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[Hitokage]

Why the FUCK is Donald Rumsfeld in New Orleans? Seriously. What the fuck does the SECRETARY OF DEFENSE have to do with a domestic natural disaster? Christ. The troops should be deployed under the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, who should have jurisdiction over FEMA. Donald Rumsfeld should have zero business in New Orleans. He's got other things to worry about... let him go focus on how to kill us a few thousand more soldiers, because not enough people have apparently died at the hands of this administrations' apathy so far.

Well, considering military involvement I think he'd have some reason to be there.

 

[Doth Togo]

 

[whytemyke]

Well, considering military involvement I think he'd have some reason to be there.

Not really... his military involvement goes so far national defense goes. Seeing as how this isn't really a matter of defense, then he really shouldn't be there. The DHS should be the ones coordinating this with the military, not Rummy. If this were six years ago, then yeah, SecDef should be there, but there's no reason for it anymore.

small gripe, I know, but still.

 

[Lo-Volt]

The International Herald Tribune and New York Times report on the constant, continous and venomous criticism directed towards D.C. It's funny, though, that Senator Landrieu of La. is sounding so angry when only a few days ago, on Anderson Cooper 360, she was high-fiving Bush and Bill Frist as Cooper stood amongst corpses in Mississippi. Where did this anger suddenly come from, hmm, sweety?

President Bush faced increasingly bitter complaints today from local and state officials in the battered Gulf Coast region as he struggled to exert control over a disaster that almost surely claimed thousands of lives.

Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, a Democrat, said today that she was so angry about federal failures and second-guessing that if she heard any more criticism of local efforts, even from the president, she might "punch" him.

The New Orleans mayor, C. Ray Nagin, said matters were improving but remained a "disgrace."

The president of a local Louisiana parish, Aaron Broussard, broke down sobbing on the NBC program "Meet the Press" today as he talked about an elderly woman who drowned while awaiting repeatedly promised help.

"Nobody's coming to get us," Mr. Broussard said, his head sagging. "The secretary has promised. Everybody's promised. They've had press conferences. I'm sick of the press conferences. For God's sake, shut up and send us somebody."

Mr. Bush, criticized even by some supporters for failing to respond more decisively, has ordered additional active-duty troops to the region, and sent top cabinet members there to help guide still-unfinished rescue work.

He dropped his own plans for Labor Day on Monday, saying he would return to Louisiana and Mississippi, and overhauled his month's schedule, canceling a long-anticipated visit by President Hu Jintao of China.

White House advisers scrambled to confront a confluence of critical challenges - including the hurricane, sagging support for the Iraq war and record-high gasoline prices - that politicians say could severely challenge his second-term legislative plans.

The politics of an already-charged season appeared suddenly overshadowed by the depths of the hurricane disaster.

Even the scripts of Sept. 11 commemorations next Sunday may have to be rewritten, as one of the most fundamental lessons Americans thought their leaders had learned - that mountains needed to be moved to prepare for the unexpected - seemed to some to have fallen short.

The secretary of health and human services, Michael Leavitt, said Sunday that Katrina's death toll almost surely was in the thousands.

Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, warned that already-shocked Americans needed to brace for worse as waters recede, baring the full extent of death and destruction.

Meanwhile, Mr. Chertoff said, work was continuing at an almost unimaginable scale, "basically moving the city of New Orleans to other parts of the country." But he added, "I think we are in control of what's going on in the city."

The first major opinion poll since the disaster showed ambivalent feelings toward Mr. Bush's handling of it, far less positive than the near-universal support he received in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. An ABC poll found that 46 percent of Americans approved of Bush's handling of the crisis, almost exactly half his 91 percent approval rating after Sept. 11, 2001.

Bush sent several top advisers to the region, including Mr. Chertoff, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, as federal and state authorities reportedly wrestled behind the scenes over which had ultimate authority in the crisis area.

Mr. Chertoff's department has been harshly criticized for the federal failure to prepare adequately for a possible disaster that some emergency officials, and The Times Picayune of New Orleans, had anticipated with eerie precision years ago.

