K+10...What It Means To Remember Katrina

And by Remember, I mean remembering the sociopolitical circumstances that led to so much tragedy and loss...and not repeating them. People didn't suffer and die for us to forget, declare everything "OK," and merely move on and recreate the same conditions. (Yes, I'm looking at you, Mayor Landrieu.)

Mitt, Big Government, and the Deeply Confused Deep (Red) South

People living on the Gulf Coast, especially Louisianians, should be the last ones complaining about big government programs.  D-SNAP, FEMA, NFIP, USACE, National Guard, Road Home Program, etc.  Need I say more?

No I don't.  But I will.

Many local Republicans decry the amount of federal dollars spent on those no-income-tax-paying leeches living off the government dole, those same leeches who Mitt believes will never support him.  What many local Republicans seem unable to recognize, or at least admit, is that they are those leeches.

Source: http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/politics/nonpayers.banner.taxfound.jpg

Such folks are either misled, uninformed, or disingenuous.  Either way, if they want the rest of us to start taking them seriously, Republican politicians and their local supporters need to walk their talk.  The ones living in St. John the Baptist, Plaquemines, and St. Tammany need to vote for enough new taxes to cover the full cost of the levees they want.

(Well OK, they don't have to hold that vote now.  We can wait until after they get out of the disaster food stamp line.)

Insurance Companies to Alabama Tornado Victims: SCREW YOU

I sit here this morning left speechless by the scope of destruction left by numerous and massive tornadoes across Alabama and Georgia last night. Watching those scenes naturally triggered thoughts of the long post-Katrina recovery. I'm sure other survivors of that disaster also immediately felt empathy for what the unfortunate folks across the Deep South are about to go through. Once they are able to get past the first waves of shock and grief, the tornado victims will suffer the injustice of having their insurance companies turn their backs on them. For years they paid for a service and a sense of protection that they will not receive.

Like a good con artist, State Farm, Farmers, USAA Insurance, and other insurance companies collected decades' worth of premiums from Gulf Coast residents, and then just 3 months ago, started dropping their windstorm and hail coverage. The timing of those companies' collective decision is eerily prescient in this January 2011 story from Daphne, AL, in which a customer is told her wind and hailstorm coverage would be dropped in March 2011 - a little over a month before many Alabama residents would need that coverage.


WKRG.com News

God help the tornado victims and grant them the strength and resolve to obtain the compensation they are justly owed.

Jim Donelon Can Kiss My Ass on Canal Street!

State Farm will raise rates for mom-and-pop landlords, drop their wind and hail coverage

While the statewide average rate increase is 18 percent, actual increases in South Louisiana can be much higher.

In Orleans, Jefferson and protected parts of St. Bernard and Plaquemines, the average increase will be 59.2 percent, according to State Farm; in areas outside of levees in Plaquemines it will be 93.8 percent; and in areas outside of levees in St. Bernard, it will be 21.1 percent. In St. Charles Parish, the average increase will be 19.2 percent. In St. James and St. John the Baptist, it will be 22.6 percent... Other coastal parishes will also see increases.

State Farm spokeswoman Molly Quirk said that part of the rate increase calculation is the value of cutting the wind and hail policy. [Times-Picayune, 1-16-2011]

Can someone explain how you can charge more for less coverage? How did that get past the Louisiana insurance commission, and how much is Insurance Commissioner Donelon profiting from this? What is he getting that's worth throwing us under a bus?

The article talks about how State Farm has also raised rates on other policies, which were so numerous they probably ran out of room to list the auto insurance increases I also received from State Farm over the past year. I was wondering how my rates could increase on an 11-year-old vehicle on which I cut my coverage IN HALF because I couldn't even afford the insurance before the rate increase. It seems the answers to my questions are to be found in them new fangled calculators the State Farm home office sent to Baton Rouge.

