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Do you think it's the lack of a name?
“This is a historic flooding event,” Gov. John Bel Edwards said Tuesday. “When you have a storm that is unnamed — it wasn’t a tropical storm, it wasn’t a hurricane — a lot of times people underestimate the impact that it would have....”
I don't:
The name "Katrina" got attached to what was mainly a flood, but I think the lack of attention isn't so much the lack of a name but the lack of a President people feel like attacking. But don't worry, sufferers of natural disasters, we're going to have one soon.
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73 comments:
Bush flies over LA and gets blasted by the media. Obama plays golf on the Vineyard and no complaints.
Trump should go from Milwaukee to Louisiana.
Make Obama have to (gasp!) hold a press conference during his vacation telling people all is well and he has things under control.
It is being ignored because it can't be manipulated to make Republicans look bad.
If Trump would just pivot or shut up the flooding will recede and all will be well.
I'd like to know more about marketing/branding/advertising but our library doesn't have any lectures on CD on the subject.
It's got nothing to do with "Obama is bland"
that being said, you've got the first ten letters right.
The media are heart-less hacks who only care how they can use an event to pound a narrative that helps the D-party?
It looks to me like most of the flooding is north of New Orleans? Perhaps it is the pallor of the victims that is causing the lack of media interest?
I spent Friday until Sunday in Lafayette, Louisiana watching the torrential rains and working my way around rapidly flooding areas. I came to Lafayette, via I-12, but had to return to Florida through New Orleans because of the flooding on I-12 that occurred on Saturday, so I believe I have a sense of this storm and its devastation.
I believe there are two reason's this storm is not sparking the media attention and the outrage over post storm conditions that Katrina did.
First, the areas of devastation are vast and do not easily fit in the television media's ability to show the damage like New Orleans with the roof off the Super Dome, and the floodwaters spilling over the levies into the low lying districts.
Then of course there is a more racially diverse population affected in Baton Rouge and the surrounding Parishes, so the whole idea of the government abandoning its poorest citizens doesn't play out nearly as well as it did with New Orleans and Katrina.
When I talked with some of the victims of the storm on Saturday morning they did not fully comprehend the impacts the flood will have on their lives or the cost of recovery, if that is possible. As the article pointed out most of the people affected do not have flood insurance and will have to absorb as best they can, the costs of repairing and rebuilding.
Karma... it is a bitch.
THE OBAMAS WERE SWIMMING IN WHAT?
On vacation on Martha’s Vineyard, President Barack Obama and his family yesterday headed to a barrier island between the Atlantic Ocean and Edgartown Great Pond for a little beach time. But the area's waters aren't crystal clean. Edgartown Great Pond has suffered excessive nitrogen levels in recent years, but unlike Florida’s Treasure Coast and the Chesapeake Bay, it’s not agricultural runoff that is fouling the salt pond — it's human urine. Instead of sewer lines, homes on the island primarily rely on septic systems, which filter out bacterial contamination but do nothing for nitrogen. As the island’s summer population has boomed, so have nitrogen levels in its waters.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-energy/2016/08/just-whats-going-on-with-that-marthas-vineyard-water-215806#ixzz4HbI1ZnTo
"I’ve often reflected on what I should have done differently that day. I believe the decision not to land in New Orleans was correct. Emergency responders would have been called away from the rescue efforts, and that would have been wrong. A better option would have been to stop at the airport in Baton Rouge, the state capital. Eighty miles north of the flood zone, I could have strategized with the governor and assured Katrina victims that their country stood with them. Landing in Baton Rouge would not have saved any lives. Its benefit would have been good public relations. But public relations matter when you are president, particularly when people are hurting. When Hurricane Betsy devastated New Orleans in 1965, Lyndon Johnson flew in from Washington to visit late at night. He made his way to a shelter in the Ninth Ward by flashlight. “This is your president!” he called out when he arrived in the dark and crowded space. “I’m here to help you!” Unfortunately, I did not follow his example."
