[PAA-Discuss] FW: Hamptons Hurricane: A Bankers' Katrina

Sun Aug 28 12:43:45 EDT 2011

According to the rich assholes, we commoners, and especially, commoners of
color, are expendable, Annie. Mustn't let anything happen to the "better"
class of people and their homes and cars and various "toys". There's always
a plan to keep those assholes safe and keep their hair from being blown
about in the wind and their manicures safe from unsightly chips, however,
there is never a plan to help those with no money or very little of it. In
fact NO PLAN IS THE PLAN!!! How's that for a plan or non plan or whatever?
EVERYTHING IS BY DESIGN. Don't you forget that.

Kris

  _____  

From: Anne del Prado [mailto:freespirit_41 at hotmail.com] 
Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2011 5:56 PM
To: PAA DiscussHouston; George and Cathy Bettoney
Subject: [PAA-Discuss] FW: Hamptons Hurricane: A Bankers' Katrina

Greg Palast is great, as usual

  _____  

Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 16:50:41 -0700
From: steve
Subject: Fw: Hamptons Hurricane: A Bankers' Katrina
To: freespirit_41 at hotmail.com

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Greg Palast <palast at gregpalast.net>
To: "stevebonzai at yahoo.com" <stevebonzai at yahoo.com>
Sent: Friday, August 26, 2011 1:12 PM
Subject: Hamptons Hurricane: A Bankers' Katrina

Hamptons Hurricane: A Bankers' Katrina 

by Greg Palast
August 26, 2011 

  <http://www.gregpalast.com/images/katrina/WesthamptonDunesHouse.jpg> Don't
worry:  the bankers are safe.  The sub-prime sharks, derivatives divas,
media mavens and their hairdressers, their trophy wives and their trophies'
personal trainers, the movers and shakers and money-makers, are all out of
danger. Despite the warning that in a couple of days Hurricane Irene could
well hit The Hamptons, the beach of the best of the ruling class will not
lose a tan line. 

I made sure they're safe.  A couple of decades ago, I worked on an emergency
evacuation plan for the county of Suffolk, New York, home of the Hamptons.
It's the wealthiest county in the United States. 

The Hamptons' hurricane plan is six volumes thick.  The police and the
politicians, the fire department and the first responders have their copies,
their orders, their equipment and they are ready to roll before a single
fake-blonde curl is ruffled by untoward weather. 

The last hurricane to hit Long Island, far fiercer than Katrina, took two
lives, not 2,000. 

But then, the Hamptons isn't New Orleans, is it? 

In 1992, a big storm washed into 190 houses on West Hampton Dunes, getting
many grade-B film scripts very wet.  The federal government, with your tax
dollars, rebuilt every single home on the beach (average value then, $2
million each)-and even rebuilt the beach with an endless samba line of
trucks filled with sand, care of the Army Corps of Engineers. 

There's a photo of one, in case you'd like to move in.  (Shouldn't we each
get at least a weekend in the surf for our money?) 

<http://www.gregpalast.com/images/katrina/LafitteDemolitionOrleansPrier11Jul
y2008.jpg> Now look at Patricia  Thomas' home in the Lafitte Housing Project
in New Orleans.  I met her a year after the city flooded; she and her cousin
and her cousin's two kids, just off the bus from refugee centers in Texas,
were told that if they returned to their homes, they would be arrested.
It's been six years and they still are not allowed back in.  Doesn't matter:
three years ago, their houses were torn down to make way for yuppie condos,
for the nouvelle carpetbaggers who will enjoy Lafitte's locale near the
French Quarter. 

Last year, a judge ruled that the Army Corps of Engineers and the federal
government were completely responsible for the flooding of Lafitte and half
the city.  [See the film
<http://mailings.gregpalast.net/t.aspx?S=1&ID=112&NL=1&N=113&SI=124355&ENC=%
212%21GS%21?y%216%214%21JQ%21A%211%28O%213%21CD%21%3E1%21?:%29x%2184%27%216I
%21%3EI3%21/R%21%3d%218Cbp%5b>  'Big Easy to Big Empty.'  This week, the
Palast Investigative Fund is providing the half-hour film without charge.
Click here to download it
<http://mailings.gregpalast.net/t.aspx?S=1&ID=112&NL=1&N=113&SI=124355&ENC=%
212%21GS%21?y%216%214%21JQ%21A%211%28O%213%21CD%21%3E1%21?:%29x%2184%27%216I
%21%3EI3%21/R%21%3d%218Cbq> .] 

