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Posted by Mo (Member # 2863) on :
 
Our federal govenment is blaming the local and State authorities, saying the reson it took 4 DAYS to begin to get help to these folks (Federal help)..
is because they didn't 'call them'.

This is inexcusable, people are dying as a result.

The media has even taken to blaming the victims..ones who COULD NOT leave.


New Orleans in chaos, rescue plan under fire
Fri Sep 2, 2005 7:31 PM BST

By Mark Babineck

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - New Orleans fell deeper into chaos on Friday with gangs roaming the streets and corpses rotting in the sun a full four days after Hurricane Katrina lashed the city and exposed federal aid efforts as a failure.

A long military convoy of emergency supplies finally rolled into the flooded city on Friday morning, the first sign of significant relief after days of delays and broken promises.

Armed troops rode on the convoy and began giving out instructions to residents desperate for food, clean water and basic medical care.

Hospitals lacking drugs and power were in a desperate fight to save critically ill patients and thousands of people who lost relatives and all they own in raging floodwaters sat on sidewalks waiting for long-delayed help.

Hit by mounting criticism that his administration was too slow to respond, U.S. President George W. Bush conceded the rescue efforts were "not acceptable" and promised to fix them. "We'll deploy the assets necessary to get the situation under control," Bush said as he left Washington to tour the region.

He told reporters in Biloxi, Mississippi that a top priority was getting troops into New Orleans to secure the city and ensure delivery of relief supplies.

The military convoys raised hopes that the government might finally be getting a grip on the crisis.

In another positive sign, commercial aircraft flew in and out of New Orleans International Airport at an improved rate of four an hour to drop off supplies and evacuate displaced residents, many of them seriously ill.

Also, the U.S. House of Representatives gave final passage to a $10.5 billion (5.6 billion pounds) emergency-aid bill that Bush was expected to sign later in the day.

But thousands of people are feared dead and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said he was furious at the lack of help his historic city had received.

"I need reinforcements. I need troops, man. I need 500 buses, man," he said in a radio interview. "Now get off your asses and fix this. Let's do something and let's fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country."

Plumes of thick black smoke rose after a mighty explosion rocked an industrial area hit hard by Katrina, and an apartment complex in the centre was also in flames.

DESPERATE TO ESCAPE

Stunned residents stumbled around bodies that lay rotting and untouched. Others trudged along flooded and debris-strewn streets towards the Superdome football stadium where they hoped to be bused to safety.

Some angrily accused authorities of dividing evacuees into lines of men on one side and women and children on the other, effectively splitting up families.

"If you've got to drag me, then you'll have to drag me. I've done lost everything else, I'm not gonna lose my kids," said Albert Sumlin, who refused to get on a bus until he was reunited with wife and children.

Most of the victims were poor and black, largely because they have no cars and so were unable to flee the city before Katrina pounded the U.S. Gulf Coast on Monday. The disaster has highlighted the racial and class divides in a city and a country where the gap between rich and poor is vast.

The U.S. response would be a moral test, said U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat and former head of the Congressional Black Caucus.

"Many of those now in such dire circumstances were already living in poverty and destitution even before the hurricane came. They had no ability to evacuate and now their very survival depends upon the response of this country," he said.

The scenes of destruction and mayhem resembled a major Third World refugee crisis, angering politicians and local residents who said the lack of aid was unacceptable in the world's richest country.

"Operational effectiveness is an 'F' or a grade lower, if there is such a grade," said U.S. Sen. David Vitter, a Republican from Louisiana.

Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said 14,000 Guard troops were on the ground along the Gulf coast and he expected 30,000 there in the coming days.

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said they were going with shoot-to-kill orders. "These troops are battle-tested. They have M-16s and are locked and loaded."

But Nagin questioned why they had not come sooner. "People are dying, people have lost their homes, people have lost their jobs. The city of New Orleans will never be the same."

Shell-shocked storm survivors said they were stunned by what had happened in their city known as a carefree place of jazz and French Quarter bars.

"Call it biblical. Call it apocalyptic. Whatever you want to call it, take your pick," said 46-year-old Robert Lewis, who was rescued as floodwaters invaded his home.

"There were bodies floating past my front door. I've never seen anything like that," he said, near tears.

The tragedy caused by Katrina did not end in New Orleans.

Storm survivors were shipped to the Houston Astrodome where the government had hoped to house 25,000 evacuees, but then limited the population to 13,000 as conditions began to deteriorate.

Officials diverted buses full of evacuees to other shelters, including the Reliant Arena next door.

Katrina forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes and shut refineries along the Gulf Coast shut, sending gasoline prices at the pump soaring to new records of well over $3 a gallon in most parts of the country.

(Additional reporting by Erwin Seba in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Paul Simao in Mobile, Alabama, Peter Cooney in Houston, Marc Serota in Pensacola, Florida, Steve Holland, Charles Aldinger and John Whitesides in Washington)

[ 04. September 2005, 01:58 PM: Message edited by: Mo ]
 
Posted by 24bit (Member # 6531) on :
 
Mo, you don't have a clue as to how government works. The Governor didn't have the 7,500 state national guard units ready to go in after the storm to restore order. The way all states work is that local and state officials are responsible for immediate aaction and if they need more assistance they make a call to the feds. There was no state response at all. None. The governor didn't even know there were serious problems to even call in the LA national guard. There was no communication between the major and the governor......and noting was clearer when the major said in an interview that he didn't even know if the governor called for Marshall Law when he called for it. A total joke.

It takes a little time to get thousands of feds from all over the US into LA. Sure, they could've done it a little quicker, but 3 or 4 days is not unreasonable for a federal response that wasn't requested until late.

So, like the political hack that you are Mo, you clearly show that you don't know anything about government function. There's no leadership in LA or New Orleans. Contrast that with 911 with Rudy as mayor and what he coordinated. Rudy didn't stand around and complain, he did something. This is no question an unprecidented event and there will be lessons to be learned by ALL. But making the feds out to be the bad guy is just pure anti-Bush nonsense that won't stick once the truth is told when the dust settles. Until then we'll hear Propaganda-Mo and her fellow hack job editorial writers spread complete lies.
 

Posted by GEDEN13 (Member # 4151) on :
 
mike, how can you keep defending this president?

this is a national disgrace!! they should have been on top of this tragedy at the very beginning.

florida never had to wait.

the way you talk mike,your president is never wrong.this should never had happened like this.

what just because those folk's own there are poor? hell with them,let'em rot and die!!

the whole world is watching.national embarressment.

the buck stop's with bush.when air force oe flew over new orlean's yesterday,was that to empty the plane's toilet?

put blame where blame belong's,in the oval office.just once,bush should take responsibilities for his action's...gary

------------------


 

Posted by 24bit (Member # 6531) on :
 
I blame Bush for things he does wrong like the border issues, things like that. I've been plenty critical of Bush at times when he deserves it.

Come on Gary, get a clue about what's supposed to be happening within that state for the initial repsonse just like Florida and every other state has in place. THEIR WAS NO RESPONSE FROM LA STATE GOVERNMENT AND THAT'S CRIMINAL. States are there for a reason. A state national guard is for a reason. A state emergency plan is there for a reason. States have intial responsiblities for every disaster!! You guys are blind Bush haters and it's sad that you can't see basic things such as this. Wake up and see the real mistakes going on within the state of LA. Could the feds have gotten there a little quicker, maybe but not much. You guys think the feds are responsible for everything all the time. You're wrong! Why have states then? Please answer that for me, and please tell me why other state governments act initially in disasters and why LA did nothing? Please explain!

[This message has been edited by 24bit (edited 03 September 2005).]
 

Posted by Softballmom (Member # 6235) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Mo:

Hospitals lacking drugs and power were in a desperate fight to save critically ill patients

You made an interesting point here. Now Lets look deeper. The local and state Government new that a catagory 5 hurricane was coming their way and they didn't even bother to evacuate their hospitals and nursing homes. People that had no choice but to stay so you really think that they did all they could to evacuate the poor? A serious local and state breakdown yet the blame is put on the federal government.

Yes I think that what is happening there is shamefull but turning this into a racial cituation is going to set the US back 30 years.

I have been at poverty level. Would I have stayed? Heck no. If I had to pat and charlied it out of there I would have. Yes some were unable to leave due to health reasons but most stayed because they didn't believe the warnings.

Had it happened in Conneticut and the Local and state Government handled it the same way you would have the same problem.

Gary,

You said Florida did not have to wait. I am sure that if you talk to some of those folks they had plenty of complaints and also Red Cross and the Sal Army could go in quicker because it was more accesable and two you can't sent volunteers into a place where people are running around with guns not to minchen the fack that alot of volunteers would not go. For goodness sake, police officers turned in there badges because they were afraid for there lives.

If you can't see the local and state breakdown and blame this all on the federal government you are blind.

They knew the risks of the levies breeching yet they put thousands upon thousands of people in a Dome that could have been flooded.

If there own state and local Government could not foresee this huge tradgedy do you believe the federal Government did?

You people actually believe the president was sitting there watching this on TV and said "Oh, lets give it a few days and see if how things go?"

Really, those preperations were being made from day one. Pull them together, load, truck them in, Clear roadways, this takes time.

Tell me. These people that were too poor to leave, where were the buses to help them then? Was that the federal Governments job too? It is so easy to rely on and blame the federal Government. This is America.

Hurricane Floyd flooded my town and surrounding areas, not anywhere in coparison to this but our local government was more prepared even though the treat was not as great.

Was racism brought up at that time? Yes! and who was President? Hum?

Small black comunity wiped out when a levie broke.

As long as we make racism an issue in this country it will continue to be an issue.

I watched a documentmentary months ago on New Orleans. It stated how a hurricane could wipe them out yet state and local Government blindfolded themselves and hoped for the best. What preperations did they have in place for if and when this occured. Not much.

Like most Americans we sit and waid for the federal government to take care of them and then complain when it's not done right. America needs get off there blessed assurances and start taking care of themselves.

The fact here is state and local had a serious breakdown and the federal Government is now bailing them out and taking all the blame because it didn't happen quick enouph.

I say Shame on the mayor, shame on the Govenor (of past and present) and shame on the people of the United States that don't recognise it.


 

Posted by Softballmom (Member # 6235) on :
 
Another point, the city of Houston and the state of Texas have done more and been better prepared the past few days after the hurricane than LA did prior too. Do you think that just happened out of the blue. No! They already had plans in place for their own state and put them into action. That is sad!!!!

They have registering point, people feeding them three meals a day. They are organised. They had less time to do this that LA did. The Dome in New Orleans was only feeding them two meals a day. They basicly had no disaster plan and if they did it sure was a sad excuse for one!!!! What the heck is wrong with this picture?

Seems like the state of Texas has great leadership. (past and present!)

[This message has been edited by Softballmom (edited 03 September 2005).]
 

Posted by lou (Member # 81) on :
 
Politics aside, when you have natural disasters that are only partly predictable, and major cities below sea level and surrounded by water, well, no matter what preparations you have made might not be enough. Plus, having to evacuate a whole city, which is unprecedented.

It bothers me to keep hearing the rescue people trashed.

The thing that is so striking, though, and is political is that the poor are suffering disproportionately. This is nothing new but embarrasses a lot of people who don't usually have to look at over and over again on TV. Nothing like pictures to make the point.

Seems like no politician now believes the buck stops here. I would like to hear the mayor explain what preparations the city had made for major hurricanes. Sooner or later this was going to happen. There should have been a disaster plan sitting on a shelf somewhere in city hall, with coordinators appointed and these duties specified in job descriptions.

Instead we have the mayor blaming the state, the state blaming the feds, and the media concentrating on what went wrong and suggesting that the people in the superdome were not fed at all.

[This message has been edited by lou (edited 03 September 2005).]
 

Posted by GEDEN13 (Member # 4151) on :
 
i see what i see.you are all making this political.i am not.

this is foot dragging,not caring higher up's..

i have watched chertoff,he doesn't have a clue.homeland security my *** .cronism,for just a highly visable job.

just like as with the tusami,little george get's daddy and clinton to cover for his lack of compassion...

take off the blinder's,this is not a member of your family that you have too defend...gar

------------------

refugee's? they are american's!!!!!!!

mike,side note..oncoligist sez,i my blood test's are clean for cancer.still have the elavated wbc's tho.....thank's for the info.
[This message has been edited by GEDEN13 (edited 03 September 2005).]

[This message has been edited by GEDEN13 (edited 03 September 2005).]
 

Posted by Mo (Member # 2863) on :
 
A disaster of this magnitude requires immediate Federal action.

Blaming the shortfalls of the Federal response on the local and State governments is disgraceful, IMO.

Whatever mistakes local and state authorities made are well beside that point, it is the responsibility of the Federal govt, Federal resources, as it has been with any and all national disasters to date, and that missing element re:Katrina is an outrage and in no way a political statement.

This is a disaster.

This is not ME saying this 24, this is the majority of the nation and World..responding..and rightfully with trivial political interests/excuses aside!

