I bet Dan's already got a post saved in his do ents folder for when it happensYou know that someone on this forum would say that it was a man-made earthquake created just for that purpose.
That is the first thing I thought of when I saw it the photo....if so and he was robbed....that is pathetic whoever did it. If they ever catch them the thief should be shot.It looks like his wallet, like perhaps someone took it out of his pocket, removed any of it's contents, and then threw it down on his head.
That's what it looks like to me anyway.
Hopefully it just washed up there.....
In this type of disaster we see the best and worst of mankind...I guess that is the worst.
i thought they were putting his wallet there for indentification purposes?
Well, I was very wrong about the enormity of this storm.
I didn't think but a few hundred people would die, but they're talking thousands now, and a mass evacuation of the city was also unexpected by me.
I can't even watch the coverage on TV because it makes me sick to my stomach and gets me very depressed.
Damn.
That's definitely a better way to interpret it....I'll hold on to that one.
Although in his pocket would have been better to ensure it'd still be there.
Amid increasing criticism for his suckage, the mayor thinks the CIA is going to off him...
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7000018155
New Orleans Mayor: "CIA Will Wipe Me Out"
September 3, 2005 10:02 p.m. EST
Douglas Maher - All Headline News Staff Reporter
New Orleans, Louisiana (AHN) - Apparently suffering from stress and a bit of paranoia, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin tells CNN Saturday night that he believes the CIA will "wipe him out" after his criticism of President Bush and the Federal Government in response to Hurricane Katrina.
Mayor Nagin seemed to have calmed down after meeting with President Bush for two hours on Friday but became stressed again over the current situation still unfolding in his city.
The Mayor has come under serious scrutiny and criticism in the last 72 hours after photos of parking lots filled with school buses that were sitting in a foot of water were released on the Internet. Many critics of the Mayor and Gov. Blanco say the buses could have saved an estimated 20,000 people if they had been used for emergency evacuations which President Bush had declared two days before Katrina hit.
Nine stockpiles of fire-and-rescue equipment strategically placed around the country to be used in the event of a catastrophe still have not been pressed into service in New Orleans, CNN reports Saturday night. Responding to a CNN inquiry, Department of Homeland Security spokesman Marc Short said Friday, "The gear has not been moved because none of the governors in the hurricane-ravaged area has requested it."
A federal official says the department's Office for Domestic Preparedness reminded the Louisiana and Mississippi Governors' offices about the stockpiles on Wednesday and Thursday, but neither governor had requested it.
As the picture becomes much more clear many in Congress believe that a total collapse of communications on the local and state level contributed to the catastrophic conditions the city of New Orleans has been under.
"It has become apparent that after President Bush declared the state of Louisiana a state of emergency a few days before the hurricane hit, communication with the White House and FEMA from city officials in New Orleans and the Governor collapsed," says Senator Dr. Bill Frist, who is currently helping victims with medical needs around the city.
"Our priority now is to save as many lives as possible, and things are improving by the hour," adds Frist.
Hey Guys,
This is a letter from the pastor of my congregation's sister church.
He is in Mobile and is one of many eyewitnesses to the tragedy caused by Katrina.
I thought you would like to read what he has to say.
There were some personal updates in the letter which I left out to protect people's privacy.
FR:
SUBJECT: Hurricane Update from the Coast
I am now back online and able to communicate; our phone situation remains dicey,
so I thought I'd just send a general e-mail update.
Things are getting back to normal in Mobile/Baldwin. South Mobile County and
parts of West Mobile are still cleaning up and without power, though. South
Mobile County or anything near the Bay were heavily damaged by flooding.
Fairhope was hit hard, too.
We have power here in Daphne and there is *some* gasoline, though it's sporadic
and goes quickly. The Bayway is a nightmare for travelling, especially East
bound. The Causeway is still closed and heavily damaged. I-65 Mobile River
bridge way to the north may be the best bet for east-west travel between Mobile and Baldwin...although the Bayway may improve by the weekend. A floating house, washed into the Bay by the storm, hit the Bayway, so the Interstate was closed for a day afterwards to check it for structural integrity. An oil rig broke loose and hit the Cochrane-Africatown Bridge and closed it for a couple of days also. (Another oil rig washed up on Dauphin Island.)
Dauphin Island (West End) and Bayou La Batre were flooded very badly. Two
deaths in Alabama have been attributed to Katrina.
Mississippi is even worse than the media is reporting. Mississippi has
confirmed nearly 200 deaths; that toll could double. I had to travel through
parts of Biloxi, Ocean Springs, Gautier, and Pascagoula and was shocked by the damage--and we didn't even get anywhere near the beachfront. Severe destruction covers all of southern Mississippi south of Hattiesburg and then all of eastern Mississippi along the Alabama line up to Tennesee.
Louisiana is far worse. I spoke with the pastor from Word of Faith
Church in east New Orleans. He said their building was under 14 feet of water.
He and his family had lost everything...homes, possessions. He said all of the church members had lost eveything...houses, jobs, places of businesses, banks, pharmacies, grocery stores. He said New Orleans is even worse than the media can show. Thousands are likely dead. It will be months before any citizens are allowed back into New Orleans.
(Visit www.al.com for many compelling pictures and images of the storm's impact, from Florida to Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and even Georgia.)
