KATRINA III

Again if you didn’t get I and II and you want them, let me know.

Every day a new wrinkle. Just when you think…

The downtown area of Baton Rouge, which is adjacent to the refugee centers has been heating up in terms of social tensions for the last couple of days. This morning I started hearing about roaming gangs and swat teams. Certain areas being sealed off. Many of my contacts who live in these areas are getting out. It’s ironic because these are the neighborhoods that didn’t lose power this week. These people were the lucky ones until today. I just had lunch with a couple of students. One who lives there and is going back in to get her computer and her dogs and then moving to her aunt’s. The other said that his mother, who works downtown, was “evacuated” this morning by armed guards who escorted her past broken car windows covered with blood. I get back to my office and the following “broadcast” e-mail was in my inbox:

There have been confirmed reports of civil unrest in the Baton Rouge
area this morning. These incidents appear to be confined to specific areas
in the downtown Baton Rouge area and specific locations around the
community. At this time, local law enforcement are reported to have the
situation contained. To insure safety, we have instructed that all
buildings on campus be locked and we ask that occupants remain indoors. We
are confident in the security procedures of LSU Public Safety and these
actions will permit their timely response to any incidents that may occur
on our campus.

This is a trying time for all of us in the affected areas and beyond.
Our efforts now center on safety and recovery. We are primarily concerned
with the safety and well being of the LSU community and we urge that safe
choices be made. For those on campus who would feel more secure in their
homes, we urge that you leave campus in an orderly fashion. Please be
aware that these incidents of unrest in the community make travel an
unknown risk at this time. Permitting time for the law enforcement
personnel to work through these challenges will likely improve the security
outlook in the near term.

Above all else, think through the choices being considered to assure
your safety.

Chancellor Sean O’Keefe

Our building is NOT locked, but it is awfully quiet out there. I wonder if I dare go to the gym…

Truck in front of my office, tricked out with cherry picker and all sorts of weird looking equipment from “Minnesota Tree Specialists”.

Last night the girl who lives across the street from me, was finally re-united with her father. This man spent three days, cutting his way out of his subdivision in Slidel with a chain-saw. He said that there were pine trees, several feet in diameter that just snapped like matches. He hauled out 3 giant coolers packed with ice and about 400 dollars worth of beef. The ice was pretty much gone by last night, so we gathered all the back-yard grills in the neighborhood and he cooked it all. The thing he was happiest about was that he had finally had a shower.

Many of you have been asking about cross posting these e-mails. Please feel free to.

Many of you have been asking about where to send help. I’m not a pro in this field but the following sites have come across my field of vision (thanks Brent):

Episcopal Relief & Development http://www.er-d.org/

United Methodist Committee on Relief http://gbgm-umc.org/umcor/emergency/hurricanes/2005/

Salvation Army http://www.salvationarmyusa.org/

Catholic Charities http://www.catholiccharitiesusa.org/

National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster http://www.nvoad.org/

Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals http://www.la-spca.org/

Also the Red Cross and whoever else. We are in the process of trying to set up some support funds on our own here in the department and Swine Palace but nothing is in place yet. I will keep you posted.

I just heard that our new Wall Mart (which is nowhere near downtown) was looted. I have to say I have mixed feelings about that. I think actually this incident is an urban myth.

We are all feeling much relief that our beloved leader, as if cutting short his vacation was not more than we deserved, took the trouble to instruct his pilot to fly Air Force One over the stricken area on his way back to Washington. And then in that miracle of magnaminity, with a gesture of generousity not seen since Mary Antoinette had a foot-man lift the corner of a curtain on her carriage and peeked out at Paris, swiveled his chair slightly and… (drum roll) TURNED HIS HEAD. (… to the left I am lead to believe. I get choked up just thinking about it) Some say for close to 30 minutes. The strain on his air-conditioned neck must have been tremendous. I understand he only looked away to refill his club soda. I only need to think back to the deep personal bond I feel towards people and parts of the world I have only seen through the window of a 747 to know that we are in good hands.

We are being told not to politicize this, but I’m sorry. As much as I want to be in favor of hearing both sides and striving for dialogue in these divisive times; It’s this government that cut Federal Hurricane preparedness funding for New Orleans by almost 45%. It’s this government that has allowed us to lose coastal wetlands at a faster and faster rate, because to save them would compromise the oil profits. Until recently Bush wouldn’t even admit that global warming was real. It’s the girly-man environmentalists who have been screaming unheard that we weren’t doing what we needed to do to mitigate this kind of thing. A levee that is 80% complete is a levee that is 100% broken. And now they’ve relaxed all environmental regulations on the refineries to enable them to quickly make the gasoline to drive our Humvees out of the frying pan and into the fire. And now the dispossessed and disenfranchised black people for whom there never was an evacuation plan have been moved into my town where they are living out every horrible stereotype about them, causing people I know to be reasonably nice people to say things like “We just need to start shooting the scum-bags.” After two major catastrophes under this guy, the country has lost all sense of what it would be like to have an actual leader, with actual vision in charge.

Sorry to rant. I’ve tried to keep these posts relatively rational and factual, but I’m getting tired of this and a bit angry.

more to come… Unfortunately.