I'm not following the ins and outs of the disaster aid package. What I read is this:
Friday morning's events promise to push the partisan war into the weekend and could increase the chances that the government's main disaster aid account at the Federal Emergency Management Agency might run dry early next week.
Additionally, unless Congress acts by midnight next Friday, much of the government will shut down. More immediate is the threat that the government's main disaster aid account will run out of money early next week.
And this is what a road looked like in Greene County, New York, following the two hurricanes:
I spare you to photogravure. The one with all of the flooded houses and the piles of debris and the people sitting around stunned and wondering what to do.
I'm not following the debate battle over the disaster aid package. I don't care about the politics at all. I do care that this road and all of the others like it need to be repaired. And people need federal help in rebuilding their homes and businesses. Is it too much to ask of Congress that they work out the details and help?
In New York, where Mayor Bloomberg was criticized for failing to make a big deal about an approaching blizzard that blocked ambulance access in certain neighborhoods, the Mayor has made a big deal of the approaching hurricane. In Martha's Vineyard, President Obama made a big deal of the approaching hurricane so that he would not appear to be like W in Katrina, and he actually cut his vacation short to return to Washington.
Meanwhile, in Chatham, Columbia County, New York, 25 minutes southeast of Albany, your Bloguero, a sharp critic of many local customs, decided to go to the Price Chopper Supermarket to purchase PBR and peanut butter. All of the bottled water, D-batteries, crunchy natural peanut butter, and pop tarts are gone. The premium beer is pretty much gone. There was still PBR. Ditto, expensive bread. They hare having very brisk sales, even for a summer Friday.
Says your Bloguero to the Check Out Technician, "So you're having brisk sales because it's the end of the world, right?"
Says she, "Look, these people live in the North. They need to get used to it. They need to chill out."
Your Bloguero,"Do they buy the same stuff whether it's a hurricane or a blizzard?"
Says she, "Of course. I don't know why. I think the radio tells them what to get. They need to chill out."
Then your Bloguero ran into his mother-in-law. She was wandering around in the check out lanes of the Price Chopper searching the racks of batteries. "What are you buying?"
"I'm looking for D-batteries. For my radio."
Your Bloguero notes that he does not have a radio that takes batteries. Maybe he should have one? "Why do you want to listen to the radio?" he asks her.
"So I know what's going on."
"Nothings going on. Why don't you just call me up and I'll tell you what's going on. You won't need the batteries."
"But you don't have a radio, so you won't know what's going on either. You won't be able to tell me."
"If you call me up, I'll make something up. It'll be exciting."
She frowns. Yes, she's tried the Dollar Stores. And hardware stores. And the pharmacies. All of them. She wants batteries. I have no good ideas about where to find them.
Your Bloguero realizes on his journey home that the impending "disaster" has not had the appropriate advanced notice. People are not jumping out of windows. Yet. There is something entirely insufficient about the build up to Hurricane Irene. It's not exciting enough. Yet. Something is lacking to to make Irene a really, really, really big event star. In short, there is a hype deficit. You might think there's enough hype. But your Bloguero knows better. This hurricane is definitely, positively lacking sufficient hype. Your Bloguero thinks they (please do not ask your Bloguero who "they" are) need something more like this:
Much better. Much, much better. Does not Irene deserve such promotion? Tell the truth now. Irene does. No question about it. Your Bloguero inquires: Does someone (please don't ask your Bloguero who someone refers to) have to invent the wheel every damn time some natural disaster is promised? You (please do not ask your Bloguero who "you" refers to) already know how to sell disasters. You've been doing it for half a century, if not more. Isn't it about time to get down to it? Irene won't wait. And she deserves it.
Haiti is in need of millions of dollars to combat the cholera epidemic, but the US is still holding back $1.15 billion in Aid that has already been appropriated. It's time to tell your congress members to stop sitting on the wallet and get that money to Haiti, where it's urgently needed.
AFP today reports on the need for $164 million in aid to combat the cholera epidemic in Haiti:
GENEVA — The United Nations on Friday appealed for nearly 164 million dollars in aid to tackle cholera in Haiti and avoid being "overrun" by the growing epidemic.
