Rita Educating

For hurricane news-junkies, the Houston Chronicle is doing a bang-up job tracking the coming storm; here's the full coverage page, a staff blog, and a "citizen journalism" group blog by Houston residents. Other newspaper websites worth a look: the Corpus Christi Caller Times (where you can learn that "Rita Doesn't Stop Bingo"), the Beaumont Enterprise, Galveston's Daily News, and The Port Arthur News. Also worth a read is Metroblogging Houston; other suggestions welcome.

And of course the Times-Picayune, America's Newspaper of the Year (for my money), is the best place to read about the ongoing tragedy in New Orleans.

Comments

[Jesse Walker]

Libertarian trivia: For several years in the nineteenth century, the Galveston Daily News' chief editorialist was the individualist anarchist James L. Walker.

Also, for about a month in 1989, they employed as a telemarketer one Jesse Walker.

[Stevo Darkly]

Oh, crap -- "24 Evacuees Die in Bus Fire."

Of course, someone will get sued for this, on the grounds that if they had not been evacuated, the nursing home residents might not have died.

[Matt Welch]

Any relation?

[Stevo Darkly]

Jesse: I've always been under the impression that Texas is a relative hotbed of libertarian thinking -- the guys they send to the White House notwithstanding.

Wait, maybe that's Texans' secret strategery -- any local/state politicians who show signs of being troublesome get exiled to the District of Columbia, where they're relatively harmless, because Texas can always secede if necessary. (At least, that's my other impression: They're always on the verge of secession.)

[Stevo a Bit More Darkly Than U]

Matt: My real last name happens to be "Evacuee," but thankfully, no relation.

[Rick Barton]

Jesse,

Interesting. And I'm guessing no relation cuz if there was, you woulda told us.

Matt.

Nice flick ref. in the dyslexic mode.

[Jesse Walker]

Matt, Rick: I doubt there's any kinship. My Walkers are from Tennessee.

[Rick Barton]

After that, Stevo might need to revert to his previous screen name: Stevo Thread Killer

[mediageek]

Hey, thanks for the linkage.

Interesting

Tell me if I'm reading this wrong, but according to the historical map, the weather pattern responsible for the 1900 hurricane that hit Galveston didn't die out until it hit the North Atlantic?

[Dedskin]

Nice play on the title of one of my favorite movies.
Julie Walters ought to be elevated to peerage.

[dead_elvis]

Speaking of yet another disaster, and considering the editorial that Tierney wrote on Wal-Mart (WEMA) vs. FEMA, I found a dumb little poll that is just screaming to get fucked with.

That one vote so far for Tierney, that's me.

[Janis Gore]

WWLTV.com is in.

[Shannon Love]

I can offer some insight from people on the ground.

(1) The media didn't do a very good job of educating everybody about the real risk. They made little distinction between zones were mass damage was possible and zones that would experience normal hurricane conditions. As a result, many people in relatively safe zones evacuated sooner than they should have creating the transport system overload. Some of the local reporting was completely over the top.

My mother tried to evacuate on Thursday, got stopped by the traffic and then came out with little trouble on Friday. In the future, the evacuation staging will have to be enforced more strictly somehow. Public education and more responsible media is the key to this I think.

(2) Language support: My daughter volunteered at a local shelter. Many of the adult residents of the shelter spoke only spanish. Although most of the formal Red cross people knew some spanish most of the auxiliary workers did not. My daughter drafted children to work as translators. In the future, we probably need more multilingual people.

(3) My daughter reports that the shelters were very well run and organized. Especially given that many of the personnel were last minute volunteers.

[SteveMG]

Matt:
Times-Picayune paper of the year?

Okay, I didn't follow much of their hurricane coverage so I'll defer to you; but it's one of the worst papers in the country the rest of the time.

Just horrid covering N.O. and Louisiana politics and state mis- mal- and nonfeasance over the years.

And the sports section is just the pits.

SMG

[SteveMG]

"Okay, I didn't follow much of their hurricane coverage so I'll defer to you; but it's one of the worst papers in the country the rest of the time."

Let me revise and extend my remarks. If you're referring to its online site - nola.com - you're absolutely right. It was absolutely the best place for current information and for residents to post information or questions about the disaster.

Should win several awards for that.

But the print version is very poorly done.

SMG