Would rather be without shelter and starving in your neighborhood, or in some strange neighborhood?Quote:
Originally Posted by Endlessseason
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Would rather be without shelter and starving in your neighborhood, or in some strange neighborhood?Quote:
Originally Posted by Endlessseason
Quote:
Originally Posted by cj001f
Yeah, that really helps.
Rather than trying some facts, some actual quotes or information, lets just re-characterize each others statements in pejoratives.
The whole point of me starting this thread was to address the knee-jerk "bush sucks, everthing he does sucks, and anyone who says he doesn't suck blows" thread.
Read anything I have written and see that I acknowledge Bush is an idiot, the FEMA director is incompetent and a political hack, and the response was tragically slow.
Yeah, that makes me a fucking partisan simpleton.
Sorry you can't handle the truth :the_finge
Tanner?Quote:
Originally Posted by cj001f
What is your experience with Hurricanes and evacuation procedures? At least I speak from experience. Everyone has opinions.
THIS WAS ALL PREDICTED THREE YEARS AGO - note the date of these articles - June, 2002 :eek:
C'mon. Are you serious? Of course I'd rather be alive in a strange neighborhood than try to ride out a hurricane on my own. :rolleyes: ...and with that kind of a question, I think I'm done with this whole topic. Back to skiing-related stuff for me.Quote:
Originally Posted by cj001f
The LA Govenor, whom you cannot single handedly blame for the unpreparedness of NO for a storm like this, sent a six page letter to GW (in Crawford, because he was "on vacation" while the worst storm in recent U.S. history was hitting, and has anyone mentioned that he flew to AZ to golf the day after?) basically outlining the immediate need for all the resources and assistance from federal agencies and the military that Bush finally "thought up" and NO is starting to get right now--a week later.
I don't care about the LA gov in particular, but the way the Bush machine has twisted the blame to point in her and the mayor's direction is bullshit. And let's just say they are incompetent boobs, WHERE THE FUCK WAS THE PRESIDENT, THE MILITARY AND FEMA? To think that the gov was underplaying the severity of the aftermath and Bush didn't want step on any political toes is absurd to. Do you really think Bush cares or doesn't have the power to bowl over any state official or agency? And if the gov. was doing an inadequate job and deliberately downplaying the aftermath, isn't it Bush's job to step in and do something. All he had to do was click on CNN, NBC, ABC, FOX, MSN, etc to see the dire need down there. But it still took days. Food and water dropped from helis: 5 days later. Some dude in Florida loaded a cargo van full of food and water and drove into NO two days after the storm on his own. And if Bush did violate some State-Fed rule in coming in, so what? Doing something illegal hasn't stopped him from not firing advisors or starting wars. God forbid he do something illegal to help somone (other than himself).
A few years ago FEMA ran a model of a hurricane called Pam, a Cat5 to hit NO. It put the city under water. "Lord knows, no one is suggesting that we should ever prioritize levee improvement for a below-sea-level city, ahead of $454 million worth of trophy bridges for the politicians of Alaska. "
I'm sure all agencies and politicians involved in this whole tragedy could've done things different. But only a couple actually had the means to.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cj001f
most would have left but a large portion would have stayed, just because they know what happens when you leave your home unattended down there. not too many people commenting in these hurricane threads know what they are talking about. they tend to regurg last nights news to the letter.
New Orleans is and has always been a dangerous place for many reasons. people that have never lived or spent time in such areas just won't understand. i don't mean to say that all people down there are bad but the few that are can be worse than you'd guess. unfortunate childhood experiences groom them to be desensitised to violence and that blurry "right/wrong" line. when a something like katrina happens, some people don't lament but see opportunity. i don't think they were expecting that degree of damage but one it happened the thugs got busy doing what they wanted. most of that you wouldn't want to hear about. after the military arrived some dropped the guns and split. the small portion that stayed is still creating problems. one of my friends that just came back from N.O. by military escort was told that they had shot 58 people sunday night by use of night vision. they were looting and exchanging fire with people trying to help. those people are the reason that so many stay with their homes in the hope that the storm will turn.
it's the rest of N.O. and the coastal areas that i really feel sorry for.
I think it's due to my bad english, but I am really not sure, that I got your point. Are you saying, that those people that stayed behind were trying to protect there homes from looters, or did they stay behind in order to loot..Quote:
Originally Posted by AltaPowderDaze
seriously, I think it's a language problem, but could you clarify that for me?
greg, some stay in hopes that others will leave. the rest of the people stay in order to protect their homes. they are very poor so what is in that home is all they have.
i will find out in a few hours if i am leaving tomorrow for new orleans. i want to go help but my job will not be a good one. unfortunatly it will be search and recovery rather than rescue.
