I think you have it right. I put "does not like". Yeah, that was something. He was almost in tears, barely able to put his sentences together. Powerful stuff.
I don't have the figures but the national guard just got there and yet we've been seeing images of lawlessness on TV for days. Perhaps he is exagerating to a make a point. Point taken. I don't think I would call it a conscious decision to ignore poor blacks. But I don't think it is a stretch that the wealthy people that had cars got the better end of the stick. And that there was little to no planning to assist the poor ...who happen to be black. I would absolutely 100% unquestionably agree with that. I know you have been argueing that people stealing TVs are scum. I'm not going to debate anymore about the morality of stealing TVs. But from a disaster releif standpoint, I don't want to dispatch resources to protect against looting. My #1 priority is to evacuate people and distribute food/water. Besides, for a city underwater, the TV's will mold and get ruined sitting on the shelves anyway. I'm not wasting time protecting TVs when lives are at risk. I can't defend that one. Most of the blame has to go to the local governments, I beleive. They had the opportunity to affect local conditions more than anybody. Lousianna government is an absolutely failure on this matter. And the federal government has done a piss poor job too. Make all the excuses you want, but the story gets pretty old for the people that continue to live in poverty and feel ignored.
Wow, the head of Fema seems to living in bizarro world. He just doesn't have a clue. The guy is an embarrassment for the President. If I were Bush, I would fire him tomorrow and appoint someone else. He/she would have to do a better job, and might even be connected to reality. From CNN: The big disconnect on New Orleans The official version; then there's the in-the-trenches version NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Diverging views of a crumbling New Orleans emerged Thursday, with statements by some federal officials in contradiction with grittier, more desperate views from the streets. By late Friday response to those stranded in the city was more visible. But the conflicting views on Thursday came within hours, sometimes minutes of each of each other, as reflected in CNN's transcripts. The speakers include Michael Brown, chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, evacuee Raymond Cooper, CNN correspondents and others. Here's what they had to say: Conditions in the Convention Center FEMA chief Brown: We learned about that (Thursday), so I have directed that we have all available resources to get that convention center to make sure that they have the food and water and medical care that they need. (See video of Brown explaining how news reports alerted FEMA to convention center chaos. -- 2:11) Mayor Nagin: The convention center is unsanitary and unsafe, and we are running out of supplies for the 15,000 to 20,000 people. (Hear Nagin's angry demand for soldiers. 1:04) CNN Producer Kim Segal: It was chaos. There was nobody there, nobody in charge. And there was nobody giving even water. The children, you should see them, they're all just in tears. There are sick people. We saw... people who are dying in front of you. Evacuee Raymond Cooper: Sir, you've got about 3,000 people here in this -- in the Convention Center right now. They're hungry. Don't have any food. We were told two-and-a-half days ago to make our way to the Superdome or the Convention Center by our mayor. And which when we got here, was no one to tell us what to do, no one to direct us, no authority figure. Uncollected corpses Brown: That's not been reported to me, so I'm not going to comment. Until I actually get a report from my teams that say, "We have bodies located here or there," I'm just not going to speculate. Segal: We saw one body. A person is in a wheelchair and someone had pushed (her) off to the side and draped just like a blanket over this person in the wheelchair. And then there is another body next to that. There were others they were willing to show us. ( See CNN report, 'People are dying in front of us' -- 4:36 ) Evacuee Cooper: They had a couple of policemen out here, sir, about six or seven policemen told me directly, when I went to tell them, hey, man, you got bodies in there. You got two old ladies that just passed, just had died, people dragging the bodies into little corners. One guy -- that's how I found out. The guy had actually, hey, man, anybody sleeping over here? I'm like, no. He dragged two bodies in there. Now you just -- I just found out there was a lady and an old man, the lady went to nudge him. He's dead. Hospital evacuations Brown: I've just