God I hope this story is overblown right now!!!

[Eric]

Face the facts, Eric, it has become impossible to divorce Katrina from politics. Live with it.

←

That may be, but we have a politcal forum and I think this thread belongs there. People have used the "impossible to divorce" arguement to take cheap political shots. I have no problem with that, but I don't want to read about it here. And if the response is "don't read the thread", well we have previously addressed this situation by creating a political forum.

Live with it.

Edited September 2, 2005 by Eric

[Soul Stream]

I saw Ted Koppell give the head of FEMA a tremendous ass reaming last night. Ted pulled no punches and it really gave light to the fact that they had no plan to begin with and have effected none since. The head of FEMA claimed they didn't know about the Convention Center until yesterday, and Koppell pounced give the guy a ton a shit. "Well, it's been on T.V. for days, doesn't anybody from FEMA watch T.V.?" Koppel asked.

You go Ted.

[Soulstation1]

still NO water/food or shelter for these people

i can go to costco and get a lot of water

WHAT A SHAME

[Eric]

I'm actually hearing people blaming the people who stayed because they had no way out for not leaving anyway.     

I'm also hearing people claim that the media is exaggerating the severity of the situation.     

These people all have one thing in common, but since this is a non-political thread, I can't/won't tell you what it is. But if you're that hardcore, hell, your soul is dead.

←

Earlier, I posed the question of why more people did not get out in advance. If you live in hurricane alley, you KNOW it is SOP to evacuate when you are told. I have relatives who go through this 2-3x per year. Yeah, it is a complete pain in the ass and yeah it sucks to sit for an hour on a bridge and it is very disruptive, especially when 9 out of 10 ten times, you would have been OK had you stayed.

With all the hurricane activity of the last 10-15 years, it should not come as a surprise to anyone that hurricanes are deadly - very. Yet, why do ABLE people stay behind, apparently in large numbers. If there was no warning, sure. But why ignore the warnings? Why does the government not get more aggressive in getting people out?

I have profound sympathy and sadness for the current victims. The fact that some of them chose not to leave is completely irrelevant at this point. BUT, the fact remains, that the human loss would have been lower had more people followed the mandatory evacuation.

Edited September 2, 2005 by Eric

[jazzypaul]

Bush has zero tolerance for people taking water, food, or clothing to survive.

---quote during his interview with Diane Sawyer this morning.

←

It basically says that 20 countries have offered to help the US in different ways. It says that the US administration were reluctant to receive international help but that it has changed its mind since. It states that George Bush had first declared that the US will be able to get things sorted by themselves. Geroge Bush said: I do not expect anything from foreign countries because we did not ask for anything. This country will stand up and will sort things out'.

Politics and this have everything to do with each other.

I will save the cheap potshots for another thread, but I think this needs to be said:

Regardless of political affiliation, regardless of past actions which one may or may not agree with, these two quotes are atrocious. If Clinton had said them, I'd be outraged, and if a libertarian had said them I would have been outraged as well.

For the first quote, I don't think he quite gets it. These stores are more than likely not reopening. These buildings will be flood damaged, probably beyond repair. They're in no shape to sell anything, when these items NEED to be sold. And if they can't be sold, then they need to be taken. And sorry Mr. "Christian" president, but have you not read Proverbs or the law books of the old testament, where it clearly states that if a man needs to eat and cannot pay for it, then he is permitted to do what he has to do to eat? The people stealing TV's are a different story, but life has ways of sorting these things out, and they'll get theirs.

For the second quote, well, if people can't see the stupidity there, well, then heaven help them...

This is a time in American history where politics should be on the backburner. But, with quotes like this, these politicians are doing it to themselves. They too deserve whatever they get.

[JSngry]

Ok, Eric - how you gonna leave when you have no car? It's not like there was an organized plan to get everybody out, is it? Seems to me it was like, "Well, y'all better get out if you can, and if you can't, c'mon ove to the Superdome". Great plan that turned out to be...

