Word on Ike from dogemperor
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[UPDATE Hurricane Ike looks like a good use case to think through how PB 2.0 would work better than our famously free press. So I'd like to talk about that this evening. Bring your links and stories!]
[Anybody else affected? What's going on, under the media blackout?]
Via cell email:
In regard to what it's like after Ike--at least here (Louisville),
it's not so bad, other than the power being out of course. Of course
with the power being out over 75% of the city at first (and still out
over at least 40 percent of the city), things are kind of paralysed;
the metro police has been supplemented with the National Guard for
things like neighbourhood patrols and directing traffic, whilst the
state police handle the highway traffic.Schools are out, so the kids are loving this; a lot of neighbours are
helping each other out, especially if one has power and the other
doesn't. The ones that are getting really hurt by this are up in
Southern Indiana (where they have boil water advisories out, thanks to
most of the local water systems being well-based and the backup
generators being sent to Galveston relief; in Louisville, the water
company pulls from the Ohio and has backup generators on-site) and the poor folks here on food assistance (people who are on food stamps have had to throw out food because of lack of power).It's rough here, but it's worse elsewhere. :P
Always nice to have word from the ground. Readers?
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First Hand Reports Are Key
and glad to see dogemperor is doing okay.
Via Susie Madrak, a report about the weird media blackout on the recent huricanes. Or not weird at all, deliberate is the guess. Can't criticize a government response you can't see.
FEMA should be there any moment with help
Oh, wait....
If Katrina did nothing else, it shattered completely any expectation that the Bush Administration and the VRWC will ever, ever come to the aid of those who are suffering. The big money boys will be along later, when they can strip the meat off the reconstruction funds and gnaw on the bones of the dead and dying, but real help when it is really needed will no longer come from the government and no one will ever again expect otherwise. It won't even make the news.
Some day soon, when enough people have died and suffered and squatted in the dark and cold and watched their children starving, there will come an anger and an arising and the people will find enough courage to seize back what is theirs. The longer it takes before that happens, the more awful and bloody and unpredictable it will be.
Even through their mask of greed you would think our rulers could sense it coming, but they seem blissfully unaware. I find myself composed of equal parts fear and a blood-lust of recrimination, and wonder at what point I might begin to lose all self-control.
I hope all will be well for the people who are suffering this time, but I know it will not be so; not this time, or the next time, or the time after that....
I Feel It, Too
There's a lot of anger out here, isn't there? Anger at the GOP, at the government, at Wall Street and the corporations, at the media. Watching the Villagers talk, it's like they live in a different world. One that isn't crashing in on them. But if they aren't careful, it's going to.
Funny enough, it's the anger that gives me hope. Because I don't think it's going to just go away. How much more there will have to be before people rise up, I don't know, but it does seem like we're moving ever closer to that point.
Ahimsa...
Wish we had a subject matter expert in that.
It does have a track record of success.
NOTE I forgot to say: I don't think you mean "anger." That would be bad. I thin you mean bitterness.
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
Not when the oppressors involved have absolutely no sense
of shame.
Even the most racist Southerners had to travel, and when they were confronted with the behavior of the servants tasked to hose and jail and murder those who wanted equal rights, they were embarrassed at cocktail parties.
The Village back then took heed, and decided to let progress happen, tepidly.
This time, they know it's preservation of their lifestyle or living down here with the rest of us? How much more will they be willing to ignore, to prevent that from happening?
Here in a Cincinnati burb/ or nearby small town
We just got power back tonight in my part of Loveland. It's been out since about noon Sunday. My company's offices are in a far busier area and they were back on the grid Monday. Many people at work are now being told power restoration will happen this coming Sunday or Monday for best case. Duke has started to run out of poles and parts. My parents are a bit up 71 and still don't have electric and have been told to conserve water, as have many others.
Edited to add: at least 2 co-workers mentioned that they'd have no water tomorrow. Not good at all. 84 out of 88 counties in Ohio were affected.
Jeebus, there really is a media blackout
This is awful.
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
You're kidding me, right?
This is all over the local press - Cinci Enquirer, Columbus Dispatch, etc.
They do make it hard to report the numbers. Ohio has a few different energy companies. Here in the Cinci area we kept hearing 679,000 without power on Monday, down to 300k today. That doesn't count SE Ohio, NE, or NW - all on different companies.
3 out of 15 gas distribution points for Cinci were down Monday and Tuesday, leading to huge lines at the stations that had electric and a supply of gas. Ice was one bag per customer if you could find it anywhere. I went to 7 stores yesterday for a 6 volt lantern battery after ours tanked. Almost all stores were out of anything other than a pen light flashlight and they sure as hell didn't even have C or D batteries.
Some folks I work with expect to be without power through this coming weekend. They're being told by their municipalities that the water plants will run out soon - not just a "boil water," a no water situation.
I've passed my lighting and batteries to my parents.
