FEMA and the Galveston West End Cover up

I have read alot of this thread (and ty op good work)

and over and over in my head I have sat here wondering Why, is the damage suddenly so awful?

Are storms stronger... probably somewhat from Rising temperatures

But that doesn't account for it.

You see, I have been in more than One Hurricane... I like them... I love the feeling of overwhelming nature.

A Hurricane shouldn't kill so many people aside from accidents, I have gone outside in 120 mph winds... your only danger is getting hit with debris.

These people are dying... in their homes

and

I have to say, the standards of housing are ruinous... and that's 90% of it

Trailers, prefabs, low quality construction goods, dry wall and stucco taking precedence over Brick and Mortar and Wood, screwed together aluminium and chicken wire and drywall is not a House.

I mean... if the ocean is going to come over your beach front property, you should have left... BUT even in that case a Brick and Mortar and Wood Home made from quality materials will flood... of course but it won't be coming down on your head and killing you and 2 story units Don't flood very often.

Proper drainage, and building methods are Pure Crap for the last 20-30 years

Americans used to make homes like the 3rd little Pig

and you still see those homes in places...even where storms hit... 150 years after they were built...

So this is purely the 3 little Pigs... Katrina, this new storm...

Prefab housing will kill you, you have to live in it, in some cases your whole life, it should never be anything beynd a temporary measure...

and I Blame this... On litigation and more govt bs...

Why?

because you can't work on your own home and sell it you need approval and licenced contractor or you will never sell your home...

so people don't wall thier own homes, they don't build structures or shelters or...build thier own homes if they are poor... Because it will financially screw them...

Instead people buy crap prefab houses, trailers and even those that have money buy into these developments that are made...literally of chickenwire and the thinest beams the contractor can get away with.

I FEAR what would happen here in PHX AZ, because there are no, natural disasters if a real storm ever hit...

In THEORY, a Hurricane could come up through Baja Full stregnth and Nail Tucson and Phx as a whopper if global warming persists

The houses here are built like pure garbage

I'm sorry Hurricanes are NOT so fearsome... if you build right, I look at the midwest and have no idea why every house on a river is not elevated...

I look at Hurricane zones and you look at the okld buildings on the EC and Gulf and they are made of Brick... Brick $h1T houses if you will... Thick, Thick, wooden supports, basic archuitecture that allows for the passage of wind, not purely square, basements for shelter and drainage, proper gutters and water run off and....

Today... square without even opposing windows to stream airflow, no second set of supports in the basement, zero drainage, perfectly square for max wind impact, and... thin planks, and chickenwire and drywall

and dry wall is the worst... because it always gets Black Mold too and eventually makes you friggin retarded

I used Dry wall once in my life... when I worked in theatre lol and we made temporary sets we could smash with a hammer to bring out to the garbage...

I'd say these flood walls are given 1/5th the care they were 100 years ago too... worked on for emergency purposes only...

This is all...throw away materials and non survivalist economics...

People who came to America took pride in thier homes... how we became a people who, are willing to live like pigs in our own feces is beyond me... and I see... Million dollar homes... Made of Straw, pretty on the outside frail underneath

The fact that these grabage murder homes are being charged for 350 G and then foreclosed on is just... another laughing matter...

People need to be allowed to work on thier own homes... without a contractor licence... almost any guy who, left alone with a house, and some tools that can afford wood and brick ends up with a palace....

The standards and the way we run housing today are abysmal...

No one needs to die in a storm in the year 2008










[edit on 17-9-2008 by mopusvindictus]

[edit on 17-9-2008 by mopusvindictus]

i don't know if anyone summarized all this with the bio labs and the storm. especially the location. or if there where any credible updates on this.

but i think i can formulate a bit of a theory:

first of all, building labs on a disaster zone seems to be the perfect stupidity. but an administration that is capable to bring a whole nation and it's allies to the fighting of not only one but 2 nasty, so called illegal wars is far from stupid. so there must be a well planed reason why biolabs where constructed there.

in essence only one link is missing. the deployment of some troops, military in nature, to the Galveston West End area. this might be not so hard with the NG on site. so what wee have.