Hey, look - anybody who could've gotten out and chose to stay made their own bed. But dude - LOTS of poor people in urban areas don't have cars. It costs money to get a car, it costs money to buy gas, it costs money for upkeep, it costs money for insurance. Poor people by definition don't have a lot of money! And if you're old and poor, hey, that just make your options even more limited. Old, poor, and not in good health, hey, three strikes and you're NOT out!

You ever see people riding the bus to work? Not everybody does it becuase they're "environmentally aware" or some shit like that. For plenty people, that's the only transportation they have.

I know you don't mean to come off as callous, and I don't think you are. I know you don't mean to come off as clueless, but you do. Whether you really are are not, I haven't a clue. I certainly hope not. But you're assuming a level of options that just do not exist for many. Being poor is really very simple - you don't have a lot of money. Period. So your options are limited. Period. Plenty of room for nuance and variety and personal choice and personal character and all that stuff once you get inside those facts, but dude - that's the inescapable baseline right there. And a lot of people in New Orleans weren't above it. How many, we don't know. But it's more than just a few, I can guarantee you. New Orleans is a POOR city, believe it or not. Don't let the tourist image fool you. Away from the tourist areas there's a helluva lot of poverty. Statistics I heard the other day give the average income for African-American families in New Orleans proper at $11,000 per year. And the city proper is something like 56% African American. I make no claims for accuracy of these statistics, especially that of the income. But even if it's off by 100%, hell, that's still just $22,000 per year. Not much...

Don't mean to rag on you man, but the assumptions you appear to be making just ain't right.

Edited September 2, 2005 by JSngry

[Dan Gould]

I saw Ted Koppell give the head of FEMA a tremendous ass reaming last night.  Ted pulled no punches and it really gave light to the fact that they had no plan to begin with and have effected none since.  The head of FEMA claimed they didn't know about the Convention Center until yesterday, and Koppell pounced give the guy a ton a shit.  "Well, it's been on T.V. for days, doesn't anybody from FEMA watch T.V.?" Koppel asked.

You go Ted.  

←

I've been watching wall-to-wall coverage and didn't hear a damn thing about the Convention Center until yesterday. when it came to masses of people in an increasingly untenable situation, ALL the coverage was about the Superdome.

As far as getting poor and elderly people out before a storm hits, that's for a locality to figure out BEFORE disaster strikes. New Orleans had no plan in place, despite years and years and years and years and years of advance knowledge.

Since the political fire is going far and wide with no end, I think I'll weigh in for the first time since retiring from the Politics Forum:

This Blame Bush crap is a joke.

1. Its Bush's fault because there are National Guardsman in Iraq? That bitch might hold water, if the effected states didn't have large numbers of their National Guardsman available to be called up.

IRAQ has NOTHING to do with the response to Hurricane Katrina.

2. Its Bush's fault because global warning made the storm such a monstrosity? Get your head out of your ass! This storm was well within the historical parameters of hurricanes, and Kyoto or no Kyoto, would have happened sooner or later.

An aside: I had the misfortune of reading Michael Moore's latest letter. In it, he claimed that as the storm passed over south Florida, the weather man was saying, on THURSDAY, that this storm is headed to New Orleans, and therefore, Bush is responsible because nothing was done and they had so much time to prepare. What a complete crock of shit. When that storm crossed the peninsula, it was expected to start turning to the north almost immediately, and the initial target was the panhandle. But that turn kept being pushed back and pushed back and pushed back, and the landfall area kept shifting to the west and shifting to the west. This storm was NOT forecast to hit New Orleans at the time it was pummeling Florida. But its a great thing to claim, because then you can once again Blame Bush.

3. This is how governments function, particularly in the wake of a storm which absolutely DEVASTATES the transportion infrastructure of the area.

4. The simple fact is that the fate of almost all the victims was sealed when the storm hit, transportation systems wrecked and the levee was breached (a result, by the way, that according to today's Times, was never considered as a possibility. The presumption of all prior planning was that water would overflow - not burst through).

[RainyDay]

Ok, Eric - how you gonna leave when you have no car? It's not like there was an organized plan to get everybody out, is it? Seems to me it was like, "Well, y'all better get out if you can, and if you can't, c'mon ove to the Superdome". Great plan that turned out to be...