"We hope we can get this otherwise all our efforts will be overrun by the epidemic," said Elisabeth Byrs, a spokeswoman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Byrs said UN, other aid agencies and Haiti's health ministry needed 163.8 million dollars for a strategy to stifle the sudden epidemic, which has infected more than 11,000 people and killed 724 since last month.
The strategy drawn up by the UN "anticipates up to 200,000 people to show symptoms of cholera ranging from cases of mild diarrhoea to the most severe dehydration" over a period of about six months, OCHA and the World Health Organisation said.
That's an urgent need for $163.8 million dollars.
The US previously appropriated $1.15 billion dollars in aid for Haiti, but guess what? That money has not been delivered. In other words, the funds needed to combat the cholera epidemic are already appropriated in the US but Congress is sitting on the wallet and the aid has not been delivered. That means that unless the US releases these funds, aid for fighting the cholera epidemic has to come from elsewhere.
Yesterday's Miami Herald Editorial, which is worth reading in its entirety because it describes the situation in Haiti fully, made the point about these funds clearly:
President Obama can send a signal by calling for lawmakers to move quickly to allow disbursement of $1.15 billion in reconstruction money for Haiti. The president signed a bill approving the money last July, but the funds remain stuck on Capitol Hill while lawmakers quibble over the details of a spending plan.
I agree with that. I haven't heard the President or anybody in government call for the immediate release of these funds. So yesterday I wrote requesting that all of us immediately email and phone and write our congresspersons to demand the release of these funds. Yesterday the silence that resulted from this was disturbing. You'd think we'd want to get these funds released.
So I am trying again today and sending the same message:
It's simple what to do. Email or call your Senators and Congresspersons. Ask them, please, to make sure that these funds get released.
Here's my email, that I sent to Senators Schumer and Gillibrand:
I am deeply concerned that the cholera epidemic in Haiti endangers the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and that US aid to the country is bogged down and has not been received. The Congress appropriated more than $1 billion for aid to Haiti after the earthquake earlier this year. Today's Miami Herald Editorial notes, "President Obama can send a signal by calling for lawmakers to move quickly to allow disbursement of $1.15 billion in reconstruction money for Haiti. The president signed a bill approving the money last July, but the funds remain stuck on Capitol Hill while lawmakers quibble over the details of a spending plan." I am writing because I want you to do whatever is in your power to get this aid delivered to Haiti. This aid is already long overdue. And receipt of this aid in Haiti is urgently needed to save lives.
Please pitch in. I don't want to sit here and watch this cholera epidemic unfold without a major effort to stop it.
The small act of writing or calling Congress can save thousands of lives in Haiti. Please join me in getting these funds released.
Hurricane Tomas could have been significantly worse. The storm moved slightly to the West; it didn't strike Port au Prince directly. Twenty people were killed. The news is reporting that fewer than 6,000 more people were rendered homeless by the storm. Against a backdrop of long term, pervasive suffering, the Hurricane did not harm as many as was feared. But now, amid all of the misery, another threat looms. Will the flooding make the cholera epidemic in Haiti even worse? CNN reports:
Experts feared Monday that the hurricane that battered Haiti over the weekend could worsen the outbreak of cholera that has killed hundreds of people and hospitalized thousands since it began last month.
The official death toll attributed to the outbreak was 544, with more than 8,000 confirmed cases, Health Minister Alex Larsen told CNN Monday.
Though no cases have been confirmed in Port-au-Prince, tests were being carried out on 91 residents of the capital -- all of whom live in or near the city's densely populated Cite Soleil slum, Larsen said. Except for one person who died over the weekend, all the others have recovered, he said.
Hurricane Tomas' trek past Haiti killed 20 people and injured another 36, a Communications Ministry official said Monday. Seven people were missing and 5,954 were homeless, the official said.
Health officials fear that the water dumped by the storm will worsen the outbreak. The concern is that overflow from latrines and septic tanks could contaminate the supply of fresh drinking water and contribute to the spread of the bacteria.
