HURRICANE HARVEY'S REAL DEATH TOLL NOT REVEALED JUST AS KATRINA'S NEVER WAS (DEPOPULATION)

HURRICANE HARVEY'S REAL DEATH TOLL NOT REVEALED JUST AS KATRINA'S NEVER WAS (DEPOPULATION):

FED GOVT WON'T ADMIT KATRINA'S DEATH MUCH HIGHER THEN 1800 AND HARVEY'S MUCH HIGHER THAN 50.

MANY OF KATRINA'S DEAD REMAIN ENTOMBED FOREVER IN HIDDEN GRAVES; SAME WILL OCCUR WITH HARVEY'S DEAD.

MOST OF THE DEAD WILL BE POOR AND BLACK.

FEEL-GOOD STORIES ABOUT RESPONSE RECOVERY TIMES FREQUENTLY USED TO HIDE REAL DEATH TOLLS.


Sources: TIME, MSN, NBC News, YouTube


***** Hurricane Harvey's Death Toll Rises to 30 as Floodwaters Recede


Now that the sun is finally shining and the murky, brown floodwaters are slowly receding in much of the Houston area, grim reality is setting in.

Harvey is about to release its dead.

In Texas, the official death toll surpassed 30 on Wednesday and was expected to climb as authorities investigated several other deaths to determine whether they were storm-related.

Officials fear that the number of fatalities will climb sharply in coming days as neighbors, emergency workers and family members search for the missing — and discover the bodies of people trapped in waterlogged homes or encased in underwater graves inside cars.

And the death toll might rise even further in the recovery phase, from car crashes, carbon monoxide poisoning or other accidents during cleanup.

"Historically all estimates of deaths are wrong in the beginning," said Craig Fugate, who was the Federal Emergency Management Agency director from 2009 until earlier this year.

Already, the nation is shocked by the horrors revealed as the storm moves out of the area and east toward Louisiana and points north.

The first confirmed fatality came early: A man in the Gulf coastal city of Rockport was killed in a fire late Friday as the storm raged ashore.

On Wednesday, officials located a submerged van that seven members of a Houston family had been traveling in when it was swept off a bridge and into a storm-ravaged bayou.

Samuel Saldivar told police he was trying to bring his elderly parents and his brother's four grandchildren to safety from their flooded home on Sunday when the van he was driving was tossed by a strong current into the bayou as it crossed the bridge.

He escaped through a window but the six others were trapped when the van's partially submerged sliding door wouldn't open.

Also Wednesday, authorities said 65-year-old Donald Rogers and his 58-year-old wife, Rochelle, drowned when they were swept away by a current after driving their pickup truck into floodwaters in a rural area southwest of Houston.

Fort Bend County Sheriff's Maj. Chad Norvell said the couple was on the phone with 911 asking for help when the line went silent. When officers found the truck, it was completely submerged.

Sunlight Returns to Houston, Revealing the Grim Reality of Harvey's Aftermath

On Tuesday afternoon, a 3-year-old girl was found alive in a rain-swollen canal, clinging to the body of her drowned mother in Beaumont, Texas.

A second woman was confirmed dead in Beaumont on Wednesday.
Earlier Tuesday, the body of 61-year-old Houston Police Sgt. Steve Perez was found in his car. He'd been swept down a flooded road as he drove to his precinct, determined to serve his community.

Eleven other confirmed deaths, some of which were listed on a Harris County database, showed people were found floating in waters — some in homes or businesses, others near cars.

Among those victims was Ruben Jordan, a high school football and track coach, who was last seen late Saturday helping people through floodwaters.

His family was informed on Monday that he had died in the floods.

"The sad thing is, of the deaths we've seen, we're going to see more, unfortunately," said Jeff Schlegelmilch, the deputy director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University. "That number doesn't stop moving up until we're well into the recovery phase."

No official number of the missing has been released, and a spokesman for the Harris County Sheriff's Office, where Houston is located, said there isn't a specific strategy in place to look for additional bodies.

"We are going to go out and try to find any potential victims that may be there," said the spokesman, Jake Smith. "We are also encouraging the public if they come across anything, we strongly urge them to call 911 if they find a body or a potential victim."

Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said the department had received 47 missing persons reports since Harvey inundated the city and 27 of those individuals have been located.

Photos with pleas for help have been posted on social media, cut-and-pasted and retweeted by thousands of people as desperate family members seek loved ones they fear may be dead — but who may only have a cellphone without power.