learned today that we ... are in the process of completing the evacuations of the hospitals, that those are going very well. CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta: It's gruesome. I guess that is the best word for it. If you think about a hospital, for example, the morgue is in the basement, and the basement is completely flooded. So you can just imagine the scene down there. But when patients die in the hospital, there is no place to put them, so they're in the stairwells. It is one of the most unbelievable situations I've seen as a doctor, certainly as a journalist as well. There is no electricity. There is no water. There's over 200 patients still here remaining. ...We found our way in through a chopper and had to land at a landing strip and then take a boat. And it is exactly ... where the boat was traveling where the snipers opened fire yesterday, halting all the evacuations. ( Watch the video report of corpses stacked in stairwells -- 4:45 ) Dr. Matthew Bellew, Charity Hospital: We still have 200 patients in this hospital, many of them needing care that they just can't get. The conditions are such that it's very dangerous for the patients. Just about all the patients in our services had fevers. Our toilets are overflowing. They are filled with stool and urine. And the smell, if you can imagine, is so bad, you know, many of us had gagging and some people even threw up. It's pretty rough.(Mayor's video: Armed addicts fighting for a fix -- 1:03) Violence and civil unrest Brown: I've had no reports of unrest, if the connotation of the word unrest means that people are beginning to riot, or you know, they're banging on walls and screaming and hollering or burning tires or whatever. I've had no reports of that. CNN's Chris Lawrence: From here and from talking to the police officers, they're losing control of the city. We're now standing on the roof of one of the police stations. The police officers came by and told us in very, very strong terms it wasn't safe to be out on the street. (Watch the video report on explosions and gunfire -- 2:12) The federal response: Brown: Considering the dire circumstances that we have in New Orleans, virtually a city that has been destroyed, things are going relatively well. Homeland Security Director Chertoff: Now, of course, a critical element of what we're doing is the process of evacuation and securing New Orleans and other areas that are afflicted. And here the Department of Defense has performed magnificently, as has the National Guard, in bringing enormous resources and capabilities to bear in the areas that are suffering. Crowd chanting outside the Convention Center: We want help. Nagin: They don't have a clue what's going on down there. Phyllis Petrich, a tourist stranded at the Ritz-Carlton: They are invisible. We have no idea where they are. We hear bits and pieces that the National Guard is around, but where? We have not seen them. We have not seen FEMA officials. We have seen no one. Security Brown: I actually think the security is pretty darn good. There's some really bad people out there that are causing some problems, and it seems to me that every time a bad person wants to scream of cause a problem, there's somebody there with a camera to stick it in their face. ( See Jack Cafferty's rant on the government's 'bungled' response -- 0:57) Chertoff: In addition to local law enforcement, we have 2,800 National Guard in New Orleans as we speak today. One thousand four hundred additional National Guard military police trained soldiers will be arriving every day: 1,400 today, 1,400 tomorrow and 1,400 the next day. Nagin: I continue to hear that troops are on the way, but we are still protecting the city with only 1,500 New Orleans police officers, an additional 300 law enforcement personnel, 250 National Guard troops, and other military personnel who are primarily focused on evacuation. Lawrence: The police are very, very tense right now. They're literally riding around, full assault weapons, full tactical gear, in pickup trucks. Five, six, seven, eight officers. It is a very tense situation here. http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/02/katrina.response/index.html Keep D&D Civil!!
I disagree. The Superdome would have been the perfect place if FEMA would have had the foresight to realize that it was where all these people were going. There is no reason, like Major said, that the military couldn't drop food and water within 24 hours of the storm passing, instead of 72 hours. Lots of people who rode the storm out in the Superdome would probably be dead if they hadn't been there. But the good things that were done today should have been done on Tuesday. A lot more lives would have been saved.