Of course the local media
is going to cover it, but between Palin and the Wall Street meltdown, it's not even a blip on the radar screen of national media. There are occasional reports about the mess in Texas and Louisiana, but north of there, there's been barely a word, so this is actually the first I've heard that it's so bad up there.
It took me a good 10 minutes
to find one short article in the NYTimes online about what was happening in the Midwest, down at the end of the section devoted to Hurricane Ike. The report wasn't listed in the U.S. section at all. But there were plenty of non-Palin, non-meltdown stories ("U.S. Court Is Now Guiding Fewer Nations," "Psychologists Vote to End Interrogation Consultations"), as well as several about Ike's aftereffects in Texas.
I had no idea it was as bad as far north as OH
Last I saw, the storm track was heading off toward Crawford.
"They do make it hard to report the numbers" about a lot of stuff, don't they?
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
I didn't know how bad it was
until an NFL game got rescheduled and I hadn't heard from my friend in TX for several days. Power's on and off where they are at and its apparently hard to find gas and food.
One thing I forgot
Today I heard a radio report that the Clermont County Sheriff had to send officers to hang out at the local Duke offices because of threats.
Ya know, I hated sitting in the dark, too, but that is seriously messed up.
Pretty Decent Coverage and excellent photo galleries
Houston Chronicle
Living in hurricane country, I am always interested to see how they play out for the locals to have to endure the aftermath.
Seriously, check out the all the photos...they're not what you're seeing on MSM, or from Anderson Cooper wading ridiculously around in flood waters.
Again as in Katrina, many of the so-called "stubborn" evacuation holdouts were poor, old, and/or sick, had pets they wouldn't abandon.
Gee, "stubborn"...
... sounds a lot like "bitter" ...
And I looked at the Chronicle headlines. Like the Dillard's ad: "We're open." Or the map of where power's been restored.
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
Only reading headlines
is like drinking bitter tea.
A picture is worth a thousand words.
Cooper anchored his entire show
the other night from waist-deep in the water. One of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen on television.
Re the pets-- I thought the horrible "no pets" rule for shelters and transport had been widely thrown over for just that reason, that so many people stayed rather than abandon them. Not so in Texas?
Born in Cincinnati
I was about to check on relatives in northern Indiana because I had heard about torrential rains up there, but I had no idea Cincy was in such trouble. This may explain why close friends have not been in touch for the last few days. Since they travel a lot I had not thought much about it until reading this post. Now I will call, not write.
News blackout indeed!
We didn't get the rain here,
The damage was caused by 80 mph wind gusts.
And where is here, trish?
That's a high wind!
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
The greater Cincinnati area
NE burbs more specifically. Sorry, should have mentioned that.
Pet sheltering
The evacuees in our Central Texas town may bring their pets but the pets must then go to the humane society to be cared for. Their owners can visit them every day, but the people shelters are not equipped for pets. (The animals that were already in the shelter have been fostered out to homes around the area for the duration.) Reptiles go to a separate facility. The folks that work at the humane society are making daily runs to Houston (3 hours each way) to pick up additional furry friends for whom there is no room there. A very dedicated bunch of employees and volunteers.
An Excellent Solution re Pets
It just makes no sense to force them into human shelters - there are allergies and phobias and poorly trained and cared for animals. Too many potential stressors in an already overstressed situation. But this is a way the pets can be safe and the people (including non-animal lovers who might not want to bunk next to Killer the Pit Bull) can be safe, too.
In TX-22
Ike kicked the shit out of us. That's the takeaway.
The detail is that after about 6 hours of constant assault I thought I was going to go insane. 90mph+ winds that simply never stopped. Noises of rain, debris, cows?, hitting the walls and roof over and over - and each time I believed the damn house might cave in on us. After 8 hours of battering, the eye of the storm passed just far enough to the East of us so that we never had a respite. The winds simply shifted direction and maintained their focus for another 6 to 8 hours.
I'm in a burb South of downtown Houston, but well North of Galveston so we didn't see the kind of total devastation those individuals experienced. Instead we have widespread partial/severe damage. In my specific neighborhood probably 85% of the homes had rain leakage due to roof damage, and in some cases like mine, near total loss due to rain coming through the ceiling like a massive shower head set on "drip". There was no escaping the water, no mitigating the leaks or anything else.
It's eerie to drive through the Galleria area of Houston and see mostly lights out with a few scattered pockets of electricity. The lighted restaurants just seem to emphasize the other darkness more. This is not to compare to the hardest hit portions, simply an account from an area that really got whacked too.
I was not quite an adult when Alicia came through in '83. Alicia had nothing on Ike. I thought I learned my lesson during Rita in '05 but it appears it was the wrong lesson. I can guarantee you that Ike has taught me well.
Oh, how awful!!
Are you saying your house is a total loss? Where are you living? What will you do?
What lesson did Ike teach you, to evacuate, to move, to do what?