This is one of the most heartbreaking things I have seen concerning Katrina.
6 year old kid putting president, FEMA, governor, mayor, et al to shame.Quote:
BATON ROUGE, LA. - In the chaos that was Causeway Boulevard, this group of evacuees stood out: a 6-year-old boy walking down the road, holding a 5-month-old, surrounded by five toddlers who followed him around as if he were their leader.
They were holding hands. Three of the children were about 2 years old, and one was wearing only diapers. A 3-year-old girl had her 14-month-old brother in tow. The 6-year-old spoke for all of them, and he said his name was Deamonte Love.
After their rescue Thursday, paramedics in the Baton Rouge rescue operations headquarters tried to coax their names out of them.
Transporting the children alone was "the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, knowing that their parents are either dead" or that they had been abandoned, said Pat Coveney, a Houston emergency medical technician who put them into the back of his ambulance and drove them out of New Orleans.
"It goes back to the same thing," he said. "How did a 6-year-old end up being in charge of six babies?"
Rest of the story here
Heartbreaking indeed.
I just saw a woman on the news who couldn't find her 24 month old b/c the babys father wouldnt get ton a bus and leave his dog behind, so he gave the baby to a friend and hasn't seen her since.
I love my dog, but if I gave my baby away, my wife would kill me.
This is really heartbreaking:
-------------------------------
Mayor says Katrina may have claimed more than 10,000 lives
Bodies found piled in freezer at Convention Center
By Brian Thevenot
Staff writer
Arkansas National Guardsman Mikel Brooks stepped through the food service entrance of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center Monday, flipped on the light at the end of his machine gun, and started pointing out bodies.
"Don't step in that blood - it's contaminated," he said. "That one with his arm sticking up in the air, he's an old man."
Then he shined the light on the smaller human figure under the white sheet next to the elderly man.
"That's a kid," he said. "There's another one in the freezer, a 7-year-old with her throat cut."
He moved on, walking quickly through the darkness, pulling his camouflage shirt to his face to screen out the overwhelming odor.
"There's an old woman," he said, pointing to a wheelchair covered by a sheet. "I escorted her in myself. And that old man got bludgeoned to death," he said of the body lying on the floor next to the wheelchair.
Brooks and several other Guardsmen said they had seen between 30 and 40 more bodies in the Convention Center's freezer. "It's not on, but at least you can shut the door," said fellow Guardsman Phillip Thompson.
I fully expected the responses I've seen thus far. I'd just to point out that after Huurricane Andrew (Warthog ~ please correct me if I'm mistaken.), it took 3 days for emergency crews to get to the hardest hit areas. It took FIVE days for the Nat. Guard and Military to reach the stricken area with aid & supplies. That was in FL. Now, mobilizing tens of thousands of volunteers ain't my job, but I'm guessing it takes a bit more than a single phonecall - call me a realist.
Obviously, there are other concerns to be taken into account when your city lies below sea level and your levees are only designed to withstand a maximum CAT3 storm.
The State of LA should have been better prepared. It's that simple. Pointing fingers at the Fed Gov is anticipated - pointing them at Bush is *expected*.
That a disproportionately small number of people are not willing to put the blame on the STATE, or even admit that the LA gov't should be held accountable / responsible for any of this simply astounds me.
Actually, no - it doesn't really.
edited: for Schmear.
Did you miss the title of this thread?Quote:
Originally Posted by EPSkis
"A disproportionately SMALL number of people". Better?Quote:
Originally Posted by Schmear
:p
Much better.
EP: is it not the direct responsibility of DHS to prepare for situations exactly like this one (although not hurricane-related)? Four years after 9/11 and after repeated pats on the back, this is what $41 billion buys us?
I'm willing to hold every person accountable as the facts come in. My list right now would be:
Blanco, Brown, Chertoff - all OUT
Nagin - judgement withheld just b/c that talk show phone call was what actually woke people up
Bush - can't be fired, but he is the CEO and certainly should bear responsibility for the incompetence and horrible mismanagement of his employees (aka political patronage beneficiaries)
In short: No.Quote:
Originally Posted by shamrockpow
"The Department of Homeland Security consolidates 22 agencies and 180,000 employees, unifying once-fragmented Federal functions in a single agency dedicated to protecting America from terrorism."
I understand the point you're trying to make with it, but no - it's not DHS's responsibility. Yes, there is an emergency preparedness infrastructure in place, though it's not intended to be used in that capacity.