This is an unbelievable read. If it's already been posted, my bad. From CNN: Mayor to feds: 'Get off your asses' Transcript of radio interview with New Orleans' Nagin (CNN) -- New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin blasted the slow pace of federal and state relief efforts in an expletive-laced interview with local radio station WWL-AM. The following is a transcript of WWL correspondent Garland Robinette's interview with Nagin on Thursday night. Robinette asked the mayor about his conversation with President Bush: 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. (Listen to the mayor express his frustration in this video -- 12:09) 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 ******* -- 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 ******* 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 ******* 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. WWL: OK. Keep in touch. Keep in touch. http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/02/nagin.transcript/index.html Keep D&D Civil!!
Good post Deckard. I like to point out that at the end of that interview, both men were in tears. Bush is probably not a racist. He is, however, an elitist. As much as Bush loves to appeal to the "common man," let's face it, his core supporter is the rich and the powerful. This is not just a Republican thing. As Michael Moore pointed out (in one of his few moments of lucidity), both Republicans and Democrats are creatures of corporate special interest groups. Bush doesn't hate black people. He just doesn't care about poor people. Poor people don't vote and they don't donate money to campaign funds. In our political landscape, that means they are expendable. If the people stranded in NO have the financial profile of Magic Johnson, do you think we will be wasting any time getting their asses out of there? This is not to say that race is not a factor at all. Racial minorities are disproportionately poor, afterall.
All those questions should be placed squarely on the shoulders of the local and state governments. Too much blame is being placed on the Federal government and the Bush administration for inaction or slow response when it was the responsibility of the local and state governments to have some kind of coordinated emergeny plan in place. All I kept hearing before Katrina hit was the worst case scenario was gonna happen in NO. They kept predicting it but weren't prepaed for it. So I'm sorry but I get tired of hearing the Mayor of NO (while I like his bluntness) blast the Federal government for inaction when I haven't seen him do anything to help his constituents, as well as I keep hearing the Governor say help is on the way when it should have been there already. The national guard, food supply and medical aid, evac plans should have been ready to go as SOON as word arrived that the levees breached, because they (the local governments) knew once the levees became compromised, the bowl would fill and NO would be lost. Busses should have been rolling in then and there, the national guard called in, food and other aid right then should have descended on the city, not three days later. And that failure lies squarely with the local governments. It's not the federal government's responsibilty to just come and suprecede the local and state government in a crisis like this unless requested by those entities, and that didn't happen right away. There's just so much that could have been handled better and so much that has gone wrong (both things we could have controlled and things we can't) that clearly this will be debated for years to come.
What do you expect the mayor to do? He doesn't have a city! He has no police, and he has no goverment. The state doesn't have a military to send in. This is FEMA's responsibility. When there is no local government, and state government is in crisis already from disasters all over the state (including power loss for a more than a day in the state capitol), it is exactly the job of the federal government to step in. The entire crisis response is centered around the national guard, FEMA, and the US military. Since these aren't local Louisiana national guardsmen, all of that has to be managed at a federal level.
