So Ike's aftermath is all cleaned up, all people accounted for, life is back to usual.

[LiberalHeart]

At least that's what I'm guessing, given the lack of interest by the news networks. Where is the coverage? I'm hungry for more information, much more information. Where is it? How did such a big story get swept under the rug (or off our TV screens) like this?

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

1. http://www.chron.com n/t

[targetpractice]

2. I'm watching khou.com's live feed.

A 60 year old survivor from Crystal Beach just talked to the anchors and was complaining about how there is no coverage of actual devastation in Galveston... He was forced to leave Crystal Beach when a Texas Parks & Wildlife airboat discovered him and his wife.

He started to rattle of a handful of names of people that he could confirm as dead... friends, fellow church goers, etc. The anchors seemed stunned because they have not been told of any deaths... and they asked him to stop naming names until they could confirm.

Visit www.khou.com and look for the live video link.

[malaise]

14. It is coming out slowly

drip, drip, drip.

[Warpy]

3. I guess the news people don't want to embarrass Stupid

because everybody I know around Houston says it's a massive clusterfuck, with no distribution happening around the overcentralized FEMA distribution points and often no trucks there at all. The people I've been able to talk to have been lucky--houses intact with only moderate roof damage and a lot of cleanup of downed trees necessary, but with intermittent power and phone service and orders to boil all water if the water is even on.

That means everybody is working hard and sweltering and if they run out of bottled water, they're SOL because FEMA just isn't supplying adequate amounts of this very necessary thing even if they show up, which they're not doing very often.

People there are hurting and FEMA is still a dumping ground for BFEE cronies and it shows.

[kansasblue]

6. I think they are setting up FEMA for privatization.

Making it run bad on purpose so in the future Halliburton will get some no bid contract to run clean up.

[Warpy]

7. More likely, they want to abolish it altogether

and turn relief efforts back to the state national guard.

[Virginia Dare]

12. At any rate, they want FEMA to appear hopelessly broken..

and not worth saving...:banghead:

[Igel]

10. Here's news you can add.

We went to campus yesterday; classes were back in session.

Gas stations were open on the way home in areas that had power; lines of 5-10 cars.

Two supermarkets were open (we didn't look for more), as was a liquor store; one supermarket had a line, because they weren't letting in even the usual Saturday crush amount. The guard at the door looked pissed as she surveyed the line--which wrapped around the shopping carts, all of 20 people. The other had no lines, even inside. It had food. My wife reports today that the Walmart was open when she went by.

Yesterday Subway and other fast food places were swamped, naturally. Lots of people don't have power and can't cook, or haven't gone to a grocery store.

As of this morning, about 40% of Centerpoint customers had power. Mostly not intermittent.

The boil order for Houston was rescinded Monday; water never went off in south Houston. Those using wells are SOL, unless they have power. Bellaire issued a boil order on Monday or Tuesday, so not everybody's out of the woods, by any stretch.

Now, the 61% without power need help (some, oddly, in my apt. complex) ... unless they want to eat at Subway all the time, which gets both expensive and requires a car. Then again, most bus lines are up and running today (Metrorail's still down, with bus service parallelling the Metrorail route). But having 39% of the city with power makes a big dent in what FEMA needs to do--so as people run out of their food and water stashes, more people are coming back "online". People in places like Conroe, Anahuac, and points east of Anahuac need even more help, I'd venture to say.

What was silly were those whose places were mostly intact on Sunday and who had already run out of food and water. I still can't get my head around the idea.

[dogtag]

4. The MSM only cares about the part where

their spokesmodels in their parkas can hang on to a phone pole and be battered by high winds. They lose interest after that.

Unless, of course, bodies start to float back to the beaches.

[MadrasT]

5. Local teevee online here

http://www.maroonspoon.com/wx/ike.html

The lack of MSM attention to this is inexcusable.

[LiberalHeart]

8. Thanks for the links, folks. Remember how MSM was all over the midwest flooding?

It went on for days and days, 'round the clock. And this is a non-event. Bizarre.

Also, I wonder how the hell the insurance companies are going to pay off on all the claims that are going to come in.

[LiberalHeart]

9. Death toll now "at least 55" per CNN.

[cobalt1999]

11. The media have the attention span of a goldfish.

To them it's old news now. It's off to the next death or sex story. All the government has to do is keep things under control for 3-4 days and the media loses interest and is gone.

[Scurrilous]

13. From AP:

"Ike's death toll officially stood at 51, with most of the deaths coming outside of Texas. Authorities may never know if, or how many, people who tried to weather the storm were washed out to sea."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ike


The story apparently got washed out to sea along with the dead.