A proposal to detach the Federal Emergency Management Administration from Homeland Security is to be introduced this week in Congress. Some critics say that the Homeland Security takeover of FEMA added a harmful layer of bureaucracy.

Others have questioned the FEMA leadership of Michael Brown, whose background in law, finance and public service includes no prior emergency-management experience.

Mr. Chertoff in turn seemed to cast some blame elsewhere. He said earlier that "our constitutional system really places the primary authority in each state with the governor."

Today, Senator Landrieu, a Democrat whose father, Moon Landrieu, was once the mayor of New Orleans, dropped her earlier reserve about criticizing federal failings.

Mr. Bush had said that the enormousness of the crisis had "strained state and local capabilities."

Local authorities took this as a deeply unjustified criticism, and a distraught Ms. Landrieu said that if she heard any more criticism from federal officials, particularly about the evacuation of New Orleans, she might lose control.

"If one person criticizes them or says one more thing - including the president of the United States - he will hear from me," she said on the ABC program "This Week." "One more word about it after this show airs and I might likely have to punch him. Literally."

She also referred angrily to comments Mr. Bush had made Friday at the New Orleans airport about the fun he had had there in his younger days.

"Our infrastructure is devastated, lives have been shattered," Ms. Landrieu said during a helicopter tour of the area with an ABC interviewer. "Would the president please stop taking photo-ops?"

Mr. Chertoff warned that Americans, already horrified by scenes of misery and chaos in New Orleans, should brace for worse.

"I think we need to prepare the country for what's coming," he told Fox News. As waters recede, "we're going to uncover people who died, maybe hiding in houses, you know, got caught by the flood, people whose remains are going to be found in the streets," he said.

"It's going to be about as ugly a scene as I think you can imagine. Certainly as ugly of a scene as we've seen in this country, with the possible exception of 9/11."

The New Orleans mayor, Nagin, who last week lashed out at federal authorities in an expletive-laced outburst, told reporters on Saturday that while he regretted his language, he was still frustrated by the federal response. "We're still fighting over authority," he said. "A bunch of people are the boss. The state and the federal government are doing a two-step dance."

He added, "I think it's getting better, but the pace is still not sufficient."

In Washington, even some Republicans have warned that the much-assailed White House response could undermine Bush's authority and his legislative agenda, including plans to overhaul the tax code, Social Security and immigration law.

Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, said that Mr. Bush's handling of the crisis could, if it is seen to improve, re-energize his plans. Otherwise, "it swamps the rest of his agenda."

But the government message has found itself struggling for time on the airwaves against angry criticisms like Ms. Landrieu's, and anguished cries for help, like that of Mr. Broussard, the local official who broke down sobbing on NBC.

"The guy who runs this building I'm in, emergency management, he's responsible for everything," Mr. Broussard said. "His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, 'Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?' And he said, 'Yeah, Mama, somebody's coming to get you. Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody's coming to get you on Friday.' And she drowned Friday night.

"Nobody's coming to get us," he said through his tears. "Nobody's coming to get us."

Ms. Landrieu warned of the risk to nearly submerged railways lines that serve a wide area of the country. Another hurricane, she said, would have calamitous effect.

"We are one storm away from disaster," she said, looking forward. "Doesn't anybody hear us?"

New York Times, printer friendly.

 

[BorkBork]

CNN just in, Anderson Cooper reported:

According to the AP, some Army Corp Engineer personel have been shot and killed by the New Orleans Police Force.

WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON IN THERE?!

 

[Lo-Volt]

Oh God, that wasn't the looter shooting, was it? The AP was the one that was reporting five dead looters on a New Orleans bridge.

CNN: speaking of which, Amanpour in on scene in New Orleans, reporting on overseas reaction to US government failure: "this is America!?" Cooper and Christiane both look like their seething as they describe the search for bodies, missing relatives and survivors.

