Newsfail: No major newspapers able or willing to cover catastrophic floods in Atlanta

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With the exception of the beleaguered Atlanta Journal-Constitution, no major papers are covering the flooding currently ravaging Atlanta, Georgia. I only know about it because my mother and step-father live there---they're fine, but my mother nearly couldn't get home last night because of so many downed trees, washed-out roads, and police barricades. My step-father, being ex-Special Forces, was ridiculously well-prepared (hurricane lamps, a universal charger for multiple cell phones that hooks up to his car's cigarette lighter), but their neighbors aren't so lucky: good friends of theirs have seen their house so damaged that they expect to live in a hotel for months.

Can someone explain how this isn't a news story? Where's the coverage? Atlanta received 14 inches of rain in a few days, which all goes on hard-packed clay (it's a very dry part of the country) and thousands of miles of roadway. There's nowhere for the rain to go except into people's houses. Police are rescuing people by boat. The three interstates are shut. Every school in the city is closed. And the best the New York Times, Washington Post, and Boston Globe can do is stick the same A.P. link at the bottom of their national news subsections: "Toddler Among 6 Killed as Storms Drench Southeast". And that story is 12 hours old.

I sincerely hope that it's my familial proximity to people at Atlanta that has me seeing this story all out of proportion. But if it's not, are we seeing the news industry's Katrina? Is this evidence that newspapers are unable or unwilling to expend the resources to help inform people during a natural disaster?

Update

One of my mother's business partners reports:

After a 3 hour ride home, both entrances to my subdivision were blocked due to flooding. I ultimately had to park about a half mile away and then had to wade thru about 3.5 feet of water to get to my house. Luckily, my home has very little flood damage. Almost all the other units have inches of water in their homes. Anyway, they are currently not allowing us to use water since that is causing further problems although I don't quite understand why. So tomorrow I might have to find a place to shower and I'm not sure if I will have to wade thru water again to get back to my car.

didnt realize the extent

of the destruction until I saw a feature on the Weather Channel , of all places. I have contacted the American Red Cross and initiated some volunteers for the area, but havent been called ...yet .

let us know how we can help
bob mc alister
http://www.jackson-miss.com

Wow Andrew

I found this post via StumbleUpon and was pretty stunned with the picture. I'm a regular watcher of the news here in Dallas and I haven't seen anything over the last month that shows what really happened. It's weird I can learn more from blogs most times than I can with the media. I guess that's why they call blogs 'new media'. I'm glad things seemed to work out ok for you.

I had a similar feeling about the media not giving us the whole story when I read a Rolling Stone article titled 'The Great American Bubble Machine'. I was blown away how big of a story that should be, but instead it only gets covered by a mag like Rolling Stone and it swept under the rug by the MSM.

It can be read here if anybody is interested.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/28816321/inside_the_great_ame...

Jeremy in Dallas
http://www.palladiumcustomhomes.com/

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