(And c'mon - you know as well as I do that that would be the NEXT uproar. "Look at what they're doing with our $41 billion dollars! It wasn't meant to be used for natural disasters! Give us the President's HEAD!") :wink:
edit: On the rest, I basically concur.
Why does FEMA exist then?Quote:
Originally Posted by EPSkis
edit: And on a broader note - how should relief be coordinated for large scale multi-state disasters? By an association of states? If so, isn't that what the federal government is?
EP, if you dont know shit about what you are talking about, please feel free to SHUT THE FUCK UP.Quote:
Originally Posted by EPSkis
Dumbass.
FEMA, yes - DHS, no.Quote:
Originally Posted by cj001f
It'll be interesting to see the findings will be & how this will change the FEMA policy (also curious as to whether the scope of DHS will be expanded - interesting point Sham makes..)
Quote:
Originally Posted by grrrr
Normally, I don't take that kind of thing to heart, but in your case....
I'll summarize:
You're a first-class jackoff. Do you really need a fucking Mission Statement handed to you? Sit back down.
FEMA is a part of DHSQuote:
Originally Posted by EPSkis
So, EP, should I call back the six firefighters I sent down today? Heck, it isn't a terrorism event. Louisiana should be on their own. And while I'm at it, I'll call the local Coast Guard Commandant and tell him to stop responding to sinking boats. After all, they're DHS too.
You know what the 41 billion paid for? I got a load of "anthrax suits" that I never asked for sitting here collecting dust. Can't use them, they're totally worthless. $60,000 worth. But it paid for a bunch of "good press" for Georgie - he was strengthening our country.
Do I need a mission statement? No. I went to work on Hurricane Katrina last Tuesday morning, and I have done nothing else since then. Including the entire weekend -which technically I had off, but I spent it organizing red cross volunteers and conducting a fund drive.Quote:
Originally Posted by EPSkis
But that's what I do. I work for a local government 2000 miles from Louisiana, but our help is needed. So we help. In spite of all of the roadblocks put in place by the department of bloatland security. I'll tell you right now, you have no idea how far that agency has set our Nation's capability to respond to disasters back. If you really think any one state can or should be able to handle a major disaster, you should just pull your head into a cubicle and keep typing that TPS.
I just hope your guys don't have to hand out flyers.Quote:
Originally Posted by grrrr
EP: I sat here and typed in a post about DHS's org structure, the 14 points of light, where FEMA fits in, why we have redundant functions, and how the chain of command works. Needless to say the post was brilliant and would have completely altered your perceptions.
Unfortunatly that post was eaten by the internet :(
Instead, just kick back and read the words of Lt. Commander Sean Kelly, a Pentagon spokesman for Northern Command:
"Northcom started planning before the storm even hit.... We had the USS Bataan sailing almost behind the hurricane so once the hurricane made landfall, its search and rescue helicopters could be available almost immediately. So, we had things ready. The only caveat is: we have to wait until the president authorizes us to do so. The laws of the United States say that the military can't just act in this fashion; we have to wait for the president to give us permission."
It wasn't the storm, it was the flood. If I sat there and looked at that pathetic wall for what, 30 years, holding back a sea above my town I'd want to shore that fucker up. How is that a federal thing? If so we better start the blame WAY back.Quote:
Originally Posted by bossass
Bless Kayne West??? :rolleyes: Yeah, he's done a whole boatload for this country. And I'm sure the president just hates black people, that's why he let this happen. I hear he's planning a big flood for Washington D.C.Quote:
Originally Posted by bossass
Seriously, there are tons of parties guilty in this mess but you guys have again let your hate for Bush blind you. The muckity mucks don't give a shit about you, that includes cardboard gore, old man lieberman and ice princess clinton. I highly doubt it would have had any different result under any other politician...
Quote:
Originally Posted by 1080Rider
i'm still not into throwing blame around yet. there's just too much to be done to waste time with that.
just so people know, the levee needed to be raised due to the deposition of sediment that basically raised the water level. that's the same reason that new orleans used to be at and above sea level. the levee was breached when high water overflowed it and caused the soil on the other side to erode. that is when the wall broke.
louisiana has had a lot of money come its way and go. we have some of the worst schools, roads and public buildings but we know why. check the stats and you'll see that we also have the most former politicians in jail.
