MetaFilter posts tagged with katrina

Great Lakes to be filter-fed to carp

anthill — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 07:57:21 -0800

Asian Carp update: since 2003(previously), the inexorable advance of Asian Carp up the Mississippi delta has brought them to within 6 miles of Lake Michigan. These invasive "100-pound Zebra Mussels" suck rivers clean and starve native fish. Asian Carp are now 97% of the fish biomass in the Mississippi delta. The "electric fence" across the canal didn't stop them. The poisoning of the canal won't stop them. Closing the Chicago sewage canal locks is the only way to be sure. But the Army Corps of Engineers have the jurisdiction. Feel safe? If you are from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania or New York, take a minute to write your Federal representative. If the Asian Carp get into the Great Lakes, it's bye-bye Trout, Bass, Coho, Steelhead, and every fish in the $7 billion fishing industry. Now or never.

Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez.

vapidave — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 14:32:45 -0800

Happy Katrina Day. A little lagniappe: Mourners please come join the second line. Here's a short documentary.

First, do no harm

anigbrowl — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 00:29:49 -0800

Was it triage or murder? A disturbing NY Times story about the choices made by certain medical staff at a New Orleans hospital during Hurricane Katrina. Long and not easy reading.

Life on the Block

netbros — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 08:40:04 -0800

A native of Barcelona, Spain, Adriana Lopez Sanfeliu moved to New York in 2002 to pursue a career in photography. Adriana has been capturing the lives of young Puerto Rican women and their families in Spanish Harlem, NYC. There is a hardness that characterizes Life on the Block. Other projects by Adriana include: Mississippi a Year After Katrina — Those that owned land placed the FEMA trailer on their property; the rest were placed into trailer parks. A year after the storm the majority of these families were still living in this temporary housing. Insurance fraud, lack of contractors and mismanagement of government grants postponed the recovery of this part of the US. A Gypsy Life: The Salazar Family The Tompkins — Douglas Tompkins was the founder and owner of the clothing company Esprit. His present wife, Kristine Tompkins, was the CEO of the outdoor clothing company Patagonia. After retiring, they each created foundations dedicated to Nature conservancy. The foundations have since purchased over 1.5 million hectares of land in Chile and Argentina. Ultimately, that land will become national parks.

Katrina's Hidden Race War

shii — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 06:16:10 -0800

Whites used Hurricane Katrina as an excuse to lynch their black neighbors. The shootings have never been investigated.

The Isleños

Effigy2000 — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 19:12:53 -0800

The Isleños are said to be a dying traditional American subculture. Descendants of Canary Island immigrants of Louisiana, the name Isleños was given to them to distinguish them from Spanish mainlanders, known as "peninsulares." But in Louisiana, the name evolved from a category to an identity. For a long time they were one of those rare subcultures that found a way to maintain a living tradition as the world around them modernised by carving out a livelihood as crabbers and 'shrimpers'. Then Katrina hit and the wetlands, which were central to the Isleños identity, essentially dissapeared. Despite the blow to their economy, they still have their songs and annual fiestas, evidence of a strong culture which binds their community together, and their rebuilding following Katrina demonstrated how strong that sense of identity and culture can be. So perhaps the Isleños shouldn't be written off just yet, then. After all, as Isleño Irvan Perez says, "This is home. Where else would we go?"

Wassupdate

william_boot — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 14:33:45 -0800

The Wassup boys have had a tough eight years, but things are looking up. (SLYT.)

Disaster Capitalism

Blazecock Pileon — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 05:35:26 -0800

"Like the dotcom bubble, the disaster bubble is inflating in an ad-hoc and chaotic fashion." Journalist Naomi Klein discusses how corporations and governments are working together more closely than ever, using the mandate of catastrophe — whether natural or man-made — to further concentrate power in fewer hands, with less oversight: from illegal sales of American police technology to China to avert hypothetical tragedies during the Beijing Olympics, to the privatization of water supplies in post-tsunami Sri Lanka.

Nature's Creative Destruction

anotherpanacea — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:41:55 -0800

Natural disasters are good for the economy. No, they aren't. Yes, they are. Well, maybe sometimes they are and sometimes they aren't. (pdf) It helps if somebody makes a movie or a television show about it. The Broken Window fallacy.

Christmas Presents for New Orleans

msconduct — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 15:42:06 -0800

Bulldozers for the Poor: despite being the brainchild of the chief of police, tent city, home to approximately 500 of the city's roughly 12,000 homeless, is slated to be disbanded to make room for state office buildings and a national jazz park. this comes at the same time hud is readying to demolish four housing projects, where many of the tent city residents hoped to return. meanwhile, residents of one of the swankiest neighborhoods in town are successfully protesting and receiving tax breaks.

