FEMA Director Mike Brown was fired by the IAHA??? - Katrina TIMELINE on p.17 [Archive]

flshgordon

Sep. 2, 2005, 02:42 PM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Cartier:
There is a failure of leadership.. absolutely no question about it.

The scenario we are seeing today in New Orleans was predicted well in advance. (To see a small glimpse of what was known and for how long, simply Google "Impact of Katrina before August 28th.") The problems with the dams, with flooding, with looters, with raw sewage, toxic chemicals, fires, floating dead bodies, disease… the impact of no electrical power on area hospitals, pumping systems etc. ... it was all predicted with great specificity… well in advance.

Consider: when people were told to go to the Superdome there should have been food, water, back-up generators and medical supplies and some organizational structure in place BEFORE encouraging 25,000 people to even seek refuge there.

ON Saturday August 28 and Sunday August 29th there was more than enough time to marshal the resources of this great country and the peace keeping forces of the greatest military presence on earth to protect and control a civilian population in an urban area in the USA. This is New Orleans folks, we are talking about a place that is roughly 2 hours by air from Washington DC. There should have been convoys of supplies late last week stockpiled even before Katrina hit. It has been known for years and years that a hit from a Cat 4-5 storm would have this exact effect. There is no excuse for thousands of people going days without food, water and medical care. QUOTE]

Cartier I would just like to point out that the reason no one was stockpiling masses of supplies and aid is because NO ONE KNEW this was going to happen until it did. The storm hit Florida, no one thought it would sprint across into the gulf & turn into a CAT 5 and slam into the gulf coast until less than 24 hours before it happened. It was a CAT 3 when I went to bed last saturday night so apparently you are the only one who predicted accurately where and when it would happen.

I am not defending anyone's actions government, military or otherwise because this whole thing is a disaster, but to say they should have had everything organized and ready to go is just crazy. There wasn't time! AND....what about the evacuation order that people should get out of town? What about the people who ignored the orders to evacuate and stayed in their houses and then rescuers had to risk their lives to go in and rescue those people who didn't listen. Don't you think the Red Cross and Natl guard rescuers have families too? Don't you think those families would have preferred that people evacuate when they were told?

I know everyone could not get out. Believe me, growing up in Louisiana and having family there now, I know about the poverty there and the way life is, but there are a lot of those people who just flat didn't listen and risked other people's lives in the process.

The superdome was a best case scenario IN A TIME OF CRISIS. Otherwise those people may have been blowing down the streets as soon as the storm hit.

If anything comes of this, perhaps the country will have better measures in place to handle a disaster of this scale. Even here in Houston, with days to prepare the Astrodome they are finding it is NO WHERE near as easy to prepare for that many people as you would think. Even in a city of 4 million people.

RAyers

Sep. 2, 2005, 02:50 PM

WA,

Law suits against Brown and other were filed in Colorado. Charges include defamation, restraint of trade and others. I haven't seen anything about the dispensation though. I assume it was settled out of court.

Reed

JER

Sep. 2, 2005, 02:51 PM

Condi's a moron. I'd rather see her in NYC hitting tenis balls with Monica Seles and shopping for shoes than getting involved in the hurricane aftermath.

As for Nagin stepping down or aside, wasn't he elected mayor by the citizens of New Orleans? He's calling it like it is -- if you don't like what you're hearing, it's because there's no good news about this situation.

War Admiral

Sep. 2, 2005, 02:53 PM

RA - Thanks - Poltroon's OP contained the links to the lawsuits and the details of the settlement agreement.

What I'd like to know more about, if we know, is the allegation that he spun off money intended for IAHA's legal defense fund into his own legal defense fund once the lawsuits started flying.

rthonor

Sep. 2, 2005, 04:01 PM

I don't really know alot about how FEMA is supposed to work in these situations but last year, a tornada destroyed a small town (that I work in). Many houses were destroyed as was the high school. Fema came in for a few days and then left and did not help anyone with anything. They said not enough damage cost wise. We now have school in an old garment factory.......people still don't have places to live and have to live with relatives, sometimes splitting children apart.....it was very disheartening.

Cartier

Sep. 2, 2005, 04:44 PM

Just saws this on MSNBC... titled: Was FEMA ready for a disaster like Katrina? Here’s a link to the broadcast http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9178501/

Quoting from the show: … <BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> “What's more, it appears that the federal government did not follow up on an exercise last year that mostly predicted what happened in New Orleans — devastating flooding and hundreds of thousands stranded. The scenario was dubbed Hurricane Pam: 120 mph winds, a massive storm surge, 20 feet of water in the city, 80 percent of buildings damaged, refugees on rooftops, possibly gun violence that would slow the rescue.

"What bothers me the most is all the people who've died unnecessarily," says Ivor Van Heerden, a hurricane researcher from Louisiana State University who ran the exercise.

Van Heerden says the federal government didn't take it seriously.

"Those FEMA officials wouldn't listen to me," he says. "Those Corps of Engineers people giggled in the back of the room when we tried to present information."

One recommendation from the exercise: Tent cities should be prepared for the homeless.

</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

The 87 billion we have spent in Iraq would have been better spent improving the infra structure of our county. As for the Office of Homeland Security, FEMA and our country’s ability to respond to emergencies (be they terrorism or natural disasters), clearly we need to improve things here at home ... now!

cardicorgi

Sep. 2, 2005, 05:02 PM

I saw Brown on Nightline last night; this man is utterly incompetent and should be the poster child for political cronyism.

Nagin called the situation, too - I hope everyone listens to the radio interview with him - and it doesn't surprise me that this administration would do its best to oust him. Where the heck is the "compassion" evinced by these folks??

My heart aches for the people of New Orleans (and their pets too).

sleepdeprived

Sep. 2, 2005, 05:23 PM

You'd *think* this disaster could be the perfect exit strategy for Iraq.

An unnamed FEMA official I think in Biloxi made a comment on CBS news tonight. He said (not exact words) but "FEMA is going to take it in the shorts," and the reporter said, 'what do you mean by that?' and he said "They're not here. And there are no supplies here."

Erin

Sep. 2, 2005, 05:43 PM

I've posted the link to this article elsewhere, but if anyone hasn't seen it yet, here it is again...

http://www.indyweek.com/durham/2004-09-22/cover.html

sleepdeprived

Sep. 2, 2005, 06:14 PM

Thanks Erin, I had not seen that. OMG, is that story distressing.

I guess the survivors should have staged a mock terrorist attack to get them down there sooner. http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_mad.gif

Ghazzu

Sep. 2, 2005, 06:34 PM

I can't recall all the sordid details on the Boggs/Brown/IAHA debacle, but it was something like this:

David Boggs had cosmetic surgery perforemd on a number of horses, including removing muscle tissue to thin the throatlatch and tatooing the sclera of the eyes.
One of the horses won the national halter stallion title.

A disaffected employee had polaroids.

Brown went after Boggs.
The rank and file of IAHA were initally thrilled. Finally the Big Hairs were getting their comeuppance for all the crap that had been going on for years.

Then things began to unravel.

Here's where it becomes confusing enough that my memory is not reliable.

(What I did and still do believe is that Boggs was guilty, but was thrown to the mob as a sacrifice. He'd pissed off enough of the other heavy hitters with his arrogance that they were happy to see him nailed. and they figured that would satisfy the great unwashed, and then they could get back to business as usual.)

There were problems within the Boggs investigation, with promises being made to certain people about many things.

Then, a year or so later, another trainer *faked* qualifications for a couple national championship horses. Actually fabricated an entire competitive trail ride, so the halter horses could get the performance point they needed to compete at nationals.
(I ended up filing an affadavit for a complainant who got screwed out of an amateur championship by one of these illegally entered horses.)

The problem was, one of the trainers involved was one of the "good guys" according to Brown. He had testified against Boggs. So Mike didn't want to go after him.

In fact, someone at IAHA got wind of the fact that people were suspicious of this "Tree Top Ride" that had never been advertised anywhere, and where only horses under the control of this trainer and a buddy were apparently entered.
So someone at IAHA gave Gallun a "heads up" that he might want to make sure he got another point or two somewhere. He took a horse into a very small Western Pleasure class with another guy on a horse to make up the minimum 3 horse class for the ribbon to count (same fellow who, IIRC, had been the steward on the Tree Top ride...) and theother guy was seen to be deliberately switching gaits and screwing up to insure that his mount didn't beat the National Contender.

IAHA was presented with information about this *before* Nationals, and refused to consider it. They were presented with the information again *after* Nationals, and then had a different excuse as to why it wasn't a legitimate issue. The amateur/owner who got screwed then went to (then) AHSA, who had to threaten IAHA, that if they didn't follow their own rules, they'd take action.

Mike was right in the middle of all this muck.

Then there were lawsuits all around about the horses which had had plastic surgery, and whether or not Brown could prove that the surgery wasn't legitimate, and all kinds of other BS.

Mike had, by this time, alienated everyone who had been happy to see Boggs go down.

All in all, what I recall most was that it was a depressing mess, and reminded me why I didn't take showing seriously.

Sep. 2, 2005, 06:34 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by carolprudm:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by nhwr:
Here is an audio link to Nagin's interview this morning

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9173940/site/newsweek/

My God! The idiocy. Bush and his administration are killing this country. FEMA was in LA before Katrina hit, why didn't they help people evacuate? 1 in 4 people in New Orleans live in poverty. This includes many, many children and eldery people. How could they leave, where could they go without assistance of some kind?

So much for Homeland security! This is a disgrace http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_mad.gif </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
Why didn't they put people who didn't have transport on school busses and NO transit busses and even hotel shuttle and tour buses and get them outta there before the storm hit??
I know they couldn't have gotten them all out but it would have been a start? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

They tried to bring them to shelters outside the city - they would not leave. The mayor also told them that due to the "short notice" the dome did not have all necessary supplies. They were told to bring food, water, clothing and bedding...enough to last three to five days.

SGray

Sep. 2, 2005, 06:49 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by nhwr:
Here is an audio link to Nagin's interview this morning

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9173940/site/newsweek/

My God! The idiocy. Bush and his administration are killing this country. FEMA was in LA before Katrina hit, why didn't they help people evacuate? 1 in 4 people in New Orleans live in poverty. This includes many, many children and eldery people. How could they leave, where could they go without assistance of some kind?

So much for Homeland security! This is a disgrace http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_mad.gif </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

oh my god - I wanted to give him a standing ovation - and a hug

sleepdeprived

Sep. 2, 2005, 07:17 PM

Ghazzu: "and they figured that would satisfy the great unwashed, and then they could get back to business as usual." http://chronicleforums.com/images/custom_smilies/lol.gif http://chronicleforums.com/images/custom_smilies/lol.gif

And after reading the FEMA expose I was thinking Brown didn't have the experience to go to DC. Was I ever wrong.

Jumphigh83

Sep. 2, 2005, 07:52 PM

I guess this is somehow horse related.. http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif

Ghazzu

Sep. 2, 2005, 07:56 PM

nhwr

Sep. 2, 2005, 08:20 PM

This situation was anticipated http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9175204/

This problem is the result of failed leadership and policies that are removed from reality. More and more, FEMA looks like a political organization. They were all over Florida in the hurricane season before the last election. Though they now admit they "over gave" and are suing to get the money back.

We could mobilize aid to a hostile Islamic nation on the other side of the world faster than we mobilized support for poor Americans. And it begs the larger question, how is it that we are so casual about this kind of poverty? Shame on us http://chronicleforums.com/images/custom_smilies/sigh.gif

poltroon

Sep. 2, 2005, 08:39 PM

Ghazzu: thanks for the background.

queasy: http://chronicleforums.com/images/custom_smilies/lol.gif

archieflies

Sep. 2, 2005, 09:57 PM

My GOD people. What on earth do you think you are doing to help the problem by criticizing? Unless you are able to step in and take over the whole effort, it is RIDCULOUS to sit back and complain, complain, complain. Do you realize how DIFFICULT all of this is? Casting blame does NOTHING to help the situation.

I work with members of Texas Task Force 1, one of the biggest rescue efforts going in there. Part of the Task Force is sent in by FEMA, part summoned from other authrorities. I know what these guys are doing. I know the training they have had, the preparation they have had, the efforts they are putting into this. The sacrifices they are making.

How DARE you come in and criticize what they are doing based on what you THINK you know about the situation. Fact is, this is something that the United States has NEVER dealt with before, at least in "modern" times. Nobody had a freaking CLUE how to respond because we are HUMANS, not because we are BAD or WRONG or CARELESS. The responders have been trained to the HIGHEST standards. If you question that, I challenge you to come to College Station, stay with me, we'll go visit the facilities where many of the world's TOP emergency responders have been trained. There will be no question in your mind. And then you can go take ONE DAY in Bush's shoes, or Brown's shoes... and you see if you can do a better job. My God, people, anyone can look back on a situation and say "Well it should have happened this way..." But when you've got the world and the country and your own life pulling you in a thousand different directions with "this needs attention" and "that needs attention," NOBODy is going to see everythignt hat needs to be done, and nobody knows the future. Then try making those decisions in a situation like this where NOBODY can think clearly for the sheer pain of what they are seeing. It's all fine and dandy to say that "A leader should be able to think clearly in any situation, a leader should always see clearly the most important things, a leader should always make the decisions the way I want them..." But let me tell you, if that is your definition of leader, there isn't a single leader in the world. The world is an imperfect place. The world is a tragic place. And if you think you can do better, by all means, RUN FOR OFFICE.

This is why I like horses. They don't make ridiculous judgements about things that can't be changed, they just eat grass.

OLD A/O

Sep. 2, 2005, 11:52 PM

I have read most of the posts on this thread.

I am sad and sick over the plight of my fellow citizens. We have people dying not from the hurricane but from lack of water, food, medications, medical help, and shelter. You all know this.

Frankly, I do not know this Mike Brown. However, if he is truly the director for disaster relief in my country- my home land. he has failed. This is the USA and no one should have to go five days without water and food in this country that sends relief so quickly to other nations

I am truly ashamed that my fellow citizens of my country have been so abandoned.

I have donated money and you probably have too but what good is that if the supplies are not delivered. Animal or plants we can only survive "X" number of days without food and water. Shelter at this point is a luxury.

I am sad and ashamed!!!

silver

Sep. 3, 2005, 12:07 AM

Archie no-one is criticising the people on the ground (and I know at least a dozen people who are out there driving boats and wielding chainsaws right now). We are criticising the leadership that is making it damn near impossible for those people to do the jobs that nees doing.

I run logistics to very remote places all the time so I have some idea of the challenges of running helicopter relays and gassing up boats where there are no pumps (you only get about 3-5 mpg with an outboard). Getting people off the roofs was a nightmare from the start given the conditions and the small capacity craft being used but there is NO reason for it to take nearly a week to get supplies there or for the director of FEMA not to know about 25,000 refugees at a convention center live on TV. None whatsoever. I'm quite sure the on the ground staff would have been happy to help. I read that the locally stationed marines showed up expecting to be deployed to assist somehow and were told that they could put their names on a list and someone would get back to them after Labor Day Weekend. That is F'ed up.

Cartier

Sep. 3, 2005, 02:03 AM

FEMA’s purpose is to have a plan for these kinds of foreseeable disasters.

It’s true that Katrina disproportionately impacted the lives of the very poorest of the poor, but it impacted thousands of others as well. There is no excuse for this failure of leadership. None!!

Here are some text messages begging for help (reported in the NYDN): <BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">
Doctors, patients and staff are stranded at Baptist Hospital. My brother, Dr. Bryant King, is stranded there and has been sending occasional text messages to let us know the situation. Yesterday, management at the hospital decided to selectively withhold food and water from patients. Doctors are being forced to decide who gets to live and who will starve to death. My brother argued with them, refusing to do it, that's when he called to ask for help. Rachelle King

Save Methodist hospital - urgent! I just received a phone call from my sister, it is 1:20ish in the morning and she has just informed me that FEMA is not helping them at all. They are out of water, food and diesel fuel for the generator. There are 700 people in the 3rd floor lobby, about 50 of staff, and around 50-60 patients (a few have been evacuated but the rest of died). This is no joke, if we don't get help to my parents and everyone in the hospital may die. Phillip Barrocas

1200+ patients and medical staff are stranded at University Hospital on Perdido Street. Women are giving birth in the halls and patients are dying. Newborns and many others will not survive for much longer. Boats have been seen going to Charity Hospital, but completely ignore those at University Hospital. Please, someone help! The food and water dropped on the roof of the hospital has not withstood the drop and has broken upon hitting the roof and therefore cannot be eaten/drunk. The situation is deteriorating QUICKLY! Dennis Montelibano </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
It took this country 4 days to get 4 thousand National Guard troops to New Orleans to respond to the overwhelming need for water, food and order… said need having been predicted accurately on August 28th ( and for years before). Taking four days to respond is disgraceful. This is not a situation where the federal government had to get permission from a foreign government or fly over hostile air space. FEMA already had legal authority to act and to act immediately. There is no excuse for the suffering and death that occurred in New Orleans these past four days.

sleepdeprived

Sep. 3, 2005, 06:03 AM

Thanks Cartier. My god, can you imagine the stories to be told. I hope they got help.

For those criticizing the critics I'd like to ask, just when will this country be ready for a disaster? We weren't ready for 9/11 and we weren't ready for Katrina and a lot in between (unless you were in Florida last year at election time). And when should we start criticizing exactly? 3 weeks from now when the deaths are tallied? This is just the beginning of seeing what went very, very wrong.

