New Orleans vs. Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans and everyone was asking the same question, what went wrong? There was a wide range of things that went wrong during and after Hurricane Katrina but for my purposes I am going to focus on one particular aspect of New Orleans and go into some detail about that aspect. I will be focusing on the levees and what went wrong with them and how it should have been handled.

The levees may arguably be what we have heard the most about on the news in terms of the main thing that went wrong. You were constantly hearing the levees broke and the water came rushing into the city. The levees were put in place to protect New Orleans from flooding because New Orleans is a city very prone to floods considering it is below sea level. So then next question is why did the levees break? Weren't they built to withstand exactly what had happened? Well some people down in New Orleans knew that those levees wouldn't be able to hold against a really strong hurricane such as Hurricane Katrina. One of the accounts from City Adrift: New Orleans Before and After Katrina give a very interesting story. Chapter one starts off by talking about "The Storm" which you assume is Hurricane Katrina until you get about 5 paragraphs into the reading. At this point it is said "The year is 1965. The storm was Hurricane Betsy." The levees were overtopped and breached during that storm as well causing countless amounts of damages and taking many lives. From this reading we get a look into the past in particular an event that was very similar to Hurricane Katrina but that happened 40 years ago. This just shows you how vulnerably New Orleans is and that it has been through a lot of hurricanes in its past and I am sure that Katrina won't be the last.

The article They Saw it Coming by Mark Fischetti has some interesting facts about what people in New Orleans were trying to do to help better prepare the city's levee system against something like Hurricane Katrina. "By the late 1990's, scientists at Louisiana State University and the University of New Orleans had perfected computer models showing exactly how a sea surge would overwhelm the levee system, and had recommended a set of solutions. The Army Corps of Engineers, which built the levees, had proposed different projects." But the government was not listening to what the people in New Orleans were saying about the levees not being good enough. A disaster is what it took to get there attention.

When the levees broke they caused problems that no one had taken the time to think about. For instance from The Frontline documentary The Storm the Army said they lost 15 high water trucks with communications supplies when the levees broke. Also 500 school buses were flooded, these are the vehicles that are used for evacuation purposes. In the video they said that the National Guard spent 24 hours trying to save themselves before they were able to send people out and help the public. That may not seem like a long time but 24 hours during a disaster is a very crucial amount of time that can not afford to be lost. So if you don't have enough vehicles to evacuate people of course it is going to take more time and more trips to evacuate everyone. That is just leaving people in harms way for a longer amount of time which is going to lead to casualties.

There are plenty of cases and studies that were done over time to show that these levees were not prepared to handle a hurricane of category 3 or more. But because the government was not making New Orleans and its safety a top priority nothing got done in terms of upgraded or fixing the levee system that was in place. Scientists were offering many different solutions if only someone was willing to implement them. In the article I mentioned earlier, They Saw It Coming(http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/02/opinion/02fischetti.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1), they listed some of the alternative ideas that were being proposed but none of them were ever put into effect as we all know.

As you can see the levees breaking obviously caused more water to rush into the city and spread quickly but what you might not have known was how much information they had about the levees and that they were something that needed to be fixed. The levee break also affected the rescue time because it was "unexpected" and the National Guard was dealing with saving their stuff first. What happened in New Orleans was terrible and will never be forgotten, let us just hope that we can learn from all the suffering that they went through and that we can better protect New Orleans and all other vulnerable cities.

