Thursday, September 29, 2005

Imagine Life and Love 27,000 Years Ago


Twins interred 27,000 years ago Posted by Picasa

Sometimes it's pretty easy to empathize with the pain and joy of earlier generations. We have written records of suffering and happiness, going back several thousands years. Through the written word, we can stand beside Socrates in ancient Athens as he defended himself against trumped up charges of corrupting the youth. We can feel his pain as he drank the hemlock to comply with his death sentence. Technology makes it even easier to feel the pain of others. Through television, we can see for ourselves the sadness of Americans as they said goodbye to a fallen president in November of 1963.

It's a lot harder to turn back the hands of time 27,000 years and understand the feelings of people of that era. We have no written records of them. Nothing to tell us who they were. Of course, in a basic sense, we know who they were. Our ancestors!

The picture in this post might make it a tad easier to realize that pre-historic people had feelings too. Twenty-seven thousand years ago, when Neanderthals were giving way to modern homo sapiens, these twin newborns were lovingly buried on a beautiful hillside overlooking the Danube River in what is today Austria.

Their tiny bodies were covered with the shoulder blade of a wooly mammoth to protect them as they journeyed into eternity. Beads were placed in their graves. Someone loved them very much.

Who was their mother? What became of her? Did she have other children? We'll never know much more than that somebody cared. Maybe that's enough.

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Thursday, September 22, 2005

History Does Repeat Itself, So What's the Lesson?



The top picture shows a tiny slice of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana. The bottom picture was taken 40 years earlier in the same parish, after 1965's Hurricane Betsy roared through the area. Two hurricanes, 40 years apart, but the same result. Why?

To make the parish and neighboring New Orleans flood-proof might or might not be possible. That's up to the engineers to determine. What the pictures should be reminding us of is that sooner or later, no matter the precautions taken by man, another great flood will spill across the swamps and pour into the neighborhoods of Arabi, Chalmette, Meraux, and Violet, laying waste to people's lives and dreams.

Hurricane Betsy should have been a wake up call, but as human nature would have it, the people of St. Bernard drifted back into complaceny after the putrid waters receded and their homes had been restored. Life was too good to worry about what might not happen. Why tax yourself to protect yourself from the "big one," that mythical killer hurricane that would drown cars, houses, and people like proverbial rats in a rain barrel?

And so everybody went back to the old habits. A Friday night beer and oyster sandwich at Rocky and Carlos. High school football. A weekly trip to "make groceries" at Schwegmann's. Whatever the amusement, it made it easy to forget the risk. Even Mother Nature seemed forgiving. St. Bernard dodged a bullet when 1969's Hurricane Camille veered eastward to smash the Mississippi Gulf Coast. As the years passed, good luck held as gulf hurricanes took one path or another away from the parish. Until Katrina.

As one old timer put it, life in St. Bernard was more a habit than anything else. Or maybe it was an addiction. Habits can be broken, but addictions ...? The people of St. Bernard are now as scattered as the children of ancient Israel. Will a Moses appear to lead them back to their promised land?

Economically, there are reasons to return. The sugar refinery, the oil refinereries, the easy-going charm of next-door New Orleans. But as former residents of St. Bernard are allowed to return in the next few months, it will not be hard-nosed economic calculations that drive them to return. They will be lead by their hearts.

The Lesson? It may be silly to some, but "home is where the heart is" is more than a saying. It's a living emotion that makes people come together to rebuild, even when to the outside world it makes no sense because of the risk.

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Monday, September 05, 2005

Happy Dogs, I'm Sure


Dogs rescued from the devastation of New Orleans. (Source: LA Times)Posted by Picasa

These dogs, being evacuated from New Orleans by bus, sure look happy to be leaving the flood-devasted city behind. I'll bet they'll be even happier when they're reunited with their loved ones.

Many Americans wonder why more New Orleanians did not evacuate the city before Hurricane Katrina struck. Well, lots of people would NEVER leave their dog or cat behind. Unfortunately, the shelters refuse to take our canine and feline friends. That's got to change, if they really want people to leave their homes.

