« August 2005 | Main | October 2005 »
Dare I Say It (Again)?
September 28, 2005
I told you so, AGAIN!
Not only have Hollanders wasted over a million dollars in private donations forcing the addition of the temporary bridge, but now the temporary bridge is delayed by lack of permits.
Furthermore, rumors are going around that BPW and Holland Township cannot find the main sanitary sewer forcemain underneath the river - therefore, the contractor will not commit to building the temporary or permanent bridge. All of Holland Township and Park Township’s sewer-serviced areas collect into three forcemains that flow under the Macatawa River and into the Holland Area Wastewater Treatment Plant. Puncturing one or all of these mains would cause a massive sewage overflow into Lake Macatawa, and would also disrupt sewer service to thousands of people. No small thing, that’s for sure.
I’m sure that they’ll determine where the forcemains are, but at this time, it’s just another example of the horrible work that’s gone into the bridge design and implementation.
What does it all mean? Well, after permits are granted and designs completed, it is very likely that the temporary bridge won’t be completed until next summer - 2006. (Local officials seem to think it can still be done by year’s end. HA!) Then, it will take another 6 to 8 months to build the permanent bridge. I’d be willing to bet that the whole project will not be completed until 2007. That’s TWO YEARS behind schedule. A schedule that was destroyed because local officials bowed to a few power-hungry local residents, bent on wasting money that could have been donated elsewhere, all in the name of “jobs” - they feared that closing the bridge for a summer would cause job loss. Ugh! Instead, it caused the project to go over by a couple years, and caused the project cost to increase by over $2 million!
I told you so - a year ago today (and the week before that)!
Old posts about this:
April 17, 2005
February 13, 2005
September 28, 2004
September 15, 2004
Posted by paul at 12:12 PM | Comments (1)
MONO
September 25, 2005
I have been diagnosed with mono. Lovely mono. I have already taken four days off of work, and the doctor is requiring that I take the next week off as well - to rest up. That’s a week and four days of unpaid leave, since I have yet to acrue any sick leave. How unfortunate. I love my job, and I was just about to gain responsibility and projects. Hopefully when I return I’ll get right into the thick of things.
Needless to say, mono has sapped the life out of me for almost a week and a half so far, so I’ve fallen behind on posting on here, reading, paying bills (none late though), and keeping the apartment clean. Christa is here helping all the time, but I know it gets dull for her, and I’m ready to get back to my (somewhat) energetic self…
Posted by paul at 10:46 AM | Comments (1)
Trains to Safety
September 11, 2005
Well, it seems Amtrak offered to take some evacuees out of town before Katrina, but were turned down by the city. Why?
So much finger-pointing and blame being placed… I wonder what will come of it all.
The Washington Post article listing Amtrak’s offer.
Another good website with Katrina analysis.
Posted by paul at 07:16 PM | Comments (1)
Misuse of a Firefighter
September 08, 2005
FEMA just keeps getting worse and worse. Why are they using over 1,000 firefighters from across the country for community relations work, rather than rescue?
A little history. Last week FEMA put out a call for 1,000 two-person firefighter teams, all of whom needed to be career firefighters. They were all sent to Atlanta, and have now been sitting there for a day or more, going through sexual harrassment training and being trained how to hand out fliers.
HAND OUT FLIERS? These are professional firefighters, why is FEMA using them, instead of other concerned volunteers? These firefighters could be out relieving tired NOFD members, or others in Mississippi… Completely ridiculous.
Check out THIS LINK for more.
Posted by paul at 07:13 AM | Comments (2)
Blame
September 03, 2005
An interesting observation I found today (via Free Will: Daily Libertarian Conservative News):
In the face of a catastrophic Hurricane Katrina, a mandatory evacuation was ordered Sunday for New Orleans by Mayor Ray Nagin.The mayor called the order unprecedented and said anyone who could leave the city should. He exempted hotels from the evacuation order because airlines had already cancelled all flights.
Gov. Kathleen Blanco, standing beside the mayor at a news conference, said President Bush called and personally appealed for a mandatory evacuation for the low-lying city (emphasis added), which is prone to flooding.
Now, if that news story is true (originally published on NOLA.com), wouldn’t some of the “blame” on the slow response be put on the mayor of New Orleans and the Governor of LA? i.e., if they had started the evacuation order Saturday morning, instead of Saturday evening, maybe they could have used the hundreds of city and school buses to evacuate people? The city’s own plan recommends evacuation orders go out 72 hours before the hurricane is forecasted to hit… yet the order went out about 24 hours before. Sad. (And, if you want to know, there was a 70% forecast of hitting NO 72 hours before it did hit, so preparations could have begun.)
So, it was the President who called to ask (tell) the local authorities to start evacuation orders, because they were being too slow.
If I recall correctly, authorities gave evacuation orders in Mississippi on Saturday already…
Posted by paul at 02:26 PM | Comments (2)
Feeling Sorry
September 01, 2005
I feel sorry for Lt. Kevin Cowan right now. He’s the National Guard LT. in charge of LA’s National Guard forces, and he was just (harshly) interview by Bill O’Reilly - to note, this is the first time in my life I’ve watched Bill for over one minute. I agree that the state and federal relief actions are/were sorely lacking, and that more soldiers should have been put on alert already Saturday, but what good does it to do criticize and ridicule them now? Doesn’t it work to hurt their morale at this time, the time when they are still greatly needed?
O’Reilly’s questions were pointed and brutal. What right does this guy, and others I’ve read of, have to so harshly criticize the response so greatly at this time? Can’t they wait a bit to put blame on people, and focus on helping fundraise and direct help?
Maybe I’m striving for some extra sense of civility in this horrid situation… Am I asking too much?
I know that there were be hundreds of questions to answer in the coming months and years. One of the biggest should be “Why didn’t a massive National Guard presence (from many states) come in on the first, or at the latest, second day?” But, I still stand by my belief that we should help now and question later.
Posted by paul at 07:11 PM | Comments (0)
Detroit or Bust!
Bloggers, pundits and columnists across the country (probably across the world) are now considering what should be done with New Orleans (and the other disaster-stricken areas). The basic question - to rebuild, or to abandon? If the option of rebuilding is chosen, how, when, and where?
Answers range from “we will rebuild,” to “Abandon!” Speaker of the House Hastert is rightly questioning if, and how, to rebuild.
Murph mentions moving people to Detroit. He says he’s not really serious, but I would be. Why not? My mother’s point though, why move already extremely poor people to an area without jobs to begin with? Yeah… she’s got a point. Detroit needs jobs to support these people. The nice aspect of Detroit is that the infrastucture does already exist to house thousands of people. It’s definately a thought.
Other random thoughts:
I’m quite impressed by the colleges and universities offering free tuition to college students hurt by the disaster.
I’m sickened by the looters and the lawlessness that has followed. Absolutely sickened.
There are aspects of this many people aren’t even aware of. Not only are gasoline prices rising, but other oil-using products as well. Other petroleum products, plastics, asphalt, etc. - all of their prices are rising incredibly. Can we say inflation? And, besides oil prices, lumber prices are already known to increase by over 20% following a normal hurricane - what will happen now?
Posted by paul at 06:40 PM | Comments (2)