Slidell is devastated, as is most of the north shore of Lake Ponchartrain. The
I-10 bridge into New Orleans is gone. The Covington/New Orleans bridge is
severely damaged and still closed.
What's happening in New Orleans is beyond anything I've ever seen in the USA.
"Anarchy" doesn't began to describe it. Many are still trapped on
rooftops and in attics. Others wander the streets aimlessly or sleep on
Interstate highrises where floodwaters still sit below. Women and children and elderly are being victimized by thugs armed with AK-47s. Rescue workers are being shot and shot at. Emergency generators and equipment are being stolen.
Armed gangs roam the city. So much of our personal family history is in
NOLA...I am heartbroken by what I see.
I don't know to what degree the city can ever come back. The filth, squalor,
and devastation left behind by the storm will take years to repair. The
horrific behavior of some of the citizenry cannot ever be repaired, apart from a miracle of God's grace. But, remember...God is gracious. And so, too, must we be.
We are setting aside a fund in CSM (www.csmpublishing.org) for Hurricane Relief and asking anyone who can to give to it. (We will update our website as soon as we can.) We will disburse the funds directly through related churches in Mississippi and Lousiana. We are asking them to make checks to CSM and designate "Hurricane Relief."
Covenant Church of Mobile will receive a special relief offering on Sunday,
Sept. 11. (An appropriate date.) We all need to pray. For Gulf Coast
residents, this is our tsunami, our 9/11. This will not only affect the Gulf
Coast but the whole nation. The ramifications are severe. Everyone should
consider taking in a refugee. Nearly 1.5 million people will be homeless for up
to 6 months or longer.
That's all I can say for now. All has broken loose. God's people must,
can, and will rise up and manifest His Kingdom now. The righteousness, peace, and joy of the Lord in the Holy Spirit are needed now more than ever. God help us all to be who He has called us to be. "Nothing is too difficult for Thee."
Rescue chopper crashes, everyone survived.
linkIn comments on Thursday, Sep. 1, in an interview with Diane Sawyer of ABC News, President George W. Bush said, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did anticipate a serious storm. But these levees got breached."
In comments to the press on Sep. 3, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff remarked, "That 'perfect storm' of a combination of catastrophes exceeded the foresight of the planners, and maybe anybody's foresight", and called the disaster "breathtaking in its surprise."
It's not our fault," said Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, in charge of the deployment of National Guard troops in New Orleans. "The storm came and flooded the city."
In other words, Katrina was an Act of God no one could have foreseen, and the politicians we elected to protect us from disaster are not responsible for the unimaginable horror we have witnessed this week.
A horror unimagined by anyone, except by every hurricane scientist and government emergency management official for the past forty years and more. It was a certainty that New Orleans would suffer a catastrophe like this. Every 70 years, on average, the central Gulf Coast has a Category 4 or 5 hurricane pass within 80 miles of a given point. Sometimes you get lucky--for a while. New Orleans had gone over 150 years without a strike by a hurricane capable of overwhelming the levees. Sometimes you get unlucky. There's no guarantee that New Orleans won't get hit by another major hurricane this year. We are in the midst of an extraordinary period of hurricane activity, the likes of which has not been seen in recorded history. Hurricanes Ivan and Dennis, which both had storm surges capable of breaching the levees in New Orleans, smashed into Pensacola in the past year. Either of these storms could have destroyed New Orleans, had they taken a slight wobble westward earlier in their track.
Hurricanes are an inescapable part of nature's way on the Gulf Coast. Nature doesn't care about tax cuts and fiscal years and budget crunches. Nature doesn't care that a city of 500,000 people situated below sea level lies in its path. It was certain that New Orleans would sooner or later get hit by a hurricane that would breach the levees. How could the director of Homeland Security not be familiar with this huge threat to the security of this nation? How could the President not know? How could all the presidents and politicians we elected, from Eisenhower to Clinton, not know?
The answer is that they all knew. But the politicians we elect don't care about the poor people in New Orleans, because poor people don't have a lobbyist in Washington. The poor people don't make big campaign contributions, and those big campaign contributions are vital to getting elected. In all of the Congressional and Presidential races held over the past ten years, over 90% were won by the candidate that raised the most money.
So there was little effort given to formulate a plan to evacuate the 100,000 poor residents of New Orleans with no transportation of their own for a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. To do so would have cost tens of millions of dollars, money that neither the city, nor the state, nor the federal government was willing to spend. Why spend money that would be wasted on a bunch of poor people? The money was better spent on projects to please the politicians' wealthy campaign contributors. So the plan was to let them die. And they died, as we experts all knew they would. Huge numbers of them. And they keep dying, still. We don't know how many. Since the plan was to let them die, the city of New Orleans made sure they had a good supply of body bags on hand. Only 10,000 body bags, but since Katrina didn't hit New Orleans head-on, 10,000 will probably be enough.
Admittedly, it is very difficult to safely evacuate 100,000 people with a Category 4 or 5 hurricane bearing down on you. There are only a few routes out of the city, and a full 72 hours of warning are needed to get everyone out. That's asking a lot, as hurricanes are very difficult to predict that far in advance. The National Hurricane Center did pretty well, giving New Orleans a full 60 hours to evacuate. The Hurricane Center forecasted on Friday afternoon that Katrina would hit New Orleans as a major hurricane on Monday, which is what happened. New Orleans had time to implement its plan to bus the city's poor out. However, this plan had two very serious problems--it wasn't enacted in time, and it could only get out 20% of the people in a best case scenario.