A day after 9/11 there were semi trucks filled with food and water from major corporations and organizations. Barges offshore were filled with donations of food and water and clothing that was not used and eventually went to warehouses. I'd venture to say those *same* companies have been offering that same assistance but have been told they'd get back to them.

We can't get even fresh drinking water to thousands stranded in New Orleans? How can you not see what's wrong with this picture?

Cartier

Sep. 3, 2005, 06:23 AM

Our survival will depend upon the American people making wise informed choices… about the leadership of this great country… about our priorities ... about how we treat our fellow citizens, and about how we prepare to respond to disasters. The choices are ours.

sleepdeprived

Sep. 3, 2005, 07:04 AM

Finally read Bush's comments from yesterday. When your boss says what you've done is unacceptable you're going down. Who knows how many more people died because of their lack of mitigation and inaction after the hurricane. Brown will be replaced next week I'll bet. Just hope he doesn't turn up at a horse association again.

Cartier

Sep. 3, 2005, 07:42 AM

What did the Federal Government know and when did they know it? Quoting from the New York Times:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">There was shock at the slow response: Joseph P. Riley Jr., the 29-year Democratic mayor of Charleston, S.C., and a veteran of Hurricane Hugo's wrath, said: "I knew in Charleston, looking at the Weather Channel, that Gulfport was going to be destroyed. I'm the mayor of Charleston, but I knew that!"

But perhaps most of all there was shame, a deep collective national disbelief that the world's sole remaining superpower could not - or at least had not - responded faster and more forcefully to a disaster that had been among its own government's worst-case possibilities for years.
…
Around the nation, and indeed the world, the reaction to Hurricane Katrina's devastation stretched beyond the usual political recriminations and swift second-guessing that so often follow calamities. In dozens of interviews and editorials, feelings deeper and more troubled bubbled to the surface in response to the flooding and looting that "humbled the most powerful nation on the planet," and showed "how quickly the thin veneer of civilization can be stripped away," as The Daily Mail of London put it.
…
Andrew Young, the former civil rights worker and mayor of Atlanta who was Jimmy Carter's ambassador to the United Nations, was born in New Orleans 73 years ago, walked on its levees as a boy and "was always assured by my father that the Army Corps of Engineers had done a masterful job." But, Mr. Young said, "they've been neglected for the last 20 years," along with other pillars of the nation's infrastructure, human and physical.

"I was surprised and not surprised," he said of the failures and suffering of this week.

"It's not just a lack of preparedness. I think the easy answer is to say that these are poor people and black people and so the government doesn't give a damn," he said. "That's O.K., and there might be some truth to that. But I think we've got to see this as a serious problem of the long-term neglect of an environmental system on which our nation depends. All the grain that's grown in Iowa and Illinois, and the huge industrial output of the Midwest has to come down the Mississippi River, and there has to be a port to handle it, to keep a functioning economy in the United States of America." </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

This is a wake up call folks... America is a great country... but we have to remain focused on what makes us great... we need to take care of our people, our environment and our infrastructure.

War Admiral

Sep. 3, 2005, 09:22 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Jumphigh83:
I guess this is somehow horse related.. http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, way back when in this thread, I actually did ask what I believe to be a valid horse-related question, so with your permission I'll reiterate it here...

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> What I'd like to know more about, if we know, is the allegation that he spun off money intended for IAHA's legal defense fund into his own legal defense fund once the lawsuits started flying. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Ghazzu, thanks for responding. Anyone else hooked into the Arabian horse scene have any comments?

vineyridge

Sep. 3, 2005, 10:21 AM

Here is an article from the Washington Post, dated Tuesday morning, by the director of emergency preparedness in Seattle on what FEMA has become.
FEMA and priorities (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/29/AR2005082901445.html)

And here is an article in today's Post on what the US gov., including FEMA, is doing today and how they are viewed by people on the ground in Miss and La.
Today on the ground (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/02/AR2005090200670.html)

I'm from Miss, and I have no idea how we are going to pay for all the damage, since we have lost so much casino revenue and casino related job income (and multipliers) from the Coast. We couldn't balance the budget before the storm; now we will be in dire straits--with a governor who has stated flatly in the past that he will veto all new taxes.

Once again, poor Mississippi is being ignored in all the national news. From what our state newspaper wrote on Wednesday, looting on the Miss. Coast has been going on since the minute people could get out after the storm. Even places as far inland as Hattiesburg have been severely wind damaged. Jackson still is without power in many places, and the police have been in place at GAS stations, for pete's sake.

All the relief will be going to Louisiana, and we will have to fend for ourselves. Our governor, who is a Bush crony, refuses to admit that the administration's response has been anything less than ideal.

silver

Sep. 3, 2005, 01:20 PM

WEll vineyridge maybe people will beign to realise that being the governor or mayor is a practical position not best filled by some idealogue who has never done an honest days work in their life. I practically cheered when I heard Nagin ranting and raving on the radio. Fire Brown, install Guiliani and let the two of them along with the professional Coast Guard and military/ National Guard sort this mess out in New Orleans. Bring in anyone with experience in MSF and the Army Medical Corps to run the field hospitals along the coast and ask for professional logistics people to do the distribution networks. Give them out of state cells that will work better and ham radios and they can move mountains. My small company alone could and would send half a dozen people with years and years of remote logistics experience: government agencies like USGS have dozens more. Keep the figure head FEMA and Red Cross people the hell away from it as it's clear they are in way over their heads.

Trying

Sep. 3, 2005, 02:22 PM

just wondered why they couldn't drop water and food to roof tops etc amd call for the "good ol' boys" to come sooner in theri flat bottoms and why they had to send the evacuees out of state where they willhave a hard time fgetting back home. Was norther Louisana destroyed too? So many qurestion!
Bless those of you who have donated and given time.

Sonesta

Sep. 3, 2005, 04:58 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">just wondered why they couldn't drop water and food to roof tops etc amd call for the "good ol' boys" to come sooner in theri flat bottoms and why they had to send the evacuees out of state where they willhave a hard time fgetting back home. Was norther Louisana destroyed too? So many qurestion!
Bless those of you who have donated and given time. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Good point, trying. How come the casinos and hotels in Shreveport and Bossier City aren't being used to house evacuees?

poltroon

Sep. 3, 2005, 05:28 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Trying:
just wondered why they couldn't drop water and food to roof tops etc amd call for the "good ol' boys" to come sooner in theri flat bottoms and why they had to send the evacuees out of state where they willhave a hard time fgetting back home. Was norther Louisana destroyed too? So many qurestion!
Bless those of you who have donated and given time. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I heard at least one story of someone with an airboat who arrived on the scene only to be told by a FEMA official that he was welcome but would have to pay for his own fuel. It runs $500 a day. He didn't have the money to pay for that, so he turned around and went home.

silver

Sep. 3, 2005, 06:40 PM

I've been in touch with people who ARE out there in boats, I don't know if they qualify as good old boys being mostly young women but hey.... La Fish and Game showed up with every boat in their fleet asap, and were rescuing over 600 people per hour for days on end according to the news. unfortunately those are probably small boats, holding 6-10 people max. LSU sent their gear and people too and lots of private boat owners started rescue work asap. The people I talked too it took them 2 days, working round the clock to chainsaw enough trees and move enough debris to even get on the road with the trailers. There is only one way into NOLA right now and from what I understand people are being turned back for lack of official swiftwater training or get there and don't have enough gas and 2-stroke oil to run a boat for long and there is none there (outboards and airboats suck gas bigtime). There are a lot of rural areas underwater too and people are being evacuated to Baton Rouge where a huge volunteer effort is housing and feeding refugees and rescuers alike.

I also read a news report that said that they were dropping water and food but that it was being fought over and families and the elderly were afraid to go near it. The people of Baton Rouge are practically running a city sized shelter at the moment too with between 150,000 and 200,000 refugees. They are doing what they can.

sleepdeprived

Sep. 3, 2005, 09:11 PM

Mike Brown's unique background before heading up FEMA was mentioned by NY Times columnist Maureen Dowd in yesterday's column:

"...Michael 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..."

Cartier

Sep. 4, 2005, 03:58 AM

Administration favorites, Halliburton and Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) are making billions in their contracts overseas (at American taxpayer expense). These two companies could have fed and housed the people in the Gulf Coast in a heartbeat

vineyridge

Sep. 4, 2005, 07:51 AM

Oh, Cartier, don't worry. http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

I'm sure those two companies will be first in line to make billions off reconstruction. Probably without competitive bidding either. http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

vineyridge

Sep. 4, 2005, 07:55 AM

You know, the Bush administration has been determined to kill off FEMA any way it can. Maybe because it was a high functioning creation of Democratic administrations. Maybe not.

There are lots of news stories out there on FEMA's downgrading and loss of support by this administration. Maybe Mike Brown is just another spike in the coffin.

carolprudm

Sep. 4, 2005, 08:01 AM

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/politics/04halliburton.html
check the last paragraph about one of their consultants

This articl is long and somewhat self serving, check out CONCAP towards the end

http://www.halliburton.com/default/main/halliburton/eng.../corpnws_090205.html (http://www.halliburton.com/default/main/halliburton/eng/news/source_files/news.jsp?newsurl=/default/main/halliburton/eng/news/source_files/press_statement/2005/corpnws_090205.html)

Sep. 4, 2005, 08:14 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by carolprudm:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/politics/04halliburton.html
check the last paragraph about one of their consultants

This articl is long and somewhat self serving, check out CONCAP towards the end

http://www.halliburton.com/default/main/halliburton/eng.../corpnws_090205.html (http://www.halliburton.com/default/main/halliburton/eng/news/source_files/news.jsp?newsurl=/default/main/halliburton/eng/news/source_files/press_statement/2005/corpnws_090205.html) </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Okay - let me get this straight. 90% of my family is now homeless, FEMA has managed to kick all the evacuees out of hotels in Mississippi so that they could takeover, it took over 5 days to get the military in place....but Halliburton is already benefitting???? WTF??????

Cartier

Sep. 4, 2005, 08:17 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">I'm sure those two companies will be first in line to make billions off reconstruction. Probably without competitive bidding either. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Finally, some good news… I’d sure hate to see those bf companies have to go without!!!! (no icon to insert here... and the ole one finger salute is the only thing I can think of anyway).

ise@ssl

Sep. 4, 2005, 08:18 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by kb:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by carolprudm:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/politics/04halliburton.html
check the last paragraph about one of their consultants

This articl is long and somewhat self serving, check out CONCAP towards the end

http://www.halliburton.com/default/main/halliburton/eng.../corpnws_090205.html (http://www.halliburton.com/default/main/halliburton/eng/news/source_files/news.jsp?newsurl=/default/main/halliburton/eng/news/source_files/press_statement/2005/corpnws_090205.html) </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Okay - let me get this straight. 90% of my family is now homeless, FEMA has managed to kick all the evacuees out of hotels in Mississippi so that they could takeover, it took over 5 days to get the military in place....but Halliburton is already benefitting???? WTF?????? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well when would you propose to sign contracts to have companies ready to go to repair huge power installions?? Have an open bidding process a month later??

Come on - don't be so ridiculous - every single administration has to have companies in place BEFORE something happens - NOT AFTER.

And since some of you know so much about this - exactly how many companies do you know exist that can handle huge scaled projects?? Come on gals - give me your list since you all are ready to be CEO's of an alternative!! There are not very many - and they have to pay their people ALOT because they go in where you all will not go! And the EMPLOY PEOPLE not robots you know.

Trying

Sep. 4, 2005, 09:15 AM

I only remember tha budweiser stopped bottling beed and bottled water for the prople and the rest is out of nmy knowledge. Humanitarianism has no price tag. I am sure the auto companies could do something and how about a manufacturer of mobile home and rv trailers and trailers like 16 wheelers pull to be used as temporary shelters (good ol' college days when you rea;l;y had to suffer to get an education!!).
I think the pharmaceudical companies should step forward along with the insurance companies and the power companies or any other that live of the fat of the lambs. Baaaaa!

Cartier

Sep. 4, 2005, 09:26 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Well when would you propose to sign contracts to have companies ready to go to repair huge power installions?? Have an open bidding process a month later??

Come on - don't be so ridiculous - every single administration has to have companies in place BEFORE something happens - NOT AFTER.

And since some of you know so much about this - exactly how many companies do you know exist that can handle huge scaled projects?? Come on gals - give me your list since you all are ready to be CEO's of an alternative!! There are not very many - and they have to pay their people ALOT because they go in where you all will not go! And the EMPLOY PEOPLE not robots you know. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Ilona… I love you to pieces and concede that you’re a bright gal.. but to get some perspective on unbridled corporate greed, go to Iraq and Kuwait... take a good look - first hand – at what is going on over there with Halliburton and Kellogg, Brown and Root… absent the media spin... then we’ll talk.
As for criticism of state and local governments… sure we can point fingers.. but the overwhelming failure in the Golf Coast was FEMA and the federal government’s lack of leadership and preparedness. Bush is caught with his pants down yet again… on the one hand he is praising political cronies and incompetence (because he simply doesn’t know any better) and on the other hand he is back-pedaling because of the worldwide media spot light shining down upon this hideous preventable situation.

ise@ssl

Sep. 4, 2005, 09:26 AM

Trying - I think if you check some of the news bulletins you will see how many companies have stepped forward (and always do) with money and products.

But the reality is these families need to stay together and that won't happen without permanent housing. The Astrodome can't become a city permanenently.

nhwr

Sep. 4, 2005, 09:32 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Administration favorites, Halliburton and Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) are making billions in their contracts overseas (at American taxpayer expense). These two companies could have fed and housed the people in the Gulf Coast in a heartbeat </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> Oh, Cartier, don't worry. http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

I'm sure those two companies will be first in line to make billions off reconstruction. Probably without competitive bidding either. http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif

</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Don't worry ladies. I read somewhere that Haliburton and KBR already have the contracts in Alabama and Mississippi. Some parts of the adminstration seem to be able to mobilize quickly http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif

ise@ssl

Sep. 4, 2005, 09:36 AM

Elaine - you can talk to me anytime you want about companies that go in to areas that no one else wants to go. Your husband's experience in the Air Force is not the only source of information out there you know.

In the late 70's I worked for Galbraith Ruffin who did a great deal of overseas development work - one client was a major oil company. You aren't knowledgeable in how hard it is to find and keep EXPERIENCED PERSONNEL to go into dangerous areas or even non-dangerous areas that have different types of societies. I couldn't even be considered for some of the jobs in Saudi Arabia because I was a woman and would have had limitations on what I could do (like driving) or where I could go (no where without a chaperone). And much has not changed for the better - in fact the places these companies you love to hate go into are in the middle of not only wars but horrible terror.

Now if your husband was offered a PAYING job (outside the military) - would he go or would you go over there with him? Take your family? YOu would NOT be able to take pets or horses BTW. And leave the bathing suit or sleeveless shirts behind as well. And what would your family unit demand as pay or benefits - not only for the work but for the risk???

I'm never understanding why your husband went into the military - was able to get a medical degree - paid for by the military - when you all seem to be so ANTI- MILITARY OR WAR. What do you think the armed forces exists for??

My husband's company does work all over Eastern Europe and into the middle east - I'm happy to discuss the industry issues with you - but please have your facts straight and COMPLETE.

Corporate greed exists to the same levels RIGHT HERE IN THE GOOD OLD U.S.A. If you want to tell corporations they are making too much money going in to do work where they could end up dead - I defend your right. But I question the outcome?

When there are only a few to pick from - you just can't say we won't take any of those - there are no others!

Cartier

Sep. 4, 2005, 09:44 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">I'm never understanding why your husband went into the military - was able to get a medical degree - paid for by the military - when you all seem to be so ANTI- MILITARY OR WAR. What do you think the armed forces exists for?? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Ilona you have long history of shooting your mouth off when you haven’t a clue what you are talking about. Unlike the party boy in the White House, my husband actually earned his way through life… through school, including his medical degree. He has given over 20 years of service to this country and I feel we have earned the right to say, “It’s time that you either know what your talking about or shut the **** up!!!!

ise@ssl

Sep. 4, 2005, 09:54 AM

Then why go in the military? And I'm not shooting my mouth off - if your husband went to Medical School while in the military - it's just a fact. And FYI Elaine - most Americans including myself and my husband earned out degrees - paid for them ourselves and never had any jobs handed to us. And I know few people who went to college who didn't party - really it's a right of passage in America.

Many of the people who work in the Defense industry including those at Haleburton and others came out of the military.

Making corporations into demons makes no sense to me. Who else then will do this work? If you don't support the choices for the contracts - lobby your elected officials - that's where the decisions are made - IN WASHINGTON'S BACK ROOMS. And it's not party related - it's all parties, at all levels of government.

You can hate Bush - but don't give the President's position more power than it really has. If you've ever spent any time in WDC lobbying - I unfortunately did go down and do it a few years back - it's a repulsive and eye-opening experience. In fact, I think you'd see a great similarity in the anger you are directing and the corporations you mentioned. Senators and most Congreemen/women DO NOT LEAVE WASHINGTON POORER THAN WHEN THEY ARRIVED - and it doesn't have any correlation to the salary we pay them!

I think you should edit out the "f" word - really this isn't a street fight - it's difference of opinion.

sleepdeprived

Sep. 4, 2005, 10:05 AM

Ise, you're such an expert in so many things but one thing that seems to fail you is the subject of compassion. Cartier's husband has served and continues to serve his country. That doesn't mean he has to agree with the person leading this country at the moment. In addition, he has to go back, risk his life again, engaging in a futile war that is entirely about taking care of big companies.

Cartier is entitled to feel the way she does and she certianly has firsthand knowledge of a lot of things going on in Iraq. Aside from the politics, I think you're being insensitive and rude.

