Dear NIHAC members:

I am forwarding and evolving dialogue that is going on about FEMA.

Beth




-----Original Message-----
From: spiritof1848@yahoogroups.com [mailto:spiritof1848@yahoogroups.com] On
Behalf Of Barbara Krimgold
Sent: Friday, September 02, 2005 11:53 AM
To: spiritof1848@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [spiritof1848] FEMA director's response

The FEMA response to the disaster.

FEMA is directing Katrina donations to none other than the Rev. Pat
Robertson. FEMA has released to the media and on its Web site a list of
suggested charities to help the storm's hundreds of thousands of victims.
The Red Cross is first on the list. The Rev. Pat Robertson's "Operation
Blessing" is next on the list.

Operation Blessing's board of directors is dominated by the televanglist and
his family.

The chairman, "MG Robertson," is none other than the Rev. Pat - Marion
Gordon Robertson is his real name - while Pat's wife DeDe is vice president
and son Gordon Robertson is also on the board.

Here's the FEMA LINK: http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=18473

Barbara Kivimae Krimgold

-----Original Message-----
From: chantelle fisher-borne [mailto:borne@...]
Sent: Friday, September 02, 2005 1:43 PM
To: spiritof1848@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [spiritof1848] FEMA director's response

dear public health friends,

as a louisiana native, with a cousin who was stuck in a shelter in new
orleans until today, i think we need to continue with a "social autopsy"

of this disaster. new orleans mayor gives a tough and honest interview
here. it's worth listening to the entire thing:
http://www.unc.edu/~jlwaller/WWL-AM%20Interview%20Nagin.mp3
<http://www.unc.edu/%7Ejlwaller/WWL-AM%20Interview%20Nagin.mp3>

~
chantelle


Hannah Cooper wrote:

>An appalling response from the FEMA director framing evacuations in
terms of "personal choice" * negating the social production of this
catastrophe * and blaming people who "chose" not to evacuate for their
current plight:
>
>
>FEMA chief: Victims bear some responsibility
>
>
>(CNN) -- The director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency said
Thursday those New Orleans residents who chose not to heed warnings to
evacuate before Hurricane Katrina bear some responsibility for their
fates.
>Michael Brown also agreed with other public officials that the death
toll in the city could reach into the thousands.
>"Unfortunately, that's going to be attributable a lot to people who did
not heed the advance warnings," Brown told CNN.
>"I don't make judgments about why people chose not to leave but, you
know, there was a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans," he said.
>"And to find people still there is just heart-wrenching to me because,
you know, the mayor did everything he could to get them out of there.
>"So, we've got to figure out some way to convince people that whenever
warnings go out it's for their own good," Brown said. "Now, I don't want
to second guess why they did that. My job now is to get relief to them."
>Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray
Nagin have both predicted the death toll could be in the thousands.
>Nagin issued a "desperate SOS" Thursday as violence disrupted efforts
to rescue people still trapped in the flooded city and evacuate
thousands of displaced residents living amid corpses and human waste.
(Full story)
>Residents expressed growing frustration with the disorder evident on
the streets, raising questions about the coordination and timeliness of
relief efforts. (See video on the desperate conditions -- 4:36 )
>Sniper fire prevented Charity Hospital from evacuating its patients
Thursday. The hospital has no electricity or water, food consists of a
few cans of vegetables, and the patients had to be moved to upper floors
because of looters. (Full story) (See video of a city sinking in chaos
-- 2:54)
>Brown was upbeat in his assessment of the relief effort so far, ticking
off a list of accomplishments: more than 30,000 National Guard troops
will be in the city within three days, the hospitals are being evacuated
and search and rescue missions are continuing. (See video of National
Guard efforts to rein in violence -- 3:14)
>"Considering the dire circumstances that we have in New Orleans --
virtually a city that has been destroyed -- that things are going
relatively well," Brown said.
>Nevertheless, he said he could "empathize with those in miserable
conditions."
>Asked later on CNN how he could blame the victims, many of whom could
not flee the storm because they had no transportation or were too frail
to evacuate on their own, Brown said he was not blaming anyone.
>"Now is not the time to be blaming," Brown said. "Now is the time to
recognize that whether they chose to evacuate or chose not to evacuate,
we have to help them."
>Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, whose father was a longtime
New Orleans mayor, said there was "plenty of blame to go around," citing
underinvestement by federal authorities over many years "despite pleas
and warnings by officials."
>Earlier on CNN, Brown was asked why authorities had not prepared for
just such a catastrophe -- given that the levees were designed to
withstand only a Category 3 hurricane and Katrina was stronger than
that.
>"Government officials and engineers will debate that and figure that
out," he replied. "Right now, I'm trying to focus on saving lives. I
think we should have that debate, but at an appropriate time."
>Brown said Katrina was unlike other hurricanes in which the magnitude
of the disaster typically subsides after the initial blow. That was not
the case Monday, when the Category 4 storm blew ashore.
>"What we had in New Orleans is a growing disaster: The hurricane hit,
that was one disaster; then the levees broke, that was another disaster;
then the floods came; that became a third disaster."
>Brown said he had to be careful about getting rescue teams to the site
earlier.
>"Otherwise, we would have faced an even higher death toll," he said.
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>Hannah Cooper, ScD
>Post-Doctoral Fellow

>National Development & Research Institutes/
>Medical & Health Research Association
>71 West 23rd Street, 8th Floor
>New York, New York 10010

>Ph: (212) 845 - 4641

>Fax: (917) 438-0894
>Associate Research Scientist
>Department of Sociomedical Sciences
>Mailman School of Public Health
>Columbia University
>600 West 168th Street, 9th Fl
>New York, NY 10032
>
>
>
>[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
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