Almost all of the coverage in New Orleans is about the condition of the people in the Super Dome and then later the New Orleans Convention Center where large groups of people were “discovered” and found to present a good video target for TV transmission into our homes.
Without news coverage how will FEMA know there’s a problem? They became aware of the New Orleans Convention Center debacle only after it was reported on the news as a result of people from the Convention Center alerting the news media. No one in their home can get to a reporter.
Michael Chertoff, Fema Head Brown and President Bush have demonstrated they are unable to cope with or understand where the emergencies lie. It is up to the NEWS MEDIA to do so.
Almost no reporting is done of the thousands of people, living and dead who cannot leave their neighborhoods. Remember 80% of New Orleans is under water. A lot of people live in neighborhoods that have no ready access to the superdome or convention center.
Yesterday (Friday at about 4pm) a helicopter rescue pilot told George Bush who claims to be, “The President of the United States,” that the rescue by helicopter of citizens trappped in their homes “IS NEVER ENDING”.
That means they have not even cracked the surface of those people who do not make attractive video targets from above. They are not worthy of saving, their commercial TV value is less than those who are in groups.
Why isn’t anybody doing anything about this? It’s because it’s not dramatic to show one person on a roof. It’s more interesting to show 20.000 outside the Super Shit Dome where the shit and urine have casued the people to wait outside.
Many of these people in neighborhoods will die.
Then there’s the Gulf Coast. Who knows what’s really gone on in these citiies. There is no reporting in depth.
The new media is starting to get the message from their corporate owners to “cool it”.
We are going to be fed more sedative laced videos of happy faced announcers talking about “progress” while the people in the neighborhoods are forgotten.
You are speaking to a situation that I thought was happening, but couldn’t tell for sure from the TV coverage you describe. The first videos I saw on late Monday, early Tuesday were of single family rescues from the rooftops of homes.
Later most of the coverage switched to the Superdome and the Convention Center. Every once in a while they would show one or two people waving for help anyway they could from rooftops.
How many folks are trapped in attics and can’t get out to their roof? How many are on the roofs of their homes, hoping a passing helicopter rescues them? How much time is left to get to them before it is too late? I am afraid of the answers to these questions! This post ought to be on the front page here at Booman, and elsewhere!
http://www.nola.com/weblogs/nola/
Federal employees trapped, elderly woman on Birch Street, woman needs medication ….
After nearly a week, some are still in despearate trouble.
This has been on my mind from the beginning- the outlying parishes- and the areas of NO which have always been sort of ‘in the shadows’, to visiters,anyway. The people out in the bayous, where no help is likely to get , for a long,long time.Not to mention what kind of gawdawful pollution that is coming their way.
I have to say tho, that media people have to cover what they CAN cover, without becoming part of the problem.
all of the people in rural LA, MI and even AL who are dying of thirst out in the boonies….
What’s happening is…if it isn’t on the news…the Federal Authorities don’t know anything about it. Ex. Convention Center.
If they don’t say something about this on TV they won’t get rescued.
I mean it’s such a joke. The so called professionals like Chertoff, who are dressed nicely are nothing more than opportunists without experience who are just in the job for the prestige. They are all so incomparably incompetent. Ex. George Bush.
The greed and incompetence of the republican party and their boy-king president have turned Louisiana into a concentration camp.
Death, tragedy, despair and sorrow, the cries of the hurt and dying, all because an arrogant,self-righteous, and avaricious political party made an unprecedented “lunge for power.”
Why are any of these people still even in office? This is an actual disgrace.
Not only has the Red Cross been denied access to NO but any other relief or rescue agency not sanctioned by FEMA also.
I was reading that state senator Guatreaux(d)had by Wednesday assembled some 1000 citizens-who have grown up in LA., knew the waterways and with trucks pulling 500 boats went to NO…one boat at least also was equipped with access ramp for the elderly, infirm, etc and that they were stopped by FEMA and made to turn around and go home.
This continues to become more criminal by the day.
http://tinyurl.com/azfxf
The Red Cross is a sanctioned agency”
“Federal Response Plan”
A signed agreement among 27 federal departments and agencies, and the American Red Cross, that provides the mechanism for coordinating delivery of federal assistance and resources to augment efforts of state and local governments overwhelmed by a major disaster or emergency.“
I’m wringing my hands I’m so anguished. I want to go down there and pull people out. People are dying now as we speak.
This is a good line: “The new media is starting to get the message from their corporate owners to “cool it”.” I think this is true. I can hear the head honchos saying now: “Enough with all this death and destruction. We need some heartwarming positive stories.” Who was that woman who was rescued in Iraq? Jessica Lynch? Karl Rove is desperately trying to find a story like that right now, I bet.