Bush's response is not adequate

[tcsenter]

Most people understand that the federal government sent most of the guard units to another country, therefore defeating point of a National Guard.

I didn't know 20% constituted "most" or "majority". Once again, for the third time, no more than 80,000 National Guard troops out of 440,000 are overseas. Even supposing an additional 80,000 troops are incapable of mobilizing for whatever reason, that leaves well over 250,000 National Guard troops here at home.

It doesn't matter what Louisiana did or didn't do. It is a national crisis. Bush should have been ready on day two, or day three at the latest. Stop trying to blame Louisiana for everything.

I continue to be amazed at how obscenely ignorant critics are of how federal disaster assistance is intended to work. State and local authorities have the obligation and responsibility to take the lead role in the immediate aftermath of a natural disaster, with their first responders and other assets. The federal government plays only a supportive role, because it is not in a position to best know what state and local officials need on the ground in THEIR districts, counties, and cities. State and local authorities have for decades insisted it be this way for the most effective and efficient response. The federal response always takes several days to reach full strength.

Claiming Bush should have been "ready" (whatever that means) on day two or three is based purely in ignorant (or partisan) speculation of how much time it takes to mobilize considerable assets that are spread out all over the country. The 20K ~ 30K troops that are needed on the ground for a disaster of this scale cannot be mobilized in two or three days. Most of the Guard is living their civilian lives and need 24 ~ 72 hours just to report to their units. Then they have to prepare for deployment, ready tons of equipment (which is often stored in facilities located miles away), requisition and transport supplies (again often stored miles away from deployment sites), fuel hundreds of vehicles, instruct troops more than once on deployment plans and stage for deployment. There are checks, and rechecks, and even more rechecks along the way.

Hey, no problem. 20,000 ~ 30,000 troops spread over two or three states can drop what they're doing and be ready in a day or two, if it weren't pure fiction. There is no magic phonebooth like Superman has.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: Duckzilla

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: Lifted

Originally posted by: charrison

How exactly did the admin sit on its hands?

Sorry, I didn't realize that only you could see the helicopters delivering food to the tens of thousands of people starving to death. Were they black helicopters? Do you wear a tinfoil hat?

You dont starve to death in 4 days. But I also did not see the NOLA goverment make an effort to feed its citizens either. Would it have been that difficult to drive over to the walmart and pick up provisions. THe looters seemed to have not problems doing so.

Please don't make me use caps.

Louisiana's seeming lack of effort doesn't excuse the federal government in a national crisis.

Louisiana's seeming lack of effort doesn't excuse the federal government in a national crisis.

Take notes.

Take notes, it is not fed job for diaster planning for state and local goverments. Take notes.

 

[BBond]

For all of the fvcking LIARS in here trying to act as thought the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA isn't responsible for national disasters, here is an article from today's NY Times and the interview with New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin wherein he asks for executive power that the president and governor are not using and GUARANTEES that with that power HE will take care of this catastrophe.

If you're TOO DAMN LAZY TO READ IT YOU CAN LISTEN TO IT. JUST CLICK ON THE LINK.

If you don't want to sign up for the Times online, use Bug Me Not

User ID: hellotomorrow
Password: adidas

Stop spreading these lies and excusing the inexcusable people, BECAUSE IF THE PEOPLE WHO FAILED US THIS TIME ARE NOT HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR UTTER INCOMPETENCE AND OUTRIGHT CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE, THE NEXT TIME IT COULD BE YOU -- OR ANY OF US.

Across U.S., Outrage at Response

By TODD S. PURDUM

WASHINGTON, Sept. 2 - There was anger: David Vitter, Louisiana's freshman Republican senator, gave the federal government an F on Friday for its handling of the whirlwind after the storm. And Representative Elijah E. Cummings, Democrat of Maryland and the former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, declared, "We cannot allow it to be said that the difference between those who lived and those who died" amounted to "nothing more than poverty, age or skin color."

There was shock at the slow response: Joseph P. Riley Jr., the 29-year Democratic mayor of Charleston, S.C., and a veteran of Hurricane Hugo's wrath, said: "I knew in Charleston, looking at the Weather Channel, that Gulfport was going to be destroyed. I'm the mayor of Charleston, but I knew that!"

But perhaps most of all there was shame, a deep collective national disbelief that the world's sole remaining superpower could not - or at least had not - responded faster and more forcefully to a disaster that had been among its own government's worst-case possibilities for years.