Bush, George W. (2010-11-09). Decision Points (pp. 318-319). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
We'll have one soon? So you're expecting a Trump win, because ain't no media gonna blame Hillary for anything.
Same reason they are not paying attention to rioting in Milwaukee - it's not so easy to blame Republicans.
John makes the key point. No flood insurance. Those houses are ruined. Total UNCOVERD loss. Billions.
Because the residents of ground zero, Livingston Parish, where after 22 inches of rain over 75% of residents have now been driven from their homes, are overwhelmingly the "poor white trash" the media blames for the rise of Donald Trump.
". . . isn't so much the lack of a name but the lack of a President people feel like attacking."
When you say "people," you mean the "government class" which includes all types (the MSM certainly, government employees, unions, the welfare classes, and (to be uttered with breathless admiration), "the Academy"), but with one common denominator. Those who, at every turn, want to increase the size and reach of government using liberal policies regardless of how worthless they've proven to be.
Yeah--no matter who wins in November--we're going to get a national disaster.
Meanwhile President Three Putt vacations in Cape Cod, and can't even be bothered to fly over Louisiana in Air Force One.
We make a lot of assumptions. One of the more common assumptions amongst minorities, thanks to Democrats, is that Republicans hate them. So, when katrina hits, every bad thing is due to racism and the media helps spread the narrative.
But Obama is a minority. So he gets a pass. He is also a Democrat. So he gets another pass.
It's wrong to blame the president for something like this. It was wrong to blame Bush and it's wrong to blame Obama.
But the media only agrees with me when we have a Democrat for president.
Even ants know enough to seek higher ground.
My parents live in the area affected. It is quite bad for some folks there (especially those living in the flood plain next to a creek or river). However, it is not as bad as Katrina. During Katrina they had no electricity for over a month and took in people from New Orleans for like 4 months. This time part of their road washed out where it crosses a gully, but they never lost power (no downed or destroyed power lines).
It was the first time water over ran the pond levee they have, but it held.
Excellent article in the American Spectator about this:
http://spectator.org/a-tale-of-two-disasters/
Weather is a tool. If it can prove a prog point, use it; otherwise, not.
We'll have one soon? You must be expecting The Donald to win, because the media will never blame Hillary.
Coup @9:21: As far as I'm concerned, God floods bad people. My only regret is that the flood wasn't over their heads by 10 feet.... I hope they all die.
Shame on you.
I don't understand the cries that it's not being covered. I see stories about it every day, on my local tv news and on social media. (I don't watch the national tv news.)
And what happened to the "Grim Milestone" we heard about every time the number of dead soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan ended in a zero?
Roughcoat said...
Coup @9:21: As far as I'm concerned, God floods bad people. My only regret is that the flood wasn't over their heads by 10 feet.... I hope they all die.
Shame on you.
8/17/16, 10:16 AM
Coupe is a very sick man.
If "God floods bad people", how is the author of "I hope they all die" still undrowned?
If Trump can't be blamed for it, it's not in the media's narrative right now.
Your statement is bullshit. First of all, the floods were Katrina were caused by the failure of levees, not the storm itself. Secondly, Bush's FEMA was incompetent and screwed up royally in the immediate aftermath of the storm. Bush lying by saying that no one predicted the breach of the levees and "heck of a job, Brownie", made him appear clueless and uncaring.
Not only that, 3 million people were displaced by Katrina, this flood has affected 40,000 or so. They are not even close.
And, about 1800 people died in Katrina, so far this flood has killed less than 10 people.
Dr Weevil said...If "God floods bad people", how is the author of "I hope they all die" still undrowned?
If only bad people live in Louisiana, then crossing the border is your salvation.
First of all, the floods were Katrina were caused by the failure of levees, not the storm itself.
You are aware of overtopped levees in the present flooding, I assume?
this flood has affected 40,000 or so.