The only ones that win in the blame game is the fuckin media. They thrive on that shit. I blame them as well. Keeping reporters in the storm zone only encourages others not to evac. Only fox isn't gonna leave their boy Shep out to dry w/ food and water. Maybe the ratings will go up enough so sensalizing Greta can get the mug redone again and Geraldo can get some quality ink. Oh yeah and I blame the the "chesse eating surrender monkey's" as Woodsy calls em. Cause they built the first leavves and fucked with Mother Nature's River Delta Floodplain Master Plan. Now if I could just turn off the TV.
I don't think this was the ink he was looking for:Quote:
Originally Posted by skifishbum
The woman had been stranded in her home for six days. Geraldo picked up the woman and her dog and brought them here . . .
"'That's the second time he brought her here,' one of the doctors tells me, nodding toward Geraldo.
"What?'
"'They did two takes. Geraldo made that poor woman walk from the Fox News van to the heliport twice. Both times carrying her dog.'
"'Are you serious?' I ask. He says he is."
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/20...ins/index.html
Quote:
Originally Posted by cj001f
I wouldn't believe that if it were about anyone but Geraldo. Putting that guy in the field is like throwing a match on a pile of leaves. He was forcibly removed from Iraq by the military for giving away positions of American troops. I watched him practically incite a riot at the convention center. Someone needs to fire this guy.
Found this on a blog. Whoever wrote this nailed it on the head, twice. Why Bush's actions in this whole mess are sitting with me extra specially worse than normal. Titled: Here's what gets me.
People are going around and around about who should have done what at what time to get food and water to the victims of Katrina, and to get the buses there to evacuate people from the city who didn't get out on their own, and to get medical care to the elderly so they wouldn't die, and to get control of the shelter areas so that people wouldn't be beaten, raped, and murdered at the convention center and the Superdome. Let's assume we're not deciding who should have done what at what time.
My problem with Bush -- and here, I do indeed address Bush individually, as a guy -- is that during the time that the crisis was developing, from Monday to Friday, he never seemed to experience any actual sense of urgency as a result of the simple fact that people were, minute by minute and hour by hour, dying.
Let's give him the benefit of the doubt that he was being prevented from acting by bureaucracy and the sheer magnitude of the situation. Where are the stories of how he was in his office freaking the fuck out because there were tens of thousands of Americans trapped without food and water? Where's the story of how he ripped a strip off of somebody, demanding to know what the holy hell the holdup is getting water and food to those people?
I want to hear about how he was demanding that extraordinary steps be taken. I want to hear about how he sent his lawyers into a room -- he had four days, you know -- and demanded that they come back in an hour with a plan for him to send the Marines into New Orleans with 100 trucks of food and water, posse comitatus or not. I want to hear that he was panicked. Because I was panicked. Everyone I know was panicked. Everyone I know was gnashing their teeth with helpless rage because they couldn't get in a car, drive down there, and drive a load of homeless Louisiana residents back home with them for soup and a goddamn hot bath. I want to hear that he acted at some point out of genuine despondency about the fact that citizens of the country he is supposed to be running were being starved and dehydrated in a hellish, fetid prison. We are dancing around now about whether it is his failure or not his failure. Where is the decency that would tell him that he is the president, and FEMA is part of his administration, and this failure is his to own and apologize for, whether other people also were wrong or not?
Why is he even trying to shift blame to anyone else? Why isn't he wracked with such guilt, justified or not, that he can't stand up straight? How is it possible that late in the week, when it was so obvious that every safeguard meant to guard against just this kind of catastrophe had failed and he had failed every citizen of that city, he had the joviality to make jokes about his partying days in New Orleans? I'm not talking here about appropriateness or sensitivity, although both were obviously lacking, and there's been no apology for that, either. I'm wondering how it's possible that he felt that way. How was he not tormented? Because he wasn't. You can see that he wasn't. I would feel better if there were some report that he seemed, at some point... shaken. Upset. Angry. Desperate. Something. Something other than "on vacation" and then "lecturing emptily about how much help everyone's going to get, provided they haven't already died of dehydration, drowned, or committed suicide."
The state has the primary responsibility, you say? Okay, fine. Then I want to hear how Bush offered the governor whatever she wanted on whatever terms he could legally get it to her, because it made absolutely no difference who got credit. I want to hear how he couldn't concentrate like the rest of us couldn't concentrate, because he was so consumed by images on television of old women in wheelchairs slowly dying.
Prevented from going into the city by the criminals? Are you telling me that armed thugs could take over a suburban neighborhood and surround it, and law enforcement would stand back until the thugs decided to go away? The people at the Superdome who were following all the rules were being, in a sense, held hostage by the relatively small number who chose to be violent -- to shoot at planes and whatnot. Since when do we leave good citizens to die because we don't want to get dirty doing law enforcement?