In the capital, the canals were not overflowing, said American Red Cross spokeswoman Andrea Koppel. But that was not the case in cities west of the capital, which bore the brunt of Hurricane Tomas, she said.
Still, even Port-au-Prince looks and smells like a dump -- a caldron of water, garbage and human waste. "We get used to it," said one resident.
It is extremely difficult to grasp how horrible conditions in Haiti truly are. Even before the recent earthquake, conditions were simply dreadful: poor sanitation, lack of clean water, widespread disease, gnawing poverty, pervasive hunger, high infant mortality, on and on and on. Haiti is by far the poorest country in this hemisphere. And this is nothing new. In 2008 the New York Times ran an article implying that conditions were so bad many Haitians wished they were still under the heal of the Duvaliers. That speaks eloquently to desperation.
The earthquake, of course, brought Haiti to a new level of national misery. And now Hurricane Tomas has made its own contribution to increasing Haiti's suffering. Has all of this brought Haiti now to the threshold of a huge cholera plague?
Two things are clear: all US aid that was appropriated for Haiti, more than a billion dollars, needs to be freed up and delivered there. And it is also a good time to make contributions to organizations that aid Haiti. I recommend Doctors Without Borders.
My son just got back from a week in Haiti. Haiti was impoverished beyond belief before the earthquake. And now it is difficult to describe the pervasive suffering. His descriptions bring me to tears.
NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas (AP) -- After the Haitian national soccer team couldn't eat another bite of chef-prepared pork or ice cream, and before going back to its cabins at a Texas resort, coach Jairo Rios asked for a favor.
Tents. As many as they could haul back to Haiti.
''I eat well here. I sleep well,'' forward Charles Herold Jr. said in French, speaking through a translator. ''But I cannot help but think of my friends and family who don't have that. I can't get that off my mind.''
I can't get that off my mind either. I hope you won't be able to get it off your mind. The futbol players can't get it off their minds, either:
Players are already wrestling with the guilt of their relatively better fortunes. Forward Eliphene Cadet, 29, escaped from his house in Port-au-Prince after the roof caved on him and two children.
Leaving Haiti meant leaving his family in a tent in a field, near where his house once stood. Other players left their families in similar conditions.
''All the guys talk about it,'' Cadet said. ''I know that they're here. There are still tremors now. That's our biggest worry.''
So as the rains come, shelter is extremely important. And of course medical aid continues to be important. And, of course, drinking water and sanitation are critical.
There are so many of us, and we have so much. Can we use this essay to develop a list of organizations that will accept our small donations to continue aid in Haiti? Can we work together on this? Can we make some donations?
A strong aftershock struck Chile on Sunday, a day after a destructive 8.8-magnitude earthquake left hundreds of people dead and a long swath of the country in smoky rubble.
The death toll was expected to rise, particularly around Concepción, Chile's second-largest metropolitan area, which is roughly 70 miles from the quake's center. The aftershock was reported around 8:30 local time Sunday morning from the capital of Santiago, where it shook buildings, according to Reuters.
More than 1.5 million people have displaced by the quake, according to local news services that quoted the director of Chile's emergency management office. In Concepción, which appeared to be especially hard hit, the mayor said Sunday morning that 100 people were trapped under the rubble of a building that had collapsed, according to Reuters.
Elsewhere in Concepción, cars lay mangled and upended on streets littered with telephone wires and power cables. A new 14-story apartment building fell, while an older, biochemical lab at the University of Concepción caught fire.
In other words, what Chilean President Michele Bachelet called a "catastrophe."
Time, again, to get out the checkbook. Remember that this is the internet. Heroics aren't required, just lots of people giving small amounts.
Save The Children -- Save The Children is sending an emergency assessment team to Chile, and is asking for contributions to its Children's Emergency Fund to aid these efforts.
World Vision -- The international development, relief and advocacy organization has already sent its first relief flight, from Bolivia this afternoon, with supplies like tarps, blankets, plastic sheeting, and collapsible water containers for survivors. Support these efforts with earmarked gifts to families that need them.
