Mr. Hammond, the phones are working

Sometime this weekend electricity was finally restored to my apartment. Now on to the mold infestation battle. Yay!

Thanx, Entergy, it only took you nearly two full weeks to do it, well after DEMCO, CLECO, and your other State-regulated utility company peers managed to execute complete restoration in their service territories. You are all a bunch of unreconstituted, unrepentant racist, classist assholes. Typical par for the course for a politically connected, legally monopolist corporation. If Wal-Mart treated their customers with the kind of special contempt which you hold for your customers (excuse me, ratepayers - "customers" would imply that we had some sort of choice in the matter) , they would be out of business within months.

I am totally aware of your priority system with regards to restoration of power now. Can't have those rich Whites in Bocage and Country Club of La. stewing while working folks are being serviced. That would violate too many karmatic laws of class and caste to comprehend.

From what I understand, there are still areas in Louisiana even now without power due to Gustav (and this is not counting new outages from Ike) - approximately 12,000 customers, in fact.

Get ready, Texas and Arkansas. Now it is your turn to experience the disgrace that is Entergy. Be prepared for weeks of legalistic bullshit non-answers as to when you can expect to resume your normal lives.

Bottom

Last night on my way home on the freeway my left rear tire essentially exploded and left me without reliable transport to work.

So I am home now. Actually, to be honest, I do not feel much like going to work. (Mark this occasion for this history books, as that is the only time you will hear me admit such a thing.) Stranded without power, as the very last person in the line scheduled to be restored (a lovely byproduct of being a poor and Black equivalent), led around by the nose to the shuck and jive excuses of all parties that are grandly profiting directly from human misery - no, I don't think I'm really in the mood to work right now.

And now comes a new hurricane to divert power restoration resources to new areas, leaving the forgotten areas of post Gustav Louisiana behind, probably next to permanently.  (Apparently Entergy believes that all Blacks are deadbeats who don't deserve the power they pay for.)

But things should look up, hopefully. The utility company says that all should be restored by Wednesday. Of course, given the history of Entergy's promises, we should only be slightly hopeful.

Come October, there will be drastic changes occurring in my living arrangements. If all works out as I hope, things will be looking quite up. This bullshit of living in the ghetto among society's most loathsome creatures is over. The train has run its course, and another stage in life must take its place. I am tired of being regarded as a second class citizen.

If you can't beat the dickheadocracy, join them (or at least make the appearance thereof).

THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE

My neighborhood now stews for the ninth day largely without power.

THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE.

Of course if I say this in the form which I would like - ranting and screaming with a baseball bat in my hand pointed at the dickheadocrats which make all this possible - I would be tased and bludgeoned by the storm troopers beyond belief.

The dickheads are completely in control now. They suck the life from all viable things. And the working class is the easiest and cheapest pick off the menu.

The working person is left to fend for himself once again in the face of impossible odds. While the welfare poor crowd like lemmings to the promise of free "disaster relief" goodies wrought by the powers that be, and the rich idle away thoughtlessly in their now re-powered and air conditioned homes, it is the working man who is abandoned in the quest to relieve the suffering of the State-privileged groups.

The mentality of "I've got mine, now fuck off" is very much the order of the day in this post-modern age of declining resources and vastly lowered expectations.

You can't trust the utility companies to actually be honest and forthright about when power is to be restored. (What, you actually trust State-supported "legal" monopolists? Surely you jest.) All their public pronouncements - every last one from the get-go of this crisis - have the very distinct look of being drafted by lawyers and other "public relations" specialists who are more concerned with taking the utmost care not to say anything publicly which might expose them to even a shred of liability than with, you know, actually informing their allegedly precious customers when they might expect their service to come back online.

That is surely a great help to suffering elderly people who can't run their dialysis machines, or infants and children, or to the ever growing mold and mildew in people's homes which is rapidly rendering them uninhabitable, power or no power. (Actually, that last part is exactly right.)

And you know, if there was ever an honest and true liability issue to contemplate, it is this situation. There will be lawsuits arising no matter how much "damage control" Entergy and its fellow travelers attempt to spin. But you can bet the farm that they will be dismissed by the courts (bought and paid for by the elites and the corporate interests long ago) due to some "act of God" clause or whatnot.

I see plenty of reason for businesses (particularly small businesses) and their employees to sue for damages. After all, every day without electricity for a typical business is a day without revenue, or even an assured loss if personnel salaries are factored in (for those increasingly rare businesses that actually take care of their staff). And most wage-work employees certainly aren't going to be paid if they don't work, and they aren't going to be working if their workplace is out of power.

Can you say "de facto furlough"?

So again, the little man gets screwed by powerful impersonal politically connected and entrenched corporate forces of death.