"It really makes us look very much like Bangladesh or Baghdad," said David Herbert Donald, the retired Harvard historian of the Civil War and a native Mississippian, who said that Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's destructive march from Atlanta to the sea paled by comparison. "I'm 84 years old. I've been around a long time, but I've never seen anything like this."

Around the nation, and indeed the world, the reaction to Hurricane Katrina's devastation stretched beyond the usual political recriminations and swift second-guessing that so often follow calamities. In dozens of interviews and editorials, feelings deeper and more troubled bubbled to the surface in response to the flooding and looting that "humbled the most powerful nation on the planet," and showed "how quickly the thin veneer of civilization can be stripped away," as The Daily Mail of London put it.

"It's very disappointing," said Dr. Kauser Akhter, a physician from Tampa, Fla., who was attending a convention of the Islamic Society of North America outside Chicago.

"I think they were too slow to respond. Maybe the response would have been quicker if it had occurred in some other area of the country, for example in New York or California where there's more money, more people who are going to object, raise their voices," she said. "Those people are the poorest of the poor in Mississippi and Alabama, and it seems they had no access to anything."

Jonathan Williams, an architect in Hartford, originally from Uganda, said the delayed arrival of relief and aid supplies in New Orleans made him wonder about how the United States responds to disasters abroad.

"I am in utter shock," he said in an interview at Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan on Friday. "There is just total disarray. This far into the cleanup and they are still understaffed? I am just so disappointed. It's just a terrible, sad situation."

But Mr. Williams added: "You cannot just blame the president, or any one person. Everyone is partly to blame. It's the whole system."

It was the combination of specific and systemic failures that many of those interviewed - experts and ordinary people alike - echoed.

Andrew Young, the former civil rights worker and mayor of Atlanta who was Jimmy Carter's ambassador to the United Nations, was born in New Orleans 73 years ago, walked on its levees as a boy and "was always assured by my father that the Army Corps of Engineers had done a masterful job." But, Mr. Young said, "they've been neglected for the last 20 years," along with other pillars of the nation's infrastructure, human and physical.

"I was surprised and not surprised," he said of the failures and suffering of this week.

"It's not just a lack of preparedness. I think the easy answer is to say that these are poor people and black people and so the government doesn't give a damn," he said. "That's O.K., and there might be some truth to that. But I think we've got to see this as a serious problem of the long-term neglect of an environmental system on which our nation depends. All the grain that's grown in Iowa and Illinois, and the huge industrial output of the Midwest has to come down the Mississippi River, and there has to be a port to handle it, to keep a functioning economy in the United States of America."

Mr. Riley, the Charleston mayor, whose Police Department on Monday sent 55 officers to help keep order in Gulfport, Miss., said he had long advocated creating a special military entity - perhaps under the Corps of Engineers - that could respond immediately to disasters.

"It's not the police function," he said. "It's that it's an entity that knows how to quickly restore infrastructure and the essentials of order." He said his own experience with the Federal Emergency Management Agency during Hurricane Hugo in 1989, when he had the National Guard on standby and then requested Army troops and marines, had convinced him that civilian bureaucracy was sometimes too caught up in the niceties.

"With the eye of Hugo over my City Hall, literally, I said to a FEMA official, 'What's the main bit of advice you can give me?' and he said, 'You need to make sure you're accounting for all your expenses," Mayor Riley recalled. "The tragedy of these things is the unnecessary pain in those early days, the complete destruction of normalcy."

Few suggested the challenges of this particular storm had been easy.

Priscilla Turner, 55, of Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y., is a registered Democrat, but she said President Bush was being saddled with some unfair blame. "There is an instinct to be so negative," Ms. Turner said, "to wish for the worst, to anticipate the worse, to glory and wallow in the worst." If Mr. Bush had sent troops to New Orleans too quickly, she said, his detractors would have portrayed him as "going in with guns blazing."

As it is, criticism of Mr. Bush has been unsparing, especially abroad. European newspaper headlines used words like "anarchy" and "apocalypse" and some ordinary citizens in less fortunate parts of the world spoke with virtual contempt for what they saw as an American failure to live up to its professed ideals.

"I am absolutely disgusted," said Sajeewa Chinthaka, 36, watching a cricket match in Colombo, Sri Lanka, according to the Reuters news agency. "After the tsunami, our people, even the ones who lost everything, wanted to help the others who were suffering. Not a single tourist caught in the tsunami was mugged. Now with all this happening in the U.S., we can easily see where the civilized part of the world's population is."

