tagged w/ Hurricane Katrina
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The United States constitution says that every citizen has the right to carry a gun for self defense. However, five years ago in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina people were having their guns taken from them and collected by law enforcement. Alex Jones says that much of the looting that occurred in New Orleans in the immediate days after Hurricane Katrina hit land was done by police and other civil officers.The United States constitution says that every citizen has the right to carry a gun... more
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View AllA farm in the Lower Nine that has sprouted after Hurricane Katrina grows organic vegetables and raises goats in a place where drug deals used to take place
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When the levee along the Industrial Canal failed back in 2005 and the wall of water drowned much of New Orleans' Lower Nine, the area north of Claiborne Avenue — the poorest section of the neighborhood — was hardest hit. Not surprisingly, the stretch has been slowest to recover. Five years after the devastating hurricane, the area still does not have a supermarket or store that sells fresh produce. Today, where houses once stood, jungle-like growths have consumed the lands. Other homes, still abandoned, are slanted and Burtonesque.
But just as strange is another thing in the neighborhood, right on Benton Street between North Roman and North Debigny. "We call it 'The Volcano'," says Brennan Dougherty. "We just started the compost pile back in April, and it's already almost 15 feet tall and 40 feet long." Then like a proud parent she adds, "It produces the most beautiful soil you've ever seen." Dougherty is the manager of a farm in the Lower Nine where organic vegetables are grown and goats raised where drug deals used to take place.
(See pictures of the surreal remains of Six Flags New Orleans.)
At five each morning, Dougherty hops into a pick-up truck and drives 8.9 miles to the Whole Foods on Magazine Street. The store donates its vegetable waste to the farm, which helps explain the Volcano's growth spurt and rich content. Dougherty's farm is connected to an independent community school, Our School at Blair Grocery, and serves as a hands-on, outdoor classroom where students and neighborhood teens learn they have the power to control their health and lives. The local youth care for the animals and help grow okra, collard greens, beets, dill and garlic.
(What's so great about organic food anyway?)
"Growing good food is a lot like building a strong, diverse community," says Dougherty, who frequently conducts composting workshops. "Healthy food starts with rich soil. That's your foundation. Then you build up in layers. A strong community also needs a solid base. It requires diversity of materials, thought and action — the layers. Then you grow from within."
(See Katrina's forgotten victim: The Lower Ninth Ward.)
Even the drug dealers have respect for the learning playground. Not too long ago, transactions took place on the corner across the street. But not anymore. Not while area kids are feeding goats and picking sprouts. The pushers have relocated to another block, away from this anchor for community revitalization.
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The Lower Nine urban farm concept is already spreading, though. At Temple University, sophomore Alex Epstein has helped formed the Philadelphia Urban Creators, a youth-led organization that seeks to educate and empower local neighborhoods through the concepts and practice of sustainability. Over the last year, Epstein has coordinated seven trips of students from Temple and North Philadelphia high schools to the Lower Ninth Ward. Now they are applying what they learned back home. This summer, on a plot of land on 11th and York in Philadelphia, a lot was cleared, and with the start of school, the students will embark on a community outreach campaign. The composting has already begun. Each day, the Esposito Dining Center, Temple University's largest student restaurant, gives its green waste to the farm. "Before I graduate," Epstein says confidently, "I'm going to climb to the top of our compost pile — which will be at least 20 feet tall — and I'll be able to see New Orleans."
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2012217_2012252_2014154,00.html?xid=rss-fullnation-yahoo#ixzz0y997pubqView AllA farm in the Lower Nine that has sprouted after Hurricane Katrina grows... more
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Hurricane Katrina left 1800 people dead and New Orleans virtually underwater but it was 5 years ago. Hurricane Katrina hit the area on 29th August 2005 and displaced millions of people and President Obama is going to assure the survivors that he will leave no stone unturned in order to complete the rebuilding plans.Hurricane Katrina left 1800 people dead and New Orleans virtually underwater but it... more
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The unbelievable devastation of New Orleans is almost beyond human comprehension. The virtually complete destruction of the entire city by Hurricane Katrina, the loss of huge numbers of lives, the ruination of the property and lives of so many, especially the poor and disadvantaged, is a tragedy of historically monumental proportions.
This year, photographer Brenda Ann Kenneally revisited two families five years after Hurricane Katrina and created a remarkable photo-essay about the effect of Katrina on children who are living along the Gulf Coast.
This piece includes a number of high-resolution color photographs, the memorable photo-essay and an additional video.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2010/08/30/children-of-the-storm-five-years-after-hurricane-katrina/The unbelievable devastation of New Orleans is almost beyond human comprehension. The... more
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Black Ribbon is placed by Google today at the homepage to commemorate the significance of the day when US southern states were hit by hurricane Katrina.Black Ribbon is placed by Google today at the homepage to commemorate the significance... more
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Hundreds of mourners dropped notes, cards and letters – many of them stained with tears – into a steel-gray casket on Saturday in a symbolic burial of Hurricane Katrina.
