Donating Clothes

One of my friends passed along this information:
My church, St. Monica, is accepting clothing donations through Friday (Sep 9). Details can be found here.
The address is 6131 N. Michigan Rd.
Radio stations are also putting together food and clothing drives, as are local fire stations. Check radio station websites for details, and ask at your local fire station to find out which stations in your township are doing it.
————–
UPDATE: Another place you can donate:
Pastors for Peace Emergency Caravan Indianapolis and West Lafayette
Pastors for Peace will have a truck leaving Chicago headed for Mississippi and Louisiana with aid for those in need.
Mississippi Distribution through Black Caucus Member, and Ranking Democratic Member Committee on Homeland Security, Congressman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) Louisiana Distribution through African American Churches, arrangements still in process
You can help by giving:
Clothing
Bedding
Non-perishable food items
Bottled water
Money for gas and driver?s expenses
Items to be picked up by Pastors for Peace Tuesday, September 13th
Collections points will be:
Indianapolis:
North Meadow Circle of Friends
1710 North Talbott Street
Items can be left on porch if door is not open: Contact Tony or Jenny Barrows
317- 924-1086

Continue ReadingDonating Clothes

40,000 expected dead

From a funeral director deployed to handle bodies in New Orleans:

“DMort is telling us to expect up to 40,000 bodies,” Dan Buckner said, quoting officials with the Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team, a volunteer arm of Homeland Security.
His partner, Dan Hicks, of Paducah, Ky., was deployed Monday. Buckner, of Dickson, is on standby. Their funeral home is one of several collection sites for donations to be taken to the Red Cross in Fayetteville on Wednesday for transfer to places in need.
The 40,000 estimate does “not include the number of disinterred remains that have been displaced from … mausoleums,” Buckner told the Times-Gazette Monday.

The Times-Pickayune estimates at least 10,000 dead, and discusses in grisly detail finding some of the bodies at the convention center. Don’t read that link unless you have a strong stomach. It’s horrifying. I keep thinking about my family members being caught in something like this. When they’re talking about the elderly, I keep picturing my mom’s mother, and it breaks my heart.

Continue Reading40,000 expected dead

Coast Guard has “Missing Person Submission Request” for New Orleans

If you need to locate someone in New Orleans and have not heard from them, you can submit a report requesting they search for someone.


George Bush on Friday:

We’ve got a lot of rebuilding to do. First, we’re going to save lives and stabilize the situation. And then we’re going to help these communities rebuild. The good news is — and it’s hard for some to see it now — that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott’s house — he’s lost his entire house — there’s going to be a fantastic house. And I’m looking forward to sitting on the porch. (Laughter.)

Jefferson Parish president Aaron Broussard regarding Friday:

The guy who runs this building I’m in, Emergency Management, he’s responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, “Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?” and he said, “Yeah, Mama, somebody’s coming to get you.” Somebody’s coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody’s coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody’s coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody’s coming to get you on Friday… and she drowned Friday night. She drowned Friday night! [Sobbing] Nobody’s coming to get us. Nobody’s coming to get us…”

Barbara Bush “lets them eat cake” on Sunday:

Accompanying her husband, former President George H.W.Bush, on a tour of hurricane relief centers in Houston, Barbara Bush said today, referring to the poor who had lost everything back home and evacuated:
“Almost everyone I’ve talked to wants to move to Houston.”
Then she added: “What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is that they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed with the hospitality.
“And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this (she chuckled)–this is working very well for them.”

Also on Sunday after Barbara’s misguided statements:

“They killed a man here last night,” Steve Banka, 28, told the Reuters news agency before he left on Sunday.
“A young lady was being raped and stabbed. And the sounds of her screaming got to this man and so he ran out into the street to get help from troops, to try to flag down a passing truck of them. He jumped up on the truck’s windscreen and they shot him dead,” Mr Banka said.

Mitch “The Blade” Daniels and the New Orleans Disaster:

Mike Parker, the former head of the Army Corps of Engineers, was forced to resign in 2002 over budget disagreements with the White House. He clashed with Mitch Daniels, former director of the Office of Management and Budget, which sets the administration’s annual budget goals.
“One time I took two pieces of steel into Mitch Daniels’ office,” Parker recalled. “They were exactly the same pieces of steel, except one had been under water in a Mississippi lock for 30 years, and the other was new. The first piece was completely corroded and falling apart because of a lack of funding. I said, ‘Mitch, it doesn’t matter if a terrorist blows the lock up or if it falls down because it disintegrates — either way it’s the same effect, and if we let it fall down, we have only ourselves to blame.’ It made no impact on him whatsoever.”
Daniels, now governor of Indiana, did not respond to a request for comment.