Cartier

Sep. 4, 2005, 10:06 AM

Ilona,

I am thoroughly disgusted with you and your tactics. All I will say is that Arthur - and hundreds of thousands like him- are the people who put their lives on the line so that you can sit in the safety of your living room and take pot-shots at him. With almost 3000 posts to this forum, I don't believe I have ever used that word... but you have gone so far over the top here... it will stay until Erin tells me to remove it.

You have a mind set (political ideology) that says that this Administration handled Hurricane Katrina well. I think that assessment is patently absurd and directly conflicts with what the world saw this past week… but we can agree to disagree.

I can see the Bush spin starting now... it's the one thing the Administration excels at.. spin. And, by the time people are back in their cars Tuesday listening to their daily dose of the Rush Limbaugh version of reality, you and other Lim-publicans will have the spin down pat, with a zillion distorted factoids to say that Bush did an exemplary job.. and so it goes.. reality in this country has become what politicians make it and whatever a radio disc jockey tells them.

nhwr

Sep. 4, 2005, 10:52 AM

What makes me ill about this is that the focus of our country since 9/11 has been national security. The response would have been no different if this was a large scale terrorist attack. We have spent billions and billions of dollars on Homeland Security and fighting the "War on Terror". What do we have to show for it? Bin Laden is still out there, Al Queda is alive and well, no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, just a huge quagmire there. We have sacraficed our position of leaders of the free world by our own behavior and we can't even take care of our people. What a waste. But at least we are safe from the terrible threat of gay marriage. This will be Bush's legacy. It is disgusting. I feel real shame.

Cartier

Sep. 4, 2005, 10:55 AM

Oh, but the fun isn’t nearly over yet... his real legacy will be his appointments to the Supreme Court.

sleepdeprived

Sep. 4, 2005, 11:16 AM

The words 'shock and awe' are better used to describe how a lot of us feel about their response to the hurricane. It's surreal. Two nearly entire states physically devastated and still more hurricanes to come. They had better pray there isn't a terrorist attack now.

Back OT though (somewhat loosely) http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif, a little while ago I heard Michael Brown say that 'they called in the troops when they felt it was necessary,' so I suppose that was what, Thursday or Friday?

Sonesta

Sep. 4, 2005, 02:21 PM

Ladies, please take the personal dispute to a PT before the topic gets shut down.

sleepdeprived

Sep. 4, 2005, 02:28 PM

Here's a story from CNN. It contrasts Mike Brown's comments with those of reporters and witnesses to what was going on in NO. Let's just say there is a huge difference. BTW, someone said a woman remarked on TV words to the effect, "Brown is doing a hell of a job... so far no Arabian horses have died."

here is the link to CNN story:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/02/katrina.response/index.html

ise@ssl

Sep. 4, 2005, 02:33 PM

Oh come on Elaine - 90% of the men in my family both sides served in the military. 7 went to or are attending one of the military academies. My husband served in Special Forces for a total of 12 years - including Vietnam. We know up front and personal about sacrifice and putting lives on the line... IN COMBAT. And we have continued to support the military in any way we can - including on going financial support to Special Forces families who have lost loved ones. One of my cousins just returned from his second COMBAT tour in Iraq. My husband drives to funerals all over our area for those killed in these wars.

And just to muddle up your theory even more. - I NEVER - REPEAT NEVER listen to anything Rush Limbaugh says - can't stand the man. But I believe in and respect George W. Bush - won't budge off that position. And I'd go to work for Secretary Rumsfeld in a NEW YORK MINUTE! Hoping to be helping Condi Rice get elected as the first woman President in the near future.

And listening to the radio for me - is just pure JAZZ - all the time 101.9 in NYC.!!

sleepdeprived

Sep. 4, 2005, 02:38 PM

Ise, America needs you. Please go help Rumsfeld. Someone needs to. And President Condi, well gosh darn it, what a dream come true for all of us.

Cartier

Sep. 4, 2005, 03:29 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> I'd just like to know where they found those two, clean gals to pose with Dubya in the midst of all the squalor.......... </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Reminds me of the last Presidential campaign… we were in Ohio for much of the early campaigning.. and as we all know, Ohio was a targeted state. Even early on in the campaign he would come to town in these heavily contrived/orchestrated PR events, flying in Air Force One (basically campaigning on the taxpayer’s dime). So here would come the President of the United States… who was afraid of unrehearsed or unscripted questions from voters (his constituents). The local and evening national news would show charming vignettes with Bush and his adoring constitutes... the truth is that the only American citizens who could attend these contrived events were pre-selected by local Republican party officials… everyone else was banned. For those who can’t quite grasp why this is an aberration in a democracy, in our society - as a citizen - I should have equal access to the President of the Untied States, irrespective of my political affiliation. But Bush and his cronies do not allow him to have contact with people who might ask questions that aren’t scripted or that he hasn’t rehearsed the answers to.

Ilona, what you are failing to grasp is that I do not wish to discuss how you personally came to hold the views you hold. And I will not tolerate you speculating about me, my husband and what our motives are. Form what ever opinions about us you like, but they belong in private.

Marieke

Sep. 4, 2005, 03:48 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Cartier:

Reminds me of the last Presidential campaign… </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

That's really funny and very true. And only the 'upper voters' get the going in front. I have a very funny story about that, which made me a very anti bush from the beginning. The only good thing he had going for him was his springer spaniel. The rest is a farce.

ise@ssl

Sep. 4, 2005, 04:12 PM

Gee when you talk about "heavily contrived/orchestrated PR events" - that pretty much covers EVERY SINGLE SOLITARY POLITICAL EVENT IN THE UNITED STATES FROM THE LOCAL SCHOOL BOARD ELECTIONS RIGHT ON UP TO THE PRESIDENCY. !!

There is NOTHING spontaneous about politics - either side or straight up the middle.

Come on .........

pupuplatter

Sep. 4, 2005, 04:12 PM

You know, ise, there's a guy on TOB you should meet as you two have a lot in common. His name is PeterGuy. http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_mad.gif

ise@ssl

Sep. 4, 2005, 04:16 PM

Thanks but I like to think there are men, women, boys, girls - GUYS is a current slang that I just don't get!

What's wrong - when people debate why do some of you get so rattled - are we all supposed to agree on everything?

You all don't like the man running FEMA - how many of you want the job??????NO hands? If you do - apply - I wouldn't want that challenge which in the end would probably NEVER please anyone no matter how much good you did for whatever number of people. And every single solitary MONDAY MORNING QUARTER BACK - would have had a better way of doing just about everything.

pupuplatter

Sep. 4, 2005, 04:18 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by ise@ssl:
Thanks but I like to think there are men, women, boys, girls - GUYS is a current slang that I just don't get! </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

That's his name............peterGUY!!!!!! And, he's also in the minority on TOB.

Cartier

Sep. 4, 2005, 05:13 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Gee when you talk about "heavily contrived/orchestrated PR events" - that pretty much covers EVERY SINGLE SOLITARY POLITICAL EVENT IN THE UNITED STATES FROM THE LOCAL SCHOOL BOARD ELECTIONS RIGHT ON UP TO THE PRESIDENCY. !!

There is NOTHING spontaneous about politics - either side or straight up the middle.
</div></BLOCKQUOTE>
You are speaking of a dictatorship. Politicians in a democracy typically do not fear their constituents. No other President in recent memory has so feared 50 % of his constituents that he refuses to allow them a voice.

As for calling for the Mayor of New Orleans to step down… most of the people on this forum did not elect him… it is not for us to judge … he was elected by the people of New Orleans and it is for them to say if they are dissatisfied. I just heard him speak on 60 Minutes, which gave me a glimpse of what he has been through this past week… I have no criticism of him.

silver

Sep. 4, 2005, 05:14 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">I'd just like to know where they found those two, clean gals to pose with Dubya in the midst of all the squalor.......... </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
They were out of town "salvagers" http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif More interesting tidits about Bush's trip to LA (http://www.blah3.com/article.php?story=20050903214041794) including the fact that he ahd all air traffic halted including relief missions while he was there.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">There was a striking dicrepancy between the CNN International report on the Bush visit to the New Orleans disaster zone, yesterday, and reports of the same event by German TV.

ZDF News reported that the president's visit was a completely staged event. Their crew witnessed how the open air food distribution point Bush visited in front of the cameras was torn down immediately after the president and the herd of 'news people' had left and that others which were allegedly being set up were abandoned at the same time.

The people in the area were once again left to fend for themselves, said ZDF.
</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Erin

Sep. 4, 2005, 05:22 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Cartier:
No other President in recent memory has so feared 50 % of his constituents that he refuses to allow them a voice. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, to be fair, I think what he really fears is looking like an idiot.

Bush just ain't good at speaking extemporaneously. He jumbles sentences and makes up words and winds up looking like a dork. And he doesn't handle being challenged well... remember his facial expressions during the first debate? So it's no surprise that his handlers don't want those who are going to ask uncomfortable questions at his public appearances.

Anyway, let's try to stick to the (already OT) subject at hand. You go to war (or to disaster relief) with the president you have, as Rummy might say. But since Bush IS the prez, you betcha that we should all be looking to HIM during this disaster. And he doesn't just get to take the credit and the photo op when things are going well. Responsible citizens are supposed to speak up and criticize and be active in letting their elected officials know what they think. That's OUR job.

Cartier

Sep. 4, 2005, 05:27 PM

Erin,
I defer to you and your fair assessment[s].

To lighten things up I could post a photo of one of the dogs kissing one of the horses… or would you all pummel me with rotten tomatoes. http://chronicleforums.com/images/custom_smilies/yes.gif

Actually I have this thought, early on, I think it may have been Saturday night, we learned that a mare we had once considered purchasing was in the path of Katrina. Now we don’t know the current owner and are not close friends of the former owner… we simply knew the mare. Our thought - on Sunday August 28th - was that we had to get the mare and her babies out of harms way. I contacted the previous owner that night offering to go and get the mare and her babies out. It was not possible to get enough information to help the mare. We waited to hear more news… and hopefully they are all right.

Had it been one of our horses or loved ones we would have acted on the 28th and we would have done whatever was necessary… if it meant bringing supplies in so they could wait it out... or going and getting loved ones out; we would have done something.

Now, I have watched the situation in the Golf Coast this past week along with the rest of the world... personally I believe what happened reflects a failure of leadership at the federal level… at the very least, a failure to act. I have a problem with FEMA… and their response to this… but apparently a few others in this country think FEMA did a swell job… so that’s life in a democracy.

D'habi Arabians

Sep. 4, 2005, 05:39 PM

Any of you listen to CBS 60 Minutes tonight? Seems that Mayor of New Orleans has a great deal of respect for President Bush.

He stated Bush put it right to him -- been hearing a lot of stuff and I want to hear from you and the mayor said he told it just like it is to Bush.

Cartier

Sep. 4, 2005, 05:57 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Any of you listen to CBS 60 Minutes tonight? Seems that Mayor of New Orleans has a great deal of respect for President Bush. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
We saw the 60 minutes show.. did the mayor of New Orleans express respect for the office or the man? I thought it was the former.

saddlesurfer

Sep. 4, 2005, 06:55 PM

Sorry to go back a few posts but is anyone sure FEMA's Mike Brown is the same Mike Brown from IAH? Mike Brown (FEMA) was an active atty from Okla. with no apparent equine background (& obviously little in emergency mgmt background as well http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_mad.gif)

SimpsoMatt

Sep. 4, 2005, 08:41 PM

Mike Brown's bio .. straight from a White House press release (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/12/20011203-6.html)

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> Brown was appointed FEMA General Counsel in February, and Acting Deputy Director in September, where he has served as the Chairman of the Consequences Management Working Group. From 1991 to 2001, Brown was the Commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association, an international subsidiary of the national governing organization of the U.S. Olympic Committee. From 1988 to 1991, Brown was General Counsel to Dillingham Insurance, Suits Drilling, Suits Rig, Latigo Energy, Dillingham Ranch and Dillingham Enterprises, and from 1980 to 1988, he was an attorney in private practice. In 1978 to 1980, he worked for the Oklahoma State Senate Finance Committee, and from 1975 to 1978, Brown worked for the City of Edmond, Oklahoma, overseeing the emergency services divisions. Brown is a graduate of Central State University and Oklahoma City University Law School. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Erin

Sep. 4, 2005, 08:55 PM

There's a pretty thorough article in today's Washington Post that outlines how FEMA has been folded into the Dept. of Homeland Security and how its mission and structure has changed, perhaps to the detriment of disaster relief because of the focus on terrorism:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...AR2005090301653.html (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/03/AR2005090301653.html)

Also, I caught a repeat of today's Meet The Press, and if you didn't see it, there was a really heartwrenching anecdote from Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish... he literally broke down sobbing.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">The guy who runs this building I’m in, Emergency Management, he’s responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, “Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?” and he said, “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! [Sobbing] Nobody’s coming to get us. Nobody’s coming to get us… </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

He also came down pretty hard on FEMA, saying they turned away three truckloads of water from Walmart "a week ago," told local officials they couldn't have diesel fuel offered by the Coast Guard, etc. You can read the transcript of his interview here (http://thinkprogress.org/2005/09/04/worst-abandonments/), and this site (http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/09/04.html#a4783) actually has a video, although when I tried to watch it, it froze halfway through.

Erin

Sep. 4, 2005, 08:58 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">From 1991 to 2001, Brown was the Commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association, an international subsidiary of the national governing organization of the U.S. Olympic Committee. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Boy, it's like six degrees from the IOC. http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif

Does this mean anyone who's a USEF member can claim to be an Olympian or something?

OLD A/O

Sep. 4, 2005, 09:22 PM

I have followed this thread with great interest and have posted before this post.

One question I have is the following:

I saw on the national news that the Walmart trucks were turned awayed and told to go back. There were many trucks and full of needed items. This happened two days after the storm. I figure this was 5 to 6 days before our government helped.

Was this Mike Brown responsible for the Walmart trucks truned away?

If not does any one know would be so mean to turn these needed items away?

Finally, how could Walmart meet the needs of the plight of our fellow citizens before our government? Maybe Walmart should replace this Mike Brown?

As I have posted before I am so sad and ashamed for our response to my fellow citizens need.

sleepdeprived

Sep. 4, 2005, 09:51 PM

Erin, I saw that guy break down too.

It's all so unbelievable. http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_mad.gif So many trucks came through New York after 9/11 and dropped off supplies. If Brown was the authority who turned them away he really should be shot.

Erin

Sep. 4, 2005, 10:01 PM

Well, to give the benefit of the doubt, it may just have been a giant clustermuck with no communication, which led to supplies being sent away. Broussard also said that FEMA deliberately cut off the state folks' emergency communication lines, which really makes no sense at all. I have no problem believing that there's incompetence raging at many levels here, but deliberate cruelty and sabatoge is a little harder to swallow.

But you can't watch that interview and have any doubt that the anguish and anger Broussard feels is absolutely real.

Has this article been posted on this thread yet?

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/12554964.htm

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Head of FEMA has an unlikely background

By Matt Stearns and Seth Borenstein

Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - From failed Republican congressional candidate to ousted "czar" of an Arabian horse association, there was little in Michael D. Brown's background to prepare him for the fury of Hurricane Katrina.

But as the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Brown now faces furious criticism of the federal response to the disaster that wiped out New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast. He provoked some of it himself when he conceded that FEMA didn't know that thousands of refugees were trapped at New Orleans' convention center without food or water until officials heard it on the news.

"He's done a hell of a job, because I'm not aware of any Arabian horses being killed in this storm," said Kate Hale, former Miami-Dade emergency management chief. "The world that this man operated in and the focus of this work does not in any way translate to this. He does not have the experience."

Brown ran for Congress in 1988 and won 27 percent of the vote against Democratic incumbent Glenn English. He spent the 1990s as judges and stewards commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association. His job was to ensure that horse-show judges followed the rules and to investigate allegations against those suspected of cheating.

"I wouldn't have regarded his position in the horse industry as a platform to where he is now," said Tom Connelly, a former association president.

Brown's ticket to FEMA was Joe Allbaugh, President Bush's 2000 campaign manager and an old friend of Brown's in Oklahoma. When Bush ran for president in 2000, Brown was ending a rocky tenure at the horse association.

Brown told several association officials that if Bush were elected, he'd be in line for a good job. When Allbaugh, who managed Bush's campaign, took over FEMA in 2001, he took Brown with him as general counsel.

"He's known Joe Allbaugh for quite some time," said Andrew Lester, an Oklahoma lawyer who's been a friend of Brown's for more than 20 years. "I think they know each other from school days. I think they did some debate type of things against each other, and worked on some Republican politics together."

Brown practiced law in Enid, Okla., a city of about 45,000, during the 1980s and was counsel to a group of businesses run by a well-known Enid family. Before that, he worked for the city of Edmond, Okla., and was an aide in the state legislature.

From 1991 until 2000, Brown earned about $100,000 a year as the chief rules enforcer of the Arabian horse association.

He was known as "The Czar" for the breadth of his power and the enthusiasm with which he wielded it, said Mary Anne Grimmell, a former association president.

The suspensions Brown delivered to those suspected of cheating resulted in several lawsuits. Although the association won the suits, they were expensive to defend, and Brown became a controversial figure.

"It was positive controversy," Connelly said. "It got word out that we were serious about enforcing our rules."

But he said Brown could be "abrasive." Others were less charitable.

"He just wouldn't follow instruction," said Bill Pennington, another former association president. "Mike was bullheaded and he was gonna do it his way. Period."

