Is this possible?

[WilliamPitt]

Regarding questions about why they are moving everyone out of the city, even people who want to stay:

The city is flooded with water contaminated by sewage, chemicals, petroleum and dead bodies. I don't know how much you know about water-borne illnesses, but do a google search about large floods around the world. You'll see the word 'cholera' come up sooner or later. Usually sooner. It's a major health crisis waiting to happen on top of everything else, so getting people out of the water is a pre-emptive move to avoid an epidemic and even more death.

It's either that or a broad ethnic cleansing conspiracy, it seems.

[Cassandra]

1. Depends on what you're drinking

If the drinking water is safe in some parts of the city, they are not in danger. Just looking at contaminated water doesn't make you sick. I'd be interested to know, of the people who want to stay, what services do they have?

[Pachamama]

4. Depends on whether your drinking GOP Kool-Aide too! n/t

:beer:

[kweerwolf]

5. You don't have to drink contaminated water to get cholera ...

... you can become infected if the water comes into contact with any cuts or breaks in the skin as well. Even wading through the water can pose a health risk.

[JuniperLea]

6. Water and anti-bacterial hand-cleaning wipes at the Superdome

Would have saved so many. The death toll won't stop ticking for a very long time to come. I'm betting many people will just now start showing signs of toxicity illnesses.

[tavalon]

17. But being near contaminated water in which

bodies are decaying is likely to cause a few problems, whether it is drunk or not.

[canichelouis]

2. It make perfect sense to clear everyone out of a hugh toxic mess

The health hazards are real.

[JuniperLea]

3. Smallpox Blankets to American Indians

...all over again. Too many conflicting statements creating more and more questions.

The simple act of allowing the Red Cross access to the Superdome would have saved so many. That was a secured area after all that searching.

Clinton's Blow Job = Monica

Bush's Blow Job = Katrina

Do the math.

[Name removed]

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[Solomon]

8. Then why won't they just tell us that then Will? What's all the

skulldugery about? It's a reasonable thing to do, so why not say, "this is what we are doing and why"?

I don't trust any of the bastards. There's wickedness afoot. That's the only thing I'm sure of.

[Dogmudgeon]

9. Lots of dangerous things

Yes, disease is a real possibility. I have heard that a few people have already turned up with dysentery. Cholera would be the real kicker. There is an active cholera epidemic happening right now in central Africa, too.

The petrochemicals would tend to reduce the chances of disease, but not by much; in fact, the disease organisms that would reproduce would be those which are resistant to petrochemicals, which would not be a good sign.

A whole lot of the houses and buildings in New Orleans are dangerous now, having been weakened by the wind and the flooding. There is little or no law enforcement. Most of the violence is no longer random, but comes from gangs of thugs intent on stripping the corpses of the citizens and the corpse of the city itself. The practical dangers are many.

There are probably thousands of undiscovered bodies, each providing a 50-300 pound incubator of infectable meat in which pathogens, flies, and other nasties can grow. Unless this next tropical depression hits N.O., the town should be black with flies and mosquitos within a week. If they are carrying anything that makes humans sick, there will be a public health crisis in the deep south that would make the area resemble a third-world epidemic zone, with too much disease and too little medical help coming together all at once.

Everything appears to have been left to chance, and chance does not favor the unprepared excuse for a mind. Conspiracy? No. Inexcusable negligence and incompetence? You bet.

--p!

[demobabe]

12. Already had a cholera death

there was a thread & link on the DU yesterday

[Pachamama]

10. Cholera is a threat ofcourse-but to suggest that anyone else who questions

any ulterior motives for many of the failures of the Bush Administration to get help, fresh water etc. to the people inside of the Superdome, Convention Center and the city of New Orleans is somehow a "conspiracy theorist of ethnic cleansing" - is wrong Will.

I'm sorry, but you are really looking at things very black and white if that's how your going to generalize things. Frankly Will, I'm a bit surprised to see this coming from you of all people.

Here are the facts: There is no question that the majority of deaths will have resulted from dehydration and the second wave of people from the diseases that will follow. My husbands roommate from college is a Physician with Doctors without Borders. He's in Darfur now, was however in Banda Aceh during the Tsunami recovery and has direct familiarity with dealing with the disease and risks involved with the kind of flooding and "toxic soup" that is in New Orleans. Dealing with Cholera is serious, but there is a way for example in the French Quarter that is now "drying" for there to be prevention of outbreak of people. For starters - clean drinking water. If these people are supplied with bottled clean safe water, are using lots of anti-bacterials, are spraying and washing things down with lots of bleach and are on a regimin of anti-biotics, there is no reason that they shouldn't be able to stay there.

Also, before I start to go off on a major rant, the situation with the risk of Cholera wouldn't have even existed if those F*ck-ups running this country had gotten clean water and assistance to those people in New Orleans sooner. That Will, is where a lot of us, myself included, feel very strongly that this is a case of "ethnic or economic cleansing" because there is no other explainable reason.

On Edit: Just thought of another "reason" to explain the Bush Co. failures to respond - THEY DIDN'T GIVE A SHIT! Maybe its just a plain ole case of them not giving a damn.

[Name removed]

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[jus_the_facts]

13. We already had West Nile here for years......

....without any extra help from mother nature up until now...this situation makes it magnified...our city is already unable to susatain sanitary environments for displaced people who're here for what little help our bankrupt community can do..and we're only a week into it...thousands using 3 showers in our civic center and others turned away to move on to another local town..city or state with the same problems....the wrath has yet to be realized...because of federal tax cuts...we can't sustain immediate needs of the homeless...it will only get much worse from here.

[CountAllVotes]

14. it is a toxic pit of hell - EVERYONE SHOULD GET OUT!

<<<< There were also warnings of new dangers. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said he had received a report from Biloxi, Miss., of dysentery - a painful, sometimes-fatal intestinal disease that causes dehydration. With hot weather, mosquitos and standing water holding human waste, corpses and other contaminants, diseases such as West Nile virus, hepatitis A, salmonella and E. coli bacteria infections also are a concern, he said on CNN.

"We have the ingredients for a bad situation there," Leavitt said.

Hundreds of federal health officers and nearly 100 tons of medical supplies and antibiotics were being delivered to the Gulf Coast to try to head off the problem. Federal authorities were also considering how to combat the growing mosquito population - including spraying the sewage-filled floodwaters.

Local officials have already predicted the storm's death toll would reach into the thousands. Without putting a precise figure on it, the federal government agreed Sunday.

"I think it's evident it's in the thousands," Leavitt said.

Chertoff wouldn't make a prediction but said it's likely an untold number will be found dead in swamped homes, temporary shelters where many went for days without food or water, or even in the streets once the waters are finally drained from New Orleans. Removing the water could take a month or more. >>>>>>>>


LINK:

http://www.komotv.com/news/printstory.asp?id=38969

:kick:

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