Say what you want about the mayor and governor -- those people were in pain. They saw people suffering and dying and took it as a given that it couldn't go on that way, and that if it did, government's response would be a failure. The mayor cried at the top of his lungs for help. I want to hear that Bush cried at the top of his lungs for help. I want to hear that he called every corporate hotshot he's befriended in the last twenty years and told them that if they ever wanted another invitation to the White House for dinner, they were going to pony up a fat wad of cash to the Red Cross, and they were going to do it yesterday.
I want him to have reacted like a person who happened to also be the president. I want him to have felt the same bone-deep sense of shock that I felt at the thought that this could happen in a large city, easily accessible by trucks, in a wealthy country. I want him to have gotten on the damn phone and told somebody that if there wasn't water for every person at the Superdome within eight hours, that person's head was going to roll, and he didn't care how it got done, it had better get done. I want him not to have sat around on his ass on vacation while people's children were being taken from their arms to be rescued.
I want Bush not to have spent four days dicking around while the conditions deteriorated. I want him to have acted sooner, not because it was his obligation as president and it would reflect badly on him if he didn't, but because people were dying, and everyone I know who could think of something to do did it. There were a million things he could have done besides sit around making happy speeches about how everything would be fine. The stupid comment about Trent Lott's porch doesn't infuriate me because Trent Lott can't miss his porch. He has as much right to be sad over his losses as anyone. But the lighthearted way in which Bush delivered those remarks was absolutely chilling.
I want him to have been consumed with grief and sorrow at the dying that was ongoing, and he wasn't. I want him to have felt like a profound failure because an entire segment of the population of one of America's greatest cities was suffering and was at risk of starving to death, but he didn't. I want him to have been embarrassed when the FEMA director gave up the information that FEMA knew less about the convention center than CNN, but he wasn't. I want him not to have smirked his way through the entire experience, and he did.
No matter whose fault the slow relief effort was, the fact of the matter is that these are Americans, and this is their president, and the fact that they were homeless, starving, dying of thirst, and deprived of medication never once seemed to actually bother him.
Bush doesn't seem capable of rising to the occasion. I don't know whether he lacks the intellectual capacity, empathy or what but everytime there is a goddamn emergency in the US he looks like a rabit caught in the headlamps unable to move a muscle. He is not the guy you want as leader of the free world. He is not the guy you want saving your ass when it is on the line.Quote:
Originally Posted by bossass
However, and speaking as a non-US citizen, I salute the amount of resources that the US is (eventually) able to bring to bear on the situation. 60,000 troops? That's bigger than most armies in a European country. Just look at the bush fires in Portugal to see how fast and how much help Europe is able to bring to a fellow country, not a lot. Like one of the posters above when I saw people's houses burning to the ground in Portugal because the fire service was overwhelmed I wanted to get down there and help those folks beat out fires, or at least have my government immediately send some army units to help out (they did send some Canadair planes - although they are grounded here due to some accidents - so maybe a good way to keep the pilots trained).
Get use to this kind of disaster as human populations explode! :tongue:
A lot of people are going to go down or look bad in this one:
Corps Pork
Thank you Tipp...
http://images.ucomics.com/comics/po/2005/po050908.gif
bossass- I think that is a fair assessment (the blog spot). I agree that no matter what the mayor or governor did at the time of the event Bush should have done something. I don't think he deserves the entire brunt of the blame (the levee's should have been stronger to begin w/) but once the events started happening he should have got people on line immediately. The one question I have though is how much people knew. It sounds as though the storm passed and everyone thought, "whew, we made it" then all of a sudden the water started flowing from the levee breaking. I don't know but i do know it was a total cluster fuck. Again, it seems as though this area was a tragedy just waiting to happen.
[RW]The Katrina recovery is a disaster. Therefore the government has once again proved that it is failing. Therefore we need to cut taxes and quit wasting federal efforts on futile situations.[/RW]
[LW]The Katrina recovery is a disaster. Therefore the government has once again proved that it is failing. Therefore we need to dump the current administration[/LW]
I guess I'm a little different buster. I just think we should get value for our $$$. I don't like taxes but understand they are a necessary evil. Now, for my taxes, I want to get my moneys worth. If I pay taxes and pay taxes but my roads are shit and no one is there to rescue me when a flood hits or I crash an airplane or get stuck in the bc w/ my sled, then I'm not getting my moneys worth and the gov't is fucked. I wish we had a small streamlined gov't that could get shit done. Unfortunately, neither party offers anything like that...