40,000 homes were rendered uninhabitable in one parish (Livingston, I believe). Those were not single-occupant homes.
Read a little and get some actual facts before you comment further.
Bush's FEMA was incompetent and screwed up royally in the immediate aftermath of the storm.
This is incorrect. FEMA actually did exactly what they were supposed to do. The problem was actually twofold. The first problem is either no one listened, or no one believed, when the government told them that they were going to have to take care of themselves for the first three days. (I live in California, and everyone ignores that out here too) Secondly the local authorities screwed up....those flooded buses were Nagin's fault, not Bush's.
Freder,
The population of the entire NO metro area is less than half your 3,000,000 person claim. The actual total is roughly a third of your claim throughout the Gulf Coast not just NO, and falling rapidly as people returned to their homes. Terrible, yes, but not 3MM.
Also, do you really blame FEMA more than the city and state authorities? If so, why? The photo of scores of unused school buses left to flood rather than evacuate is still fresh in my mind.
They want to buttress the cause of bigger government and seeing that the government cannot do shit well isn't helpful.
Also, too many white folks are impacted.
"I’ve often reflected on what I should have done differently that day. I believe the decision not to land in New Orleans was correct. Emergency responders would have been called away from the rescue efforts, and that would have been wrong. A better option would have been to stop at the airport in Baton Rouge, the state capital. Eighty miles north of the flood zone, I could have strategized with the governor and assured Katrina victims that their country stood with them. Landing in Baton Rouge would not have saved any lives. Its benefit would have been good public relations. But public relations matter when you are president, particularly when people are hurting. When Hurricane Betsy devastated New Orleans in 1965, Lyndon Johnson flew in from Washington to visit late at night. He made his way to a shelter in the Ninth Ward by flashlight. “This is your president!” he called out when he arrived in the dark and crowded space. “I’m here to help you!” Unfortunately, I did not follow his example."
Again, not a great President, but an exceedingly decent man. And he was right. There is zero benefit in a disaster for the President being there.
Secondly, Bush's FEMA was incompetent and screwed up royally in the immediate aftermath of the storm.
When the Governor is uncooperative, yeah, it'll make the Fed response poor. FEMA actually had its shit together well. Louisiana did not.
Bush lying by saying that no one predicted the breach of the levees and "heck of a job, Brownie", made him appear clueless and uncaring.
Nobody did foresee them breaching. Being overtopped yeah, but not breaching. They are totally different issues. And neither can be fixed as the Corps of Engineers fucked them up from the start and New Orleans and Louisiana had little interest in ever trying to correct it.
Because a Bush is not in the White House.
I see Gahrie posted while I was checking the numbers.
Floods from rain in August are not on the Climate Disaster story lines list. Now if they had themselves a drought, then the coverage would have been massive.
It's upside down because this is from Global Cooling weather.
"Until you’ve seen what five feet of water in your house can do to your life, you can’t quite understand the concept of loss. Unless you have a second story, five feet of water means your possessions are now garbage. And this is the fate of hundreds of thousands of people in Louisiana today, in an event which is only continuing to get worse."
In Milwaukee we had one of these stand-in-one-place-and-rain-for-hours storms in July a few years ago. I'm sure people remember what 1 to 2 feet of water in basements all over Milwaukee was like. Stuff was being thrown out for weeks and there was a huge mold issue. So we can understand what is going on in Louisiana which is the same but the water is much deeper and the whole state is flooded. Apparently in Louisiana it was 4-5 feet of water in houses without basements from the Tennessee border to the Gulf. Hundreds of thousands have lost everything because everything in their houses will be sodden and moldy. 32% of Louisiana's population is black. Obama, of course, does not care what happens to them. And the media takes its cue from him and some of reality-challenged among the commenters from the media. Black Lives Matter, anyone?