- possibility to interrupt any means of communication and transportation.
(it happened, no discussion needed here)

- a few well prepared labs with experience of handling dangerous materiars
the biolabs

- the others to think that you are developing cures not otherwise, to not stir up public attention

- some men that can follow orders, an do so without question
here we need some high ranking military corps

- few hundred or thousand (don't know how many are still there) subjects who can disappear without raising many questions.

and now as the effect, we can say that you have anything you need for developing some nasty bugs. even human testing subjects, witch isn't any problem. if someone asks the answer is evident: "disappeared into the flood". with growing weather activity we could guarantee that their supply wont run out.

and of course there are news that Galveston West End was hit the hardest. this makes it even more credible that there where no, or JUST A FEW survivals just to make it appear that the services are there to do what they were meant to do. but in fact hundreds of shivering people were taken for virus testing. easy ,... they wont even fight back.
(taken where? i don't know, but i'm sure they have a plan for that to.)

by the way. there were some reports for some buses going in. dose anyone have some reports on them coming out? for ex. full with people?


this is just a theory, but it explains the communication blackout and the location of the high level biological warfare laboratories (yep,.. and they call it defense like that guy calls the RPG on Future Weapons )

Excellent editorial in the Galveston Daily News.

galvestondailynews.com...

He enumerates the "rumors" that have been created that he has been able to confirm as false:

We've heard the following:

• There's a secret morgue containing dozens of unidentified bodies. Not true.

• Air traffic was being controlled to avoid film of dozens of bodies floating offshore. Not true.

• Policemen working rescue duty were literally wading through the dead in knee-high water. Not true.

• Ball High School burned down Monday. Not true.

• Water won't be back on for a month. Probably not true.

And then makes the point of what this thread is about...

These kinds of rumors are the price city and Federal Emergency Management Administration officials pay for alienating and ignoring the public and media personnel who are trying to tell the story.

By the way - after a tremendously inept attempt at a daily look and leave policy by a mayor and city government that is looking more and more incapable of handling this situation with any forethought, the look and leave is now off.

The one cleared lane over the cause way got backed up and service trucks couldn't get in. WHO WOULD HAVE THUNK!

**

Continuing from the Galveston County Daily News....

The city's priority today is efficiency of operations for those in the recovery effort, which is fine, and a desperate effort to avoid embarrassment for the Republican administration in charge of FEMA. It is, after all, about six weeks from a presidential election. Nobody wants another Katrina at this time. What that means is the focus of those in charge of recovery is to get on with the recovery. That's good, and as it should be. But the other main focus, avoiding embarrassment, leads to disrespect for the news media personnel attempting to cover the story. And it leads officials to be less concerned about the fear and anxiety of those who are away from home than they should be. And it leads them, frankly, to be less than candid. Inside meetings of the people running Galveston's recovery, some joke about shoving the media out of the way. They speak of reporters "infiltrating" meetings of the high muckety-mucks running things. Can't have that. Attendees at those meetings are cautioned they may not speak to anyone, not even family, about what goes on inside the recovery management team.

Great editorial. This veil of secrecy in government has got to end. We did not elect officials to hide things from the public. They feel that is now their first duty. What happened to The Open Door policy in government. This needs to be challenged in every city hall, state house and federal building across the country. No wonder there are so many topics on Above Top Secret. Everything this administration does seems to have justified secrecy as a core value. Now every governing body is following suit with secrecy as a policy.

Enough!


[edit on 17-9-2008 by DancedWithWolves]

It's Wednesday morning and it appears the Galveston paper website is down.

reply to post by encoder


I've compiled a bit of information here:

Galveston National Laboratory

The channel 13 tv news in Houston today stated that url=www.texasequusearch.org/Texas Equusearch[/url] is intending to search or at at least try if allowed. EQUU has been contacted by many people indicating they cannot find family members.

