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Outside view of Katrina disaster

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Nightbringer

Don´t hit me for my bad english plase
Hi everybody!

First of all I'd like to show all my condolences to the Louisiana people. Hang in there!

This thread tries to be some kind of non-american vision of the disaster in a constructive criticism manner. Forgive my bad english by the way...

We are split just by water. Europe and US both have same latitude, similar climatology, economy and genetic inheritance, but we are so damn different in way of life...

These days every tv channel, every newspaper, every internet forum in europe is full of katrina's news and discussions, and most of them are concerning the way the disaster is being managed.

I'm really shocked about a country that wastes 5,6 thousand million dollars (5,6 billion for you, as far as i'm concerned) and earns 12,2 selling weapons and can't even make use of such potential to avoid its own population to die.

Today I've know that New Orleans... Mayor? (I don't know if it is the correct word) has put all the policial efforts into finish with looting. More than 1500 police units triying to stop the robberies instead of SAVING LIVES.

This is definitively the most shocking thing ever seen about us society in my 21 years of existence.

My question is... Do you agree with the way Ray Nagin has acted, or you rather would put all the efforts in people instead of propiety?
 
The looting and lawlessness is resulting in a loss of life. You can't make a rescue effort if there is no order.
 
Actually, there are reports that rescuers, police officers, and firefighters are coming under fire from hoodlums throughout the city. So I agree with the mayor's decision to put a stop to all the stupidity going on so that some semblance of order is in place. Rescuers can't do their jobs with all this stupid shit in the way.
 
Things are going to get very ugly when the National Guard starts rolling their APCs into the area. The looters were shooting at rescuers trying to get them out. Two guys with AK-47's attacked a police station. People are saying that if you go in there on foot, chances are very good that you'll be robbed and killed.

Just wait until the chaos that'll hit when they see a APC rolling toward them.
 
So heavy is the lawlessness??

I'm sorry. It is a greater disaster than I though. It's incredible this level of stupidity in so many minds at the same time.

Has the army took part in the conflict? Maybe just police is not enough...
 
Nightbringer said:
Has the army took part in the conflict? Maybe just police is not enough...
Click to expand...

The Army can't. Well, they aren't supposed to. That's what the National Guard is for. Hell, the Army would help but that would create such a shitstorm.
 
I heard that there will be some regular military presence in the city, but as Manabyte says, by law the Army isn't supposed to get involved. This is a job for the National Guard which is already mobilizing. By this time tommorrow, there should be over 20,000 National Guard personnell in place. Also, I should clarify something.

Search and rescue efforts haven't stopped. They are ongoing. The Mayor is just making a more concerted effort to restoring order to the city. At the moment, it's just incredible how much lawlessness is there. Some people are just too fucking stupid.
 
Mayor Nagin really doesnt want to divert efforts from the save and rescue process now but you have to understand that the looting is so bad that it is interfering with saving lives. There are reports of the hospitals having to delay the transfer of patients because the ambulances they were using were being hi-jacked.

The guards of NO Lockup left, leaving the prisoners to wander the streets looking for their own refuge. There is no place to currently hold crminals.

As far as the looters, they are pushed to the very brink of survival. They are trapped in a continually floodig city with no information/communication of whats going on, no food, no water, no way out. There is no infrastucture or order at the moment...so those who are within the city feel alone and will do whatever it takes to survive. Some of these looters are disgusting though, they are looking to pillage a profit in the process.
 
Gov. Haley Barber of Mississippi was just on CNN having a rather heated debate with the news correspondent, about the federal government's response Barber defended the federal government's response so far, noting that the storm was only a Category 1 when it passed through Florida, so there wasn't much time before it became deadly. He also praised neighboring states for sending their national guard divisions to help.
 
Funny though, that it doesn't matter what the society or culture is and how well off they were before the disaster, many people when given such freedom are prone to run rampant. Hell they could have been the most upstanding citizens before the disaster, but in the absence of authority human nature takes its course. I also view New Orleans as a microcosm of what such a society devoid of law and order would be like. Truly survival of the fittest.
 