St. Rita's Owners found not guilty in Katrina Nursing home deaths

ColdChef — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 18:13:14 -0800

Salvador and Mabel Mangano, the owners of St. Rita’s nursing home in St. Bernard Parish, where 35 patients drowned in Hurricane Katrina’s flood waters, were found not guilty of negligent homicide and cruelty to the infirm charges tonight by a six-member jury. Read their story and decide for yourself if they're guilty.

After The Deluge

jonson — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 17:25:19 -0800

A.D. (After The Deluge) is a serialized webcomic about what it was like in the days leading up to, during & immediately after the Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans. The story is true, all dialogue taken from direct quotes. An ongoing project with updates monthly (scheduled to run from Dec 06 - Dec 07), the most recent chapter takes place right at the end of the storm, prior to the collapse of the levees, but to get the full effect, read from the very beginning. For those who want to know more about the project, there's an FAQ.

The Snark of New Orleans

localroger — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 09:24:43 -0800

Since when did we get cat 5 levees? Or a working flood plan? Behold the New Orleans Levee, where 'We don't hold anything back.'

Jude Acers, New Orleans Chess Master

The Deej — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 18:35:27 -0800

Chess legend Jude Acers. In prison.

"How do the tacos help gumbo?"

ColdChef — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 09:16:28 -0800

"How do the tacos help gumbo?" Hold the tacos, New Orleans says. In yet another pig-ignorant move in Post-Katrina New Orleans, local politicians have decided to destroy the booming taco-truck business that is feeding the workers (and plenty of the locals) who are rebuilding the city. Blame racism, blame taxes, blame immigration politics: A hundred years ago this line of reasoning would have banned the muffulettas and poor-boys that those invading hordes of Sicilians were using to corrupt our youth.

Let's hope it doesn't start a flood.

miss lynnster — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 19:57:43 -0800

Millions of tax dollars melting away... guess Katrina victims didn't need ice after all.

abandoned places

serazin — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 21:24:31 -0800

Jim documented his recent trip to Louisiana, including a number of photos of places abandoned after Katrina. Some worth checking: Amoco, post office, middle school, boats, homes. and some rebirth. Via, Live Journal's abandoned places community.

The Best Laid Plans

homunculus — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 00:52:48 -0800

The Best Laid Plans: The Story of How the Government Ignored Its Own Gulf Coast Hurricane Plans. A new report from CREW describes FEMA's plan to respond to a hurricane of Katrina’s magnitude and its subsequent failure to implement that plan. [Via C&L.]

Wishful Thinking?

Kirth Gerson — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 03:26:01 -0800

Google Maps has restored New Orleans to pre-Katrina The views Google Maps is now providing show the city as it was prior to the storm. It's not clear why.

Last chance for Southeast Louisiana

homunculus — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 21:15:22 -0800

Last Chance. "It took the Mississippi River 6,000 years to build the Louisiana coast. It took man (and natural disasters) 75 years to destroy it. Experts agree we have 10 years to act before the problem is too big to solve." [Via First Draft.]

Pulitzer Photography

PhatLobley — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 10:56:29 -0800

Marine funerals and the aftermath of Katrina. Moving sets of photographs that were worthy of this year's Pulitzer Prize for Feature and Break News photography, respectively. Powerful. Frightening. Painful.

What happened to Katrina foreign aid?

js003 — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 21:38:23 -0800

Katrina: Money for Nothing? The United States received hundreds of millions in foreign aid last year, after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast. But what happened to the money?

pranktivist?

Tryptophan-5ht — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 04:39:09 -0800

Oops: Impostor scams Louisiana officials Burned by the yes men. A prankster poses as a HUD honcho and promises NOT to destroy perfectly good housing projects slated for demolition. later, the prankster explained: The New Orleans projects are sturdily constructed brick buildings that, nevertheless, are slated for demolition, he said. "Basically, the real reason, of course, is they want to develop New Orleans into something pleasing to tourists -- even more pleasing." Video here. Wikipedia has info on more of their exploits. My favorite was the bhopal fiasco.

New Orleans levies

Steven C. Den Beste — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 16:56:42 -0800

Wizbang sez that the levy in New Orleans that broke during Katrina was going to break even without a hurricane, and that the Corps of Engineers knew it and suppressed evidence of it until just recently.

Bulldozer Politics

amberglow — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 14:48:53 -0800

New Orleans City Ordinance #26031 --...those who have not been able to make the necessary repairs to their battered homes by August 29th risk having their property seized and bulldozed by the city.... Bush says today: Katrina Repair Will Take Time, but time's up for many New Orleans residents. (more here from ACORN, who has been trying to help save homes there)