There was anger closer to home, too, especially among blacks.

"Babies, the elderly are dying on the streets," said Rebecca Chalk, 60, financial aid director at Sojourner-Douglass College in Baltimore. "It doesn't speak well of America."

Ms. Chalk added: "People are desperate; they're hungry and panicky and they lost everything. The bureaucracy seems like it has to go through all these channels. They should have just gotten the people help by now."

Calvin Kelly, 40, works in a San Francisco food bank warehouse but was born in New Orleans and has been unable to reach elderly family members, including two grandmothers and a 99-year-old aunt, who still live there. "The National Guard is just now getting there," Mr. Kelly said, shaking his head. "The government should have been there when the storm first hit."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in an unusual foray into domestic affairs, sharply disputed any suggestion that storm victims had somehow been overlooked because of their race. "We're all going to need to be in this together," she said in announcing offers of foreign aid. "I think everybody's very emotional. It's hard to watch pictures of any American going through this. And yes, the African-American community has obviously been very heavily affected."

But noting her own roots in Alabama, and her father's in Louisiana, Dr. Rice announced plans to visit the region this weekend and said, "That Americans would somehow in a color-affected way decide who to help and who not to help - I just don't believe it."

By no means did all the criticism come from blacks, or from Mr. Bush's political opponents.

Senator Vitter spent part of Friday touring the devastation with Mr. Bush and told reporters that he hoped a turnaround was in the offing. But earlier in the day, news agencies reported, he said the "operational effectiveness" of federal efforts to date deserved a failing grade, or lower.

Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, who also spent part of the day with the president and went out of his way to praise the government's response, offered a sober assessment.

"We're going to be fine at the end of the day," Mr. Barbour said, "but the end of the day's a long way away."

Reporting for this article was contributed by Gary Gately in Baltimore, Laurie Goodstein in Chicago, Carolyn Marshall in San Francisco, and Jennifer Medina and Marek J. Fuchs in New York.

Transcirpt - Mayor C. Ray Nagin's Interview

Mayor C. Ray Nagin lashed out at federal officials, telling a local radio station "they don't have a clue what's going on down here." The following is a transcript of the interview with WWL-AM.
Listen to the mp3

MAYOR RAY NAGIN: I told him we had an incredible crisis here and that his flying over in Air Force One does not do it justice. And that I have been all around this city, and I am very frustrated because we are not able to marshal resources and we're outmanned in just about every respect.

You know the reason why the looters got out of control? Because we had most of our resources saving people, thousands of people that were stuck in attics, man, old ladies. ... You pull off the doggone ventilator vent and you look down there and they're standing in there in water up to their freaking necks.

And they don't have a clue what's going on down here. They flew down here one time two days after the doggone event was over with TV cameras, AP reporters, all kind of goddamn -- excuse my French everybody in America, but I am pissed.

WWL: Did you say to the president of the United States, "I need the military in here"?

NAGIN: I said, "I need everything."

Now, I will tell you this -- and I give the president some credit on this -- he sent one John Wayne dude down here that can get some stuff done, and his name is [Lt.] Gen. [Russel] Honore.

And he came off the doggone chopper, and he started cussing and people started moving. And he's getting some stuff done.

They ought to give that guy -- if they don't want to give it to me, give him full authority to get the job done, and we can save some people.

WWL: What do you need right now to get control of this situation?

NAGIN: I need reinforcements, I need troops, man. I need 500 buses, man. We ain't talking about -- you know, one of the briefings we had, they were talking about getting public school bus drivers to come down here and bus people out here.

I'm like, "You got to be kidding me. This is a national disaster. Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get their asses moving to New Orleans."

That's -- they're thinking small, man. And this is a major, major, major deal. And I can't emphasize it enough, man. This is crazy.

I've got 15,000 to 20,000 people over at the convention center. It's bursting at the seams. The poor people in Plaquemines Parish. ... We don't have anything, and we're sharing with our brothers in Plaquemines Parish.

It's awful down here, man.

WWL: Do you believe that the president is seeing this, holding a news conference on it but can't do anything until [Louisiana Gov.] Kathleen Blanco requested him to do it? And do you know whether or not she has made that request?

