Is FIVE YEARS all it takes to forget Hurricane Katrina?

[potassiumnitrate]

Memory sure is a funny thing. I can't believe how in as little as 5 years, people already start making shit up about Hurricane Katrina.

Here's what I remember. Maybe someone here can correct me if I'm wrong.


I remember it taking DAYS for any kind of substantial government response to occur following the hurricane. I remember Anderson Cooper freaking the fuck out about how there was NO HELP ANYWHERE and that people were dying.

I remember seeing bodies floating in the water.

I remember the death toll being in the thousands.

I remember George W. Bush holding a fucking photo op, saying the words "you're doing a heckavajob Brownie!", while people were dying of dehydration.

I remember a hospital being accused of euthanizing patients.

I remember Kanye West saying "George Bush doesn't care about black people" on TV.

I remember the media calling black people "looters" while at the same time saying white people were "just finding food". http://dvorak.org/blog/images/katrina/


Anything else I may have missed?

[KamaAina]

1. Not just no but HELL NO!!!

then again, as a one-time NOLA resident, I might could be just a tad bit biased... :grr: :banghead:

[bobbolink]

2. Hell, it was forgotten in a few *months*

I will never forget..... after Katrina was fading from media view, the poor people shoved all over the country were quietly removed from the housing they had been conveniently stashed in, in the media headlights.

Having no place to go and no way to survive, they were killing themselves... the suicide rate was high, but not spoken of much.

What I won't forget... while people were killing themselves, the local pet shelter was loaded with pictures of pets for "adoption"... they had gone down and "rescued" them, "fostered" them, and were wanting people to give them homes.

While the people were turned out and dying.

Yeah, short memories.

[CurtEastPoint]

3. And how long ago was the Gulf 'spill' and it disappeared

pretty much off the horizon long before it was 'cleaned up.'

[Jamastiene]

5. Yup.

Out of sight, out of mind. People have forgotten even the spill already. It's beyond sad. It is infuriating.

[dkf]

4. We have another horror story to replace it with.

[uppityperson]

6. a MOSQUE at Ground Zero (tm) is pretty horrific indeed

:sarcasm:

To OP, I am glad they are televising about it, many of us will not forget.

[dkf]

7. Honestly I'm talking about the oil spill.

If you want to get back to it I feel the same way about the Mosque as I did about Iraq. Bad idea. But if you all want to go ahead with it what can I do. I'm resigned to it.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

26. The disastrous effects of Katrina and the BP oil spill are man-made assaults...

on New Orleans and the Gulf states. (Who knows just how far-reaching the effects of the oil spill will be.) The Liberal Media could report about them in tandem. Oh, wait...

[tavalon]

8. It's taking less than 2 months to forget the Gulf tragedy

so, yeah, I'd say 5 years is definitely past the ability of short attention span America.

[Javaman]

32. Took the words out of my mouth. nt

[stray cat]

9. What has been made up that anyone believes?

[Swamp Rat]

10. yeah you right!

I was in a motel room in Memphis when I made dis:

[NOLALady]

I can NEVER

forget.

The personal horror stories I've heard from family and friends will haunt me until the day I die.

[Mimosa]

11. I wish I could forget.

I sort of get PTSD when I watch the TV shows about Katrina. I haven't slept for a week.

[WolverineDG]

12. not only that, but now some folks on DU are telling us we didn't really see what we saw

no one died at the Superdome or Convention Center. People weren't left to die on their roofs. And the woman who held the "No Iraqi Left Me on a Roof to Die" sign at the Sept. 2005 anti-war march was a "dumbass."

dg

[G_j]

22. yep

and regarding the original pic outside the dome: 'She is obviously not on a roof'
There were people in that thread passionately defending the Bush admin., though not by name.

