Do Not Look To Alabama For Help

The AP is reporting on the next hurricane to hit the Gulf Coast:

Alabama has a message for its neighbors: Don’t count on us next time you need shelter from a storm. And it’s not because Louisiana evacuees made a mess last time they came.Gov. Bob Riley said Tuesday that Alabama will take fewer out-of-state evacuees into shelters this year, so that shelter space will remain available for Alabama residents. He said the state will be especially cautious about filling shelters if there’s a chance another hurricane could affect the Alabama coast.

More than 6,500 evacuees, mostly from Louisiana, filled 28 shelters at community colleges across Alabama over Labor Day weekend last year as Hurricane Gustav neared the Louisiana coast. Most came in buses, many from the New Orleans area.

Riley said the decision to limit the number of out-of-state evacuees in shelters was not related to complaints by some community college officials that school buildings used for shelters were left in disrepair after the evacuees returned home.

I was wondering how long it would take states to get around to this……after all the bad press that evacuees got after Katrina it was only a matter of time.

What A Difference 3 Years Makes–NOT!

THis is a repost from Lobotero’s info Ink.

Three years ago, on August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the US Gulf Coast. The storm devastated nearly 100,000 square miles and displaced over a million people. New Orleans, Louisiana, bore the brunt of this disaster, after the levee system failed and nearly 80 percent of the city was submerged.

Overwhelmingly those most deeply affected by Katrina were among the poorest layers of the working class in a long-impoverished and neglected region of the United States. In the days following the hurricane’s landfall, the initial tragedy in New Orleans was compounded by official neglect, incompetence, and military repression.

However, reflecting the fact that no substantive improvements in safety procedures were implemented after Katrina, no emergency shelters are scheduled to open in New Orleans—nor are there any even designated. In fact, city officials have described the decision as a deliberate attempt to discourage residents from staying.

As of Friday, press reports indicate only 150 of 700 promised buses have been secured for the anticipated evacuation of 30,000 city residents. No shelter arrangements have been made for the nearly 7,000 families still consigned to living in flimsy, storm-vulnerable federal trailers within the New Orleans metro area.

Federal emergency planning has been no better. In an editorial Friday, the New York Times noted that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had not fulfilled promises of having an emergency housing plan in place for the inevitable further hurricane damage along the Gulf Coast.

The lack of preparation at all levels of government represents yet another invitation for disaster. This negligence further testifies to the fraudulent, profiteering character of the Gulf Coast reconstruction over the past several years and to its utter disregard for the plight of the working class.

They Are Back!  Gustav is barreling down on the area and the hurricane prep work may not be adequate to handle the destruction.  Gustav may hit the Gulf Coast as a cat 4 or 5 storm.  We will see if the confidence that was placed in elected officials was worth the effort or not.

Announcement

We are watching Gustav hard, once it enters the Yucatan Channel the direction should be more clear.  We at GSFP made it through Katrina and we will make it thru Gustav.  However, we may be down awhile because of power loss.  Please keep checking back, we will return as soon as possible.

Thanx, for viewing and wish us luck.

Gulf South: Gustav

The storm could be in the Gulf of Mexico by Sunday, and that sent global oil prices soaring, according to The Associated Press. At least one model showed the storm headed for New Orleans; but weather experts said that’s too far away to be accurate now.Tropical Storm Gustav was losing steam early Wednesday as it moved through the Caribbean a day after hitting Haiti as a hurricane.

But the storm could regain hurricane strength later in the day or on Thursday once it clears Haiti, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

As of 2 a.m. EDT Wednesday, Gustav’s maximum sustained winds had decreased to 60 mph (95 kph) with higher gusts. The storm was centered about 80 miles (125 kilometers) west of Port-au-Prince and moving toward the west-northwest near 5 mph (7 kph).

South Mississippi residents need to prepare for Hurricane Gustav as though it’s going to hit here, state emergency officials said Tuesday.

The path and strength of Gustav will not likely be clear until this weekend, but Mike Womack, director of the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, said if people prepared for a storm as though it was headed for them, they will have a plan in place.

LA: Parish Halts Construction Of Levee

St. Charles Parish President V.J. St. Pierre Jr. said the parish should abandon attempts to build a west bank protection levee on its own, saying the first phase of the proposed 12-mile structure isn’t up to current standards set by the Army Corps of Engineers.

St. Pierre said Monday that he wants the parish to focus on acquiring rights of way for the proposed Donaldsonville-to-the-Gulf levee, which could follow the same route as the parish’s planned levee.

The parish has spent more than $10 million on its levee project since 1990. A three-mile segment, stretching eastward from the Paradis Canal just south of existing neighborhoods, is about 85 percent complete.

Levees built by the corps are built with dense clay trucked in from approved sites, including the Bonnet Carre Spillway. But the Lafourche Basin Levee District, which is building the levee for the parish, is dredging material along the route of the current site to form the levee. St. Pierre said he doubts the “mucky” soil will meet corps standards

LA: The Folly Of The Promise Of The Corps Of Engineers

When the Army Corps of Engineers promises to protect southeast Louisiana from flooding triggered by a “100-year hurricane,” the all-too-common assumption is a storm that will occur only once a century.

But that misunderstanding can contribute to a world of bad decisions, from homeowners feeling secure enough to drop flood insurance to members of Congress refusing to finance a higher level of protection.

