FEMA and the Galveston West End Cover up

Originally posted by darkelf

Originally posted by KTK

Can I assume that most Americans know of the 1900s hurricane?

I believe most of the coastal residents of Texas are aware of it. Not too sure about the rest of the country. It is, after all, a large country with many local histories.

I have lived in texas half my life I did not know about the hurricane of 1900... but Living here half my life I knew my hurricanes happen on a regular basis...

I got no love for those who stayed that had the option to leave.

And I got nothing but sympathy for people like my sister in the HFD and the prisoners of Galveston awaiting trails and bail whom were subject to the whims of the Galveston sheriff.

reply to post by Valhall


Interesting that property owners can be forced from or prohibited from entering their land for health concerns but the concern for homeless people in cities in non disaster times is generally overlooked.

If this evacuation last more than a week or so then the locals might consider electing some new officials.

Hopefully my limited knowledge will answer some of these questions.

I was a American Red Cross volunteer for 20 years and a paid staff professional on disaster and health services assignments for another 2 years after.

The 1900 Galveston Hurricane WAS the deadliest natural disaster in US history.

It is responsible for two major events that apply to the current situation:
1. Houston, TX exits today as the 4th largest US city as a result of 2 enterprising men that dug a shipping canal and drained the mostly swampy area because the primary port [Galveston] no longer existed.

2. Even though one of the most modern weather forecasting centers and one of the most experienced and respected professional weathermen of the day were located in Galveston; they little to no warning of what was happening even as it was beginning. The Galveston weather man lost his own family in the disaster and committed suicide shortly after. This resulted in in a complete financial and philosophical change in weather forecasting and the responsibility owed to the public that pays for it.

What remains to be seen is if as a public service entity the emergency responses and preparations that FEMA, DHS and all the other state and federal alphabet soups use our tax money to perpetuate is worth a damn.

Is there intelligent life in government?

Can we learn from our prior deadly lessons?

Will this cost the Republicans the election if it turns out to be the cluster that was Katrina?

I have family and friends in Southern Texas. From about half of them I have no news since Friday PM 9/12/2008.

I will await a very few more days before mounting our own naval search and rescue operation.

My hopes and prayers are with all of us.

Hopefully all is well, but today while at work I saw a headline on CNN online "Galveston Uninhabitable" and also some quotes saying to people that if they saw the destruction they would not want to come back, I am uncertain what they are really talking about, all conspiracy theories aside, I mean you would expect the whole we will rebuild and other rhetoric but there was some people saying the water was over their heads, I do not hope there is a coverup because if there is a disaster it should be revealed as to the scope and numbers of people affected and it should be truthfull at this point .

[edit on 14-9-2008 by phinubian]

Extraordinary circumstances... very extraordinary proceedings indeed.. could this have something to do with the NWO..?

also very curious.. while posting this comment the word I have to enter in order to post is... illuminati.. strange

~D.

reply to post by phinubian


Until the power and water systems are restored, living in Galveston is not really possible. There is a huge amount of debris to be removed from the roads. After that, just about every building will need to be repaired due to water damage.

[edit on 9/14/2008 by roadgravel]

Great Post!! I think we all should have our own gasmask. The problem is you need lots of filters, and some, I'm for sure, will not be completley effective. I am sure there are many dangerous patogens stored where we don't have a clue. What can you do?

Rescuers Fear for Those Stuck on Texas Peninsula

CHAMBERS COUNTY, Tex. — The rescue trucks and ambulances, neatly arranged in a double column, sat waiting at the point where State Highway 124, the road to the Bolivar Peninsula, disappeared underneath a storm-bloated ocean. Early Sunday afternoon, that was the closest the rescue workers could get to the string of little towns they had fled two days before as Hurricane Ike approached, leaving behind what they estimated were a few hundred holdouts.

As they waited, stymied, for the waters to recede, their minds were occupied with visions of the worst. “There’s going to be substantial deaths,” said the emergency medical services coordinator for High Island, Robert Isaacks. “It looks pretty grim, to tell you the truth.”

He added, “The water’s slowly but surely going down now, but it’s not going down fast enough for us.”

The Bolivar Peninsula is a barrier island-like finger of land east of Galveston Island; between the two is the entrance to Galveston Bay. It is normally reached by ferry from Galveston or via the rice-farming country east of Galveston Bay, where on Sunday drowned cattle were half-buried in piles of debris along the gravel roads.