The uncertainty is terrifying.
One of the worries, said Schlegelmilch, is that many of the severely flooded neighborhoods weren't in evacuation areas.

Additionally, the people most likely to be found dead are the elderly, the infirm and the people who were isolated from others — along with folks who didn't have the means or wherewithal to flee.

Sometimes it's a matter of having the strength to wade through floodwaters a few blocks to safety, or to pull one's self up onto a roof.

"Those who are the most vulnerable when the sky is blue, they are also the most vulnerable when the sky is gray," Schleglemilch said.

Fugate, the former FEMA head, said it's also common for people to die during the recovery phase, when stress levels are high and people aren't making clear-headed decisions.

"Stay safe, stay home, stay off the roads if you can. Don't go sightseeing," he warned.
Still, experts say there is some good news:

They don't expect the death toll from Harvey to come anywhere close to that of Katrina, when 1,800 people died.

Many of those flood-related fatalities came when a levee broke and water inundated New Orleans.

People were stranded in extreme heat and the federal response was slow.

Emergency managers learned painful lessons during Katrina, and have put those lessons to use in this storm.

Residents of New Orleans during Katrina saw top-to-bottom failures at every level, experts said.

During Harvey, "state and local officials and FEMA were mobilizing, water rescue teams were prepared, in anticipation of this," said Fugate, adding that safe shelters were almost immediately in place for Texas residents, unlike New Orleans. "That provided faster rescues."

One other thing seems to have helped Houston in its time of need: the residents themselves.

"Neighbors helping neighbors," Fugate said. "That will keep the death toll down."

KATRINA'S REAL DEATH TOLL NEVER REVEALED BY FED GOV'T (DEPOPULATION)

KATRINA'S REAL DEATH TOLL NEVER REVEALED BY FED GOV'T (DEPOPULATION):

MOST OF KATRINA'S DEAD WERE POOR & BLACK.


Sources: US News, YouTube


***** No One Knows How Many People Died in Katrina


Ten years after the third-deadliest hurricane in U.S. history, we still don't know how many people died because of it. We'll never know for certain how many people died in Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.

The problems are inherent in the confusion of disasters, especially those involving multiple states and various local, state and federal agencies.

Inquires to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, and The Department of Health in Louisiana led U.S. News to a 2008 report as the most accurate and updated source of information. The report was years in the making as deaths were investigated and missing persons were located. In an effort to cut down on the confusion among agencies, the report reviewed all available death databases to attempt the impossible: an accurate count of Katrina's victims in Louisiana.

Although 1,833 is an often-cited mortality figure, it is older than figures in the report and none of the agencies we spoke to claimed it as an accurate estimate of the final death toll, as FiveThirtyEight also reported.

The most likely cause of death was drowning. The victims of the storm were often black and skewed older. In Orleans Parish, where 70 percent of the victims counted in the study died, the mortality rate for black adults was 1.7 times to 4 times higher than the mortality rate for white adults.

Forty percent of victims were aged 75 or older, which further complicated the process of counting victims. Many of the deceased had serious preexisting medical conditions. It's impossible to know if the person would have died from those conditions if the storm hadn't occurred or if the storm exacerbated medical conditions enough to cause death.

"If an evacuee died after a heart attack two months following the storm, was that death attributable to Katrina?" says John Ford of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals.

The researchers confirmed 986 victims (including 15 deaths from Louisiana evacuees in other states), but called the estimate "conservative." The higher estimate for deaths in Louisiana was 1,440.

This graphic shows the conservative estimate, including the staggering impact on the elderly population. While the number of people who died in Hurricane Katrina is likely much higher, even the lower bound shows the devastating impact of a huge storm that New Orleans was ill-equipped to handle.

While the death toll in the study is 986, the total in the graphic is slightly lower because it doesn't include the 15 deaths from other states or the 22 deaths for which age information was not available.

NIKKI HALEY'S SOTU RESPONSE PROVES SHE WOULD MAKE A GREAT VP - REAL SUBSTANCE (VIDEO)

NIKKI HALEY'S SOTU RESPONSE PROVES SHE WOULD MAKE A GREAT VP:

HER RESPONSE HAD REAL SUBSTANCE, HIT ALL POINTS.

~ What Nikki Haley Said In The Republican Response To The State Of The Union

With the end of President Obama’s final State of the Union address, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley sought in her Republican Party response to turn the page on his presidency and look towards the future -– one she said would be brighter under a Republican president.