I'm not soley blaming the mayor. Yes he has no city, he has a diminishing police force. He has no communications to direct them. But again, if they knew what a worst case scenario could do to the city, they should have known once the bowl filled up, the infrastructure would shut down, meaning normal communication would be lost. They should have had some kind of back-up communication plan in mind. If the media can broadcast Live from the area via sattelite video phones and doctors from hospitals beseiged by water can concoct a way to communicate to the outside world, I'm sure the police force could have found a way to communicate in the absence of normal power. He told the people to go the Superdome and to the Convention Center for a shelter of last resort, but had no plan in mind to evacuate them if necessary. I remember hearing I think Monday that those evacuees should be expected to remain in the Dome for a week, a freakin week! Then there is a report that he had a bunch of tourists holed up in a dowtown hotel taken to the evac point and brought them to the front of the line to be transported away. He placed guests, strangers, ahead of his own constituents. I've heard no reports of him going down to the superdome or the convention center or rescuing anybody for that matter (I could be wrong there though) And then there's the fact that I don't see in him the strong leadership I saw in Gulianni during 9/11. I'm not trying to totally bash him. I know he's trying hard in very dire circumstances, but I just don't think it was necessarily right of him to criticize the federal government's inaction (outside of FEMA) when he hasn't done much outside of compaining about the situation and placing blame on everyone else. And the state does have a military presence to send in...the Lousiana National Guard...plus, the state should have requested federal help (i.e. a military and naval presence) as soon as those levees were breached. But they didn't. Instead FEMA and the Governor all expressed the notion that help was on the way when it clearly wasn't. And about FEMA, well I was going to mention them, but my rant was already running long Yes they did screw the pooch and Michael Brown seems clearly out of touch w/ the grim reality of the situation. Either that or he knows exactly what's going on and is just spinning the truth the way he sees fit. Probably both. But yeah FEMA's presence and action has been dissapointing but this is a Hurricane that devasted an entire region of the gulf coast and inundated a city w/ water. It's understandable that their resources have been spread thin. But yes, they could have definitely managed the situation better. Hell way back on Monday brown said he had available any and all resources to help in the recovery effort, yet he didn't seem to actually utilize that wealth. Instead they wait a few days to call in the full cavary. And I am aware that FEMA operates under the federal government. My point was that too much criticism has been placed on Bush and other federal entities outisde of FEMA for a lack of inaction when it clearly was the responsibility of the city, the state and FEMA to handle this crisis. It shouldn't have taken a plea from the media, the country and the refugees to Bush himself to deploy military and naval units into the region. FEMA and the State should have already requested those resources and they should have already been there at the first sign of a levee breach, because they would have been there to keep the peace and aid in the humanitarian effort from the moment any sign of lawlessness started.
<delete> I was going to continue to snip and snipe and do the usual BBS back and forth and I just think that is stupid. I am donating money to the red cross and Houston food bank. If I didn't live in New Zealand I would help out in person. I just want to see people be accountable for the tragedy that has happened.
Fair enough - I guess I associate FEMA and the President together and put FEMA's failures at the feet of the President. He's the one that put that idiot in charge there, and he's also pushed the reprioritization of FEMA to terrorism. Here's a disturbing article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9178501/ How accurate it is, I'm not sure. Some snippets: It is dated July 2004 and lists 222 upcoming FEMA and homeland security exercises scheduled to prepare for national emergencies. Only two involve hurricanes. "And even in both of those cases, they're dealing with what would happen if there were a terrorist attack associated with a hurricane event," says NBC News analyst William Arkin. ... What's more, it appears that the federal government did not follow up on an exercise last year that mostly predicted what happened in New Orleans — devastating flooding and hundreds of thousands stranded. The scenario was dubbed Hurricane Pam: 120 mph winds, a massive storm surge, 20 feet of water in the city, 80 percent of buildings damaged, refugees on rooftops, possibly gun violence that would slow the rescue. ... "Those FEMA officials wouldn't listen to me," he says. "Those Corps of Engineers people giggled in the back of the room when we tried to present information." One recommendation from the exercise: Tent cities should be prepared for the homeless. "Their response to me was: 'Americans don't live in tents,' and that was about it," recalls Van Heerden.
