Category: Hurricane

One-third of Republicans in Louisiana believe Obama was responsible for the US Government’s poor response to Hurricane Katrina

On By A.P.In Barack Obama, Bush, Condoleezza Rice, George Bush, Hurricane, Kanye West, Louisiana, Obama, Politics, racism, Republican, StupidityLeave a comment

katrina

A large number of Louisiana Republicans think President Barack Obama is to blame for the federal government’s poor response to Hurricane Katrina, according to a new Public Policy Polling survey released Wednesday — despite the fact that the storm occurred three years before he took office.

The Democratic-leaning polling firm, which provided its results to Talking Points Memo, found that 29 percent of Louisiana Republicans said Obama was responsible for the Katrina response. Twenty-eight percent put the blame on President George W. Bush, whose administration did in fact oversee the federal response to Katrina. Nearly half (44 percent) of the Louisiana Republicans polled didn’t know who to blame.

Bush was heavily criticized at the time for the government’s response to Katrina, a storm that caused 1,833 fatalities, damaged an estimated $81 billion in property, and ranks among the five deadliest hurricanes in United States history. He remained on vacation in Texas as the hurricane rocked the Gulf Coast, before belatedly cutting his trip short and returning to Washington. An infamous photo of Bush peering out the window of Air Force One at the wreckage was also attacked as insensitive, and the former president himself later acknowledged the photo was a “huge mistake” in a 2010 interview.

Bush’s approval ratings plunged in the months following the disaster, and his administration was dogged by suggestions that race was a factor in its response efforts.

During a live concert for hurricane relief, rapper Kanye West said, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people,” a moment Bush later said was the “most disgusting moment” of his presidency. Condoleezza Rice, who served as Bush’s secretary of state, recalled in her memoir that there was clearly “a race problem” during Katrina, although she disputed allegations that Bush or his administration were racist.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/21/obama-hurricane-katrina_n_3790612.html

Sandy Unearths Bones and Caskets

On By A.P.In bones, Connecticut, Hurricane, Lincoln Oak, Mr. C, New Haven, Sandy, skeleton, storm, Weather, Yale University1 Comment

Residents of New Haven, Conn., got an eerie Halloween surprise when a famed tree uprooted during Hurricane Sandy, unearthing the bones of a woman who died nearly 200 years ago – and maybe from others who died during the same period.

Around 6 p.m. on Monday the famous tree at New Haven’s Upper Green, named the “Lincoln Oak” after President Abraham Lincoln, was uprooted as Sandy swept through. New Haven resident Katie Carbo was passing by when she saw the back of a skull in the 60- to 70-foot-tall tree’s roots, police said.

Carbo quickly contacted the New Haven police, and soon after detectives were on the scene as a crowd of onlookers formed. Officer David Hartman with the New Haven Police Department told ABCNews.com that the timing of the discovery was particularly striking.

“I found myself standing there, among onlookers saying, ‘Wow this is really cool, the day before Halloween,’” he said.

Detectives from the NHPD’s Bureau of Identification and the state Medical Examiner’s office came to collect the bones, which Hartman said included a spine and rib cage.

New Haven police also contacted staff from Yale University’s anthropology department, Hartman said, and the New Haven Independent shot some images.

The NHPD said that it had not launched a criminal investigation into the discovery, and that the remains were being taken to the medical examiner’s office.

“What we haven’t yet determined is what will happen with the remains,” Hartman said. “This archaeological event that is going on will last for probably about a week, they’re estimating.”

New Haven police said that the bones belonged to a probable victim of yellow fever or smallpox, who likely was buried between 1799 and 1821, when the headstones were removed to New Haven’s Grove Street Cemetery, but the bodies were never relocated.

Later, the New Haven Independent, citing an initial investigation by an anthropologist and a state investigator, reported bones at the scene actually may be from two or more centuries-old skeletons – not just one.

The Lincoln Oak was planted at the town green by Admiral Andrew Hall Foote’s Grand Army of the Republic post, in honor of the 100th anniversary of Lincoln’s birthday in 1909, according to the New Haven police.

Robert S. Greenberg, a local historian, said that the town green is the burial ground for as many as 5,000 to 10,000 bodies.

Hartman said that he learned today that this is actually not the first time this has happened on the historic Upper Green. According to a local historian, the same situation occurred in 1931, when an uprooted tree brought up skeletal remains, he said.

New Haven is not the only place where the dead were unearthed in Sandy’s wake. The Associated Press reported that at a cemetery in Crisfield, Md., two caskets were forced out of their graves, making their sides visible from the grass, after the cement slabs covering the graves became dislodged.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/10/superstorm-sandy-unearths-bones-caskets/

Thanks to Mr. C for bringing this to the attention of the It’s Interesting community.