Nightbringer said:
I'm really shocked about a country that wastes 5,6 thousand million dollars (5,6 billion for you, as far as i'm concerned) and earns 12,2 selling weapons and can't even make use of such potential to avoid its own population to die.
Click to expand...

The govenment can only take so much blame. The had a mandatory evacuation a few days before the storm hit. Even at that they couldn't get everyone to leave. True many couldn't afford to leave but the fact of the matter is that the vast majority of the city skipped town or found shelter in the superdome. There is no country on the planet that is prepared for the total obliteration of one of it's major cites.

Nightbringer said:
Today I've know that New Orleans... Mayor? (I don't know if it is the correct word) has put all the policial efforts into finish with looting. More than 1500 police units triying to stop the robberies instead of SAVING LIVES.
Click to expand...

That is a priorty when, you have armed bandits shooting at rescue worker and robbing ambulances.

Nightbringer said:
My question is... Do you agree with the way Ray Nagin has acted, or you rather would put all the efforts in people instead of propiety?
Click to expand...

I think in this situation the leadership of NO, LA, and MS have acted extremely well and it's is a credit to their leadership skills.
 
I'm watching ABCNews at the moment. They're reporting that rescue and military helicopters are taking fire. This is absolutely sad.
 
dskillzhtown said:
The looting I can somewhat understand, but why shoot at people who are trying to help?
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It's just a retarded mentality some people. your name suggests you're from Houston. If not, sorry. haha But some people will know who I'm talking about. On Fox 26, Jose Grinan was getting really pissed when he saw the news about them shooting at the helicopter. If you saw it, he got really mad and they cut to commercial a few seconds later. I've never actually seen a news reporter get emotional and it suprised me.
 
Uh... you can't just let armed looters hijack the city, Nightbringer. And if you ignore them they WILL. That will make conditions all the more dangerous; not only will you have water, flooding, potential disease, people dying because of the conditions, but also armed criminals shooting at and then killing innocent people (who have already been through hell.)

You must not be paying THAT much attention to the news. A lot of police are not confronting armed looters while they're alone or with maybe one or two other officers. More armed looters could be in the background waiting to attack the officers if they take action (it's pitch black), plus they admitted that they would not feel safe without a shotgun. Furthermore, when you have innocent people in the exact same area you do not want to start a violent conflict.

I'm pretty sure they're waiting for more of the national guard to actually get there and address the armed looters. It's the most effective way. They really are dealing with potential urban warfare over there. A lot of police aren't cut out for that, and they know that. The national guard is.

I WILL say that maybe if people in this country would come to their senses and BAN GUNS like they are in most other countries, New Orleans would not have this problem. There's a reason why most countries do it, and it's because society has grown far too aggressive, violent and intolerant to deserve the right to own one. Sorry, gun lovers. The negatives outweigh the positives, and what's going on right now is proof that you cannot deny. It's something no one worries about. A gun shop in the middle of a town that's been evacuated or in ruins is also a birthplace for armed criminals desperate to get whatever it is that they want. If this happened somewhere in Europe, you'd have little to no armed individuals, allowing very little interruption with the relief effort. Can't say that about the situation here in the US.
 
I find it funny that outsiders think the since USA is the richest and most powerful country shit can't just happen or it can be handle in few days. If throwing billions of dollars can fix this mess in 1 week, the Republicans / Democrats would already have. Nobody wants to get caught with their pants when Congress does an invistigation on the matter. Seriously, if this disaster happen in 3rd world country, it would have cause tens / hundreds of thousands in deaths. Instead of trying to blame people, I would think everyone, local, state, and federal, are trying to do the best they can given the magnitude of disaster.


Anytime there's a power vacuum, people do stupid shit, ie looting, shooting, and other crimes. This can happen in any civilization. Order has to be restore before you can do anything else. Think local and state officials got caught with their pants down here thinking it can't happen in lawful country like America. They are starting to realize they were wrong and are calling for much more national guards.


Also, under law, US Armed Forces are not allow to deploy inside the country unless extreme cases, ie civil war. That job is for local & state police officers and national guard. Yes, things look bad in New Orleans, but that's not close to criteria for Army deployment.
 