NAGIN: I have no idea what they're doing. But I will tell you this: You know, God is looking down on all this, and if they are not doing everything in their power to save people, they are going to pay the price. Because every day that we delay, people are dying and they're dying by the hundreds, I'm willing to bet you.

We're getting reports and calls that are breaking my heart, from people saying, "I've been in my attic. I can't take it anymore. The water is up to my neck. I don't think I can hold out." And that's happening as we speak.

You know what really upsets me, Garland? We told everybody the importance of the 17th Street Canal issue. We said, "Please, please take care of this. We don't care what you do. Figure it out."

WWL: Who'd you say that to?

NAGIN: Everybody: the governor, Homeland Security, FEMA. You name it, we said it.

And they allowed that pumping station next to Pumping Station 6 to go under water. Our sewage and water board people ... stayed there and endangered their lives.

And what happened when that pumping station went down, the water started flowing again in the city, and it starting getting to levels that probably killed more people.

In addition to that, we had water flowing through the pipes in the city. That's a power station over there.

So there's no water flowing anywhere on the east bank of Orleans Parish. So our critical water supply was destroyed because of lack of action.

WWL: Why couldn't they drop the 3,000-pound sandbags or the containers that they were talking about earlier? Was it an engineering feat that just couldn't be done?

NAGIN: They said it was some pulleys that they had to manufacture. But, you know, in a state of emergency, man, you are creative, you figure out ways to get stuff done.

Then they told me that they went overnight, and they built 17 concrete structures and they had the pulleys on them and they were going to drop them.

I flew over that thing yesterday, and it's in the same shape that it was after the storm hit. There is nothing happening. And they're feeding the public a line of bull and they're spinning, and people are dying down here.

WWL: If some of the public called and they're right, that there's a law that the president, that the federal government can't do anything without local or state requests, would you request martial law?

NAGIN: I've already called for martial law in the city of New Orleans. We did that a few days ago.

WWL: Did the governor do that, too? NAGIN: I don't know. I don't think so.

But we called for martial law when we realized that the looting was getting out of control. And we redirected all of our police officers back to patrolling the streets. They were dead-tired from saving people, but they worked all night because we thought this thing was going to blow wide open last night. And so we redirected all of our resources, and we hold it under check.

I'm not sure if we can do that another night with the current resources.

And I am telling you right now: They're showing all these reports of people looting and doing all that weird stuff, and they are doing that, but people are desperate and they're trying to find food and water, the majority of them.

Now you got some knuckleheads out there, and they are taking advantage of this lawless -- this situation where, you know, we can't really control it, and they're doing some awful, awful things. But that's a small majority of the people. Most people are looking to try and survive.

And one of the things people -- nobody's talked about this. Drugs flowed in and out of New Orleans and the surrounding metropolitan area so freely it was scary to me, and that's why we were having the escalation in murders. People don't want to talk about this, but I'm going to talk about it.

You have drug addicts that are now walking around this city looking for a fix, and that's the reason why they were breaking in hospitals and drugstores. They're looking for something to take the edge off of their jones, if you will.

And right now, they don't have anything to take the edge off. And they've probably found guns. So what you're seeing is drug-starving crazy addicts, drug addicts, that are wrecking havoc. And we don't have the manpower to adequately deal with it. We can only target certain sections of the city and form a perimeter around them and hope to God that we're not overrun.

WWL: Well, you and I must be in the minority. Because apparently there's a section of our citizenry out there that thinks because of a law that says the federal government can't come in unless requested by the proper people, that everything that's going on to this point has been done as good as it can possibly be.

NAGIN: Really?

WWL: I know you don't feel that way.

NAGIN: Well, did the tsunami victims request? Did it go through a formal process to request?

You know, did the Iraqi people request that we go in there? Did they ask us to go in there? What is more important?

And I'll tell you, man, I'm probably going get in a whole bunch of trouble. I'm probably going to get in so much trouble it ain't even funny. You probably won't even want to deal with me after this interview is over.

WWL: You and I will be in the funny place together.

NAGIN: But we authorized $8 billion to go to Iraq lickety-quick. After 9/11, we gave the president unprecedented powers lickety-quick to take care of New York and other places.

Now, you mean to tell me that a place where most of your oil is coming through, a place that is so unique when you mention New Orleans anywhere around the world, everybody's eyes light up -- you mean to tell me that a place where you probably have thousands of people that have died and thousands more that are dying every day, that we can't figure out a way to authorize the resources that we need? Come on, man.