Still the excellent article Roughcoat linked to suggests that in some ways the state is better off not being a political photo-op and a media show-off backdrop. It seems that people are better able to cope with a disaster without the Federal government shrilling commands and without the media posturing.
http://spectator.org/a-tale-of-two-disasters/
Can't blame it on republicans so "who cares?"
Local problem, dealt locally. The problems with the Katrina disaster stemmed from local and state government disinterest and incompetence.
That said, it's politically unprofitable, and the national Press has been isolated in ivory towers spinning yarns for the Democrat machine.
Referencing the other story that did get covered, namely "Milwaukee Uprising".
I'm curious as to how many white people were actually attacked in Milwaukee (where I live). It seems to me that that there are videos of people claiming it was happening and people shouting about it happening but not one report from an actual person of an actual racially motivated beating. Nothing from hospitals, nothing on Facebook about "My Night of Horror as I Drove Down Sherman Street". Those stories about hunting down whites might be a vast hysterical Twitter fed hoax or else perhaps the papers are covering up the numbers to keep the tensions down. This is the trouble with a lying media once people realize how likely lies are. But what is the lie they are telling? We don't even know that and now, you see, it matters.
Maybe it's the lack of Bush.
Katrina was far more than a flood. It may have been a flood in New Orleans, but is was a cat 3 hurricane making a direct hit on the Mississippi gulf coast.
The flooding was a year too early. Were Trump the Prez, ...
The flood response would be the undoing of Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards if he mishandles it, but armchair comparison complaining is not the same as wading into the problem. Trump should charge in like General Patton marching to the relief of Bastogne. He's got nothing better to do. But, alas, Trump is no Patton and he's busy with his own natural disaster.
Taylor Swift has pledged $1 million for Louisiana flood relief efforts. That's the spirit!
I see it covered in our local newspaper almost every day, but usually on the inside pages. Myself, as soon as I read "flooding of historic proportion" I stop reading. Ashamed to admit that after reading here how extensive the flooding actually is, but after Katrina, I just assume they're exaggerating. Because as bad as Katrina was, it still wasn't as bad as the mainstream media made it sound (and perhaps the New Orleans officials.) People weren't killing each other in the Super Dome, for example.
Dr Weevil said...
If "God floods bad people", how is the author of "I hope they all die" still undrowned?
Read/watch "Four O'Clock"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_O'Clock
Complete Text of "Four O'Clock" by Price Day http://www.miamisci.org/tec/mlastory.html
Watch Twilight Zone Online - Four O'Clock | Hulu
www.hulu.com/watch/440863
(I had thought it was a Fritz Leiber short)
It's upside down because this is from Global Cooling weather.
What on earth are you talking about. Last year was the hottest on record, and this year promises to be hotter.
When the Governor is uncooperative, yeah, it'll make the Fed response poor. FEMA actually had its shit together well. Louisiana did not.
Just because the state and city bungled the response does not mean FEMA had its shit together well. It didn't.
Nobody did foresee them breaching. Being overtopped yeah, but not breaching. They are totally different issues.
You are simply wrong. The river levees could indeed have been overtopped without breaching (as did happen downstream of New Orleans), but for the lake and bayou side levees, overtopping leads to breaches--which is exactly what happened in Plaquimines and St Bernard parishes. It is a distinction without a difference. What was predicted for New Orleans was actually much worse than what happened. Bush was an idiot for suggesting that it was worse than predicted.
The population of the entire NO metro area is less than half your 3,000,000 person claim. The actual total is roughly a third of your claim throughout the Gulf Coast not just NO,
Where did you get these figures? The eye of the hurricane actually hit Biloxi with a 30 foot plus surge. The entire Mississippi Gulf Coast was devastated and damage stretched from just east of Baton Rouge well into Alabama (the person I was staying with in Baton Rouge had no power for four days after the storm)
The people of Baton Rouge seem to be able to take care of themselves. I heard on tv one person say they weren't waiting for the government to rescue them. They would do it themselves. If only everyone thought this way.
