Hi there,

i need to have some sources, like statistics or newspaper articles (reasons as well) agreeing that the government was not racist in offering black people help during hurricane katrina.

Only answer if you have the answer to my question. This is school work and i didn’t choose wether to defend or attack the government in this issue.

thanks in advance

There’s no evidence at all that the US government discriminated against African-Americans in providing aid to survivors of hurricane katrina. The burden of proof of that accusation is on those making the accusation, and so far no one has produced any proof that is adequate of racism on the part of the Federal government.

Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans, on the other hand, behaved in an overtly racist manner on several occasions during and after the storm. The most obviously racist act of Mayor Nagin was when he asked on national TV and radio for African-American refugees from Katrina to return (in time for the city mayoral elections) and "make New Orleans a ‘chocolate city’ again"

Before the storm arrived, his failure to accept Federal assistance in preparing for the hurricane led directly to many of the deaths among African-Americans. Fuel which could have been used to power school buses and other city-owned vehicles to evacuate citizens who later died could have been furnished from Federal stockpiles at the Naval Support Activity at Algiers (a neighborhood directly across the river from New Orleans) or from Alvin Callender Field, a Marine and Naval airstrip in the same general area. In refusing Federal assistance, Mayor Nagin appears to have been motivated by either racial hatred of President Bush and the Republican Party or from misguided loyalty to the Democratic Party.

Democratic Party political sabotage appears to have been the motivating factor in Governor Kathleen Blanco’s refusal to allow the use of state-owned vehicles in evacuation of endangered citizens from New Orleans, but racism on Blanco’s part (state government, not Federal, in other words) cannot be excluded as a possibility. Governor Blanco also declined offers of Federal assistance made by President Bush. She also sent troops from the Louisiana Army National Guard in to confine Katrina survivors to certain areas of the city.

FEMA’s errors made after the storm arrived seem to have been the result of incompetence, not racism. No one certainly has proven racism as a motivating factor in any of the errors made by FEMA, although the incompetence and insensitivity to people’s needs was astounding on several occasions and resulted in much unnecessary suffering on the part of blacks and whites alike.

But actual improprieties were committed not by Federal, but by state and local officials, ranging from diversion of Levee Board funds for sculpture and guns for civilian employees to politically-motivated refusal of aid to the citizens of New Orleans, to looting and other offenses committed by officers of the New Orleans Police Department and one instance in which bridges out of New Orleans appear to have been blockaded by out-of-city law enforcement officers or civilians with guns. Racist incidents, when they occurred, were committed by local and state officials, law enforcement and civilians, not Federal troops.

Allegations of Federal improprieties were made by Democratic Party political operatives and members of the media who seized on an opportunity to make false accusations in order to politicize the tragic deaths of New Orleanian citizens. No proof was ever produced of the accusation by these people and others that response by Federal officials might have been more rapid if the storm had occurred in a predominately white community.(4)

However there were many instances of racially motivated violence and even murder of people who took refugees in by some of the refugees, who were mostly black. These stories were not reported by and large by the national media, but covered locally in the communities which took in evacuees.

Many reports of racism were the result of racist attitudes on the part of both blacks and whites in New Orleans according to a sociological study by the University of California at Los Angeles. This study, however, defined white racism and black racism differently and was thus open to charges of racism itself because its definition of "white racism" assumed intent to be racist among whites even when whites said or did nothing overtly racist. According to this study, a white person, according to the study language, would have to drop whatever else he or she was doing to provide aid to a black person in order not to be accused of racism. No such definition was made of black racism, nor were overt acts of bigotrry on the part of blacks in the wake of Katrina (such as widespread looting and arson of residences in white neighborhoods) discussed at all. (5)

A US House of Representatives study of the response to Katrina ascribed the damage after Katrina to "a failure of initiative" - institutional error, NOT racism - at Federal, state and local levels, but also mentioned 166 million dollars in over-payments due to fraudulent applications by katrina survivors or others. (Payments were made to 481,624 households in the four affected Louisiana parishes have received payments – when census data documents only 398,629 households living in these four parishes. Simple math indicates that around 83,000 households were made up in order that someone collected FEMA aid illegally.) (6) Dishonesty was definitely at work in an astounding number of cases, if not outright racism among some survivors.