here's one: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/3046592 i watched a show on this one time, as well. very scary stuff. my thoughts on the entire scope of this: i believe more could/should have been done. the idea that 15,000 people were trapped at the convention center and we didn't know they were there is unimaginable to me, and suggest serious flaws in our ability to respond to a crisis. the idea that they continue to sit there is beyond me, given the filth and health concerns. airplanes could have landed to get people out. there are clearly dry pockets of land around town to land helicopters. there are two ways out of NOLA by road. there is a waterway in the form of the mississippi that would have allowed people to leave by boat...and we had all of NOLA's cruise ships parked here in Galveston. the government could/should have done more in response. as for preparedness...the blame list is long. this country thinks paying for sports arenas is more important than securing human life. we subsidize a football team and we got a new basketball team..woo hoo!! NOW THEY'RE FREAKING HOMELESS TOO. the idea that we knew for decades that levees couldn't withstand greater than a Cat 3 strike is so ridiculous it would be funny if it weren't so sad. AND THIS WASN'T EVEN THE WORST CASE SCENARIO FOR A STRIKE!!! the storm actually made landfall just to the east of NOLA, so they stayed on the safer side of the storm. the brunt of the storm was much more absorbed by mississippi. the cleanup and rebuilding effort will be a huge political hot potato. it's insensitive to those displaced to say you shouldn't rebuild there...but guess what...YOU SHOULDN'T REBUILD THERE! you're in a freaking bowl. water surrounds you, and it's ALL higher than you are. storms hit their routinely...and they get absolutely smashed about every 30 years. bad idea. there has to be a port at the Mississippi and Gulf Coast...but it needs to be further inland. having said all that....NOLA and Houston have carried this country's economy for years. while the rest of the nation has said, "you can't build them here!", those two cities have been home to refining oil, the very lifeblood of our economy. now everyone wants to b**** about oil prices. give me a break. i met a guy at our church last night from Kenner who said, "How dare Hastert say he won't rebuild NOLA! We've been carrying the ball for the country with energy that no one else is willing to produce for decades now." this is what happens when you limit yourself this way. it's not safe. it's not smart. there needs to be refiniries in california..in florida...there needs to be drilling in the ocean. we've put a moratorium on all that so people can have a nice view of the water. b.s. it remains the life-blood of our economy and the people most affected by this crap are the very poorest among us. meanwhile, we need to be studying alternative energy sources like crazy.
The uniqueness of NO's susceptibility to utter destruction made this a federal issue. It effects the entire country. This is more than usual Hurricane preparation. The government failed NO for a long time. Bush was the latest and should carry some blame. He did nothing to prevent this, cut environmental funding etc., in true Bush fashion and that is that. But it is obvious the Bush showed absolutely no leadership during this whole crisis. It is obvious that he has none. I wish he could of just somehow impressed me though this ordeal. We got nothing. Where is "the leader"? "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." But those are still some b****in' "W" bumper stickers. God bless.
Relative to the topic... http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/03/o...26324800&en=0dde356e07594c9d&ei=5070&emc=eta1 Stuff happens. And when you combine limited government with incompetent government, lethal stuff happens. America is once more plunged into a snake pit of anarchy, death, looting, raping, marauding thugs, suffering innocents, a shattered infrastructure, a gutted police force, insufficient troop levels and criminally negligent government planning. But this time it's happening in America. W. drove his budget-cutting Chevy to the levee, and it wasn't dry. Bye, bye, American lives. "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees," he told Diane Sawyer. Shirt-sleeves rolled up, W. finally landed in Hell yesterday and chuckled about his wild boozing days in "the great city" of N'Awlins. He was clearly moved. "You know, I'm going to fly out of here in a minute," he said on the runway at the New Orleans International Airport, "but I want you to know that I'm not going to forget what I've seen." Out of the cameras' range, and avoided by W., was a convoy of thousands of sick and dying people, some sprawled on the floor or dumped on baggage carousels at a makeshift M*A*S*H unit inside the terminal. Why does this self-styled "can do" president always lapse into such lame "who could have known?" excuses. Who on earth could have known that Osama bin Laden wanted to attack us by flying planes into buildings? Any official who bothered to read the trellis of pre-9/11 intelligence briefs. Who on earth could have known that an American invasion of Iraq would spawn a brutal insurgency, terrorist