About 3,800 people live on the peninsula. Many residents who refused to evacuate were “hard headed,” Mr. Isaacks said, believing they could ride out this storm much as they had previous ones, and refusing last-ditch pleas to leave. He said that an estimated 500 residents had stayed behind, but that the Coast Guard had flown some of those people to land.

A Coast Guard spokesman, Senior Chief Petty Officer Steve Carleton, said that 93 people in the Houston area had been rescued by helicopter before the storm hit, and that many of those were from the peninsula.

But others were trapped by a storm surge that hit in the wee hours Friday morning — well in advance of the hurricane — swamping evacuating cars and flipping a dump truck that constables were trying to use as a rescue vehicle. “They were saying there was going to be a surge when the storm hits, not 24 hours before the storm hit,” Mr. Isaacks said.

Petty Officer Carleton confirmed that some of those rescued Friday had been in their cars.

Some of the rescue workers said they had been asleep when they got a call on Friday warning them that the storm surge was upon them. They immediately began a fraught rescue operation. Stranded people were loaded into the pickup truck of an emergency worker from Crystal Beach, on the peninsula, but just as they were about to reach safety, the truck rolled over, the workers said. The evacuees, floundering through chest-deep, snake-infested water, were herded to a guard rail for safety. Four were rescued by helicopter.

Some of those left behind on Friday were perched on rooftops and water tanks, and many are low on drinking water and food, said the workers, who had not had radio or cell phone contact with those left behind but had reached one resident in High Island, the most elevated point on the peninsula, by a land line.

One middle-aged man was washed from his home on Crystal Beach all the way to the mainland, where he was spotted by National Guard troops in a helicopter and picked up.

“That’s the only miracle we’ve had so far,” said the Chambers County sheriff, Joe LaRive. “When the water picked up his house, he floated out a window and hung onto a piece of wood all night long, and he saw fish and alligators and fire ants.” The man was treated and released from a nearby hospital, Sheriff LaRive said.

Randy Faulkner, a volunteer firefighter on Crystal Beach and a member of the Gulf Coast Search and Recovery team, said Bolivar had been all but forgotten even though it had received the brunt of the storm surge. “There’s a lot of devastation in Galveston, don’t get me wrong,” Mr. Faulkner said. “But the peninsula, it’s gone.”

www.nytimes.com...

This is a great thread and I thank the OP for it and my thoughts are with all those affected by this storm.

The fact is, this is happening in America, and there is no excuse for a blackout of news and footage from this area.

There is a rescue effort going on, people are trying to learn about loved ones, property, etc. This is the very definition of NEWS.

No one is saying that the 24 hour "news" networks should be streaming endless scenes of destruction. What we are asking for is access to information. Pictures are information. Video is information.

A little while ago, this thing called the internet was created. Unlike a TV, where the image is uncontrolled by the viewer as it comes into a household, on this new thing called the internet, there's a level of participation and responibility involved, wherein the viewer selects what they view or do not view.


*edit for spelling


[edit on 15-9-2008 by quango]

they lied about the Katrina death tolls too!

I come from Katrina terrotory. My neighborhood, Cedar Point,in Bay St Louis, MS. was completely wiped out & several people died, but not many stayed in that area, we left, but only went a couple of miles inland. we ended up in an attic with 10 feet of water under us.
We didn't leave town for many reasons & regret it, but everyone saw all the footage of Katrina. I would think that would have helped those of Galviston decide to evacuate. you can hunker down for some storms & wind isn't that bad on todays structures, but people can't survive a wall of water.
I'm making a 2 year plan to move my family to higher ground. We had coastal flooding from Ike & it didn't get within 400 miles of us. There were home that flooded for Gustav & Ike in our area & we didn't even get these storms. The gulf coast of this country is being eatten up. The wetlands & barrier islands that used to protect Louisiana & Mississippi are being washed away.
The area I live in, like I said, was ground zero for Katrina. We were hurting financially & these storms this year set us back even further. The county & cities are broke. The scare of these storms, although the damage in our area was minimal, will keep new businesses from opening & people from moving here & insurance rates high. My restaurant is feeling this more every day. All the local business owners are saying the same thing.
I guess its time to find a new home...

[edit on 15-9-2008 by corusso]

reply to post by Valhall


What exactly is the conspiracy here? That FEMA did what exactly wrong? It seems like thousands of people are dead, and only people directly involved in helping saving lives should be there.

Just my opinion that saving human lives comes before human interest stories, but im pretty sure thats both standard operating precedure and the right thing to do.

reply to post by Valhall


My family all lives on the West end of galveston on Spanish Grant and they live next to some very affluent people including a judge and galveston officials, but still do not know the condition of their home. it has been 2 days now and we are still completely clueless as to the condition to their home. the fact that the news has not reported on the condition of the area is EXTREMELY concerning and I believe that there is something very wrong going on in the west end. Are there dead bodies floating around? why do we not know what is going on in our neighborhoods?