[WolverineDG]

24. the pic was from the anti-war march in September 2005

it wasn't taken in front of the Superdome. But according to some on the thread, she was a "dumbass," as I guess everyone else who was at the march.

dg

[tammywammy]

13. 1 year to forget Hurricane Rita; 2 years for Hurricane Ike n/t

[txwhitedove]

14. Katrina? Yes, I surpassed that bitch….., but…..

How do I tell you how it feels to only hear, see, read about, and find the average person’s perception of Katrina is narrowly focused on “New Orleans”? Please don’t be angry with me. I too was horrified by what happened in New Orleans and was outraged by our own President’s ignorance and abuse of power at his immediate disposal to aid ALL who were overwhelmed by the hurricane.

From people I meet, to news stories, the announcer at the Houston Rodeo, just everywhere…”We want to welcome our friends from New Orleans.” …and, “Oh, you’re going to buy a house in this area., wonderful, but of course it was so much better before we had all those people from Katrina….., what ? Are you from New Orleans? But you say you were in Katrina? Oh, Mississippi,well….”

My DU friends, it hurts. That was scary shit, horrible, LOUD, amazing, huge, wild, scary shit that went on for hours, in the ACTUAL ground zero for Hurricane Katrina: Waveland / Bay St. Louis, MS. We were in my daughter’s house on the bluff right above the US 90 BSL bridge that went down. I walked from her house to mine after the water went down about 4:00pm-ish but before the howling winds stopped.. Everyone was in shock.

Five Years After Katrina, A Return To Bay St. Louis
by Scott Simon 8/28/10
‘New Orleans was famously, treacherously flooded when Hurricane Katrina struck five years ago this weekend. But the eye of the storm didn't hit New Orleans. It struck Bay St. Louis, Miss., a small, proudly roguish old riverboat and resort town along the Gulf Coast, killing 12 people.’ link: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129484662

I have my own pictures, but here’s a link to some pics online: http://4christe.tripod.com/Damage2

The best overall picture is a video taken from helicopter flyover within days of the hurricane. I’ve only seen it twice, can’t find it online, but think you can buy it. Aerial video from about Slidell, through Waveland, Bay St. Louis, Pass Christian, Long Beach, Gulfport, Biloxi… It was shocking even to me, the complete devastation, homes and lives splintered and often vanished from the earth.

So, take care, remember ALL of Katrina’s children who were hurt and lost. My forced move back to Houston was like coming home, so I also welcomed the people of New Orleans. Whenever someone would say, “Okay, Miss (first name)…” I would quietly say with a smile, “You’re from New Orleans, right?” They would always be hesitant, but say “Yes”, and then we could share briefly and rejoice in our new life.

[uppityperson]

27. Indeed, the MS coastal and lowlying areas and everywhere there was a mess, many lives lost

NOLA gets the press due to the levees "failing", but the MS coast got smushed by Katrina.

[tammywammy]

28. How about Hurricane Rita?

When it made landfall in Texas, all the news channels were talking about New Orleans and that's it. My family was worried about their houses, which were near where it did make landfall, and Texas would only be mentioned in passing. The only reason my family knew their houses were still standing was from neighbors that stayed behind.

I feel for you, huge areas suffered from Katrina, and the focus is nearly 100% on only New Orleans.

[SargeUNN]

15. as a Katrina Survivor and having done much work in it

I will say my opinion and, one that seems to be shared by most Katrina Survivors, is that there are still many problems from it, and while I hope people will continue to help remedy these problems, I am moving on and not as affected by it in my thinking as I was. Certainly there are many horrors that I will never get over but I have learned to deal with them and not let them dominate me. I am more than ready to just heal the wounds and get on with life.

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. And that is the healthy attitude about it

don't forget, cannot mostly, but live does go on.

:hug:

[txwhitedove]

18. This 5th anniversary is a time of reflection...

I definitely "pulled myself up by the bootstraps" by jumping right into a new job in Houston in Sept. 2005, and life has just gotten sweeter. Unfortunately, my oldest daughter was never strong and crumbled after Katrina. Result, I continue to cope with the fallout and am raising her 3 children.