New Orleans is like every other city in the United States....except its not

New Orleans is arguably the most unique city in the United States mostly because of its history. Historically they are unique people because of all the races that have inhabited the area. From the Europeans (French and Spanish), to the African Americans brought over during slavery, to the Caribbeans that come from the South. Over the years these races as well as their individual cultures have all melted together and created the culture in New Orleans.
I personally had no idea how rich New Orleans' history was. The movie we watched really gave me some insight into what has happened in the city of New Orleans over the years. They had the first free blacks, they had to buy their freedom but at least they had the option. The rest of the world had not even considered such a thought. The freed blacks ended up living pretty good lives and were free to have any job that they were able to perform. They created the first black newspaper The Tribune (L'Union.). Once the paper was in circulation they were able to spread the word of equality and basically started the Civil Rights movement. Few people outside of New Orleans know that fact. This led to the first desegregated school in New Orleans. As you can see historically New Orleans is very rich thus making it very unique.
Geographically New Orleans is unique because a lot of it is below sea level. The highest points are the banks of the river. Then they have a bay and the ocean basically surrounding them. Normally this would be a prime area for a city because you can have a port for sea travel and a river to transport goods throughout the whole country. Geography has also been a reason why New Orleans has a history of lower levels of racial violence. "Professor John Adams of the University of Minnesota has observed that two conditions commonly presage racial violence: the expectation of a better life that is routinely frustrated, and ghettos so big that blacks see only blacks, where resentment feeds incessantly upon itself." New Orleans didn't satisfy either because their ghettos "remained small and fragmented."
In the "Great Deluge" Douglas Brinkley talks about Katrina and some signs that led up to a disaster. "After [Hurricane] Betsy [in 1965] these levees were designed for a Category 3," Sheriff Jeff Hingle of Plaquemines Parish. He said that when Katrina was on its way. He knew the levees weren't going to be able to hold the water. He was urging people to evacuate.
It's sad what Katrina did to New Orleans but from what I have learned about the culture and people I don't expect anything less than a full recovery, but it is going to take some time.

Blackberrry Update

So as you guys know i was having some serious problems with my blackberry a couple of weeks ago and it was driving me crazy. well i couldn't take it anymore and Sprint was not helping me out at all. i called them they told me that there was nothing they could do but that i should go to a repair store and leave it with them and they might be able to fix it. i went to Kings Plaza mall in brooklyn because they have a Sprint repair store there and it's only like 15 mins from my house. i made an appointment online and i figured i would just go there and be maybe 20 mins and they would either be able to help me or not, but of course it wasn't that easy. i get there and they tell me to leave my phone and come back in an HOUR AND A HALF!! i was like fine ill just walk around the mall with my friends (that god someone came with me) and kill some time. i went to a few stores ate some food then went back to the Sprint store at the time they had said for me to return. i got there and they made me wait for another 30 mins so by this point i'm already pissed off. FINALLY they call my name and i ask they guy so what did you guys do? he goes we did a hard reset. i was like are you serious??? i told him i could have done that at home and these were his words exactly "Yea, you could have." that was it for me, i was like well thanks for nothing because the hard reset did NOT fix my problems. so i went home and canceled my contract with Sprint, yes i have to pay a $200 early cancellation fee but that is how pissed off i am with them. needless to say i got a new blackberry with verizon and i am very happy with it :). it is actually the new curve (Blackberry 8530) and instead of the trackball it has a sensor pad that i actually really like. if anyone is thinking about getting this model or upgrading to a blackberry i would suggest this one, it comes with a ton of memory and feels awesome when you are using it. here is a youtube review from crackberry about the model:
Thanks to everyone who tried to help me with the problems i was having with the old one it was much appreciated.