...meanwhile we have the FEMA rep saying things are under control when they are not.
He said people in the convention center were fine, and they are not, they still sit without care among rotting bodies and snipers, rapists, folks driven out of their mind.

He said the hospitals were evacuated and they were not yet, the situation even worse there..

There is no way that they woild have left people in the affluent, white coast of Connecticut remain in those conditiond ..people who have been reachable
by ROAD for ar least 4 days now.
Tegardless of the FACT that their suffering resulted from Feds dropping the ball..
this is still ongoing.

Go to CNN.com and read if any are interested in this.
The truth is failures have resulted in total anarchy..
and much like Iraq, this is not being truthfully represented in the media.

Noone is blaming the rescuers, the rescuers are victims of the lack of Federal response as well.

There is no excuse, this is unbelievable, and it is not about party lines it is about life and death and an inept administration.

The buck stopped with this admin a long time ago and how many have to die before Americans drop their useless and dangerous pride and join together as Americans, for Americans.

Mo


[This message has been edited by Mo (edited 03 September 2005).]
 

Posted by Meg (Member # 22) on :
 
Is Katrina racist?

Counties hit:

Parish or county White Black
Jefferson, La. 69.8% 22.9%
Orleans, La. 28.1% 67.3%
Plaquemines, La. 69.8% 23.4%
St. Bernard, La. 88.3% 7.6%
St. Tammany, La. 87.0% 9.9%
Hancock, Miss. 90.2% 6.8%
Harrison, Miss. 73.1% 21.1%
Jackson, Miss. 75.4% 20.9%
 

Posted by Mo (Member # 2863) on :
 
I hope Katrina wasn't racist ..

Certainly all citizens hit are devastated.

But what are the percentages of folks still suffering in death, still without help as described above as a direct result of government response or lack thereof?

They are predominantly black and below poverty level.

Mo

[This message has been edited by Mo (edited 03 September 2005).]
 

Posted by Mo (Member # 2863) on :
 
Disaster plan not executed

By Frank James and Andrew Martin
Washington Bureau
Published September 2, 2005, 10:07 PM CDT


WASHINGTON -- Government disaster officials had an action plan if a major hurricane hit New Orleans. They simply didn't execute it when Hurricane Katrina struck.

Thirteen months before Katrina hit New Orleans, local, state and federal officials held a simulated hurricane drill that Ronald Castleman, then the regional director for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, called "a very good exercise."

More than a million residents were "evacuated" in the table-top scenario as 120-mile-an-hour winds and 20 inches of rain caused widespread flooding that supposedly trapped 300,000 people in the city.

"It was very much an eye-opener," said Castleman, a Republican appointee of President Bush who left FEMA in December for the private sector. "A number of things were identified that we had to deal with, not all of them were solved."

Still, Castleman found it hard to square the lessons he and others learned from the exercise with the frustratingly slow response to the disaster that has unfolded in the wake of Katrina. From the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans to the Mississippi and Alabama communities along the Gulf Coast, hurricane survivors have decried the lack of water, food or security and the slowness of the federal relief efforts.

"It's hard for everyone to understand why buttons weren't pushed earlier on," Castleman said of the federal response.

As the first National Guard truck caravans of water and food arrived in New Orleans Friday, former FEMA officials and other disaster experts were at a loss to explain why the federal government's lead agency for responding to major emergencies had failed to meet the urgent needs of hundreds of thousands of Americans in the most dire of circumstances in a more timely fashion.

But many suspected that FEMA's apparent problems in getting life-sustaining supplies to survivors and buses to evacuate them from New Orleans, delays even President Bush called "not acceptable," stemmed partly from changes at the agency during the Bush years. Experts have long warned that the moves would weaken the agency's ability to effectively respond to natural disasters.

FEMA's chief has been demoted from a near-Cabinet-level position; political appointees with little, if any, emergency-management experience have been placed in senior FEMA positions; and the small, 2,500-person agency was dropped into the midst of the180,000-employee Homeland Security Department that is more oriented to combating terrorism than natural disasters. All this has led to a brain drain as experienced but demoralized employees have left the agency, former and current FEMA staff members say.

The result is that an agency that got high marks during much of the 1990s for its effectiveness is being harshly criticized for apparently mismanaging the response to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

The growing anger and frustration at FEMA's response sparked the Republican-controlled Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to announce Friday that it has scheduled a hearing for Wednesday to try to uncover what went wrong.

Meanwhile, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) called on President Bush to immediately appoint a Cabinet-level official to direct the national response.

"There was a time when FEMA understood that the correct approach to a crisis was to deploy to the affected area as many resources as possible as fast as possible," Landrieu said. "Unfortunately, that no longer seems to be their approach."

John Copenhaver, a former FEMA regional director during the Clinton administration who led the response to Hurricane Floyd in 1999, said he was bewildered by the slow FEMA response.

It had been standard practice for FEMA to position supplies ahead of time, and the agency did pre-position drinking water and tarps to cover damaged roofs near where they would be needed. In addition, FEMA has coordinated its plans with state and local officials and let the Defense Department know beforehand what type of military assistance would be needed.

"I'm a little confused as to why it took so long to get the military presence running convoys into downtown New Orleans," Copenhaver said.

And there isn't an experienced disaster-response expert at the top of the agency as there was when James Lee Witt ran the agency during the 1990s. Before Michael Brown, the current head, joined the agency as its legal counsel, he headed the International Arabian Horse Association.

That loss of experienced personnel might explain in part why FEMA wasn't able to secure buses sooner for the mass evacuation of New Orleans, a step anticipated by the hurricane disaster simulation conducted by federal, state and local emergency officials last year.

Peter Pantuso, president and chief executive of the American Bus Association, said, "I have a hard time believing there is any game plan in place when it comes to coordinating or pulling together this volume of business," referring to FEMA's effort to obtain hundreds of buses to move tens of thousands of evacuees from New Orleans. "And what happens in two or three weeks down the road when all of these people are moved again?"

When FEMA became part of the Homeland Security Department, it was stripped of some of its functions, such as some of its ability to make preparedness grants to states, former officials said. Those functions were placed elsewhere in the larger agency.

"After Sept. 11 they got so focused on terrorism they effectively marginalized the capability of FEMA...," said George Haddow, a former FEMA official during the Clinton administration. "It's no surprise that they're not capable of managing the federal government's response to this kind of disaster."

Pleasant Mann, former head of the union for FEMA employees, who has been with the agency since 1988, said a change made by agency higher-ups last year added a bureaucratic layer that likely delayed FEMA's response to Katrina.

Before the change, a FEMA employee on site at a disaster could request that an experienced employee he knew had the right skills be dispatched to help him. But now that requested worker is first made to travel to a location hundreds of miles from the disaster site to be "processed," placed in a pool from which he is dispatched, sometimes to a place different from where he thought he was headed.

Pleasant said he knew of a case where a worker from Washington State was made to first travel to Orlando before he could go to Louisiana, losing at least a day. What's more, that worker was told he might be sent to Alabama, not Louisiana, after all.


 

Posted by 24bit (Member # 6531) on :
 
What a complete load of BS. No mention of the derelict duties by the governor to do the initial state plan, or her lack of understanding as to what was happening in New Orleans and slow to push the button for Federal response. The Feds rely on the states to know what's going on there and honor their requests. If the Feds chose to bypass the government and come in without her request, they would be hanged for abuse of power and accused of arrogence....the democrats would scream that they were not cooperating with them and moving in without their coordination and OK. Then they would blame the chaos on that. So the Feds are damned if they do, damned if they don't when it comes to far left whacko's that just have it out for Bush.

When this is all over, an investigation by Congress will take place I'm sure, and the world will see how much the state officials in LA were to blame for doing nothing and having an intial plan that they couldn't carry out when the real emergency came. Until then we'll see Mo post far left editorials that she'll claim to be factual. What a joke.

To use an analogy, the state response is like an emergency room physician that's first to stablize the situation, then when they can get your regular doctor to take over, the patient is healed. The Feds are like the rrgular doctor in this case. But if you go to the emergency room and there's no doctor and you're dying, blaming your regular doctor for not getting there quick enough is rediculous because the way the system works is for emergency medicine to stablize you until more help arrives. There was no emergency room doc for New Orleans, and the governor and the mayor, but mostly the governor is to blame for that.

[This message has been edited by 24bit (edited 03 September 2005).]
 

Posted by Mo (Member # 2863) on :
 
Regardless of what the Sate did or did not do..

There's no excuses for the Federal inadequacies. This called for the Feds as it has in any other National disaster.

Policy, funding cuts, lack of response...
all of it. To blame the State of LA and the victims is shameful.

If the American public and Congress do not rise against this, and fix what needs to be fixed to make things right, we'll have noone but ourselves to blame in the aftermath of the next disaster..
Enough. How many people here and abroad have to die under this administration before folks lay down their pride and fight for America. The harm done over these years is well past what should be a partisan issue.

This is an opinion article, but look at the facts.

Mo

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/03/opinion/03dowd.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditor
ials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists%2fMaureen%20Dowd

September 3, 2005
United States of Shame
By MAUREEN DOWD

Stuff happens.
And when you combine limited government with incompetent government, lethal
stuff happens.
America is once more plunged into a snake pit of anarchy, death, looting, raping, marauding thugs, suffering innocents, a shattered infrastructure, a
gutted police force, insufficient troop levels and criminally negligent government
planning. But this time it's happening in America.

W. drove his budget-cutting Chevy to the levee, and it wasn't dry. Bye, bye,
American lives. "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees,"
he told Diane Sawyer.

Shirt-sleeves rolled up, W. finally landed in Hell yesterday and chuckled
about his wild boozing days in "the great city" of N'Awlins. He was clearly
moved. "You know, I'm going to fly out of here in a minute," he said on the runway
at the New Orleans International Airport, "but I want you to know that I'm not
going to forget what I've seen."

Out of the cameras' range, and avoided by
W., was a convoy of thousands of sick and dying people, some sprawled on the
floor or dumped on baggage carousels at a makeshift M*A*S*H unit inside the
terminal.

Why does this self-styled "can do" president always lapse into such lame "who
could have known?" excuses.
Who on earth could have known that Osama bin Laden wanted to attack us by
flying planes into buildings? Any official who bothered to read the trellis of
pre-9/11 intelligence briefs.

Who on earth could have known that an American invasion of Iraq would spawn a
brutal insurgency, terrorist recruiting boom and possible civil war? Any
official who bothered to read the C.I.A.'s prewar reports.

Who on earth could have known that New Orleans's sinking levees were at risk
from a strong hurricane? Anybody who bothered to read the endless warnings
over the years about the Big Easy's uneasy fishbowl.

In June 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson
Parish, fretted to The Times-Picayune in New Orleans: "It appears that the money has
been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war
in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that
the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the
case that this is a security issue for us."
Not only was the money depleted by the Bush folly in Iraq; 30 percent of the
National Guard and about half its equipment are in Iraq.

Ron Fournier of The Associated Press reported that the Army Corps of
Engineers asked for $105 million for hurricane and flood programs in New Orleans last
year. The White House carved it to about $40 million. But President Bush and
Congress agreed to a $286.4 billion pork-filled highway bill with 6,000 pet
projects, including a $231 million bridge for a small, uninhabited Alaskan island.
Just last year, Federal Emergency Management Agency officials practiced how
they would respond to a fake hurricane that caused floods and stranded New
Orleans residents.

Imagine the feeble FEMA's response to Katrina if they had not
prepared.

ichael Brown, the blithering idiot in charge of FEMA - a job he trained for
by running something called the International Arabian Horse Association -
admitted he didn't know until Thursday that there were 15,000 desperate,
dehydrated, hungry, angry, dying victims of Katrina in the New Orleans Convention
Center.

Was he sacked instantly? No, our tone-deaf president hailed him in Mobile,
Ala., yesterday: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

It would be one thing if President Bush and his inner circle - Dick Cheney
was vacationing in Wyoming; Condi Rice was shoe shopping at Ferragamo's on Fifth
Avenue and attended "Spamalot" before bloggers chased her back to Washington;
and Andy Card was off in Maine - lacked empathy but could get the job done.

But it is a chilling lack of empathy combined with a stunning lack of
efficiency that could make this administration implode.

When the president and vice president rashly shook off our allies and our
respect for international law to pursue a war built on lies, when they sanctioned
torture, they shook the faith of the world in American ideals.

When they were deaf for so long to the horrific misery and cries for help of
the victims in New Orleans - most of them poor and black, like those stuck at
the back of the evacuation line yesterday while 700 guests and employees of
the Hyatt Hotel were bused out first - they shook the faith of all Americans in
American ideals. And made us ashamed.
Who are we if we can't take care of our own?

E-mail: [email protected]


[This message has been edited by Mo (edited 03 September 2005).]
 

Posted by David95928 (Member # 3521) on :
 
Now get this!