Hey, look - anybody who could've gotten out and chose to stay made their own bed. But dude - LOTS of poor people in urban areas don't have cars. It costs money to get a car, it costs money to buy gas, it costs money for upkeep, it costs money for insurance. Poor people by definition don't have a lot of money! And if you're old and poor, hey, that just make your options even more limited. Old, poor, and not in good health, hey, three strikes and you're NOT out!

You ever see people riding the bus to work? Not everybody does it becuase they're "environmentally aware" or some shit like that. For plenty people, that's the only transportation they have.

I know you don't mean to come off as callous, and I don't think you are. I know you don't mean to come off as clueless, but you do. Whether you really are are not, I haven't a clue. I certainly hope not. But you're assuming a level of Being poor is really very simple - you don't have a lot of money. Period. So your options are limited. Period. Plenty of room for nuance and variety and personal choice and personal character and all that stuff once you get inside those facts, but dude - that's the inescapable baseline right there. You're assuming a level of choice for many people that simply dis not exist. How many, we don't know. But it's more than just a few, I can guarantee you. New Orleans is a POOR city, believe it or not. Don't let the tourist image fool you. Away form the tourist areas there's a helluva lot of poverty.

Don't mean to rag on you man, but the assumptions you appear to be making just ain't right.

←

Thank you for staying this. Thank you ten times. I don't know why Americans need to blame poor people for being poor. I didn't grow up poor but my father did during the depression. Have folks never heard of the working poor? People who hold two, sometimes three low paying jobs? They work a hell of a lot harder than most middle class folks and still live day to day. They don't own cars, they depend on public transit. And from what I hear, public transit in NO is pretty poor. So just how were these people supposed to get out? Walk? With kids, food, water, diapers, medicine, etc, strapped to their backs? Just walk out? And look at the terrible shape people are in who went to the Super Dome as a last resort. That was supposed to be a safe haven.

If you need to blame anyone, there is PLENTY OF FUCKING BLAME to go around. All the hospitals except one was built below sea level. Brilliant, yes? Every elected official representing this area knew this was a catastrophe waiting to happen. They knew it under Bush and they knew it under Clinton. Pull your partisan heads out of your butts and be furious with everyone because EVERYONE failed these poor people. Including the middle class folks who lived there and didn't DEMAND that something be done about the levees. As someone said, what has happened is ALL about politics and no one should escape blame. New Orleans has been a "bowl" for decades.

[Christiern]

You just don't get it, do you, Eric. We are talking about poor people, many of the ill--the government should have made it possible for them to leave--in most cases, it was not their choice to stay. What is so difficult to understand about that? Well, I guess it just doesn't matter when we are talking about indigent black people. Sorry for being so cynical, but your attempts to blame the victims just does not wash.

[Ron S]

New Orleans has been a "bowl" for decades.

Centuries.

[Soul Stream]

Dan, T.V. or not...I don't know how those providing rescue on the ground could be unaware of 10,000-25,000 people collected at the Convention Center. N.O. Police knew they were there at least. So, not to argue the point. But I thought improved communication between law enforcement and government officials was one of the things we learned from 9/11. If this had happened in 1999 I wouldn't be as harsh of critic. But if we're still using the excuse of bad communication between agencies....I mean, come on. People have, and are, dying because of it.

I'm not sure how anybody, regardless of political bent, could be happy with or defend what's been going on. Bush himself said it was unacceptable.

[Guy Berger]

Face the facts, Eric, it has become impossible to divorce Katrina from politics. Live with it.

←

If it's impossible to separate Katrina from politics, then this thread should be moved to the politics forum.

Guy

[Guy Berger]

  On the other hand, I'm sure the number of idiots who could have left but didn't is non-negligible.

       Guy

←

I dunno if you've ever seen an evacuation-related traffic jam, Guy, but I sure as hell have (going in the other direction before Andrew, no less, talk about surreal), and believe me, sitting in 100+ miles of bumper-to-bumper traffic can seem just as scary as staying home when the hurricane is only hours away.