Like After Katrina, Outside Folks Getting the Disaster Contracts

The fine folk over at The Lens informed the citizenry today that "Gulf Coast states lag behind other states in getting contracts for oil disaster work." Only 12% of the $53.3 million in federal oil-spill related contracts have gone to Louisiana companies. Most of the rest of that has been contracted to companies in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Massachusetts, and Colorado -- not to other Gulf Coast states suffering the direct environmental and socioeconomic consequences of this disaster.

People in other states need work too, and it seems quite plausible to me that some of corporations best able to execute the particular terms of some contracts are not Gulf Coast business. Maybe many Gulf Coast businesses were already at full capacity due to having already received state or local contracts or contracts directly from BP to do disaster-related work.

My point is I just don't know enough about the details to know whether we're getting shafted down here in the federal contracting game for this disaster. I do know, based on past experience, that we need to dig deeper into this before it becomes like the Katrina recovery in which local workers were brazenly left out of the citizen driven recovery we were promised. That is, if it's not too late. I blogged about it on 9/16/2006, and I'm going to be quite pissed if this sort of thing is happening again...

The Army Corps, Bechtel and Halliburton are using the very same "contract vehicles" in the Gulf Coast as they did in Afghanistan and Iraq. These are "indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity" open-ended "contingency" contracts that are being abused by the contractors on the Gulf Coast to squeeze out local companies. These are also "cost-plus" contracts that allow them to collect a profit on everything they spend, which is an incentive to overspend. [Corpwatch.org, 8/17/2006]

...and we were supposed to have learned our lesson so that our federal government could protect us from shady contract deals.

I hope that last part didn't make you laugh TOO HARD.

"Ain't Nobody Gonna Wanna Eat an Oirly Crab"

Wise commercial fisherman Oliver Rodesil aptly summed up the latest predicament facing south Louisiana (at about the 2:00 mark). Definitely the quote of the day.

OMG! Obama Said "Spread the Wealth"!

Yes, at first I cringed too when Obama told Joe the Plumber he intends to "spread the wealth." However, by using my brain [dammit, I already lost 1/3 of the Republicans reading this], I realized that my reaction was nothing more than the knee-jerk response Americans have been indoctrinated to have towards anything remotely socialist-sounding. After a few more minutes of thinking, and without the help of Limbaugh or Hannity, I realized that spreading the wealth is as American as...well, as Obama.

In case you missed the last couple of weeks trying to decipher the transcript of Sarah Palin's interview with Katie Couric, you may have heard tidbits about some sort of $700 billion bail out for Wall Street. You see, that's where the American people's wealth was spread to billion-dollar corporations who fell short of their original goal of spreading our personal wealth to themselves using bad mortgages as their drive-thru-bank-cannister-vacuum-chute-like-thingy vehicle of choice. My fellow Americans, you may have also noticed that you've been spreading a bit more of your wealth to oil companies and then to credit card companies in the form of higher interest rates & late charges when you couldn't afford to pay them on account of having spent your bill money on gas for your automobile.

If you live along the coast, you'll definitely recall spreading pretty much all of your wealth to insurance companies that were already quite wealthy:

When insurers sharply boost premiums on the coasts, increase deductibles, refuse to renew policies or otherwise cut back coverage, policymakers often accept these steps as necessary to help the property/casualty insurance business meet the huge challenges it faces in a risky world filled with dangers that it cannot adequately measure...

...The financial reality of the property/casualty insurance industry couldn’t be more different than the carefully cultivated perception fostered by insurers. Insurers are paying out lower claims, charging higher premiums, reaping greater profits, and are more financially solid than at almost any time in history.

[p. 3, Property/Casualty Insurance in 2007: Overpriced Insurance, Underpaid Claims, Declining Losses and Unjustified Profits]

And remember when you made the decision to allocate your wealth for the worthy, moral cause of helping your countrymen and countrywomen rebuild their hurricane shattered lives? Well, our Republican leaders faithfully doled your wealth out in a heartily fashion -- to their already superwealthy pals.

So you see, America is all about spreading the wealth! I mean we love us some fuckin' wealth distribution!! Politicians love to talk about "sharing in the American dream." Remember to remind them -- and most importantly, remind yourselves -- that sharing in that dream requires sharing some of your own damn wealth back to you.

