I live in Crozet and drive into Charlottesville most morning. Listening to NPR this morning, they were discussing how heating fuel prices may rise 70% this winter. Gas prices are quite high already. Why do 90% of all the vehicles on the road in the morning have only one person?
Browsing Category Thoughts, etc.
NOLA Perspective from a VMI alumnus
QandO has become one of my favorite blogs, which led me to this – “I don’t see that the level of funding was really a contributing factor in this case,” said Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, chief of engineers for the corps. “Had this project been fully complete, it is my opinion that based on the intensity of this storm that the flooding of the business district and the French Quarter would have still taken place.”Despite the fact that Lt. Gen. Strock is a fellow VMI graduate, he has the credibility inherent in being a military officer, not a politician with decidedly political goals. Yes, Bush cut the budget for the levee system, but Lt. Gen. Strock answers that question as well – The other question is, in general is the civil works budget of the Army Corps of Engineers suffering because of the war in Iraq?… And the reason I say that is that if you look at the funding levels of the corps from pre-war days of 2001 and 2002, it has been a fairly steady level.
Possible Progress in New Orleans
Two posts worth reading – Instapundit has some news that I haven’t seen on CNN, MSNBC or FOX – factual reasons why some of the relief is taking so long. And then I see this – The Federal Emergency Management Agency is blocking some 500 airboat pilots from entering New Orleans to assist in rescuing victims still trapped in floodwaters. Huh? And finally, this, assigning some local blame.
Local charity needs help
If you are looking for a way to tangibly contribute, please read the pdf below. In the Daily Progress today there was an article about Calvary Chapel having gone to the Hurricane Katrina area and delivering water and tarps to the hurricane victims…. There has already been arranged transportation and gas has been contributed for by a donor…. SW, the Monticello Animal Hospital and at Gold’s Gym.
Creative thinking needed!
Continue to pray in your own way and your own words, that all those immediately involved can be sustained with energy, clarity of thought and love.In our area, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Northern Mississippi and northwest Louisiana, we are working every minute of every day to identify inventories of houses, apartments, single and multi-family housing units, mobile home parks with vacant slabs, vacant hotels, closed military base barracks, hospitals, etc., that can be immediately made available for what may grow to be 600-800,000 people who cannot go home.I am confident that you will be called on as well to begin determining inventory such as these if you have not already started doing so. In addition to existing housing units, we have been asked to identify commercial buildings that are vacant–i.e., Wal Mart, strip malls, other huge buildings–that can be converted into housing units inside and the parking lots used for mobile homes, motor homes for temporary shelters.Join us in thinking “outside the box” for any and all options where massive numbers of people can be relocated. We also have been asked by FEMA to identify parcels of land adjacent to water/sewage connections if possible (but not even required), where 200-400 mobile home slabs could be placed and housing made available quickly. Do not limit how you allow your ideas to develop, for if we do, we will not have enough places people can call home.In our three states, I believe it is safe to say we do not see these days as challenges, but we see them as once in a lifetime opportunities.
War-zone
This blog is incredible. Thanks to QandO for the find.Read the following – this is coming an American city.Bravo Team becomes functional this morning, we’re going to do a Medium Range Recon Patrol around our section of the CBD. We need to access the area for potential human threats, situational threats (burning buildings, etc.), flooding, potential evac routes, military and civilian authority presence, etc.Rebuild?… Resettling 1.5 million+ people is going to change our country in ways we simply do not comprehend.