You know, I'm not one of those drug addicts. I am thinking very clearly.

And I don't know whose problem it is. I don't know whether it's the governor's problem. I don't know whether it's the president's problem, but somebody needs to get their ass on a plane and sit down, the two of them, and figure this out right now.

WWL: What can we do here?

NAGIN: Keep talking about it.

WWL: We'll do that. What else can we do?

NAGIN: Organize people to write letters and make calls to their congressmen, to the president, to the governor. Flood their doggone offices with requests to do something. This is ridiculous.

I don't want to see anybody do anymore goddamn press conferences. Put a moratorium on press conferences. Don't do another press conference until the resources are in this city. And then come down to this city and stand with us when there are military trucks and troops that we can't even count.

Don't tell me 40,000 people are coming here. They're not here. It's too doggone late. Now get off your asses and do something, and let's fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country.

WWL: I'll say it right now, you're the only politician that's called and called for arms like this. And if -- whatever it takes, the governor, president -- whatever law precedent it takes, whatever it takes, I bet that the people listening to you are on your side.

NAGIN: Well, I hope so, Garland. I am just -- I'm at the point now where it don't matter. People are dying. They don't have homes. They don't have jobs. The city of New Orleans will never be the same in this time.

WWL: We're both pretty speechless here.

NAGIN: Yeah, I don't know what to say. I got to go.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

Originally posted by: charrison

Take notes, it is not fed job for diaster planning for state and local goverments. Take notes.

There's clearly a lot of blame to go around - Louisiana has traditionally had some of the worst local and state government in the US - but I think it's foolhardy to absolve the federal government of any liability here.

FEMA exists more or less solely to respond to crises like this one. They have long been well aware that this exact event was likely to happen, and prepared a report in 2001 specifically calling it one of the three likeliest disasters to strike the US.

The City of NO and the Army Corps have been working since 1965 to shore up the levees in the city.

I feel strongly that the city and state should have done a better job planning out an evacuation strategy, but that's not something the present administrations are solely responsible for. It should have been done years ago, and their National Guard should have practiced it as a training exercise - hell, they may even have done so.

With all of that being said, it was predictable that a significant number of people would be stuck in NO if the levees broke, for a variety of reasons. This is a very poor city, and most of its people have sharply limited resources. Similarly, civil unrest was predictable and even likely.

Louisiana is a poor state, and Katrina has obviously overwhelmed its ability to deal. Once the area was declared a federal disaster area, FEMA assumed primary responsibility for securing it and rescuing its inhabitants.

What I am finding almost unbelievable is that, six days after the hurricane struck, there are still thousands of people without food or water, and FEMA is not letting them walk out of the city. It defies all common sense. I honestly don't believe the situation could have been handled any worse if it were happening in, say, Haiti. International relief agencies would have responded as fast or faster, and would, in my opinion, be doing just as well.

This is the United States of America - the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth, and we can't get food, water, and medical supplies to people, in a major city, nearly a week after a disaster strikes, in spite of the fact that the overwhelming majority of the country is perfectly intact.

What this should tell us is this: The Department of Homeland Security ain't what it's cracked up to be. We simply don't have the security we thought, and our ability to respond to a massive crisis seems to be no better than it was prior to 9/11.

There is a ton of blame to spread here, but suffice it to say that as an American I am proud of our people (who have responded with generosity and kindness), but disappointed in our government, at every level.

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: tcsenter

no, not evacuate. Bring in food/water. MUCH faster to bring food/water INTO the city than to evacuate people out of it. See my post above.

The city is under mandatory emergency evacuation with only two or three roads going in and out, all freeways and highways impassable or under water, but you don't see any problem with hundreds of busses trying to get supplies into the city when the goal is to get everyone out as quickly as possible.

People are literally DYING! Do you FVCKING UNDERSTAND THAT? D Y I N G ! !

They NEED FOOD and WATER to LIVE!

Then, get them out. Also, if they're supposed to be ordered out, why is the National Guard turning people BACK who are trying to walk out of the city over the Crescent City Connection bridge?!?

Amazing how utterly simplistic is your understanding of basic physics.

Amazing how utterly callous is your attitude toward human life.

See this video of last night's Hannity and Colmes:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/09/02.html#a4763


If you still have your callous attitude after watching that then there is no hope for you.

 

[BBond]

And where was the Red Cross???