Like that's unique.

And again, THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE.

Back to normalcy (hopefully)

So work re-commences tomorrow, and I will be returning to the city to resume my old routine (finally!). It is not known if my apartment has been repowered, but hopefully I will arrive Monday evening to find all back to normal - power on, hopefully no mold.

If otherwise, then life is going to be particularly hard for a while longer.

And now there is another lethal storm in the tropics with the potential to again annihalate Louisiana, and from the looks of it the potential for this state to see another landfall of a major hurricane is high.

Normalcy, if it arrives, may well be short lived.

And then the cries of "fuck with it" will arise in a great clamour, and jobs will evaporate and lives will be ruined.

***

Let me just take this time to give a big non-round of applause to our local and state Leaders. (Like I didn't see this coming.)

Again, you botched this situation. Again, you scared people shitless and all but forced them to flee before the onslaught, all to aggrandize your power and glory. Again, you fucked with people trying to return to their homes and properties. Again, you let the powerful (i.e. the energy companies) run roughshod over the public.

You are all just extremely lucky that the storm surge didn't rise a foot or two higher. If they had, we'd be pumping water out the streets of New Orleans right now, and many heads would roll.

The power situation is UNACCEPTABLE. Take a wager on whether we will be billed this month for the electricity we didn't consume? 

You can bet the farm that our energy bills will rise even though no one will actually, you know, have been with power for the majority of the month. Conceive the logic of that, if you will.

As always, the people are made to suck the dicks of the powerful and connected.

It's time for energy competition. Entergy and DEMCO would be bankrupt to-morrow if it had to contend with the likes of CLECO and LUS.

Gustav tales Part II: Descent into darkness

After the storm had passed came the great calm - a calm in which civilization and its accoutrements had evaporated.

For the next few days our position languished without power, and seemingly without hope. Breeze turned to still calm as the humidity spiked and made life quite unbearable. Conditions descended to a feral state as society degenerated into primitivism.

Services and goods were fatally scarce, with the few points of distribution marked by extremely long lines of bedraggled and desperate people hoping against hope to find some hedge against starvation. Few federal emergency "relief" resources could be found with the exception of the usual phalanx of storm troopers which terrorized the streets in order to control the movements of the citizens, in an effort to allegedly deter looters.

The fatal period was after dark, when the only light available - the natural illumination of the sun - vanished and the city was plunged into blackness. Storm victims, their very lives dependent on a State sanctioned monopoly utility company which couldn't give a fuck whether they lived or died, reverted to pre-industrial habits of life as windows were opened and ancient habits were relearned in order to deal with the lack of modern climate control. 

Streets were cleared fairly rapidly despite the destruction of the tree canopy, but the effects of this damage was devastating to the electrical grid, which by some mind boggling stroke of fate and State permission had never been constructed in a manner which would serve to minimize damage during hurricane conditions - and this in a state where hurricanes are a more or less annual event.

After two days of this, and close to desperation, yours truly fled for more hospitable parts, as it was becoming all too clear that to remain in the city without regular supplies of food and water meant inevitable starvation.

At this moment it is estimated that the city of Baton Rouge will have power fully restored in three to four weeks.

Gustav tales Part I: Feel the power of Gustav

Since I did not have the means to tell the tale of Gustav while it was happening, I shall share the story now.

Our preparations had been made. Sunday was the deadly calm before the storm, weatherwise. The first rain bands crossed Baton Rouge on Sunday evening. Little in their advance portended the hazardous weather to come. We went to bed Sunday night with power and all other amenities still in working order. These items were still functional upon my awakening on Monday morning.

Throughout the first half of Monday, conditions deteriorated, though by midday the weather was still more or less breezy and more indicative of a severe thunderstorm than a Category 2 hurricane.

At five minutes before noon on Monday, power ceased to flow to the apartment and we were plunged into eternal darkness. Power to this very moment has not been restored and is likely not to be restored for another week.

The worst of the weather passed over us during the afternoon of Labor Day. The wind gusted madly as trees swayed, shingles were shorn from the roof of my apartment building, rain lashed nearly vertically, and materials such as carports flailed like aluminium foil in the turmoil. During this time we left the windows open to the storm as the breeze proved functional in cooling my apartment. Regrettably, this also permitted moisture and rainwater to enter the facility and possibly ruin my electronic appliances and other such items.



As the day ended, the weather gradually decreased in severity, though the breeze remained and rain was a constant into the night. This steady rain would remain with us pretty much for the next two days.

Coming in Part II: life without electrical power.

Rising from chaos

The situation in south Louisiana seems to be improving in slow and incremental fashion. But chaos remains the order of the day in many places.