I need to know how much was donated to New orleans after hurricane katrkatrina for a research topic.Please help!

You have gotten a real interesting research project. Have you considered maybe cutting it back just a little bit. I went on google and asked the question and google came back with dozens of pages. I will give you reference to just one and it talks about foreign monies that have never been spent, from all over the world. How would address this and also the Red Cross for instance. Its a subject that needs to be in pieces and then bring it together.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3575

Looking for a good comprehensive kit to buy in case of emergency- in this case earthquake. Would like a kit that has EVERYTHING I need.

You do not BUY a comprehensive emergency kit, you MAKE one yourself.

I looked at questions you have previously answered, to see where you live. Looks like you live in California.

Since you live in an earthquake zone, with a LARGE population, you should be prepared to care for yourself with zero outside help for a one month minimum. That means your water, food, fuel, transportation, medicine, sanitary and a way to protect all of your supplies for a one month period of time.

Think I’m kidding? Look at Haiti, or New Orleans, or anyplace else hard hit by a natural disaster. Would a three day kit do the job? Or do you think it’s going to take an entire month before there are enough roads cleared, and supplies brought in to make a difference?

You probably don’t have the space to store an entire months worth of water. Besides, it weighs a lot (you probably live in an apartment). Buy a Big Berkey, so you can filter your own water. Even water out of a ditch would be safe to drink after being filtered through a Big Berkey.

Go to Ready Made Resources for the best price on Big Berkeys.
Link:
http://www.readymaderesources.com/

Water is your number one concern. You could go an entire month without eating, and survive. Water is first and foremost.

Take any prescription medications? That includes eye glasses, or contacts. You need to keep at least a month supply on hand at all times if they are important to maintain life (heart, blood pressure, diabetic, epileptic, ect). Do you wear contacts? Get extra eye glasses with your Rx. It will be unsafe to wear contacts after an earthquake due to all the dust.

Go to Zenni Optical for extremely inexpensive (but good quality) prescription eyeglasses. They are as inexpensive as $8.
Link:
http://zennioptical.com/cart/home.php

Buy several wool blankets. Wool blankets retain 80% of their heat holding abilities, even if they are soaking wet. You can use a wool blanket to put someone on fire out. Synthetics just melt to the body if used to wrap someone on fire in.

Link to where I buy wool blankets:
http://www.armysurpluswarehouse.com/product/olive-drab-us-70-virgin-wool-blanket-4842.cfm

Stock up on canned foords, enough to last you an entire month. That is 90 meals. Remember the water used in canned foods is perfectly safe to drink, and adds to your water supply. Most canned foods do not have to be cooked, and are safe to eat right from the can. This eliminates fire danger, especially important those first few days when all the gas leaks will not yet be shut off. Peanut butter, crackers, jelly, hard candies, powdered juice mix, powdered milk, and those sort of items are also good to have on hand. Don’t forget extra can openers.

Have copies of all of your important documents, like insurance, credit card info, social security, mortgage, birth certificate, ect. Some people like to make a CD of those papers. Great idea…if you can get to a working computer to print out, and prove who you are. However in the aftermath of an earthquake that may be a problem.

A really good bike, with outstanding tires, that have tubes, and a patch kit. Remember there will be glass and rubble everywhere to puncture the tires. A bike may be the only way to navigate about, cars and motorcycles will be too big.

Good leather gloves, and good boots, with ankle support, and thick soles. You do not want to puncture your foot at a time like that.