Sen. Landrieu has released a statement to the effect that when she did a fly-over the 17th Street Canal today, all the equipment that was supposedly being used to repair the breach, yesterday, was gone. Apparently, needed equipment was taken out of sevice to be a backdrop for on of W's photo opportunities.

Today, German television is reporting that as soon as bush & co. took off and most of the media had been shooed away, the "food serving stations" used as photo backdrop for a "compassion scene" were whisked away, leaving the starving and dying behind.

Meanwhile, convoys of trucks carrying food and supplies were forced to wait on the highways outside NO so that their presence wouldn't disrupt this nauseating charade.

He and his gang of criminals are utterly beyond belief, as are their apologists.

David

PS Mo, you and Maureen Dowd are the best!

[This message has been edited by David95928 (edited 03 September 2005).]

[This message has been edited by David95928 (edited 03 September 2005).]
 

Posted by Mo (Member # 2863) on :
 
Unreal, David. I can't believe what has become gruesome common practice by this Administration. The whole 5 year Presidency has been one big photo op as far as I'm concerned, the Great Fisade --
how many more died because of the security measures required to take the all important pics on this one?

We don't have a President, we have a politician. There is a big difference when it comes to things like War and national disasters: life and death.


KATRINA: LANDRIEU ASKS FOR MORE HELP
Saturday, September 03, 2005


Landrieu Implores President to
``Relieve Unmitigated Suffering;''
End FEMA's ``Abject Failures''


WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu, D-La., issued the following statement this afternoon regarding her call yesterday for President Bush to appoint a cabinet-level official to oversee Hurricane Katrina relief and recovery efforts within 24 hours.

Sen. Landrieu said:

``Yesterday, I was hoping President Bush would come away from his tour of the regional devastation triggered by Hurricane Katrina with a new understanding for the magnitude of the suffering and for the abject failures of the current Federal Emergency Management Agency. 24 hours later, the President has yet to answer my call for a cabinet-level official to lead our efforts. Meanwhile, FEMA, now a shell of what it once was, continues to be overwhelmed by the task at hand.

``I understand that the U.S. Forest Service had water-tanker aircraft available to help douse the fires raging on our riverfront, but FEMA has yet to accept the aid. When Amtrak offered trains to evacuate significant numbers of victims - far more efficiently than buses - FEMA again dragged its feet. Offers of medicine, communications equipment and other desperately needed items continue to flow in, only to be ignored by the agency.

``But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast - black and white, rich and poor, young and old - deserve far better from their national government.

``Mr. President, I'm imploring you once again to get a cabinet-level official stood up as soon as possible to get this entire operation moving forward regionwide with all the resources - military and otherwise - necessary to relieve the unmitigated suffering and economic damage that is unfolding.''

Today's aerial tour of the 17th Street levee will be featured tomorrow on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Later, Sen. Landrieu will also appear on CBS's 60 Minutes.




 

Posted by 24bit-moderate (Member # 7841) on :
 
In the spirit of the new board, I thought I'd revise my name to remind the board far-lefters that I'm a moderate, not a conservative. [Smile]

Mo, posting Maureen Dowd articles as an unbiased source for information would be like a conservative posting Ann Coulter or Limbaugh as a source for objective info. You do such a good job of playing the role of a typical far leftist....just like the far right goofballs that follow Ann Coulter. You guys are just the same, but on opposite ends. [Smile]
 
Posted by 24bit-moderate (Member # 7841) on :
 
Posted by David95928:

Now get this!
Sen. Landrieu has released a statement to the effect that when she did a fly-over the 17th Street Canal today, all the equipment that was supposedly being used to repair the breach, yesterday, was gone. Apparently, needed equipment was taken out of sevice to be a backdrop for on of W's photo opportunities.

Today, German television is reporting that as soon as bush & co. took off and most of the media had been shooed away, the "food serving stations" used as photo backdrop for a "compassion scene" were whisked away, leaving the starving and dying behind.

Meanwhile, convoys of trucks carrying food and supplies were forced to wait on the highways outside NO so that their presence wouldn't disrupt this nauseating charade.

He and his gang of criminals are utterly beyond belief, as are their apologists.

David

PS Mo, you and Maureen Dowd are the best!

If this isn't the ultimate made-up lying propaganda I've heard in at least.....well a few hours from you guys, I don't know what is. The mean spiritedness of you guys is unreal, just unreal.
 
Posted by Lymester (Member # 5848) on :
 
quote:
In the spirit of the new board, I thought I'd revise my name to remind the board far-lefters that I'm a moderate, not a conservative [QUOTE]
Yeah, that was necessary. I think you meant to reply to Loribelle post looking for jokes.
 
Posted by Mo (Member # 2863) on :
 
[Smile]

Lymster, that got a smile from me during these sad days.

Mo
 
Posted by 24bit-moderate (Member # 7841) on :
 
Like I said, you guys are so far left that I look like a right winger. How could I be a conservative if I'm pro-choice? LOL. How could I be a conservative if I'm for embryonic stem cell research? I could go on and on. I can say good things about Clinton.....that are significant, as well as the bad parts with his presidency. Can you say anything good about Bush? No, because you're just like right wingers except on the oposite end. You're out of touch with the majority of Americans like right wingers are. But everyone is a right winger to you if they aren't with you and support Bush on anything right? So let's hear you give credit to Bush on a few things. You can't do it which proves my point completely.
 
Posted by Mo (Member # 2863) on :
 
Like I said, you guys are so far left that I look like a right winger. How could I be a conservative if I'm pro-choice? LOL. How could I be a conservative if I'm for embryonic stem cell research? I could go on and on. I can say good things about Clinton.....that are significant, as well as the bad parts with his presidency. Can you say anything good about Bush? No, because you're just like right wingers except on the oposite end. You're out of touch with the majority of Americans like right wingers are. But everyone is a right winger to you if they aren't with you and support Bush on anything right? So let's hear you give credit to Bush on a few things. You can't do it which proves my point completely


24 ---

What you are not getting is this disaster and the aftermath is not about politics and has no place for your criticizm of individuals, and this thread/issue is certainly not about YOU..


Mo
 
Posted by Andie333 (Member # 7370) on :
 
I have to say I've been surprised by this thread.

To me, the politics pale against the reality of the situation -- that about a half a million Americans are now homeless, without jobs, many of them completely separated from their families. Thousands of people all over the Gulf region died waiting for someone, anyone to come with aid -- rescue, food, water, medical assistance.

For me, seeing them has been horrifying, agonizing and heartbreaking.

Over the past nine years, I've had a sometimes-fatal disease that is either ignored, undertreated or misunderstood by the mainstream medical profession.

I've been shuffled to 12 of this area's finest medical specialists. Tested. Dismissed. Told I was fine when nothing of the kind was true...when, in fact, I was growing sicker and more debilitated by the day.

I've had friends who can't understand why I'm not better yet (there's usually a judgement in their bewilderment). Who have dropped off the map of my world.

I've wondered how many adults and children, not just in Lyme endemic areas but everywhere, have been subjected to the same degrading treatment. and paid for that with their lives or their livelihood.

For the first time in my life, I understand what it means to be marginalized. I know what it feels like to be ignored, dismissed.

Being debilitatingly sick has increased my sense of compassion and my kinship with anyone suffering.

I've already donated money to various organizations, offered room in our home for someone who needs shelter, tried to contact anyone I can to just send them encouragement and support -- whether they're victims or part of the rescue team.

Still, i wish there were more I could do. There are still trapped in houses, waiting for help. There are still people dying. For me, that's the ONLY thing that matters!

Andie
 
Posted by 24bit-moderate (Member # 7841) on :
 
This thread that you started is 100% political. Your agenda is to bash Bush any way you can like you always have. You pounce on any situation you can think of. How dare you claim that this thread you started isn't political. You're obsessed with Bush and this thread is another way you think you can bring him down a notch.

As for me, you two are making it about me. I'm responding to your false statements about myself, but I'm trying to talk about the issue at hand. You're so mean spirited, I can't believe it.

Off-Topic was quiet and civil before you had to come back and stir things up. Nice job.
 
Posted by Lymester (Member # 5848) on :
 
24-b

I've seen your posts. You attack everyone. You've even angered many who have a lot of good information. You never have said, "although you think such&such will work for lyme disease, I think that it might also be that .....".
You perceive it as political and turned this right into that.

You criticize in 98% of your postings. Go back and see your bashing this poor woman who was trying to get pregnant. You're pro-choice? Yeah, pro-choice for WHAT? Whatever you think.

Stop attacking and then turning around and crying mommy at everyother post.

Take a look at the horse you rode in on during the summer, it's lame. Put it down. You've run your course here.
 
Posted by 24bit-moderate (Member # 7841) on :
 
I mostly debate issues in OT on substance. All you can do to respond to me is with insults and untruths. Your lie about what I said regarding the pregnant woman wanting to risk having a baby with full blown Lyme wasn't mean at all, in fact mine was very nice compared to so many others.

Characterize me all you want, but the fact is that you haven't been able to back up anything you've said with fact or substance, and the only way you can respond to me is with insults such as your last post. I won't get into the name calling, so have a nice day. [Smile] Let me know when you want to talk about substance.
 
Posted by lou (Member # 81) on :
 
Brown pushed from last job: Horse group: FEMA chief had to be `asked to resign'
By Brett Arends
Saturday, September 3, 2005 - BostonHerald

The federal official in charge of the bungled New Orleans rescue was fired from his last private-sector job overseeing horse shows. And before joining the Federal Emergency Management Agency as a deputy director in 2001, GOP activist Mike Brown had no significant experience that would have qualified him for the position. The Oklahoman got the job through an old college friend who at the time was heading up FEMA.
The agency, run by Brown since 2003, is now at the center of a growing fury over the handling of the New Orleans disaster. ``I look at FEMA and I shake my head,'' said a furious Gov. Mitt Romney yesterday, calling the response ``an embarrassment.'' President Bush, after touring the Big Easy, said he was ``not satisfied'' with the emergency response to Hurricane Katrina's devastation.
And U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch predicted there would be hearings on Capitol Hill over the mishandled operation. Brown - formerly an estates and family lawyer - this week has has made several shocking public admissions, including interviews where he suggested FEMA was unaware of the misery and desperation of refugees stranded at the New Orleans convention center.
Before joining the Bush administration in 2001, Brown spent 11 years as the commissioner of judges and stewards for the International Arabian Horse Association, a breeders' and horse-show organization based in Colorado.
``We do disciplinary actions, certification of (show trial) judges. We hold classes to train people to become judges and stewards. And we keep records,'' explained a spokeswoman for the IAHA commissioner's office. ``This was his full-time job . . . for 11 years,'' she added.
Brown was forced out of the position after a spate of lawsuits over alleged supervision failures.
``He was asked to resign,'' Bill Pennington, president of the IAHA at the time, confirmed last night.
Soon after, Brown was invited to join the administration by his old Oklahoma college roommate Joseph Allbaugh, the previous head of FEMA until he quit in 2003 to work for the president's re-election campaign.
The White House last night defended Brown's appointment. A spokesman noted Brown served as FEMA deputy director and general counsel before taking the top job, and that he has now overseen the response to ``more than 164 declared disasters and emergencies,'' including last year's record-setting hurricane season.
 
Posted by Mo (Member # 2863) on :
 
24 - you very rarely reply on issue -- much less substance, this is more than clear by your posts, which are mainly based in personal degredation of posters with differing opinions..by both direct and covert personal attack.

The reason I have not posted here in many weeks is in part because of that.

I posted here on the disaster in NO, and true to form you are immediately and actively back to the same..even in this thread, not speaking to the actual disaster nearly so much as to attack me any others with different concerns.
This disaster transcends politics, and petty attacks.

This kind of behavior is what also impedes right to post, discuss, question, discuss fears and other things openly here, because of the atmosphere created.

This is an enourmous tradgedy and is on everyone's mind, and I like many others have people involved down there.

You have no right to impose yourself in these discussions and in effect supress peoples thoughts and concerns.

Please stop infringing on discussion of a tradgedy of this magnitude with your personal attacks.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lou,

Yes, FEMA's lack of response is perplexing..
they also had been 'restructured' by the administration and therefore made less 'effective'..but Homeland Security was beefed up out of that, and even the restructuring does not explain what didn't/still hasn't happened. In addtion:

***snipped*****


What difference does a day or two make? In a disaster, it's the difference for the able-bodied between discomfort and desperation. For the sick and the old, it is the difference between life and death.

It is in this context that the world grows more horrified by the hour at the suffering and rising death toll in Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama. Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath will stand as the greatest calamity on U.S. soil since the Civil War. Like that most terrible of our wars, this modern devastation stems primarily from an abject failure of leadership.

Our nation failed its fellows in the Deep South. There is almost no overstating the scope of this failure:


On Friday, five days after the hurricane struck, fewer than 10,000 National Guard troops were active in a three-state region where 4 million people were without power ---- hundreds of thousands lacked food, shelter or fresh water.

