America - Katrina Flood Aid

Today is Blog Relief Day for the victims of the Katrina disaster. If you would like to join in you can sign up here.

For more information visit Instapundit.

I'll keep this post at the top of the blog today and will udate it throughout the day.
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Katrina is the worst natural disaster ever to hit America and those affected need our help and what's need most right now is cash. The American Red Cross has set up the Hurricane 2005 Relief fund to help respond to the disaster. To make a donation, go to http://www.redcross.org/. Or see Instapundit for more suggestions, including advice on being cautious who you dontate to.

CNN, Fox and The BBC all have pictures on their front pages showing the scale of the disaster.

One of my aims today will be to try and track Europe's response to the disaster. As you would expect the BBC politicize the disaster.


This seems to be the BBC's main page for all Katrina related news.

The Guardian has a webpage up tracking bloggers response with some good links to first hand accounts of what's going on. Sadly there are allowing some nut cases to post insane rants. You would think a decent newspaper would edit such trash out - not the Guardian. Here's a sample:

The looting is an uprising, a revolution. Looters are freedom fighters, fighting for the cause and fighting against the man, the oppression, the global warming, and the stolen oil caused by George Bush and the United States.

A lot of the comments are racists as well.

The best thing that could have happened for the superbowl ,caught by a giant wind,to have become airborne and it, and the contents flung out on another planet.The blacks/hispanics there are all space cadets.

You get the idea.

While on the frontpage the Guardian blames Bush and Iraq.

The Daily Mail leads with a story about Posh's reading habits and has one link to some photos of the disaster and one to a story about it.

What I see missing in these stories is a call for donations to help.

The Times (UK) gives you an idea of the level of destruction.

A 30-foot sea surge in Mississippi obliterated 90 per cent of buildings on the coast east of New Orleans. The town of Gulfport was virtually gone, as was much of Biloxi. More than 2.3 million homes were without electricity, including 80 per cent of Mississippi.

To make a donation, go to http://www.redcross.org/.

Some great news from Britain. BP is donating $1 million to Katrina relief. Excellent! More of this please.

I have emailed Tesco and asked if they are going to donate and I mentioned the BP donation as a prod. Please contact them or any other British corporation to see if they will help. You can contact Tesco here.

I just phoned Glaxo UK to see if they were planning on donating. I was put through to a voice mailbox and left a message. You can contact them here:

GlaxoSmithKline,
Glaxo Wellcome UK Ltd.,
Stockley Park West,
Uxbridge,
Middlesex, UB11 1BT
General Enquiries:
Tel: 020 8990 9000
Fax: 020 8990 4321

Maybe if they get a lot of calls that mention the $1 million donation fromm BP they will donate as well. It's worth a call at least.

In fact, here is a list of the top 100 corporations in the UK. Do a Google search to find their webpage and then contact them to see if they plan on donating.

You can contact Marks and Spencers here.

You can contact Unilever here.

You can contact Sainsbury here.

You contact Shell UK here.

I've just spoken with my local Tesco store and they are looking into poosibly doing a rundraiser and will let me know in the next half hour. Here's hoping. Contact your local Tesco and see if they will take donations.

You can contact The Body Shop here.

Lloyds contact info here.

If I get a reply from any of them I'll let you know. So far only automated responses.

Barclay's contact info here.

Exxon/Mobil contact info here.

Please call them or email them and ask them to donate. I always mention BP's $1 million donation to prod them.

In addition to Instapundit (link above) Michelle has a great round up of relief efforts for the Katrina victims.

Scott notes more politicizing of the disaster by the Guardian.

And some commenters on British blogs are not very sympathetic. Here is a comment left on Harry's blog.

"Perhaps someone would explain why anyone would even consider donating to help the Katrina victims? They are 1/1000th of the numbers of Tsunami victims, and are vastly outnumbered by the starving and sick of Mali or the Sudan. Moreover, unlike the victims of those other disasters, they have the world's most powerful state in the world's richest country at their disposal. The US government and taxpayer can deal with this one, those of us with spare cash donate should send it somewhere else."

I notice he writes in English and not German.

I didn't read all the comments but it was pretty clear that a lot of people shared his feelings - and worse. So sad.

And the German newspapers are blaming Bush too. Just start at the top and scroll down.

Gulf Coast News has a survivor database up.

The Telegraph has a round up of what local bloggers on the scene are seeing.

Despite the disaster one British travel company still plans to make the trip to New Orleans.

Dawn Jordan, Bath Travel's Director of Cruising, said: "Our hearts go out to the people of New Orleans and the rest of the region. It's been a terrible catastrophe but we are pressing ahead with our plans. We are determined to go.

"We feel quite positive that by the time we go in six months time, the city will be in a good shape. Our flight is the first ever direct service to New Orleans from the UK and I think it takes on an even greater significance in view of what's happened."

British woman's brother missing in the disaster.

The British Government has set up a hotline. 0207 008 0000.

There is also a 24-hour contact number for the British consulate in Houston, which is 001 713 659 6270.

Just heard back from Tesco. They say that they helped raise money for the tsunami disaster and don't see why they wouldn't help with the Katrina disaster. The spokesperson said it could take up to a week or more to get it set up. Sounds slow and unconvincing to me but we'll see.

Participating blogs: 699 blogs from 11 countries so farAdd your blog

The local New Orleans newspaper has lots of up to date information including how to contact relatives.

More good news! I just got a call from Glaxo and they say they will donate to the Katrina relief effort. They are going to make an announcement this afternoon and will post it on their website later to day. They mentioned my reference to BP's donation, so maybe it helped.

The numbers for other UK corportaions are above. Contact them and let them know that BP and Glaxo are donating.