Heath Risks to Displace 100,000 Katrina Evacuees from Government Trailers
Health officials have announced they’ll recommend moving 100,000 Hurricane Katrina evacuees after confirming dangerous levels of formaldehyde gas in their trailers. The move follows last year’s disclosure the Federal Emergency Management Agency routinely suppressed internal warnings showing the gas levels threatened the evacuees’ health and safety. Internal emails show FEMA officials were only concerned with avoiding any legal liability for the evacuees’ potential health problems.
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/2/14/headlines#10
At least we have our priorities straight... I don't have the energy at present to express how i feel about this, other to say that I am ashamed to say that people claiming to represent me are causing such injustice. I saw it when I went down there, talked to folks about it and learned it was common knowledge, Of coourse it was, how many families live in those 100,000 poisoned trailers? I'm betting about 100,000. I read about it ever since, and there are thousands of people, mostly elderly, young and otherwise vulnerable who have gotten sick and in some cases died because they were placed in poisoned campers. Of course, most of them were manufactured with plywood bought in China and Africa, because the huge demand outstripped our supply, which is fine, other than the plywood in those countires is made with much higher formaldehyde levels. Oh, and I suppose it is unfortunate that this substance expands and releases in hot and humid climates. good thing the Bayou is temperate and dry...
Rebuild New Orleans with dignity. It was a fine city, with the finest of inhabitants, embodying a unique richness of culture unparallelled in this country. Today, I can vouch for the undying spirit of the community down there. They will make it right again, if they get only what is owed to them under the law, and perhaps a smigin of support from our leadership. I guess I need to re-define that word in my internal dictionary, because it has not existed in this drawn out tragedy. For my part, and for what it is worth, I apologize for the disgrace which has befalen thee at the hands of the federal, state and local governments acting in the interests of the citizenry. I vow to make my voice heard about it...
So this past weekend Mike came up from LA and Jon came in from Denver to visit
Matty and Joy and me. We had a blast. We got out and enjoyed the 70 degree day on saturday, then went and saw the North Mississippi All Stars at night at The Independent. I think I am falling in love with San Fransisco. Thanks for being such great hosts, Matt and Joy!
Matty practicing an ancient art form requiring supreme balance. Shortly afterward this amazing art was found directly in front of where he concentrated his efforts. Coincidence? Or was it something Moore? Or Flannagan? Joy had her doubts, but kept them to herself.
Mike and Jon braved the chilly, shark-infested shallows.
Alcatraz. There was no need to escape this weekend.
A string of sunny days has me walking to and fro. I shall continue as long as I can... I leave Sunday for the balmy environs of Bangkok.
Because I have really enjoyed these past two years of life, I thought I would pay homage to the day I nearly died two years ago... taken verbatim from my old blog site www.larsmeanderings.blogspot.com.
“The Chicken Bus Bonanza”
After receiving a cash wire from my father, having had my ATM card cancelled due to fraudulent use of my account by thieves clever enough to place information scanners in the ATM at the bus terminal in Chetumal, Mexico, I searched the disorderly bus station in Antigua for my ride to Chimaltenango. “Where’s the place to buy a ticket to Chimal?” I asked a bystander in my best Spanish. “No ticket buying here, just get on the bus.” Another man aggressively approached me and answered my next question, and I hopped aboard as it pulled away from the dusty lot. I gazed out at distant and pluming volcanoes as we stopped at every opportunity to pick up passengers for the next hour. This old school bus was retired in Canada and reborn in Guatemala, alive with new color and the capacity sign removed, we rode three to a seat designed for 2 children, my legs angled but with knees rubbing against the metal at bumps, which are continual on these shockless rides.
My legs thank me as I get off the bus at Chamal, and I am handed my backpack down from the top of the bus, where it had been strapped. I asked an old man where I could catch the bus to Xela. He helped me hoist my considerable bag onto my shoulders, and I put my smaller bookbag containing my valuables on my front side, and I waddled after him like a walking manatee. It took me a couple of minutes to cross the lawless, frenzied intersection and the man stated the obvious, that it was very dangerous. Little did I know this crossing was the safest part of the next three hours.
Lickity split, the bus to Xela is leaving as I cross the street, and it isn’t close to full so I just bring my lumberage on the bus and plough my way towards the back, placing my large bag in the isle. I had asked the driver, as I entered the bus, if it was headed to Xela, and he said,“Si, directo,” which made me laugh, as directo on third class transport means stopping at any nook and cranny that may have a potential passenger. But while that is normally true, this driver drove as if trying to break a personal record. Or perhaps he accepted a bet that he couldn’t make our destination in a certain time. Although not uncommon for a bus to make double passes on blind mountain curves, this guy was doing it at every opportunity, drawing shakes of the head from a few passengers towards the front. People felt obliged to watch the road ahead, lest the driver not see oncoming traffic. Perched thus, blood pressure raised, I put on my headphones and tried to relish in the fact that we were making great time.
I was still listening to music an
hour later when we stopped at a common stop for buses to get passengers. During
these stops, which last anywhere from 10 seconds to ten minutes for unknown
reasons, a carnival of merchants board the bus to sell their goods. Sodas, fried
plantains, French fries, chips, tortillas, candies, peanuts, ice cream, are
carried at passenger eye level, and they board from front and back and struggle
to get past each other –and my bulky bag – to hopefully make a few cents per
bus. There is a tendency for people not to buy until the very last instant, as
if out of pity. I tend to buy from those unfortunate enough to not able to make
it onto the bus, through the window.