At the New Orleans convention center, where 2,000 people were forced to live like animals without sanitation and at the mercy of rapists and armed thugs, eight dead bodies in a freezer became 20 as survivors watched officials drive by without stopping to help.

A few blocks away, looters were greeted as heroes, distributing the only food and water that stranded city residents had seen for days. Meanwhile, reporters and television crews moved into and out of the area freely, fueling the outrage of locals who wondered why police and relief workers couldn't reach them.

Just what ---- and who ---- went wrong will be analyzed and debated for years.

It is likely that Katrina's destruction was just too vast. Possibly no civil defense or disaster relief system could cope immediately with devastation that spanned hundreds of thousands of acres. Indeed, rescuers remain hindered by freeways turned to goat paths, miles of flooded streets and widespread civil disorder.

In addition, it is unfair to skewer officials who didn't see this coming. After all, that kind of blame begins with President Jefferson. Society must make choices and live with risk. Sometimes we bet wrong.

Similarly, we don't want to knock managers at the scene who make tactical mistakes. There are always errors when good folks wrestle unforeseen circumstances.

Still, our nation's security depends upon having leaders who adjust rapidly and make best efforts. On this point, the outrage building in the American people may be well placed.

On Sunday, with Katrina gathering strength in the Gulf of Mexico, President Bush extended his declaration of emergencies from Louisiana to Mississippi and Alabama. New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin ordered a mandatory evacuation of his city.

But then our leaders relaxed. After all, hurricanes are routine in the region.

By Tuesday, it was clear that millions of the poor, disabled or simply unwise didn't leave in time. Levees broke, leaving much of New Orleans under 8 to 20 feet of filthy floodwater. Tragically, our nation's leaders seem to have relied upon cable television instead of federal damage assessment experts ---- and news reporters left town for a day to escape the hurricane. Then the pictures rolled in.

On Tuesday night, President Bush could have gone on national television and declared a national emergency and imposition of martial law. Vacationers could have been ordered out of motels in 20 states; homeowners asked to make room for guests.

Nearby Army divisions should have mobilized, along with their herculean ability to supply food and shelter to forces in the field. National Guards from California to New York should have hit the freeways. Bottled water plants could have been ordered to increase production. Military planes should have dropped millions of bottles of life-sustaining water.

We could have done more. It was Thursday before local, state and federal leaders showed the sense of urgency that panic-stricken survivors had long surpassed.

This nation lost two days, and many of our neighbors are dead because of it.

[ 05. September 2005, 02:40 PM: Message edited by: Mo ]
 
Posted by 24bit-moderate (Member # 7841) on :
 
Fact: While you were gone, OT was calm, quiet and enjoyable. When you come back throwing around red meat again, it gets crazy like before. I think that speaks volumes.

Again, you post another attack on me and you won't talk about the subject matter. Me discussing your political beliefs and political tactics about political posts IS on topic. But coming after me personally isn't on topic. If you want to talk about my political beliefs, go ahead. I think you get the two confused and blur them together. Again, I'm waiting for substance Mo.
 
Posted by Mo (Member # 2863) on :
 
September 5, 2005

New Orleans Begins a Search for Its Dead; Toll Remains Unclear

By ROBERT D. McFADDEN

Troops patrolled the streets, rescuers hunted for stragglers and New Orleans looked like a wrecked ghost town yesterday as the evacuation of the city neared completion and the authorities turned to the grim task of collecting bodies in a ghastly landscape awash in numberless corpses.

In a city riven by violence for a week, there was yet another shootout yesterday. Contractors for the Army Corps of Engineers came under fire as they crossed a bridge to work on a levee, and police escorts shot back, killing three assailants outright and a fourth in a later gunfight, the police said, adding that a fifth suspect had been wounded and captured. There was no explanation for it, only the numbing facts.

The larger picture of death was just as murky. No one could say how many had died in the hurricane or were waiting to be rescued after the city's levees burst. One morgue at the St. Gabriel Prison near New Orleans was expecting 1,000 to 2,000 bodies. Hundreds were missing in nearby Chalmette. In Baton Rouge, state officials said the official Louisiana death toll stood at 59, but most said that thousands was a more realistic figure. More than 125 were known dead in Mississippi.

Seven days after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, the New Orleans known as America's vibrant capital of jazz and gala Mardi Gras celebrations was gone. In its place was a partly submerged city of abandoned homes and ruined businesses, of bodies in attics or floating in deserted streets, of misery that had driven most of its nearly 500,000 residents into a diaspora of biblical proportions.

As the effects of the crisis spread across the nation, 20 states have opened their shelters, homes and schools to the refugees. But moving the population of New Orleans to other parts of the country has created overcrowding and strains. In Texas, where nearly half the refugees are jamming stadiums, civic centers and hotels, Gov. Rick Perry said the state's capacity was almost exhausted. Thousands of people were also arriving at Fort Chaffee in Arkansas. In Baton Rouge, at two locations, hundreds of people, many carrying umbrellas to protect them from the scorching heat, were lined up for hours waiting public assistance. And there were no quick solutions. Making New Orleans habitable again was expected to take many months, even a year.

Meanwhile, there were holdouts in the city, unknown numbers of people who refused to go. They were being urged to leave for their own safety. Officials warned of an impossible future in a destroyed city without food, water, power or other necessities, only the specter of cholera, typhoid or mosquitoes carrying malaria or the West Nile virus.

As helicopter and boat crews searched flooded neighborhoods for survivors yesterday and officials focused for the first time on finding, collecting and counting the dead, Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, warned that Americans must brace for some gruesome sights in the days ahead.

"We need to prepare the country for what's coming," Mr. Chertoff said on the "Fox News Sunday" television program. "We are going to uncover people who died hiding in the houses, maybe got caught in the floods. It is going to be as ugly a scene as you can imagine."

Stung by critics who say that its sluggish response compounded the suffering and cost lives, the Bush administration rolled out a public relations offensive yesterday. Mr. Chertoff made the rounds of Sunday television talk shows to give status reports and defend the government's response.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld went to the stricken states yesterday to assess the damage and pledge relief, and President Bush planned another visit to New Orleans and Mississippi today. He flew over the area on Wednesday as he returned to Washington from an extended vacation at his Texas ranch, and made an inspection tour on Friday.

The administration's problems in the crisis seemed to crystallize in a dramatic appearance on the NBC program "Meet the Press" by Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish near New Orleans. Sobbing, he told of an emergency management official receiving phone calls from his mother, who, trapped in a nursing home, pleaded day after day for rescue. Assured by federal officials, the man promised her repeatedly that help was on the way.

"Every day she called him and said, "Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?' " Mr. Broussard said. "And he said, 'Yeah, Mama, somebody's coming to get you.' Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody's coming to get you on Friday. And she drowned Friday night. She drowned Friday night."

Mr. Broussard angrily denounced the country's leadership. "We have been abandoned by our own country," he said. "It's not just Katrina that caused all these deaths in New Orleans here. Bureaucracy has committed murder here in the greater New Orleans area, and bureaucracy has to stand trial before Congress now."

Congress, returning from a summer recess, is widely expected to undertake investigations into the causes of and reaction to the crisis, and even some Republicans warned that the government's response, widely viewed as slow and ineffectual, could further undermine Mr. Bush's authority at a time when he is lagging in the polls, endangering his Congressional agenda.

In New Orleans, thousands of National Guard and active duty troops as well as federal marshals finally appeared to be in control of streets where looters and hooligans had run wild for days last week, unchecked by overwhelmed police officers who were focused on saving lives, not property, in the chaotic city. Fires had burned unchecked by overwhelmed firefighters.

The events of the past week put enormous pressure on many police officers and firefighters, pressure some could not withstand. P. Edwin Compass III, the New Orleans police superintendent, said on Saturday that 200 of the 1,500 members of his force had walked off the job in frustration and that two others had committed suicide. He said yesterday that the city had offered to send all members of the police and fire departments and their families on weeklong vacations to Las Vegas.

"When you go through something this devastating and traumatic, you've got to do something dramatic to jump-start the healing process," Mr. Compass said.

The notion of a vacation in the midst of disaster struck some as unusual. But officials compared it to an R&R break for combat troops. Military reinforcements, who arrived in the thousands over the weekend, will take over the search and rescue work temporarily, though New Orleans officials said they would remain in charge.

"We haven't turned over control of the city," said Col. Terry Ebbert, director of homeland security for New Orleans. "We're going to leave a skeleton force - about 20 percent of the department - for leadership and liaison with the troops while we get some rest."

During the buildup of troops in recent days, federal, state and local officials have given often wildly disparate figures for military personnel on the ground or on the way. Mr. Bush on Saturday said there were more than 21,000 National Guard troops in Louisiana and Mississippi and 4,000 active duty forces to assist them. He ordered 7,000 more troops into New Orleans.

Col. Ebbert put the number in the city at 1,000. Yesterday, Brig. Gen. Michael P. Fleming of the National Guard in Baton Rouge said there were 16,000 guardsmen in Louisiana.

The deployment of the troops, whatever their numbers, the arrival of tons of food and other supplies, and progress in closing the breached levees added to a sense of momentum in the stricken city over the weekend. So did stepped-up evacuation efforts. The Louisiana Superdome and the New Orleans convention center, which had become fetid and dangerous refuges for as many as 50,000, were virtually emptied. Hotels, hospitals and other shelters were also evacuated.

The identification of bodies may be more daunting than their recovery. Officials said photographs, fingerprints and dental X-rays would be used. Many of the bodies will be waterlogged and visual identification would probably be impossible.

New Orleans remained a city in crisis. There was still no power except that provided by generators, almost nowhere to buy food or water, no reliable transportation or communications systems, no effective firefighting forces. At night, the city was dark except for a few lights dotting office buildings and hotel towers, though spotlights illuminated a big American flag atop one building.

There were thousands of people awaiting flights out at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, where officials turned a terminal into a triage unit. Officials said 3,000 to 5,000 people had been treated at the unit, and that only 200 remained. The airport director, Roy Williams, said 30 people had died, some of them elderly.

Other problems developed. Even as the city population dwindled, hundreds of new arrivals were reported to be entering from outlying towns, stragglers who had been unable to escape from their hometowns in the past week and who believed their surest way out could be found with the buses, trains and planes evacuating New Orleans.

There was no way to tell how many New Orleans residents remained in the city. Many were believed hiding in homes or apartments. Rescue teams in helicopters searched flooded neighborhoods and went out in boats and on foot to press a house-to-house search for holdouts yesterday. One rescue helicopter crashed, but no one was injured. Many residents were found and evacuated, but what Mr. Chertoff called a significant number refused to go.

"That is not a reasonable alternative," he said on "Fox News Sunday." "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 the city."

People like Frank Asevado III, a 37-year-old mechanic, and Travis Latapie, 44, a shrimp fisherman, both from St. Bernard Parish, east of New Orleans, complained bitterly in interviews of being abandoned by the government after the waters engulfed their community. They told of using their boats for several days to save 300 friends and neighbors, plucking them from floodwaters and the roofs of homes and cars.

"We never see no Coast Guard, no nothing," Mr. Latapie said.

Mr. Asevado added, "The government didn't do jack."

Aid from around the country continued to move toward the stricken region. New York City, which dispatched 100 city buses and 172 police officers to New Orleans on Saturday, decided yesterday to send another 150 officers and 300 firefighters today. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg noted that Louisiana had been among the many states that helped New York after Sept. 11. "We understand that we have an obligation, and we're happy to do it," the mayor said.

In the midst of misery in New Orleans, there were lingering signs of a fading vivacity. About two dozen people gathered in the French Quarter for an annual Labor Day gay celebration, the Decadence Parade. Matt Menold, 23, a street musician wearing a sombrero and a guitar, explained: "It's New Orleans, man. We're going to celebrate."

But the tragedy of New Orleans was more vividly represented in the Garden District, a business area dotted with antique shops. At the corner of Jackson Avenue and Magazine Street, a woman's body had been on the sidewalk since Wednesday. People had covered her with blankets and plastic, and by yesterday a small wall of bricks had been erected around the corpse to hold down a tarpaulin to cloak her.

On it, someone had spray-painted a cross and an epitaph: "Here lies Vera. God help us."

Reporting for this article was contributed by Jeremy Alford, Sewell Chan and Michael Luo from Baton Rouge, La., and John DeSantis, Christopher Drew and Joseph B. Treaster from New Orleans.
 
Posted by GEDEN13 (Member # 4151) on :
 
nice to see to "ol' gang" back.you guy's will never change your veiw's.entertaining,but it's just the same ol' stuff.

the issue get's left behind,and personal disagreement's get in the mix..come on guy's ,just admit it,nobody here want's to be wrong and have egg on there face...

stick with the issue.good morning , gary

p.s. and your veiw's,are all formed ,by "your"money statis.some of you should get down in the dirt with me.then you would see how my veiw's are formed.....
 