On The Road Again

Like nearly 2 million fellow Louisianians, I participated our new age tradition of getting the hell out of dodge before Gustav before completing a few minor rituals that accompany getting ready for storms:

• Hitting at least 5 stores to stock up on beer, liquor, food, water, batteries, cat food, cat litter, paper towels, styrofoam ice chests, medicine, beer, liquor, heavy duty gloves for post-storm clean up, flashlights, beer, liquor, transmission fluid, motor oil, beer, and liquor
• Spending about 4 hours on the Internet and phone with 3 relatives and 4 rental car companies and 1 bank executive figuring out how my non-driving, non-credit-card-owning grandparents could rent a car for them and a relative willing to drive them in a day and age when apparently good ole American cash is no longer good enough for conducting good ole American lifesaving business
• 2 hours on the phone and Internet trying to find a hotel that takes pets
• Washing 4 loads of laundry and packing some of it (hey, I was without a dryer for a few weeks so I was a bit behind, OK?!)
• Trying not to get too stressed out
• Helping a friend board up windows and move stuff out of her basement
• 2 trips to the gas station
• Checking the weather forecasts 40-50 times a day
• Securing a few outdoor items to keep them from flying away
• Planning my contraflow evacuation route and devising alternate routes to avoid that pesky problem of ending up in Florida instead of Texas
• Accepting that I'd be driving to Texas without that much needed front end alignment after pulling up to Firestone and not even being able to find a parking spot
• Gathering up papers needed to work on a manuscript due August 30th (LOL-- yeah like THAT happened)
• Backing up important computer files on my flash drive
• Checking in with relatives and friends to find out if, when they were leaving and devising alternate plans of communication for when cell phones would inevitably become useless
• Washing the dishes in the sink so they wouldn't mold and smell up the place
• Taking out all the trash in the house
• Throwing away all food in the fridge that would spoil after losing electricity
  
• Packing the car at 4:30AM with part of my stockpile detailed in bullet #1, important briefcase of important papers already packed and ready to go at moment's notice, shrimp boots I believe are given to every male born in south Louisiana at birth, first aid kit, CDs for the drive (even though I know I'm going to listen to news radio damn near the whole way), family photos that post-Katrina wisdom dictates are no longer safe left at home on top of an 8-foot high bookshelf, strategically placed cat food, water, litter, & cat toys (before realizing my cats were planning a hunger-drinking-pooping-playing strike to protest the interruption of their livelihoods);
  
• Helping the friend I tailed to Shreveport pack her car at 6AM; aaaaaand...
• Playing that fun game with my employer of Do I Have to Go to Work? When Do I Need to be Back? How will I know I need to be back? Hell, I Just Hope to Have a Damn Job a Week from Today
  

You know, it's quite amazing there aren't more tragedies on the road when 2 million sleep deprived people are driving for their lives. Then again, who had the energy for road rage?

Once I settled into my comfortable, spacious hotel room in Dallas (ever thankful and knowledgeable of the fact that many of us were living without that luxury and reminiscing on my own lack of such accommodations during Katrina), I realized that I needed this vacation. Gee, I wonder why.

One thing about disasters is that they do bring us together. Especially when Louisianians outnumber Texans on Texas highways and essentially commandeer their hotels for a week or 4. I imagine the same applied in every state below the Mason-Dixon line and east of the Rockies. Prompted by my formidable friend who runs New Orleans: A Labor of Love (still bringing folks here to rebuild from Katrina, by the way) to get off my ass and do something while in exile, here are a few pics of fellow citizens I got to know while away. I don't even know the last names of these families, yet I'm still thinking of them and hoping & praying that things work out for the best for them.