Citizen Journalism

"Blogs provide a means of publishing and distributing that is cheap and simple enough for everyone in the Western world to use directly, whether from home, school, the library or even a mobile phone." (pg. 85 Blogging) Before blogs the mainstream media was very much in control of the information that the public was receiving because they were the only entity that could pay for the costs of distributing the information. But blogs have become almost a check to the mainstream media by constantly questioning and disputing what the mainstream is presenting. Some people thought that blogs were a threat to journalism but I see them as a positive for a couple of reasons. Blogs have the big advantage of giving you first-hand reports from people that are experiencing the events as they are unfolding. Blogs can also give you more in depth information about a specific topic that the news has chosen not to cover or simple didn't cover enough. Finally blogs can also help you find information about a specific topic in one place through filterblogs.
Yoani Sanchez takes full advantage of all the possibilities a blog offers through her blog Generacion Y. She blogs about her life in Cuba and has a very critical stance towards her government and how they treat the people. She posts videos about her daily activities and gives people an inside look into what life is like in Cuba. Cuba is a country where the government controls much of what mainstream media distribution so Yoani Sanchez's blog gives insight into questions that aren't asked by the mainstream media. In this sense she is taking advantage of the freedom blogs give you even though often times it is not easy for her to post something she still updates her blog constantly.
Blogs have a lot to offer but you should not rely solely on blogs for all your information because that could be doing an injustice to yourself. The reason is that if you break it down blogs are usually run by people who don't have an specific training in the news sector. So these are normal people like you and me. That is not to say that there isn't valuable information in blogs but you should try to back up the information found in a blog against a credible news source if possible. For example if your rely solely on Yoani Sanchez's blog for information about Cuba you will have a very specific idea of Cuba as a country. Because it is her blog she can write whatever she wants and she has chosen to use her blog to talk about issues that the Cuban government either ignores or doesn't represent the right way. Her blog paints the Cuban government in a negative light most of the time. I am not saying her blog should be ignored but you can not rely on her blog alone for information about Cuba especially if you don't know anything else about Cuba.
I think that blogs are good for the mainstream news because they can question them but at the same time you need the mainstream media as a credible source. Blogs are not going to go away so we have to learn how to use them correctly because they can be a huge asset in obtaining information.

Black Friday

So this year i finally did the midnight madness thing for black friday. me and a couple of my friends decided to go out to the Tanger Outlet mall in Deer Park. Now i live in Queens so we had about an hour drive to get out there. But it was really fun and i saved a ton of money. i always wondered if it was really worth all the hassle to actually go shopping early black friday morning. i wondered are the deals really that good. this year i finally found the answer to that question and the answer is yes. i saved about $70 overall and my friends saved even more.
If you have never gone shopping on black friday i suggest you try it next year and save a lot of money because trust me you will wish you brought more money when you see the deals. How many of you guys did go shopping on black friday? Anyone have any good stories or really good deals that they found?
hope everyone had a great thanksgiving

Vacation Mode...

so for like a week i have been in a vacation kind of mode which means i have been putting things off that i should be doing specifically schoolwork. this little thanksgiving is a nice break from the school work but at the same time it is not good. what i mean is that after this week i really have to get into finals mode, i can't believe finals are almost here where did this semester gooooo. but if there is one thing i hate about little vacations within a semester it's trying to get yourself back into school mode again. i know that it is only a couple of days but for me those couple of days throw me off just enough.
anybody else get this same feeling? how are you guys feeling about finals being like right around the corner AGAIN?

Government Being Held Responsible For Katrina

In the New York Times on Thursday there was an article about a court case ruling that occurred on Wednesday. "A federal judge found that poor maintenance of a major navigation channel by the Army Corps of Engineers led to some of the worst flooding after Hurricane Katrine." If this ruling is upheld then the government could be forced to pay tens of millions of dollars to homeowners whose property was damaged from the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet known as MR-GO.
Here are two links to the articles that I read from the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/19/us/19orleans.html?_r=1&sq=katrina&st=cse&adxnnl=1&scp=2&adxnnlx=1258761780-WYRV8lRtzps2N3+31mFpfg
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/us/20orleans.html?scp=4&sq=katrina&st=cse

I thought that these two articles came at a perfect time for class because we are about to get into this topic. I think that this ruling is a definite step forward for the people that lost so much because of Katrina. I think you guys should check out the articles if you have the time because they have some cool illustrations that show what happened and kinda what went wrong at least from one side of the issue. I think that the government should help these people out because a lot of them lost EVERYTHING. But like it said in the article the government is probably going to appeal the ruling so nothing is concrete yet. But the fact that one judge ruled in favor of the homeowners gives them a fighting chance and also brings the issue to the headlines again. This should be interesting to see where this goes and what the result ends up being in the long run.