Posted by David95928 (Member # 3521) on :
 
Mo,
Based on spirit you are demonstrating, trust that you and your family are significantly recovering from the scourge of Lyme disease. I certainly hope so.
David
 
Posted by Mo (Member # 2863) on :
 
Thanks David..
the same goes to you!

We're plugging along.....

Another account on NO:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lethal chaos: Professor describes scene at New Orleans hospital

Jennifer Van Bergen


A first-hand account of the New Orleans devastation from leading human rights attorney
Loyola University law professor Bill Quigley, best known for his work with Haitian pro-democracy activist Father Jean-Juste, spent some time speaking to Raw Story's Jennifer Van Bergen about his experience inside New Orleans's ground zero.

When the category-four Hurricane Katrina made landfall early last week, Bill Quigley was volunteering at Memorial Hospital, at the heart of what would be later described as the worst-hit area. His wife Debbie, a medical doctor at Memorial, was on duty that night.


Speaking to RAW STORY, a shaken Quigley attempted to reconstruct what occurred after the power and communication lines went down. The hospital, he says, became intolerably hot.

``The conditions were abysmal,'' Quigley said. ``Worse than abysmal. The toilets were full. There was no running water, no electricity, and we were running out of drinking water. There was no food. And it was hotter than hell.''

The power went out early Monday. The sickest patients, roughly seventy or so, were evacuated by helicopter Sunday. Not until Wednesday morning did more helicopters appear. Quigley and other volunteers tried to get the attention of the numerous helicopters they could see hovering over the city. The sickest patients were brought up eight flights of stairs in sheet slings to the roof. Some patients were kept on the roof as long as 24 hours.

``We were standing there waving a sheet to get their attention,'' he said.

Quigley says they saw helicopters from the Red Cross, the National Guard, the Coast Guard and the Army. One Army helicopter, which the volunteers on the roof managed to ``flag down'' wouldn't land and refused to take anyone, even those remaining critically ill patients, because ``they were full with rescue workers and could only pick up individuals one at a time off of roofs, which they stated they had been doing all day.''

Instead, Quigley says the Army helicopter dropped some food supplies that turned out to be just three or four boxes with tin cans of Vienna sausages.

These were not enough to feed the patients, let alone the staff or volunteers. Food and water supplies were dwindling.

After that the helicopters never returned to Memorial Hospital.

``We couldn't figure out why they didn't come back,'' Bill said.

Tulane University Hospital had been evacuated, Quigley heard, but those at Memorial ``were left to die or get out as best they could.''

At least ten patients died while awaiting rescue workers. Many died because their life-sustaining medical treatment required electricity.

``These were patients with oxygen tanks, on ventilators, and with IVs,'' he explained.

``The nurses were heroic, the doctors did terrific work, and the administration, well, they didn't know what to do,'' Bill recounted, because ``they were relying on information that didn't come.''

One road to another

As the hours and days wore on and no help came, floodwaters continued to rise. Medication and supplies ran out. Quigley says he saw no National Guard, local or state police or security forces of any kind.

Around midday on Thursday, air boats operated by private volunteers began arriving and taking four or five persons at a time. The remaining hospital patients and staff - approximately 2000 people -- were evacuated by citizen volunteers.

``They made a LOT of trips, those boats,'' he said.

The volunteers, however, could take the victims only so far because the water became too shallow for the boats. The hospital staff, along with volunteers, walked through the muddy water to the corner of Napoleon and St. Charles.

Quigley describes the shocking spectacle hundreds of mostly black survivors, gathered at this location, awaiting their next hope. A constant stream of people kept arriving, as though ``up out of nowhere.'' He describes an elderly man with a satchel and cane, and a man with a nine-day-old baby. People were milling about, having lost everything, in the rain, wet, cold, hungry and thirsty.

An old lawn company truck ``maybe thirty years old with wooden slats,'' pulled up and allowed roughly 100 people to board. The truck was an open flatbed, and it was still pouring rain. Quigley sat beside a pregnant woman who had only thirty dollars and a bottle of antibiotics with her. She said she had been turned away from the Superdome twice.

``It was a scary ride,'' he remarked. ``We had to duck trees and power lines.''

When they got to the drop point, Bill said, ``everyone gasped'' because it was just an underpass at Interstate 10, where thousands of people were already waiting for buses. ``It was pouring rain; there was mud, no portalets.''

The only security there were eight police officers who were ``shell shocked'' themselves, according to Bill, and did little to organize people, so that when a bus did arrive, ``people surged.''

``It was survival of the fittest,'' said Quigley, ``people were really agitated. It was horrifying. People were shouting and pushing. My heart was breaking all along because of the lack of organization. There were resources, but they were not used well.''

Finally, Bill and his wife decided to give up trying to get on a bus, hoping instead to volunteer to help those in need of medical attention or simply just start walking toward Baton Rouge. They noticed several people with stethoscopes around their necks who turned out to be nurses, one of whom was about to drive to Lafayette, which happened to be near where Bill's wife's family resides.

Thus, the Quigleys managed to escape New Orleans Thursday night. They were among the last to be evacuated from Memorial Hospital, but there were thousands left behind at the drop point, waiting to be transported ... somewhere. By the time the Quigley's got out of New Orleans, Bill says the city had become a ``Third World mass unit.''

Questions, questions and no answers

Bill, tired and still dazed, wonders what happened.

``Why were the Red Cross, Coast Guard, National Guard and Army helicopters there one day and gone the next?'' he opined. ``Who changed priorities?''

He estimates that there were a quarter million people still in the city through Wednesday. By Thursday, he estimated ``50,000, or maybe double that.'' People from the poor neighborhoods didn't want to go to the Superdome. They tried to stay home because, Bill said, they knew the Superdome was ``dangerous and nasty.''

Bill says that now, up in the Lafayette area; there are 15 police officers at each shelter. ``They all talk about the looting, but 99 percent of the people weren't looting.''

He asserted that there had been no plan for evacuation. ``

The plan was self-evacuation," he quipped. "A very small percentage stayed by choice but most had no choice.''

He's heard that people showing up with boats were turned away. He knows there were supplies, he saw the helicopters carrying them, but he doesn't know why the supplies were not provided to those who needed them. He says that ``everybody was systematically stripped of their possessions.'' He left the hospital with one quarter of what he had brought with him and people were told they couldn't bring stuff with them. He says ``I just feel fortunate to be alive.''

When RAW STORY first spoke to him earlier in the day, he said he was ``decompressing and disoriented.''

``I can't watch television,'' he said.

Traumatized, Bill nonetheless wanted to underscore that he felt that what has transpired so far, ``getting out -- is not even the first quarter of the game.''

``There are hundreds of thousands of people without homes, without jobs, and without any way to connect," he remarked. "There are people just GONE.''

He says the image he gets in his mind is of a glass paperweight and a 50 pound mallet that just smashed it. ``How do you fix this?''

If there is any silver lining, Bill, ever-hopeful, ever-socially conscious, says, it is that there is nobody to bomb in response.

``There is no enemy to blame,'' he says. New Orleans was one of the poorest cities, but it is not the only one. ``Maybe now,'' he hopes, ``there can be a renewed national commitment to rebuilding the cities.''
 
Posted by LabRat (Member # 78) on :
 
Just a couple of points that may be of interest. 9-11 covered a couple of city blocks, this storm covered an area the size of Idaho, give or take a couple of counties. First responders were located in the path of the storm, they had to take care of themselves and their families first. In hindsight, more could have and would have left in time. In aviation we have a saying among pilots, ``I'd rather be lucky than good any day''! New Orleans luck ran out. When the levee let go, it was all over cept for the crying, finger pointing and Jessie Jackson speaking for his poor downtrodden brethren,(and Mo) to blame Bush for some indecent something or other.

I suspect and hope that something worthwhile will come out of this, like a little guy somewhere with a clipboard taking notes. OK leme see, we need more of doze, some extra of dem, and more of dat! Regional centers stocked to the rafters, already loaded on C-130 pallets, just slide em in and your good to go!

You really don't have to be very smart to figure all this out. The Army can do this in their sleep. They have more planes than the Air Force, more boats than the Navy and more people over the hill than the Coast Guard has in their ranks!

I say this because, the next emergency might not be a simple storm.
 
Posted by 24bit-moderate (Member # 7841) on :
 
Mo, I'd like you to explain this one. Are you aware that to this very day, yes to this very day, LA Governor Blanco has refused to sign over control of the National Guard to the federal government and has turned to a Clinton administration official, former Federal Emergency Management Agency chief James Lee Witt, to help run relief efforts???? Are you aware of that? I would like you to explain that one! No sorry, making things up doesn't count. [Smile]

I would also like to know why the state/local folks didn't bus the poor people out before the storm? They had the resources to easily do it. Could you answer that one please?

I would like to know why three of the four pumps weren't working before the storm hit? The mayor thought they were, but it turns out they weren't. Could you explain that please.

I'm still waiting for an answer as to why 7,500 of the LA state police and LA state national Guard weren't staged outside the hard hit areas and sent in when the storm passed. Can you please explain that too?

Can you explain to me why the city chose to recently fund other major projects such as a major new casino project rather than upgrade the levy's? Can you explain that please?

Can you explain why the New Orleans Emergency Storm Plan has no scenario in which the levee's break and the city floods??? I guess a plan like that would be too hard to figure out, so I guess they figured on crossing their fingers. Can you explain that please??

I've got many more but I'll let you get started with these. [Smile]

[ 06. September 2005, 02:27 AM: Message edited by: 24bit-moderate ]
 
Posted by Caryn (Member # 366) on :
 
we need a message icon with sunglasses and a non-descript expression.

i'm too tired to read all of these posts. and too overwhelmed by what is going on. for all of us.

why, if the "expensive" updates to the seawall were vetoed, why, why, why? didn't they have a better evacuation plan in effect in case of the worse...and in evitable (sp?).???
 
Posted by Softballmom (Member # 6235) on :
 
This article was written Dec, 2000.

The Lost City of New Orleans?
Risk & Insurance, Dec, 2000 by Lori Widmer

Louisiana's marshlands, the only buffer for hurricanes that come out of the Gulf, are slipping into the ocean at an alarming rate. New search indicates that just one major hurricane could put New Orleans under water.

The Big Easy is in big trouble. New Orleans is sinking. And fast. But what's the big deal? Local businesses and residents have heard it all before. They've built levees to control the raging Mississippi. They've developed pumping systems to deal with rain and flooding. They've dug canals to move the water out of the city. And still they survive, wearing the battle scars earned from each hurricane and each flood as badges of honor.

New research by the U.S. Geological Survey, however, indicates that New Orleans is sinking faster than many realize and could be under water within 50 years. The city is facing a series of issues--disappearing wetlands that protect from hurricanes, levees that are too low to hold back flood waters, rising water tables, to name a few--that if not addressed soon could have New Orleans suffering the same fate as Atlantis.

Dramatic, yes. But not unlikely, according to Shea Penland, geologist and professor at the University of New Orleans. "When we get the big hurricane and there are 10,000 people dead, the city government's been relocated to the north shore of Lake Ponchartrain, refugee camps have been set up and there $10 billion plus in losses, what then?" he asks.
_________________________________________________

This has been known for ages. Notice the so near coparison predicted by the geologist in the last paragraph. Known fact that New Orleans has forked out millions to beef up tourism but not put main focus on protecting their citizens.

How is this the Fed. Govenments fault?

Uhoh he used the refugee word and it hadn't even happened yet!!!
 
Posted by LabRat (Member # 78) on :
 
Yeah, that song really grabs me, (if you catch my drift).
 
Posted by Caryn (Member # 366) on :
 
" no body taught her that it takes a lot of water to wash away New Orleans" Levon Helms with the All Stars.
 
Posted by Corinne E (Member # 4670) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Softballmom:
quote:
Originally posted by Mo:


Hospitals lacking drugs and power were in a desperate fight to save critically ill patients

You made an interesting point here. Now Lets look deeper. The local and state Government new that a catagory 5 hurricane was coming their way and they didn't even bother to evacuate their hospitals and nursing homes. People that had no choice but to stay so you really think that they did all they could to evacuate the poor? A serious local and state breakdown yet the blame is put on the federal government.

Yes I think that what is happening there is shamefull but turning this into a racial cituation is going to set the US back 30 years.

I have been at poverty level. Would I have stayed? Heck no. If I had to pat and charlied it out of there I would have. Yes some were unable to leave due to health reasons but most stayed because they didn't believe the warnings.

Had it happened in Conneticut and the Local and state Government handled it the same way you would have the same problem.

Gary,

You said Florida did not have to wait. I am sure that if you talk to some of those folks they had plenty of complaints and also Red Cross and the Sal Army could go in quicker because it was more accesable and two you can't sent volunteers into a place where people are running around with guns not to minchen the fack that alot of volunteers would not go. For goodness sake, police officers turned in there badges because they were afraid for there lives.

If you can't see the local and state breakdown and blame this all on the federal government you are blind.

They knew the risks of the levies breeching yet they put thousands upon thousands of people in a Dome that could have been flooded.