At FEMA, Brown rose from general counsel to deputy director within a year. Bush named him to succeed Allbaugh in February 2003. With FEMA now part of the Department of Homeland Security, Brown's title is undersecretary for emergency preparedness and response.

Brown's old friend Lester said the progression from horse shows to hurricanes was natural.

"A lot of what he had to do was stand in the breach in difficult, controversial situations," Lester said. "Which I think would well prepare him for his work at FEMA."

Despite the withering criticism and a promised congressional investigation of FEMA's performance, Brown still has the support of his most important constituent.

In Mobile, Ala., on Friday, Bush said the response to Katrina was unsatisfactory. But he had nothing but praise for his FEMA director. "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job," the president said.

Stearns reports from Washington for The Kansas City Star. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Ellie K

Sep. 4, 2005, 10:32 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Erin:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">From 1991 to 2001, Brown was the Commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association, an international subsidiary of the national governing organization of the U.S. Olympic Committee. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Boy, it's like six degrees from the IOC. http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif

Does this mean anyone who's a USEF member can claim to be an Olympian or something? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Good one!

silver

Sep. 5, 2005, 12:26 AM

MAybe Mike Brown could go to Cuba and do an internship on emergency preparedness that doesn't suck (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10112.htm)

That article also states that Bush was playing golf the day AFTER Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. If that is true he should be impeached for it and tried for criminal manslaughter to boot.

ise@ssl

Sep. 5, 2005, 05:10 AM

HEY PUPUPLATTER - How do you calculate what a minority is on these boards. Statistically on many of these threads the # of people responding isn't even an acceptable random sample to base anything on. So if you are just going by the posts - your conclusion isn't even valid. And I have to assume from your comment that you believe whatever the largest number of people in any discussion believe.

I don't put my finger in the air to decide what I believe in each day. http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

ise@ssl

Sep. 5, 2005, 05:19 AM

And Cartier - I don't think FEMA did a swell job - what FEMA represents is the SWELLING OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT over the last 50+ years. The best way to handle disasters is at the immediate level - then it layers upwards. If you take the time to look at the redundancy in our Federal Agencies - it's not only clear there's overlap - it's very clear - there's no clarity on who does what where and how.

I'm not embarassed to say that I strongly believe in reducing the federal government so there's more money at the CITIZEN level. Poverty HAS NOT REDUCED WITH SOCIAL PROGRAMS from the FEds. There are BUILDINGS filled with statistics on this failing.

9/11 changed everything with respect to how we react to disasters and this - the largest natural disaster - brings home once again that COMMUNICATION is the failure. But it isn't rocket science to know that when you live in Hurrican areas where ELECTRICITY is often lost - you CANNOT assume or presume you will have communication capabilities without radios that don't rely on electricity. Now what will probably happen is MILLIONS of dollars spent on STUDIES to figure this out - and of Course because most people in Congress want to be re-elected they will stand firmly behind this spending.

If the people of NO - a city with an un-interrupted history of doing NOTHING for it's resident poor - wants to keep that idiot Mayor - they certainly can. But if there are ANY plans to spend some of my money to rebuild a city below sea water with that type of leadership - well my elected representatives and my President will get letters from me SAYING - NO WAY!

And as I read this post - I sincerely hope the representations on here about MIKE BROWN are true and we aren't dealing with TWO DIFFERENT PEOPLE.

And there were reports that trucks and boats had to be turned back or held back due to concerns that they would be shot at - shooting BTW continues even into today. I guess it depends on which station you watch on TV - CNN - which I like to call the Consistently Negative News or others. And I love the reference to German TV - HAH! I love my GErman friends but honestly when I was there last December - I gave up watching TV - it seemed like a was in a parallel universe. Everything about the USA was absolutely positively NEGATIVE and in many instances just plain nasty. Ever read Der Spiegel - you'd probabaly have to hold a gun to their head to ever read one teeny tiny positive commment about anything American. But hey! that's free press and I have to assume this is what the German people want.

And I'm just curious how many of you have ever considered a Government job or appointment??? They pay lousy, everyone and their brother (or sister on the COTH BB'S) is going to crawl inside your underwear to find out every thing about you. There are alot of professional people who LEAVE after a successful career and take up doing something that they might want to do becuase they CAN. Then being called to serve - they do. There's nothing new about this. HORSES - isn't exactly where you can become a millionaire ........you all should know this by now.

And if changing careers or jobs is a sin - well our up and coming generations are a disaster - some have resumes that are PAGES LONG!And alot of the jobs are ......well http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_eek.gif TOTALLY unrelated to the job they are considering.

And BTW - ever check on the resumes of some of REPORTERS or ANCHORS giving us all the information and opinions???????? http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_eek.gif http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_eek.gif

Cartier

Sep. 5, 2005, 06:11 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">And Cartier - I don't think FEMA did a swell job - what FEMA represents is the SWELLING OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT over the last 50+ years. The best way to handle disasters is at the immediate level - then it layers upwards. If you take the time to look at the redundancy in our Federal Agencies - it's not only clear there's overlap - it's very clear - there's no clarity on who does what where and how.

I'm not embarassed to say that I strongly believe in reducing the federal government so there's more money at the CITIZEN level. Poverty HAS NOT REDUCED WITH SOCIAL PROGRAMS from the FEds. There are BUILDINGS filled with statistics on this failing.

9/11 changed everything with respect to how we react to disasters and this - the largest natural disaster - brings home once again that COMMUNICATION is the failure. But it isn't rocket science to know that when you live in Hurrican areas where ELECTRICITY is often lost - you CANNOT assume or presume you will have communication capabilities without radios that don't rely on electricity. Now what will probably happen is MILLIONS of dollars spent on STUDIES to figure this out - and of Course because most people in Congress want to be re-elected they will stand firmly behind this spending.

If the people of NO - a city with an un-interrupted history of doing NOTHING for it's resident poor - wants to keep that idiot Mayor - they certainly can. But if there are ANY plans to spend some of my money to rebuild a city below sea water with that type of leadership - well my elected representatives and my President will get letters from me SAYING - NO WAY!

And as I read this post - I sincerely hope the representations on here about MIKE BROWN are true and we aren't dealing with TWO DIFFERENT PEOPLE.

And there were reports that trucks and boats had to be turned back or held back due to concerns that they would be shot at - shooting BTW continues even into today. I guess it depends on which station you watch on TV - CNN - which I like to call the Consistently Negative News or others. And I love the reference to German TV - HAH! I love my GErman friends but honestly when I was there last December - I gave up watching TV - it seemed like a was in a parallel universe. Everything about the USA was absolutely positively NEGATIVE and in many instances just plain nasty. Ever read Der Spiegel - you'd probabaly have to hold a gun to their head to ever read one teeny tiny positive commment about anything American. But hey! that's free press and I have to assume this is what the German people want.

And I'm just curious how many of you have ever considered a Government job or appointment??? They pay lousy, everyone and their brother (or sister on the COTH BB'S) is going to crawl inside your underwear to find out every thing about you. There are alot of professional people who LEAVE after a successful career and take up doing something that they might want to do becuase they CAN. Then being called to serve - they do. There's nothing new about this. HORSES - isn't exactly where you can become a millionaire ........you all should know this by now.

And if changing careers or jobs is a sin - well our up and coming generations are a disaster - some have resumes that are PAGES LONG!And alot of the jobs are ......well TOTALLY unrelated to the job they are considering.

And BTW - ever check on the resumes of some of REPORTERS or ANCHORS giving us all the information and opinions???????? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Good Morning to You Too Ilona,

I’ll respond here only because you addressed the post to me (and btw, the comment you reference of mine wasn’t directed at you.. I was rather hoping that there is a larger audience than just you and I).

Overall I’d say that there is enough in your post above to inflame just about everyone... I’ll let it stand as typical of your posts… and your perspective.

My only comment: you might want to back off of the personal attacks on the Mayor of New Orleans. You haven’t a clue what you’re talking about. A natural disaster of the magnitude of Hurricane Katrina is well beyond the resources of local government. These types of disasters are National Disasters and require the resources and leadership of the Federal Government. Our countries leaders utterly failed last week… thousands of people across the Gulf Coast died because of this lack of leadership and it is insulting to their memory to pretend otherwise.

As for the media, you might enjoy Lance Bennet's News: The Politics of Illusion

ise@ssl

Sep. 5, 2005, 07:34 AM

I won't back off criticism of the Mayor of New Orleans - he is a disgrace. Ranting like some street person on the radio when people are looking to him for direction and confidence.

And let's not compare the trucks coming into New York after 9/11 to this situation. Massive flooding is a totally different problem - not that Mannhattan Island didn't have a nightmare facing them. But the logistics issue is completely different.

And again I ask - why not have inflatable rubber boats with battery pumps to inflate them in all areas where the people were below sea level?? This doesn't take a million dollars worth of studies.

And for God's sake - we've had wind up field radios since WORLD WAR I. The Police and Governments in areas that are REPEATEDLY - YEARLY threatened by hurricanes - NEVER CONSIDERED OTHER OPTIONS FOR COMMUNICATION?

And I'm not clueless about disaster Elaine. I went into Mannhattan right three days after 9/11 and I was in Hawaii when one of the worst hurricanes hit. While living in Ohio a tornado took out an entire area just 1/4 mile from my apartment and I could see it happening. All of this perhaps makes me feel that EVERY SINGLE PERSON SHOULD HAVE A DISASTER PLAN.

It amazes me how many people have NO FOOD PANTRY, NO BOTTLED WATER, no provisions for back up energy, no extra gasoline on hand - they live and consume like the stores will always be open. And it seems to have NO relationship to their socio-economic situation. Hell - I know people that go to buy grain or hay - the day before it's all gone. They never consider what would happen if they couldn't just jump in the truck and go to the feed store or hay dealer. And many of them have farms with a lot of horses!!

Nicker

Sep. 5, 2005, 07:40 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">I guess this is somehow horse related.. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
Ditto! It was semi HR for the first few pages but has spun way OT. http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif

sleepdeprived

Sep. 5, 2005, 07:48 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> I won't back off criticism of the Mayor of New Orleans - he is a disgrace. Ranting like some street person on the radio when people are looking to him for direction and confidence. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

As opposed to ranting like a street person on a bulletin board? http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif

ise@ssl

Sep. 5, 2005, 07:52 AM

Well here's the connection Nicker - we are looking at not only people but animals stranded or dead or dying. Each person should consider their personal plan - for themselves, their family members and their animals. WHAT WOULD YOU DO? HOW LONG COULD YOU SURVIVE - PEOPLE & ANIMALS?

When 9/11 happened we put a generator system in for our farm to be able to run basics. Cost a lot of money. We are now spending more money (which we could spend on other things) on a solar system to run EVERYTHING for days even with TOTAL loss of power. I'm manic about having no less than 500 bales of hay even at the end of winter.

PEOPLE CANNOT depend on FEMA or the Federal Government to have a plan in place to fit every single household in any area - regardless of the disaster - manmade or natural. But people have to be held more responsible for their own situation and when it comes to animals - big or small - owners MUST BE PREPARED.

Personal Responsibility cannot be legislated.

Cartier

Sep. 5, 2005, 07:58 AM

Just a thought.. all Americans are constituents of the man in the White House… we all have a right to express ourselves with respect to his job performance. In contrast, we are not all constituents of the Mayor of New Orleans. Moreover, the Mayor of New Orleans has been in office about two years. He used the resources he had to cope with an unprecedented natural disaster. If he is deserving of criticism for his failures in this horrific national crisis, it is for the people of New Orleans to say. The Mayor of New Orleans is not responsible for systematically dismantling FEMA (rendering it almost ineffective), and he is not responsible for the utter failure of leadership at the federal level.

Erin

Sep. 5, 2005, 08:03 AM

I daresay that the majority of New Orleans (30% of which is below the poverty level) probably thought the mayor "ranting like a street person" was a perfectly appropriate response to the debacle. As did I.

Oh, and the Mike Browns are definitively the same person. See SimpsonMatt's citation from Brown's White House bio. (The one that claims the IAHA is somehow connected to the Olympics. http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif )

Cartier

Sep. 5, 2005, 08:04 AM

... as did I!!!!

vineyridge

Sep. 5, 2005, 08:12 AM

Got to comment here, since we seem to have no sense of actual history by some posters.

The federal government first got into emergency response and massive flood control projects after the 1927 Mississippi floods. Even the Coolidge/Hoover administrations, which had Republican majorities (I think) in both houses of Congress came to understand that the Federal Government has to be involved in planning for natural disasters that affect more than just one state and also in trying to avert and prevent avoidable disasters (witness all the Corps of Engineer projects in and around the Mississippi River, including NO.)

People who don't learn from history are condemned to repeat it. I personally think it's a generation thing, where folks who have no direct connect to an event think that the measures designed to prevent recurrence are no longer needed and repeal/abrogate them. Then the emergency recurs. This pattern has happened dozens of times in the past 25 years, as programs have been slashed or eliminated as unnecessary. I could list examples, but I won't.

So one individual does emergency response planning. So what? Won't mean a thing if all the equipment and supplies are swept away by a flood or a direct hit from a tornado. (I've had a direct hit from a tornado, so I have personal experience of this. I will also mention that we had no help from the federal government that didn't have so many strings attached and red tape to wallow in that we just hunkered down and did what we could on our own afterwards. Twenty years later, we still have not fully recovered. The insurance companies were a disgrace, and we never were able to replace un or underinsured farm buildings that were crumpled into toothpicks.)

carosello

Sep. 5, 2005, 08:23 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Erin:
I daresay that the majority of New Orleans (30% of which is below the poverty level) probably thought the mayor "ranting like a street person" was a perfectly appropriate response to the debacle. As did I.

</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

No they probably though it was ok till Mr Mayor allowed all the people holed up in the downtown hotel on the busses before them also. But gosh they were mostly tourists...I guess he is hoping they will come back.

Erin

Sep. 5, 2005, 08:32 AM

See my post on the other thread... many hotels paid to charter their own transport. I'm sure that wasn't the case with all of them, but it was with some. I think Tulane Hospital might have done the same, but I heard that secondhand and haven't read it anywhere myself yet.

War Admiral

Sep. 5, 2005, 08:36 AM

Here's another Mike Brown article (http://business.bostonherald.com/businessNews/view.bg?articleid=100857) from the Boston Herald.

Brown pushed from last job: Horse group: FEMA chief had to be `asked to resign'
By Brett Arends

Saturday, September 3, 2005 - Updated: 02:01 PM EST

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.

Cartier

Sep. 5, 2005, 08:42 AM

Anyone know this person DAltor4300@aol.com ?

Just received a nasty private email from DAltor4300@aol.com… We would like to be able to track this person… He/she appears to be unstable… If any one knows this person, could you PT me. Thanks.

ise@ssl

Sep. 5, 2005, 08:49 AM

I've posted this on the other thread but it applies here as well.

Erin - the Mayor's evacuation of hotels was not the one you are writing about!

That early bus set up for hotel guests was early in the week. The MAYOR's situation was later in the week while people were still prisoners at the convention center and dome. Check the news service bulletins - you will find it's two different plans.

And reported today in the New York Times was this interesting FACT - the State of Louisiana and the City of New Orleans have received a total of about $750 MILLION in federal emergency and terrorism preparaedness grants in the last four years. THIS DOES NOT INCLUDE ADDITIONAL MONIES RELATING TO THE LEVEES.

What did they spend this money on?? $750 million!!!!

And even today with people dead, dying, homeless, city still flooded. The Mayor of New Orleans has announced there will be FREE trips to Las Vegas for his police officers.

This is like the theater of the absurd.

Cartier - if you get emails from anyone that are of concern all you have to do is contact the server - in your case AOL - complain and they will handle it.

War Admiral

Sep. 5, 2005, 08:55 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by carosello:
No they probably though it was ok till Mr Mayor allowed all the people holed up in the downtown hotel on the busses before them also. But gosh they were mostly tourists...I guess he is hoping they will come back. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Permit me to put paid, once and for all, to the rumor that Mayor Nagin was responsible for the Hyatt fiasco.

Who was? Why, it's our very own MIKE BROWN, that's who. Stand up and take a bow, Mike.

My source for this?
The Hyatt's web site. (http://neworleans.hyatt.com/property/index.jhtml) Rather more reliable under the circs than the Drudge Report, dontcha think?

ise@ssl

Sep. 5, 2005, 09:07 AM

I'm not defending FEMA - I stated before I feel these BIG GOVERNMENT AGENCIES DON'T WORK. But I hope SOMEONE would printe the detail on where this $750 million dollars was spent.

nhwr

Sep. 5, 2005, 09:21 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> I don't put my finger in the air to decide what I believe in each day. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Perhaps you should try it, you might stumble across a reasonable perspective http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif

Nagin's response was the result of living among death and decay for days with no help from FEMA or Homeland security. His reaction was somewhat more appropriate to the situation than golfing with drug company execs or shopping for shoes that cost $1000 pair. I saw a video clip of Bush strumming a guitar on Tuesday while he was out here on his trip and I couldn't help thinking; A storm battered New Orleans and gulf coast isn't a burning Rome and a guitar isn't a fiddle but .... it seems like everything else is a good fit.

Homeland security has been the purpose of the Bush administration. We have sacrificed freedoms for it. It has sucked vast amounts of money up. We have paid for it with the lives of about 2000 soldiers. Never mind the polictics, looking at the federal government's response to Katrina, this has just be a complete and total waste of money. But the cost of the ineptitude in terms of loss of culture and historical landmarks, in human terms is even worse.

Heidi

Sep. 5, 2005, 09:22 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by ise@ssl:
I stated before I feel these BIG GOVERNMENT AGENCIES DON'T WORK. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Finally, something we can all agree upon! The Bush feds have done an admirable job in proving your point, ise.