←

I sympathize, but when the government tells you to evacuate and you have the means to evacuate, you should probably evacuate.

Guy

[Jim Alfredson]

It's amazing that some people still can't admit that the Bush administration fucked up. Regardless of the cause, be it man-made terrorism or natural disaster, the outcome is the same: mass destruction, lots of people dead, almost an entire city rendered useless, people trapped, no power, no food, no water, etc. So simple question time:

Is this or is this not the exact situation that the Homeland Security Department was supposed to either a) protect against or b) have plans in place to deal with once it happened? And have they done either?!

Yes, the politicians of New Orleans are definitely to blame. But how one can blame them and not this president and his administration, especially after 9/11, is totally incomprehensable. The federal response to this tragedy has been, at the very least, completely inept.

[Peter Johnson]

I sympathize, but when the government tells you to evacuate and you have the means to evacuate, you should probably evacuate.

And if you don't have the means? Then what?

[Spontooneous]

Anybody hear the interview with Michael Chertoff on "All Things Considered" yesterday? He too seemed quite clueless about the Convention Center situation.

[Guy Berger]

Is this or is this not the exact situation that the Homeland Security Department was supposed to either a) protect against or b) have plans in place to deal with once it happened?  And have they done either?!

Yes, the politicians of New Orleans are definitely to blame.  But how one can blame them and not this president and his administration, especially after 9/11, is totally incomprehensable.  The federal response to this tragedy has been, at the very least, completely inept.

100% in agreement. If the federal gov't's plan in emergencies is to fall back on local gov't, we are fucked. What's happened in NO in the days after the hurricane is an outrage.

As for Dan's claim that Iraq had no impact on the Katrina aftermath -- that makes no sense. Our government has limited resources, especially in the short and very short run -- this is basic economics -- and while not all resources are fungible, at least some of the ones currently tied down in Iraq could be used in NO.

This Onion blurb from last September, as always, sums things up perfectly (just replace "Iraq War" with "Katrina aftermath":

Bush Campaign More Thought Out Than Iraq War

WASHINGTON, DC—Military and political strategists agreed Monday that President Bush's re-election campaign has been executed with greater precision than the war in Iraq. "Judging from the initial misrepresentation of intelligence data and the ongoing crisis in Najaf, I assumed the president didn't know his ass from his elbow," said Col. Dale Henderson, a military advisor during the Reagan Administration. "But on the campaign trail, he's proven himself a master of long-term planning and unflinching determination. How else can you explain his strength in the polls given this economy?" Henderson said he regrets having characterized Bush's handling of the war as "incompetent," now that he knows the president's mind was simply otherwise occupied.

Guy

[Guy Berger]

I sympathize, but when the government tells you to evacuate and you have the means to evacuate, you should probably evacuate.

And if you don't have the means? Then what?

←

Then the government should step in. That's why I put that clause in there.

Guy

[Big Wheel]

  On the other hand, I'm sure the number of idiots who could have left but didn't is non-negligible.

       Guy

←

I dunno if you've ever seen an evacuation-related traffic jam, Guy, but I sure as hell have (going in the other direction before Andrew, no less, talk about surreal), and believe me, sitting in 100+ miles of bumper-to-bumper traffic can seem just as scary as staying home when the hurricane is only hours away.

←

I sympathize, but when the government tells you to evacuate and you have the means to evacuate, you should probably evacuate.

Guy

←

Of course you should. I guess I was taking issue with calling all people who fall into this category "idiots." Some of us have done the hurricane thing a whole bunch of times and we know how crazy things get in the 24 hours beforehand and how often the worst-case scenario fails to materialize.

[Eric]

Ok, Eric - how you gonna leave when you have no car? It's not like there was an organized plan to get everybody out, is it? Seems to me it was like, "Well, y'all better get out if you can, and if you can't, c'mon ove to the Superdome". Great plan that turned out to be...

Hey, look - anybody who could've gotten out and chose to stay made their own bed. But dude - LOTS of poor people in urban areas don't have cars. It costs money to get a car, it costs money to buy gas, it costs money for upkeep, it costs money for insurance. Poor people by definition don't have a lot of money! And if you're old and poor, hey, that just make your options even more limited. Old, poor, and not in good health, hey, three strikes and you're NOT out!