If there own state and local Government could not foresee this huge tradgedy do you believe the federal Government did?

You people actually believe the president was sitting there watching this on TV and said "Oh, lets give it a few days and see if how things go?"

Really, those preperations were being made from day one. Pull them together, load, truck them in, Clear roadways, this takes time.

Tell me. These people that were too poor to leave, where were the buses to help them then? Was that the federal Governments job too? It is so easy to rely on and blame the federal Government. This is America.

Hurricane Floyd flooded my town and surrounding areas, not anywhere in coparison to this but our local government was more prepared even though the treat was not as great.

Was racism brought up at that time? Yes! and who was President? Hum?

Small black comunity wiped out when a levie broke.

As long as we make racism an issue in this country it will continue to be an issue.

I watched a documentmentary months ago on New Orleans. It stated how a hurricane could wipe them out yet state and local Government blindfolded themselves and hoped for the best. What preperations did they have in place for if and when this occured. Not much.

Like most Americans we sit and waid for the federal government to take care of them and then complain when it's not done right. America needs get off there blessed assurances and start taking care of themselves.

The fact here is state and local had a serious breakdown and the federal Government is now bailing them out and taking all the blame because it didn't happen quick enouph.

I say Shame on the mayor, shame on the Govenor (of past and present) and shame on the people of the United States that don't recognise it.

 
Posted by Corinne E (Member # 4670) on :
 
Hi, long time no see, that's right am having problems big time seeing, but I can still see... right from wrong.

Have been reading when I can and that has not been very often. Just had to reply today though.

I have friends who live in New Orleans and have for a very long time. Received emails today and what I read from them is very different from what the media reports.

It is much much worse.

As for racism, someone said something about setting back problems 30 years - how about 50 years or more. Not much has changed in the last 50 years, it is now even worse, just more covert. The education system for the blacks, minorities and poor is a disgrace. The health and medical system - ditto.

Oh, I know 24bit, you will right in to add your 2 bits, and that is all it is. If you are so smart, why aren't you the pres? or work in some high republican place? I think you do work for ol dubya though.

Life seems pretty good for you.

Corinne
 
Posted by 24bit-moderate (Member # 7841) on :
 
I'm sorry you're having problems physically, that really sucks. But does it have to make you so grumpy that you have to act like a kid? Geez, you don't know anything about me....nothing, and you're so damn judgmental about things you don't know anything about.

Setting racism back? LOL, I hear that many of the black folks that went to Texas were treated so well there by white folks that they want to stay and live there. I heard a story about a black guy that had always been suspicious of white people, but a van of white people picked him up in N.O. and gave him a ride to the Astrodome, and he said it was a life changing experience in terms of his view of whites.

Look, the local government blew it huge, and these are the people that represent the poor blacks. The black mayor failed to use the busses to get them out before the storm. So if you want to look at it racially, the poeple were let down much more by their state and local officials. FEMA screwed up and was 24 hours late, and was inefficient until the US military got involved, but it pales in conparison with the failed local emergency plan which was supposed to protect them. It's no wonder so many of them don't want to come back.

So the evidence is actually very strong that the poor black folks feel that the state let them down badly, and so did the Feds. But they realize that the only help they got was when the feds finally came. Where was the state? The state sucks, so many don't want to go back and I can't blame them.
 
Posted by 24bit-moderate (Member # 7841) on :
 
Hey Mo, I'm still waiting for you to answer my questions.
 
Posted by Lymester (Member # 5848) on :
 
24-bit,

talk about responding like a kid? Whenever I saw you post something, I thought you were Chuck's girlfriend.

You've proven me correct.

Thanks for answering my question
 
Posted by troutscout (Member # 3121) on :
 
the Governour Apologizes for not respomding quicker.....the Mayor then Apologizes himself, after that the President.

The local jurisdictions are responsible for calling UP the chain of command.

What about those school buses?

The National Guard is controlled by the GOVERNOUR of that state...not the Fed's. Yes..the Feds pay 90% of the Nat'l Guard costs...but they leave local emergency 'activations' up to the Governour.

The federal gov't SHOULD have pushed the locals to sk for help faster...that's where the Fed's went wrong. I have been involved in both the State call up of troops and the federal...in order to properly mobilize a group of supporting soldiers/airmen/sailors in the massive size needed for such things as this takes at LEAST 36 hours...they have to set up supply lines...and find out WHERE they will get the supplies.

It is a complete waste of time for a large force to just drive and fly into an area without proper staging for communications, refueling and housing of troops, medical facilities, chow halls and support personnel as they would become inneffective in their mission in 36 to 72 hours without proper support.

In natural disasters..the local response is what guages all other responses. It is simply up to them to know what THEY need for support...not what the others are waiting to do. This allows for autonomy in local vs state vs federal activities...basic stuff.

That said....yes the feds (troops) should have gotten there about 12 to 24 hours sooner.

However, FEMA should have been there within 12 to 24 hours. And point blank they screwed up. However under the new set up of homeland security this was our first 'real world' scenario and....everyone involved did NOT work up to expectations.

However....the first request...for help...should have been the Mayor..the Governour, then President.

The Mayor Dropped the ball.aand he admits it.

trout [Wink]
 
Posted by troutscout (Member # 3121) on :
 
I also forgot to mention that the local and state authorities were giving out reports right after the storm and BEFORE the levies broke...that they were fine and that the damage was minimal.

That by itself caused ALOT of the delays...ALOT>

Trout [Wink]
 
Posted by 24bit-moderate (Member # 7841) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Lymester:
24-bit,

talk about responding like a kid? Whenever I saw you post something, I thought you were Chuck's girlfriend.

You've proven me correct.

Thanks for answering my question
I'm still waiting for substance Lymester. Little kiddie put-downs isn't going to further your point of view. Substance please. [Smile]
 
Posted by Mo (Member # 2863) on :
 
This was a complete system failure..
there were things the state and local government oficials could have done better..

some are mentioned here and are real, some are just attacks based on Repubs pointing at Dems (!)..

(not you Trout)

But to what you raise..
yes, the mayor and the governor both made mistakes..it seems from some of the info..

However the chain of command must be looked at..
proportionally
and the profound inadequacy falls at the federal levels..based on their proportional responsibility and power.

Plus they weren't the ones grappling on the ground..in the middle of it and with limited resources by direct contact --
they have the power to MOVE stuff and people much faster and BIGGER ways.
I agree to an extent with some of what you day, but feel the response was inadeqyate from Feds in the initial 48-72 haours..and even then continuing through the weekend at least.
Did they not have enough troops?? We have to know if that's true.

Civillian and govt deployed rescuers say NO WAY.


To all,

The mayor was indeed a Democrat..and moreover he was a new Mayor, and in human context he loved his city with allot of raw spirit and did what he could in the moment.
Did he make mistakes? probably...

...and then there are the Feds ..removed and dry and are the ones who ARE designated in massive emergency action and massively funded -- with access to incredibly much more power, resources, ordering ability..

And we must acknowledge that that is WHY they are there...
in fact the last race was won on the assertion that THEY could keep us safer.

It is not political 'finger pointing' to hold Federal response accountable in a disaster like this! Nor should all concerns be silenced merely by that false accusation!
It is our right to expect this of our American, elected, appointed government.
It is their job

Now we already see there was info, precautions that were denied, info from many on the levees and the wetlands for many years (SBM they knew this for many years, even pre-Bush, and this admin was appeled to and denied the funding to repair, protect)..

there was briefing to the Feds by the Hurricane Center before the storm hit that the levvees could be over-topped...yet they are saying it was a surprise..
the list is long.

Then there was the response once all was known.
Once all was known...the blame on the state drops -- the federal response must envelope the sitiation from that moment on, regardless if the local shortfalls, and they have (HAD) that power...and where were the forces????, as well as the blaming the victims for staying..it's iver then..., and in fact many of them had no choice..

THAT is THEIR job, and I say this out of fear only --- they could not do their job and we ned to look at why.

to respond in the event of a disaster of this magnitude..

and there is a REASON for that..that it is their job..
because it takes that kind of magnitude with which to respond in this kind of crisis.

This failure was admitted to an extent already...

At the moment, based on the inadequate response by Feds alone, we are not prepared or safe from a terrorist attack..nuclear, biological.. or another natural disaster.

This thread, only by those inisting blame of only opposite political parties, of accusing posters as being politically motivated
when most of us are at this time REACTING to a HUMAN tradgedy..
not party finger pointing..
are demonstrating a good part of American demise.
This must change. The hatred for differing concerns. Issues rise and are clear as the much greater concern, there should be no place for that now. We can't let that squash human concern anymore.
This nasty, childish, abusive bull above exemplified by 24 (and others in the media, actually) should be kicked to the curb.
It's killing us.

.. something that just may be a ray of hope to come out of this down the line..for the rest of us..

I hope that all Americans will actually start listening, really listening to eachother and looking.

That human interest prevails above political, religious or any other.

We suffer as a nation because it's way too much about %&%$%#@ Red and Blue.

For God's sake.

Thousands upon thousands upon thousands are dead.

We must fix this, we must work together..
we must fix allot of other things, too.

Drop the pride, put down the fingers and listen.


Mo

[ 07. September 2005, 12:39 AM: Message edited by: Mo ]
 
Posted by troutscout (Member # 3121) on :
 
Mo,

reread my post...the locals have the up to date intel on response...they are on the ground and are REQUIRED to call up the chain for help.

That is, and has always been the format used in these scenario's.

Remember...the locals were the ones that originally called off the feds....saying there was light damage.

FEMA was slow...not the Military however...they moved rather quickly.

Heck....I know you aren't respomding to me her about the politics..but...I am commenting based on my years of training and in the trenches work with this kind of stuff.


You must remeber that we as a free country and not a "federal' statehood must always show that we respect the wishes of the most local jurisdiction when responding to these things.

It worked in the past...until FEMA and Homeland Security got screwed up...that is where the big problem lies here.


Trout [Wink]


Now.....there is NO more weight to how the feds responded vs the locals...as they respond to the locals. I have worked in scenarios such as this...it works best...in the majority of cases..when handled this way. At least...it has in the past.
 
Posted by GEDEN13 (Member # 4151) on :
 
"my daddy can beat your daddy". , gary
 
Posted by treepatrol (Member # 4117) on :
 
I think now at this time in the operations its better to help than to blame at this time. The refugees need help concentrate on helping.
Plenty of time later for blame game.
Organize a food and water drive in your home town or give to a charity that will get the help there now.
 
Posted by Softballmom (Member # 6235) on :
 
Tree, you used the "R" word. [Smile]

Gary, your a nut. [Big Grin]
 
Posted by David95928 (Member # 3521) on :
 
What seems to be a point of fact is that the governor made a written request of the Feds the day before the storm hit. A copy is on Raw Page.
 
Posted by Mo (Member # 2863) on :
 
Hey Treeeeeee..

I agree to an extent but think we (the nation) really have to do both..

after 911 investigations were fought by the govt for a long time..
under the guise of 'lets move forward'..
so I think we have to move forward, however the issues are too enourmous to ignore and have anything like this happen again.

Aide to the victims we all must do what we can.

But the fact our govt is responsible for thousands of deaths and how they were responsible and failed has to be faced.

Troutster..
I wasn't talking about the military themselves..they are doing an amazing job, I was talking about the powers that be able to move them.

A major missing piece was response time and number of troops deployed.

After a certain point, it moved into Federal disaster catagory. I'm sure if a bomb hits..
and the officials know -- they aren't going to wait for someone local to give a call?
I hope not!
and in this case they had advance and real time notice on ALL of this.

The White house had every reason to declare NATIONAL disaster and Marshall Law as well.
God knows we needed that too.

Mo
 
Posted by 24bit-moderate (Member # 7841) on :
 
Mo, you don't understand constitutional law regarding states power. Only if a state is in almost literal revolution can the president overide the state governor and come in. It's not a Fed situation until the governor formally declares/requests it. She STILL has not federalized the national guard....she still has control of any national guard that are in that state. Amazing.
 
Posted by Softballmom (Member # 6235) on :
 
The same thing happened in Dade County after Andrew. Bush was blamed for late responce, however the help was not requested. Bush Blasted for folowing policy. He was also blasted by the very person that was to make the request.

What do we have policy for if we are not gonna use it. Also if this policy is hurting our country why not look to change it.

More troops were not requested by Blanco until Wed..Missisippi also devestated with phones down. got their requests in for more guard troops a day before Blanco did.

Yes we had problems all around but where would New Orleans be today had their local and state government managed this better from the beginning.

As far as government funding for the levees, you can't tell me that there was no state and local money to beef them up. While they were waiting for money they could have done something but the bottom line is they spent the money elsewhere.

We had an old bridge fall after the flood killing a wamon who was crossing it at the time.

Is is the Fed. Governments job to secure our local bridges or state funding? Those levee's are a part of that state just like our highways and bridges.

