 The Hurricane Season has begun, again.
Whether "Irene" will be just another Hurricane or whether her
powers have been artificially intensified has yet to be discussed. What
we do know is that Irene will be different from Andrew and from Katrina,
because those most directly affected will not be mostly the poor or the
dispossessed. In fact cities like New York may be hit hard by this one,
this time. Here's what Andrew did to Florida and what Florida, FEMA and
the US military consequently did and did not do to those that survived
that massive hurricane in 1992. The question for those surviving Irene
will be what will happen to them: Given what happened to those inside Andrew
and Katrina?
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- "There isn't a person on the face of this Earth
who will ever convince me that hurricane Andrew was a "hurricane"
by any sense of the definition. Just ask any survivor of Andrew what the
six-and-a-half-hour siege was like and the answer will always be the same.
"We didn't have any prior warning. We heard hurricane Andrew suddenly
bearingdown on us like a speeding locomotive." This is the same description
given by survivors of monstrous F-5 tornadoes (packing winds of 350+ mph)--the
only difference being that tornadoes strike for just seconds, whereas hurricane
Andrew struck and stayed for hours on end.
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- The injuries of those who survived were mind-boggling.
I had a broken jaw with eight teeth knocked out. Huge shards of glass impaled
my body so deeply, they were impossible to remove without the aid of a
scalpel. My head injuries were so severe that they permanently affected
my eyesight.
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- But I was only one amongst thousands of severely injured
victims who struggled to survive the aftermath. For ten long days we were
roped off from the outside world by United States military forces, leaving
us stranded with no food, no water, no medical supplies, no shelter. Suffering
from severe shell-shock, we waited and waited for rescue teams to arrive,
but that just never happened. None of the injured in the roped-off areas
was ever rescued from the devastation. It was the worst gut-wrenching betrayal
I have ever experienced. I saw grown men lying on the ground in the fetal
position, moaning and groaning pathetically as they tried to hug and rock
themselves. My son was amongst them.
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- Don't get me wrong. United States military forces were
indeed present in the roped-off areas within hours of Andrew ending. But
they were not there to help survivors. The National Guard along with the
Coast Guard, the Army, FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency),
Metro Dade Police, state police and local police removed dead bodies and
body parts as quickly as possible during those first ten days of the aftermath.
Horrified survivors watched as both uniformed and civilian- clothed men
searched the rubble and filled body bags, which they then stacked in military
vehicles or huge refrigerator trucks normally used to transport food, only
to drive off and leave the stranded injured to fend for themselves.
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- Not until I managed to escape the aftermath did I discover
that the "thermo-king" sections of these same refrigerator trucks,
jam-packed with wall-to-wall body bags, ended up being stored at Card Sound
NavyBase, located in an isolated area just above the Florida Keys. The
inside temperature was kept cool by portable generators until the bodies
were either incinerated or just plain dumped into huge open grave pits.
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- So what actually did take place when Andrew survivors
tried to get help from those collecting dead bodies in the aftermath? Well,
I for one can give a first-hand account.
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- About the third day into the aftermath, a long line of
police cars cautiously drove into my area during the late afternoon. We
had not had contact with any other people from outside the devastation
up until this point. There were approximately 12 to 15 police cars comprising
this caravan, each marked from different locations throughout the state.
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- Each car was driven by a man dressed in a dark police
uniform and had three other plain-clothed men riding as passengers, making
a total of four men in each vehicle.
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- Someone from our group spotted the caravan and ran to
get me, knowing that I had been badly injured and urgently needed emergency
medical help. My twenty-five-year-old son and one other adult male survivor
helped escort me to the caravan. We hurried towards the lead car. It stopped
moving when we approached the driver's side. The officer sitting behind
the wheel rolled down the window. For a few moments he rudely ignored us,
at one point giving us an impatient look of disgust.
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- This is the exact conversation and course of events that
took place.
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- "Please, sir, I need medical help," I begged,
barely able to speak.
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- The officer sitting behind the wheel sighed heavily.
He turned his head away from me and gazed out his windshield. The other
three men in the car quietly looked at me.
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- "Sir, please, I need to get to a hospital...,"
I begged frantically.
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- The officer took his time about reaching over to turn
off the engine. With another sigh, he slowly opened the door and climbed
out. He then proceeded to close the door and stood there with his legs
spread astride.
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- "Lady, do me a favor," he answered. "Find
yourself a piece of paper and a pencil. Write down your name and social
security number next to the telephone number of your nearest living relative.
Tuck the piece of paper in your pocket so tomorrow, when I find your body,
I'll know who to contact."
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- "No! No!" I cried out. "You don't understand.
I need to get to a hospital. I've been badly injured."
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- "No! You're the one who doesn't understand,"
he hissed back.
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- With that, he reached over to his holster and took out
his gun. He grabbed me, forcing me up against the side of the car, and
proceeded to put the barrel of the gun against my temple. I heard the hammer
cock.
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- From the position he had pushed me into, I could see
directly into the car. The man sitting in the front passenger seat looked
away from me immediately, glancing down at the floor. The two passengers
in the back seat turned their heads quickly, staring out the window on
the opposite side of the car.
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- My son and the other survivor watched as the officer
had pulled back the hammer on the gun. So shocked out of their minds by
what they were witnessing, neither one could move!
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- "You don't belong here!" the officer growled,
pressing the barrel into the side of my head. "Now you get the hell
outta here before I blow away your ass!"