A tent large enough for you, and your supplies. Remember a tent can be set up inside a house if it’s still safe to be in the building. The tent will help keep you warm, and the bugs from bitting you, if all the windows fell out of your home.

Sanitation. You cannot count on a flush toilet. Five gallon buckets, with lids. Line the bucket with contractor grade plastic bags (those are extra thick). You can even set a plastic toilet seat on top of the bucket. Throw baking soda on top, after you use, to help keep the smell down. Keep the toilet covered at all times when not in use. This keeps smell down, and keeps flies out. Remember flies will not be transfering diseases, like Hepititis from open sewage. Enough TP to last you at least a month.

First aid supplies. Wound will be extremely common. Have rubber or latex gloves to protect yourself against HIV, AIDS, Hepititis, or other blood born diseases. Women’s Kotex make extremely good bandaging material for wounds loosing a lot of blood. I saved the life of one of my horses, when she cut open an artery on her leg and was spurting blood 20 feet out. It was during a howling blizzard, and the Vetrinarian could not get to the farm. Women’s Kotex, and pressure bandages (like ace wraps) stopped the bleeding, and saved the mares life.

Light source. I sugest the LED flashlights that go on your head. Yes, they look dorky. Dorky means nothing when it gives you two free hands. I also sugest other types of LED flashlights. Smoke detector. Even if you are inside a tent, take one with you. People are idiots and always setting things on fire after earthquakes as they light candles and fire up grills.

Battery/wind up/solar radio, so you can listen to news reports.
Here’s the link to where I got mine:
www.emergencyessentials.com

You can browse through any of the web sites I’ve given to you, and get an idea of the kind of items you should have on hand.

I have personally purchased from every company I gave you a link to. They are all reputable companies to deal with.

~Garnet
Permaculture homesteading/farming over 20 years
Two years food storage in our pantry (for three adults).
Emergency supplies enough to care for my neighborhood

It is a key that is required when you first download the game. A screen pops up from Starforce Protection asking for a key. I don’t have the original package for the game, and the computer that I had this game on before, the motherboard and hard drive burned up. Thanks for any help. BTW….after a little research, apparantly the code is the same for all the games of the same title.

its against the rules of this site to give out keys, serials, codes etc. for games.
google it

Like a game that has a plot that is centralised on a natural disaster like.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Alive

Besides that game..is there any game you know of which has such a plot?..
Alex,
isn’t I am Alive such a game..

Sim City baybee!

Rock those citizen with earthquakes and tornadoes!

Do you feel a need to prepare yourself for any kind of disaster that could strike without notice?

I have a week’s worth of food and water, and a shorter-term go bag.

I am a Red Cross disaster response volunteer, and the two things I consistently find that people don’t plan for are proof of address and renter’s insurance for apartments.

If you don’t have proof that you live at an address affected by a fire, flood, or other type of local disaster, the Red Cross cannot provide financial assistance (thank the katrina scammers for that). You can get water, food, clothing, and shelter, but not money aid.

People who rent apartments think (wrongly) that their landlord’s insurance will cover any type of loss–WRONG. Get your own. In NYC it’s about $20 a month for a good-sized apartment.

I think, and I may be wrong, but I think Haiti and every other nation gave the USA $0.00 after hurricane katrkatrina.

Oh well, enough of the cold, hard facts….start loading the supply trucks for Haiti…its a thankless job but someone (USA) has to do it.

I completely understand what you are saying. It’s not that we don’t care but rather we have our own issues that need to be taken care of. 100,000 people die each year in the US because of inadequate insurance. But we wont send aid to that, why? Because it’s not a catastrophic event?

Why can’t everyone dontate 10 dollars to that cause as well?

Why must we help another government that can’t even help itself?

Haiti has a government… just because it is flawed and doesn’t serve and protect the people the way ours does, does not mean that we must feel obligated to extend ourselves to them.

I just do not like how we put more value on some lives than others because one creates a better headline than the other, when we could and should help both.