Don't tell me that state does not have a levie fund. As much money they have coming into that place with casinos and tourism don't tell me that they counldn't have done anything prior to this because federal funding was not available. I don't believe it.
 
Posted by Mo (Member # 2863) on :
 
It is not politicizing for citizens, on BOTH 'sides' politically, to be holding the givernemt ACCOUNTABLE for it's part and it's failures.

And, yes, it was a system brake-down..
and there are finger pointers..

however

The majority of the public and some of the media are focusing on the disaster, and inadequate responses / government failures that caused thousands and thousands of deaths beyond the actual hurricane.

It is politicizing to excuse the government and not even look at that, and surprise, surprise.. at who is. Here and everywhere.

This is not an election, this is a matter of National Security and safety, and their responsibilities are what they are.

In my opinion any adament Bush administration supporters who have chosen not to look at certain elements of the War were also politicizing at the nations great detriment in this regard..
and any that continue to do it regarding this disater need to really get introspective about human values, and why they choose to avoid looking at certain things.

Republicans in Congress and all over are shifting to view this admin as administrators, and no longer giving carte blanche because they are their 'party leaders'.

That's what's needed now. How many have to die before more people will become objective about effective 'leadership'?

Broadcast on MSNBC:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The 'City' Of Louisiana
By Keith Olbermann
MSNBC
9-7-5

SECAUCUS - Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff said it all, starting his news briefing Saturday afternoon: "Louisiana is a city that is largely underwater..."
Well there's your problem right there.

If ever a slip-of-the-tongue defined a government's response to a crisis, this was it.
The seeming definition of our time and our leaders had been their insistence on slashing federal budgets for projects that might've saved New Orleans. The seeming characterization of our government that it was on vacation when the city was lost, and could barely tear itself away from commemorating V.J. Day and watching Monty Python's Flying Circus, to at least pretend to get back to work. The seeming identification of these hapless bureaucrats: their pathetic use of the future tense in terms of relief they could've brought last Monday and Tuesday - like the President, whose statements have looked like they're being transmitted to us by some kind of four-day tape-delay.

But no. The incompetence and the ludicrous prioritization will forever be symbolized by one gaffe by of the head of what is ironically called "The Department of Homeland Security": "Louisiana is a city"

Politician after politician - Republican and Democrat alike - has paraded before us, unwilling or unable to shut off the "I-Me" switch in their heads, condescendingly telling us about how moved they were or how devastated they were - congenitally incapable of telling the difference between the destruction of a city and the opening of a supermarket.

And as that sorry recital of self-absorption dragged on, I have resisted editorial comment. The focus needed to be on the efforts to save the stranded - even the internet's meager powers were correctly devoted to telling the stories of the twin disasters, natural... and government-made.

But now, at least, it is has stopped getting exponentially worse in Mississippi and Alabama and New Orleans and Louisiana (the state, not the city). And, having given our leaders what we know now is the week or so they need to get their act together, that period of editorial silence I mentioned, should come to an end.

No one is suggesting that mayors or governors in the afflicted areas, nor the federal government, should be able to stop hurricanes. 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.

But, nationally, these are leaders who won re-election last year largely by portraying their opponents as incapable of keeping the country safe. These are leaders who regularly pressure the news media in this country to report the reopening of a school or a power station in Iraq, and defies its citizens not to stand up and cheer. Yet they couldn't even keep one school or power station from being devastated by infrastructure collapse in New Orleans - even though the government had heard all the "chatter" from the scientists and city planners and hurricane centers and some group whose purposes the government couldn't quite discern... a group called The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

And most chillingly of all, this is the Law and Order and Terror government. It promised protection - or at least amelioration - against all threats: conventional, radiological, or biological.

It has just proved that it cannot save its citizens from a biological weapon called standing water.

Mr. Bush has now twice insisted that, "we are not satisfied," with the response to the manifold tragedies along the Gulf Coast. I wonder which "we" he thinks he's speaking for on this point. Perhaps it's the administration, although we still don't know where some of them are. Anybody seen the Vice President lately? The man whose message this time last year was, 'I'll Protect You, The Other Guy Will Let You Die'?

I don't know which 'we' Mr. Bush meant.

For many of this country's citizens, the mantra has been - as we were taught in Social Studies it should always be - whether or not I voted for this President - he is still my President. I suspect anybody who had to give him that benefit of the doubt stopped doing so last week. I suspect a lot of his supporters, looking ahead to '08, are wondering how they can distance themselves from the two words which will define his government - our government - "New Orleans."

For him, it is a shame - in all senses of the word. A few changes of pronouns in there, and he might not have looked so much like a 21st Century Marie Antoinette. All that was needed was just a quick "I'm not satisfied with my government's response." Instead of hiding behind phrases like "no one could have foreseen," had he only remembered Winston Churchill's quote from the 1930's. "The responsibility," of government, Churchill told the British Parliament "for the public safety is absolute and requires no mandate. It is in fact, the prime object for which governments come into existence."

In forgetting that, the current administration did not merely damage itself - it damaged our confidence in our ability to rely on whoever is in the White House.

As we emphasized to you here all last week, the realities of the region are such that New Orleans is going to be largely uninhabitable for a lot longer than anybody is yet willing to recognize. Lord knows when the last body will be found, or the last artifact of the levee break, dug up. Could be next March. Could be 2100. By then, in the muck and toxic mire of New Orleans, they may even find our government's credibility.

Somewhere, in the City of Louisiana.


Comment
Bob Barnes
[email protected]
9-7-5

Mr. Olbermann...

I want to congratulate you on your Monday night editorial "The 'City' of Louisiana." I believe it is the finest broadcast editorial I've heard in my 59 years in radio & TV, in a league with Murrow and Severeid, and certainly deserving of a Peabody. I felt the same astonished pride I felt listening to Ed Murrow bury the McCarthy witch hunters in the hard clay of reason and sensibility some 40 years ago.

I also commend you for announcing in advance that it was an editorial--too many today present their opinions as "news" based solely on being in a position to do so.

The build-up to the message (I also commend Lisa Myer for bringing to mainstream news the "horse-counseling" background of MD Brown and his "good ol' boy" appointment to FEMA by his college room mate and near equal in competency, Joe Allbaugh), the emotional piece featuring the President of Jefferson Parish, and the interview with the former FEMA director Haddo laid the groundwork and set the stage for an editorial I will remember as long as I live.

And speaking of horse counseling, I hope the powers to be at NBC were as impressed as I was for, just as there are far better qualified people for federal agencies than those currently in place, there are far better qualified newsmen for three recently-weakened anchor chairs than the asses currently therein.

Thank you and congratulations on a job well done.

Bob Barnes
Voice Artist

[ 07. September 2005, 12:18 PM: Message edited by: Mo ]
 
Posted by troutscout (Member # 3121) on :
 
Mo...why are insisting on bringing in the war on this? huh.

Anyway.....

Trust me...you never want marshall law unless it is necessary for population control. It is a last recourse.

To use that one on here is a desparate attempt at making your point.

Heck....who's excusing anybody from their responsibility in this? I don't see that here.

Negativity, negativity, negativitiy.....find solutions NOW...fix the machine later...focus energy on what needs to be done now.

The facts posted above by others actually show that the lion's share of fault does NOT lie in the lap of the Feds....what next...should we become communist or something....let the gov't be responsible for EVERYTHING? Including controlling unruly people such as you aand I for posting our thoughts in public?

Come....what I said above is to show you the magnitude of knee jerk reactions....please Mo. Slow down.

You mean wellhere...but at the same time...it sounds as if you can't stop bashing the Repubs.

Even when the blaim falls short of party affiliation.


Please...go write a paper on the multiple cures people are finding on Lyme...you are such a talented lady....put that talent, energy and time to GOOD use.


I have spent way too much on this subject myself.

Have a Good One...see another post.

Trout [Wink]
 
Posted by Mo (Member # 2863) on :
 
Have to hope that levels out to more objectivity and less of the useless stuff..
The MSNBC broadcast Olberman editorial I just posted was a sobering shift.
Hope it sticks.

So was every Sunday morning news show, even the conservative ones..
and most news on the subject..
'cept one network, of course.

Point being, this ain't just my concern, it's everyones.

The White House is trying very hard to shift ALL blame to the State and locals..
even the victims.

That can't be tolerated.

Starting Friday, the White House started to blame state and local officials and even the victims who were stranded without transportation when the Hurricane arrived.

Timeline

Friday, Aug. 26: Gov. Kathleen Blanco declares a state of emergency in Louisiana and requests troop assistance.


Saturday, Aug. 27: Gov. Blanco asks for federal state of emergency. A federal emergency is declared giving federal officials the authority to get involved.


Sunday, Aug. 28: Mayor Ray Nagin orders mandatory evacuation of New Orleans. President Bush warned of Levee failure by National Hurricane Center. National Weather Service predicts area will be "uninhabitable" after Hurricane arrives. First reports of water toppling over the levee appear in local paper.

Monday, Aug. 29: Levee breaches and New Orleans begins to fill with water, Bush travels to Arizona and California to discuss Medicare. FEMA chief finally responds to federal emergency, dispatching employees but giving them two days to arrive on site.


Tuesday, Aug. 30: Mass looting reported, security shortage cited in New Orleans. Pentagon says that local authorities have adequate National Guard units to handle hurricane needs despite governor's earlier request. Bush returns to Crawford for final day of vacation. TV coverage is around-the-clock Hurricane news.

Wednesday, Aug. 31: Tens of thousands trapped in New Orleans including at Convention Center and Superdome in "medieval" conditions. President Bush finally returns to Washington to establish a task force to coordinate federal response. Local authorities run out of food and water supplies.

Thursday, Sept. 1: New Orleans descends into anarchy. New Orleans Mayor issues a "Desperate SOS" to federal government. Bush claims nobody predicted the breach of the levees despite multiple warnings and his earlier briefing.

Friday, Sept. 2: Karl Rove begins Bush administration campaign to blame state and local officials--despite their repeated requests for help. Bush stages a photo-op--diverting Coast Guard helicopters and crew to act as backdrop for cameras. Levee repair work orchestrated for president's visit and White House press corps.

Saturday, Sept. 3: Bush blames state and local officials. Senior administration official (possibly Rove) caught in a lie claiming Gov. Blanco had not declared a state of emergency or asked for help.

Monday, Sept. 5: New Orleans officials begin to collect their dead.

Those are the facts. State and local officials asked for help as people in their city suffered. The Bush administration didn't get the job done and when their failure became an embarrassment they attacked those asking for help.

The New York Times reported on Friday that Karl Rove and White House communications director Dan Bartlett "rolled out a plan...to contain the political damage from the administration's response to Hurricane Katrina." The core of the strategy is "to shift the blame away from the White House and toward officials of New Orleans and Louisiana."

This is the same pattern of smearing that the used now for a decade. Now, Hurricane victims are attacked when the Bush administration failed to do their duty to help them.

It isn't just the Bush administration. Republican Senator Rick Santorum blamed victims in a TV interview and House Speaker Dennis Hastert suggested New Orleans should not be rebuilt.

Mo

[ 07. September 2005, 06:59 PM: Message edited by: Mo ]
 
Posted by troutscout (Member # 3121) on :
 
hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
 
Posted by 24bit-moderate (Member # 7841) on :
 
Mo, the contents of your timeline is pure propaganda. I'll post the correct one later when I have more time. When are you going to answer my questions? Afraid to? You can't find any excuses can you.

Mo, you're the most politically biased person I've ever come across in my life and it affects every single breath of yours. You can't find anything good in Bush, nothing. Yet when you call me a righter winger Bush groupie, which isn't true, I can say good things about Clinton or other Democrats. Why is that? Could it be that I'm a moderate Republican and you're a far left extremist? Yeah, I think so.

Like I predicted a few days ago, when the public found out the truth as to how badly the governor has and continues to botch this operation, they would realize that the blame game was initiated early on by the press and Democrats to cover for their own because they knew how bad they messed up. Now that the truth is coming out, a CNNUSATODAY poll today says that only 13% of Americans hold Bush accountable for the relief problems in New Orleans. I think it was around 50% a few days ago, now down to 13%. And I'm not saying the feds didn't screw up on there ned a bit. They did, but nothing compared to the before and after responsibilities of the state and local folks.

You make it very clear to all that you still haven't learned Civics and the responsibilities of government and the constitution. You have made it clear that you don't hold people accountable for bad decisions unless they're white and Republican for the most part, especially if the white person has money. You don't hold the governor and mayor accountable, both democrats, nor do you hold the people that stayed accountable for their poor decisions, almost entirely democrats. All get a big Mo pass.

I do hold Bush accountable for having a complete moron running FEMA. Brown is incompetent plain and simple. Wow, I criticized Bush Mo, looky there. [Smile] I'm fair and balanced unlike your viewpoint. But even though Brown is a moron and caused a 24 delay, it's a small screw up compared to the monster state and local mistakes.
The mountain of incompetence has been with the governor and the mayor, period. And if you disagree with that, then you don't know the law and you don't have your facts straight. The facts are all there, and that's why you can't answer my questions! [Smile]
 
Posted by Mo (Member # 2863) on :
 
24, wipe the foam from your mouth every now and again, OK?