recruiting boom and possible civil war? Any official who bothered to read the C.I.A.'s prewar reports. Who on earth could have known that New Orleans's sinking levees were at risk from a strong hurricane? Anybody who bothered to read the endless warnings over the years about the Big Easy's uneasy fishbowl. In June 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, fretted to The Times-Picayune in New Orleans: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us." Not only was the money depleted by the Bush folly in Iraq; 30 percent of the National Guard and about half its equipment are in Iraq. Ron Fournier of The Associated Press reported that the Army Corps of Engineers asked for $105 million for hurricane and flood programs in New Orleans last year. The White House carved it to about $40 million. But President Bush and Congress agreed to a $286.4 billion pork-filled highway bill with 6,000 pet projects, including a $231 million bridge for a small, uninhabited Alaskan island. Just last year, Federal Emergency Management Agency officials practiced how they would respond to a fake hurricane that caused floods and stranded New Orleans residents. Imagine the feeble FEMA's response to Katrina if they had not prepared. Michael Brown, the blithering idiot in charge of FEMA - a job he trained for by running something called the International Arabian Horse Association - admitted he didn't know until Thursday that there were 15,000 desperate, dehydrated, hungry, angry, dying victims of Katrina in the New Orleans Convention Center. Was he sacked instantly? No, our tone-deaf president hailed him in Mobile, Ala., yesterday: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." It would be one thing if President Bush and his inner circle - Dick Cheney was vacationing in Wyoming; Condi Rice was shoe shopping at Ferragamo's on Fifth Avenue and attended "Spamalot" before bloggers chased her back to Washington; and Andy Card was off in Maine - lacked empathy but could get the job done. But it is a chilling lack of empathy combined with a stunning lack of efficiency that could make this administration implode. When the president and vice president rashly shook off our allies and our respect for international law to pursue a war built on lies, when they sanctioned torture, they shook the faith of the world in American ideals. When they were deaf for so long to the horrific misery and cries for help of the victims in New Orleans - most of them poor and black, like those stuck at the back of the evacuation line yesterday while 700 guests and employees of the Hyatt Hotel were bused out first - they shook the faith of all Americans in American ideals. And made us ashamed. Who are we if we can't take care of our own?
The head of FEMA, "Brownie, you're doing a fine job," has been demonstratively incompetent, as he's been praised by the President. Now we can add another idiot to the pantheon surrounding George W. Bush... Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. How out of touch with reality can these people be? I guess they take their cue from the President. Expect effusive praise for Chertoff from Bush any time now. From CNN: Chertoff: Katrina scenario did not exist However, experts for years had warned of threat to New Orleans Defending the U.S. government's response to Hurricane Katrina, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff argued Saturday that government planners did not predict such a disaster ever could occur. But in fact, government officials, scientists and journalists have warned of such a scenario for years. Chertoff, fielding questions from reporters, said government officials did not expect both a powerful hurricane and a breach of levees that would flood the city of New Orleans. (See the video on a local paper's prophetic warning -- 3:30 ) "That 'perfect storm' of a combination of catastrophes exceeded the foresight of the planners, and maybe anybody's foresight," Chertoff said. He called the disaster "breathtaking in its surprise." But engineers say the levees preventing this below-sea-level city from being turned into a swamp were built to withstand only Category 3 hurricanes. And officials have warned for years that a Category 4 could cause the levees to fail. (See video of why the levee's breech was devastating -- 1:53) Katrina was a Category 4 hurricane when it struck the Gulf Coast on September 29. Last week, Michael Brown, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told CNN his agency had recently planned for a Category 5 hurricane hitting New Orleans. Speaking to "Larry King Live" on August 31, in the wake of Katrina, Brown said, "That Category 4 hurricane caused the same kind of damage that we anticipated. So we planned for it two years ago. Last year, we exercised it. And unfortunately this year, we're implementing it." Brown suggested FEMA -- part of the Department of Homeland Security -- was carrying out a prepared plan, rather than having to suddenly create a new one. Chertoff argued that authorities actually had assumed that "there would be overflow from the levee, maybe a small break in the levee. The collapse of a significant portion of the levee leading to the very fast flooding of the city was not envisioned." He