My husband is Haitian and my mother-in-law lives in Haiti, so I do have a personal tie to the country, I just don’t see how we are so quick to aid another while there are people here that could use the aid as well.

Also, what actions did they do towards re-building and recovering their farming?

Both river Tigre and Euphates flooded periodically. When they were back to normal, there were many puddles of water in areas of the flood plain. The water was soon absorbed in the soil and the farmers planted their crops in this muddy area.

People used to celebrate this event because they thought that rivers flooded because Gods will.
The flood still continues every year, even today, although less and less due to the riveras has dried year by year.

History has recorded although a fact that may be related to the Gilgamesh and biblical flood. In June about 2900 BC during the annual inundation of the Euphrates River, the river was at crest stage. A six-day thunderstorm caused the river to rise about 15 cubits (22 feet) higher and overflow the levees. By the time the river began to rise, it was already too late to evacuate to the foothills of the mountains 110 miles away. Ziusudra boarded one the the barges that was already loaded with cargo being transported to market. The runaway barge floated down the Euphrates River into the Persian Gulf and grounded in an estuary at the mouth of the river. After moving to dry land, Ziusudra offered a sacrifice to a Sumerian god on an alter at the top of a temple ziggurat, an artificial hill. Later, story tellers mistranslated the ambiguous word for hill as mountain. The story tellers then erroneously assumed that the nearby barge must have grounded on top of a mountain. Additional details in the reconstructed legend about Ziusudra (Noah) can be found in the Noah’s Ark book.

Not to sound unsupportive of the help we are providing to Haiti i just personally do not remember a telethon for Hurricane katrina on all large television stations. Why wasn’t there more support for our own country when a natural disaster hit.

Well I remember a telethon for the hurricane Katrina and a lot of help coming in. But it is true that it seems as though americans tend to give more to foreign countries in need than to their own.

To Hard - You are so misinformed it ain’t even funny. Nobody helped you on 9/11 and during hurricane katrina? Many many countries sent aid during hurricane Katrina even though Bush REFUSED most of it. And if you think that your allies (including Canada which is my country) didn’t help you on 9/11 you are clearly blinded by the truth! Look at all your allies who are fighting and DIEING for YOU in Afghanistan for god’s sake! What an ungrateful person you are!!

More specifically what do they do to prepare, respond to, recover from, and mitigate and prevent emergency situations in the community?

Different positions in different jurisdictions have different responsibilities for emergency management. emergency management is all about reducing the impact of disasters on communities. It’s a holistic approach that isn’t just about responding to an emergency.

One key concept of emergency management is PPRR (prevention, preparedness, response and recovery) which describes a spectrum of activities:

Prevention/Mitigation
This is about assessing and reducing disaster risks. Activities include researching natural and ‘man-made’ disasters, constructing physical mitigation works (such as levees and firebreaks), establishing warning systems, land use planning (eg. stopping people from building on floodplains) and building codes (eg. mandating fire-proof building materials).

preparedness
This is about getting the emergency services and the community ready for disasters. Activities include preparing emergency plans, training first responders, educating the community on how to prepare and what to do in a disaster.

Response
This includes actually responding to a disaster and ensuring that the emergency services have the right resources (equipment and people) to do their job. Emergency management professionals aren’t usually in charge of responding to a disaster, but act as an executive officer, providing expert advice to someone with the decision making authority

Recovery
This is about getting a community that has been impacted by a disaster ‘back on its feet’. Activities include, collecting and distributing donations and goods, distributing government relief payments, assisting with reconstruction tasks and much more.

Generally emergency management professionals work in state/provincial and federal/national governments. In local municipalities and counties the work is often done by someone with other responsibilities, however larger municipalities and major cities will usually have dedicated emergency managers.

Obviously one person doesn’t do all of these activities, but emergency management is a very broad profession and emergency managers are involved in influencing the outcomes of many things done by governments, businesses and individuals.

Hope this helps.