Red Cross NEVER allowed into New Orleans.

by SteveRose
Fri Sep 2nd, 2005 at 18:02:05 PDT

My first diary! This whole week has been so depressing. My Red Cross donation was one bright spot. At least I had done something to help.

Then, after reading dKos and the other blogs all week and seeing over and over again comments that that FEMA and the NG were no where to be seen from the people on the ground in NO, I was wondering where the Red Cross was in all this. They were never mentioned. It was like they didn't exist. And, after yesterday's drama at the convention center, the Brown and Chertoff lies, the Red Cross was still MIA. Then, earlier today, I saw a note that the Red Cross was not allowed to enter NO. Hmm, that's doesn't make sense. This simmered for a couple hours.

So I called the Red Cross and asked them if its true....

[Update #1] updated to more blatant title.

[Update #2] DHS confirms this: Shock's Diary on this.

* SteveRose's diary :: ::
*

And, to my surprise, the nice lady answering the phone said it was true and they told/asked/ordered not to enter NO. She then went right into her spiel about all the other work the Red Cross was doing across the region. I said that's nice, but I still didn't understand why they weren't in NO. To my amazement, she patiently explained it to me. I even called back to verify what she said. This time she asked if I was media, I said no, just a concerned and confused contributor.

So here goes: Homeland Security (her term, not mine) told the Red Cross DO NOT enter New Orleans and says this still now. And why, you may ask? Not Security. Not worker safety. Not lack of access. It was because people would be drawn to the Red Cross food and they wouldn't want to go to be evacuated. So I asked: "The people starving and dying at the convention center yesterday couldn't get Red Cross food and water because they would be drawn to the food at the convention center, where they were, and not want to be evacuated from the convention center where no evacuations were going on or planned and all the while they are dying". (Actually, it was a couple questions.) She went back into her spiel about all of the other good work they were doing. When I asked again, she said yes, that was true. She seem relieved to admit it.

In closing, I asked if she asked this question before since she was very familiar with the answer she gave. She said yes. And I promised another donation. Which they will get after this post.

So, the question for Bushies, why was the Red Cross banned from NO when they knew people were starving? Could it be they were saving the convention center rescue until Bush's visit today? It certainly seems like it. Doesn't it?

Red Cross National Affairs number (202-303-5551)

 

[mithrandir2001]

Congress and The President tripped over themselves to "save" Terri Shiavo so please don't tell me that can't figure out how to save THOUSANDS of people in NO. They should not be able to think of anything else until the people are nourished and evacuated.

 

[BBond]

Originally posted by: mithrandir2001
Congress and The President tripped over themselves to "save" Terri Shiavo so please don't tell me that can't figure out how to save THOUSANDS of people in NO. They should not be able to think of anything else until the people are nourished and evacuated.

That's right. The Republicans called Congress back ON A SUNDAY NIGHT to pass illegal unnecessary legislation for ONE WOMAN, but they couldn't get back to handle a national disaster.

This is just disgusting. If America swallows this POS then we are all going to get exactly what we deserve when our turn comes.

 

[BBond]

And Mayor Nagin makes this very good point. DID THE IRAQI PEOPLE HAVE TO ASK BUSH TO COME TO IRAQ???

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: DonVito

Originally posted by: charrison

Take notes, it is not fed job for diaster planning for state and local goverments. Take notes.

There's clearly a lot of blame to go around - Louisiana has traditionally had some of the worst local and state government in the US - but I think it's foolhardy to absolve the federal government of any liability here.

FEMA exists more or less solely to respond to crises like this one. They have long been well aware that this exact event was likely to happen, and prepared a report in 2001 specifically calling it one of the three likeliest disasters to strike the US.

The City of NO and the Army Corps have been working since 1965 to shore up the levees in the city.

I feel strongly that the city and state should have done a better job planning out an evacuation strategy, but that's not something the present administrations are solely responsible for. It should have been done years ago, and their National Guard should have practiced it as a training exercise - hell, they may even have done so.

With all of that being said, it was predictable that a significant number of people would be stuck in NO if the levees broke, for a variety of reasons. This is a very poor city, and most of its people have sharply limited resources. Similarly, civil unrest was predictable and even likely.

Louisiana is a poor state, and Katrina has obviously overwhelmed its ability to deal. Once the area was declared a federal disaster area, FEMA assumed primary responsibility for securing it and rescuing its inhabitants.