Sunday, September 04, 2005

In Honor of Sirius as 9/11 Approaches





The beautiful Labrador Retriever in the pictures is Sirius, who died on 9/11. Going about his duties as a bomb-sniffer, Sirius was killed in the collapse of the twin towers. When Sirius' feeding bowl was found in the rubble of the World Trade Center, it was silverplated and engraved with the following: “I GAVE MY LIFE SO THAT YOU MAY SAVE OTHERS.” You can read tributes to Sirius and even see another tribute painting here.

If you pause this September 11 to honor those Americans killed in the terrorist attacks, don't forget Sirius.

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Who's Responsible?



Copied and pasted from the Federal government's national response web site:

As a State’s chief executive, the Governor is responsible
for the public safety and welfare of the people of that
State or territory. The Governor:
■ Is responsible for coordinating State resources to
address the full spectrum of actions to prevent,
prepare for, respond to, and recover from incidents in
an all-hazards context to include terrorism, natural
disasters, accidents, and other contingencies;
■ Under certain emergency conditions, typically has
police powers to make, amend, and rescind orders
and regulations;
■ Provides leadership and plays a key role in
communicating to the public and in helping people,
businesses, and organizations cope with the
consequences of any type of declared emergency
within State jurisdiction;
■ Encourages participation in mutual aid and
implements authorities for the State to enter into
mutual aid agreements with other States, tribes, and
territories to facilitate resource-sharing;
■ Is the Commander-in-Chief of State military forces
(National Guard when in State Active Duty or Title 32
Status and the authorized State militias); and
■ Requests Federal assistance when it becomes clear
that State or tribal capabilities will be insufficient or
have been exceeded or exhausted.


A mayor or city or county manager, as a jurisdiction’s
chief executive, is responsible for the public safety and
welfare of the people of that jurisdiction. The Local
Chief Executive Officer:
■ Is responsible for coordinating local resources to
address the full spectrum of actions to prevent,
prepare for, respond to, and recover from incidents
involving all hazards including terrorism, natural
disasters, accidents, and other contingencies;
■ Dependent upon State and local law, has
extraordinary powers to suspend local laws and
ordinances, such as to establish a curfew, direct
evacuations, and, in coordination with the local
health authority, to order a quarantine;
■ Provides leadership and plays a key role in communicating
to the public, and in helping people, businesses,
and organizations cope with the consequences of
any type of domestic incident within the jurisdiction;
■ Negotiates and enters into mutual aid agreements with
other jurisdictions to facilitate resource-sharing; and
■ Requests State and, if necessary, Federal assistance
through the Governor of the State when the jurisdiction’s
capabilities have been exceeded or exhausted.
Tribal Chief Executive Officer
The Tribal Chief Executive Officer is responsible for the
public safety and welfare of the people of that tribe.
The Tribal Chief Executive Officer, as authorized by
tribal government:
■ Is responsible for coordinating tribal resources to
address the full spectrum of actions to prevent,
prepare for, respond to, and recover from incidents
involving all hazards including terrorism, natural
disasters, accidents, and other contingencies;
■ Has extraordinary powers to suspend tribal laws and
ordinances, such as to establish a curfew, direct
evacuations, and order a quarantine;
■ Provides leadership and plays a key role in
communicating to the tribal nation, and in helping
people, businesses, and organizations cope with the
consequences of any type of domestic incident
within the jurisdiction;
■ Negotiates and enters into mutual aid agreements with
other tribes/jurisdictions to facilitate resource-sharing;
■ Can request State and Federal assistance through the
Governor of the State when the tribe’s capabilities
have been exceeded or exhausted; and
■ Can elect to deal directly with the Federal Government.
(Although a State Governor must request a Presidential
disaster declaration on behalf of a tribe under the
Stafford Act, Federal agencies can work directly with
the tribe within existing authorities and resources.)

