Greetings All,

This is a call to support the evacuation of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricanes Gustav's potential landfall within the next several days. As many of you know, thousands of our people are presently evacuating the area. In the attempt to learn from preparedness shortcomings of Hurricane Katrina, a network of New Orleans activists, some whom have evacuated already and others whom are intent on staying are in the process of creating a support network which is in need of all our help.

How you can help (outside of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast):
1. Serve as a point of contact in your area for evacuees.

2. Help create safe and accessible relief networks and stations in your city/region. This is particularly going to be crucial for allies in Northern Louisiana, Jackson, and Memphis, where it appears most of the evacuees are going to be stationed. We hope to have identified the rest of the specific cities by this evening.

3. Serve as a media liaison for the support network and the forces staying in New Orleans.

If you or your organization can serve in one or more of these capacities please contact one of the following individuals and send your name, cell phone, land line, email address and relevant address information for relief stations.

Kali Akuno 510.593.3956 (please text if no answer if possible) or kaliakuno@gmail.com
Lydia 314-537-0537 (C) 770-559-1461 land line
Molly 510-847-6101 (C)
In Unity and Struggle,
Kali

this is someone i met when i was down in new orleans filming after hurricane katrina. this is a really good succinct sum up with links of what's actually going on down there. i have been reading news reports from all over, and everyone says fema is so prepared. but we have to ask deeper questions, and most importantly we have to act -- as individuals, groups, and communities outside of the government, who will never address the root problems. we can't let anymore storms rip lives apart, most importantly, as mos def said, the storm called amerika.

get in touch with critical resistance, or common ground relief, or any organization that will be doing the very hard work of rebuilding, once again.


friends...family...comrades...
>
> i know my journals have kind of fallen off...i haven't written you all
> in a while.
>
> and my reason for writing now is again, somewhat grim. hurricane
> gustav is expected to make landfall in a little over eight hours, just
> west of new orleans, through the native nation of houma. the
> government has ordered an evacuation, with the national guard stepping
> in to enforce it. 1.9 million people have apparently gotten out, while
> tens of thousands continue to be stuck on the highways out of town.
> 14,000 people without cars were taken out on buses and trains.
>
> FEMA says they have it all figured out, and are doing much better now:
> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/01/washington/01fema.html
>
> If you listen to their accounts, all is running like a well-oiled
> machine, and things are as they should be. They omit the computerized
> 'ID bracelets' that failed dues to computer glitches on saturday, the
> hundreds of people left waiting for buses in jefferson parish, the
> hospitals that had to get help from the canadian airforce
> (http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5g3TZ8yrgA0p6DGLhXEgijqImDMew)
> because they had been forgotten by FEMA's evacuation plan....3
> hospitalized patients died during evacuation. 80 people have been
> killed by Gustav in several Caribbean countries. But no one was killed
> in Cuba, even though the hurricane went straight across the western
> part of the island - that country has evacuation down to an art (the US
> won't ask them for advice though, even after Katrina's precedent)
>
> And other big questions remain.
> Will the levees hold?
> "As the US Army Corps of Engineers and local authorities rushed to
> shore up levees on the vulnerable West Bank of New Orleans, which
> largely escaped Katrina’s punch, officials made no promises that
> up-armored levees would hold. Of particular concern is the Harvey Canal
> in Jefferson Parish, widely seen as a weak point in the system. In
> fact, only about one-third of the city’s $12 billion new levee system
> has been completed. With storm-surge projections of up to 20 feet and
> many levees at eight feet, overtopping seems likely if the storm holds
> its course."
>
> "Leading experts from the U.S. and the Netherlands say the [levee]
> system is riddled with flaws. They say that even a weaker storm than
> Katrina could breach the levees if it hit this season." - from an
> article in early august...
> http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/08/new-orleans/online-extra-text/1
>
> Where are they taking people, and what is the plan to get them back
> home? After forcing people to leave after Katrina, many were prevented
> from returning for 18 months, two years....far from the 'few days' they
> were promised
>
> What about the prisoners?
> The prison officials at Orleans Parish Prison, if you remember, simply
> left the prison during Katrina. Prisoners drowned in their cells, and
> were abandoned for days in cells filled with water.
> http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2005/09/22/usdom11773.htm Now, a
> desperate call has been made by prisoner support groups in the region
> to contact the sheriff and make sure that prisoners are evacuated too:
> http://neworleans.indymedia.org/news/2008/08/12951.php
>
> And what about those who can't, or won't (hey - you might be reluctant,
> too, if it took you 18 months to get back home last time) evacuate?
> "Those who stay will encounter a skeleton crew of law-enforcement
> officers who will treat anybody on the street as a suspicious person,
> says Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish. The idea is to
> guarantee that property will be protected against looters – a main
> reason so many residents decided to ride out Katrina. 'If you stay,'
> Mr. Broussard warns, 'this will be no Mayberry.' 'We’ve learned from
> our mistakes,' says New Orleans Police Officer B. Francois. 'And this
> time, if we arrest someone, they’re not going to the local jail.
> They’re getting on a bus to Angola,' the infamous rural prison farm."
> http://features.csmonitor.com/breaking/2008/08/31/exodus-ahead-of-hurricane-gustav-more-thorough-but-some-wont-go/
>
> "Residents wonder whether by being vigilant -- or hysterical, depending
> on one's perspective -- officials are putting themselves in a position
> to be able to say 'I told you so' if anyone stays behind. This time
> around, Mayor Nagin and all disaster-response spokespeople are making
> it clear that if you stay behind and are stranded on your roof waving a
> flag made from a bedsheet, it is you who will be held accountable, not
> them. Many who are riding out the storm feel that's the motive behind
> Nagin's emphatic plea during a press conference Saturday for citizens
> to flee 'the mother of all storms,' and 'get their butts out of New
> Orleans.'" http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/09/01/new_orleans/
>
> The law-and-order model that caused so much pain after Katrina is going
> to be in force, and even more so, this time around.
>
> Again, as during Katrina, many of those unable to evacuate are elderly
> (according to a friend of mine in New Orleans now)
>
> I am in touch with Common Ground Relief, the group I worked with in
> 2005, formed after Katrina and still going strong. Some have evacuated
> to Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and some are hunkered down in New Orleans.
> If you want to help, or check for updates, check
> http://www.commongroundrelief.org/gustav
>
> You can follow the progress of the storm here:
> http://www.noaawatch.gov/2008/gustav.php