What I am finding almost unbelievable is that, six days after the hurricane struck, there are still thousands of people without food or water, and FEMA is not letting them walk out of the city. It defies all common sense. I honestly don't believe the situation could have been handled any worse if it were happening in, say, Haiti. International relief agencies would have responded as fast or faster, and would, in my opinion, be doing just as well.

This is the United States of America - the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth, and we can't get food, water, and medical supplies to people, in a major city, nearly a week after a disaster strikes, in spite of the fact that the overwhelming majority of the country is perfectly intact.

What this should tell us is this: The Department of Homeland Security ain't what it's cracked up to be. We simply don't have the security we thought, and our ability to respond to a massive crisis seems to be no better than it was prior to 9/11.

There is a ton of blame to spread here, but suffice it to say that as an American I am proud of our people (who have responded with generosity and kindness), but disappointed in our government, at every level.

A very reasonable opinon to have.

 

[TRUMPHENT]

I would argue that federal disaster relief in cases like this are not so tied to state and local efforts. Much of Louisanna's relief capability was destroyed in the hurricane itself.

The Department of Homeland Security didn't respond properly to the collasping of the levees. I don't know what could have made the stiuation more overwhelming than that.

I seriously doubt that Governor Blanco dallied in requesting federal aid. You also have to consder the prepostiioning of a FEMA field HQ before the hurricane. News agencies were providing more actual data about the situation. FEMA should have discovered the Convention Center on its own. It didn't become aware of it until after people had started dieing and violence broke out.

 

[tcsenter]

For all of the fvcking LIARS in here trying to act as thought the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA isn't responsible for national disasters, here is an article from today's NY Times and the interview with New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin wherein he asks for executive power that the president and governor are not using and GUARANTEES that with that power HE will take care of this catastrophe.

Let's summarize:

First article is nothing more than a bunch of commentary saying the response was slow, embarrassing, unacceptable, people are outraged, people are tired and hungry, don't have any water, tired and hungry, not getting any help, tired and hungry. Duh. Not a peep about any executive order and nothing that would explain the fed's place in disaster response.

Second article/transcript is Nagin ranting like a lunatic because things they anticipated might happen did; e.g. the pumping stations failed and someone is to blame (but not him), they couldn't get the pumping stations back online the moment he demanded and someone is to blame (but not him), they couldn't patch the levy the moment he demanded and someone is to blame (but not him), and Bush didn't order Greyhound to give them 500 busses to replace the ones Nagin negligently let stand unused and someone is to blame (but not him). Not a peep about any executive order nor the fed's place in disaster response.

WWL: What do you need right now to get control of this situation?

NAGIN: I need reinforcements, I need troops, man. I need 500 buses, man.

Yeah, we know. The 500 busses under his direct control which the city operates on a daily basis were allowed to sit unutilized until they were under water. He needed busses badly to make-up for his incompetence.

The poor guy was under a lot of stress. People get emotional when they're under a lot of stress and irrationally blurt out crap that allows them to project their own frustration onto external targets. I've done it before, lashed out at others to escape my own culpability for the situation. Children do it a lot, adults should do it much less often the older they get. I'm willing to cut him some slack for something I've done, too (and humbly apologized for later).

 

[conjur]

The buses might have been underwater before the levee broke.

Also, many school bus drivers keep their buses at home so there's a couple hundred scattered like crazy and the drivers gone from the area.

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: conjur

Originally posted by: tcsenter

no, not evacuate. Bring in food/water. MUCH faster to bring food/water INTO the city than to evacuate people out of it. See my post above.

The city is under mandatory emergency evacuation with only two or three roads going in and out, all freeways and highways impassable or under water, but you don't see any problem with hundreds of busses trying to get supplies into the city when the goal is to get everyone out as quickly as possible.

People are literally DYING! Do you FVCKING UNDERSTAND THAT? D Y I N G ! !

They NEED FOOD and WATER to LIVE!

Then, get them out. Also, if they're supposed to be ordered out, why is the National Guard turning people BACK who are trying to walk out of the city over the Crescent City Connection bridge?!?

Amazing how utterly simplistic is your understanding of basic physics.

Amazing how utterly callous is your attitude toward human life.

See this video of last night's Hannity and Colmes:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/09/02.html#a4763


If you still have your callous attitude after watching that then there is no hope for you.

Watched it yet?

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: Duckzilla

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: Lifted

Originally posted by: charrison

How exactly did the admin sit on its hands?