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Did Anyone Bother to Read the Plan?


Consider these sections of the City of New Orleans emergency plan, which you can read in its entirety by clicking on the title of this post:

Conduct of an actual evacuation will be the responsibility of the Mayor of New Orleans ...

The City of New Orleans will utilize all available resources to quickly and safely evacuate threatened areas.

D. Regional Transit Authority
* Supply transportation as needed in accordance with the current Standard Operating Procedures.
* Place special vehicles on alert to be utilized if needed.* Position supervisors and dispatch evacuation buses.
* If warranted by scope of evacuation, implement additional service.

E. Louisiana National Guard
* Provide assistance as needed in accordance with current State guidelines.

Emergency shelter operations are the responsibility of the Office of Emergency Preparedness Shelter Coordinator.

The plan raises three questions:
  1. Were "all available resources" used in the evacuation?
  2. Why weren't food and water stockpiled at the Superdome?
  3. Was the Louisiana National Guard utilized from the git go?

Notice that the plan makes the Mayor responsible, not the President of the United States. Final question: Did Mayor Nagin blow it?

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Saturday, September 03, 2005

When Hurricanes Strike: Forgotten Saint Bernard Parish

They say that history repeats itself. That's true, at least for Saint Bernard Parish, Louisiana.

I grew up in the mostly white "bedroom community" located just east of the City of New Orleans. Most of the time when middle-class Americans think of white flight and bedroom communities they think of affluence. Bad thinking in this case. Think poor whites, working hard at low paying industrial jobs, living smack in the middle of a semi-rural swamp. The nice thing about the swamp was that when you suffered one of those periodic spells of unemployment you knew would come sooner or later, the swamp would feed you. Fish, shrimp, crawfish, oysters, rabbits, nutria, and more were to be had free from the bayous and wet muck that passed for land. Not bad when you literally have no money, as so many people did when I was growing up.

None of the major retailers had stores in St. Bernard when I was growing up. But, like every other bedroom community in America, St. Bernard has grown more prosperous over the years. Today the good people in Arabi, Chalmette, Meraux, Violet, and other communities making up St. Bernard know first hand Wal-Mart, McDonald's, and other retailers American babies can name before they can say their ABCs. That parish slogan from my childhood, "Buy, Build, Boost, Beautiful St. Bernard" must have worked.

I haven't been back for more years than I can count, but I know there's a lot that's new. Besides the major retail chains having moved in, the swamps have been drained so that subdivisions could sprout along with schools and other infracstructure to serve a growing population.

One thing that isn't new is how the national media ignores St. Bernard in covering hurricanes. Most of St. Bernard was covered in water in 1965 after Hurricane Betsy. The picture in this post shows the flooding caused by Katrina, but the scene in 1965 didn't look a bit different. To see the damage to St. Bernard, you'll have to check the blogs, like the one linked in this post.

When you read the accounts of devastation from Katrina in the national news media, they'll tell you that things in New Orleans would have been worse except that Katrina's eye veered eastward at the last moment. Eastward, right over St. Bernard Parish. One hundred fifty mile an hour winds pushing and pulling anything not nailed down, turning everyday objects into deadly projectiles.

What I learned from Hurricane Betsy is that most of the damage from Hurricanes is not wind related. Sure, shingles will get peeled off, unprotected glass broken, trees downed, and such. But houses that are built with any attention to detail tend to hold up pretty well unless a tornado (one of the side effects of hurricanes) strikes. The damage to homes you're seeing in Mississippi on the news is from the tidal surge of water, not wind effects.

Just as in 1965, St. Bernard Parish is not seen much in news coverage of the hurricane. I don't know if that's good or bad for the folks in St. Bernard. What I do know is that unless the people have changed in ways I can't fathom, they won't be sitting around waiting for the government to solve their problems. As soon as the water recedes, they'll be cleaning up their streets and properties themselves. They'll be feeding themselves, too. Mr. Alligator better watch himself, or he'll be on the menu!

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