There are other salespeople too, who
sell things nobody could possibly need and should not want: this time a child of
perhaps seven pushes tiny plastic lanterns that have a bottom that light up; a
young man dressed nicely boards and from the front of the bus does his best
salesman pitch about the miraculous properties of a green bottled cream you can
buy for only $2. Nobody ever buys this stuff, as far as I can tell, only the
food and drink. I attempt to empathize with their reality, contemplate that
people actually do this for a living, undoubtedly they do this every day for
next to nothing. Still listening to my tunes as this frantic activity subsides,
the bus driver is pulling on the suspended tassels connected to horn ever so
slightly. Army of commerce exits.
Suddenly, people towards the front are standing and looking out of the window. Now half the bus is standing and stretching to peer down towards the steps. I remove my headphones to hear. People in the back row open the back door and exit and briefly cahse someone across the road, but he gets away. What the hell just happened? I don’t know but we are moving now. People excitedly talking all around. Five minutes later we slow down for what I think are passengers, but no.
We pull alongside another bus and our bus driver’s helper hurls an object at the parked bus, shattering the driver’s side window! Our bus accelerates but the other bus’ helper runs out and throws a coke bottle at us, hitting the back of our bus, very loud in my ears. A shocked old man wearing a sombrero shouts, “Andale! Andale!”
And the race was on.
I am astounded, befuddled. But astonishment of recent events soon gave way to legitimate fear of impending ones, as my driver had a look on his face of anger and determination, reflected in the rear view mirror and in his achievement of insane speeds and daredevil passes. He is not stopping for passengers as he works to pull away from the hateful enemy. Thankfully, he is succeeding a bit. Who knows what would happen should the other bus catch us? In this lawless land, murder is a legitimate possibility. And the locals continually looking over their shoulder to see where the other bus is reinforces this notion ricocheting inside my skull. Closer to the front of my thoughts, though, is that we may all die during this brash display of stupidity and disregard for innocent life. Perhaps the driver’s supreme confidence in the protection of the cross dangling from the front window affords him this behavior. Whatever it is, I want off, but am oddly frozen by fear, curiosity and obligation to arrive at my destination.
Just when I think we have comfortable lead, as I can’t see the other bus coming two mountain curves back, we come up to the dreaded WIDE LOADS, two deep leading the pack, with five cars and a semi truck behind them. Heads turn over shoulders repeatedly, as we crawl up the mountain. Driver tries desperately to pass unsuccessfully, as cars whiz downhill around corners at us. We nearly clip another bus as we try again. And now the enemy bus is in sight, gaining. As we climb higher towards 11,000 feet, and as I think it can’t get any scarier… unbelievable, no… thick fog rolls in. Some oncoming cars have lights on, others don’t. It is a strain to see ahead, a brief break in the whiteness, driver takes a chance on a downslope and we pass half the group, forcing, budging our way into the line pile. Now zero visibility. Driver makes a pass anyway and we miraculously pass WIDE LOAD. The driver accelerates as if there is no fog. I am straining to see ahead, and see nothing. Then suddenly railing! Slammed brakes, squeaky turn. Oh my god, I want off now but it is impossible here. Nobody is saying anything to the stone faced driver. Going down hill now, speed increased in spite of the cotton covering our eyes, my tongue is in my throat. Suddenly breaks slammed and we are swerving and back of white van without taillights in view, I scream. Missed by inches, I thought we were dead. The men surrounding me, after my gaining their composure, turn to defense mechanism of making fun of gringo who nearly soiled himself. “Aqui no mas!,” They joke to me. Yeah, funny. I rant briefly about how insane this is and why doesn’t somebody chill that driver out. I can’t do it and I can’t get off here, or I would. Adrenaline pumping though veins, I am becoming internally livid. Men see this in my eyes and implore me to relax. I am paralyzed with emotion, but I am rescued to a certain extent by improvement in conditions.
We descend out of the fog. Other bus must be stuck behind WIDE LOAD or over the cliff. My driver resumes his confident, maniacal driving and we are relatively safe. We only see the trailing bus again as we approach town and get stuck in traffic. My driver took a strange route to the bus station, and we lost them.
The chicken bus, so called because this third class ride stops all over to get passengers who are carrying anything and everything, and even live chickens are transported within. A crowded traveling circus of humanity, with any plausible sights, sounds and smells contained in a rapidly moving old Canadian school bus, painted in a plethora of color and decal. Infinitely more interesting than first class, but undoubtedly less comfortable and likely more dangerous. There were only a few more of those to take while in Guatemala before I arrived in Ecuador, where the mountains are bigger. Ahh, but you never know in life, so you take your chances and roll with the punches. But I have learned to reduce my chances by taking a higher class of bus when possible, and in my short experience here, the bus rides have paled in comparison to those in Guatemala, or the ride along the precipice north of the Tiger Leaping Gorge road in China, or even a couple my brother endured with me while in Thailand, but I knock on wood as I say it…
