Katrina Morning Roundup

President Bush is expected to inspect the damage in a tour of the region today.

The situation in New Orleans isn't getting any better despite the fact that the Army Corps of Engineers has been working around the clock trying to repair the levees that failed during the storm. The Dutch claim that the seawalls should not have failed. They're sounding a bit like Ismay as the Titanic was sliding beneath the waves. The levees were designed to survive a category 3 storm, but this storm was a strong category 4 storm (and I think that scientists will probably revise it upwards to a class 5 storm based on research of damage and windspeed at the core upon landfall). The Dutch apparently forget that if they build a wall X high, nature can just as easily come along with a wave or storm surge X+1 high, which is more than enough to ruin all those pretty dikes and storm protection systems.

Ron Fournier suggests that the politicians failed the storm victims, from not harshly dealing with looters at the outset to failing to improve the levees over the past 40 years. The relief efforts are hampered because of washed out roads, continued flooding around New Orleans, and

Aridog who is a regular poster at Discarded Lies has rounded up a bunch of awe-inspiring photos of the damage.

Restaurant chains are assessing the damage to their locations, and are providing food relief to victims.

The town of Derby, Kansas has adopted Slidell, LA to receive storm damage aid.

• Derby officials have adopted Slidell, La., a New Orleans suburb that was one of the communities hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina.

Tax-deductible donations can be dropped off or mailed to the Derby City Hall at 611 N. Mulberry Road, Derby, KS 67037.

Checks should be made to the Slidell Relief Fund.

Only monetary donations are being accepted at this time.

Officials anticipate clothing and other items will be needed after solid communication has been established with Slidell city officials.

Expect to this kind of generous giving as communities all around the country pitch in to help.

New York's Police and Fire Departments are kicking in to help with the relief and recovery efforts. After accepting aid from all over the country in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, both departments are cognizant of the goodwill of their fellow Americans. Their collective expertise will come in handy in the efforts.

Celebrities are coming together to hold telethons to raise money for the victims. Even the annual Jerry Lewis MDA telethon is raising $1 million for the relief efforts. They're going to be running a special 800 number for hurricane donations, with all proceeds going to the Salvation Army’s efforts in the stricken states.

UPDATE:
Coordinating the relief effort, and ramping up the New Jersey response:

"We are closely monitoring the situation," said Howard Butt, the state coordinator for a little-known agency called EMAC - the Emergency Management Assistance Compact - an interstate mutual aid organization that figures to play a huge role in the nationwide relief effort.

"We have direct communications with Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and Washington, D.C., at all times," Butt said.

Working out of the state Office of Emergency Management at state police headquarters in West Trenton, Butt, a former state police captain, and his staff have been working around the clock "preparing and identifying all assets that we anticipate might be needed."

Designated personnel and equipment would be ready to leave with two hours notification, state police Superintendent Col. Rick Fuentes said.

On Tuesday, the state Office of Emergency Management sent notices to county OEM offices and local police officials urging first responders and other personnel not to leave for Gulf Coast states until they were officially mobilized by the state.

Paid firefighters, however, could be leaving soon through a deployment organized by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The agency has asked for 1,000 two-person teams from around the country to work in the ravaged region for 30 days.

UPDATE:
Long convoys of National Guardsmen are entering New Orleans as of this writing, and heading towards various places in the city, including the Superdome and the Convention Center. They're going to be met by a bunch of angry and hungry folks, and even some real violent types. While those National Guardsmen are going to be compassionate, they should not allow the looters and louts to reign the day. They should deal harshly with these folks, and while that may not be pretty to look at, restoring order and getting aid to the victims is the top priority and these criminals are preventing that from being done.

The Native Times updates the condition of their tribemen and women who were caught in Katrina.

The NCAI reports that the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana sustained some wind and rain damage but the tribe's members that live in Slidell, La. felt the brunt of the storm, according to the tribal chairman's office. Tribal members living in that area lost everything-homes were completely destroyed, but there has been no loss of life reported among tribal members.

Most appear to have made it into shelters. The tribe has become a refuge for some trying to escape the aftermath of the storm as its Mari Center, which houses the tribe's Paragon Casino, has become a Red Cross shelter which now houses nearly 600 refugees.

Reached via phone, the Poarch Creek Indians of southern Alabama say they only sustained minor wind damage with no major damage on the reservation and the community does have power. The storm's effect on tribal membership in other areas is the main concern, according to Poarch Creek Management Director April Sells.