More proof the world is full of assholes.
Someone we know had to leave so quickly that he lost everything except a single credit card that was in his pocket. Doesn't even have his ID. I've heard of many people in similar situations. And so many people without flood insurance affected. Terrible.
SO here's the kind of lefty brilliance that shows up on my social media. This is about some localizes flooding in Wisconsin's Buffalo county:
So everyone's saying it, I heard it lots of places, the tRumper is in Wisconsin today to visit the farms in Buffalo County that are under water and he's going to do everything he can to get them some help, maybe even pull out some cash!!!!!
Hang on a second....oh, no? That's not it? He's here for WHAT?? Yeah, and what about Walker and Ryan and Johnson? Oh, okay, got it.
Sorry folks, no one with an R on their forehead is coming to help. How about we all remember that in oh, I dunno, 85 days?"
OK, what is Trump supposed to do for these people?
Never mind that the ACTUAL POTUS has said nothing, done nothing.
Hillary has said nothing, done nothing.
Paul Ryan is not their congressman. Their actual US Rep, Democrat Ron Kind, has said nothing, done nothing.
Johnson's counterpart in the US Senate, Democrat Tammy "Lesbian Wonder Woman" Baldwin, has said nothing, done nothing.
Their State Sen. Kathleen Vinehout of Alma "urged all Buffalo and Trempealeau county residents to fully report all flood damage, because the final tallies will determine whether the county will be eligible for state and federal aid." So really hasn't done anything.
SO this is just a political rant. Rush is right, liberalism is a mental disorder.
I enjoy reading things like "failure of levees" as if levees were naturally occurring features that hadn't been put into place because of the known risk of flooding caused by one of the largest rivers in the world. It's cute that some people believe we can control the natural world while professing to believe in evolution.
Further, I am certain that back in November 2008 we were all promised that electing Obama president was the day the oceans began to recede. Therefore I am quite sure that this flooding cannot really be happening.
It;s hard to realize that something major is going on, without something leading up to it. There was no huurricane, theer was no rising river.
The media never got started, so that's it. Coverage is always uneven.
8/17/16, 3:34 PM
Further, I am certain that back in November 2008 we were all promised that electing Obama president was the day the oceans began to recede.
He said that in Jue, 2008, when he won the Democratic nomination.
Obama said only "this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal;"
egan.
Obama never said he could do it alone.
It required an Act of Congress.
But the Waxman Markey (cap and trade) bill
http://www.c2es.org/federal/congress/111/acesa
... died in the Senate.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/11/as-the-world-burns
In Barack Obama’s primary-campaign victory speech, in St. Paul, Minnesota, he said that his election would be a historical turning point on two pressing issues: health care and climate change. “We will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick,” he said. “When the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” ...
...Meanwhile, the House bill, known as Waxman-Markey (for Edward J. Markey, of Massachusetts), passed on June 26, 2009, by a vote of 219-212. Eight Republicans supported it. But there were omens for the Senate...
"It is being ignored because it can't be manipulated to make Republicans look bad."
-- Reminds me of everyone saying that Flint became a national issue the moment the media decided on a Republican to blame.
Freder challenges -
"Where did you get these figures?"
Lord, Freder! I may as well ask you the same. You're the one claiming 3 million people displaced. Put up or shut up. Your reply about where the storm hit, how big the surge was, and how long your friend was without power are not evidence of 3MM people displaced.
Knowing NOLA is at best a medium sized metro, your 3MM people displaced claim hit me as obvious nonsense. It seems the number fit your preconceived notion so you went with it, but if you stood back and thought about it, rather than reflexively believed it, you would have realized that it didn't pass muster absent a LOT of corroboration. So I googled New Orleans metro population before Katrina and found a wealth of data including not just population but numbers on total displacement including the Gulf Coast, homeless over time, shelter populations, and more. Other than the population figures, are they accurate? I don't know, but they are what I found.