The Office

ok i want to know if anyone watches the show the office?
i love this show i think it is hilarious. i work in an office which is why i think i find it that much funnier. if you've never watched this show i think that you should give it a shot because the cast is really funny together. steve carell is the main character in the series and he really ties everything together. he was made for this role and whoever did the casting on the show deserves some type of reward because not only is he perfect the rest of the cast is just as perfect. check this episode out and leave some feedback on it. i want to know what you guys think and be honest.

Voice Impressions

One thing that always gets me is when people can do really good impersonations of famous people. it never gets old for me especially if someone that i personally know is doing the impersonations. but her is a video from youtube and this guys is pretty damn good. i never really heard anyone do a morgan freeman impersonation before and his is right on. if you close your eyes you forget its an impersonation. hope this gives everyone a little laugh and some entertainment.

Internet

So there was a line from that movie that we watched that i just cant get out of my head. the line was the internet has caused the biggest generation gap since rock n roll. this statement sums up the way i have always felt about me and my parents in terms of technology. technology has always been a part of my life so im pretty good with it and i am interested by it. i like to have the latest gadgets and i consider myself pretty good at figuring out technology. but my parents on the other hand are completely different. my dad is pretty good with computers as long as he is dealing with the stuff that he knows how to do. what i mean by that is he uses computers at work (who doesnt) so he knows word and excel stuff like that. of course he knows how to use the internet too but that takes him a little longer to use. he is not as good with the internet as he is with those other programs. my mom can just turn on the computer and go to my younger brothers school website to get his homework assignments, thats all that she can do and i am not exaggerating. both my parents are around 55 and the differences in our generations is staggering.
i understand that parents want their kids to be careful online but once they are online there is really no way to stop them from doing what they are going to do. yes there are parental controls and locks or whatever but the kids will eventually find a way around it, i know i did when i was younger. i dont think the internet is different then the real world meaning that you raise your child with certain ideals and teach them right and wrong and then you let them go on their own know they are going to make the right decisions. the internet is no different from that so as long as you raised your child in a loving way and instilled values and perspectives in that child then you have to trust that the child will be able to make the right decisions. the story about the boy ,ryan i think his name was, was really sad and i feel really bad for his parents but the internet does give kids this opportunity to live another life in a way. the only thing i could say is that parents need to make sure to still have contact and talk with their children everyday. ask them how they are doing or if they want to talk about anything and dont immediately flip out on them if its something that you get mad when you hear it. it really pays to just listen to your child sometimes because if you dont their is a whole internet world that will and they might not say the right things to your child.

Cool Way to Lock Your Door

I am a person who is very interested by technology and this video kinda caught my eye when I first saw it. let me know what you guys think.

Blackberry

I have a blackberry like I'm sure half of you in class do as well and I'm pretty happy with it overall but it has been driving me crazy lately. I have the 8830 world edition by sprint and it just doesn't come with as much memory as the other models so I'm constantly running into memory problems. I don't have that many things on it like maybe 5 apps or so. But my memory is just about full and I have to restart my phone a couple of times a day. Also it seems to cause I problem when I go into the subway then come back out it usually can't reconnect without me restarting it. If anyone has the same model let me know how its treating you. If anyone has any general ideas or hints for me I would appreciate it. A memory card will not help cause you can't save apps to the memory card only the internal memory. Oddly enough I'm writing this from my blackberry so hopefully it works.

Introduction

So this is my first blog and I just want to give a little information about myself. I'm a senior at baruch hoping to graduate sometime next year and i am majoring in accounting. i live in Broad Channel, Queens a place that a lot of people dont really know about. its a small island right near rockaway, its basically 20 blocks of houses. im a huge Mets fan and love baseball so im pretty depressed with the world series right now but its been a couple of good games so far should be interesting tonight.