Stormy-weather friends

Where to start?

How about the candidates? I watched bipartisan attention to the approach of Gustav on Sunday. I was then treated to President W in his "command post" in Texas. I heard the GOP convention "curtail" activities on the first day of their convention.

And what do I hear today? How about what I read tonight? Let's try this on for size:



See those red areas. Those are the hot spots for Entergy's outage map. Entergy's press release mentioned the following:

-Entergy’s transmission system has "sustained extremely severe damage from Hurricane Gustav"
-Thirteen of the 14 transmission lines serving the New Orleans metropolitan area are out of service, and will take several days to repair

-metro New Orleans is "no longer electrically connected to the rest of the Entergy system and the electricity grid for the eastern United States"
-the River Bend and Waterford 3 nuclear plants are still offline

Essentially, we're looking at almost a week without power. A week!


Now listen to the media's coverage:

-WWL Radio: Rod West of Entergy says that 795,000 customers, mostly in Louisiana, are without power at this time and the timing of getting power back is unknown.

-WWL TV: Rod West of Entergy says that 795,000 customers, mostly in Louisiana, are without power at this time and the timing of getting power back is unknown. He said he expects the picture to become clearer as the days go by.

-WDSU: nothing

-WVUE: Entergy intially had 850,000 residents without power. As of Tuesday evening, 55,000 residents have been restored. In New Orleans,78,000 peoole were without power, Entergy has been able to restore 30,000. There is a badly damaged transmission station in Baton Rouge and New Orleans. 210 substations are out of service. Entergy woud like residents to know that crews are doing their best and the restoration process will take time. Some areas can expect to be without power for up 2 weeks or more.

-WGNO: nothing

-CNN: The loss of electrical power was New Orleans and Louisiana's biggest problem. More than half the state's residents -- 1.4 million households -- were lacking electricity Tuesday, Gov. Bobby Jindal said. Some may not get it back for weeks. Officials in New Orleans said 13 of the 14 transmission lines that supply the area were not working Tuesday.

NBC: nothing

Fox News (minor news item): But Nagin warned that many homes were without power, hospitals had skeleton crews and water and drainage systems were running on backup power. Across the state, more than 1 million people were without electricity, and cellular and Internet service was spotty. Gas stations were unable to pump fuel because of the power outages. Dozens of hospitals were still running on generator power, several without air conditioning, and there were fears that hundreds of patients might have to be evacuated in the next few days. Only one hospital in New Orleans had the capacity to provide dialysis, and two in the Alexandria area were running low on drinking water.

ABC: nothing

Reuters: Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said utilities and regulators had said it could take up to six weeks to restore full power.

AP: nothing

All of these stories are minor back-story news. Even on our local outlets. Only the Times-Picayune has a real story, but even that was buried.

So where am I going with this? A region that was bitch-slapped by a hurricane has no power, no fuel, no food, and, in some cases, no water. That could stay like that for days. Yet, local leaders are saying, "Come on home, people! The levees worked!" Am I being over-dramatic by stating this is a terrible situation waiting to happen? Police and fire without power. Hospitals unable to take patients, including ER. No street lights. No traffic lights. No basic services.

It may be I'm over-reacting, but where is FEMA now? Are those trucks rolling? Is the response everything the media was questioning on Sunday night? Or are we backseat news now that only 6 people were killed? That's horseshit. The only difference between Katrina and now is floodwater and a couple hundred bodies. No offense to the deceased, but we still have the same issues here. Where's drinking water coming from? Or food? Or fuel? What's to stop people from looting? They'll have nothing better to do.

Bush flying to a FEMA response site was just slight-of-hand. What did he really do? That stage-craft from McCain, going to Mississippi to show his face and shake hands did nothing. His wife and the First Lady, giving their speech about caring, and then just shoving the whole thing to a website linking to a bunch of disaster aid organizations. And I pull no punches, cause I'm not happy with my candidate either. Obama's touts "Together we help the victims of Gustav", with a link to one of the same donation sites. Barack, you said you could mobilize supporters? Get to it, man.

So what? We're already expired? You want to look like a president, but you can't get your sorry asses to the coast and look this disaster up and down. Don't pay us fucking lip service as a press opportunity. There are a million people without basic services in a region that was just nailed by a hurricane. Tell me something about aid on the way, not shove me in the general direction of a donation bin.

I have no desire to return to that at all. Obviously, I couldn't work. There's no damage to my neighborhood or house. I have no cleanup to perform. So I'm doing nothing but sitting around in the heat. These people are bitching about getting home...to what?

Jesus Harold Christ on a pogo stick. What a huge clusterfuck this will be.