[SargeUNN]

19. yeah I had this sad experience

I was doing my radio show on Nova M at KPHX here in Phoenix. My guest was suppose to be a woman from New Orleans whose brother-in-law was in studio with me. We never heard from her and we got worried which prompted her brother-in-law to call several others to find out what had happened. They found her dead and the time of death was fixed during my show. It was certainly one of the lows in my radio experiences. I also had another listener that called to express concern that his life was in danger because crime was so high and he had to be on medicine that the dealers would love to get. He was a Vietnam vet who had barely survived a pit there and the meds were needed to keep him going. 2 weeks after that call he was found murdered and his new supply of medicine gone.

[txwhitedove]

21. Oh no, so many sad stories. The morning after Katrina, I walked through

Bay St. Louis taking pictures, talking to everyone, and learned EVERYONE had an amazing story. The lady hanging clothes on bushes to dry, like any 3rd world country, said they survived by putting their tiny baby on a pool raft and floating until they had to go into the attic. A biker neighbor that I had previously been wary of, shared dog food and stores of saving their 6 boxers by putting them in the attic - wouldn't want to clean that mess.

[Fire1]

17. Yeah, you forgot something.

George Bush was on vacation when it happened and didn't return to D.C. Secondly, he surveyed the damage from the air only after being forced to do so by public opinion. It also took the senate FOUR DAYS to re-convene after the hurricane hit. Babs bush was quoted as saying, "I don't see anything wrong, they've got the dome!" The CBC had to get on tv and implore the president AND FEMA to give these people support and relief (like food and water).

[thelordofhell]

20. Here's some more

I remember seeing alligators swimming in water obviously full from eating people.

I remember Barbara Bush saying people were living better in the Superdome than their old homes and that it hurt her "beautiful mind" to think any differently

I remember Bushtard celebrating John McCain's birthday while a city drowned

I remember Condaleeza Rice couldn't stop shoe shopping and play watching in New York

I remember not hearing a goddamn thing from Cheney

I remember the military on orders from the President, confiscating guns from citizens (1st time in modern history this happenned in the United State, and yet the NRA always says Democrats will take your guns)

I remember loading trucks with food and water in Arizona that reached NOLA before Bushtard, only to be forcibly stopped and not allowed in by FEMA

I remember seeing more people in and around the Superdome starving and dying than I saw at Glenn Beck's Loserpalooza

I remember hearing about how doctors and nurses had to let indigent and eldery people die in their hospitals because FEMA wouldn't allow anyone in the city to help with evacuation

I remember a floating hospital ship not allowed by FEMA to dock and help people after the hurricane

I remember people risking being shot by FEMA and Guard troops to get around main roads and waterways to get supplies into the city

I remember when Bushtard finally bothered to show up, he had emergency workers stop working at saving people to be background props for his visit

What I most remember though is that it was the time that I was thouroughly convinced that the Bushtard and Cheney admininstration were true sociopaths that didn't give a damn about anyone but themselves.

[ThatsMyBarack]

25. Probably better off not hearing from Cheney.

He would have just said, "So?"

[smokey nj]

30. "Go fuck yourself, Mr. Cheney. Go fuck yourself." Dr. Ben Marble

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3SemYQH-8o&feature=related

[txwhitedove]

23. More FEMA: on streets of Bay St. Louis, I remember a lady FEMA worker

wearing FEMA polo shirt who tried to turn away to hide the “FEMA” saying she didn’t know where the FEMA station was! Saw her at the FEMA station the same afternoon, in full swing with food for …FEMA.

Yes, I remember walking a lot, trying to find ANY good cell phone reception - best was at
foot of fallen BSL bridge, everyone congregated there to share cell phones and stories, including Anderson Cooper’s RV.

None of the site-seeing Hummer drivers wanted to roll down their windows to talk to us “unwashed” begging for a ride, news, friendly faces in a dead zone.

[RB TexLa]

29. Americans forgot about it by the end of Sept 05

[uppityperson]

31. I am posting some photos and news coverage for the next couple days, it sinks.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9044450