The mandatory evacuation order was not given until Sunday, just 20 hours before the hurricane. I have not been able to ascertain from press accounts when the busses actually started picking up people. The mayor says 50,000 made it to the Superdome and other "shelters of last resort", leaving another 50,000 to face the flood waters in their homes. Although 80% of the city was evacuated, it is unclear whether any of the city's poor made it out by bus. And it is very fortunate that Katrina did not hit the city head-on, or else most of those in the Superdome and other "shelters of last resort" would have perished. The death toll from Katrina would have easily surpassed 50,000.
Even if the evacuation plan had been launched 72 hours in advance, it almost certainly would have failed. A local New Orleans news station, nola.com, reported in 2002 on the evacuation plan thusly:
In an evacuation, buses would be dispatched along their regular routes throughout the city to pick up people and go to the Superdome, which would be used as a staging area. From there, people would be taken out of the city to shelters to the north.
Some experts familiar with the plans say they won't work.
"That's never going to happen because there's not enough buses in the city," said Charley Ireland, who retired as deputy director of the New Orleans Office of Emergency Preparedness in 2000. "Between the RTA and the school buses, you've got maybe 500 buses, and they hold maybe 40 people
each. It ain't going to happen."
The plan has other potential pitfalls.
No signs are in place to notify the public that the regular bus stops are also the stops for emergency evacuation. In Miami Beach, Fla., every other bus stop sports a huge sign identifying it as a hurricane evacuation stop.
It's also unclear whether the city's entire staff of bus drivers will remain. A union spokesman said that while drivers are aware of the plan, the union contract lacks a provision requiring them to stay.
So, if one does the math, 500 busses times 40 people per bus yields 20,000 people that could have been evacuated in a best-case scenario. Only 20,000 out of 100,000. That isn't a half-hearted effort, it's a one-fifth hearted, criminal effort. We're talking about the lives of 80,000 people or more sacrificed, from a disaster that was certain to happen. By not having a plan to get New Orleans' poor out, our government caused the unbelievable suffering and the needless deaths of thousands of Americans. This was not a natural disaster caused by an act of God, it was an unnatural disaster. In his excellent 2001 book, Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in America, Ted Steinberg writes: "Calling such events acts of God has long been a way to evade moral responsibility for death and destruction." He shows in the book how countless politicians over the past one hundred years have done their best to evade this moral responsibility when preventable disasters struck. Our current leaders are no different.
The most prosperous and technologically advanced nation in history surely could have done better. Was it really too expensive to have the vehicles, people, and workable plan in place needed to evacuate New Orleans? "A society is measured by how it treats the weak and vulnerable", said George W. Bush in his State of the Union of Feb 2, 2005. By that measure, the people of this country have responded magnificently. The outpouring of aid, sympathy and prayers for those affected has been tremendous. But by that same standard, our government has failed. Its not just the current administration--every elected government since the days of Eisenhower has failed us. As I've outlined above, the problem is not likely to go away until the amount of money a candidate raises is no longer the primary factor determining who gets elected. Our elected officials won't care for the poor, as long as it is the rich who determine who get elected.
What can we do to help prevent such a disaster from recurring? Well, I encourage all of you to support election reform initiatives such as public campaign financing and Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) over the coming years. Maybe then I can check a box to vote for a candidate who will actually care for the needs of the poor in New Orleans and elsewhere in this county, instead of the usual "lesser of two evils" from the miserable two-party system that let thousands die and tens of thousands more suffer so unbearably.
Dr. Jeff Masters
I just read this from Jeff Masters's blog. Granted I'm not political in any way, but it just seems ridiculous to me that people keep saying "it's not our fault, we didn't know" when in fact scientists have been saying "it's only a matter of time" for many years. Evacuations should've happened sooner, things should've been planned better...We should've anticipated this happening. I know it's like saying "should've, would've, could've" right now after it's all happened, but honestly...I can't name a city more vunerable than New Orleans. I think we only have ourselves and our government to blame for this.
I hope you are right Manny.
I don't know if this was posted ..
The first group of refugees who will take shelter in Arizona arrived Sunday in Phoenix. With more than 230,000 already in Texas, Gov. Rick Perry ordered emergency officials to begin preparations to airlift some of them to other states that have offered help.
New Orleans Begins Counting Its Dead By ROBERT TANNER, AP National Writer
New Orleans turned much of its attention Sunday to gathering up and counting the dead across a ghastly landscape awash in perhaps thousands of corpses. "It is going to be about as ugly of a scene as I think you can imagine," the nation's homeland security chief warned.
As authorities struggled to keep order, police shot eight people, killing five or six, after gunmen opened fire on a group of contractors traveling across a bridge on their way to make repairs, authorities said.
Air and boat crews searched flooded neighborhoods for survivors, and federal officials urged those still left in New Orleans to leave for their own safety.
To expedite the rescues, the Coast Guard requested through the media that anyone stranded hang out brightly colored or white linens or something else to draw attention. But with the electricity out though much of the city, it was not known if the message was being received.