This indicates to me that these people knew these people were near the coast and believed lost. I believe EQUU would be able to talk with those inquiring and determine if non contact with friend and family was significant.

Hopefully the numbers of missing is low.

Hey guys, just thought I would post on the nature of the Galveston Lab. I've made an account but there seems to be something wrong with my password so I have to post anonymously. My friend works for a branch of the CDC in Tampa, Florida and this is what she said about the situation in Galveston...

"So...I have not heard anything of note about the labs/lab damage. I can tell you that being a lab of this nature, there is mandatory hurricane protocols that they must follow, which includes destruction of live/infectious cultures of any agents. We do the same in Tampa when there is a hurricane warning. All of the containment procedures include storage in safe-like fridges or incubators. Even with water in the lab, the dangerous pathogens are in a air-tight room. I'll let you know if I hear of anything...stay away from the gov "

Originally posted by roadgravel
It's Wednesday morning and it appears the Galveston paper website is down.

When I checked it at around 10 am (Texas time, not my time), it was working fine. So I guess it was just a temporary glitch -- which is not too surprising under the difficult circumstances they are facing in that region right now.

If you can't access it please let me know via U2U and I'll send you copies of the latest pages (via U2U).

Regards,

Mike

This isn't promising news:

www.khou.com...

Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 12:32 am Post subject: Anyone else get their FEMA application marked as 'no damage?

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I filled out the online form and put 'unknown' when it asked about damage. Now that it's processed it has me filed as no damage. How is it possible that anyone in Galveston is filed as no damage? Every house was damaged.

When I call the help line, it just says all operators are busy, refers me to their website, and hangs up. The website offers no recourse to fix this. I get this over and over again.

Anyone else?

Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 12:56 am Post subject:

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same exact thing here.

FEMA = sucks.

Mayor Extends Her Emergency Powers

GALVESTON — Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas extended her own emergency powers for another seven days on Wednesday morning after a fight between two council members broke the four-person quorum necessary for the group to take any action.

Councilwoman Elizabeth Beeton questioned the mayor’s request to extend her emergency powers, saying the city needed to return to a representative form of government as soon as possible to give the city’s residents a voice in the decisions their leaders are making.

Councilman Danny Weber told Beeton she was clueless about how to operate the city during a disaster and accused her of trying to turn the city’s operations into a media circus. The inability of the council to pass a simple motion about the disaster declaration, because of Beeton’s questions and criticism, proves that the mayor still needs to be the only one calling the shots, Weber said.

Weber then pushed his chair back from the makeshift council meeting table, set up in the lobby of the Galveston County Justice Center, and said, “I’m out of here.”

Without having a quorum of council members, the mayor has the authority to extend her own emergency powers for another seven days.

‘Please don’t do this’

When Thomas realized Beeton did not want to extend the city’s declaration of local disaster, she begged her to change her mind.

“Please don’t do this, Elizabeth, please,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion and her eyes filling with tears. “I can’t even explain how heart-rending the decisions are that I have to make. But please don’t cut this city off, please.”

The local declaration of disaster is not necessary for the city to get access to state and federal aid, but it is necessary for city officials to have some control over the decisions that are being made, City Attorney Susie Green told the council.

Without having a voice at the table, the city would be at the mercy of state and federal officials, Green said.

Beeton wanted to extend the declaration for just two more days, giving the three absent council members time to get back to the island to help make decisions.

But Green said she did not know whether state law allowed the council to extend the declaration for any period less than seven days.

Thomas, Beeton, Weber and Susan Fennewald apparently are the only council members in the city. Thomas said she did not know where Linda Colbert, Tarris Woods or Karen Mahoney were.

There is much more to the story. At a minimum, every Council should already know the procedures in the event of an emergency like this. Have we learned nothing? What a disaster upon a disaster.

I did some digging .
Here is a map of Texas and the Biodiversity agenda which shows the places in RED (where they do not want any people living there at all)

Pretty much covers the whole coastal area around Crystal Beach and Galveston
www.wasserauto.de...