Cartier

Sep. 5, 2005, 09:32 AM

In the midst of all of this… I love you guys… all of you, irrespective of your view points and political ideologies. This is a heated discussion; clearly we do not agree, we will likely never agree, but we have still managed to be more civil, more informative and more useful here than any other discussion I’ve seen on this topic.

ise@ssl

Sep. 5, 2005, 09:38 AM

Well take a look historically and see who BUILT those big Federal Agencies!! Not George Bush...........

And NHWR - you've taken exception to just about everything I've posted on these boards - I'd worry if you didn't.

And I will contrast the disgraceful Mayor Nagin with ex-Mayor Rudi Giulliani after 9/11. And the Governor of Texas - and Mayor of Houston - absolute leaders!

And I'm writing letters now TOTALLY OPPOSING ANY FEDERAL MONEY TO REBUILD ANY OF THE AREAS OF NEW ORLEANS THAT WERE FLOODED. If they want to keep that adult Frat Party zone - the French Quarter for tourists - fine. The rest should be one big park.

JustJump

Sep. 5, 2005, 09:49 AM

An AOL member profile search says:

Name: DAN ALTORFER
Location: PEORIA IL
Gender: Male

There is no mystery to "tracking" someone who violates AOL's TOS rules; you simply notify AOL. They are also capable of involving the appropriate authorities (notwithstanding the effectiveness or lack thereof of governmental entities) if necessary.

contact: <<TOSSpam@aol.com>>

War Admiral

Sep. 5, 2005, 09:57 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by ise@ssl:

And I'm writing letters now TOTALLY OPPOSING ANY FEDERAL MONEY TO REBUILD ANY OF THE AREAS OF NEW ORLEANS THAT WERE FLOODED. If they want to keep that adult Frat Party zone - the French Quarter for tourists - fine. The rest should be one big park. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

With all due respect, ise, global intelligence consultants Stratfor (http://www.stratfor.com) would appear to disagree with you. I'm not going to post the entire article b/c it's pages and pages, but it sure does make interesting reading as to why, strategically speaking, we *must* rebuild NOLA.

nhwr

Sep. 5, 2005, 10:27 AM

Ilona,
You give yourself so much credit, I don't read or respond to most of what you post http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif But some of your posts are just so out there http://chronicleforums.com/images/custom_smilies/lol.gif

Yes, let's<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> see who BUILT those big Federal Agencies!! Not George Bush........... </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Except for the Venn diagram union of government agencies, the biggest federal fustercluck ever; The Dept of Homeland Security.... Dubya's baby.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">TOTALLY OPPOSING ANY FEDERAL MONEY TO REBUILD ANY OF THE AREAS OF NEW ORLEANS THAT WERE FLOODED. If they want to keep that adult Frat Party zone - the French Quarter for tourists - fine. The rest should be one big park. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

For someone who touts their economic expertice left and right, you dismiss the economic and strategic importance of New Orleans as a port and an oil processing center a little too quickly. Think it through, girl. You'll get it eventually.

Ghazzu

Sep. 5, 2005, 10:33 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by ise@ssl:

And I'm writing letters now TOTALLY OPPOSING ANY FEDERAL MONEY TO REBUILD ANY OF THE AREAS OF NEW ORLEANS THAT WERE FLOODED. If they want to keep that adult Frat Party zone - the French Quarter for tourists - fine. The rest should be one big park. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

You don't think that one of the most important ports in the US should be rebuilt?
Fortunately, I doubt your view will prevail.

CoolMeadows

Sep. 5, 2005, 11:08 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by ise@ssl:
Elaine - you can talk to me anytime you want about companies that go in to areas that no one else wants to go. Your husband's experience in the Air Force is not the only source of information out there you know.

In the late 70's I worked for Galbraith Ruffin who did a great deal of overseas development work - one client was a major oil company. You aren't knowledgeable in how hard it is to find and keep EXPERIENCED PERSONNEL to go into dangerous areas or even non-dangerous areas that have different types of societies. I couldn't even be considered for some of the jobs in Saudi Arabia because I was a woman and would have had limitations on what I could do (like driving) or where I could go (no where without a chaperone). And much has not changed for the better - in fact the places these companies you love to hate go into are in the middle of not only wars but horrible terror.

Now if your husband was offered a PAYING job (outside the military) - would he go or would you go over there with him? Take your family? YOu would NOT be able to take pets or horses BTW. And leave the bathing suit or sleeveless shirts behind as well. And what would your family unit demand as pay or benefits - not only for the work but for the risk???

I'm never understanding why your husband went into the military - was able to get a medical degree - paid for by the military - when you all seem to be so ANTI- MILITARY OR WAR. What do you think the armed forces exists for??

My husband's company does work all over Eastern Europe and into the middle east - I'm happy to discuss the industry issues with you - but please have your facts straight and COMPLETE.

Corporate greed exists to the same levels RIGHT HERE IN THE GOOD OLD U.S.A. If you want to tell corporations they are making too much money going in to do work where they could end up dead - I defend your right. But I question the outcome?

When there are only a few to pick from - you just can't say we won't take any of those - there are no others! </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

In the late 70's I was living the Middle Eastern country I was born in, sharing a border with Saudi. My father worked for a major oil company. We happily had both pets (even imported a fabulous Rottie from Germany) and horses, wore sleeveless tops and bikinis. Women drove, worked, did everything they do here and did it happily, in a very multi-cultural and tolerant society. America is (was) a great country, but I'm ashamed of our leadership right now. We HAVE GOT to start taking care of our own. Not just our wealthy and a few elite companies, ALL of our people. The leadership's job is to run this country FOR THE PEOPLE. I just don't see it happening.

ise@ssl

Sep. 5, 2005, 11:10 AM

The ports are not where people have homes...........DUH! And why don't some of you sit down and look at a detailed map of that area and then tell me why we should build even ONE HOME THERE. The cost to assure no one will be killed again is 100 times more than building a light rail system to another area off the peninsula for people to commute to work and build them suitable housing.

ise@ssl

Sep. 5, 2005, 11:14 AM

Cool Meadows - which country were you living in?? Saudi Arabia did not allow women in bikinis or sleeveless tops outside the corporate compounds that were built for employees. Women were NOT permitted to drive.

And you know DARN WELL that most of the countries in the middle east still don't tolerate Western culture.

CoolMeadows

Sep. 5, 2005, 11:19 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by ise@ssl:
Cool Meadows - which country were you living in?? Saudi Arabia did not allow women in bikinis or sleeveless tops outside the corporate compounds that were built for employees. Women were NOT permitted to drive.

And you know DARN WELL that most of the countries in the middle east still don't tolerate Western culture. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

It wasn't Saudi, for sure. I'm aware of Saudi's humanitarian issues, which confuses me even further as to why our country continually turns a blind eye and buddies up to them. But that's besides the point. As far as most Middle Eastern countries not tolerating Western culture, I'm not sure of that. Obviously the one I lived in for half my life did, and most that I visited did to some extent. Some do, some don't. Not all that don't are evil supressors of human rights, but they do have different cultural standards. Sometimes I can barely tolerate western "culture" myself. In America today, the number one cause of death in pregnant women is murder.

RAyers

Sep. 5, 2005, 11:21 AM

Apparently ise@ssl rode arabians when Mike Brown was head.

And while you saying it isn't Bush's fault, I think YOU need to check YOUR facts.

FEMA is under the auspices fo Homeland Security, an agency CREATED by GW. Mike Brown, the head of FEMA was a buddy of GW's campaign manager. The federal people who screwed this up are ALL DIRECTLY connected to GW. And as Roosevelt said, "The buck stops here."

Reed

talloaks

Sep. 5, 2005, 11:37 AM

Try this viewpoint on for size. Sounds to me like it is right on!!

TIA Daily -- September 2, 2005

By Robert Tracinski

It has taken four long days for state and federal officials to figure out how to deal with the disaster in New Orleans. I can't blame them, because it has also taken me four long days to figure out what is going on there. The reason is that the events there make no sense if you think that we are confronting a natural disaster.

If this is just a natural disaster, the response for public officials is obvious: you bring in food, water, and doctors; you send transportation to evacuate refugees to temporary shelters; you send engineers to stop the flooding and rebuild the city's infrastructure. For journalists, natural disasters also have a familiar pattern: the heroism of ordinary people pulling together to survive; the hard work and dedication of doctors, nurses, and rescue workers; the steps being taken to clean up and rebuild.

Public officials did not expect that the first thing they would have to do is to send thousands of armed troops in armored vehicles, as if they are suppressing an enemy insurgency. And journalists--myself included--did not expect that the story would not be about rain, wind, and flooding, but about rape, murder, and looting.

But this is not a natural disaster. It is a man-made disaster.

The man-made disaster is not an inadequate or incompetent response by federal relief agencies, and it was not directly caused by Hurricane Katrina. This is where just about every newspaper and television channel has gotten the story wrong.

The man-made disaster we are now witnessing in New Orleans did not happen over the past four days. It happened over the past four decades. Hurricane Katrina merely exposed it to public view.

The man-made disaster is the welfare state.

For the past few days, I have found the news from New Orleans to be confusing. People were not behaving as you would expect them to behave in an emergency--indeed; they were not behaving as they have behaved in other emergencies. That is what has shocked so many people: they have been saying that this is not what we expect from America. In fact, it is not even what we expect from a Third World country.

When confronted with a disaster, people usually rise to the occasion. They work together to rescue people in danger, and they spontaneously organize to keep order and solve problems. This is especially true in America. We are an enterprising people, used to relying on our own initiative rather than waiting around for the government to take care of us. I have seen this a hundred times, in small examples (a small town whose main traffic light had gone out, causing ordinary citizens to get out of their cars and serve as impromptu traffic cops, directing cars through the intersection) and large ones (the spontaneous response of New Yorkers to September 11).

So what explains the chaos in New Orleans?

To give you an idea of the magnitude of what is going on, here is a description from a Washington Times story:

"Storm victims are raped and beaten; fights erupt with flying fists, knives and guns; fires are breaking out; corpses litter the streets; and police and rescue helicopters are repeatedly fired on.
"The plea from Mayor C. Ray Nagin came even as National Guardsmen poured in to restore order and stop the looting, carjackings and gunfire....

"Last night, Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said 300 Iraq-hardened Arkansas National Guard members were inside New Orleans with shoot-to-kill orders.

"'These troops are...under my orders to restore order in the streets,” she said. “They have M-16s, and they are locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot and kill and they are more than willing to do so if necessary and I expect they will."

The reference to Iraq is eerie. The photo that accompanies this article shows National Guard troops, with rifles and armored vests, riding on an armored vehicle through trash-strewn streets lined by a rabble of squalid, listless people, one of whom appears to be yelling at them. It looks exactly like a scene from Sadr City in Baghdad.

What explains bands of thugs using a natural disaster as an excuse for an orgy of looting, armed robbery, and rape? What causes unruly mobs to storm the very buses that have arrived to evacuate them, causing the drivers to drive away, frightened for their lives? What causes people to attack the doctors trying to treat patients at the Super Dome?

Why are people responding to natural destruction by causing further destruction? Why are they attacking the people who are trying to help them?

My wife, Sherri, figured it out first, and she figured it out on a sense-of-life level. While watching the coverage last night on Fox News Channel, she told me that she was getting a familiar feeling. She studied architecture at the Illinois Institute of Chicago, which is located in the South Side of Chicago just blocks away from the Robert Taylor Homes, one of the largest high-rise public housing projects in America. "The projects," as they were known, were infamous for uncontrollable crime and irremediable squalor. (They have since, mercifully, been demolished.)

What Sherri was getting from last night's television coverage was a whiff of the sense of life of "the projects." Then the "crawl"--the informational phrases flashed at the bottom of the screen on most news channels--gave some vital statistics to confirm this sense: 75% of the residents of New Orleans had already evacuated before the hurricane, and of the 300,000 or so who remained, a large number were from the city's public housing projects. Jack Wakeland then gave me an additional, crucial fact: early reports from CNN and Fox indicated that the city had no plan for evacuating all of the prisoners in the city's jails--so they just let many of them loose. There is no doubt a significant overlap between these two populations--that is, a large number of people in the jails used to live in the housing projects, and vice versa.

There were many decent, innocent people trapped in New Orleans when the deluge hit--but they were trapped alongside large numbers of people from two groups: criminals--and wards of the welfare state, people selected, over decades, for their lack of initiative and self-induced helplessness. The welfare wards were a mass of sheep--on whom the incompetent administration of New Orleans unleashed a pack of wolves.

All of this is related, incidentally, to the apparent incompetence of the city government, which failed to plan for a total evacuation of the city, despite the knowledge that this might be necessary. But in a city corrupted by the welfare state, the job of city officials is to ensure the flow of handouts to welfare recipients and patronage to political supporters--not to ensure a lawful, orderly evacuation in case of emergency.

No one has really reported this story, as far as I can tell. In fact, some are already actively distorting it, blaming President Bush, for example, for failing to personally ensure that the Mayor of New Orleans had drafted an adequate evacuation plan. The worst example is an execrable piece from the Toronto Globe and Mail, by a supercilious Canadian who blames the chaos on American "individualism." But the truth is precisely the opposite: the chaos was caused by a system that was the exact opposite of individualism.

What Hurricane Katrina exposed was the psychological consequences of the welfare state. What we consider "normal" behavior in an emergency is behavior that is normal for people who have values and take the responsibility to pursue and protect them. People with values respond to a disaster by fighting against it and doing whatever it takes to overcome the difficulties they face. They don't sit around and complain that the government hasn't taken care of them. They don't use the chaos of a disaster as an opportunity to prey on their fellow men.

But what about criminals and welfare parasites? Do they worry about saving their houses and property? They don't, because they don't own anything. Do they worry about what is going to happen to their businesses or how they are going to make a living? They never worried about those things before. Do they worry about crime and looting? But living off of stolen wealth is a way of life for them.

The welfare state--and the brutish, uncivilized mentality it sustains and encourages--is the man-made disaster that explains the moral ugliness that has swamped New Orleans. And that is the story that no one is reporting.

Source: TIA Daily -- September 2, 2005

Erin

Sep. 5, 2005, 11:52 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by talloaks:
Jack Wakeland then gave me an additional, crucial fact: early reports from CNN and Fox indicated that the city had no plan for evacuating all of the prisoners in the city's jails--so they just let many of them loose. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I don't believe it's true that they were let loose. Landrieu said yesterday, I believe, that sherrifs SWAM to the jails in order to evacuate the prisoners, and took a lot of flak for evacuating prisoners before the law-abiding regular citizens. Their reasoning was that if they DIDN'T evacuate the jails, the inmates WOULD escape and make an already uneasy situation much worse.

Here's an article:

Newsday (http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-lioff05,0,4856723.story?coll=ny-linews-headlines)

Home Again Farm

Sep. 5, 2005, 11:54 AM

Interesting blog on weather Underground site. The blog site is subscription, so I have coppied it below.

Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog

Last Updated: 3:29 PM GMT on September 05, 2005

Last Comment Added: 6:48 PM GMT on September 05, 2005

Katrina: an unnatural disaster

Posted by: JeffMasters, 9:00 PM EDT on September 04, 2005

In comments on Thursday, Sep. 1, in an interview with Diane Sawyer of ABC News, President George W. Bush said, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did anticipate a serious storm. But these levees got breached."

In comments to the press on Sep. 3, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff remarked, "That 'perfect storm' of a combination of catastrophes exceeded the foresight of the planners, and maybe anybody's foresight", and called the disaster "breathtaking in its surprise."

It's not our fault," said Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, in charge of the deployment of National Guard troops in New Orleans. "The storm came and flooded the city."

In other words, Katrina was an Act of God no one could have foreseen, and the politicians we elected to protect us from disaster are not responsible for the unimaginable horror we have witnessed this week.

A horror unimagined by anyone, except by every hurricane scientist and government emergency management official for the past forty years and more. It was a certainty that New Orleans would suffer a catastrophe like this. Every 70 years, on average, the central Gulf Coast has a Category 4 or 5 hurricane pass within 80 miles of a given point. Sometimes you get lucky--for a while. New Orleans had gone over 150 years without a strike by a hurricane capable of overwhelming the levees. Sometimes you get unlucky. There's no guarantee that New Orleans won't get hit by another major hurricane this year. We are in the midst of an extraordinary period of hurricane activity, the likes of which has not been seen in recorded history. Hurricanes Ivan and Dennis, which both had storm surges capable of breaching the levees in New Orleans, smashed into Pensacola in the past year. Either of these storms could have destroyed New Orleans, had they taken a slight wobble westward earlier in their track.

Hurricanes are an inescapable part of nature's way on the Gulf Coast. Nature doesn't care about tax cuts and fiscal years and budget crunches. Nature doesn't care that a city of 500,000 people situated below sea level lies in its path. It was certain that New Orleans would sooner or later get hit by a hurricane that would breach the levees. How could the director of Homeland Security not be familiar with this huge threat to the security of this nation? How could the President not know? How could all the presidents and politicians we elected, from Eisenhower to Clinton, not know?

The answer is that they all knew. But the politicians we elect don't care about the poor people in New Orleans, because poor people don't have a lobbyist in Washington. The poor people don't make big campaign contributions, and those big campaign contributions are vital to getting elected. In all of the Congressional and Presidential races held over the past ten years, over 90% were won by the candidate that raised the most money.