Day by day more services return, and more businesses reopen. Petrol and resources remain scarce, though, with what little is open in full resource ration mode, producing long miserable lines of (mostly) bedraggled Blacks.

And I am returning to work Monday, by some miracle. Let us hope against hope it is not merely to call us in to inform us that we are going to be furloughed, or (better yet) laid off permanently, due to the shortfalls of tax revenues and depletion of public funds. What cheer!

(For as we know the politicians, for all their bluster to the contrary, couldn't give a flivvering rat's ass about the people who do the actual work of "serving" the public.)

The lack of electricity presents a formidable barrier to the return of normalcy. My apartment remains without power and remains ruined by storm damage. Dat's the price you pay for renting a cheap apartment, I guess.

Oh, and two days of humidity has killed my laptop, and perhaps interrupted the orderly flow of blog updates here. Hooray!

So for now it looks like I will be making my residence in a shelter or some such facility. 

Entergy has finally produced some actual time estimates to power restoration in EBR Parish: 90% restored by September 17, and full restoration by September 24. Still unacceptable, but at least we are not facing months and months of powerlessness as I had feared a few days ago.

It's been over 40 years since the last big storm in BR, so dat's over 40 years of tree growth that had to fall and cause destruction of the electrical grid.

With my luck, my battered neighborhood will be one of the last places to be restored. Racism and bigotry reigns supreme everywhere, but especially in disasters.

Ten dollars for a bag of ice is understandable in these situations. (Dat's just economics at work.) But outright refusal to sell needed items to people of color because "these things are needed for our people" is absolute bullshit.

I am not going to name names or places, but suffice it to say that most people are assholes (as usual) when it comes to their darker skinned "inferiors." Say what you will about disasters bringing out the best in human nature. That line is total, complete bullshit.

In any case, it will be a while before things are back to normal here. Do not believe the media and their cries of "all clear"; they are of course all focused on New Orleans, which was only relatively lightly scathed. (Power should be totally restored in the NO area by this weekend.) The total media blackout on the spawning crisis in the rest of Louisiana, especially the rural parishes which are rapidly approaching total collapse, is proving fatal.

All is lost

So Gustav has passed. And south Louisiana lies in ruins.

The physical damage was not severe - downed trees and awnings, broken signs, etc. As a hurricane Gustav was not truly severe.

Yet due to the criminal incompetence (AGAIN) of the powers that be, especially the STATE MONOPOLY ENERGY COMPANY, this storm looks to be the worst in Baton Rouge's history. The city is facing weeks, perhaps months, without power, services, or basic supplies. 

Livelihoods and plans for a secure future, including my own, hang tenously in the balance as the lack of electricity stymies all attempts at normal economic activity, only working to the benefit of the power-mad politicians and the FEMAcrats who come out like roaches in the woodwork in these situations. (Disasters bring out the not so hidden fascist in every tinpot local elected official, all reveling in their ability to control people's movements and access to their property at will.)

The desperation of the people is increasingly palpable, with the few stores and filling stations open seeing long and grim lines of bedraggled rabble only one meal away from starvation.

Civilization is breaking down as people flee the city like rats from a sinking ship, to places outside where there is food, power, and water available, to stave off inevitable starvation. Even yours truly, hemmed in by the twin reapers of starvation and lack of electric power, had to flee to safer quarters outside the city to save his life.

Such are the wages of chaos when civilization disappears.

The only reason I am able to attend to this blog this evening is due to my bolting for better pastures; for the past three days a fatal lack of electricity has rendered normal updates futile. As it is my presumably inpregnable apartment is now uninhabitable thanx to humidity, a leaking ceiling, and a thousand other storm related issues. So homelessness, along with joblessness, looks to be my future.

There is nothing left for me in BR. My life is in ruins, and I have entered the blade runner situation of idle incomeless productivelessness. My worst case scenarios have been exceeded by a thousand percent.

For god's sakes Entergy, GET THE POWER BACK ON!!!  PEOPLE ARE DYING OUT HERE!!! GOD HELP US ALL!!!!

So it begins

So far, just gray, non-threatening looking clouds that have been looming since around lunchtime or so.  Most of today weatherwise, in fact, has been quiet - too quiet. The lethal calm before the storm.

In contrast, the people have been jumping like lemmings in a mad scramble for survival as they make a last desperate dash stocking up on the remaining dwindling supplies for the long road ahead. Virtually all businesses closed around midday and boarded up windows are not an uncommon sight.

It is all quiet now. The streets are deserted all over the southland as people hunker down.  The hurricane is weaker, but still powerful, and looks to lay waste to an enormous swath of the state.

Storm cells now threaten from the east as the first of the outer bands approach my position. I don't expect much more than (maybe heavy) rain for now.

Tomorrow comes the deluge. May God have mercy on our souls.