With large-scale evacuations completed at the Superdome and Convention Center, the death toll was not known. But bodies were everywhere: floating in canals, slumped in wheelchairs, abandoned on highways and medians and hidden in attics.
"I think it's evident it's in the thousands," Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said Sunday on CNN, echoing predictions by city and state officials last week. The U.S. Public Health Service said one morgue alone, at a St. Gabriel prison, expected 1,000 to 2,000 bodies.
In the first official count in the New Orleans area, Louisiana emergency medical director Louis Cataldie said authorities had verified 59 deaths — 10 of them at the Superdome.
"We need to prepare the country for what's coming," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said on "Fox News Sunday." "We are going to uncover people who died, maybe hiding in houses, got caught by the flood. ... It is going to be about as ugly of a scene as I think you can imagine."
Chertoff said rescuers have encountered a number of people who said they did not want to evacuate.
"That is not a reasonable alternative," he said. "We are not going to be able to have people sitting in houses in the city of New Orleans for weeks and months while we de-water and clean this city. ... The flooded places, when they're de-watered, are not going to be sanitary."
Evacuations continued late Sunday as Coast Guard helicopters picked up refugees from a dry stretch of Interstate 10 where they had been dropped off by rescue boats.
"We're not satisfied to leave, but they say it's going to be three or four months, so we need to go somewhere where we can have a life," said Tommy McDaniel, 38.
One of the last groups taken out Sunday was a family of six that included 3-year-old twins. The Coast Guard planned to resume evacuation flights Monday morning.
Earlier in the evening, a civilian helicopter crashed near the Danziger Bridge, but the two people on board escaped with only cuts and scrapes, according to Mark Smith of the state office of emergency preparedness.
In Sunday's confrontation, 14 contractors on their way to help plug the breech in the 17th Street Canal were traveling across the bridge under police escort when they came under fire, said John Hall, a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers. Police shot at eight people carrying guns, killing five or six, Deputy Police Chief W.J. Riley said. None of the contractors was injured, authorities said.
In addition to the lawlessness, civilian deaths and uncertainty about their families, New Orleans' police have had to deal with suicides in their ranks. Two officers took their lives, including the department spokesman, Paul Accardo, who died Saturday, according to Riley. Both shot themselves in the head, he said.
"I've got some firefighters and police officers that have been pretty much traumatized," Mayor Ray Nagin said. "And we've already had a couple of suicides, so I am cycling them out as we speak. ... They need physical and psychological evaluations."
The strain was apparent in other ways. Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish, dropped his head and cried on NBC's "Meet the Press."
"The guy who runs this building I'm in, emergency management, he's responsible for everything. 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, `And yeah, Momma, 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 Thursday. Somebody's coming to get you on Friday' — and she drowned Friday night. She drowned on Friday night," Broussard said.
"Nobody's coming to get her, nobody's coming to get her. The secretary's promise, everybody's promise. They've had press conferences — I'm sick of the press conferences. For God's sakes, shut up and send us somebody."
Hundreds of thousands of people already have been evacuated, seeking safety in Texas, Tennessee and other states. The first group of refugees who will take shelter in Arizona arrived Sunday in Phoenix. With more than 230,000 already in Texas, Gov. Rick Perry ordered emergency officials to begin preparations to airlift some of them to other states that have offered help.
What will happen to the refugees in the long term was not known.
Back in New Orleans, walk-up stragglers at the Convention Center were checked by Navy medics before they were evacuated. Lt. Andy Steczo said he treated people for bullet wounds, knife wounds, infections, dehydration and chronic problems such as diabetes.
"We're cleaning them up the best we can and then shipping them out," Steczo said.
One person he treated was 56-year-old Pedro Martinez, who had a gash on his ankle and cuts on his knuckle and forearm. Martinez said he was injured while helping people onto rescue boats. "I don't have any medication and it hurts. I'm glad to get out of here," he said.
In a devastated section on the edge of the French Quarter, people went into a store, whose windows were already shattered, and took out bottles of soda and juice.
A corpse of an elderly man lay wrapped in a child's bedsheet decorated with the cartoon characters Batman, Robin and the Riddler. The body was in a wooden cart on Rampart Street, one shoe on, one shoe off.
Rene Gibson, 42, driving a truck while hunting for water and ice, said people are not going to leave willingly. "People been (here) all their life. They don't know nothing else," he said.
Amid the tragedy, about two dozen people gathered in the French Quarter for the Decadence Parade, an annual Labor Day gay celebration. Matt Menold, 23, a street musician wearing a sombrero and a guitar slung over his back, said: "It's New Orleans, man. We're going to celebrate."
In New Orleans' Garden District, a woman's body lay at the corner of Jackson Avenue and Magazine Street — a business area with antique shops on the edge of blighted housing. The body had been there since at least Wednesday. As days passed, people covered the corpse with blankets or plastic.
By Sunday, a short wall of bricks had been built around the body, holding down a plastic tarpaulin. On it, someone had spray-painted a cross and the words, "Here lies Vera. God help us."
The Freeman Coliseum is now open from 8 a.m - 7 p.m. as the official volunteer center.
Anyone 18 or older is welcome.
I just saw the report on KSAT News.
That last entry by Masters was ing brilliant.
If you don't want to classify the response of the government as rascist, you surely can't deny that it is at the very least classcist.
that is crazy that the people were shooting at contractors there to help rebuild. Police shot and killed six of them.. wow. crazy things going on
So better to drown?