I don't understand what's wrong with no one mentioning the western part of Galveston. I think everyone knows that was the most vulnerable portion of the island and that the damage there would be devastating. Are pictures and video necessary? Maybe there are bodies floating around everywhere? There were a bunch of idiots that decided to stay behind.

I don't understand how this is some sort of government cover up or anything but maybe I'm just missing something. I'd love for someone to fill me in on what the big deal is.

I live in Houston. I'll put some pictures of later, but FEMA has been driving around in APCs.

reply to post by jprophet420

Standard operating procedure is to have a preliminary damage assessment and "missing citizen" estimate made public within 24 hours of a disaster.

Yes that includes a disaster the size of this or the MA floods of 1985, or the 1 million people successfully evacuated TWICE from Bay County Florida for hurricane Elena.

The protocol is the same regardless of the magnitude.

Accurate news reporting is an equal portion of disaster management procedure and responsibility.

Even for community service agencies that rely solely on donations for funding.

It is correct to demand and expect the same level of professionalism when the operations are managed by TAX FUNDED alphabet soup at national and state levels. IMHO

Perhaps the distraction is how to turn this to the best possible political light without stepping on a vital appendage?

My real concern here is this:

According to the mayor of Galveston on Friday 9/12/2008, there are @57,000 permanent residents on the island. They estimated that about one-half evacuated.

News reports repeatedly state that @ 2000 were rescued after landfall.

What about the remaining 26,500?

I'm not a math wiz but...


Any kind of substantive facts would be greatly apprecated by those of us a few hundred miles away that have family and friends in the area.

Rescuers see few around to save
About 20,000 people are believed to have tried to ride out the storm in Galveston. So where are they now?

www.latimes.com...

This is another source for my concern.

Please do not tell me that 20,000+ citizens have vanished and we do not have a clue.

Rescue crews were mounting a door-to-door search of homes in Galveston and other coastal towns, local officials said Sunday.

"There is not a square foot that will not be searched," Galveston City Manager Steven LeBlanc said.

LeBlanc said he was most concerned about those who stayed through the storm on the island's west end, which was battered by a surge and waves.

"There were people out there," he said. "What happened to them, I don't know."

This is not acceptable.

Originally posted by darkelf
Restricted air space has been declared to facilitate search and rescue and recovery. Anyone who has ever been involved in an air search and rescue can appreciate this. Private planes, and media can hinder the efforts of those who are trying to do their jobs.

That can't be true! I mean...cmon...it sounds too logical to be true.

And then there's this:

I remember a CNN reported stating that a refinery had leaked some "coke" into the bay.

Odd coincidence.

Not saying it means anything, but odd that we haven't heard anything about the unnamed ship.

The ship has a name. It's the Antalina.

www.chron.com...

Freighter off coast on move
A freighter that lost power off Galveston and endured the impact of Hurricane Ike is now operating under its own power, U.S. Coast Guard officials said Sunday.

The Antalina, a 584-foot Cyprus-flagged bulk freighter, was to move to a point where it can drop anchor and then make port sometime later, said Chief Petty Officer Thomas Blue.

Although the ship is making way on its own, Blue said it is being escorted by a tug boat. The 22-member crew rode out the storm about 170 miles southeast of Galveston.

Coast Guard officials said the crew is safe.

Darrell Wilson, a spokesman for Greece-based TEO Shipping, which owns the ship, said the Antalina will offload its cargo of petroleum coke after finding an anchorage.

Originally posted by kerontehe

Rescuers see few around to save
About 20,000 people are believed to have tried to ride out the storm in Galveston. So where are they now?

www.latimes.com...

This is another source for my concern.

Please do not tell me that 20,000+ citizens have vanished and we do not have a clue.

Rescue crews were mounting a door-to-door search of homes in Galveston and other coastal towns, local officials said Sunday.

"There is not a square foot that will not be searched," Galveston City Manager Steven LeBlanc said.

LeBlanc said he was most concerned about those who stayed through the storm on the island's west end, which was battered by a surge and waves.

"There were people out there," he said. "What happened to them, I don't know."

This is not acceptable.

That's just nuts. Do you suppose that many could have been washed out to sea? Seems incomprehensible, but...?

reply to post by Valhall

I did a Google search under news for West End Galveston and there are a lot of articles.

Google News