I and noone writing, resporting, looking at this huge disaster has ever said the state and locals did not make mistakes ...

of course they did..

But the government failures did not only lie with
appointing Brown..

You've got allot of scew and spin here, and I have no interest in figuring out why it is so important to you to try and bully valid concerns by dubbing them as 'Bush bashing'

Since when did holding the acting government officials acountable for major failures resulting in death become partisan?

I guess it has been for a long time, but to my mind the deaths of many thousands superceeds any of that kind of denial and supression..

When state and local authorities ran the evacuation of New Orleans, did they consider that 100,000 to 200,000 people might not have transportation? Appahrently not. Did they know that more than 25 percent of the city lived below the poverty line? Yes. Did they consider that a lot of those folks are sick or elderly?
Appahrently not.

When local authorities put out word that food, fresh water and other help would be available at the city's Convention Center, did it occur to them that more than 15,000 people would show up, only to discover there was no help at all? When city streets sunk into a lawlessness too frightening to allow rescue workers to perform their work, why was neither the National Guard or the regular Army already prepared to swoop in?

It's not as if the govt. authorities were not warned. President George W. Bush was simply wrong when he asserted that, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees" in New Orleans. In fact, the breach of the levees was widely anticipated. Unfortunately, government at the state, local and federal levels was not always listening.

Last year, as the cost of the Iraq war SOARED, Bush cut about 80 percent of what the Army Corps(engineers) requested for levee improvement. The Federal Emergency Management Agency listed a hurricane strike on New Orleans among its top three most likely catastrophic disasters facing America...

You might think --- with the fourth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks possibly fast approaching, that the Feds would have a better handle on how to manage a large urban disaster. You might think they would have become better coordinated with local governments and beefed up electronic communications, a critically serious problem during 911.

You might think that, and you'd be wrong...

That's why, I'm more outraged by how sluggishly our government, the world's most powerful, responded to the crisis. Katrina was the first big test of Bush's Department of 'Homeland Security', and it FAILED.. big time.

The amount of death as a result of that is staggering..

Sure, if you really must..take a chunk of it and place it on the State.
go ahead if it makes you feel better...

that doesn't erase enourmous isues and concerns for Americans.

About the almighty 'poll'..
which is a direct result if intentiinal media manipulation, some of them focus on moving the poll, however I have seen other 'polls' with drastically different results than you post..
and I contend that polls matter little in truth.
We also cannot poll the dead and traumatized, or thise on the scene..can we?
Only the politician is interested in polls.

It also, IMO, is a terrible disrespect of those who died to be so hell bent on protecting your party interests.
Thought maybe this would change that for folks to our countru's betterment.

Moderate? I dunno, whatever you say, man..it matters little, and means nothing in this.

I know I feel posting with you is like talking to Bill O'Rielly..

I know that Joe Scarborough (avid media Bush supporter) just as one example -- has raised some tough questions, appropriate ones..along these lines and more, actually --
regarding the issue of FEDERAL performance.
He's right to do so.

Even if we imagine the state and local governments were total and complete buffoons ..
it is the Federal response that moves big troops, big boats, big money..they are the only ones that can do that and Pres can do it with one phone call, even from vacation..think about that.
The kind or relief and response needed to meet this KIND OF disaster..

--one they knew about, and one that they also knew of the state 'failures' surrounding.

Blaming State with 'most' of it is cowardly, saving political face..
and criminally negligent.

Some will refuse to see that, some won't..

Either way all our future's and children's at stake..regarding a compassionate and objective WAKE UP of American people --
and that's about all I care about..

Mo
 
Posted by 24bit-moderate (Member # 7841) on :
 
I'm just interested in the truth, whatever it is. You certainly did jump on the initial bandwagon of bashing the feds and say nothing about the state because you didn't know how the hierarchy of government worked. Now that the evidence is overwhelming, you're back tracking to admit there was state fault. I'm emphasizing the state/local fault so much for two reasons:

1. Initially it was ignored by the press, and the far left whacko's went to town with it......until they got a lesson in civics. So I was countering that ridiculous left wing charge.

2. Because it truly is at the heart of why so much is screwed up and why so many people are dead.

Even today, the mayor and governor are having a little cat fight power trip struggle over declaring that people will be forcably removed from N.O. The governor definitely has a huge attitude and has a power trip. Her political career is over. Why aren't you talking about these two goofballs and their continued circus?

I don't agree with O'Reilly on a lot of things. I'm about 95% with him on the Katrina issues though.

My main problem with your response is that you immediately came in and blamed the feds like they were supposed to be initial repsonders. Now you know it's not designed to be that way.

The mayor didn't even follow his own plan to bus people out. The local and state plans didn't include a scenario in which the levee's would break. A logical person who doesn't know anything about N.O. would conclude that it must not be expected to break if it's not even in their emergency plan right? Newspaper reporters doing stories on doomsday events don't define the local governments view on the levee's....their emergency plan does. Bush sees that they didn't expect it to happen in their plan, and he's right. They didn't expect it. Should the local/state government have expected it? Yes. So why in the world is that Bush's problem or fault?

Regarding the bill to pay for improving the levee's, you know darn well those bill's have all kinds of pork attached and are often just unacceptable. The state of LA has had decades to get this funded, even 8 years under Clinton couldn't get a clear bill through to get this done. Like I said, LA hasn't been serious about getting this done as they've blown huge money on other major projects like casino's, etc. The state certainly could've worked out a long term fianacing deal to get it done and been creative on top of all that. Blaming a 20 billion dollar bill full of pork not getting passed by Bush is hardly credible criticism.

You may believe the war on terror is a joke, but most people don't. The money spent on that is pennies compared to the dollars we'll be spending if we get attacks here.

Imagine how easy it would be to pack five boats full of high explosives and set them off next to even Level 5 strength levee's. During a normal business day in N.O. when everyone was there working, city full, and having the levee's catastrophically fail.......could you imagine the death toll??? Imagine the cost. Imagine nuclear dirty bombs going off in other cities on top of that where people could never return to the city because of the radiation. Imagine the cost!! And we still get hurricanes on top of that!!

No, the money spent on defeating terrorism is money well spent, but I know you don't see that.
 
Posted by Mo (Member # 2863) on :
 
I never said I expected Feds to be first responders..

I said they needed to be FED responsers, and proportionally due to thier ability and manpower their inadequacy caused massive death and anarchy.
Things that the State could not have done or controlled even of they were the best at the game in the moment..
Things that we need to rely on nationally.

I repeatedly said that State also made mistakes..

This has nothing to do with my previous issues with this administration, I have not tied them other than the media and public response...
at least not tied them yet.

This is horifying, and the stories from the survivors and leaders on the ground are horrific.
None of us know the full story.

Simply...proportionally..
our Fed government has powers and ability far greater than the State..and this disaster certainly required those powers much sooner..
and they KNEW about it.

Mo
 
Posted by Softballmom (Member # 6235) on :
 
I might regret this but I want to say how I feel. It seems most are.

Mo,

You keep claiming Budget cuts on the Bush administration.

In 1999 106 million dollars to the New Orleans District Army Corps of Engeneers. The Local and state only added 41 million of their own money with that in 2001. Spending 147 million. Don't tell me that they couldn't have added more. Wish I could find a figure in 2001 of how much they spent on unnesary things just to try to bring in more money to their state rather than ensuring safety. I didn't even look past 1999 but I am sure money was there The questioned, was it used properly?

Those levies could have been repared well before the budget cuts during the Bush administration.

They were dipping into the Levee fund to fund new casinos. Yet here we still are blaming Bush. Yes you blamed Bush directly.

Yes all parts are accountable for a breakdown yet you continue to try to pull in spacifics to point the finger at Bush then also say that you are not bringing polotics into this and others are.

You can't keep bring up the Bush administration and also at the same time say this is not a political thing.

The finger pointing started way to early and where was the majority of that fingerpointing coming from.

Flat out Bush Haters was where it was coming from.

Which is not suprising to me and should be expected from everyone. That is the Dems track record.

But it seems the republicans are always doing it in defence not just doing it outright due to peronal opinion and politics.

I didn't know whether the Govoner and Mayor were republican or Democrat and don't even care. I just look at the facts and come to my conclusion.

The biggest breakdown was state and local Government and this horrible tradgedy could have been minimised BY THEM well before Bush ever took office.

So why do we want to bring up Bush's budget cuts? Huh? Tell me please. Why won't you look at the fact that alot of this could have been prevented years if not decades ago. They just kept on with what they had and hoped for the best.

Don't mean to offend anyone I am just calling it as I and a whole lot of Americans see it.

So when are we going to put this aside and focus on the human suffering at this time just as you have pointed out in past posts.

Then when things get better put action to the fingerpointing. Quit talking and do something about it.

Quit all the nail biting and bashing and actually try to add some subtance to all this bitterness.

IMO, that is what I am seeing sheer bitterness, not all on the lost lives but the lost election.

Can you imagine what would be said had Kerry been then Pres and this happened. A whole different senario.

I wish for once in our nation we can be Americans and not Republican or Democrat. And not matter how you sugar coat it that is what it is all about.

[confused]
 
Posted by Mo (Member # 2863) on :
 
my concerns and other's from all walks of life are not 'flat-out Bush hating concerns'..
in this disaster, and other things, certain concerns just cannot and should not be dismised with that worn out phrase..

Since when are citizens not to hold an acting governemtn (not just one man, I address the system acting today) responsible for what they do and don't do, especially when massive death is involved in the issue?

Yes, I agree..

the government has been informed ot the Levees a looooong time, pre-Bush..
and allot of folks along the line could have and should have done more.

The concern relating to our current administration is that they told the public this was a surprise, and anly their part in all the cut backs and denial of funding..
only as applied to what they knew, and what appeals they themselves denied, specifically.

That can be acertained by the appeals and reports given them over the past five years..
and then the fact that they are claiming they did not anticipate what would happen in a CAT 5.

Something on the blame game between repobs and dems (which I wholeheartedly agree is not only useless, but dangerous..because huge issues are going unaddresed by the public as we all fight with eachother)

The accusations of me personally would be humerous if this topic was funny, I did NOT agree with everything about Clinton, OR Kerry..
but some will assert that of anyone raising real time issue with this admin's ACTIONS.

I believe that SOME of the Republican party, and SOME of the media have influenced that fervent and automatic view and response.
They have trained some of the public ro view individuals raising any concerns about government activities that way, and that frightens me for us all.

Am I upset and angry with this administration? uh -- ya..
But I also have posted very valid reasons here for a couple of years now, and many just call me a Bush hater, and that is that.
Therefore, nothing (or others speaking out in any position, or stature) nothing raised is heard. Don't you think that is to our detriment as a society? To have so many fallow cirizens be dubbed as not to be listened to at all?
And to rareky if ever look at what the concerns or issues really are?
And these are big issues, not just picky politic stuff.

I also have to raise the issue of the response to Clinton's affair and LIE about it..
with an intern..

incited such public outcry and such that he had impeachment on the table..

and you know what?? I agreed at the time!

Back when I could afford to be idealistic..believe it or not I was waaaay more idealistic years ago.. [Cool]
pre-Lyme, pre-911, and pre-Bush administration..
pre-allot of things..

I was outraged and felt a lie was a lie was a lie..


But now I am dumfounded and reeling in my mind over HOW in the World so many lies that have caused HUGE detriment..
to so many human beings, to our financial state, to the environment, you name it..

Things documented in valid question, oncluding but not limited to:

Documented financial ties, long time old boy networking and actions around those interests, the 911 commission, the communications with Blair pre-War..
and on and on ...

Before anybody gets all in a huff..
and will also say I am upset with those 'liberals' who are unfair in their 'spin' of this and other things..that is no better than the other spin.

I'm not even saying impeachment, tho that would be my personal choice if I had it..honestly..

but no inquiries? No accountability??
No objectivity???

The Bush admin is not being help to near the same standard???

WHY?

intern vs ALL these other issues..

Impeachment proceedures vs. no accountability, no investigation, or holding findings of investigations far more serious that lying about an affair..no action whatsoever..

Will you tell me that is fair and balanced?

I may sign off here soon because this discussion isn't in exchange, hope that changes one day [Smile]

But I would be interested in thoughts on this post....

Mo

[ 08. September 2005, 12:45 PM: Message edited by: Mo ]
 
Posted by Softballmom (Member # 6235) on :
 
Sometimes I wonder if we are watching the same television set. [confused]

I am going to try to back out of this topic because it becomes more political with every post.

Once again we find ourselves in a political tug of war. To our detriment I am sure that will never change, No matter what this country suffers.

Also if things don't change the country will suffer more and more for generations to come in the name of politics not just to terrorism and natural disasters or what ever else may arise. That is sadest thing. [Frown]
 
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