Overshadowed

[KenpoEMT]

The desperate city of New Orleans has, in the media, overshadowed other areas devastated by Katrina.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/09/03/D8CD6TQ03.html

Richard Gibbs was disgusted by reports of looting in New Orleans and upset at the lack of attention hurricane victims in his state were getting.

"I say burn the bridges and let 'em all rot there," he said. "We're suffering over here too, but we're not killing each other. We've got to help each other. We need gas and food and water and medical supplies." Gibbs and his wife, Holly, have been stuck at their flooded home in Gulfport just off the Biloxi River. Water comes up to the second floor, they are out of gasoline, and food supplies are running perilously low.

"Something should've been on this corner three days ago," Chapman, 60, said Saturday as he whipped up dinner for his neighbors.

He used wood from his demolished produce stand to cook fish, rabbit, okra and butter beans he'd been keeping in his freezer. Although many houses here, about five miles inland, are still standing, they are severely damaged. Corrugated tin roofs lie scattered on the ground. "I'm just doing what I can do," Chapman said. "These people support me with my produce stand every day. Now it's time to pay them back."

"My medicine is running out. I need high blood pressure medicine, medicine for my heart," she said.

"Mississippi needs more coverage," Sabato said. "Until people see it on TV, they don't think it's real."

Along the battered Mississippi Gulf Coast, crews started searching boats for corpses on Saturday

"I'm going to tell you, Mississippi got hit much harder than they did, but what happened in the aftermath _ it makes your stomach hurt to go miles and miles and miles and the houses are all under water up to the roof," Barbour said.

Keisha Moran has been living in a tent in a department store parking lot in Bay St. Louis with her boyfriend and three young children since the hurricane struck. She said National Guardsmen have brought her water but no other aid so far, and she was furious that it took Bush several days before he came to see the damage in Mississippi. "It's how many days later? How many people are dead?" Moran said.

In a strongly worded editorial, The Sun Herald of Biloxi-Gulfport pleaded for help and questioned why a massive National Guard presence wasn't already visible.

"We understand that New Orleans also was devastated by Hurricane Katrina, but surely this nation has the resources to rescue both that metropolitan (area) and ours," the newspaper editorialized, saying survival basics like ice, gasoline and medicine have been too slow to arrive. "We are not calling on the nation and the state to make life more comfortable in South Mississippi, we are calling on the nation and the state to make life here possible," the paper wrote.

Does this great nation lack the resources to save it's own citizens? Or is it a lack of political will-power? Are those in power merely following the cameras again? Everyone is focusing on one city. Katrina was larger than the city limits of New Orleans.

We can engineer this:

In a rapid, strategic airlift, some 14,000 US air assault troops struck dozens of key targets simultaneously on Dec. 20, 1989, destroying organized resistance by Panamanian defense forces and paramilitary "dignity battalions" within the first 24 hours.

...but we have difficulty helping people in Mississippi. Are we so weak as a nation that the assistance operations in one city automatically deprive other areas of the same type of assistance?

 

[KenpoEMT]

Or is it a lack of political will-power? Are those in power merely following the cameras again?

Usually, I give the Pres. the benefit of a doubt.
http://http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/national/nationalspecial/04bush.html?ei=5090&en=92e1db22850b28f9&ex=1283486400&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

Faced with one of the worst political crises of his administration, President Bush abruptly overhauled his September schedule on Saturday as the White House scrambled to gain control of a situation that Republicans said threatened to undermine Mr. Bush's second-term agenda and the party's long-term ambitions

In a sign of the mounting anxiety at the White House, Mr. Bush made a rare Saturday appearance in the Rose Garden before live television cameras to announce that he was dispatching additional active-duty troops to the Gulf Coast. He struck a more somber tone than he had at times on Friday during a daylong tour of the disaster region, when he had joked at the airport in New Orleans about the fun he had had in his younger days in Houston. His demeanor on Saturday was similar to that of his most somber speeches after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"The magnitude of responding to a crisis over a disaster area that is larger than the size of Great Britain has created tremendous problems that have strained state and local capabilities," said Mr. Bush, slightly exaggerating the stricken land area. "The result is that many of our citizens simply are not getting the help they need, especially in New Orleans. And that is unacceptable."

Their presence underscored how seriously the White House is reacting to the political crisis it faces.
"Where our response is not working, we'll make it right," Mr. Bush said, as Mr. Bartlett, with a script in his hand, followed closely.

His speech came as analysts and some Republicans warned that the White House's response to the crisis in New Orleans, which has been widely seen as slow and ineffectual, could further undermine Mr. Bush's authority at a time when he was already under fire, endangering his Congressional agenda.

Mr. Chertoff said Saturday: "Not an hour goes by that we do not spend a lot of time thinking about the people who are actively suffering. The United States, as the president has said, is going to move heaven and earth to rescue, feed, shelter" victims of the storm.

"This is very much going to divert the agenda," said Tom Rath, a New Hampshire Republican with ties to the White House. "Some of this is momentary. I think the Bush capital will be rapidly replenished if they begin to respond here."

"If it's done right, it adds energy to the rest of his agenda," Mr. Gingrich said. "If it's done wrong, it swamps the rest of his agenda."

Politicians disgust me. How many days AFTER the disaster have they taken to begin pondering the critical nature of life on the coast?

 

[Rich Parsons]

Biluxi Miss was hit directly, and the Discover shows I saw last night explained a lot of the damage.

Yet, I believe more people actually evacuated in Miss, then in NO. Hence we have those who did not leave their homes and also those in the SuperDome, this makes for a lot of people where they should not have been.

I agree that the Coast should have been getting a LOT more coverage, and also praise in how they were dealing with the damage and loss.

I also think that those in Florida that got hit by the Hurricane also should be covered, and their loss as well.

Yet, like some said, I smell politics and ratings.

 

[arnisador]

Yeah, Miss. got it bad but N.O. gets all the attention.