“Soon, the Obama presidency will end, and America will have the chance to turn in a new direction. That direction is what I want to talk about tonight,” she said, speaking from the capital city of Columbia.

Haley said she understood that voters are frustrated with government, but added that Republicans must take some responsibility for that frustration as well as Democrats –- and channel it into meaningful action.

With the end of President Obama’s final State of the Union address, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley sought in her Republican Party response to turn the page on his presidency and look towards the future -– one she said would be brighter under a Republican president.

“Soon, the Obama presidency will end, and America will have the chance to turn in a new direction. That direction is what I want to talk about tonight,” she said, speaking from the capital city of Columbia.

Haley said she understood that voters are frustrated with government, but added that Republicans must take some responsibility for that frustration as well as Democrats –- and channel it into meaningful action.

Sources: ABC News, NBC News, PBS, Youtube

NIKKI HALEY TO DELIVER GOP RESPONSE TO OBAMA'S 2016 SOTU ADDRESS (CONFEDERATE FLAG)

NIKKI HALEY TO DELIVER GOP RESPONSE TO OBAMA'S 2016 SOTU ADDRESS (CONFEDERATE FLAG):

GOV HALEY IS A GREAT VP PICK; WOULD ATTRACT MANY WOMEN VOTERS IN NOV 2016.

South Carolina's first legally elected Woman Governor NIKKI HALEY, has been selected to deliver the GOP's response to Pres OBAMA's 2016 State of the Union Address.

Along with receiving Kudos for demanding the CONFEDERATE FLAG be removed from South Carolina's state Capitol, there are several legitimate reasons why NIKKI HALEY would be a Perfect choice as Vice-President pick on the 2016 GOP ticket.

~ Paul Ryan: "Nikki Haley Has Extremely Bright Future In The GOP"

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is a "natural" and will deliver a "great" response to the State of the Union, House Speaker Paul Ryan said Monday.

Haley will respond to President Barack Obama's speech for the Republican Party on Tuesday, an honor bestowed on rising stars in the GOP. 

The high-profile event has been both a launching pad for careers and an opportunity for embarrassment, depending on how the politician performs.

But the recently minted House speaker told Jake Tapper on CNN's "The Lead" that he helped pick Haley because he believes the Indian-American governor, who is rumored as a contender for the vice presidential nominee, will knock it out of the park.

"I'm really excited about this," Ryan said. "If you want to hear an inclusive leader who's visionary, who's got a path for the future, who's brought people together, who's unified, it's Nikki Haley."

Ryan himself gave the response in 2011, a year before he was tapped to be the running mate of Mitt Romney in an unsuccessful bid to take the White House.

"Believe me, I understand the stakes can be high for a person doing this speech," Ryan said. "I think she's a natural."

He also divulged some of the advice he gave Haley, big and small.

"Put a cough drop in the corner of your mouth, it keeps you salivating so you don't go thirsty," Ryan said. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio famously had to awkwardly reach for water during his response in 2013.

But in seriousness, Ryan said he just told her to be herself.

PREVIOUS GOP STATE OF THE UNION RESPONSES:

2009: Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (1)
2010: Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell
2011: U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin
2012: Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels
2013: U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida
2014: U.S. Rep Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington
2015: U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa

(1) Jindal’s response came after President Barack Obama’s first speech to a joint session of Congress.

Sources: CNN,  PBS, Youtube

NIKKI HALEY IS DONALD TRUMP'S PERFECT VICE-PRES PICK (CONFEDERATE FLAG)

NIKKI HALEY IS DONALD TRUMP'S PERFECT VICE-PRES PICK (CONFEDERATE FLAG):

GOV HALEY WOULD ATTRACT MANY WOMEN VOTERS TO THE GOP IN NOV 2016.

South Carolina's first legally elected Woman Governor NIKKI HALEY, has been selected to deliver the GOP's response to Pres OBAMA's final historic State of the Union Address.

Along with receiving Kudos for demanding the CONFEDERATE FLAG be removed from South Carolina's state Capitol, there are several legitimate reasons why NIKKI HALEY would be a Perfect choice as Vice-President pick on the 2016 GOP ticket.

~ Gov. Nikki Haley to deliver GOP response to Obama’s State of the Union

Critic of the administration is first from South Carolina to deliver response.

Haley a possible VP pick after her handling of the Charleston shooting.

Governor, chosen by Capitol Hill leaders, will give the address from Columbia.