Put it this way...the animals in ing Sri Lanka had no warning, even less money than the poorest person, and they still figured out it was better to get the out of the way of the big water coming through.
These people knew the scale of the hurricane, they knew the potential for what could happen...#1 it was all over the news...#2 any time you go to NO they tell you about how the city works. And the mayor ordered an mandatory evacuation.
President called for it.
Govnor called for it.
Mayor ordered it.
Mandatory evacution...
So how the that makes them racist or the ups on this is beyond me.
I call bull ...most of these people have jobs, are you telling me that these people are never able to leave their houses? IF they can do it any other time why can't they do it when the mayor orders an evacuation.If you are middle class and you tried to ride it out, then you cannot be excused. I don't think those people were the majority, though.
The children and the extremely elderly are the only ones that have iron clad excuses.
The Federal Government ended up having to do the job for everyone who could leave but didn't...for the city government and for the state government...and they ended up having to do it after the ing city had sunk.It's not all on the Government. But, , the rescue effort has been poorly organized and the government, at all three levels, Federal, State and City, carries partially the blame.
The Fed is the only one that did their ing jobs in this...you can say it was ty...but at least they did something.
What did everyone else do? They sat on their asses and waited for the Fed to do something.
I sympathize...until people start acting like this iis all on the feds...I mean to me to give everyone else a free pass is to empower stupid decision making.
I been broke before...I have been broke and transportationless before...but if my ing life is threatened...I know I could get my ass in gear if I wanted too...and if I didn't I wouldn't blame anyone but myself.
The city of New Orleans has 495K but beyond that...it didn't take many of these people long to get to the Superdome after the flood now did it? Even some of the people in wheel chairs.
New Orleans isn't that sprawled out...I have been there 10 or 15 times...like I said it's just about my favorite City in the World...
I took a car the first time I went, on my honeymoon...and every time after that I realized I didn't need a car...
IF you had dropped me off with 30 bucks in my pocket and 5 people in wheel chairs I could have gotten em to the Superdome or any other place in town, , to the next county, with enough food and water to at least survive for 5 days..in about 3 hours at the most, unless you dropped me off out in the sticks. People in the sticks have cars.
Have you ever been to NO? Everyone walks...And most of projects I have seen aren't more than about 5 miles from the Superdome.
And by the way, poor people don't have five days of non-perishable food in their house to tote with them to the SuperDome. Elderly and sick people can't carry five days of food with them. The request for them to bring five days of food was good in theory. It doesn't work in reality.
I call BS...unless you are trying to bring a 5 course meal for every day...
Allow me to give you some life saving advice right now, for just in case you ever find yourself in this situation:
They cost about a dollar a box...I could get a good 7 days out of a box of crackers if I had too. And if I want to high step I'll spring for a couple of jars of Cheese Whiz to go with them...or maybe just get a couple of blocks of cheddar.
Try it...try eating a box of crackers in one day...it's a challenge even if you are trying to do it.
My Grandma has had the equivalent to a box of crackers in her coat every day of my life...if there is ever a nuclear war she won't die of starvation. Of this I have no doubt.
...2 gallons of water could last you 4 days at least unless you just chug it.
And I don't know how many poor people you know...but if there's one thing in common about most of the poor people I know...these mofos have food in their houses. Do those 600lbrs they are pulling off the roofs look like they have trouble getting food? Or getting to the Grocery store for that matter?
Sorry but it's not that hard. I can understand the elderly...but that's about it.
But just for the sake of argument..
What is harder to do?
Evacuate 250,000 people in 2 days before the city is flooded? Or do it (along with)having to pull them off rooftops after?
It is completely unreasonable to expect them to have evacuated that city in 2 oe 3 days after it was flooded...especially since the city government totally collapsed. The fed had to do the job for everyone...including the people who didn't get out of their hoses.
And everyone of those people that stayed that didn't have to do so...they are much more responsible for these deaths than the federal government... than any of the governments.
Yeah well...that's why some of us spent 5 days on the roof before going into a shelter and why some of us didn't.
To tell you the truth...If I did live there...I probably wouldn't have left either, unless I lived in the low part of town that flooded often... but I wouldn't have gone hungry or thirsty that's for sure. And I wouldn't be passing the buck for my own accountability in what occurred.
I sympathize...I sincerely do...regardless of the culpability of many of these folks in making an impossible situation even more impossible...they did lose their homes and every thing they had. But anyone that thinks the Fed is the most accountable for this situation is just very naive...
What did the city and state govts do? Say everyone needed to get out? I give them all props for that. But so did the fed...and the fed got everyone one out...what did the rest of the governments do? Jack .
How come the Fed doesn't up in Florida?
Them crackers got alot of transfat whott, transfat bad.
And yes...if some one lives in SanFrancisco and gets ed over by Earthquake...I will sympathize...until they say...it's the Governments fault. And then the first thing that's going to pop into my head is...hey dumb ...you the one that wanted to live there.
Edit: And when I see one of those moms with 5 kids that couldn't get her kids out...I don't feel sorry for the mom particularly...I feel sorry for the kids...their momma dealt them a ed up hand in life.
Last edited by whottt; 09-05-2005 at 02:42 AM.
Holy ! Great question!