Algiers, Avondale, & Harvey, Louisiana

Cut Off, Louisiana (a.k.a. down da bah-yoh)

Church Point, Louisiana (outside of Lafayette)

Beau-Barack & Bella-Michelle hanging out in Dallas, TX during Gustav

Cats don't much care for evacuating either

California-Louisiana Contrasts: More "Hot Air" from the Right

On the appropriately named conservative blog Hot Air, they are doing an excellent job following the Bush administration's lead of blowing smoke up our asses in times of crisis. However, they get much props for admitting the Right's long-known (but only recently to them, I think) technique of responding to obvious fact with "hot air" (Blog Founder: "We fight hot air with Hot Air." [Notice how their brilliant use of capitalization establishes once and for all that their Hot Air supersedes all other hot air. Plus, I'm pretty sure God said so in the Bible somewheres.)

Unfortunately, I don't think Californians need more hot air right now, and I know that those of us sweating to rebuild the Gulf Coast without much help from conservatives at the federal level don't need more of it.

It makes me ill to even give attention to their efforts to -- yet again -- politicize the destruction and death of fellow human beings. Nevertheless, I feel it my patriotic duty to point out -- yet again -- that the feds fucked up. Funny how the party of personal responsibility can't seem to own up to its own responsibilities. Louisiana's state and local officials could have supplied every survivor with handheld electric fans, frozen daiquiris and daily meals from Antoine's whilst they, our fellow Americans, waited for Lords Bush and Chertoff to decide whether the levees had been breached or merely overtopped before sending help (FYI: It makes no fucking difference!!!). REGARDLESS OF THE (IN)COMPETENCY OF BLANCO, NAGIN, JUNIOR RODRIGUEZ, WALTER MAESTRI, and even AARON "WOLFMAN" BROUSSARD, the simple fact remains that THE FEDS DROPPED THE BALL, THEN DRAGGED THEIR FEET PICKING IT UP WHEN IT CAME TO FULFILLING THE ROLE THEY HAD SET FORTH FOR THEMSELVES in the aftermath of Katrina... (that bitch, I might add).

It so happens that I am finishing a disturbingly eye-opening book called Disaster: Hurricane Katrina and the Failure of Homeland Security (by Christopher Cooper & Robert Block)*, which highlights that Louisiana officials "excelled" in the areas of the FEMA-coordinated emergency plan that had been completed pre-Katrina. My friends at Hot Breath or whatever marvel at the wonder of a state enormously larger than Louisiana evacuating 250,000 people...over the course of a few days. Contrary to popular misbelief, you don't always get DAYS of warning that a hurricane will strike. About 1.2 million people left Greater New Orleans in less than 40 hours (less than 2 days in non-fuzzy math terms), without a fraction of the problems Texas had with evacuations only weeks later before Rita struck, AND there are really only 3 or 4 routes off this island commonly known as New Orleans.
*recently purchased copy at local Barnes&Noble for $5.98*

It took FEMA 5 days to get a communications truck to N.O. from Baton Rouge when the roads were clear heading into New Orleans, and 2 days to transport ice that was sitting only 40 miles away to Biloxi. The governors of Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama literally picked up the feds' slack and orchestrated their own disaster plans, not because us po' Suh-thunahs cain't do fo' us-selves, but because the feds said for years had told them "Oh, don't worry about that. FEMA will do that," etc., etc.

There are tons more reasons you can't compare Katrina with the CA wildfires, as nicely laid out in Sunday's T-P feature, par exemple:

Katrina's scale of devastation and its impact on humanity, however, was far greater. The number of homes destroyed or still threatened in California is about 10 percent of the roughly 200,000 left uninhabitable by Katrina and the often overlooked Hurricane Rita, which struck three weeks later.

In New Orleans alone, 140 of 180 square miles flooded, -- rendering uninhabitable a residential zone seven times the size of Manhattan. Across the region, its winds and rains wreaked havoc to a 90,000-square-mile swath of the Gulf Coast, an area twice the size of the entire state of New York.

Katrina forced the evacuation of 1.2 million people -- 500,000 remained displaced after four months. Almost 2,000 people died in Katrina.

The death toll from the fires stood at seven as of Saturday.

But hey, facts schmacts -- the folks at Hot Ass Breath got some GREAT talking points out there, and what's more important and American than that?