are scattered all
over the country, some unable to remember their own names, who have
been separated from the people who care for them. Spread the word.
All part of the effort to make the victims seem like bad people that we shouldn't feel sorry for.
There were two babies who
had their throats slit. The seven-year-old girl who was raped and
murdered in the Superdome. And the corpses laid out amid the excrement
in the convention centre.
In
a week filled with dreadful scenes of desperation and anger from New
Orleans following Hurricane Katrina some stories stood out.
But as time goes on many remain unsubstantiated and may yet prove to be apocryphal.
New
Orleans police have been unable to confirm the tale of the raped child,
or indeed any of the reports of rapes, in the Superdome and convention
centre.
New Orleans police chief
Eddie Compass said last night: "We don't have any substantiated rapes.
We will investigate if the individuals come forward."
And while many claim they happened, no witnesses, survivors or survivors' relatives have come forward.
Nor
has the source for the story of the murdered babies, or indeed their
bodies, been found. And while the floor of the convention centre
toilets were indeed covered in excrement, the Guardian found no corpses.
During
a week when communications were difficult, rumours have acquired a
particular currency. They acquired through repetition the status of
established facts.
But
then Fema could not confirm there were thousands of people at the
convention centre until they were told by the press for the simple
reason that they did not know.
"Katrina's winds have left behind an information vacuum. And that vacuum has been filled by rumour.
"There is nothing to
correct wild reports that armed gangs have taken over the convention
centre," wrote Associated Press writer, Allen Breed.
"You
can report them but you at least have to say they are unsubstantiated
and not pass them off as fact," said one Baltimore-based journalist.
"But nobody is doing that."
Either way these rumours have had an effect.
Reports
of the complete degradation and violent criminals running rampant in
the Superdome suggested a crisis that both hastened the relief effort
and demonised those who were stranded.
By
the end of last week the media in Baton Rouge reported that evacuees
from New Orleans were carjacking and that guns and knives were being
seized in local shelters where riots were erupting.
The local mayor responded accordingly.
"We
do not want to inherit the looting and all the other foolishness that
went on in New Orleans," Kip Holden was told the Baton Rouge Advocate.
"We do not want to inherit that breed that seeks to prey on other people."
The
trouble, wrote Howard Witt of the Chicago Tribune is that "scarcely any
of it was true - the police confiscated a single knife from a refugee
in one Baton Rouge shelter".
"There were no riots in Baton Rouge. There were no armed hordes."
Similarly
when the first convoy of national guardsmen went into New Orleans
approached the convention centre they were ordered to "lock and load".
But when they arrived they were confronted not by armed mobs but a nurse wearing a T-shirt that read "I love New Orleans".
"She ran down a broken escalator, then held her hands in the air when she saw the guns," wrote the LA Times.
"We have sick kids up here!" she shouted.
"We have dehydrated kids! One kid with sickle cell!"
Similarly when the first convoy of national guardsmen went into New
Orleans approached the convention centre they were ordered to "lock and
load".
But when they arrived they were confronted not by armed mobs but a nurse wearing a T-shirt that read "I love New Orleans".
So,
they were prepared to kill (as if in a war) in America, but left
completely in the dark regarding the expected greetings they would
receive in Iraq...hmmmmmm
I saw a looter on TV. They showed a guy with cases and cases
of water and boxes of fruit. He had them on some sort of trolley.
He wheeled the trolley up to several people - probably about ten - who sat in lawn chairs on a side walk.
The "looter" handed out bottles of water and the fruit to each person
sitting on that street. The people took the water and fruit with nods
of thanks. Some people only took one piece of fruit and the "looter"
gave them two or three more.
No one rushed the man to take the water or the fruit. There was not a rush on his kitty.
The "looter" then proceeded down the street with his water and fruit
where you could see in the distance there were others waiting patiently
on the sidewalk for the rescue they had been promised.
The "looter" was the only rescue they would see for a while, but I think he was a hero.
The emotional symptoms of stress include, but are by no means
limited to, moodiness, irritability, and anger. Physical symptoms can
include headaches, nausea, insomnia, and all manner of physical pain.
(Here's a link to a detailed list of symptoms, just in case.)
If any of this sounds familiar, congratulations, you have been
keeping well informed on current events. There is enough grief in the
atmosphere to suffocate anybody. There are a lot of other, equally
intolerable emotions, but if you're still reading this I don't need to
catalogue them for you.
May I suggest that everybody here who is not physically in the
front lines stop for a moment and take inventory: are stress effects
starting to have a constant, or even just a distracting, effect on you,
or somebody near you?
I don't mean "are you depressed," or frustrated, or angry. It
would be a much bigger warning sign if we weren't. I mean, is the
depression coloring everything you see, whether it's related to these
events or not? Is the frustration keeping you from things that would
normally define you work, pleasure, ordinary conversation? Are you constantly angry, and is the anger spilling out onto people who did nothing but be in range?
If this is happening, then I would quietly ask you to take a
step back. Turn off the television, shut down the computer. They, and
the crises, will still be there. Go do something else, now.
--Find a distraction and allow it to distract you.Pick up
some unfinished work. Go for a walk and pay attention to every detail,
even the ones that remind you of Topic A; this is about coping, not
pretending it's not there.
--Read, watch a movie, put on some music. It doesn't have to be 'happy.' This is what catharsis is all about, and why there's been a word for it for so long.
--Talk to someone about something else that matters to both of
you. Or, perhaps better, talk to someone you care about who's also
stressed " I doubt you'll have much trouble finding someone " about how
you both feel. Talk each other down. If you need to hug or cry, let it
roll. In this hour, the trolls of damned-lie stoicism have no claim on
your soul.
I am not asking anyone to stop assisting with relief efforts of any kind. Was that understood? Good.
All this assumes that you or yours are dealing with the effects
of "ordinary" stress. If something more serious is going on " deep,
unrelievable grief or depression " find counseling, sooner, not later.
Unfortunately, stress doesn't end with the event. The present
crises have already created a great number of people with
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and there will be more, not all of them
direct victims. (One powerful reason for taking time out now is to
avoid being in this group.) Most of you will be aware of PTSD; dealing
with it is beyond my scope here. Here is
one source, with specific observations on the Here and the Now. (Yes,
it's from a Federal agency. If that bothers you, there are many other
sources.)
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance. To live in one of those times need not mean turning one's back on the other.