Not to excuse it, but most of the looters are just looking for food. There's no electricity, no running water (and no working toilets), no communications, most of the city is unnavigable without a boat, and so people can't get food or drinking water -- and that's what most people are trying to get.

There's always a criminal element in every city, and the worst of times throughout history will always bring out the worst in people. It's a desperate situation in New Orleans, that cannot be understated. People have lost loved ones, people have lost their homes, everything they own, and they can't get out.

The police can't really get in, either -- there simply aren't enough of them, and it's too large an area for relief workers to get everywhere in a short period of time. Don't forget, there's all the areas surrounding New Orleans, cities like Slidell, Biloxi, Gulfport, Mobile, that are devastated and need relief workers as well.

It's just too big a problem, too widespread to be resolved so quickly, to have every issue attended to. We're talking about hundreds of square miles. And let's not forget that the major highways are largely impassible due to bridge collapses, making it that much more difficult to get around.

I heard on the radio this morning that the US has received *NO* offers of aid of any kind from any other country. If this is true, I'd like to give the nations of the world a nice, big, FUCK YOU. The US has ALWAYS offered aid, monetary, food, medicine, humanitarian, wherever there's been a crisis, even to our enemies. We didn't all vote for Bush, you selfish shits.
 
Nightbringer, I don't know what kind of information your getting over in Europe but some of the reporters covering the story here in the U.S. are scared for their lives. These bands of thugs have picked gun shops clean and are spreading chaos around the city. Fox News had a New York Post reporter who thought he was going to die at one point because he was surrounded by gun wielding maniacs. People are now shooting at helicopters put in place to help evacuate refugees from the Superdome. The evacuation had to be haulted because of these morons.
 
LJ11 said:
Nightbringer, I don't know what kind of information your getting over in Europe but some of the reporters covering the story here in the U.S. are scared for their lives. These bands of thugs have picked gun shops clean and are spreading chaos around the city. Fox News had a New York Post reporter who thought he was going to die at one point because he was surrounded by gun wielding maniacs. People are now shooting at helicopters put in place to help evacuate refugees from the Superdome. The evacuation had to be haulted because of these morons.
Click to expand...
But this is not the majority of people, most people in the city are scared of the few crazy people that give the whole coast a bad name...
 
SteveMeister said:
I heard on the radio this morning that the US has received *NO* offers of aid of any kind from any other country. If this is true, I'd like to give the nations of the world a nice, big, FUCK YOU. The US has ALWAYS offered aid, monetary, food, medicine, humanitarian, wherever there's been a crisis, even to our enemies. We didn't all vote for Bush, you selfish shits.
Click to expand...


Pretty sure, heard France offer. Anyway, from what I am hearing (also see original post), people think that America had it coming to them. Example: 1) if US didn't spend huge amount of money on military, wars, and etc., they could fix this mess already. Little do these dumbass know that if money was the reason billions / trillions would be pouring into disaster area right now. 2) Disaster was cause by global warming. That's what we get for not signing Kyoto treaty. Guess, people dont understand that hurricanes happen all time in region and NO has been lucky for over 40 years. And, god knows what other theories they can come up with. Shit like this makes we either want to laugh or cry.
 
themadcowtipper said:
But this is not the majority of people, most people in the city are scared of the few crazy people that give the whole coast a bad name...
Click to expand...

Totally agree.
 
myzhi said:
Pretty sure, heard France offer. Anyway, from what I am hearing (also see original post), people think that America had it coming to them. Example: 1) if US didn't spend huge amount of money on military, wars, and etc., they could mix it this mess already. Little do these dumbass know that if money was the reason billions / trillions would be pouring into disaster area right now. 2) Disaster was cause by global warming. That's what get for not signing Kyoto treaty. Guess, people dont understand that hurricanes happen all time that region and NO has been lucky for over 40 years. Shit like this makes we want to laugh or cry.
Click to expand...

Then that makes the attitude even more reprehensible. Nobody has a natural disaster "coming to them."
 
Are most the looters just looking for food? I know there's a lot of people desperate there who need food and water and medical attention, but I'm curious if most the people looting stores or forming armed bands and robbing supply trucks, etc. are being motivated by a lack of food.