How come the Fed doesn't up in Florida?
"How come the Fed doesn't up in Florida?"
No levee infrastructure to budget annually for maintainance?
(the man-made/willfully neglected levees, not God-made Katrina, are exclusively what ed over NO. The blacks who stayed and bet against Katrina won, but they lost their bet against shrub's OMB. The man-made game was rigged, of course. Damn, the blacks were ed over again by The Man? "who woulda thought?" )
No entire FL cities are 70% black and poor and uninsured and 80% below adjacent lake/river/sea level?
(background: insurance industry has huge lobbying/campagain contribution activity. The more the insurance industry can get the Feds/FEMA to shoulder with tax $$$, the less the insurance industry has to shoulder with their own underwriting/investment $$$. Same with the politician-buying oilco's. Lots of Federal contracts and materiel purchased and in place ready to clean-up oilco spills, so the oilco's can pollute with impunity while the Feds pick up the tab. aka corporate welfare)
FL has lots of rich, white Repugs and a large, election-swinging number of electoral votes (LA=9, FL=27)?
FL is simply more $important to politicians-for-sale ?
FL: 17,019,068 people x $31,455/capita = $535B
LA: 4,496,334 people x $27,581/capita = $124B
Many (annual) hurricanes in FL gives the Feds decades of practice-makes-perfect bailing out the same dumb people who choose to live in hurricane alley, many in mobile homes, while expecting the Feds repeatedly to bail their dumb asses out after every hurricane (see: Whott) ?
I know your heart is in the right place Manny, just like everyone else in this thread that is angry over this. But there are more factors that lead to this disaster than just the Federal Government screwed up...and when I hear people claiming things like racism or the government wasn't concerned about poor people...what ever else...it's just crap. I understand sympathizing and feeling guilt over what happened to these people. I feel it too. I have cried watching this stuff unfold. But scapegoating the Govt and fostering the idea that the Govt is responsible for everything and the citizens aren't is a dangerous line of thinking...and it's not what this country is about.
I mean if it's racism why are all the people in Mississipi pissed off? I see a lot of white people pissed off over there...is it their intent to piss two major red states just to kill off a few poor people and blacks? That's ridiculous. It's stupid.
Every person that could have left that stayed behind, diverted resources from someone who couldn't leave.
Every person that fired on a rescue worker diverted resources from someone who couldn't leave.
Every person that climbed up on the roof without thinking about getting food, water, or medicine and thinking they'd be rescued within a day, diverted resources from someone who couldn't leave.
Etc...the city governments could have done more to organize for this..the state could have...the fed could have. It's not just any one thing and I see a desire by many powerful people in this country to manipulate this situation for political gain. It's just wrong to do that and the facts point to many being at fault.
The New York Times
September 5, 2005
After Failures, Officials Play Blame Game
By SCOTT SHANE
This article was reported by Scott Shane, Eric Lipton and Christopher Drew and written by Mr. Shane.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 4 - As the Bush administration tried to show a more forceful effort to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina, government officials on Sunday escalated their criticism and sniping over who was to blame for the problems plaguing the initial response.
While rescuers were still trying to reach people stranded by the floods, perhaps the only consensus among local, state and federal officials was that the system had failed.
Some federal officials said uncertainty over who was in charge had contributed to delays in providing aid and imposing order, and officials in Louisiana complained that Washington disaster officials had blocked some aid efforts.
Local and state resources were so weakened, said Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, that in the future federal authorities need to take "more of an upfront role earlier on, when we have these truly ultracatastrophes."
But furious state and local officials insisted that the real problem was that the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which Mr. Chertoff's department oversees, failed to deliver urgently needed help and, through incomprehensible red tape, even thwarted others' efforts to help.
"We wanted soldiers, helicopters, food and water," said Denise Bottcher, press secretary for Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana. "They wanted to negotiate an organizational chart."
Mayor C. Ray Nagin of New Orleans expressed similar frustrations. "We're still fighting over authority," he told reporters on Saturday. "A bunch of people are the boss. The state and federal government are doing a two-step dance."
In one of several such appeals, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, called on President Bush on Sunday to appoint an independent national commission to examine the relief effort. She also said that she intends to introduce legislation to remove FEMA from the Department of Homeland Security and restore its previous status as an independent agency with cabinet-level status.
Mr. Chertoff tried to deflect the criticism of his department and FEMA by saying there would be time later to decide what went wrong.
"Whatever the criticisms and the after-action report may be about what was right and what was wrong looking back, what would be a horrible tragedy would be to distract ourselves from avoiding further problems because we're spending time talking about problems that have already occurred," he told Tim Russert on "Meet the Press" on NBC.
But local officials, who still feel overwhelmed by the continuing tragedy, demanded accountability and as well as action.
"Why did it happen? Who needs to be fired?" asked Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish, south of New Orleans.
Far from deferring to state or local officials, FEMA asserted its authority and made things worse, Mr. Broussard complained on "Meet the Press."
When Wal-Mart sent three trailer trucks loaded with water, FEMA officials turned them away, he said. Agency workers prevented the Coast Guard from delivering 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel, and on Saturday they cut the parish's emergency communications line, leading the sheriff to restore it and post armed guards to protect it from FEMA, Mr. Broussard said.