From an article detailing the Galveston city council meeting on extending the emergency powers of the mayor.

The mayor detailed how difficult her job has been the past week.

"All of this has been step by step by step," Thomas said. She paused for a few seconds then tearfully continued, "I don't need this job. I didn't ask for it."

Houston Chronicle

Great. She runs for office, elected and accepts the position but then states she didn't ask to be mayor. Don't run in the next election.

Did she think that a disaster would never happen in her city.

reply to post by Valhall


FEMA, in general, wants to help those whose houses are uninhabitable. Since the Galveston government keeps stating people should returns as they cannot live on the island then by default everyone on Galveston has a house is uninhabitable. Mark them all for help.

A survivor account from Cystal Beach.

www.khou.com...

I have to agree with the OP's premise.

the reports of how many are dead in Galveston are being wildly over blown by a media looking for a Katrina type situation.

The reason that people cannot get back into Galveston is health concerns... Get over the fact that we are not pioneers and have no idea how to deal with life without a toilet or running water.

the government here (i live in Houston) is having a hard enough time with people becoming over reliant of the government as it is... I have never heard of so many people complain that they cannot suckle on the teat of the government.

I can only imagine what it would be like if people could go back to Galveston...

within hours reporters would file reports about how un-prepared the government was to let people move back in.

There is a glaring lack of personal responsibility by a lot of people down here and few if any news out lets dare bring up the facts about when evacuation orders were give, what resources people had to be evacuated, or how many people waited out the storm assuming that within 24 hours the government would be there to make everything all better

The simple facts are:
1. people were and still are being irresponsible.
2. no plan of this magnitude ever goes off without problems.
4. people are acting retarded because there was a hurricane.
5. the media is only (95%) reporting negative stories and you can tell they are would nothing better than to have thousands of dead bodies in the surf or that nuclear plant melt down.


Normal rational people here are already back at work... in fact this is my second day back at the University of Houston.

Originally posted by Valhall
A survivor account from Cystal Beach.

www.khou.com...

I am glad they stayed to help others, but there were other means for the people of the stuck cars. and if they (any one in Galveston) stayed that late it was a personal choice that they made...They knowingly took the risk.


should those people be praised for helping others, Yes.
Are they responsible for their own situation, Yes.

It may not be Ike that caused all the damage...

I am appalled at the way this recovery is being handled. The mayor and the city mgr. must have a really poor view of the citizens of this city. Do you actually think the citizens would not want to come back to see what they have? And the "search and rescue/recovery" effort.. Was that just a ruse to kick in the doors of peoples' houses and see what they had? In 50 years in this same house the house has not been broken into... Until this week.. And the mess that was left behind...OMG...And this was not from the storm... The mayor and city mgr as well as the all the photo-op people need to be taken out back and ... You use YOUR imagination... — By ruben james on Sep. 17 at 9:27 AM

Comments

add: as of an hour ago, search teams are reported to be leaving Galveston having completed their search of the island.


[edit on 17-9-2008 by DancedWithWolves]

Originally posted by irongunner
Normal rational people here are already back at work... in fact this is my second day back at the University of Houston.

Assuming that businesses have power and are not wrecked. The U of H was fortunate, whether by nature or planning.

I imagine that most people, if given the choice, would have passed on the hurricane's arrival and have life as usual today.

Edit:sp

[edit on 9/17/2008 by roadgravel]

i just got done talking to a friend that had a house on Bolivar... He told me that the major issue was the lack of a clearer definition of the storm...

It was a class 2 hurricane wind event, but it was a class 4 or 5 storm surge event

which meant that the evacuation plans were based on a category 2 hurricane. Flooding being the main concern with the evacuation, but with a category 4 or 5 surge they (officials) under estimated the time table.

I retract any and all statements that i made to the contrary.

however, the fact still remains that people know the risks of living in a flood plain area, which is about 9' above sea level. They should be held accountable for their decisions.