 

[BorkBork]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/04/katrina.impact/index.html

AP: Contractors shot by police

Police shot eight people carrying guns on a New Orleans bridge Sunday, killing five or six, The Associated Press reported.

A spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers told AP that the people shot were some of its contractors on their way to repair a canal. The contractors were walking across a bridge on their way to launch barges into Lake Pontchartrain to fix the 17th Street Canal, said John Hall, a spokesman for the Corps.

Earlier Sunday, New Orleans Deputy Police Chief W.J. Riley told the AP that police shot at eight people, killing five or six. The shootings took place on the Danziger Bridge, which spans a canal connecting Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River.

No other details were immediately available.

 

[Vgamer]

^^^ GEEZ talk about shooting first and asking questions later. They just killed some of the people that are trying to stop the flooding in their city. That is just sad.

 

[BorkBork]

Whew ok. NO police KILLED the gunmen that shot at the contractors. No Army Corp engineers were killed.

And wow Anderson Cooper just had another awesome interview pressing Witt (former director of FEMA) to admit that FEMA was underfunded, things could have been done with the coastal wetland losses, and that since 9/11 FEMA has been dissected and gutted basically(!)

WELCOME BACK MEDIA!!!

 

[xexex]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/04/katrina.impact/index.html

AP: Contractors shot by police

Police shot eight people carrying guns on a New Orleans bridge Sunday, killing five or six, The Associated Press reported.

A spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers told AP that the people shot were some of its contractors on their way to repair a canal. The contractors were walking across a bridge on their way to launch barges into Lake Pontchartrain to fix the 17th Street Canal, said John Hall, a spokesman for the Corps.

Earlier Sunday, New Orleans Deputy Police Chief W.J. Riley told the AP that police shot at eight people, killing five or six. The shootings took place on the Danziger Bridge, which spans a canal connecting Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River.

No other details were immediately available.

friendly fire in warzone New Orleans :/

 

[Vgamer]

phew just saw on foxnews its looking like the contractors where not killed but the police killed people who where shooting at them. I hope this is true.

 

[Triumph]

At the very least, Congress should introduce a resolution to Censure the President over his inept response to this tragedy. The VERY least.

 

[Y2Kev]

Whew ok. NO police KILLED the gunmen that shot at the contractors. No Army Corp engineers were killed.

And wow Anderson Cooper just had another awesome interview pressing Witt (former director of FEMA) to admit that FEMA was underfunded, things could have been done with the coastal wetland losses, and that since 9/11 FEMA has been dissected and gutted basically(!)

WELCOME BACK MEDIA!!!

NBC news is attacking Brown's credibility in five....

I am really just stunned.

 

[Y2Kev]

"Bureaucracy has committed murder and bureaucracy must be held responsible."

 

[Agent Icebeezy]

If this new media is going to stay, Bush is going to get his ass murdered in the papers

 

[DarienA]

CNN Update:

AP: Army Corps of Engineers says its contractors were not killed by police, but gunmen who fired at them were killed. More soon.

 

[TheKingsCrown]

AP: Army Corps of Engineers says its contractors were not killed by police, but gunmen who fired at them were killed. More soon.

That's awesome news, and evidence that organization is drastically increasing in the NO area.

 

[Lo-Volt]

"Bureaucracy has committed murder and bureaucracy must be held responsible."

Where did that come from, NBC?

New Orleans police: nice aim, fellas.

 

[Y2Kev]

Aaron Broussard, President, Jefferson Parish.

 

[Drensch]

I think something important should be said: The free market has done jack shit for what is happening. What will end up saving people is socialsim and communism more or less directed by the government.

 

[Lo-Volt]

Aaron Broussard, President, Jefferson Parish.

Now I remember that, thank you. My TV was on mute and I only saw him as he suddenly wept on national TV. =(

 

[Y2Kev]

GRrrrrr..."Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

Shut the fuck up, you waste of life dropout. I hate that man so much, I hate him.