So there was little effort given to formulate a plan to evacuate the 100,000 poor residents of New Orleans with no transportation of their own for a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. To do so would have cost tens of millions of dollars, money that neither the city, nor the state, nor the federal government was willing to spend. Why spend money that would be wasted on a bunch of poor people? The money was better spent on projects to please the politicians' wealthy campaign contributors. So the plan was to let them die. And they died, as we experts all knew they would. Huge numbers of them. And they keep dying, still. We don't know how many. Since the plan was to let them die, the city of New Orleans made sure they had a good supply of body bags on hand. Only 10,000 body bags, but since Katrina didn't hit New Orleans head-on, 10,000 will probably be enough.

Admittedly, it is very difficult to safely evacuate 100,000 people with a Category 4 or 5 hurricane bearing down on you. There are only a few routes out of the city, and a full 72 hours of warning are needed to get everyone out. That's asking a lot, as hurricanes are very difficult to predict that far in advance. The National Hurricane Center did pretty well, giving New Orleans a full 60 hours to evacuate. The Hurricane Center forecasted on Friday afternoon that Katrina would hit New Orleans as a major hurricane on Monday, which is what happened. New Orleans had time to implement its plan to bus the city's poor out. However, this plan had two very serious problems--it wasn't enacted in time, and it could only get out 20% of the people in a best case scenario.

The mandatory evacuation order was not given until Sunday, just 20 hours before the hurricane. I have not been able to ascertain from press accounts when the busses actually started picking up people. The mayor says 50,000 made it to the Superdome and other "shelters of last resort", leaving another 50,000 to face the flood waters in their homes. Although 80% of the city was evacuated, it is unclear whether any of the city's poor made it out by bus. And it is very fortunate that Katrina did not hit the city head-on, or else most of those in the Superdome and other "shelters of last resort" would have perished. The death toll from Katrina would have easily surpassed 50,000.

Even if the evacuation plan had been launched 72 hours in advance, it almost certainly would have failed. A local New Orleans news station, nola.com, reported in 2002 on the evacuation plan thusly:

In an evacuation, buses would be dispatched along their regular routes throughout the city to pick up people and go to the Superdome, which would be used as a staging area. From there, people would be taken out of the city to shelters to the north.

Some experts familiar with the plans say they won't work.

"That's never going to happen because there's not enough buses in the city," said Charley Ireland, who retired as deputy director of the New Orleans Office of Emergency Preparedness in 2000. "Between the RTA and the school buses, you've got maybe 500 buses, and they hold maybe 40 people
each. It ain't going to happen."

The plan has other potential pitfalls.

No signs are in place to notify the public that the regular bus stops are also the stops for emergency evacuation. In Miami Beach, Fla., every other bus stop sports a huge sign identifying it as a hurricane evacuation stop.

It's also unclear whether the city's entire staff of bus drivers will remain. A union spokesman said that while drivers are aware of the plan, the union contract lacks a provision requiring them to stay.

So, if one does the math, 500 busses times 40 people per bus yields 20,000 people that could have been evacuated in a best-case scenario. Only 20,000 out of 100,000. That isn't a half-hearted effort, it's a one-fifth hearted, criminal effort. We're talking about the lives of 80,000 people or more sacrificed, from a disaster that was certain to happen. By not having a plan to get New Orleans' poor out, our government caused the unbelievable suffering and the needless deaths of thousands of Americans. This was not a natural disaster caused by an act of God, it was an unnatural disaster. In his excellent 2001 book, Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in America, Ted Steinberg writes: "Calling such events acts of God has long been a way to evade moral responsibility for death and destruction." He shows in the book how countless politicians over the past one hundred years have done their best to evade this moral responsibility when preventable disasters struck. Our current leaders are no different.

The most prosperous and technologically advanced nation in history surely could have done better. Was it really too expensive to have the vehicles, people, and workable plan in place needed to evacuate New Orleans? "A society is measured by how it treats the weak and vulnerable", said George W. Bush in his State of the Union of Feb 2, 2005. By that measure, the people of this country have responded magnificently. The outpouring of aid, sympathy and prayers for those affected has been tremendous. But by that same standard, our government has failed. Its not just the current administration--every elected government since the days of Eisenhower has failed us. As I've outlined above, the problem is not likely to go away until the amount of money a candidate raises is no longer the primary factor determining who gets elected. Our elected officials won't care for the poor, as long as it is the rich who determine who get elected.

What can we do to help prevent such a disaster from recurring? Well, I encourage all of you to support election reform initiatives such as public campaign financing and Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) over the coming years. Maybe then I can check a box to vote for a candidate who will actually care for the needs of the poor in New Orleans and elsewhere in this county, instead of the usual "lesser of two evils" from the miserable two-party system that let thousands die and tens of thousands more suffer so unbearably.

Dr. Jeff Masters

Erin

Sep. 5, 2005, 12:02 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Windline:

BRAVO!! The whole truth! My husband and I were having a discussion about that the second day after the hurricane. Most folks would form leadership assign tasks, get food, take care of sick, send groups out to look for escape routes. Not sit in utter Chaos and wait to be rescued. But these people have never had to take care of themselves. Big brother has done it for generations and it has taken its tool! </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Windline, you know, there very well could be something to the welfare state mentality thing... but, honestly... the generalizations in that statement are a little much, and you've just used that overly broad brush of yours to deliver a slap in the face to all the good and decent people of New Orleans who DID help each other.

Regular citizens showed up in fishing boats. I just saw a segment on CNN about a registered nurse (a black man, if you're wondering) who was still in NO and picking discarded medicine up off the street to help people.

By most accounts, people were TOLD to go to the Superdome and convention center. Once there, they were told not to leave. What, were they supposed to walk to Baton Rouge with no money, food or water?

bjrudq

Sep. 5, 2005, 12:08 PM

well i knew that sooner or later the right wing whacko crowd would show up to blame the victims.

RAyers

Sep. 5, 2005, 12:08 PM

talloaks,

I do agree that there was and is a pervasive sense of entitlement by many in NO (as well as other cities). Yes, they need to stand up and take responsibility for their lives and the lives of those around them. No question. The thugs that shoot or harm others need to pay (in whatever way). And those that will complain about being abandoned even when the the rescurers were there and they CHOSE not to leave need to take resposibility for their choice.

However, as I have found working in emergency medicine at a large animal hospital, if a horse comes in with a broken leg, you do not look back to what the horse had to eat that morning that made it crazy and run through the fence. You look at the leg and work together to fix the leg. THEN you go back to figure out the original cause.

Sure things may have started 40 years ago and may have created the "I am a helpless victim" attitude. But RIGHT now the leg is broken and the animal needs to be saved. The chosen "vets" and "doctors" to treat this horse have failed. More damage has been done because those in positions to do something were on a coffee break.

poltroon

Sep. 5, 2005, 12:37 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Windline:
This is all so pointless. Do you people honestly think that the Clinton administration would have handled it any better? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I don't care what political party any person belongs to - what happened here was a huge clusterfuck. I think there is no doubt that mistakes have been made, big mistakes that were unnecessary and which have caused many deaths. Politicians of both stripes are to blame. I certainly was happy to see Anderson Cooper tear Mary Landrieu's (D-LA) head off when she spent too much time thanking people for their hard work when people were still dying. (It seemed to me that they both were in tears at the end of that interview. Maybe it gave her the kick in the pants that she needed - I dunno.)

Apparently Friday evening FEMA called in former director James Lee Witt in to help. Witt was Clinton's appointee - and I might add - the only director in the entire history of FEMA - before or since - to actually have experience working in disaster planning and recovery before his appointment, under either Democrats or Republicans.

It doesn't matter if some theoretical predecessor would've handled it better. What do we want, some sort of Reagan vs Roosevelt Hollywood Death Match? If you find Clinton so detestible, one would think that you would not use him as a standard for how you want your President to perform. What matters is that it was handled badly this time, and that the government works for US. It is our responsibility, as citizens, to pay attention to the government and to praise it when it does things well and correct it when it screws up.

And part of that is in the appointment process.

The best headline I've seen about all this was "Category 4 Hurricane Determined to Strike US." True Homeland Security doesn't care whether the threat is deliberate terrorism, natural disaster, or tragic accident. All can kill, big time. We have to prepare for all the possibilities, not just the one that happened last time.

ise@ssl

Sep. 5, 2005, 12:49 PM

Erin - the concept of PRIDE OF PLACE is taught in most Unversities in Planning and/or Sociology courses - sometimes even in Architecture classes. This is not without academic study and focus. It is also studied in numerous business courses and government courses relating to city re-development.

I DO NOT BELIEVE there were absolutely NO AUTOMOBILES available to get people out if a mandotory evacuation had been enfoced.

Nor DO I BELIEVE that those people with automobiles would have refused to take other people with them had a mandatory evacuation been enforced.

Key to this is MANDATORY EVACUATION - ENFORCED AHEAD OF TIME. If you have large groups of poor people you have NO MARGIN OF ERROR if you feel you need to move them when they may not be able to move themselves. ERR ON THE SIDE OF CAUTION AND GET THEM ALL OUT - THIS COULD HAVE BEEN STARTED ON SATURDAY.

And I think this statement is tragically true:

"Nature doesn't care that a city of 500,000 people situated below sea level lies in its path."

Then don't re-build a city for 500,000 people below sea level in Hurricane alley! IT'S TIME TO FACE REALITY.

MAD

Sep. 5, 2005, 01:05 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by ise@ssl:
ex-Mayor Rudi Giulliani </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

It is Giuliani, one "l", a man known for his temper and temper tantrums, many more than Mayor Nagin's specific outburst that you have called "disgraceful".

JER

Sep. 5, 2005, 01:05 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">This is all so pointless. Do you people honestly think that the Clinton administration would have handled it any better? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

In a word, yes.

James Lee Witt, head of FEMA under Clinton, did a very good job (read more about him in this article (http://www.slate.com/id/2125224/) at Slate). Because then-Gov. Bush had singled him out in the debates as one of the bright spots of the Clinton Administration, it was a bit of a surprise that Bush didn't keep him in his administration.

So where is Witt today? Last week, LA Gov Blanco hired Witt to help get the state back on its feet.

Witt had experience -- he was in charge of disaster/emergency services in Arkansas when Clinton was governor before heading FEMA. None of this 'I-failed-at-the-IAHA' nonsense.

vineyridge

Sep. 5, 2005, 01:06 PM

ise, you should change your name to something more fitting, like *ss.

If people were to leave all places vulnerable to natural disaster, the entire midwest would need to be emptied because it's subject to tornadoes. Want to clear California because it's earthquake prone? How about Seattle and volcanoes? St Louis and Memphis because of the New Madrid Fault? And all of Florida? All of the Atlantic seaboard ports for potential hurricane destruction?

Get real, woman. New Orleans grew up the way it did because it had REAL economic impact on the whole US. Just where would YOU site the exit port for the Mississippi River that would be any safer? Or would you abandon river/ocean transport as well?

nhwr

Sep. 5, 2005, 01:10 PM

From the National Weather Sevices Huricane warning system

URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA
1011 AM CDT SUN AUG 28 2005

...DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED...

HURRICANE KATRINA...A MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE WITH UNPRECEDENTED STRENGTH...RIVALING THE INTENSITY OF HURRICANE CAMILLE OF 1969.

MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER.

AT LEAST HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL...ALL WOOD FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED...ALL WINDOWS WILL BE BLOWN OUT.

THE VAST MAJORITY...OF TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING...BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED.

POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

This warning was issued on Sunday morning, 20 hours before Katrina hit NO, 2 days before the levees broke. The Bush administration can't say no one have predicted this!

flshgordon

Sep. 5, 2005, 01:12 PM

ISE:

Since the rest of us have all been blessed now with your benevolent wisdom on why we should not rebuild the great city of New Orleans, I would like to know exactly how many of these displaced people/families/animals you are going to be taking into your home. http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif Surely you will be able to feed/house/clothe a few extras? Since these people should never be allowed to return to their homes which instead should be made into one big park, I'd like to know exactly WHAT THE HELL you think we should be doing with hundreds of thousands of extra people?? Who on earth died and made you God to decide what is best for these people? You don't want to help, keep your damn money because there are plenty of people in this world (many on this board) with compassion and willingness to help these people in their time of need. Who do you think should have to absorb all this extra burden on our hospitals/transportation/school systems? Personally I hope wherever you are you are in no position to come into contact with any of these evacuees who will be able to look you in the eye and see what a shallow, pitiful human being you are.

Your opinions on the 'adult frat party' environment are completely irrelevant, incorrect and just flat mean as hell at this point. I can't wait to hear what you will say if an earhtquake takes out the city of Las Vegas someday. Surely you will be armed and ready with your war cries of "we can't rebuild a city full of gambling and hookers!!!"

Someone really needs to drop a house on you....

ise@ssl

Sep. 5, 2005, 01:17 PM

And on Sunday night the Governor of Louisiana stated on TV that Bush had urged her to order a mandatory evacuation. HE CAN'T ORDER THIS - THE STATE'S GOVERNOR HAS TO.

And I'm sooooooooooooo glad to hear the Governor has hired someone that you all believe is competent NOW. Perhaps this person can stand in front of a microphone and show some confidence.

And people can say whatever they want about Rudy Giulini's temper but HE WAS WHAT SAVED NEW YORK FROM INSANITY ON 9/11. Comparing him to the rant that NO Mayor raged on the radio is insulting to all who know it was Giulini's strength that kept our entire region from panic.

poltroon

Sep. 5, 2005, 01:18 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by MAD:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by ise@ssl:
ex-Mayor Rudi Giulliani </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

It is Giuliani, one "l", a man known for his temper and temper tantrums, many more than Mayor Nagin's specific outburst that you have called "disgraceful". </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Giuliani's task, and the whole 9/11 task, was far easier. Most of the people who died died instantly and thoroughly. They didn't know they were going to die - they just died. There were hardly any injured. There were plenty of supplies available and once it was over, it was over, and rescuing could begin. Guiliani was competent and I applaud him for that. It's a little frightening that simple competence is enough to make you a hero these days, but I suppose it's better than being a hero for your incompetence.

In New Orleans you had people thinking about their imminent death, and the imminent death of everyone they know and love, for several days before there was any violence. It's been hot, there's no food, no water. No one can think straight under those conditions. That story of the emergency worker losing his mother on Friday evening is possibly the worst, most horrible thing I've ever heard.

Cartier

Sep. 5, 2005, 01:24 PM

Who is to blame?

Terror war crippled FEMA, say experts

BY DAVE GOLDINER
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

The Homeland Security Department was so focused on terrorist attacks that it was woefully unprepared to deal with a crushing natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina, experts said.
The sprawling agency was created after the Sept. 11 attacks to take charge of all national emergency efforts, but proved completely ill-suited to the complex job of storm relief.

"Since 9/11 FEMA has been basically dissected and taken apart," said James Lee Witt, who ran the Federal Emergency Management Agency under President Bill Clinton. "If you don't plan together and train together ... you cannot respond. It needs to be put back as an independent agency."

The Pentagon further hampered the effort by initially resisting using troops to help victims of the killer hurricane, according to a bombshell report in Newsweek. While crucial hours ticked away, Defense Department lawyers fought an intramural battle against allowing the military to be roped into the disaster effort, the mag reports.

"Lawyers fretted over untrained 19-year-olds trying to enforce local laws," a source said.

President Bush could have quickly "federalized" the National Guard and handed over the security aspects of the relief effort to the military - as his father, George H.W. Bush, did during the 1992 Los Angeles race riots.

Critics say Katrina exposed the military as overstretched with tens of thousands of National Guard troops serving in Iraq.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff shrugged off that charge and bristled when, on NBC's "Meet the Press," Tim Russert read several lines from a Daily News editorial that scorched his failings. Chertoff hinted the administration might try to pass blame to local officials for failing to give an accurate picture of the crisis. "One of the things we'll look at is why in the middle of this emerging crisis there was kind of a conflict on the information," he told "Fox News Sunday."

Secretary of State Rice also defended the administration. In a tour of damage in her home state of Alabama, she dismissed talk that the victims were neglected because many are black. "Nobody, especially the President, would have left people unattended on the basis of race," she said. Bush is to head back to the disaster area today.

Originally published on September 5, 2005

sleepdeprived

Sep. 5, 2005, 01:27 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">And people can say whatever they want about Rudy Giulini's temper but HE WAS WHAT SAVED NEW YORK FROM INSANITY ON 9/11. Comparing him to the rant that NO Mayor raged on the radio is insulting to all who know it was Giulini's strength that kept our entire region from panic. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

And his city was not completely destroyed either Ise. Let's just say he had a bit more to work with, OK?
And compared to your rantings on this board poor Mayor Nagin wouldn't have a chance. http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif

Lily

Sep. 5, 2005, 01:32 PM

Remember, Guiliani was not the most popular of mayors before 9/11. Many speculated that the real reason why he dropped out of the 2000 senate race was that he would not win against Hillary Clinton. Like MAD said, he was known for his temper and unpopular ideas. The widespread feelings of goodwill toward him started after the terrorist attacks.

RAyers

Sep. 5, 2005, 01:33 PM

Now I have this picture of Giuliani standing on the rubble of the WTC with a cape and the wind blowing through his hair, deflecting swarms of the other terrorist airplanes we never heard about...

Uh, ise, just like you are tearing into Nagin, you are going into complete opposite with Giuliani. I have family in NY and while they do respect Rudy, nobody has ever said he SAVED the city.