One letter written by a child in red crayon said: “Go away from us.” Another note remembered one of the 1,800 victims of Katrina: “R.I.P. Gloria, I will always love you.” The casket, along with some of the anger, grief and frustration, was later interred under an appropriately dark sky as rain pounded umbrellas.
“I asked for no more suffering, for everything to come back to where it was,” Walter Gifford, 47, said of his note. He rebuilt his home and moved back to the area near New Orleans. “I ask for the sadness for so many to end.”
The church that celebrated the Mass, Our Lady of Prompt Succor, was flooded five years ago just like all but two buildings in St. Bernard Parish.
“I cried a lot while I wrote my letter,” said Nancy Volpe, 61, who moved back into her house in November. “But I’m finally home. I can’t tell you how much better I know the meaning of that word – home.”
http://www.theblogismine.com/2010/08/29/louisianans-rid-grief-in-hurricane-katrina-symbolic-burial/Hundreds of mourners dropped notes, cards and letters – many of them stained... more
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August 29th is not an auspicious date for the people of Northern Orleans, as five years ago on this very day more than 1800 people were made the victims of the monstrous hurricane, Katrina. It can be recollected that this was one among the events that had resulted in highest casualties in the recent times.
Obama ended his Martha’s Vineyard vacation Sunday and headed to the Gulf, five years to the day from when Katrina roared ashore in Louisiana.
After years where halting progress mixed often with setbacks and despair, the city was getting back on its feet when the BP oil spill dealt another blow. The exploded well spewed more than 200 million gallons of crude into the Gulf before it was capped in mid-July.
Read More: http://morichesdaily.com/2010/08/remembering-hurricane-katrina/August 29th is not an auspicious date for the people of Northern Orleans, as five... more
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In this satellite image from NOAA, Hurricane Katrina is seen in the Gulf of Mexico August 28, 2005. Photo: Getty Images.
The month before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, I went to Louisiana to report my second-ever story for Current TV. This was before the network had even gone on air, before the idea of Vanguard as a show.
I was there to work on a story about how geography is affected by global warming. In Louisiana, the ocean was creeping up along the coastline, eating up marshland. The people I interviewed living in the southern parts of the state knew they were in a precarious situation, that the encroaching sea was already impacting their way of life.
A fisherman I interviewed named Tom told me I was looking at it all wrong. The levees were vulnerable, he said, but the real danger was that a Category 5 hurricane could wipe everything out. Saltwater from the ocean invading the marshland meant that one last line of defense -- unlike the furious cycle that a storm picks up over open water, marshland can actually help slow down hurricanes -- was also gone. Tom said that it would probably take a major city -- New Orleans -- being threatened to get anyone to take it seriously.
I went back to California, and before I finished assembling the story, Katrina hit. Everything people had told me would happen, did. I had been so fixated on the rising sea level that the risk a hurricane posed to New Orleans, while part of my story, wasn’t the first or biggest thing on my mind.
I wish I could say “I told you so” -- but like the government, like most people, I wasn’t taking it seriously. The people who lived there were right. It’s not the kind of thing anyone wants to be right about.
The global warming story I had originally gone to Louisiana to cover was -- before Katrina -- entirely ignored by the mainstream media. In its wake, as seemingly every journalist on the planet swept into town, it became a major part of the discussion. (I went, too, though I was skeptical about what I could add.) But I was glad so many reporters were there, that finally the long-overdue questions were being asked. People were talking about levees and the impact mankind had on that fragile ecosystem.
But still the coverage was reactionary. We should have known that this place was particularly vulnerable. I had been on the right track, but I didn’t ask all the right questions. When I got back to New Orleans, areas where we had been a month before -- even those relatively unscathed by flooding -- were a ghost town. The voice of that fisherman warning me about hurricanes echoed in my head the whole time.
The lesson to me as a journalist was that we have to stay a step ahead, to be enterprising and ask tough questions -- but also that we can so easily miss the big story if we think we already know what it is. I’m not saying that it’s possible to predict the future, but it’s important for journalists to go where the story is -- and listen when those who know best tell us there’s a storm coming.
Adam Yamaguchi is the executive producer and a correspondent for Current TV's Vanguard.
In this satellite image from NOAA, Hurricane Katrina is seen in the Gulf of Mexico... more
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This weekend marks the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s ravages of New Orleans, a city that not long ago appeared to be completely lost. Only five years have passed since rotting corpses were floating through the city’s streets, since hundreds of thousands of survivors sat in hotel rooms and shelters and the homes of relatives, finding out from news coverage that they had been forced to join the ranks of the homeless.