 

[Macam]

For those quoting Broussard, please check out the video:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/09/04.html#a4783

I can say nothing more than it's heart-breaking to watch. C&L has plenty more of videos, including Russert finally playing the bulldog he should've been these past few years as he tackles Chertoff, Shieffer continuing to being on point and scathing in his condemnations, and Landeau doing a 180 after her cold, congratulatory thanks to Bush and co., this damn breaking down in tears on camera. Amazon has also posted a 1-click donation link, so goodcow and co. can hop to it.

 

[Triumph]

I think something important should be said: The free market has done jack shit for what is happening. What will end up saving people is socialsim and communism more or less directed by the government.

Why do you hate freedom, Drensch?

 

[BorkBork]

I think something important should be said: The free market has done jack shit for what is happening. What will end up saving people is socialsim and communism more or less directed by the government.

On a related note, you know what the sad part is? The economy will probably grow dramatically this year, because the cleanup, rebuilding, and aid efforts will add monetary value to the GDP as part of growth! And this is the main indicator of how well the country is doing! Go capitalism!!!

 

[Macam]

The anti-capitalist garbage needs to stop or at least find a rational base before we go on the whole "there is another way" binge. Capitalism isn't perfect, but it's leagues beyond the naive proposals of full blown communism and socialism.

 

[Hitokage]

What I find idiotic is the idea that ditching bullshit privatization involves implementing full-blown communism.... unless Drensch was being deliberately ironic.

 

[Mupepe]

I think something important should be said: The free market has done jack shit for what is happening. What will end up saving people is socialsim and communism more or less directed by the government.

Isn't that what most people have been bitching about? The direction of the government. Let's give them free control and really fuck ourselves over.
:rollseyeslikeamotherfucker

 

[Lo-Volt]

Whether or not you agree with how Americans tackle the idea of the free market, I don't see how a free market or genuine command economy has to be a factor the way you describe it (although every model has serious consequences, as can be seen with the economic factor in escaping New Orleans). A disasterous government response can happen regardless of economic and political ideology. Soviet Moscow did a bang-up job for Chernobyl in 1986, didn't it? And a capitalist Russian Federation really came through for the Kursk. And Europe had dealt with your concerns on government assistance through social democracy ("a third way") for decades. Stronger, more capable government does not necessarily mean communism or capitalism or any other word you'd like to use for economic preferences.

---

Paul Krugman in what looks like Monday's NYT offers more damnation of the Bush administration. What's interesting is that Krugman ends up tackling the question of government's place during his editorial, and whether or not free market solutions should be embraced at the cost of national security. Details of the apparent failure to govern in the quote below:

Each day since Katrina brings more evidence of the lethal ineptitude of federal officials. I'm not letting state and local officials off the hook, but federal officials had access to resources that could have made all the difference, but were never mobilized.

Here's one of many examples: The Chicago Tribune reports that the U.S.S. Bataan, equipped with six operating rooms, hundreds of hospital beds and the ability to produce 100,000 gallons of fresh water a day, has been sitting off the Gulf Coast since last Monday - without patients.

Experts say that the first 72 hours after a natural disaster are the crucial window during which prompt action can save many lives. Yet action after Katrina was anything but prompt. Newsweek reports that a "strange paralysis" set in among Bush administration officials, who debated lines of authority while thousands died.

 

[xexex]

While foreign offers of aid pour into America, al Qaeda’s Iraq commander makes cynical use of the hurricane disaster for its propaganda.

September 4, 2005, 10:10 PM (GMT+02:00)

The terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi issued a statement Sunday, Sept. 4, blessing the elements of nature with which Allah struck the United States. DEBKAfile adds: All Qaeda units including those posted in Iraq and Afghanistan have been placed on the ready for what it call “events to mark the approaching fourth anniversary” of its attacks on New York and Washington.

expected...........


www.debka.com

 

[xsarien]

expected...........


www.debka.com

For four years, nothing has happened on the anniversary of 9/11. It'd be monumentally stupid, because security would likely be very visible.