The Army Times calls American citizens “insurgents” and New Orleans a “combat operation:”

While some fight the insurgency in the city, other carry on with rescue and evacuation operations. Helicopters are still pulling hundreds of stranded people from rooftops of flooded homes.

Katrina’s real name: global warming

THE HURRICANE that struck Louisiana yesterday was nicknamed Katrina by the National Weather Service. Its real name is global warming. When the year began with a two-foot snowfall in Los Angeles, the cause was global warming. … And when the Indian city of Bombay (Mumbai) received 37 inches of rain in one day — killing 1,000 people and disrupting the lives of 20 million others — the villain was global warming.

Continue ReadingCoast Guard has “Missing Person Submission Request” for New Orleans

Helicopters

  • Post author:
  • Post category:Indianapolis

All last week and again this morning, there have been numerous helicopters over downtown Indianapolis. Normally there are some; the news helicopters fly over in the morning doing traffic reports, and the lifeline helicopter takes off and lands on the roof of Methodist Hospital. We’re used to hearing helicopters.
This is beyond that, though. They’re flying over not just in the morning, but all day long, and they don’t appear to be the news or hospital copters, which are mostly white with colored logos on the sides. These are darker colors with no real logos that I can see through binoculars.
I’m getting my tinfoil hat now.

Continue ReadingHelicopters

Washington Post and Newsweek print correction over Bush Lies

The Washington Post printed their correction first, then Newsweek printed theirs. Both had incorrectly stated that as of Saturday, Louisiana Gov. Blanco still hadn’t gotten around to declaring a state of emergency, and this was the reason why federal response was so slow.
In fact, Blanco issued a state of emergency on Friday, August 26th, (BEFORE THE STORM HIT) which was reported on major news sources, and even was posted on the Governor’s website [link is a PDF file].
The Post and Newsweek both cited as their source for the incorrect information as an unidentified “senior Bush official” but neither in their corrections identified the source who misled them.
Which makes me wonder about linking to or quoting any of their coverage, if they’re going to let people lie to them and not burn bad sources, or even double check source information to determine it’s bad before printing it, then the rest of their coverage is suspect, too.
That’s one key fact of the Plame scandal that no one has hammered home yet; none of the reporters taking information from anonymous sources are bothering to check on or back up that information at all — which is shameful, and terrible, terrible journalism. That’s what the entire movie of “All the President’s Men” was about — two reporters trying to corroborate information given to them by an anonymous source, schlepping from door to door trying to find anyone who could back-up what they were given by Deep Throat before they printed it.
Now The Washington Post and Newsweek print any old crap the White House tells them, without even doing a simple two-minute google search to find out if it’s true or not. That’s not journalism. That’s STENOGRAPHY.

Continue ReadingWashington Post and Newsweek print correction over Bush Lies

FEMA and Homeland Security were briefed BEFORE the storm

From Editor and Publisher:

Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center, told the Times-Picayune Sunday afternoon that officials with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Homeland Security, including FEMA Director Mike Brown and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, listened in on electronic briefings given by his staff in advance of Hurricane Katrina slamming Louisiana and Mississippi–and were advised of the storm’s potential deadly effects.

Continue ReadingFEMA and Homeland Security were briefed BEFORE the storm

People not even safe yet, but Bush team has plan to Cover Their Asses

New York Times Article: “White House Enacts a Plan to Ease Political Damage”

Under the command of President Bush’s two senior political advisers, the White House rolled out a plan this weekend to contain the political damage from the administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina.
It orchestrated visits by cabinet members to the region, leading up to an extraordinary return visit by Mr. Bush planned for Monday, directed administration officials not to respond to attacks from Democrats on the relief efforts, and sought to move the blame for the slow response to Louisiana state officials, according to Republicans familiar with the White House plan.
The effort is being directed by Mr. Bush’s chief political adviser, Karl Rove, and his communications director, Dan Bartlett. It began late last week after Congressional Republicans called White House officials to register alarm about what they saw as a feeble response by Mr. Bush to the hurricane, according to Republican Congressional aides.

I’m thinking Senator Landrieu must be very tired right now, because she’s been awake for 7 days. So I’d like to personally volunteer to punch ANYONE she would like me to. I’m not kidding, Mary, I’ll do it for you. I’ll haul off and hit anyone you want me to hit. Name the guy!!