S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley, coming off a year where she gained national attention for her handling of the Charleston church slayings, will deliver the Republican response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address on Jan. 12.

Haley is calling her nationally televised speech from Columbia an “address” rather than a “response,” as the political counterpoints have been called since they began in 1966. Haley is the first South Carolinian to deliver the State of the Union response.

“This is a time of great challenges for our country but also of great opportunities,” she said in a statement. “I intend to speak about both.”

The Lexington Republican, considered a possible vice presidential pick, is heading into the middle of her second term as governor of a state that holds the South’s first presidential primary.

The opposition party’s State of the Union response has played into presidential politics in recent years.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., gave the address a year before he was picked as Mitt Romney’s vice presidential running mate in 2012.

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., delivered the 2013 response to Obama and is running for the White House this year.

Haley, the daughter of Indian immigrants, has been called a rising star in the GOP since she became South Carolina’s first woman and first minority governor in 2011.

She gave a prime-time speech during the 2012 Republican National Convention.

Haley’s political stature has grown since this summer, when she successfully called for the removal of the Confederate battle flag from the State House grounds after a state senator and eight other parishioners were gunned down at Emanuel AME Church on June 17.

An avowed racist, who had posed with a rebel flag online, was charged in those killings, which shocked the nation.

In his last State of the Union, Obama plans to deliver what the White House has called a non-traditional address that will focus on the nation’s challenges, rather than push new initiatives.

During her tenure as the nation’s youngest governor, Haley has criticized Washington politicians and the Democratic-controlled White House for what she has called burdensome regulations and legal overreach.

Most recently, she has fought against settling Syrian refugees in South Carolina and opposed possible plans to move Guantanamo Bay detainees to a Navy brig outside Charleston, citing security concerns.

Haley also has refused to expand Medicaid under the federal health-care insurance law that was the signature piece of legislation passed under Obama.

Haley was chosen to give the GOP response by Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

“Not only has Gov. Haley fought to bring opportunity and prosperity to the people of her state, but she’s also demonstrated how bringing people together can bring real results,” McConnell said in a statement. “Gov. Haley knows the American dream and wants to see every American share in it.”

The address likely will curtail any plans for Haley to travel to Arizona for the national college football championship game Monday night between Clemson University, her alma mater, and the University of Alabama.

Haley, a Clemson accounting graduate who often attends games at Memorial Stadium, traveled to Florida last week to watch the Tigers’ semifinal win over the University of Oklahoma.

PREVIOUS GOP STATE OF THE UNION RESPONSES:

2009: Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (1)

2010: Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell

2011: U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin

2012: Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels

2013: U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida

2014: U.S. Rep Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington

2015: U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa

(1) Jindal’s response came after President Barack Obama’s first speech to a joint session of Congress

Sources: The State, CNN, Youtube

GOP Response: Voters Want Real Results From Obama Admin.

"We want results, not rhetoric," McDonnell said. "We want cooperation, not partisanship."
Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-Va)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

GOP Response: Nation Can’t Afford Democrats’ Policies


The nation cannot afford the spending Democrats have enacted or the tax increases they propose, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell said Wednesday in the Republican response to the State of the Union address.

McDonnell, in a transcript of his speech released in advance, said Democratic policies are resulting in an unsustainable level of debt. He said Americans want affordable health care, but they don't want the government to run it.

"Today, the federal government is simply trying to do too much," McDonnell said in prepared remarks. "In the past year, over 3 million Americans have lost their jobs, yet the Democratic Congress continues deficit spending, adding to the bureaucracy, and increasing the national debt on our children and grandchildren."

McDonnell said that all Americans want affordable, high-quality health care. But, he added, "Most Americans do not want to turn over the best medical care system in the world to the federal government."

McDonnell is to deliver the Republican response after President Barack Obama's speech Wednesday evening. National GOP leaders picked McDonnell after he was elected in a rout last fall in a state Obama and the Democrats swept in 2008.


String of GOP Victories

Republicans are feeling emboldened following a string of GOP victories at the polls, including a stunning win by Republican Scott Brown last week in a special Senate election in Massachusetts. Since then, Obama has amped up his populist rhetoric and promised a renewed focus on job creation.

Republicans said they want Obama to change more than his rhetoric. They complain that a $787 billion economic stimulus package enacted last year did not do enough to increase employment. And they oppose Obama's plan to let income tax cuts expire next year for families making more than $250,000 a year.

"We want results, not rhetoric," McDonnell said. "We want cooperation, not partisanship."