In reality, “100-year hurricane” is merely shorthand — poor shorthand, in the view of a growing number of community activists, scientists and government officials — for a storm that has a 1 in 100 chance of occurring in any given year. Such a storm could hit every year, or not at all for a century.

“The phrase ‘100-year-flood’ doesn’t communicate to the public or to policymakers the real risk of flooding. They think it means a flood that occurs once every 100 years, when in fact, there’s something like a 60 percent chance of experiencing it in your lifetime.”

The Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East has also added its voice to a chorus challenging the federal government to devise a more easily understandable explanation of risk. The authority’s plea followed a similar one from the state’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Agency.

FL: Pet Shelter

As a pet owner I am pleased to see this story. I stayed in my house through Katrina, because I was not leaving my dogs behind.

When Hurricane Ivan struck in 2004, Christine Gyarmathy didn’t evacuate because she refused to leave her home without her pet cat, Mac Daddy. “Ivan was a nightmare for me and (Mac Daddy),” who died in the months after the storm, said Gyarmathy, 61, of Beulah. “I would have evacuated, but I knew at the time there were not many hotels that would take pets.”

To give pet-lovers like Gyarmathy a last-resort evacuation option, Escambia County is negotiating with the Escambia School Board to secure Molino Park Elementary School as a pet-friendly evacuation shelter. It is an option Gyarmathy, who now resides with Mama Cat and a kitten named Stormy, would consider in the event of another storm.

Pet-lovers often hesitate to leave their animals in the face of a hurricane. The county recently posted a six-question Web survey — available until July 31 — to gauge feedback from dog and cat owners on their needs for a shelter.

The Pensacola Dog Owners Association estimates there are 60,000 pets in Escambia County, about half of them in Pensacola, said Lois Silberstein, vice president of the association. The group has been pushing for a pet-friendly shelter and gave a petition to commissioners in April supporting it.

“A pet-friendly shelter has been one of the priorities of our organization since Ivan, but it came to the forefront with Hurricane Katrina,” Silberstein said. “It can mean a life-or-death situation for those who don’t want to separate from their pets.”

It is always nice to see that the people in government have a heart.

LA: Corps Challenged

Little more than 24 hours after trees and fences began falling on the east side of the 17th Street Canal, a second legal challenge — this one in federal court — was filed to stop the high-profile Army Corps of Engineers project.

An initial hearing on the latest request for a temporary restraining order was scheduled for this afternoon in U.S. District Court.

The plaintiffs are two Bellaire Drive couples who claim the corps’ plan is an illegal taking of property without due process or compensation.

The lawsuit filed by Arthur and Lucy Sargent and George and Carol Byram had no immediate impact on the tree-cutting and fence removal along Bellaire that began Monday at the north end of the canal.

Their filing challenges the method corps representatives used to delineate the “theoretical levee toe” along Bellaire as invalid and illegal.

The canal and its levees existed long before the corps’ involvement, and because the latest surviving survey was made in the 1960s, corps engineers had to determine where the levee toes would be located if designed today.

It’s a theoretical line that has moved several times over the past year, in part, because of information provided by property owners, corps officials said.

The corps recently settled on a final demarcation line that will, in many cases, affect less private property than originally estimated.

Targeted for removal by corps officials were any trees, woody shrubs and fences that they say violate corps safety regulations by being located in either the levee proper or within six feet of the levee toe.

FL: Free Hurricane Inspections

The inspections only are available for single-family, detached dwellings, and provide homeowners with recommendations for upgrades and forms that could reduce their insurance premiums.

“It is imperative that people sign up in the next few days if they want to take advantage of this free program,” said Ken Walton, owner of Panhandle Windstorm Inspections, a state-certified windstorm inspection company that services Pensacola east to Jacksonville and south to Ocala.

As of Friday afternoon, only about 18,000 free inspections through the My Safe Florida Home remained available. About 4,500 per day are redeemed by Florida residents.

However, one local inspector said north Floridians haven’t responded to the program the way residents in other parts of the state have.

Bobby Cresap is a state-certified windstorm inspector with Panhandle Windstorm Inspectors. He said he probably will inspect fewer than 4,500 houses in the Panhandle.

People!  Why would you not take advantage of this FREE service?  Do Not be silly–sign up now!

LA: FEMA Unveils Parrish Flood Maps

A toll-free help line, 1 (866) 751-3989, operates Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., to answer citizens’ questions, Thomas said.

Parish and municipal officials at the open house said residents also can call their respective local government offices to have questions answered.

Old flood maps in St. Tammany were in the process of being updated by FEMA long before Hurricane Katrina. After the storm, FEMA issued new advisory elevations for new construction and the rebuilding of structures more than 50 percent destroyed by the storm. The advisory elevations, issued for areas south of Interstate 12 in St. Tammany and adopted by local governments, require new construction to be built about a foot higher than required under the old maps.

The new maps propose elevations largely similar to the ones in the advisory, local officials said. “It stays about the same in most of the parish,” said Alan Pelegrin with the parish’s flood zone office. “In some places, it fluctuates a foot or two.”

In most of Mandeville, however, the new maps reduce the minimum elevation by 3 to 4 feet from those required in the advisory, according to Chris Brown, the city’s flood plain administrator.

In Slidell, city engineer Donna O’Dell said there are no drastic changes in the proposed new maps. However, some areas that previously weren’t delineated as flood-prone are now designated as flood zones, she said. The city is compiling a list of addresses that now are in flood zones in the new maps, she said.