I've been through a couple of small-size 1's, and that was scary enough. I can't imagine living through as many hours of a 2 as you did.
Not total
Structurally the house is ok. But everything inside is toast. The ceiling in the master bath and master closet fell so I just dropped off $125 worth of dry cleaning. That's the first batch.
I'm in a hotel in the Galleria area for the next few days, then probably staying with friends while my house is demo'd and then construction starts again. I called over 30 hotels and had Hilton, Marriot, etc search all their brands for a room and only two were open. One an hour from downtown and one 20 minutes away.
I'm extremely lucky in that I have the resources to bridge my way from disaster to recovery. Not everyone is able to do that. I recognize that and count my blessings that all my hard work has allowed me a slight bit of flexibility.
The main lesson I learned is this - I fought for over 3 hours to mitigate the damage. Put buckets, garbage cans under all the main leaks. After I bit I realized there was nothing to be done, and if I wasn't there nothing more or less would've happened.
Yet, myself and my 4 yr old child rode this storm out. From 3:00am on I was honestly scared for what I had exposed my child to.
I'm leaving next time, booking a room at a remote city like Austin ahead of time, and also booking two rooms in different locations across Houston for a future date.
That way I have guaranteed rooms away from storm and guaranteed rooms back in an area that has a chance at being open after the storm.
Being a refugee sucks, because even though I'm lucky to be able to bear the expense of a room there was none to be had. Anywhere.
Corner Stone: Homeowners' Insurance et al
Some policies cover living expenses [rental or hotel] while your home is restored to livable condition. Apologies for wasting your time if you already know this.
And I, too, have been known to book rooms a week in advance in 3 different directions far inland. [Always confirm at the local number: during an emergency reservations made at the 8oo number or online can mysteriously disappear!]
When TS Hannah came over/through 2 weeks ago, my husband and I left our huge-pine-tree surrounded, single-story home to stay at a nearby hotel. This served a two-fold purpose to not only get our heads out from possibly getting crushed but our cars. Also, there was no mandatory evac, so the hotel stayed open. Though not a huge storm like Cat 2 Ike or Cat 4 Hugo [which we were lucky enough to safely ride out but never again--as CS so poignantly recalls for us--it's a psychologically traumatizing event to endure even if the worst never happens, hours and hours of adrenalin coursing through your body as you hunker down], one can never be sure and the nights are long, as you know, when you huddle in the dark and have to listen to crashing through the long night imagining who knows what.
After 25 years of living on the southeast coast, I have learned one thing about 'canes: The most predictable aspect to them is how unpredictable they are.
You may believe you are sitting tight for a TS or a small Cat 1 to pass on the "good side" [in which case you may not get any adverse weather AT ALL] and after it is too late to safely evacuate [trees crashing down on roadways, inland flooding from unbelievable driving rain making safe driving impossible or getting caught out on the highway in a traffic jam], the local weather reports alarmingly warn that the track has shifted 10 miles and you are now facing the eyewall or wrong side of a landfalling Cat 2 or 3. And you think, "Fuckfuckfuck."
Go or stay? That's the awesomely dangerous dilemma and concern that one faces with every burst of convection that rolls off the African continent--am I sitting in the bullseye?
Leaving early has serious drawbacks--it's not only disruptive, it's expensive [gas and lodging], and how many people have jobs where they can just take off whenever they feel like it. Leaving late? Aside from the deteriorating weather, there's often no place to stay. Fewer and fewer public shelters open and they fill up early.
Let me throw in this by now well-known idea: with global warming, the storms will have the potential to become more frequent and more deadly. With large populations on the move to seek shelter, they may not be able to return home as illustrated by Katrina. And thus...there will be more people forced into the position of becoming environmental refugees, as Al Gore has warned.
We ourselves have only a few more years before retirement and hope to still have the financial and physical wherewithal to get the hell out of Dodge, so to speak. Or at least get off the coast and move uphill a bit. We even wonder if anybody will still be buying sweet little homes like ours.
This week's financial hurricane may have cut off the escape routes already.
To Corner Stone, I hope you get to restore and harden your house in a way that will leave you less vulnerable the "next time." Have you heard the new slogan: Hide from the wind and run from the water. I still haven't figured out how to live w/o electricity in a wretchedly humid and hot climate for a month or more. Solar powered AC's that won't get damaged in the storm, too, anyone?
I'm real sorry you and your child had to go through what you did. I actually sorta know how you feel. And it sucks.
Best of luck!
from the crazy hurricane lady
ps: sorry this comment is late, it seems the world has moved on a bit since the stormy weather hit.
Sounds like Beirut...
You write:
This is really worth a post, in your copious free time. And this is way inland, yes?
UPDATE Also, of course, "no room at the Inn."
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
i'm glad you guys are ok at least--
FEMA is worthless since Bush got in--and our media even more so.
i also heard nothing about the midwest -- except for one tiny thing about floods in Chicago.