 

[Lo-Volt]

For four years, nothing has happened on the anniversary of 9/11. It'd be monumentally stupid, because security would likely be very visible.

They never said it would happen in New York or D.C., which are both fortresses as much as they are cities. It could be anywhere al-Qaeda operates should they choose to execute such an operation. But it'd be incredibly injurious seeing the news of the last month. If you think we're all in a tizzy now, well... =/

---

CNN: a helicopter crashes near downtown New Orleans, but the occupants are rescued by the Coast Guard. A member of the House of Representatives vows to introduce a bill separating FEMA from Homeland Security, instead making it a cabinet-level department. Majority leader of the Senate, Bill Frist, calls for hearings on the response to New Orleans. A preliminary death toll for the city stands at 59, but this is expected to go into four digits at least.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/04/katrina.impact/index.html

 

[pestul]

The enormity of this complete failure to mobilize set in a long time ago for me, but it peaked when I saw the US Army Corp of Eng. 'dinkie car' bulldozer trying to fix a breached levee. Where the fuck are these monster machines we see on TLC that could fill a breach in about 30s? Who cares what the expense would have been getting them there.. it's worth it for one human life. It is America afterall. :/

 

[Lardbutt]

Just playing devil's advocate here, but I think Al Qaeda really missed the boat here by glorifying this hurricane as a work of Allah. They seemed to be master manipulators of the media, but this time they screwed up. Why? Because the large majority of the victims were blacks, most of whom oppose Bush and the war in Iraq. Not a lot of Jews were killed in this disaster.

I think they could have scored more points if they just joined with the critics blaming Bush for screwing up the relief efforts, or just by shutting up and not saying much at all.

 

[Hitokage]

Just playing devil's advocate here, but I think Al Qaeda really missed the boat here by glorifying this hurricane as a work of Allah. They seemed to be master manipulators of the media, but this time they screwed up. Why? Because the large majority of the victims were blacks, most of who oppose Bush and the war in Iraq. Not a lot of Jews were killed in this disaster. Al Qaeda could have scored more points for themselves if they instead joined with the critics blaming Bush for screwing up the relief efforts, or just by shutting up and not saying much at all.

Because they really care about American citizens and need Bush off their back since he's been hunting them all down to the last man.

 

[Triumph]

Seven page article up at Time: The Aftermath.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101319-1,00.html

Some absolutely heartbreaking stuff in here.

When Dr. Greg Henderson, a pathologist turned field medic, arrived at the Convention Center on Friday, he was the only doctor for 10,000 people. "They're stacking the dead on the second floor," he told TIME by phone. "People are having seizures in the hallway. People with open running sores, every imaginable disease and disorder, all kinds of psychiatric problems. We have people who haven't had dialysis in several days. They'll be going into kidney failure. I just closed the door on a man who ran out of medicine for his kidney transplant. Very soon his body is going to go into rejection." Henderson went in with New Orleans police, and when people saw him in scrubs, they surged at him from every side. He tried to tend the sickest and the babies first. "The crowds here have gotten a bad rap. There are not many human beings you could cram into a building with 10,000 others, in 105° heat, that wouldn't get just a little pissed off." He tried to get them settled and asked them to show him the sickest. "And they lead me. It's not a subtle thing. It's generally the ones who are seizing on the floor."

Friday. Friday before a doctor got to the Convention Center... and it was ONE doctor.

Opportunity and desperation make a flammable mix. All along the coast, people broke into parked cars to siphon gas. Police reported that a man in Hattiesburg, Miss., shot his sister in the head in a fight over a bag of ice. A rescue team from Texas that had ferried hundreds of people to safety in their flat-bottom boats were told by a New Orleans sheriff that unless they were armed, they should get out of the city. At one point, rescuer Randy White says, "Someone yelled out to me, 'If you don't get us out by 12 o'clock, we're going to start shooting all the rescuers.'" One man was standing on Canal Boulevard with water up to his chest wearing a mink coat that he had liberated from a store. "This natural disaster is beginning to look like a Watts riot," said a worried congressional aide in Washington as he watched the chaos. "There's something really ugly going on here, something wrong at a deeper level."