You ever see people riding the bus to work? Not everybody does it becuase they're "environmentally aware" or some shit like that. For plenty people, that's the only transportation they have.

I know you don't mean to come off as callous, and I don't think you are. I know you don't mean to come off as clueless, but you do. Whether you really are are not, I haven't a clue. I certainly hope not. But you're assuming a level of options that just do not exist for many. Being poor is really very simple - you don't have a lot of money. Period. So your options are limited. Period. Plenty of room for nuance and variety and personal choice and personal character and all that stuff once you get inside those facts, but dude - that's the inescapable baseline right there. And a lot of people in New Orleans weren't above it. How many, we don't know. But it's more than just a few, I can guarantee you. New Orleans is a POOR city, believe it or not. Don't let the tourist image fool you. Away from the tourist areas there's a helluva lot of poverty. Statistics I heard the other day give the average income for African-American families in New Orleans proper at $11,000 per year. And the city proper is something like 56% African American. I make no claims for accuracy of these statistics, especially that of the income. But even if it's off by 100%, hell, that's still just $22,000 per year. Not much...

Don't mean to rag on you man, but the assumptions you appear to be making just ain't right.

←

Well, you seem to be making an assumption that all the people who stayed behind had no transportation out. Frankly, I find that assumption to be clueless and naive. And don't please lecture me on what it is like to be poor or how difficult it is to get out of an urban area - it is pretty damn presumptuous on your part.

You live in TX right? When you hear the sirens, you go to the basement. I know it is a hell of a lot easier to go to the basement than get out of town, but the point is, if you LIVE in an area where natural disasters are semi-common, you KNOW what to do. Obviously it helps if you have warning and with hurricanes, we have plenty.

I have known plenty of people who have ignored hurricane warnings over the years. My point is, like it or not, that if you live in a hurricane area and you make a choice to stay behind, you are rolling the dice ... and sadly, the consequences can be profound. But certainly not surprising.

For the section of the population that has no means, that is a local government/public policy issue, which obviously failed in this case and I hope that is where one of the lessons can be learned.

The point is - nobody should be shocked about the level of damage - human and property - that has been caused here. Hurricanes are profoundly destructive. We know that and when we know they are coming, our best strategy as it relates to saving lives is to tell people to get out of their way, ASAP. I think what this situation reveals is that if we really want to save lives, we need to do a better job of helping people get out.

[JSngry]

Well, you seem to be making an assumption that all the people who stayed behind had no transportation out. 

←

I make no such assumption about all the people who stayed behind.

[JSngry]

don't please lecture me on what it is like to be poor or how difficult it is to get out of an urban area - it is pretty damn presumptuous on your part.

←

You call THAT a lecture?

[JSngry]

You live in TX right?  When you hear the sirens, you go to the basement. 

←

No....for the most part, we don't have basements in Texas.

Want another lecture?

[medjuck]

The latest nutty thing I've heard is that the National Guard was about to help evacuate Charity Hospital but turned around when they thought they were fired upon. So now volunteers are bringing boats to help out! The hospital is about 1/2 mile from the Guard staging area and the Convention Center is 12 blocks from the staging area. What kind of Natinoal Guard is that?!

Who's in charge here? !! How incompetent are they?

[JSngry]

I have known plenty of people who have ignored hurricane warnings over the years. 

←

And how many of the people still in New Orleans chose to ignore the warnings? Let's set the figure really high, say, 50%. Now let's get those people out by any means necessary. That's still a helluva lot of people.

I've no doubt that some people had a chance to leave, and I said so. I also said that they made their own bed by choosing to stay. My point is that knowing what I know of the "real" New Orleans, the city that the tourists don't see, that there were a lot more people who had no independent way out than some people seem to be willing to consider. Why this would seem unfathomable is beyond me. Lots of poor (and old) people in New Orleans. And they don't have basements either. We're not in Kansas anymore, as they say...