MAD

Sep. 5, 2005, 01:34 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by ise@ssl:

And people can say whatever they want about Rudy Giulini's temper but HE WAS WHAT SAVED NEW YORK FROM INSANITY ON 9/11. Comparing him to the rant that NO Mayor raged on the radio is insulting to all who know it was Giulini's strength that kept our entire region from panic. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I am a big fan of Giuliani. (I lived in NY my whole life until 2 years ago; I know what 9/11 was like). I was not addressing leadership in my post or timing, just merely pointing out that you can apparently forgive Giuliani for consistent outbursts (or do not know about them), but can call Nagin's one specific outburst a "disgrace".

Edited for spelling http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_redface.gif

JER

Sep. 5, 2005, 01:34 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> I certainly was happy to see Anderson Cooper tear Mary Landrieu's (D-LA) head off when she spent too much time thanking people for their hard work when people were still dying. (It seemed to me that they both were in tears at the end of that interview. Maybe it gave her the kick in the pants that she needed - I dunno.) </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I think so. Yesterday, Sen. Landrieu blasted FEMA and the Bush Administration. Maybe she was one of the thousands who watched the Cooper interview clip online. Talk about embarrassing displays of political puppetry. I think she'll want to keep that one away from her future election opponents.

War Admiral

Sep. 5, 2005, 01:44 PM

Dragging this thread back on topic for just a second - if y'all will permit - it's well worth a quick trip over to HorsesAss.Org (http://www.horsesass.org/), the blog which originally broke the Mike Brown/IAHA story, to read their follow up article. Scroll down. http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

OK, we all know that WH press releases may - ohhhh - exaggerate the facts slightly, let's say - but now it's starting to look as if there may have been a deliberate attempt to mislead the confirmation hearing committee on Brown's credentials. On the HA site, there is a link to the transcript (http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=107_senate_hearings&docid=f:81311.wais) of Brown's confirmation hearing, where in his opening statement, Sen. Dan Nighthorse Campbell stated:

"Prior to his current job, from 1991 to 2000, Mr. Brown was the Commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association, an international subsidiary of the National
Governing Organization of the U.S. Olympic Committee."

Interesting, no?

Sabina

Sep. 5, 2005, 03:07 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by War Admiral:
Dragging this thread back on topic for just a second - if y'all will permit - it's well worth a quick trip over to HorsesAss.Org (http://www.horsesass.org/), the blog which originally broke the Mike Brown/IAHA story, to read their follow up article. Scroll down. http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

OK, we all know that WH press releases may - ohhhh - exaggerate the facts slightly, let's say - but now it's starting to look as if there may have been a deliberate attempt to mislead the confirmation hearing committee on Brown's credentials. On the HA site, there is a link to the transcript (http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=107_senate_hearings&docid=f:81311.wais) of Brown's confirmation hearing, where in his opening statement, Sen. Dan Nighthorse Campbell stated:

"Prior to his current job, from 1991 to 2000, Mr. Brown was the Commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association, an international subsidiary of the National
Governing Organization of the U.S. Olympic Committee."

Interesting, no? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

So what you are saying, then, if Mr. Brown had only been into Yachting or Sculling, then, that all of this could have been avoided?

Ghazzu

Sep. 5, 2005, 03:14 PM

"if Mr. Brown had only been into Yachting or Sculling, "

He's not even a horseman.
He was hired by IAHA because, as a non-horseperson, he had no dog in the fight, so to speak

carosello

Sep. 5, 2005, 03:24 PM

I dont know if this photo is for real or not...but why the hell didn't they use these buses before the hurricane hit!?
http://news.yahoo.com/photo/050901/480/flpc21109012015

Heidi

Sep. 5, 2005, 03:24 PM

flshgordon took most of the words out of my mouth and onto this thread but I can't help but add a few thoughts and queries.

It is incomprehensible that Brown was selected for the position at FEMA. We can all accept to varying degrees of (dis)comfort the rampant quid pro quo cronyism in politics, but, come on, he was so horribly unqualified for the position! Makes me think he must also suffer from a blindingly swelled ego to even contemplate accepting such a position - one in which you assume responsiblity for potentially millions of American lives. Or maybe that was the job's appeal.

If by ise's standards the federal government shouldn't assume any of the responsibilities for state disasters, guess they had no business in New York either, post 9/11. And they'd better keep their mitts off of CA after an earthquake! The notion of bucking it up and taking it on the chin is a quaint one - but it doesn't apply here and to insist that local and state government cope with this disaster is not only damnably cruel but...stupid.

As to the issue of welfare...how one can equate the expectation of rescue and basic sustenance, after such a disaster, to the expectation of welfare, is baffling. Should only the employed expect to be rescued? Let's just rescue white families with a median family income of 100K. Does that sound more like your vision of, and for, America?

poltroon

Sep. 5, 2005, 03:28 PM

Thanks WA for trying to keep this on track. The followup at horsesass.org is really interesting - one email can make a difference. I am still interested in hearing more about his tenure at IAHA. And I just don't get that line about the USOC. Who even thought that was a connection worth putting in the resume? And even if IAHA was actually deep in the international disciplines, why on earth one would want to be associated with that hotbed of corruption I cannot fathom.

[PS: am I correct in my assumtion that by "International" they mean "We won't refuse your membership or your registration if you have a non US zipcode"? I assume that they had no serious foreign component.]

BTW, I don't think the criticism of Brown is partisan at all. I've seen comments on both sides of the aisle that were highly critical. Here's one from Michelle Malkin (http://michellemalkin.com/archives/003458.htm).

poltroon

Sep. 5, 2005, 03:35 PM

This was in the Denver Post:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Former association board member Karl V. Hart of Florida alleges that in 2000 Brown improperly accepted a check for nearly $50,000 from a prominent breeder and put it toward his own legal defense for his work as commissioner. Board members thought this was improper because Brown already had protection, from the association’s legal team, Hart said. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

My! $50k from one source for one's personal defense fund? Eeep.

Home Again Farm

Sep. 5, 2005, 03:54 PM

Another interesting read from another board:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> I did not write this report. A high school classmate posted it on our class's bb. He did not write it either; a friend of his did and forwarded it to him. It is riveting and horrifying. I thought others should see it, too.

Quote:

Forwarded by Dave Battles '65 Written by Pat Noonan (not a classmate)

9/2/05/ Friday I drove from Mobile Al, to Waveland Ms to take my son's family food, clothing a generator and gasoline. They had come back from the evacuation to the face the reality that everything they owned had been swept away or buried in mud and destroyed. All of them are homeless. All of them are without jobs. All are in desperate need of ... everything he told me on the one phone connection we were able to make after two days of none.

As I was driving over in the dark hours of dawn I saw other pickup trucks on the highways loaded and heading west. Individuals who have decided to take matters into their own hands and are carrying in supplies. We are scrounging for gas cans in order to take in fuel. Then we stand in the gas lines to get what is available and use our own funds to buy for those in need. We buy what food is available in the stores and what clothing is on the racks and are hauling it ourselves.

On that same drive I saw convoy after convoy of Power Co trucks and Asplundth trucks heading west. I saw NO convoys of trucks carrying fuel or food or clothing. No aid trucks reroute. The new casters had announced that the interstate was closed at the state line. Not true, never was true. They announce even now that great truckloads of supplies are on the way in. Not true, I've seen none. Even on the trip back in the dark, I saw equipment convoys coming in but not one tanker or truck that would be carrying food.

Only the army has brought in water and ice (what are you going to do with ice when there is no food?), and MRE's. The will give all the water one asks for, and all the ice, but only one package of food to each person in the vehicle. We tried to explain that there were 20 others at the "camp" but all they would give was three packs of vegetarian MRE. The people in the devastation are not on a diet. They need protein, but what has been shipped to the area is veggies. They are on short supply of gasoline so they send in one person to get food and cannot get help even from the army. Someone has given some very stupid orders.

I got into the hills north of Waveland and the Kiln without difficulty and hugged my son and granddaughter. The power company was on the roadside putting up new poles and wire, the tree removal company was there and working to get the trees off the wires and roads.

It was so good to see that they were alive and well, and that they had a safe and secure place to stay. Tammy, my son’s wife, has many relatives in the area and they are camping in the yard of one. Two small campers and a small primitive house for 6 families. They had one generator and were trying to run the refrigerator in the house on that. They had little but canned food left so the frozen meats and milk (the first the children had had in more than a week) delighted them. Fresh fruit and bread were also scarce as was soap and simple medical supplies or personal items like deodorant or razors.

They had been resourceful however and were trying to ensure their survival. The Kmart in Waveland had opened its doors and left the survivors of the flood waters go in and take what they could use. The Wal-Mart had pushed out baskets full of the items that were useable and let survivors take what they needed. The food in the stores was already rotting and the smell, my son told me, was horrible when coupled with the stench of the thick mud that covers it all. My son had found bottles of bleach and some soap in the trees and had been collecting it to wash the mud off what could be salvaged from their homes. They have to wash everything as there are bodies of animals and people also in the mud and they are afraid of disease and infection.

They have siphoned gasoline from the tanks of the cars and boats that were destroyed in the water and have filtered the water out by pouring it through a shirt or toilet roll. In this way they were able to keep one vehicle running to forage for food and more gasoline. Everyone in the area is doing this trying to keep going. And there are hundreds of cars and boats that have been flooded. They litter the streets. Boats and cars are in the ditches, yards and trees along the highways. It is very odd to see a 30 foot cabin trawler sitting in the middle of the road or on top of a car or house. At first. They one becomes accustomed to the sight and it no longer warrants attention.

What does get attention is the devastation wrought to the homes and businesses. We went to Waveland to get tetanus shots for my son and his father in law, who had been working in the mud and wreckage of their home. They heard the hospital (a euphemism now for there is a building but no hospital anymore in the town) “mash” unit had them, by the only form of communication left…rumor. We got there too late and they were out of the shots. My granddaughter (six years old last week) was happy about that as she had been rationalizing about not really needing one herself.

There is no habitation left in the town of Waveland, Shoreline Park, Pearlington, Pass Christian, Long Beach. These are all the small, quaint, wonderful towns that used to exist along the long white sand beaches of the Ms. Gulf coast. The little towns west of Gulfport and Biloxi that have gotten all the media attention and have the casinos. These are the towns in which the teachers, police, firefighters, nurses and doctors live….d. These are the towns that have been on the “best places to live in the south” lists. Where the people from New Orleans have summer home. These are the towns that have weathered and survived the great hurricanes like Betsy and Camille. Until now. Now these towns no longer exist, except in the minds and hearts of the people who once lived there.

To say that a house or a town for that matter is gone is such an understatement, such a difficulty thing to get one’s mind around. So hard to conceive that kind of destruction. We went to the fire station in Bay St. Louis where my friend Pam works. One of the only female fire officers in the state. She has seen her share of trauma has pulled bodies out of rubble, has lived through hurricanes in her house on Esplanade. It had never been flooded in any storm before. Many people said that … before now. Many homes had been a refuge in storms of the past. Most are now gone. There were 14 people in her house when the waters came rushing in, bursting through the walls and sending those inside into the attic. Pam was on duty of course at the station, with her two retrievers that she has trained for search and rescue. She watched in amazement as the water came up to the drive of the firehouse. Fortunately it came no farther. But she knew that meant everything else from the beaches to 30 miles north was under water.

I knew my house in Pass Christian was gone. Chris had called to tell me that. I asked, still hoping, "do you mean the roof is gone?". "No, Ms Pat, he said, it is gone, there is nothing there". I did not try to go and see it. That would have taken too much time and galoine. It is gone.

The Policemen on duty in Waveland were not so lucky. Their station was hit by the five foot wall of water that came roaring in and the men on duty for the storm swam and climbed into the tall pines around the station. That is where their bodies were found. All of them. All of the policemen in Waveland died that morning. As did the police and firemen at the stations in Pass Christian. That is as far as her communication went. So we do not know about Long Beach or Shoreline Park or Pearlington. She has told me that there are truck at the Alcoa plant where the bodies are being taken. There have been more than 60 pulled out so far on the beaches of Waveland and Bay St. Louis. The search crews are going house to house and marking the building with orange paint. Numbers represent bodies. The helicopters are flying over and have some way of “spotting” the bodies and she has said there are at least 100 in the houses that need to be recovered.

When I asked her what supplies she needed, she asked for food for her dogs and cages so that they will have someplace to keep the strays that they find. There are hundreds of animals in the area, roaming and eating the dead animals…and other things. She and the families of the firefighters are living together in the firehouse as all of their homes are ruined. We went to her house and she showed me the damage, the water line at 3 feet inside, the furniture and belonging that are tossed together in the ever-present stinking mud. She said she was able to save some of the hanging clothes but everything else that she and her husband, also a firefighter, had accumulated over their 30 years of marriage. Like all the other firefighters and police, doctors and nurses in this war zone, they are on duty….until relief comes, if it ever comes. No matter though as there is no place else for them to go. They live now in a place that looks worse than any battle field, any third world country, any flood or storm in the history of this country. They live here. Waiting for the world outside to bring them aid.

We went next to look for other friends, along Main Street where some of the beautiful old homes still are standing, though flooded. And were some of my friends are living, among the damp and mud. They said they were ok and did not need anything. Their families had gotten in with food and supplies. Families all over the coast are able to get food into the victims, but the government cannot. Families with meager resources are finding ways to bring the aid, while the government with all its power is apparently clueless as to how that might be done. While we were in town the President was supposed to be in Biloxi making a photo appearance and assuring the listeners that help was on the way. Four days in 100 degree heat, mud, stench, death and destruction. Help is “on the way”. People there have learned to depend on themselves and their friends. That is all the help that they have seen materialize. Perhaps the government should just issue checks to those of us who have trucks and let us get the job done. We seem to know how. We certainly have the motivation.

We went to the foot of what had been the Bay Bridge because rumor was that the cell phones would work there. Some did as there were many people making calls, walking around in the sand that is now all that remains of the highway. We looked south toward Bay St. Louis. What used to be Bay St. Louis. No buildings remain on the beach. Few homes have any part left. We looked north to where the yacht club stood. The flag pole remains, and some pilings. I had been a member of that club; it had been a wonderful place for those of us who sail to go and talk about boats. To race each other and hang out. Gene Taylor, senator of Ms., is a member and used to come down to work on his boat in the uniform of the boat owner….jeans and tee. There are no yacht clubs left on the northern gulf coast. Pass Christian is gone, Gulfport is gone, Ocean Springs is gone, Mobile is gone, Fairhope is gone. There are very few boats left anyway.

The antebellum homes that have stood on the shores of the Gulf for centuries are gone. Swept off the face of the earth. The earth itself has been altered. We looked out toward Cat Island and saw nothing. Sometimes it cannot be seen in the haze but usually one can see a dark line where the trees are. It is one of the barrio islands that protect the coastal towns from storms. I don’t know if it is still there. We couldn’t see any sign that it is.

We went next to my son’s house. He had cut the trees from the road and made a path for the truck. The house was one still standing. But at an angle, it’s back broken. It was on pilings 8 feet up. It was in a no flood zone. There had never seen water in the house, though the yard sometimes flooded in heavy rains. Water had come up to 5 feet inside. The waterline was on the walls. Funny things happen. The dining room table floated in the water and all of my son’s bills were still laid out on the table where he had left them. Bills he cannot pay, as the banks are gone, the post office is gone and he has no funds anyway, no job now.

The mud of course covered everything, slimy, thick slit from the sea and the river that runs to the north of Waveland. Foul smelling and staining everything brown. It is the gumbo mud that we know clings to our anchors and must be washed off to save the white decks. It is the black mud of the bayous and rivers, sediment from hundreds of years of decaying vegetation. Now it is everywhere. Where it dries it cakes everything or coats everything with a fine dust.

I retrieved the Martin guitar that had been my brother’s and then mine and that I had given to Kelly for use in his band. He showed me the tools, a brand new tile cutter that he had stored in the living room for safety, the saws and other tools that he used in his business, that are all now ruined. My son worked very hard to earn a living and provide for his family. He had a small business doing renovations and repairs to homes during the week and played with his band four nights of the weekend. He rarely got a day off, but when he did it was always spent with his family, camping. He had just bought the house, from my mother after her husband died. They had been in it only 3 months. My granddaughter said, head hanging, “it isn’t fair, mema, I want my house back”.

I brought her home with me that night, to give them all a little rest from the crowded conditions that fray nerves. To give her a bed of her own to sleep in and a yard to play in for at least one day. She brought her bike and I will take her to the park, and buy her ice-cream. All the ice-cream in her town is now gone. The toy stores are gone. Even her school is gone, and she only got to go one week. She wanted to go and see it, but we were short on gas and I had to save enough to get home.

I turned off the news driving back. I had seen it.

"Pat Noonan, patn44@yahoo.com
SV Bilikin, Columbia 8.7, out of Fairhope, AL </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

JustJump

Sep. 5, 2005, 04:07 PM

Did anyone catch the link on HorsesAss.com to THIS (http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/09/02.html) video link on CrooksandLiars.com showing Sheppherd Smith and Geraldo in meltdown mode?

issl, take a look at the baby in Geraldo's segment and tell me again how it's the baby's fault it is so helpless?

Cartier

Sep. 5, 2005, 04:13 PM

Mary Lou... we just read your post... reminds me of the Grapes of Wrath

poltroon

Sep. 5, 2005, 04:18 PM

HomeAgainFarm.... I cried.

I couldn't see JustJump's video, but I found this instead, from January 26,2005:

Fire Michael Brown as FEMA head, Rep Wexler (D-FL) urges President Bush (http://www.jewishsightseeing.com/dhh_weblog/2005-blog/2005-01-blog/2005-01-26-wexler-fema.htm)
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Wexler cited reports in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel that FEMA under Brown's management inappropriately gave away $30 million in disaster relief funds to people in the Miami, Florida, area even though they were not affected by Hurricane Frances, which made landfall more than 100 miles away.