One thing that was wrong may have been that right and wrong had jumped their tracks. For all the scorching images of armed thugs making off with sneakers and wide-screen TVs, the larger reality wasn't as simple as the President's call for "zero tolerance"of looting. Was it wrong to take a bottle of milk from a store when your baby was sobbing and there was no way to pay for it if you tried? When cans of food are scattered in the debris, does taking them amount to theft, or salvage? At one point, police with guns drawn escorted Dr. Henderson through a Walgreens as he emptied the pharmacy of drugs to use in a French Quarter bar turned makeshift clinic. Dudley Fuqua, tall and lean in baggy blue shorts, broke into neighborhood shops and took canned goods, frozen chicken and ribs and cigarettes to his neighbors, who called him a hero. "I was in a building with no food, no water for five nights," Fuqua's neighbor Mohammed Ally, 70, told TIME's Brian Bennett. "They were taking care of the elderly people." Fuqua saw a neighbor using his empty refrigerator as a rowboat to paddle through the water to get help for his pregnant wife. When the buoyant refrigerator tipped, Fuqua dove off a second-story balcony to help and sliced his feet on a rain gutter. "I was going to make sure everyone was O.K."

That man who shot his sister is going to hell, and I don't even believe in hell.

Dudley Fuqua is a fucking hero, and so is the kid who took the bus to the Astrodome. Brown and Chertoff deserve to be castrated on live TV.

Americans sometimes ask what the government does and where their tax money goes. Among other things, it pays for all kinds of invisible but essential safety nets and life belts and guardrails that are useless right up until the day they are priceless. Furious critics charged last week that the government had not heard the warnings. Instead it cut the funds for flood control and storm preparations, mangled the chain of command, missed every opportunity. And an angry debate opened about how much the demands of the Iraq war, on both the budget and the National Guard, were eating into the country's ability to protect itself at home. Louisiana Republican Congressman Jim McCrery--working the phones with FEMA, the Army, the White House, state officials--argues that Katrina revealed how much doesn't work. "Clearly, with all the money we've spent, all the focus we have put on homeland security, we are not prepared for a disaster of this proportion whether it's induced by nature or man."

And this time a crucial consolation was missing. After 9/11, whatever the evidence of intelligence failures, many people still saw that attack as almost unimaginable, so brutal and brazen an assault. But Katrina was in the cards, forewarned, foreseen and yet still dismissed until it was too late. That so many officials were caught so unprepared was a failure less of imagination than will, a realization all the more frightening in light of what lies ahead. For if we couldn't help our citizens in an hour of desperate need, how well will we do in six months or a year, when many are still jobless and homeless, but no longer center stage?

 

[BorkBork]

Time Running Out for Survivors

Officials say they do not have the manpower, the resources or enough time to save everyone.

Meanwhile there is a tax-funded, state of the art, fully staffed but EMPTY hospital held up by red tape.
Broussard is right. Bureaucracy has committed murder and bureaucracy must be held responsible. This is simply unacceptable.

 

[Dan]

A member of the House of Representatives vows to introduce a bill separating FEMA from Homeland Security, instead making it a cabinet-level department.

I'm pleased to see that it's John Dingell doing so, since he actually voted against the Homeland Security Act that removed FEMA from the president's cabinet in the first place.

 

[xabre]

How Cuba deals with hurricanes -

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10112.htm

Last September, a Category 5 hurricane battered the small island of Cuba with 160-mile-per-hour winds. More than 1.5 million Cubans were evacuated to higher ground ahead of the storm. Although the hurricane destroyed 20,000 houses, no one died.

"Cuba's leaders go on TV and take charge," said Valdes. Contrast this with George W. Bush's reaction to Hurricane Katrina. The day after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, Bush was playing golf. He waited three days to make a TV appearance and five days before visiting the disaster site.