Sorry, I didn't realize that only you could see the helicopters delivering food to the tens of thousands of people starving to death. Were they black helicopters? Do you wear a tinfoil hat?

You dont starve to death in 4 days. But I also did not see the NOLA goverment make an effort to feed its citizens either. Would it have been that difficult to drive over to the walmart and pick up provisions. THe looters seemed to have not problems doing so.

Please don't make me use caps.

Louisiana's seeming lack of effort doesn't excuse the federal government in a national crisis.

Louisiana's seeming lack of effort doesn't excuse the federal government in a national crisis.

Take notes.

Take notes, it is not fed job for diaster planning for state and local goverments. Take notes.

So if AlQueda strikes the Feds are going to sit it out? If so, that is disconcerting.

The plain fact is that this administration is so absorbed by terrorists and Iraq, that anything else is secondary, and indeed an annoying distraction. If I am wrong, no one has done anything to dispell that notion.

Initially, I was one who said that Bush needed to have some time. Time passed. Something much bigger than 9/11 happened, and yet it seems it's not that big a deal. It is.

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

Originally posted by: conjur
Watched it yet?

I happened to see that last night, and was flabbergasted. I simply can't see what possible rationale there could be for the way the situation there is being handled (or not handled). It was particularly interesting to watch in that yesterday afternoon's reporting made it look as though all was well in NO after the arrival of the convoys, when obviously that wasn't the case.

 

[tcsenter]

Also, many school bus drivers keep their buses at home so there's a couple hundred scattered like crazy and the drivers gone from the area.

Whereas, Bush should months or years ago had 500 busses and drivers standing by at all times, ready to go anywhere in the country on a moment's notice to evacuate 100K people. Jee, why didn't we pull troops from Iraq three days before Katrina landed instead of using National Guard troops located in the affected and surrounding states? That would have only taken several weeks instead of days. Most of those people could have been out by Christmas instead of...uhh...already.

Why don't you get into the disaster response and planning business? With all these grand ideas, you would definitely give new meaning to "response time".

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: conjur
The buses might have been underwater before the levee broke.

Also, many school bus drivers keep their buses at home so there's a couple hundred scattered like crazy and the drivers gone from the area.

But they are being used now, so must not have gotten too underwater...

 

[conjur]

Not the same buses.

 

[conjur]

FOX News now showing a huge airlift of those stranded and dying at the Convention Center.


Took *5* days?


And security was NOT a valid concern. Baghdad Brown of FEMA said there have been NO SHOTS fired in the last 48 hrs. If not, why the lockdown of the Conv. Ctr. last night? Why were the people held inside and not allowed to leave?

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: conjur
Not the same buses.

They are not? link?

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: conjur
Not the same buses.

They are not? link?

www.wdsu.com and www.wwltv.com

Watch the videos of the buses. They are not school buses. Not the ones I've been seeing. If there were school buses, I SERIOUSLY doubt they came from flooded N.O. parking lots.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: conjur

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: conjur
Not the same buses.

They are not? link?

www.wdsu.com and www.wwltv.com

Watch the videos of the buses. They are not school buses. Not the ones I've been seeing. If there were school buses, I SERIOUSLY doubt they came from flooded N.O. parking lots.

looks like a school bus

I wont make a claim on the current condition of school buses in new oreans, I do know however that these assets were in working condition before katrina hit. I also know if they knew they were going to have a large scale evacuation on their hands, these resources should have utilized and protected during the storm.

Somehow you want to defend the inaction of the state and local goverment.

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: conjur
FOX News now showing a huge airlift of those stranded and dying at the Convention Center.


Took *5* days?


And security was NOT a valid concern. Baghdad Brown of FEMA said there have been NO SHOTS fired in the last 48 hrs. If not, why the lockdown of the Conv. Ctr. last night? Why were the people held inside and not allowed to leave?

BTW, the evac started at 11am eastern...same time as the Propagandist's brief news conference.



Hmmmm

 

[conjur]

WWL news conference...not sure who this military officer is but he said they are using school buses, no mention of where they came from. I can't imagine they'd use flooded buses and the time wasted repairing and cleaning them.

As for Gibbons, he stole one that was sitting around. It was probably in a dry area

And, again, it was not feasible to evacuate 100,000 people with what buses the city had. 80% of the residents had evacuated including city personnel.

Somehow you want to vilify the actions of the state and local goverment without solid footing.