added: "There will be plenty of time to go back and say we should hypothesize evermore apocalyptic combinations of catastrophes. Be that as it may, I'm telling you this is what the planners had in front of them. They were confronted with a second wave that they did not have built into the plan, but using the tools they had, we have to move forward and adapt." But New Orleans, state and federal officials have long painted a very different picture. "We certainly understood the potential impact of a Category 4 or 5 hurricane" on New Orleans, Lt. General Carl Strock, chief of engineers for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said Thursday, Cox News Service reported. Reuters reported that in 2004, more than 40 state, local and volunteer organizations practiced a scenario in which a massive hurricane struck and levees were breached, allowing water to flood New Orleans. Under the simulation, called "Hurricane Pam," the officials "had to deal with an imaginary storm that destroyed more than half a million buildings in New Orleans and forced the evacuation of a million residents," the Reuters report said. In 2002 the New Orleans Times-Picayune ran a five-part series exploring the vulnerability of the city. The newspaper, and other news media as well, specifically addressed the possibility of massive floods drowning residents, destroying homes and releasing toxic chemicals throughout the city. (Read: "Times-Picayune" Special Report: Washing away) Scientists long have discussed this possibility as a sort of doomsday scenario. On Sunday, a day before Hurricane Katrina made landfall, Ivor van Heerden, director of the Louisiana State University Public Health Research Center in Baton Rouge, said, "This is what we've been saying has been going to happen for years." "Unfortunately, it's coming true," he said, adding that New Orleans "is definitely going to flood." Also on Sunday, Placquemines Parish Sheriff Jeff Hingle referred back to Hurricane Betsy -- a Category 2 hurricane that struck in 1965 -- and said, "After Betsy these levees were designed for a Category 3." He added, "These levees will not hold the water back." But Chertoff seemed unaware of all the warnings. "This is really one which I think was breathtaking in its surprise," Chertoff said. "There has been, over the last few years, some specific planning for the possibility of a significant hurricane in New Orleans with a lot of rainfall, with water rising in the levees and water overflowing the levees," he told reporters Saturday. That alone would be "a very catastrophic scenario," Chertoff said. "And although the planning was not complete, a lot of work had been done. But there were two problems here. First of all, it's as if someone took that plan and dropped an atomic bomb simply to make it more difficult. We didn't merely have the overflow, we actually had the break in the wall. And I will tell you that, really, that perfect storm of combination of catastrophes exceeded the foresight of the planners, and maybe anybody's foresight." Chertoff also argued that authorities did not have much notice that the storm would be so powerful and could make a direct hit on New Orleans. "It wasn't until comparatively late, shortly before -- a day, maybe a day and a half, before landfall -- that it became clear that this was going to be a Category 4 or 5 hurricane headed for the New Orleans area." As far back as Friday, August 26, the National Hurricane Center was predicting the storm could be a Category 4 hurricane at landfall, with New Orleans directly in its path. Still, storms do change paths, so the possibility existed that it might not hit the city. But the National Weather Service prediction proved almost perfect. Katrina made landfall on Monday, August 29. Tens of thousands of people in New Orleans who did not or could not heed the mandatory evacuation orders issued the day before the storm made landfall were left in dire straits. "I think we have discovered over the last few days that with all the tremendous effort using the existing resources and the traditional frameworks of the National Guard, the unusual set of challenges of conducting a massive evacuation in the context of a still dangerous flood requires us to basically break the traditional model and create a new model -- one for what you might call kind of an ultracatastrophe," Chertoff said. He vowed that the United States "is going to move heaven and earth" to rescue those in need. http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/03/katrina.chertoff/index.html I'm really stunned by the level of gross incompetence shown by the Bush Administration. I remember too well President Nixon and the warped personality he had... leading to the Watergate fiasco during an election he had no chance of losing. His paranoia was astounding. He's now offically been topped, in my opinion, by this President, who will never admit a mistake, and promotes and praises those working for him who have shown themselves unworthy of the nation's trust time and again... showing Bush himself to be unfit to lead the nation during these terrible, historic times. If Bush doesn't replace these fools, then he deserves to be impeached for criminal incompetence, in my opinion. Keep D&D Civil!!