Stop posting with your 31 year old emotions and follow MadisonMan's advice above.
I guess this general lack of interest means Sean Penn won't be making an appearance in his leaky relief boat. Too bad. Every disaster needs its occasional moments of harmless levity. It's therapeutic. Best of luck to everyone affected.
Freder,
BTW, your 1800 killed may be overstated by a factor of 2 as well.
As a sidenote: A quick Google finds that Louisiana's total population estimate in 2015 was 4,670,724.
I find it hard to believe that the Katrina afflicted parts of New Orleans held 75%~ or so of the current population of Louisiana.
[Sidenote: That estimate is from the U.S. Census Bureau: http://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045215/22]
WaPo puts the number at 400,000 displaced in New Orleans (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/06/AR2006060601729.html)
"Displaced residents. The storm displaced more than a million people in the Gulf Coast region. Many people returned home within days, but up to 600,000 households were still displaced a month later. At their peak, hurricane evacuee shelters housed 273,000 people and, later, FEMA trailers housed at least 114,000 households." Per the Data Research Center (http://www.datacenterresearch.org/data-resources/katrina/facts-for-impact/). It lists the total deaths around 970.
The numbers Freder is giving are way off, but are about spot on what Democrats WANT you to believe.
Freder, a simple Google demonstrates even CNN is only willing to say 1 million people were displaced by Katrina across the entire Gulf Coast. The Washington Post goes with 400,000. Other sources say less.
As Mattew Sablan observes, the entire population of Louisiana is less than 5 million, so 3 million displaced, even assuming total Gulf Coast rather than Louisiana only, is a shockingly big number.
Would you care to give us your source for the 3 million number? Are you willing to admit that maybe it's overblown or are you going to dig in and hold to the philosophy of never admitting an error?
There are no Republicans to blame this time, so the Louisiana flooding gets little or no attention. The media are mostly loyal Democrats.
Where did you get these figures? The eye of the hurricane actually hit Biloxi with a 30 foot plus surge.
Again, you're wrong. (Link from National Hurricane Center; 2nd link)
The storm surge in Biloxi with Katrina was 22 feet. The eye of Katrina went over the Pearl River. Which, as you must know since you have a friend who lives in Baton Rouge, is not Biloxi. It's a long way from Biloxi.
You really are a very sloppy and imprecise writer.
You *could* claim that the high water mark at Biloxi exceeded 30 feet -- but that is not the storm surge, which you very erroneously claimed.
This whole business of the California fires and the Louisiana floods raises an issue in my mind. Back during Katrina the press unloaded on George W. Bush because he flew over New Orleans instead of getting down into the city and distracting from the cleanup efforts.
But Obama does not deign to leave his vacation even to fly over the floods or fly over the fires and he gets a pass.
Is this the soft bigotry of low expectations for Black people? Is the press trying to imply that one cannot hold a Black president to the same standards that one would hold a white president? I have to wonder.
So perhaps, blog hostess, you could set this up as another poll:
1) The storm has no name, so there's nothing to see here. Move along.
2) There is no way to blame Trump or any other Republican, so move along.
3) Louisiana has been under water before, and it will be under water again. No big deal. [shrug]
4) Both 1 and 2
5) Both 1 and 3
6) Both 2 and 3
7) All of the first three
Sammy Finkleman:
Thank you for taking the bait.
Now, could you explain how an "act of Congress" was going to change global weather patterns?
I am patient for the sort of comedy gold your response promises.
Blogger Sammy Finkelman said...
"It;s hard to realize that something major is going on, without something leading up to it. There was no huurricane, theer was no rising river.
The media never got started, so that's it. Coverage is always uneven."
If Sean Penn wasn't there, did it really happen?
"Why aren't people paying more attention to the terrible flooding in Louisiana?"
Oh, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say, "Because there's a Democrat in the Whitehouse?"
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