One sign of the continuing battle over who was in charge was Governor Blanco's refusal to sign an agreement proposed by the White House to share control of National Guard forces with the federal authorities.
Under the White House plan, Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honoré would oversee both the National Guard and the active duty federal troops, reporting jointly to the president and Ms. Blanco.
"She would lose control when she had been in control from the very beginning," said Ms. Bottcher, the governor's press secretary.
Ms. Bottcher was one of several officials yesterday who said she believed FEMA had interfered with the delivery of aid, including offers from the mayor of Chicago, Richard M. Daley, and the governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson.
Adam Sharp, a spokesman for Senator Mary L. Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana, said the problem was not who was in command. FEMA repeatedly held up assistance that could have been critical, he said.
"FEMA has just been very slow to make these decisions," Mr. Sharp said.
In a clear slap at Mr. Chertoff and the FEMA director, Michael D. Brown, Governor Blanco announced Saturday that she had hired James Lee Witt, the director of FEMA during the Clinton administration, to advise her on the recovery.
Nearly every emergency worker told agonizing stories of communications failures, some of them most likely fatal to victims. Police officers called Senator Landrieu's Washington office because they could not reach commanders on the ground in New Orleans, Mr. Sharp said.
Dr. Ross Judice, chief medical officer for a large ambulance company, recounted how on Tuesday, unable to find out when helicopters would land to pick up critically ill patients at the Superdome, he walked outside and discovered that two helicopters, donated by an oil services company, had been waiting in the parking lot.
Louisiana and New Orleans have received a total of about $750 million in federal emergency and terrorism preparedness grants in the last four years, Homeland Security Department officials said.
Mr. Chertoff said he recognized that the local government's capacity to respond to the disaster was severely compromised by the hurricane and flood.
"What happened here was that essentially, the demolishment of that state and local infrastructure, and I think that really caused the cascading series of breakdowns," he said.
But Mayor Nagin said the root of the breakdown was the failure of the federal government to deliver relief supplies and personnel quickly.
"They kept promising and saying things would happen," he said. "I was getting excited and telling people that. They kept making promises and promises."
Scott Shane and Eric Lipton reported from Washington, and Christopher Drew from New Orleans. Jeremy Alford contributed reporting from Baton Rouge, La., and Gardiner Harris from Lafayette, La.
* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
BBC NEWS
Viewpoint: Has Katrina saved US media?
By Matt Wells
BBC News, Los Angeles
As President Bush scurries back to the Gulf Coast, it is clear that this is the greatest challenge to politics-as-usual in America since the fall of Richard Nixon in the 1970s.
Then as now, good reporting lies at the heart of what is changing.
But unlike Watergate, "Katrinagate" was public service journalism ruthlessly exposing the truth on a live and continuous basis.
Instead of secretive "Deep Throat" meetings in car-parks, cameras captured the immediate reality of what was happening at the New Orleans Convention Center, making a mockery of the stalling and excuses being put forward by those in power.
Amidst the horror, American broadcast journalism just might have grown its spine back, thanks to Katrina.
National politics reporters and anchors here come largely from the same race and class as the people they are supposed to be holding to account.
They live in the same suburbs, go to the same parties, and they are in debt to the same huge business interests.
Giant corporations own the networks, and Washington politicians rely on them and their executives to fund their re-election campaigns across the 50 states.
It is a perfect recipe for a timid and self-censoring journalistic culture that is no match for the masterfully aggressive spin-surgeons of the Bush administration.
'Lies or ignorance'
But last week the complacency stopped, and the moral indignation against inadequate government began to flow, from slick anchors who spend most of their time glued to desks in New York and Washington.
The most spectacular example came last Friday night on Fox News, the cable network that has become the darling of the Republican heartland.
This highly successful Murdoch-owned station sets itself up in opposition to the "mainstream liberal media elite".
But with the sick and the dying forced to sit in their own excrement behind him in New Orleans, its early-evening anchor Shepard Smith declared civil war against the studio-driven notion that the biggest problem was still stopping the looters.
On other networks like NBC, CNN and ABC it was the authority figures, who are so used to an easy ride at press conferences, that felt the full force of reporters finally determined to ditch the deference.
As the heads of the Homeland Security department and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) appeared for network interviews, their defensive remarks about where aid was arriving to, and when, were exposed immediately as either downright lies or breath-taking ignorance.
And you did not need a degree in journalism to know it either. Just watching TV for the previous few hours would have sufficed.
Iraq concern
When the back-slapping president told the Fema boss on Friday morning that he was doing "a heck of a job" and spent most of his first live news conference in the stricken area praising all the politicians and chiefs who had failed so clearly, it beggared belief.
The president looked affronted when a reporter covering his Mississippi walkabout had the temerity to suggest that having a third of the National Guard from the affected states on duty in Iraq might be a factor.
It is something I suspect he is going to have to get used to from now on: the list of follow-up questions is too long to ignore or bury.
And it is not only on TV and radio where the gloves have come off.
The most artful supporter of the administration on the staff of the New York Times, columnist David Brooks, has also had enough.
He and others are calling the debacle the "anti 9-11": "The first rule of the social fabric - that in times of crisis you protect the vulnerable - was trampled," he wrote on Sunday.
"Leaving the poor in New Orleans was the moral equivalent of leaving the injured on the battlefield."