House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said, "This isn't about a pivot in terms of his message. I think that most Americans know that actions speak louder than words."

McDonnell will speak live from the Virginia House of Delegates before an audience of about 300 friends, family, supporters and members of his administration.

In his remarks, McDonnell cites several areas of agreement with the president. On education, he said he agrees with Obama's proposal to increase the number of charter schools.

On national defense, he said he agrees with Obama's plan send an additional 30,0000 troops to Afghanistan. McDonnell said his oldest daughter, Jeanine, was an Army platoon leader in Iraq.

However, McDonnell said, Republicans have "serious concerns" about the administration's treatment of suspected terrorists. McDonnell complained that a Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up a plane as it approached Detroit on Christmas "was given the same legal rights as a U.S. citizen, and immediately stopped providing critical intelligence."

Some Republicans want suspected terrorists tried in military courts rather than civilian ones.

In a new twist for Republicans, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., will tape a Spanish-language version of the Republican response. Diaz-Balart's speech will be carried by Spanish-language media.






Mitch McConnell: Drop The "Big-Government" Agenda

When the president took office last January, he vowed to tackle the economic crisis head on. Yet over the past year, Americans have seen their economic situation deteriorate even further.

For the nearly 3.5 million Americans who lost their jobs, the nearly 3 million people who lost their homes, and many millions more, 2009 was another very painful year. This is why most Americans hope the White House will change direction in 2010 -- and that's exactly what most of them will be listening for signs of in the president's first State of the Union address Wednesday night.

Many Americans were surprised by the way the administration approached its first year in office. Americans wanted the administration and Democrat leaders in Congress to implement policies to create jobs, spur the expansion of small businesses, and help middle class families make ends meet.

What they got instead were trillion-dollar spending bills, a misguided government experiment to upend our health care system, and trillions of dollars in debt that our children and grandchildren will be saddled with for decades.

The recent elections in New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts were proof that Americans have run out of patience with the policies of the administration and Democrat leaders in Congress.

So it's my hope that the White House will use the State of the Union address to announce that it will put aside the big-government, big-spending agenda of the past year, move to the center, and embrace the sensible, step-by-step approach to our problems that Americans are asking for. Along these lines, here are some things the Administration could do:

• Put the 2,700-page Democrat health care plan on the shelf, and leave it there. The best first step we could take in righting our economic ship is to take this job-killing and tax-increasing monstrosity off the table once and for all and move toward the kind of step-by-step approach Americans really want.

• Prevent tax hikes: Declare that taxes will not go up at the end of the year, as they're scheduled to, for millions of American families and businesses. Even some Democrats are calling on the administration to do this. Struggling small businesses are asking themselves whether they can hire new workers; the prospect of a massive tax hike makes it far less likely they will.

• Return TARP to taxpayers: Return unused TARP money and put it toward paying down the deficit. Taxpayers who bailed out the banks last year are wondering why their money is still lying around unspent; money that's come back to the Treasury should be used to pay down the deficit, not used on new spending programs.

• Stop spending borrowed stimulus funds: The stimulus was sold to the public on the promise that it would hold unemployment at 8 percent. A year later, unemployment is at 10 percent, its highest level in a quarter century. At a time of trillion-dollar deficits, the administration should direct unspent stimulus funds to pay down our debts right now, rather than have money spent out on questionable projects nine years down the road.

• No more debt: Later this week, the administration, with an assist from Democrats in Congress, plans to increase the amount of money available on the federal credit card by nearly $2 trillion. In other words, they want to increase the amount of money we can borrow by an amount equivalent to what it cost to pay for the entire federal budget 10 years ago.

• Get out of the auto and insurance businesses: Explain to the American people how the federal government will end its ownership of auto companies, insurance companies, and banks. Americans don't think the U.S. government should be one of the largest shareholders of GM, Chrysler, and AIG.

• Expand domestic energy: Nuclear power is one of the cleanest, most efficient sources of energy. The administration should commit to expanding nuclear power as well as clean coal. And until these clean, green sites are up and running, it should allow the states to drill for oil and natural gas off their shores, if they want to.

These are just some things the White House could do to demonstrate that it has heard the concerns of the American people -- and the voters of Massachusetts, Virginia, and New Jersey -- and that it is willing to work closely and in the light of day with both parties to improve our economy and to get Americans back to work. It isn't too late to work together.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, is minority leader of the U.S. Senate.


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Sources: MSNBC, CNN, Google Maps