The pictures don’t do it justice

Augmented Reality 1 Minute

I just talked to Buzz Bruggeman, CEO of ActiveWords. He just finished a drive through the Katrina hurricane zone to visit Ernie the Attorney. He sent me a photo this morning of Ernie standing in front of a house. On the house was a horizontal line. The water line.

He told me the pictures just don’t even start to communicate how bad conditions are there for people. He said he had people pleading with him to get more people to come and visit New Orleans and see it for themselves (and help).

That line, it is oppressive in pictures. Dave Winer’s pictures show the line too.

Buzz told me that Ernie drove him for miles. Around every turn he expected it to get better, but it just kept getting worse. He told me nothing on TV or any pictures prepared him for the devastation he saw.

When we were talking I wondered what we haven’t seen of the Tsunami. There’s only so much devastation we can take. Only so much human suffering we can comprehend.

On the other hand, humor is still evident in this Fema Help Desk. New entrepreneurs are apparently springing up.

Thanks Dave and Buzz!

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Published by Robert Scoble

I help entrepreneurs build their technology business' story, help with getting ready for investors, with other launch plans, and many other strategic things that can help your new startup. Call to talk: +1-425-205-1921 (text first).

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16 thoughts on “The pictures don’t do it justice”

  1. Recently went back home to Gulfport, MS, and there they have just piled all the wreckage up on the side of the road, so they can rebuild and go on about their lives. Most haven’t been able to rebuild yet, and the businesses open aren’t fully open yet – just enough to get business going.

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  2. Recently went back home to Gulfport, MS, and there they have just piled all the wreckage up on the side of the road, so they can rebuild and go on about their lives. Most haven’t been able to rebuild yet, and the businesses open aren’t fully open yet – just enough to get business going.

    Like

  5. Most of my family lives (or lived until recently) in New Orleans. We had four homes in Lakeview that were massively damaged by the floods caused by the 17th Street Canal levee break.

    Months later, things are not better. Sure, the French Quarter is mostly back to normal, but that’s because it’s one of the higher locations in New Orleans which didn’t get hit hard and, of course, the center of tourist activity. The rest of New Orleans is bad — really really bad. A majority of homes in many areas around the city are still not occupied or cleaned up. It’s as if a majority of New Orlenians evacuated and then decided they couldn’t go back. And that’s probably exactly what happened in a lot of cases.

    But the real damage is being caused on an ongoing basis by FEMA’s still feeble response. People are being absolutely manhandled by insurance companies and the government isn’t there to help them out. New Orleans is dead and there’s a very real chance that it’s not coming back, except in the hands of greedy commercial developers who will turn it into AmsterDisney.

    The saddest thing for me is that my hometown is and probably will never be what it was. I can’t imagine what it’s like for my family and so many other natives who have gone back in to rebuild, only to have the focus of the nation guided quickly and efficiently to the next “media event” (it bleeds, it leads) like a White House tour group. They are now forgotten and we’re all worse off for it.

    If you want to read a bit more, I wrote this right after the hurricane.

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  6. Most of my family lives (or lived until recently) in New Orleans. We had four homes in Lakeview that were massively damaged by the floods caused by the 17th Street Canal levee break.

    Months later, things are not better. Sure, the French Quarter is mostly back to normal, but that’s because it’s one of the higher locations in New Orleans which didn’t get hit hard and, of course, the center of tourist activity. The rest of New Orleans is bad — really really bad. A majority of homes in many areas around the city are still not occupied or cleaned up. It’s as if a majority of New Orlenians evacuated and then decided they couldn’t go back. And that’s probably exactly what happened in a lot of cases.

    But the real damage is being caused on an ongoing basis by FEMA’s still feeble response. People are being absolutely manhandled by insurance companies and the government isn’t there to help them out. New Orleans is dead and there’s a very real chance that it’s not coming back, except in the hands of greedy commercial developers who will turn it into AmsterDisney.

    The saddest thing for me is that my hometown is and probably will never be what it was. I can’t imagine what it’s like for my family and so many other natives who have gone back in to rebuild, only to have the focus of the nation guided quickly and efficiently to the next “media event” (it bleeds, it leads) like a White House tour group. They are now forgotten and we’re all worse off for it.

    If you want to read a bit more, I wrote this right after the hurricane.

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  11. It’s just a shame Mississippi didn’t have more french donuts, jazz musicians or people flashing for beads. Might be more than an afterthought then.

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  12. It’s just a shame Mississippi didn’t have more french donuts, jazz musicians or people flashing for beads. Might be more than an afterthought then.

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  13. What’s sad in all of this is the disconnect between the news cycle – which is decidedly focused on the here and now, and has no attention span whatsoever – and the needs of those in the disaster zone, which will persist for years.

    Our immediate-gratification world just doesn’t deal well with tragedies that unfold for months and years. They fade from the headlines fairly quickly despite the fact that the suffering continues anonymously.

    I’d be willing to bet that most Americans outside New Orleans now think everything’s hunky dory because they haven’t seen anything on their nightly news. And I’ll bet the Tsunami zones are all rebuilt and moving on now as well.

    As if.

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  14. What’s sad in all of this is the disconnect between the news cycle – which is decidedly focused on the here and now, and has no attention span whatsoever – and the needs of those in the disaster zone, which will persist for years.

    Our immediate-gratification world just doesn’t deal well with tragedies that unfold for months and years. They fade from the headlines fairly quickly despite the fact that the suffering continues anonymously.

    I’d be willing to bet that most Americans outside New Orleans now think everything’s hunky dory because they haven’t seen anything on their nightly news. And I’ll bet the Tsunami zones are all rebuilt and moving on now as well.

    As if.

    Like

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