The unbelievable devastation of New Orleans is almost beyond human comprehension. The virtually complete destruction of the entire city by Hurricane Katrina, the loss of huge numbers of lives, the ruination of the property and lives of so many, especially the poor and disadvantaged, is a tragedy of historically monumental proportions.
Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast with devastating force at daybreak on Aug. 29, 2005, pounding an area that included the fabled city of New Orleans and wreaking large-scale damages on neighboring Mississippi. In all, more than 1,700 people were killed and hundreds of thousands of others were displaced as refugees. Packing a terrifying punch of 145-mile-an-hour winds when it made landfall, the category-4 storm's surge pushed a 29-foot wall of water ashore when the hurricane struck the Gulf Coast, the highest level ever measured in the United States. Levees failed in New Orleans, resulting in political and social upheavals that continue a half decade later.
This commemorative piece presents a number of historic high-resolution photographs, a memorable slide show and two emotionally moving documentary short films.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2010/08/28/a-remembrance-of-katrinas-wake-portraits-of-tragic-loss/This weekend marks the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s ravages of New... more
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Here's a quick look at the blogs that have updated information about the PK Floods that have caused more devastation than Hurricane Katrina did in the US.Here's a quick look at the blogs that have updated information about the PK... more
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Attention, New York: The sun is spewing plasma right towards you! Looks like there may be an unusual light show in the skies above.
If you look to the sky late Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning you could see northern lights, or aurorae. According to the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the potential light show started Sunday, when the sun’s surface erupted and hurled tons of ionized atoms — or plasma — into space.
After a long slumber, the Sun is waking up. Early Sunday morning, the Sun’s surface erupted and blasted tons of plasma (ionized atoms) into interplanetary space. That plasma is headed our way, and when it arrives, it could create a spectacular light show.
“This eruption is directed right at us, and is expected to get here early in the day on August 4th,” said astronomer Leon Golub of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). “It’s the first major Earth-directed eruption in quite some time.”
When such an expulsion reaches Earth, it interacts with the planet’s magnetic field and can create a geomagnetic storm, the CfA said. Solar particles stream down the field lines toward Earth’s poles. Those particles crash with atoms of nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere, which then glow like little neon signs.
Sky watchers in the northern U.S. and other countries should look toward the north late Tuesday or early Wednesday for rippling “curtains” of green and red light, the CfA said.
Aurorae normally are visible only at high latitudes. However, during a geomagnetic storm aurorae can light up the sky at lower latitudes. Sky watchers in the northern U.S. and other countries should look toward the north on the evening of August 3rd/4th for rippling “curtains” of green and red light.
NOAA forecasters estimate a 10% chance of major geomagnetic storms and a 45% chance of at least some geomagnetic activity when the clouds arrive on August 3rd and 4th.
More at link: http://morichesdaily.com/2010/08/northern-lights/Attention, New York: The sun is spewing plasma right towards you! Looks like there may... more
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In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the 120,000 or so trailers provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to people who had lost their homes became a symbol of the government’s inept response to that disaster.
The trailers were discovered to have such high levels of formaldehyde that the government banned them from ever being used for long-term housing again.
But the New York Times reports that some of those trailers are now getting a second life amid the latest disaster to hit the Gulf states— as living quarters for workers involved with the cleanup of BP’s oil spill.In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the 120,000 or so trailers provided by the Federal... more
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The 2010 Alantic Hurricane Season, which begins Tuesday is expected to be an extremely active season that could rank in the top 10 or even the top 5 most active on record since 1900!The 2010 Alantic Hurricane Season, which begins Tuesday is expected to be an extremely... more
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The most active hurricane season since 2005 is expected according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)/National Hurricane Center (NHC).The most active hurricane season since 2005 is expected according to the National... more
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White House Covers Up Menacing Oil “Blob”…VIDEO BP Doesnt Want Seen!!!
by Wayne Madsen
May 19, 2010
In an exclusive for Oilprice.com, the Wayne Madsen Report (WMR) has learned from Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers sources that U.S. Navy submarines deployed to the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean off the Florida coast have detected what amounts to a frozen oil blob from the oil geyser at the destroyed Deep Horizon off-shore oil rig south of Louisiana.
For FUll Story and Click here to See …VIDEO BP Doesnt Want Seen!!!...http://ctpatriot1970.wordpress.com/2010/05/20/white-house-covers-up-menacing-oil-blob-video-bp-doesnt-want-seen/White House Covers Up Menacing Oil “Blob”…VIDEO BP Doesnt Want... more
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I went down to New Orleans, LA last year to see how recovery efforts were coming along and found an organization, Rebuilding Together that was working tirelessly to help the affected residents. Although this was 3.5 years after Hurricane Katrina, some neighborhoods are still wiped out, others struggling and despite it all, the residents have kept their jazzy spirit.