I also wonder why they didn't mobilize the National Guard for security reasons a little sooner. I honestly don't know what it takes to do that so it's not so much a criticism as honest curiousity.

Also, I wonder if a European city was devastated by flood and weather if the remaining citizens would already be forming armed, looting bands.
 
New Orleans was one of the dirtiest, crime-infested, corrupt cities in the U.S. even before the law broke down. Obviously it can only get much, much worse from here. There are armed gangs breaking into houses and stealing valuables, staging carjackings, and firing at the police and rescuers. I'd be willing to bet that a vast majority of the looting is for material gain and not survival. Just look at the videos of Wal-Marts being cleared. Even the corrupt NO police are in on it.

Alot of the looting has to do with a class-warfare mentality, I suspect. New Orleans is a city dominated by the poor and destitute, and now they have lost their homes, and possibly their loved ones. On top of that the local authorities have let them down. The city is hot and unbearable and they now feel like they are owed something by society. I can understand their plight, but that doesn't make their acts justified by any means. They are directly or indirectly holding up rescue efforts and endangering lives.. Its completely unacceptable.
 
Europeans love to shit on the U.S. whenever they get a chance (just an fyi both my parents are European and they do it all the time). Any time they get a chance to shove something in our face they will do it. I love the fact they constantly throw our economic prowess in our face. "How can this happen when you have so much money and power? You knew the hurricane was coming." They don't understand what the f@$* is going on, yet they feel that they have a better grasp of things then the people actually living in this country. "Why are they trying to stop the men with the guns? They should be saving lives!" When rescuers go out to look for survivors and they fear for their lives, it's kind of tough to get things done. It's easy to say "save lives," but much more difficult to do it. Every volunteer and rescuer in NO is trying their hardest to save as many people as they possibly can, but they won't get to some people in time and that's what makes it such a tragic event. All the money in the world can't save some of these people now, so don't go around spewing numbers and figures. I wonder how Paris would do if 80% of the city was flooded with water?
 
LJ11 said:
Europeans love to shit on the U.S. whenever they get a chance (just an fyi both my parents are European and they do it all the time). Any time they get a chance to shove something in our face they will do it.
Click to expand...

I love the way all Americans wildly overgeneralise about the inhabitants of an entire continent.
 
iapetus said:
I love the way all Americans wildly overgeneralise about the inhabitants of an entire continent.
Click to expand...
It could be said both ways... we also love how it seems that a lot of Europeans think we all voted for Bush and that what our country does domestically and internationally is acceptable.
 
myzhi said:
Pretty sure, heard France offer. Anyway, from what I am hearing (also see original post), people think that America had it coming to them. Example: 1) if US didn't spend huge amount of money on military, wars, and etc., they could fix this mess already. Little do these dumbass know that if money was the reason billions / trillions would be pouring into disaster area right now. 2) Disaster was cause by global warming. That's what we get for not signing Kyoto treaty. Guess, people dont understand that hurricanes happen all time in region and NO has been lucky for over 40 years. And, god knows what other theories they can come up with. Shit like this makes we either want to laugh or cry.
Click to expand...

Chirac didn't quite offer, he said if we asked France for money he would answer...


In other words, we have to grovel to his feet before he'll spare any support for the victims...
 
Here's all I saw about International stuffs:

(AP): -- The world is reacting to America's disaster. Saudi Arabia says it's ready to increase crude oil production to replace market shortages. Venezuela is offering humanitarian aid and fuel. Canada's Red Cross is assembling volunteers. French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder sent messages of sympathy to President Bush.

Pope Benedict says he's praying for victims of the "tragic" hurricane while China's President Hu Jintao expressed his belief that the American people would "rebuild their beautiful homeland."

But not all responses were positive. Islamic extremists are rejoicing. Internet chatter referred to the storm as "Private" Katrina, and said it had joined the global holy war against the U.S.
Click to expand...
 