"Merely sticking people in a stadium is unthinkable" in Cuba, Valdes said. "Shelters all have medical personnel, from the neighborhood. They have family doctors in Cuba, who evacuate together with the neighborhood, and already know, for example, who needs insulin."

They also evacuate animals and veterinarians, TV sets and refrigerators, "so that people aren't reluctant to leave because people might steal their stuff," Valdes observed.

After Hurricane Ivan, the United Nations International Secretariat for Disaster Reduction cited Cuba as a model for hurricane preparation.

 

[Drensch]

What I find idiotic is the idea that ditching bullshit privatization involves implementing full-blown communism.... unless Drensch was being deliberately ironic.

I'm more or less pointing out, that the free market is not getting people help, rescued, or rebuilt. More or less everything that will end up coming out of this; the rebuilding, relocation, feeding, fixing, etc. Will all be the result of government programs. I'm sure insurance companies, and every other business under the sun will end up getting a tax cut, subsidy, or infusion, from the government. The persons affected by this refugees, escapees, business, states like Tx that took on people will all get support from the feds.

I'm not saying that it's time to line up some bolsheviks. What I am saying that those who decry a federal government are full of it. The free market is not the end all and be all, even if you think such a thing exists. The free market is what the price gougers are about. The government is going to have to be there and it will have to fix all of this, and give handouts to everyone. With as many people that are going to be affected, secondarily, it's probably time to consider the "evils" of nationalized healthcare, especially since we're going to be doing it for a large amount of people for some time. Not to mention that some sort of Louisiana valley project will have to be instituted. Private business is not gonna do it.

 

[Lardbutt]

This whole disaster-relief operation is a textbook example of "too little, too late." It's a textbook example of SHITTY LEADERSHIP. All the way from the bottom up. For the first 24 hours, the mayor of New Orleans told people he had it under control, and they didn't need help. Two days later, he's screaming and swearing at people for not coming sooner. What? Did he think the National Guard just shows up on its own? You have to ask! We, the soldiers of the Reserves and Guard, don't sit in our unit headquarters, watching CNN, and say, "Oh look! A disaster! Let's go!" WE CAN'T. We have to have orders. We need authorization. And we need to be requested. And then, what about the governor of Louisiana? Have we even heard anything from him? He should have realized that the mayor of New Orleans wasn't seeing the situation clearly, and acted. But no. And then there's the "president." WHAT THE FUCK? There has been a failure in EVERY level of our civilian chain of command. And then there's FEMA. Don't even get me started. They're running a logistical nightmare. Yes, communications are down, but they knew that would happen! They were supposed to have been planning for this for years! The people of that organization are paid dearly, specifically to be ready in case of an emergency. And then, the emergency happens, and it all falls to hell. The Army can go in, and within 24 hours, we could have had food and water and medical facilities on the ground, IF we had been requested... but we weren't, until it was too late, and people were already dead and dying of preventable causes. 50,000 people were stranded in a convention center, and FEMA didn't know ANYTHING about them until four days after the storm. They would have known all about it if they'd just turned on the television, because apparently CNN has better information than the people who are supposed to handle the disaster. This is pitiful, and inexcusable.

Good post I found from another thread on this forum... leadership at pretty much every level of government has failed in this disaster...

 

[Lardbutt]

Last September, a Category 5 hurricane battered the small island of Cuba with 160-mile-per-hour winds. More than 1.5 million Cubans were evacuated to higher ground ahead of the storm. Although the hurricane destroyed 20,000 houses, no one died.

There was a mandatory evacuation ordered for New Orleans. Not everyone obeyed. Unlike Cuba, we're a free country and you can't forcibly remove people from their residence if they don't want to be moved.

"Merely sticking people in a stadium is unthinkable" in Cuba, Valdes said. "Shelters all have medical personnel, from the neighborhood. They have family doctors in Cuba, who evacuate together with the neighborhood, and already know, for example, who needs insulin."

The stadium was a "shelter of last resort". I don't think it was meant to be a shelter in the first place, it's a sports stadium. By the time everyone realized how serious the levee break was, it was too late to move everyone to real shelters.

