Hurricane Katrina

Unless you're there, it's difficult to criticize.

Did you know that if the President hadn't called the governor of Lousiana and strongly urged her to evacuate, the order on Sunday morning to evacuate New Orleans would not have taken place? Note that according to estimates, it takes about 72 hours to evacuate New Orleans - the call came on Sunday Morning around 11 AM Central time. It was apparent already that the state and local response wasn't going to be adequate. Given that they chose the Superdome as the de facto shelter of last resort rather than comandeer the 150+ school buses to get people out of the under-sea-level city indicates that the mayor still didn't understand the weight of the situation.

Did you know that the White House made the unprecidented act of declaring an emergency in advance of the storm to release funds for relief, without the request from the Governor of LA (it is the governor's call to request federal help)? Governors generally make this call, and did so in Mississippi, Florida, and Alabama. Lousiana apparently didn't believe the National Hurricane Center when, even on Saturday, all computer projections had Katrina heading on a dead-straight course for New Orleans.

Do you consider it odd that only New Orleans, one of the most corrupt cities in the US, is having significant difficulty with the relief situation? Violence is amok in this town, as would be expected in the murder capital of the US (yes, the murder rate is even higher than in Detroit). The local police have even been photographed enjoying the fine art of looting themselves. Not a situation conducive to good relief efforts, especially when gangs are shooting at relief helicoptors. One would expect that a strong federal troop presence would not be needed to expedite faster relief efforts. And it wasn't in all disaster areas but one - New Orleans.


BTW, the response wasn't 5 days - the coast guard, some FEMA members, and the first 1000 or so national guard troops were in the disaster area on Tuesday.

I watched this whole situation develop from Saturday until now, and I'm appalled that the locals would need the federal government to step in and take care of local duties while the mayor and governor tour one studio after another whining about when the help will arrive. Niether had the wherewithal to take control, which is why the feds had to jump in with both feet this morning.

Sorry guys. There is no arguing that there's a great disaster afoot, but discussing things like Homeland Security is going to accomplish nothing.

It's noble to discuss wanting to help, but if we go beyond that, we are in violation of the 'No Politics' rule.

Thanks for your help.

Tom

"Good Morning America," President Bush said, "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."

Hurricane Pam in 2004 and Hurricane Zebra in 2000 were Fema sponsored studies in coop with feds. FEMA screamed about the danger.

As you are well aware, the levee funding was cut at the federal level by the bush administration against research and against FEMA recos.

Your facts are not quite there. On Saturday, only at the urging of FEMA, Mr. Bush declared an emergency in Louisiana. By Sunday, Katrina had become a Category 5 hurricane, with winds of 175 miles per hour. The president extended the emergency declaration to Mississippi and Alabama. It was Mayor Nagin, who had urged New Orleans residents to flee on Saturday, ordered a mandatory evacuation.

Only on Wed, Bush cut his vacation short.

Some lapses may have occurred because of budget cuts. For example, a FEMA official said that "funding dried up" for follow-up to the 2004 Hurricane Pam exercise, cutting off work on plans to shelter thousands of survivors.

The consultants to the studies repeatedly said that New Orleans's "low-mobility" population - the elderly, the infirm and the poor without cars or other means of fleeing the city, about 100,000 people. At disaster planning meetings, they said, "the answer was often silence."

Inevitably, the involvement of dozens of agencies complicated the response. FEMA and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, were in charge of coordinating 14 federal agencies...

On Fed deployment - "On Wednesday," said an editorial in The Sun Herald in Biloxi, Miss., "reporters listening to horrific stories of death and survival at the Biloxi Junior High School shelter looked north across Irish Hill Road and saw Air Force personnel playing basketball and performing calisthenics. Playing basketball and performing calisthenics!"

just saw your note belmondo, i hereby cease.

Thank you Tom. I bite my tongue.

But you had to get that last word in, didn't you?

The levee funding wasn't cut - it was kept at a constant level, just as it had been through administrations past. And frankly, as a taxpayer in Tennessee, I don't see the sanity of using my tax dollars to protect a city built in a hurricane-prone area along the gulf, averaging 10 feet below sea level. Let Lousiana do their part as well.

All of which is irrelevent - the levee was built for a category 3 hurricane, and this storm was stronger. It was stronger from Friday evening on. 80% of the people in that city had the sense to get out before the locals reacted. The mayor waited. The Governor waited. They had to be told to do their job.

Katrina was above Cat-3 Friday evening. The governor, whose duty is it to call a state of emergency is quoted as saying "this experience will be a good one for us all". Some leadership there. And the mayor only urged evacuation on Saturday, well past the 72 hour deadline. It wasn't raised to mandatory until late Sunday morning despite the obvious direction and intensity of the storm. That city should have been empty. Mississippi and Alabama's governors didn't shirk their duty and pass it on to the President. OF course, they weren't trying to use a disaster to try to gain political points like Lousiana's governer.

So the President, on the advise of his staff at FEMA (and yes, they are his staff) made the call for Lousiana. He was obligated to fill a leadership vacuum.

Do you really think he wasn't working in Crawford? All the equipment needed to do the job are there.

I've not seen a government agency yet that didn't want more money. FEMA gets everything it needs when the need arises. Otherwise, it's just pork. Again, they haven't had problems dealing with other hurricane disaster areas.

And the city's 150+ school buses sat silently and now are flooded hulks when they could have been lifesavers. They don't have any trouble carting that many school kids around town every day. It is up to local government, as it has always been, to declare and initiate evacuation. Only when it asks for help can the feds step in.

Perhaps this wasn't a function for which the air force should react. What would they do, bomb the city? (though from the looks of things, that might not be a bad idea) The people that are equipped to do something were brought in. Perhaps it could have been a bit quicker, but the thought that the feds would have to perform the policing tasks normally carried on by locals in some cases added to the requirements beyond the normal response.

I'm sorry but I'm sick of the leftist media/DNC in America playing the "blame Bush for everything" game.

I'm sorry but I'm sick of the leftist media/DNC in America playing the "blame Bush for everything" game.

Ditto in bold.

Zooming in past the overview of the disaster, the contemporary world of the N.O. stadium full of people reveals... well, atrotrious behaviour every night. A nightmare. I won't even mention the looters.

Thread locked.

Does anyone want to debate whether or not the 5D should have been offered in silver?