Katrina Tuesday Roundup

With Hurricane Rita now hitting the Florida Keys, people are anxious up and and down the Gulf Coast, knowing that many areas would not be able to handle yet another storm, particularly if Rita strengthens in the Gulf of Mexico, much as Katrina did before it.

Someone must have spiked Mayor Nagin's coffee because he finally realized that he was sending people back into a deathtrap if they followed his original instructions to let people back into New Orleans this week. Mayor Nagin has rescinded his order letting people back into New Orleans. Once people were allowed back in, there was going to be no way to get them out. The levees are weakened, and another hurricane hit would have catastrophic consequences as everyone from FEMA to the President said. With a complete and utter lack of potable water, sewage systems, social services and sanitation available in New Orleans, getting those areas back in operation are key to letting people back into the city. Several hospitals may never reopen due to storm and flood damage and medical care in New Orleans will be far different than anyone could imagine.

Folks in the media finally have realized that their hurricane coverage has sucked because they are now running stories that speak of towns that were forgotten in the storm, as if they're breaking news?

Sorry, but I don't buy it.

There were hundreds of communities between New Orleans and Pascagoula and the media gravitated to New Orleans because of the delicious mix of corruption, inept officials, and the human tragedy unfolding in the Big Easy as the floodwaters crested over levees nearly 24 hours after Katrina passed. A myopic view of the hurricane developed where all focus was on New Orleans to the exclusion of the total devastation even a few miles East. The worst hit areas weren't even in Louisiana, but along the Mississippi coast, like this town of Pearlington, Mississippi that is in the AP story.

Anyone want to quiz the public to see what towns were most likely mentioned in a story on the hurricane and you'll get one answer: New Orleans. Ask them if they've ever heard of Slidell, Biloxi, Pascagoula, Gulfport, or Waveland and you'll get blank stares. Those are some of the largest towns and cities on the Gulf Coast that were decimated by Katrina. Sure, some folks may faintly recognize the name Biloxi as the scene from the movie and play Biloxi Blues or know that it was a major casino destination, but now, the entire casino industry in Mississippi is nonexistent as the casino barges were all destroyed by the storm, and with it $500,000 in tax revenues per day.

Towns that I had never even heard of before Katrina suddenly no longer exist as anyone could recognize them. Where seaside towns once stood, now only debris is piled up where the storm surge crested.

Pearlington's homes are heaps of debris, shoved far from their foundations. Trees, nail-studded boards and utility lines litter the roads. The mud has long since turned to dust, but it's deep and ready to revert to its former state with the first good rain.

And people - maybe 600 of the town's 1,700 souls - are still living in tents and under tarps.

Folks here say Pearlington is an old and generally overlooked town, a place where blacks live in one section and whites in another. It's a place without a mayor or a town government - in other words, without an advocate.

Again, we see that the media is trying to make this a racial issue, when people of all colors, creeds, and economic backgrounds were affected.

Meanwhile, President Bush is planning another trip to the Gulf Coast. Former Presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), is cashing in on Katrina by using the hurricane relief effort to raise campaign money. He follows in the footsteps of others, like Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) who sought to link Katrina to various fundraising operations for the Democratic party.

Elsewhere, there's a story being peddled in the British media that meals sent over in the relief effort were burned. Something about this doesn't quite pass the sniff test.

UPDATE:
Two Babes and a Brain wonder why people aren't taking Louis Farrakhan to task for his conspiracy mongering. He, and some of his cohorts claim that the levees were deliberatly blown up in order to flood out the black neighborhoods in New Orleans. There isn't a shred of evidence to support his statements, and only a few people in the media, including Sean Hannity have taken on this particular conspiracy theory.

Oh, and with respect to my comments about Pearlington, Mississippi, imagine my surprise when I see that the other media outlets are picking up the story to run above the fold: see CNN for example. See Snopes for debunking other pablum spread relating to Katrina (email scams, bogus stories, exaggerations, tall tales, etc.)

Technorati: flood aid; hurricane katrina; katrina aid; kanye west; impeach bush; slidell; biloxi; gulfport; pascagoula; pearlington; nagin; blanco; barbour; porkbusters.