Many of these tribes relied upon the casinos to help sustain their peoples. With the casinos destroyed or heavily damaged and tourism a distant hope, these people are going to need to band together to rebuild and help those who lost everything.

The Governor of Louisiana is trying to organize relief efforts for smaller communities around the state, including Slidell.

Donations will be accepted at Evansville Christian Life Center, 509 S. Kentucky Avenue :

Toiletries
New underwear
Water
Ready to eat food
Diapers
Formula
Wipes
Paper towels and toilet paper.

Meanwhile, telecommunications companies are struggling to restore wireless service in the region.

Network technicians have been working in the surrounding areas near New Orleans, including Mandeville, Lacombe and Slidell, and wireless coverage has already been restored at the city's international airport. Mobile cellular stations -- called Cell on Wheels -- are being deployed in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Electrical generators were also dispatched to the afflicted areas to power the wireless services.

Satellite telephone carriers are also active in the recovery efforts, including World Communications Center, which has supplied more than 100 satellite phones due to the "communications collapse" in the region, spokesman Tim Taylor told Wireless World. "Satellite phones provide the ideal communication in times of crisis when cell lines -- and land lines -- go down," said Taylor.

Other technology companies are actively involved in the recovery effort as well, shipping IT, networking and wireless telephony equipment to businesses that want to get back online in the afflicted areas as soon as possible.

Some companies maintain stockpiles of equipment ready to respond to disasters, but it takes time to get them to the location. The equipment is being surged to the affected areas as I post. Verizon Wireless is typical of the companies responding to this catastrophe. More on the Verizon Wireless response (including an employee double-match donation pledge).

Sallie Mae is making emergency loans available to students affected by Katrina.

Sallie Mae will also grant automatic payment relief to student loan customers in the areas affected by the storm. This will allow students to discontinue making payments on their loans. The company will also extend the same payment relief terms authorized by the U.S. Department of Education for federally guaranteed loans to its private loan customers. Customers who have other questions about their student loan accounts should contact the company toll-free at 1-888-2-SALLIE (1-888-272-5543) or log on to the Manage Your Loans section of http://www.SallieMae.com.

UPDATE:
12 airlines are being called upon to airlift 25,000 from New Orleans vicinity. This is part of the DHS emergency plans. Brendan Loy has more.

Video has surfaced showing cops looting. What are these numbnuts thinking? I think very long prison sentences should be the minimum. These are people who are supposed to be protecting and helping maintain order. By violating their oaths, they dishonor everyone in law enforcement and make the jobs of those who are maintaining law and order more difficult.

UPDATE:
Insurers now estimate the costs from Katrina to be upwards of $100 billion. That's a staggering sum, which is four times the costs associated with Hurricane Andrew, and tens of billions more than the costs associated with the 9/11 attacks. And we are still assessing the losses. And the death toll continues to climb, with Sen. Landrieu stating that the toll in Louisiana may top 10,000.

UPDATE:
Hugh Hewitt engages in some real critical thinking and poses some interesting ideas on how to help those people displaced by Katrina.

Fourth, monuments to the dead will eventually be erected, but the feds should avoid that conversation and the president should call for the establishment at Tulane of the Homeland Security's new Center for the Study of Mass Casualty Events. After 9/11, the tsunami, the earthquakes we have seen in Iran and elsewhere and now this, Homeland Security needs to focus on the aftermath of the inevitable next such event, the assessment of local preparedness in high risk areas, and the establishment of critical priorities in infrastructure upgrades.

It is not just the preparations for the disaster, but how people respond. We know that not everyone will act altruistically, and that these events will bring out the worst in some people. Government agencies must be able to deal with this better than we've seen, but again the onus is on local authorities to do much of the local preparation. If localities are incapable of doing so, then perhaps new leadership is needed in those areas to make sure that they are indeed prepared for these situations.

UPDATE:
There has been a call for President Bush to tap America's Mayor, Rudy Giuliani to lead the relief efforts. If I were Bush, I'd really consider it. He's the kind of guy who would go into NOLA and brook no dissent. He'd get things done. He'd comfort those in need, and he would make sure that the looting stopped yesterday. Am I putting Rudy on a pedestal? Not in the slightest. This is a guy who stepped up and showed the world his true character in a crisis of monumental proportions and kept the city together with a mixture of comfort and determination. He said the right things, and appeared as necessary. [ed: and putting him in a position to succeed on NOLA and the Southeast reconstruction would improve his stature going into 2008 - it's a Rovian trick I tell ya!]