You know. . I too like his bluntness. . . I'm serious I have not seen a politician this. . . animate in my lifetime I don't think . . . Like him or not. .the fire he exuded was. . . .refreshing Rocket River
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/04/times.picayune.editorial/index.html Editorial blasts federal response Sunday, September 4, 2005; Posted: 7:21 p.m. EDT (23:21 GMT) Manage Alerts | What Is This? NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- The Times-Picayune of New Orleans printed this editorial in its Sunday edition, criticizing the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina and calling on every FEMA official to be fired: An open letter to the President Dear Mr. President: We heard you loud and clear Friday when you visited our devastated city and the Gulf Coast and said, "What is not working, we're going to make it right." Please forgive us if we wait to see proof of your promise before believing you. But we have good reason for our skepticism. Bienville built New Orleans where he built it for one main reason: It's accessible. The city between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain was easy to reach in 1718. How much easier it is to access in 2005 now that there are interstates and bridges, airports and helipads, cruise ships, barges, buses and diesel-powered trucks. Despite the city's multiple points of entry, our nation's bureaucrats spent days after last week's hurricane wringing their hands, lamenting the fact that they could neither rescue the city's stranded victims nor bring them food, water and medical supplies. Meanwhile there were journalists, including some who work for The Times-Picayune, going in and out of the city via the Crescent City Connection. On Thursday morning, that crew saw a caravan of 13 Wal-Mart tractor trailers headed into town to bring food, water and supplies to a dying city. Television reporters were doing live reports from downtown New Orleans streets. Harry Connick Jr. brought in some aid Thursday, and his efforts were the focus of a "Today" show story Friday morning. Yet, the people trained to protect our nation, the people whose job it is to quickly bring in aid were absent. Those who should have been deploying troops were singing a sad song about how our city was impossible to reach. We're angry, Mr. President, and we'll be angry long after our beloved city and surrounding parishes have been pumped dry. Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been were not. That's to the government's shame. Mayor Ray Nagin did the right thing Sunday when he allowed those with no other alternative to seek shelter from the storm inside the Louisiana Superdome. We still don't know what the death toll is, but one thing is certain: Had the Superdome not been opened, the city's death toll would have been higher. The toll may even have been exponentially higher. It was clear to us by late morning Monday that many people inside the Superdome would not be returning home. It should have been clear to our government, Mr. President. So why weren't they evacuated out of the city immediately? We learned seven years ago, when Hurricane Georges threatened, that the Dome isn't suitable as a long-term shelter. So what did state and national officials think would happen to tens of thousands of people trapped inside with no air conditioning, overflowing toilets and dwindling amounts of food, water and other essentials? State Rep. Karen Carter was right Friday when she said the city didn't have but two urgent needs: "Buses! And gas!" Every official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be fired, Director Michael Brown especially. In a nationally televised interview Thursday night, he said his agency hadn't known until that day that thousands of storm victims were stranded at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. He gave another nationally televised interview the next morning and said, "We've provided food to the people at the Convention Center so that they've gotten at least one, if not two meals, every single day." Lies don't get more bald-faced than that, Mr. President. Yet, when you met with Mr. Brown Friday morning, you told him, "You're doing a heck of a job." That's unbelievable. There were thousands of people at the Convention Center because the riverfront is high ground. The fact that so many people had reached there on foot is proof that rescue vehicles could have gotten there, too. We, who are from New Orleans, are no less American than those who live on the Great Plains or along the Atlantic Seaboard. We're no less important than those from the Pacific Northwest or Appalachia. Our people deserved to be rescued. No expense should have been spared. No excuses should have been voiced. Especially not one as preposterous as the claim that New Orleans couldn't be reached. Mr. President, we sincerely hope you fulfill your promise to make our beloved communities work right once again. When you do, we will be the first to applaud.