Media emboldened
It is way too early to tell whether this really will become "Katrinagate" for President Bush, but how he and his huge retinue of politically-appointed bureaucrats react in the weeks ahead will be decisive.
Government has been thrown into disrepute, and many Americans have realised, for the first time, that the collapsed, rotten flood defences of New Orleans are a symbol of failed infrastructure across the nation.
Blaming the state and city officials, as the president is already trying to do over Katrina, will not wash.
Black America will not forget the government failures, and nor will the Gulf Coast region
Beyond the immediate challenge of re-housing the evacuees and getting 200,000-plus children into new schools, there will have to be a Katrina Commission, that a newly-emboldened media will scrutinise obsessively.
The dithering and incompetence that will be exposed will not spare the commander-in-chief, or the sunny, faith-based propaganda that he was still spouting as he left New Orleans airport last Friday, saying it was all going to turn out fine.
People were still trapped, hungry and dying on his watch, less than a mile away.
Black America will not forget the government failures, nor will the Gulf Coast region.
Tens of thousands of voters whose lives have been so devastated will cast their mid-term ballots in Texas next year - the president's adopted home state.
The final word belongs to the historic newspaper at the centre of the hurricane - The New Orleans Times-Picayune. At the weekend, this now-homeless ins ution published an open letter: "We're angry, Mr President, and we'll be angry long after our beloved city and surrounding parishes have been pumped dry.
"Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been, were not. That's to the government's shame."
Do you agree or disagree, send your comments on the story using the form below.
I completely agree with this article, the media seems to be criticizing the administration here, or at least to a certain extent. The fact remains that the government has grossly failed its own citizens.
Aldo Gonzalez, San Diego, California
I agree completely. It is tragic that it has needed such a catastrophe to reveal the Bush regime, administration seems too innocuous a word, for what it is. Michael Moore, for all his failings, would appear to be on the right track.
D. Fear, Heidelberg, Germany
As an American expat currently working in the Middle East, my heart breaks over what is happening in my country and my anger rises on how badly this pack of fools ruining my beloved country have failed their job. If impeachment charges could be filed against Clinton over flimsy accusations, then impeachment charges should be filed against Bush and his "Department of Homeland Insecurity" head for their gross mishandling of the situation. And the GOP funky now ruining FEMA should be sacked, and FEMA restored to the cabinet-level position it once held, before the fiasco that is Department of Homeland Security was created.
It's nice to see that the US Media has finally grown a spine - I just wish it had been sooner.
Patrick McKinnion, Doha, Qatar
I agree in full and I strongly believe that this administration will get their well deserved "come up in's". We reap what we sow and this President and his pack of oil chasers have sewn only lies, illusions, and fear.
J Pesterle, Kapaa, Hawaii
The government should be roundly criticised for underestimating the relief effort requires, but in a country where poverty does not necessarily mean lack of television or means to transport ones self, many of those who did not leave, who were allegedly left with no choice to leave, could have probably done so.
Why is this effort being split along race grounds? It is a fact that a large percentage of the population of New Orleans is black, therefore a large percentage of those stranded would have been black, and whilst it may be unpalatable to many in a country as politically sensitive as America, many of those hindering the emergency services and committing atrocities are also black. It is time to face up to the sub-culture that exists without resorting to the race card.
Hemal Shah, London, UK
Of course they've been lying. Of course the media knew it, the BBC included. It's not only the American media that are rich and white.
Now how about telling the truth, retroactively as well as prospectively, as you see it, catch us citizens up on what else you have known the governments are lying about?
Hank Roberts, Berkeley, CA, USA
Bush administration has always been in self-denial mode, be it 9-11 or Katrina. The response of the administration is a reflection of Bush's personality, that is defensive, ego-driven, low on self esteem and compulsive lying.
Rajesh Raheja, New Delhi, India
Matt Wells' article is a clear, highly erudite, well-balanced and chillingly revealing account of what is the truth behind the pathetic posturing of the powerful in the USA - be it White House, the Senate, Hollywood, big business or whatever.
He has put into words what I have always thought, and has given me sleepless nights, but with prose I could never hope to match.
Nicholas Colley, Fresney France
President Bush has long been an embarrassment to our country and hopefully people will realize after this unbelievable event that they have had enough his leadership.
Diana Brown Johanson, Port Townsend, WA
I believe that it is honorable and laudable the efforts made by the media to stamp out politically biased media, and to report the truth and place the blame where it belongs.
I extend my support to journalists, writers, broadcasters, and individuals who stand up and voice their concerns to our sickeningly poll-driven administration.
Ryan Knoppe, La Grange, Illinois United States
Excellent article, genuine news, information and analysis. We need to see more of this.
Neil Messam, Swansea, UK
I agree, but I also know that the Rove character assassination team will now start to roll. Soon preachers will be calling the hurricane God's punishment on those wicked people of New Orleans.
Already here on Houston TV officials are looking into setting a curfew and possibly locking the survivors in at night, all because some bambi type felt uneasy seeing so many black people out at night around the Astrodome.
Personally, I'd like to see a full accounting of the money that has been spent on homeland security, I think my fellow countrymen would be shocked and appalled at the level of corruption that now permeates every part of our government.
Marvin Bote, Houston, USA
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Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/h...as/4214516.stm
Published: 2005/09/05 06:58:16 GMT
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