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http://www.giannatoboni.blogspot.com/I went down to New Orleans, LA last year to see how recovery efforts were coming along... more
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I can't say I'm much of a football fan, but I do have a powerful love of the city of New Orleans. I was born down there and my family is still spread all across southern Louisiana. When "Geaux Saints" turned into "Who Dat" it took over my Facebook wall months before the playoffs were even mentioned.
So I'm excited for the Crescent City's turn of fortune. Everyone seems to agree, after Katrina and after the disaster that has been post-Katrina, the city needed it.
But there was something else the city got this weekend that it desperately needed: a new mayor. Mitch Landrieu (brother of Senator Mary and son of former mayor Moon) won a first round mayoral contest Saturday with a dominating 66 percent of the vote. It was a change the city needed and apparently also wanted in a large majority.
Landrieu outlined some of his priorities in his pre-game acceptance speech including getting New Orleans closer to Washington, finding a new police chief, and addressing New Orleans' endemic violence:
Asked about the killing Friday of a 15-year-old honor student who was waiting for the school bus, Landrieu repeated his oft-repeated view that violent crime, especially against young black men at the hands of their peers, "is an American tragedy and a national shame."
"It's not something that we should accept, nor is it normal, " he said. "It happens all around America, but it happens a lot in the city of New Orleans, and it's critically important that the citizens of New Orleans understand, as we have spoken to many times in the campaign, that making the streets safe so that our sons and daughters can be protected on one end, or something as simple as being able to sit on your porch again or have your child ride your bike, is very important to all of us."
"So, my message to them is: I hear you, and we understand, and we're going to do something about it, " he said.
Congratulations New Orleans, I hope this really is a new day.
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I can't say I'm much of a football fan, but I do have a powerful love of... more
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You can expect a lot of Hurricane Katrina retrospectives this weekend as the fourth anniversary is upon us. Of everything I've read and seen thus far, the most moving piece is this NY Times Magazine cover story: "Strained by Katrina, a Hospital Faced Deadly Choices" (a collaboration between ProPublica and the NYTimes). It's a heart-wrenching look at what happened inside Memorial Hospital in the days after the storm as doctors and patients were marooned by floodwater. Memorial was controversially the site of what some later called "mercy-killings" - the primary focus of the article.
One excerpt:
Today triage is used in accidents and disasters when the number of injured exceeds available resources. Surprisingly, perhaps, there is no consensus on how best to do this. Typically, medical workers try to divvy up care to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number of people. There is an ongoing debate about how to do this and what the “greatest good” means. Is it the number of lives saved? Years of life saved? Best “quality” years of life saved? Or something else?
I remember distinctly the feeling after Katrina. It felt like we were doing triage as a nation. That somehow we didn't have the resources to save this wonderful city - to swoop in and pull every single person from their rooftop or out of their attic all in a single day's hard work. (I'm originally from New Orleans and much of my family still lives in the area, so watching the looping shots on the news from helicopters circling over the city was a particularly emotional experience for me.)
Reading this article really tore at my heart. In many ways it reads like a metaphor for our efforts to save New Orleans: haphazard, poorly organized, badly prioritized. A lot of good people making tough and possibly questionable decisions in unprecedentedly bad conditions.
I highly recommend taking some time to read the article (far warning: it's a long one). Also, below are two of my favorite pieces that we produced during Katrina. They give you a real visceral sense of what it was like in both New Orleans and in neighboring Mississippi.
You can expect a lot of Hurricane Katrina retrospectives this weekend as the fourth... more
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Nearly 5 years after Hurricane Katrina destroyed about 90 percent of Mississippi's inshore artificial reefs, the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources' (DMR) Artificial Reef Program say they have restored Mississippi's reefs to 100 percent of their pre-Katrina state .Nearly 5 years after Hurricane Katrina destroyed about 90 percent of... more
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“Breathturn” is a beautiful music video by Marc Byrd and Andrew Thompson, a sweetly sad tale of a young boy who’d like to fly away from the troubles in his life. Left adrift in a city after the heavens had opened up and the sky poured down like a fountain, the young boy’s hand-crafted origami birds, as well as the music, are both beautiful and breath-taking. Nola.
This piece includes color photographs, as well as the emotionally moving HD music video, “Breathturn.”
Please visit my website to view these photographs, and to watch this very touching music video:
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2010/03/27/breathturn-ill-fly-away-in-the-morning/“Breathturn” is a beautiful music video by Marc Byrd and Andrew Thompson,... more
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