Gregory said:
Why do I only see black people sitting around in the city? Are there no white people in New Orleans ?
Click to expand...
that section of New Orleans by the superdome is really poor, that is why most did not evacuate most had noway to do so too poor or no car...
 
yeah, I remember hearing before the hurricane struck that nearly 1/3 of New Orleans lives in poverty, thats almost worse than Oakland.
 
SteveMeister said:
I heard on the radio this morning that the US has received *NO* offers of aid of any kind from any other country. If this is true, I'd like to give the nations of the world a nice, big, FUCK YOU. The US has ALWAYS offered aid, monetary, food, medicine, humanitarian, wherever there's been a crisis, even to our enemies. We didn't all vote for Bush, you selfish shits.
Click to expand...
Yeah. I know Chavez has offered aid, and I'm not surprised in the least that Canada has, too. Fuck, I may have a greater bond with Canada than most other people in the country (as I'm sure residents of Wisconsin, New York, etc do), but if Canada were getting invaded I'd probably be fighting for them. Canada's our BOYYYEEEEEE, regardless of the political shit that happens, so yeah... glad to see they've got our back.

As for France, it doesn't surprise me in the least. French officials are still pissed that we went into Iraq and did what we want and they couldn't do a fucking thing to stop it. They see the fact that they can't control us anymore and in general, they fucking hate it. So the fact that Chirac would only give money out if he saw us beg really doesn't surprise me in the least. It'd be the same with the Russians, too, I imagine.

At least Roul's boy Hugo sent some love. Gotta give him some dap for that.
 
PotatoeMasher said:
Chirac didn't quite offer, he said if we asked France for money he would answer...


In other words, we have to grovel to his feet before he'll spare any support for the victims...
Click to expand...

Yes, a lot of countries are in this "if you ask we will come to your aid" limbo - but we have received offers of aid from countries.
 
LJ11 said:
Nightbringer, I don't know what kind of information your getting over in Europe
Click to expand...


dude..dont talk shit about european news outlets. they are the only source of true unbiased news... or at least thats what they keep telling us.
 
argon said:
Alot of the looting has to do with a class-warfare mentality, I suspect. New Orleans is a city dominated by the poor and destitute, and now they have lost their homes, and possibly their loved ones. On top of that the local authorities have let them down. The city is hot and unbearable and they now feel like they are owed something by society. I can understand their plight, but that doesn't make their acts justified by any means. They are directly or indirectly holding up rescue efforts and endangering lives.. Its completely unacceptable.
Click to expand...

One of my fiance's coworkers lived in Los Angeles during the riots and told us last night that once order had been restored, the police tracked down about 90% of the looters and severely punished them through legal channels. It will be interesting to see if something similar happens in New Orleans.
 
RiZ III said:
There would be more action from the fedral govt if this is a white city.
Click to expand...

Woah stop the retarded...here is the plain fact the vast majority of people that are stuck in NO are poor. By it's nature there are more poor blacks than whites. If you had a similar disaster in any major city you would see more blacks than anyone else because typically they have less resources to up and move. This isn't a race thing Bush is not up in the white house saying "Hee, hee, hee let's see how long these negros can suffer Dick! Condi fetch me my caviar and slippers."

This is just a fact of how things go.


distantmantra said:
One of my fiance's coworkers lived in Los Angeles during the riots and told us last night that once order had been restored, the police tracked down about 90% of the looters and severely punished them through legal channels. It will be interesting to see if something similar happens in New Orleans.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't be shocked to see that most looters will be pardoned unless they killed or assulted someone in the process of the looting, IF they are going to rebuild they are going to need more able hands in the city than taking up resources rotting in jail for milk and honey.
 
myzhi said:
Pretty sure, heard France offer. Anyway, from what I am hearing (also see original post), people think that America had it coming to them. Example: 1) if US didn't spend huge amount of money on military, wars, and etc., they could fix this mess already. Little do these dumbass know that if money was the reason billions / trillions would be pouring into disaster area right now. 2) Disaster was cause by global warming. That's what we get for not signing Kyoto treaty. Guess, people dont understand that hurricanes happen all time in region and NO has been lucky for over 40 years. And, god knows what other theories they can come up with. Shit like this makes we either want to laugh or cry.
Click to expand...
Really, at the end of the day, we poured how much money into Southeast Asia a few months ago to save how many lives? And how much is the world giving back now?

