In Search of a Place to Sleep, and News of Home

[Rose Siding]

Hundreds of thousands of evacuees from the New Orleans area stranded in overcrowded hotels, motels and makeshift shelters and on highways across much of the South underscored a new reality on Tuesday: an extended diaspora of a city's worth of people, one rarely seen in the annals of urban disaster.
...
Hotels as far away as Houston (350 miles from New Orleans), Memphis (395 miles) and Little Rock (445 miles) were booked, and the American Red Cross had opened more than 230 shelters in schools, churches and civic centers spread through six Southern states.

Many found themselves wandering anew after maxing out credit cards or being forced to leave previously booked rooms.
...
After two nights in three $50 rooms at a motel, the family ran out of money and moved on Tuesday to the Birmingham Jefferson Civic Center, where the Red Cross had just opened a shelter. "We're down to our very last," Ms. Williams said. "We came here for some type of assistance, some type of help."

One woman spent much of the day in her car on the side of the highway here in Saraland, just north of Mobile, since her car radio was the most reliable source of information in a region where electricity remained spotty. An extended family holed up at a hotel in Lafayette, La., sent a scouting mission to Baton Rouge in search of rental property in case they remain stranded for weeks.

http://nytimes.com/2005/08/31/national/nationalspecial/31stranded.html?hp&ex=1125460800&en=8334f54df7a0a5e2&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[benito]

1. The cajundome in Lafayette is open

[blue sky at night]

2. I am a camper.....

and I have everything I need to live in the woods, with a tent. I guess I made a good investment in time and money learning how to survive without "all" of the comforts of home. This may be a lesson for young families, teach your kids to get along without electricity and television. Getting back to the land may become more of a necessity than a camping trip the way things are going.

[DELUSIONAL]

4. When Cherokee were marched out of the east on the "trail of tears"

they were dumped in the Indian territories (now called Oklahoma) and thankfully some of the old ones still remembered their old survival skills -- seems like a whole lot of people are going to need survival skills in this modern day trail of tears.

Meanwhile Nero George strums da guitar and ate cake.

We we all knew that bushie is a useless pile of crap -- hell at least crap can be used for fertilizer. His behavior probably isn't a big surprise to us.

And it isn't even surprising that the media whores are covering up for bushie by NOT mentioning the lack of leadership from bushie.

[Cobalt Violet]

3. Well at least they soon won't be able to declair bankrupcy.

They shouldn't have spent the money if they couldn't repay it. Right?

:sarcam:

[NYC]

7. And the ones who didn't spend the money to evacuate

are now stuck on rooftops or in the Superdome, and are being severely criticized by some for their "refusal" to evacuate.

I guess there is just no winning when people are determined to criticize.

[Cobalt Violet]

8. Is it really that hard for people with money to realize that people...

with no money or limited money could not evacuate?

[NYC]

9. It seems to be.

Evacuation has to be very expensive. I don't think some people think about what happens after you get "out" of the area. Hotels, food, you name it.

I read that the bottom 20% of the country (economically) does not even have credit cards.

I don't know how many times the word "refused" was used, as in the people who "refused" to evacuate. Lack of compassion, and an inability to think about all the ramifications of evacuating.

[NVMojo]

5. terrible! That poor man who died when his oxygen tanks were out ...

how many more like this? In a modern, advanced nation?

[NYC]

6. ...wandering anew after maxing out credit cards...

Shameful. And some people wonder why the poor people didn't evacuate.

Many of the recent articles regarding credit cards and bankruptcy mention that a single "event" can put people over the edge so that they can no longer make their credit card payments on time. After that, it spirals out of control because of late fees and increased interest rates.

In this catastrophe, people have the "event," but even worse, they have probably lost their jobs permanently.