Continue ReadingPeople not even safe yet, but Bush team has plan to Cover Their Asses

Sen. Landrieu Threatens to ‘Punch’ President

From Editor and Publisher:

Sen. Landrieu Threatens to ‘Punch’ President if He Keeps Hitting Local Response to Katrina

Senator Mary Landrieu, the Democrat of Louisiana (whose father was a mayor of New Orleans), appears to have finally found her voice after offering only cautious criticism of the federal relief effort in the hurricane catastrophe earlier in the week. Today she promised to literally “punch” anyone, “including the president,” who continued to question the local response to the tragedy, considering the gross federal misconduct.

Appearing on ABC’s “The Week” TV program this morning, Senator Landrieu still appeared to be smarting from President Bush’s comments, during his national radio address, that state and local bore a fair share of blame for the slow response. On a copter tour of the area, Landrieu said that if she heard any more criticism from federal officials, particularly about the evacuation of New Orleans, she might lose control.

“If one person criticizes them or says one more thing – including the president of the United States – he will hear from me,” she said on the ABC program. “One more word about it after this show airs and I might likely have to punch him. Literally.”

She burst into tears as she looked at a broken levee. “The President could have funded it,” she said. “He cut it out of the budget. Is that the most pitiful sight you have ever seen in your life? One little crane.”

She also referred angrily to comments Bush had made Friday at the New Orleans airport about the fun he had in her city in his younger days.

“Our infrastructure is devastated, lives have been shattered,” Landrieu said. “Would the president please stop taking photo-ops?”

Continue ReadingSen. Landrieu Threatens to ‘Punch’ President

How to help, and current reading

I might have a lead on where to take clothes: I’m emailing with a guy from one of the local churches who is providing aid. If I get more information, I’ll post it here ASAP. Of course, donate money to the Red Cross if you haven’t already.
Helpful info from people’s comments to this site:
“Move on” has set up a website to couple up people who have some extra room with those in need it’s Hurricane Housing.
“Best Friends” is down there saving pets that were left behind or otherwise spotted. Donations needed for the animals. bestfriends.org
Also, you can donate your pocket change to the Red Cross through Coinstar, the change machines located all over Indy. I wasn’t able to determine if they donate 100% of your change, or if they take a percentage, but either way, it’s an option. You basically dump your change in, specify the charity, and they give you a tax-deductible receipt.


Knight Ridder Newspapers:
Away from the coast and cameras, victims cope without much help
Like thousands of her rural neighbors, 72-year-old Gloria Jean Watts said she sympathizes with those suffering in the coastal cities. But she’s hot, hungry and almost out of blood pressure medicine after a week of camping in a neighbor’s sweltering living room and subsisting on a diet of little more than canned sausages.
Indy Star
Many didn’t have the means to flee Katrina’s path
Data show that those in hard-hit areas are mostly poor and lack transportation
Washington Post:
Many Evacuated, but Thousands Still Waiting
White House Shifts Blame to State and Local Officials
Washington Post:
Storm Exposed Disarray at the Top
Rebuffed Offers of Aid
Times-Picayune, via Editor & Publisher:
An Angry ‘Times-Picayune’ Calls for Firing of FEMA Chief and Others in Open Letter to President On Sunday
“Every official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be fired, Director Michael Brown especially. In a nationally televised interview Thursday night, he said his agency hadn’t known until that day that thousands of storm victims were stranded at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. He gave another nationally televised interview the next morning and said, “We’ve provided food to the people at the Convention Center so that they’ve gotten at least one, if not two meals, every single day.””
AFP:
Guardsmen ‘played cards’ amid New Orleans chaos: police official
Chicago Sun-Times:Daley ‘shocked’ as feds reject aid
“A visibly angry Mayor Daley said the city had offered emergency, medical and technical help to the federal government as early as Sunday to assist people in the areas stricken by Hurricane Katrina, but as of Friday, the only things the feds said they wanted was a single tank truck.”
L.A. Times:
Despite Warnings, Washington Failed to Fund Levee Projects
For example, Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, the Corps commander, conceded Friday that the government had known the New Orleans levees could never withstand a hurricane higher than a Category 3. Corps officials shuddered, he said, when they realized that Katrina was barreling down on the Gulf Coast with the vastly greater destructive force of a Category 5 — the strongest type of hurricane. Washington, he said, had rolled the dice.

Continue ReadingHow to help, and current reading