Being helpful and providing aid should be a two-way street and petty politics shouldn't come before saving lives. France and Germany offering "sympathy" does little to help the starving and drowning residents of a city that was wiped off the face of the earth. Imagine if Nice were submerged and destroyed in a natural disaster and we didn't go help them. The rest of the world would FLIP THE FUCK OUT.

Bunch of damn ungrateful hypocrites (and I'm usually one who defends and even often agrees with the rest of the world when it comes to the things we do).


EDIT: Just to be sure, I'm not saying the rest of the world OWES us anything. It's just that when something like this happens in the world, the US is the first to jump and help as many people as they can. When something like this happens to the US, it would be nice to know that the rest of the world is willing to offer the same courtesy.
 
MetatronM said:
Really, at the end of the day, we poured how much money into Southeast Asia a few months ago to save how many lives? And how much is the world giving back now?

Being helpful and providing aid should be a two-way street and petty politics shouldn't come before saving lives. France and Germany offering "sympathy" does little to help the starving and drowning residents of a city that was wiped off the face of the earth. Imagine if Nice were submerged and destroyed in a natural disaster and we didn't go help them. The rest of the world would FLIP THE FUCK OUT.

Bunch of damn ungrateful hypocrites (and I'm usually one who defends and even often agrees with the rest of the world when it comes to the things we do).


EDIT: Just to be sure, I'm not saying the rest of the world OWES us anything. It's just that when something like this happens in the world, the US is the first to jump and help as many people as they can. When something like this happens to the US, it would be nice to know that the rest of the world is willing to offer the same courtesy.
Click to expand...

Not that this any indication of what is happening but I believe that there is the generalized idea that the US don't need any kind of help from anyone because they are the US. Retarded assumption but pretty understandable if you take a look at the image that most EURO media represent from the US.
IMO there are two separate questions:

1. Can the US solve all this on its own without any kind of help ?
Of course they can. They have the economical and logistical resources to do so.

2. Does this mean we don't have to do anything ?
Nope. Each government should be on the first line offering WHATEVER. Wherever the US would accept it or not is another subject.
 
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/02/katrina.impact/index.html

Police outnumbered and outgunned

Overnight, police snipers were stationed on the roof of their precinct station, trying to protect it from gunmen roaming the city, CNN's Chris Lawrence reported.

One New Orleans police sergeant compared the situation to Somalia and said officers were outnumbered and outgunned by gangs in trucks. (Watch the video report on explosions and gunfire -- 2:12)

The officer hitched a ride to Baton Rouge on Friday morning, after working 60 hours straight in the flooded city. He has not decided whether he will return.

He broke down in tears when he described the deaths of his fellow officers, saying many had drowned doing their jobs. Other officers have turned in their badges, he said.

In one incident, the sergeant said he saw bodies riddled with bullet holes, and the top of one man's head shot off.
Other developments
Click to expand...


stupid americans.. relief effort is needed!!! who cares if they arent safe from crazy lunatics!
 
SteveMeister said:
I heard on the radio this morning that the US has received *NO* offers of aid of any kind from any other country. If this is true, I'd like to give the nations of the world a nice, big, FUCK YOU. The US has ALWAYS offered aid, monetary, food, medicine, humanitarian, wherever there's been a crisis, even to our enemies. We didn't all vote for Bush, you selfish shits.
Click to expand...

Not true
 
SteveMeister said:
I heard on the radio this morning that the US has received *NO* offers of aid of any kind from any other country. If this is true, I'd like to give the nations of the world a nice, big, FUCK YOU. The US has ALWAYS offered aid, monetary, food, medicine, humanitarian, wherever there's been a crisis, even to our enemies. We didn't all vote for Bush, you selfish shits.
Click to expand...

Uh...the US has recieved offers from pretty much every prominent country and even Russia alleged that the US turned down an offer, which the US denies. This was reported on CNN.

I don't know what kind of radio stations you listen to...

I think it's time for martial law.
 
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