 

[Phoenix]

I have extracted my aunt from ben garza recreation center and returned here to houston. seeing her alive and well has been one of the happiest moments of my life, and she is going to come back and stay with me until she can get to the nursing home where her daughter is staying. tomorrow the first priority is to get her some clothes. I have also connected with another group of survivors and will be coming home to atlanta packed. more on the story when I have a real keyboard.(on treo)

 

[Dan]

There was a mandatory evacuation ordered for New Orleans. Not everyone obeyed. Unlike Cuba, we're a free country and you can't forcibly remove people from their residence if they don't want to be moved.

Not everyone could obey.

 

[Triumph]

I have extracted my aunt from ben garza recreation center and returned here to houston. seeing her alive and well has been one of the happiest moments of my life, and she is going to come back and stay with me until she can get to the nursing home where her daughter is staying. tomorrow the first priority is to get her some clothes. I have also connected with another group of survivors and will be coming home to atlanta packed. more on the story when I have a real keyboard.(on treo)

Godspeed, man. You're an example.

 

[xabre]

There was a mandatory evacuation ordered for New Orleans. Not everyone obeyed. Unlike Cuba, we're a free country and you can't forcibly remove people from their residence if they don't want to be moved.

Will you STOP giving us that free country bullshit!!! The only freedom the people of New Orleans had was freedom to stay, rot and die. Survival of the richest indeed. And as for enforced evacuation? You're damn right, go door to door, provide transportation for them to leave the city and if they don't want to leave you take them into custody and release them until the danger subsides as per the mandatory evacuation order. You don’t just fucking leave people there, how utterly low down and pathetic.

What's more, I can't believe you have the gall to talk about freedom when one of your cities is currently under martial law and up until a few days ago those within New Orleans were forcibly kept in and aid forcibly kept out. Now there finally is enforced eviction at fucking gunpoint in your little land of the free. Wake up.

The stadium was a "shelter of last resort". I don't think it was meant to be a shelter in the first place, it's a sports stadium. By the time everyone realized how serious the levee break was, it was too late to move everyone to real shelters.

Yeah, there was only three fucking days warning before the storm was due to hit to organise transportation and shelters for the poor, sick and elderly who had no means of getting out of the city. Righto.

 

[BorkBork]

I have extracted my aunt from ben garza recreation center and returned here to houston. seeing her alive and well has been one of the happiest moments of my life, and she is going to come back and stay with me until she can get to the nursing home where her daughter is staying. tomorrow the first priority is to get her some clothes. I have also connected with another group of survivors and will be coming home to atlanta packed. more on the story when I have a real keyboard.(on treo)

That's fantastic! Good to see some good news after all this.

 

[Ceb]

There was a mandatory evacuation ordered for New Orleans. Not everyone obeyed. Unlike Cuba, we're a free country and you can't forcibly remove people from their residence if they don't want to be moved.

Tell that to the maybe dozens of elderly and handicapped people who were left to transport themselves across a 5km stretch of freeway. Tell it to the people who are too poor to afford a car, to sick to move or to poorly educated to be aware and care.

 

[Lardbutt]

Will you STOP giving us that free country bullshit!!! The only freedom the people of New Orleans had was freedom to stay, rot and die. Survival of the richest indeed. And as for enforced evacuation? You're damn right, go door to door, provide transportation for them to leave the city and if they don't want to leave you take them into custody and release them until the danger subsides as per the mandatory evacuation order. You don’t just fucking leave people there, how utterly low down and pathetic

I read somewhere about a plan to evacuate the poor people in New Orleans via the hundreds of school buses, but for some reason the city never put that plan into place. I don't understand why.

Anyway despite that, there was still ALOT people who stayed behind volutanrily, and didn't try to evacuate until the levees broke. By then it was impossible to get out.

 

[Red Scarlet]

A little blip along the bottom from reuters just said that Typhoon Nabi is on a direct course with Japan, 100MPH winds.