Under the Constitution, the President and Congress must authorize payment to
flood victims, as they did for the Westhampton luvvies.  But for the Thomas
family, Obama requested, and Congress, appropriated ... absolutely nothing. 

<http://mailings.gregpalast.net/t.aspx?S=1&ID=112&NL=1&N=113&SI=124355&ENC=%
212%21GS%21?y%216%214%21JQ%21A%211:L%21C%28I%21?*c*$8%5b%3C%21CS9%212%21A7%5
ET%21D%21G%21:%21;%21.%7D3B%21F3a1%21G-*I.,%5E%21CK%2109DO%212?%217%3d%26A%2
12%21A8>
<http://mailings.gregpalast.net/t.aspx?S=1&ID=112&NL=1&N=113&SI=124355&ENC=%
212%21GS%21?y%216%214%21JQ%21A%211:L%21C%28I%21?*c*$8%5b%3C%21CS9%212%21A7%5
ET%21D%21G%21:%21;%21.%7D3B%21F3a1%21G-*I.,%5E%21CK%2109DO%212?%217%3d%26A%2
12%21A8>
<http://mailings.gregpalast.net/t.aspx?S=1&ID=112&NL=1&N=113&SI=124355&ENC=%
212%21GS%21?y%216%214%21JQ%21A%211:L%21C%28I%21?*c*$8%5b%3C%21CS9%212%21A7%5
ET%21D%21G%21:%21;%21.%7D3B%21F3a1%21G-*I.,%5E%21CK%2109DO%212?%217%3d%26A%2
12%21A8> What about the New Orleans evacuation plan? Where were their six
volumes? When I watched the chaos in August 2005, I immediately called FEMA
to ask for a copy of the plan. Why were there no busses to take out those
without cars? The number of deaths should have been ZERO. 

The answer: the New Orleans plan couldn't be found.  The company paid to
draft it, Innovative Emergency Management, couldn't find a copy either. Long
after 2,000 drowned, I found the "plan":  no provision at all for the 27,000
residents without cars. That's not surprising: the hurricane evacuation
contractor had zero experience in hurricane evacuation. Rather, IEM's chief
did have lots of experience in donating to the Republican Party. 

This week marks the sixth anniversary of the biggest ethnic cleansing in
America since the Indian wars of the 19th Century:  the flooding of New
Orleans.  We will celebrate this weekend, by worrying that Hurricane Irene
will make the President and his donors on Martha's Vineyard spill their
daiquiris. 

I met Patricia's cousin five years ago today when, as dusk fell, she was in
tears, wondering where she was going to stay with her kids that night.
"That's what I want to know, Mister, where we going to?" 

Well, I know of some usually-empty and quite nice federal housing units on
Westhampton Dunes.... 

*** 

Greg Palast's investigative report, Big Easy to Big Empty
<http://mailings.gregpalast.net/t.aspx?S=1&ID=112&NL=1&N=113&SI=124355&ENC=%
212%21GS%21?y%216%214%21JQ%21A%211%28O%213%21CD%21%3E1%21?:%29x%2184%27%216I
%21%3EI3%21/R%21%3d%218Cbp%5b> : the Untold Story of How the White House
Drowned New Orleans is available as a free download at www.GregPalast.com
<http://mailings.gregpalast.net/t.aspx?S=1&ID=112&NL=1&N=113&SI=124355&ENC=%
212%21GS%21?y%216%214%21JQ%21A%211%28O%213%21CD%21%3E1%21?:%29x%2184%27%216>
, provided by the Palast Investigative Fund
<http://mailings.gregpalast.net/t.aspx?S=1&ID=112&NL=1&N=113&SI=124355&ENC=%
212%21GS%21?y%216%214%21JQ%21A%211%28O%213%21CD%21%3E1%21?:%29x%2184%27%216I
%21%3EI3%21/R%21%3d%210A%21%3d5%21@> , a 501(c)3 charitable trust, on the
Sixth Anniversary of the New Orleans' flood. 

Palast's continuing investigation of the flood and its connection to the
Deepwater Horizon explosion, filmed for Channel 4 Dispatches UK, will be
published in November by Penguin USA. 

Subscribe to Palast's Newsletter
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212%21GS%21?y%216%214%21JQ%21A%211%28O%213%21CD%21%3E1%21?:%29x%2184%27%216>
and podcasts
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oh%21%3E;%216%214u%21I%218%3C@%21Izs%21*p%21%2bl%213o%7DR%5C%21%3E>  and
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