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- He shoved my face into the car window and then released
me. Someone grabbed me from behind and whirled me around so fast, I didn't
have time to think! Before I knew it, I was being thrown over a shoulder.
My rescuer took off running as fast as he could! I caught a brief glimpse
of my son running next to me. With one gigantic leap, he and the survivor
who carried me, dove behind a pile of debris. All three of us crashed on
top of each other in one tangled-up heap.
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- "I'll shoot your damn asses!" the officer's
voice rang out." (1)
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- What is inconceivable in this country is that the USA
is struck each and every month by Hurricane-force attacks upon the population
here, with no notice and no action taken to mitigate the effects of these
unseen and unreported ATTACKS that are every bit as serious as these Hurricanes;
yet the affects of these attacks are NEVER reported on in the media as
the devastating events which they truly are.
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- The entire automobile manufacturing industry was attacked
in this way, but it was treated as just a dispute between the unions and
the manufacturers that ended with the closing down of that entire industry.
That was a correlated, continuous government attack on an entire industry
and on the millions of people who worked in that industry. Similarly the
insurance industry was allowed to switch from insurance to extortion and
the damage done to the medical services divisions of those companies was
back-breaking for policy holders and a windfall-profit for the owners of
those companies. In the last ten years Education has been under siege and
the victims are those trying to get an education, along with the teachers
that will, for the most-part be sacked. Banking and Finance as well as
Investments and the Stock Market have all profited HUGELY from government
policies that have decimated the public's rights at every turn for over
ten continuous years: But still there is no outcry even though the effects
of these ATTACKS is in many cases; far more damaging than any Hurricane
could ever be!
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- What is clear is that government does not take any responsibility
for the damages done by natural disasters in this country. Even further
down on the food chain we can all see the practical effects of what happens
when ordinary people fail to repair whatever has been broken, in the course
of daily life.
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- If people treated their cars the way the federal government
treats its citizens there would be no more traffic jams anywhere: Because
more than half the vehicles in America would not be functional. When you
don't change the oilor fail fix a flat or to provide preventive maintenance,
then the cars will cease to run. The same thing happens to the entire population
when government penalizes people for working by insuring that they cannot
earn enough to maintain themselves, much less to actually get ahead. Instead
people are living in a limbo where no one can be certain of anything except
routine wage and benefit cuts; along with salary reductions while those
that own the companies they work for are given billions in bonuses, for
work that those 'owners' did NOT do. As the work force falls apart, so
too will the nation, because this government will not defend those that
made America what it was; and that is forcing us into fourth world status.
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- The same thing can be seen with living in your house.
If the plumbing or the electricity goes out it has to be fixed, because
you cannot live in a house without running water, or a working bathroom-at
least not safely. If the roof fails it must be repaired, otherwise you're
living in a partial shelter but not a house where you can be protected
from the elements. If everyone lived according to the way the government
fails to keep its promises to all of us then obviously we would no
longer have a country to live in because this imbalance cannot be sustained:
Nor should that ever be the case as we literally give this country over
85% of what we each make every year in taxes of all kinds; and we get ABSOLUTELY
NOTHING from that 85-15 imbalance!
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- This is as real an "ATTACK" upon this nation
as any Hurricane, except that where Hurricanes tend to openly hit specific
places these attacks are directed continuously at all of us, as a single
group-target, that according to this government MUST to be utterly destroyed;
with no quarter given to the survivors; just as was done during and after
Hurricane Andrew, Hurricane Katrina and Deepwater Horizon in 2010: Eighteen
years AFTER Huricane Andrew!
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- If Americans had not lost their ability to participate
in 'Critical Thinking' and by extension could see exactly how these attacks
have played out on this country now for decades: Then we would not be in
this mess; because people would have demanded that government DO WHAT IT
IS PAID TO DO, which consists of making the people whole again after either
man-made or natural disasters.
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- The issue here, during and after Irene, ought to be what
will happen to the people on the East Coast this time; those people that
are directly affected by this Hurricane. Or, how closely will the government's
actions this time begin to replicate the plight of generations of people
on the Gulf-Coast after Deepwater Horizon leveled that entire region just
last year? The damage to those waters of the Gulf continues-silently to
this day for hundreds of thousands of people that will never recover because
the government does not consider them victims of anything at all. (The
Government took the pay-offs being paid out by BP), end of story. (2)
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- Everyone involved here must be tracked and held accountable
for everything related to Irene; that they do or fail to do throughout
this entire Hurricane as it affects this country. There should also be
a full and open investigation into everything that will happen because
of this storm, with no exceptions because this is Hurricane and not a national
security issue!
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- In August 1992, during Hurricane Andrew, George H.W.
Bush was the US president. There is no statute of limitations on the murder
of over 57,000 people that were killed and the many, many more that went
missing during the ten days following the Hurricane. This happened in the
United States of America and the killers were local, state and federal
officers under the direction of the 41st president of the United States.
There was never a formal investigation of this crime that happened almost
exactly eighteen years ago today. Isn't it about time that George H. W.
Bush, the WAR-CRIMINAL was finally charged for this unspeakable crime that
took place during the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew?
- kirwanstudios@sbcglobal.net
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- 1) Deadly Silences, The Hurricane Andrew Cover-up of
1992 http://www.karenlyster.com/andrew.html
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- 2) Deepwater Horizon http://www.kirwanesque.com/politics/articles/2010/art58.htm
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