Five days after Hurricane Gustav came ashore over Grand Isle and affected every parish in Louisiana, coverage of the storm has disappeared from major newspapers from New York City to Los Angeles., and Sen. John McCain didn’t bother to mention Louisiana’s plight in his acceptance speech last night. An article posted at Time.com yesterday leads with the phrase, "Hurricane Gustav was a much ballyhooed bust.” However, while national attention has faded because New Orleans’ levees didn’t spring a leak this time around, the truth is that half of the state is still crippled by power outages.
This morning’s Times-Picayunedetails a litany of problems state wide:
More than 91,000 households had registered for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Individual Assistance Program by noon Thursday.
Millions of residents and businesses lost power, with hundreds of thousands still in the dark. A handful of municipalities have no running water or at least no potable water, with no way to treat wastewater. State health officials have issued boiling orders for water systems in more than 50 parishes.
The utility situation compounds other concerns: fuel availability for generators and transportation; accessibility and quality of health care, both at permanent and temporary disaster facilities; the schedule of upcoming elections; reopening of schools; and farmers’ ability to harvest undamaged crops, milk cows and house poultry.
The Advocate reports that over 80 percent of customers in Baton Rouge, including the State Capitol building, remain in the dark as of Thursday, and utility companies say they can’t guarantee power will be restored for three weeks.
... written by Jason Faulk , September 05, 2008 - 06:29 pm
Sadly, the shock value just isn't there for the media elsewhere. Apparently the human drama isn't big enough. It will take a Katrina sized event to capture it's attention. Had the Republican convention not been taking place, our story would have played out a bit longer.
Also, had all the refineries and oil importation ports been affected, thereby affecting fuel prices, outsiders would have noticed. Further, had their been a lack of cooperation by the Federal government the past 2-3 years, and had no further plans been developed, and no assistance because of party politics, people may have noticed the bad results. Since the results weren't so bad, and it wasn't a property damage and life losing catastrophe, again, the media as a sum of its parts, just is not fascinated by this story. It never will be.
Perhaps independent media (not simply your publication) can assign a team to Keep 'Em (Anderson Cooper) Honest, for their lack of interest. And again, most average people will never see it. They only have time to do what is simplest, and that is take what corporate media delivers when they're not even seeking it out. (I.E. turn on the TV while cooking the morning eggs or fixing up that casserole before the evening bath, or glancing at that cheap morning rag we have in this town with the coffee on the way to work.)
You must be logged in to post a comment. Log in using your Facebook account or register if you do not have an account yet.
Is it a crime for citizens to photograph, video, or take notes of a police officer in the line of duty, or a right protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution? Locally, such activity, as witnessed recently, will at the very least result in a night spent behind bars.
David Calhoun and Elizabeth “EB” Brooks are the first two employees of Lafayette Central Park Inc., the nonprofit charged with turning Lafayette Consolidated Government’s 100-acre Johnston Street Horse Farm property into a passive public park. Calhoun was named executive director, and Brooks is director of planning and design.
At Thursday's State of the Economy luncheon, LEDA President and CEO Gregg Gothreaux said PXP has already quietly hired 180 people for its Broussard expansion.
Episcopal School of Acadiana’s Dr. Joshua Caffery, chair of the school’s English Department, is headed to Washington, D.C., and the Library of Congress as the latest winner of the Alan Lomax Fellowship in Folklife Studies.
This year’s Cool Town issue is all about people who are not native to South Louisiana but made a conscious decision to be here, to be among us, to participate in our culture and contribute to it.
A shelved ordinance transferring $200,000 from a northside drainage project to a south Lafayette development may not break any laws, but it stinks to high heaven.
An effort to restore a shuttered dancehall and document other vacant or razed honky-tonks could serve as a model for saving an endangered species of entertainment.
Lafayette’s gene pool has been host to a long line of eccentric characters who have blurred the lines between crazy, genius, disturbed and curiously entertaining.
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Also, had all the refineries and oil importation ports been affected, thereby affecting fuel prices, outsiders would have noticed.
Further, had their been a lack of cooperation by the Federal government the past 2-3 years, and had no further plans been developed, and no assistance because of party politics, people may have noticed the bad results.
Since the results weren't so bad, and it wasn't a property damage and life losing catastrophe, again, the media as a sum of its parts, just is not fascinated by this story. It never will be.
Perhaps independent media (not simply your publication) can assign a team to Keep 'Em (Anderson Cooper) Honest, for their lack of interest. And again, most average people will never see it. They only have time to do what is simplest, and that is take what corporate media delivers when they're not even seeking it out. (I.E. turn on the TV while cooking the morning eggs or fixing up that casserole before the evening bath, or glancing at that cheap morning rag we have in this town with the coffee on the way to work.)