AmeriCares -- Vice President of Emergency Response, Christoph Gorder, says AmeriCares is sending medical supplies and humanitarian aid to Chile. Make a direct contribution to AmeriCares' Chilean earthquake fund.
Habitat for Humanity -- Habitat for Humanity has a continual presence in Chile, where the group has constructed more than 1,300 homes. Habitat will be essential in reconstruction efforts, especially in hard-hit rural areas.
International Medical Corps -- IMC has a presence in dozens of countries around the globe, providing immediate medical care to those affected by natural disasters. Contribute to its emergency response fund.
ShelterBox -- International disaster relief agency ShelterBox has mobilized a team to bring aid to Concepcion, Chile's second largest city, which saw the worse damage.
There are other groups I like to support I have not listed here. I will update this later to add them. Also, I have some antipathy to some of the groups here, particularly World Vision, because of their proselytizing activities to indigenous people in the high Andes, but right now I think the primary idea is to get aid on the ground.
It looks like Hurricane Gustav (it's now a hurricane and not a tropical storm) is headed directly for New Orleans. Weatherunderground gives us computer modeling that is not at all comforting:
Notice the uniformity of all of the computer models. Notice that the computers bring Gustav extremely close to New Orleans as a category 3 hurricane.
Join me in the City that Care Forgot.
The New York Times reports that there will be a "mandatory evacuation" of New Orleans on Sunday:
Mayor C. Ray Nagin said on Friday that a mandatory evacuation order was possible for Sunday.
At that point, residents would be told, though not physically forced, to leave New Orleans, either in their own vehicles or on city-chartered buses and trains. On Saturday, officials here will start helping citizens without cars leave for shelters in northern Louisiana in gyms, churches and civic centers. Officials here estimate that as many as 30,000 of the poor, the elderly and the infirm might need help evacuating. ...snip
“With the new storm track, we think the entire metro area will experience the storm,” the mayor said at City Hall on Friday. “This is a very serious matter.”
Mr. Nagin urged citizens to begin making plans to evacuate, without waiting for the order. “Sunday morning, that’s what we’re looking at, to issue that mandatory evacuation,” he said.
There will be no shelters in the city like the Superdome, as there were for Hurricane Katrina.
Such an evacuation is an enormous task. If there have been practice runs, the media have not reported them. Is anyone confident that all of the people who wish to leave the City will be able to leave? Or put another way, will those who most need assistance to leave be able to receive the help they need to find shelter from the storm?
According to the Times Picayune, Gustav is on a "Collision Course" with New Orleans, and as of early Saturday morning, many people were headed inland for shelter:
Those who cannot leave because they are ill, or have no cars, or have no place to go, or have no money will have to be moved today, Saturday, or wait for the mandatory evacuation and then attempt to leave by bus or by train. But it appears that not all of the necessary preparations for the evacuation have been successfully completed. The Times Picayune reports:
The private contractor the state hired to provide buses for hurricane evacuations has not come through with enough vehicles in a timely manner, causing the state to look elsewhere to meet the state's timeline for moving people out of New Orleans and other areas prior to the arrival of Hurricane Gustav, Gov. Bobby Jindal said Friday.
The state contracted for 700 buses with drivers to be made available in an emergency but has "run into challenges" with the primary bus contractor, the governor said during a news conference in Baton Rouge.
"The contractor is not necessarily doing what they promised to do, " Jindal said....snip
When asked about the problem in a phone interview Friday evening, company Chief Executive Officer Henry Gerkens initially said, "I'm not aware of that. I won't have any further comment, but that's not my understanding."
That is not the kind of news that builds confidence. At the last minute, the authorities are still trying to cobble together an evacuation. Nowhere do I see officials saying, "We are definitely ready. We definitely have the situation under control. We can evacuate everyone who may wish to leave the City before Gustav arrives."
Yet again, my heart goes out to the people of New Orleans. May they be safe. May they find shelter. May they be well.
David's new novel Tulum was just released. You can purchase it online at the usual sites as a soft cover or eBook. For details and to talk about this book, "like" its Facebook page and leave a comment.
