Katrina is working very well for the poor.

Barbara Bush, who accompanied the former presidents on a tour of the Astrodome complex Monday, said the relocation to Houston is "working very well" for some of the poor people forced out of New Orleans.

"What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality," she said during a radio interview with the American Public Media program "Marketplace." "And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them."

Barbara Bush: Relocation 'working very well' for poor

On the positive note, at least she didn't say:

"Who cares about the dead, is not like they were white, republican or rich."

 

She's an old lady so those comments don't really bother me too much.

 

Texas has over 250,000 evacuees and on the news it said about 90% of them said they plan on staying here.

 

Funny I think her words were taken out of context [oh my don't say so!]. When you are 'forced' to think about what the current events are, you realize that it seems the 'poor' (as referred) are leaving. It's the property-owners and business owners that are refusing orders to be leave right now. Even when armed national guards people, looters, and the police tried on influence them.

So I guess she's right, the evacuation is going well for the 'poor'.

later,

tom

 

We had some evacuees come in over the weekend and are staying at our civic center. It's amazing to see the good will of people in action, despite the bad will of others.

 

Kind of scary for all these people needing to find work, find places to rent, etc... I would hate to be in their shoes right now. I hope that they can get the water out fast so that people can start moving back in and start working. There will be an increase in the labor market, since there will be so many houses to repair and build, etc..

 

Yeh it is good how everyone pulls together at a time like this.

 

I honestly think a lot of people will end up staying where they are at due to the fact that they really won't have the money to move back and start over. Time and time again you see people on the news saying they have no desire to go back.

Cities in which there are a lot of evacuees really have their work cut out for them. They are immediately faced with feeding, clothing, and housing these people and then the issue of what to do with these people for the long term, because there is no quick solution.

I feel worse for the people that are forced to start anew. A lot of those people have a couple of square foot of space to live in. They are on those little cots in a large open area with everyone else.

It is amazing and heart warming to see all of the response from the public sector. However, we’ve got groups of politicians that are using these people to their advantage, celebrities that are dividing a nation over race issues, a government administration that is slow in responding, thousands dead, hundreds of thousands starving and homeless, and police officers abandoning people and looting as well.

The tragedy of 9-11 united America. Everyone was shocked, but everyone took action and knew that even in their shock they weren’t alone. People were stunned and saddened, but they knew that a nation was with them. Katrina looks like it is dividing us.

I don’t know if it’s because it’s a natural disaster so there’s no easy one single thing to blame or what, but it’s even sadder.

 

The nation was already divided, my friend.

Luckily people ARE helping those in need. And unfortunately, politics is politics....IT SUCKS!

The fact that ANYONE would use an event like Sept. 11th or the Katrina hurricane for political gain is beyond sickening!

 

This has just shown the line deviding us more clearly

 

Lets just keep doing what we are doing. Feed them, clothe them and help them begin building a new income. That is what is important.

 

It will be 6 months minimum before people can safely move back into the flooded areas once the water gets pumped out ... drying out, sanitising the areas, rebuilding ...

 

Yeah they were showing pictures of a wall in a bathroom that was flooded. It had a coat of mold from one end to the other and about 5 feet high. Even the houses that are standing may need to be torn down.

This sucks.

 

Water damage like that will smell really bad too. They have ways of helping that but even the houses that are standing are going to take tons of work.

It's not like they will ever "dry" out there, the humidity makes sure of that. If we were flooded over here at least we could dry things out.

I won't be buying any used cars from that area!

 

Anything with that much contamination absolutely needs to be demolished.

Just breathing in the toxins that black mold releases can kill you!

 

I don't see how they can have black mold so fast, that doesn't sound right, but then again I am no mold expert. Seems like the mold would take about a week to really show up, the staining of the contaminated water would be there right away though.

Anyone here a mold expert that can tell us how long it takes to grow molds after the water recedes?

 

I dont know either. I just remember seing the picture this morning on the news and about gagged.

 

I'm obviously no expert but colonies of stachybotrys take about a week or so to grow.

Hot temps, lack of light and humidity accelerate the growth considerably.

 

And all three were at the highest in the last few days.

 

Here's a good source of info on the "black mold".

It's a PDF.

http://www.wondermakers.com/Articles/Stachybotrys Overview.pdf