In his letter to Bush, Wexler wrote: "According to several news accounts by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 'FEMA has written checks to cover new wardrobes, cars, lawn mowers, vacuum cleaners, furniture and thousands of televisions, microwave ovens, stoves, air conditioners and other appliances.' In addition, the Sun-Sentinel cites that FEMA paid $4,500 for one resident’s funeral, even though the county medical examiner recorded no storm-related deaths. Another Sun-Sentinel article stated that two residents received aid for 'dental treatments due to dental injuries received during the disaster.' In six other cases, FEMA reimbursed residents for damage caused by 'ice/snow.'"

In a Jan. 24 news release, Wexler added: "On Monday, January 11, FEMA held a news conference acknowledging that they made $12 million in overpayments to 3,500 individuals — blaming these overpayments on a 'computer glitch.' FEMA, however, continues to deny additional systematic problems and cites the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to prove that there were legitimate hurricane conditions in Miami-Dade. Yet, according to the Sun-Sentinel, NOAA has refuted the weather maps FEMA claims to have obtained from them. As the head of FEMA, Under Secretary Brown oversees federal disaster response and recovery operations, and it is negligent of him to refuse to accept responsibility for its agency mistakes."
</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

YoungFilly

Sep. 5, 2005, 04:29 PM

My SO just pointed this out because he was shocked to realize that the guy in charge of FEMA was forced to resign from managing horse shows:

Article from the Boston Herald:
http://business.bostonherald.com/businessNews/view.bg?articleid=100857

sleepdeprived

Sep. 5, 2005, 05:01 PM

I cannot believe how critical you all have been of poor Mike Brown. Why he's a man of action. Even before moving the dying from the hospitals, the starving from the Superdome -- or ordering up truckloads of food and water for them -- he was hard at work. First things first! (OK, technically the Navy hired him but who called in the Navy?)

Connecting the dots...So former head of FEMA Allbaugh, Brown's best friend and college roommate who hired him as deputy director, goes to work for Halliburton. Brown gets promoted to head of FEMA. Contracts to Halliburton and subsidiary KBR just keep a coming.

This is from the Houston Chronicle (on the business page of course). (Thanks to the person who sent it to me):

Sept. 1, 2005, 8:30PM

AROUND THE REGION

CONSTRUCTION

Halliburton hired for storm cleanup
The Navy has hired Houston-based Halliburton Co. to restore electric power, repair roofs and remove debris at three naval facilities in Mississippi damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

Halliburton subsidiary KBR will also perform damage assessments at other naval installations in New Orleans as soon as it is safe to do so.

KBR was assigned the work under a "construction capabilities" contract awarded in 2004 after a competitive bidding process. The company is not involved in the Army Corps of Engineers' effort to repair New Orleans' levees.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/3335685

edited to add, today's story in the Washington Post on the same subject:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...005090401193_pf.html (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/04/AR2005090401193_pf.html)

PS--4 people were shot and killed by police after they fired on contracters working on the levee repair yesterday. http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/3339323

mbp

Sep. 5, 2005, 06:39 PM

HAF - that made me get very teary too. The simple words - devoid of rhetoric - they really cut to the chase.

As for Mike Brown, he should have been fired on the spot when he said on Thurs he did not realize there were people at the Convention Center, IMO. WHen he followed it up by saying that he couldn't respond to questions about dead bodies until he heard first hand reports from his own FEMA personnel that there were dead bodies (albeit the video of dead bodies had been running on an off for quite some time) -- there couldn't have been any doubt.

Here is a Times Picayune (I can not believe those guys are still trying to publish - hats off) reprint asking Bush to fire Brown.

Picayune article (http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001054586)

Here's a link to another short piece about Barbara Bush's statements that this is all working out really rather well for the evacuees.

Working Out Well (http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001054719)

On the blame game front, please take a look at the Homeland Security Website. It pretty much tells us who is in charge in the event of a National Disaster.

DHS Website (http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/theme_home2.jsp)
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">In the event of a terrorist attack, natural disaster or other large-scale emergency, the Department of Homeland Security will assume primary responsibility on March 1st for ensuring that emergency response professionals are prepared for any situation. This will entail providing a coordinated, comprehensive federal response to any large-scale crisis and mounting a swift and effective recovery effort. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

FEMA engaged, with other govt entities, in a five day simulation in NO just last year! Everything that happened was predicted. Actually - worse. The simulation indicated that around 200,000 people would be unable/unwilling to leave (remember the greater NO area has 1.3+ million people)

So blame who you want, but the facts are that FEMA was aware that 1)Tens to Hundreds of Thousands would be left; 2)DHS gives primary responsibility to DHS - of which FEMA is now a part; and 3) THE GUY HAS THE HUTZPAH TO CLAIM AFTER 4 DAYS OF COVERAGE HE DIDN'T EVEN REALIZE PEOPLE WERE AT THE CONVENTION CENTER!

Sorry - I'm having my NaginMomement. http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

Seriously, the only person I have seen that I respect for their handling of the situation has ben Gen. Honore (sp?)

No one looks great, but DHS was supposed to be in charge, and had even bragged about having their "arc of relief" set up so that they would be getting in as early as Monday - well, people relied on that to their sorrow. And the time for GWB to take off early from his vacation would have been the day before the hurricane hit - to make sure people had their butts in gear.

IMO, all the "this is not the time to point fingers" is nonsense. If people had not been pointing fingers, Brown might STILL be unaware that there were people at the Convention Center. I noticed Gen. Honore didn't go around saying, "now son, I'm not trying to point any fingers at you, but maybe you might want to ..."

Erin

Sep. 5, 2005, 07:14 PM

The Fox news/Shepard Smith video is REALLY worth watching if you can get it to work. (Poltroon, are you on a Mac? If so, you have to download the link in order to see it.) He looks like he wants to slug someone, he's so mad.

vineyridge

Sep. 5, 2005, 07:31 PM

I got a similar email from my cousin's husband. They had a house in Pass Christian, built to current flood insurance standards. Their house was not on the beach, but back on a bayou. It was probably fourteen feet from ground to the living level. They had four feet of water in the upstairs, and everything is ruined.

Topper stayed at a motel on the second floor and survived the storm. After a couple of days, he went to Birmingham where his wife was staying and loaded up his pickup with supplies and drove them back to a group of survivors who had started a settlement. He had no trouble getting in or out.

All his family is scattered from Baton Rouge to Texas and points west. They have lost homes in NOLA, Waveland and Bay St Louis. Many of the younger ones have no plans to return, and it's possible that the patriarch and matriarch, who have lived in NOLA all their lives will move to Austin, Texas at the age of well over 80.

According to an article in the Memphis paper, the head of the Ocean Springs emergency management agency said that they didn't even have a FEMA contact on Saturday.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Officials across the coast said they weren't satisfied with FEMA's response. Donovan Scruggs, director of community development for Ocean Springs, said Saturday -- five days after the hurricane struck -- that his city didn't even have a FEMA contact.

"Outside assistance from FEMA has been pretty much nonexistent," Scruggs said. "We've been running the show, but nobody here has any experience managing a disaster. We need the experienced show-runners."

In Hancock County, one FEMA representative was present, looking for a site for FEMA operations.
</div></BLOCKQUOTE>
Hancock County would be Biloxi and points east. Harrison County is Gulfport and points west.

Funny that this article was in the paper on Sunday, the same day that our lying, partisan governor (former head of the RNC) was on national TV, claiming that the Federal response was more than adequate.

JER

Sep. 5, 2005, 08:54 PM

Re: Mike Smith/FEMA/$$ in FL

I mentioned this on another thread -- the Gannett-owned newspapers in FL have filed lawsuits (in March 05) against FEMA to gain access to financial records of the post-hurricane disbursements. FEMA and the White House have refused to disclose these documents. Not sure how the FOIA suits are progressing (it can take years) but the papers have ongoing investigations into FEMA's financial shenanigans.

link to News-Press article on FEMA lawsuit (http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050318/NEWS01/503180434/1002/NEWS01)

Policy of Truth

Sep. 5, 2005, 09:12 PM

Last I checked, Louisianna is a state, right? And New Orleans is a city...in that state....so, let me ask this question...why the hell are we focussing on the sorry people of FEMA (trust me, I think they are morons as well), instead of focussing on the mayor of NO and the Governor of Louisianna? Where is it that THEY are being held accountable for their lack of planning?

The Department of Army Corps of Engineers TOLD the mayor that the levies would NOT withstand more than a cat 3 hurricane....he was even given the option to have the river redirected so as to avoid this very scenerio..he refused saying that it would take away from tourism. How do you call a decision like that intelligent and caring? Whether you like his tirade against Bush or not, that ought not to deter you from realizing that this man did not do HIS job and prepare NO for this very situation....he cries "poor me"! and "bad you"! He takes NO responsiblity for HIM and what he did/didn't do for NO before this thing was ever a blip on the screen.

I am neither democrat or republican

...NAGIN IS RESONSIBLE FOR HIS CITY. How the hell is anyone going to say that his lack of a plan was a good one? Everyone in the superdome? I don't think so! Where does that show intelligent planning?....and since when did we all not know the hurricane was a cat4 SATURDAY EVENING!!!??? And headed for the NO/GP area??!

As far as FEMA goes...all I can say is....what the hell?? How can they NOT have had supplies on stand-by off the coast? They have done it before! FEMA is a useless organization. I wish we had another option. They were pretty decent durring FRAN....since then....I have no clue as to what has happened.

I'm not sure that blaming Bush is reasonable. There ARE things we can blame him for....but I cannot work it out that the president should have planned the escape routes and provisions for NO's residents. That's why they have a Mayor. I cannot see how he had a plan. I cannot see how the Governor had a plan. I don't want the president to have the right to dictate to states how they should be run...so I can't see blaming him as a reasonble and logical idea.

Can anyone shed light on the situation with the residents being offered a bus (Red Cross) out of NO sunday (free of charge) and people refussing? Now, I don't blame people for wanting to stay near their homes...BUT, I am tired of hearing that they had no way out and were not given the option.

I cannot see this as a one-sided issue. FEMA didn't do their job...Nagin didn't do his. They both are disasters in my mind. Bush can say/do idiotic things, but this time, not sure he can be held responsible..he isn't in charge of FEMA....IAHA scew-up is...anyone know what HE was doing the four days prior to getting help in NO?

nhwr

Sep. 5, 2005, 09:19 PM

9/4/2005 NYT

September 4, 2005
Do You Know What It Means to Lose New Orleans?
By ANNE RICE
La Jolla, Calif.

WHAT do people really know about New Orleans?

Do they take away with them an awareness that it has always been not only a great white metropolis but also a great black city, a city where African-Americans have come together again and again to form the strongest African-American culture in the land?

The first literary magazine ever published in Louisiana was the work of black men, French-speaking poets and writers who brought together their work in three issues of a little book called L'Album Littéraire. That was in the 1840's, and by that time the city had a prosperous class of free black artisans, sculptors, businessmen, property owners, skilled laborers in all fields. Thousands of slaves lived on their own in the city, too, making a living at various jobs, and sending home a few dollars to their owners in the country at the end of the month.

This is not to diminish the horror of the slave market in the middle of the famous St. Louis Hotel, or the injustice of the slave labor on plantations from one end of the state to the other. It is merely to say that it was never all "have or have not" in this strange and beautiful city.

Later in the 19th century, as the Irish immigrants poured in by the thousands, filling the holds of ships that had emptied their cargoes of cotton in Liverpool, and as the German and Italian immigrants soon followed, a vital and complex culture emerged. Huge churches went up to serve the great faith of the city's European-born Catholics; convents and schools and orphanages were built for the newly arrived and the struggling; the city expanded in all directions with new neighborhoods of large, graceful houses, or areas of more humble cottages, even the smallest of which, with their floor-length shutters and deep-pitched roofs, possessed an undeniable Caribbean charm.

Through this all, black culture never declined in Louisiana. In fact, New Orleans became home to blacks in a way, perhaps, that few other American cities have ever been. Dillard University and Xavier University became two of the most outstanding black colleges in America; and once the battles of desegregation had been won, black New Orleanians entered all levels of life, building a visible middle class that is absent in far too many Western and Northern American cities to this day.

The influence of blacks on the music of the city and the nation is too immense and too well known to be described. It was black musicians coming down to New Orleans for work who nicknamed the city "the Big Easy" because it was a place where they could always find a job. But it's not fair to the nature of New Orleans to think of jazz and the blues as the poor man's music, or the music of the oppressed.

Something else was going on in New Orleans. The living was good there. The clock ticked more slowly; people laughed more easily; people kissed; people loved; there was joy.

Which is why so many New Orleanians, black and white, never went north. They didn't want to leave a place where they felt at home in neighborhoods that dated back centuries; they didn't want to leave families whose rounds of weddings, births and funerals had become the fabric of their lives. They didn't want to leave a city where tolerance had always been able to outweigh prejudice, where patience had always been able to outweigh rage. They didn't want to leave a place that was theirs.

And so New Orleans prospered, slowly, unevenly, but surely - home to Protestants and Catholics, including the Irish parading through the old neighborhood on St. Patrick's Day as they hand out cabbages and potatoes and onions to the eager crowds; including the Italians, with their lavish St. Joseph's altars spread out with cakes and cookies in homes and restaurants and churches every March; including the uptown traditionalists who seek to preserve the peace and beauty of the Garden District; including the Germans with their clubs and traditions; including the black population playing an ever increasing role in the city's civic affairs.

Now nature has done what the Civil War couldn't do. Nature has done what the labor riots of the 1920's couldn't do. Nature had done what "modern life" with its relentless pursuit of efficiency couldn't do. It has done what racism couldn't do, and what segregation couldn't do either. Nature has laid the city waste - with a scope that brings to mind the end of Pompeii.

•
I share this history for a reason - and to answer questions that have arisen these last few days. Almost as soon as the cameras began panning over the rooftops, and the helicopters began chopping free those trapped in their attics, a chorus of voices rose. "Why didn't they leave?" people asked both on and off camera. "Why did they stay there when they knew a storm was coming?" One reporter even asked me, "Why do people live in such a place?"

Then as conditions became unbearable, the looters took to the streets. Windows were smashed, jewelry snatched, stores broken open, water and food and televisions carried out by fierce and uninhibited crowds.

Now the voices grew even louder. How could these thieves loot and pillage in a time of such crisis? How could people shoot one another? Because the faces of those drowning and the faces of those looting were largely black faces, race came into the picture. What kind of people are these, the people of New Orleans, who stay in a city about to be flooded, and then turn on one another?

Well, here's an answer. Thousands didn't leave New Orleans because they couldn't leave. They didn't have the money. They didn't have the vehicles. They didn't have any place to go. They are the poor, black and white, who dwell in any city in great numbers; and they did what they felt they could do - they huddled together in the strongest houses they could find. There was no way to up and leave and check into the nearest Ramada Inn.

What's more, thousands more who could have left stayed behind to help others. They went out in the helicopters and pulled the survivors off rooftops; they went through the flooded streets in their boats trying to gather those they could find. Meanwhile, city officials tried desperately to alleviate the worsening conditions in the Superdome, while makeshift shelters and hotels and hospitals struggled.

And where was everyone else during all this? Oh, help is coming, New Orleans was told. We are a rich country. Congress is acting. Someone will come to stop the looting and care for the refugees.

And it's true: eventually, help did come. But how many times did Gov. Kathleen Blanco have to say that the situation was desperate? How many times did Mayor Ray Nagin have to call for aid? Why did America ask a city cherished by millions and excoriated by some, but ignored by no one, to fight for its own life for so long? That's my question.

I know that New Orleans will win its fight in the end. I was born in the city and lived there for many years. It shaped who and what I am. Never have I experienced a place where people knew more about love, about family, about loyalty and about getting along than the people of New Orleans. It is perhaps their very gentleness that gives them their endurance.

They will rebuild as they have after storms of the past; and they will stay in New Orleans because it is where they have always lived, where their mothers and their fathers lived, where their churches were built by their ancestors, where their family graves carry names that go back 200 years. They will stay in New Orleans where they can enjoy a sweetness of family life that other communities lost long ago.

But to my country I want to say this: During this crisis you failed us. You looked down on us; you dismissed our victims; you dismissed us. You want our Jazz Fest, you want our Mardi Gras, you want our cooking and our music. Then when you saw us in real trouble, when you saw a tiny minority preying on the weak among us, you called us "Sin City," and turned your backs.

Well, we are a lot more than all that. And though we may seem the most exotic, the most atmospheric and, at times, the most downtrodden part of this land, we are still part of it. We are Americans. We are you.

Anne Rice is the author of the forthcoming novel "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt."

Policy of Truth

Sep. 5, 2005, 09:24 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Never have I experienced a place where people knew more about love, about family, about loyalty and about getting along than the people of New Orleans </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Huh..I guess she wasn't getting shot at from her neighbors...and being raped and robbed...by these so-called wonderful people...not to say there aren't wonderful people....but...I wonder how she missed the violence being displayed...

Erin

Sep. 5, 2005, 09:34 PM

pacificsolo, I don't think anyone thinks the local government doesn't deserve some blame as well. Obviously, an evacuation plan that leaves 100k people in the city is not a very good evacuation plan. I assume that if the people in Louisiana think their gov or mayor fouled up, they'll get bounced out on their butts in the next election.

Bush *is* responsible for the current state of FEMA. He created the DHS and put FEMA in it. He appointed Allbaugh to replace James Lee Witt, who had earned a lot of bipartisan admiration for overhauling FEMA under Clinton. (Witt was one of the few heads of FEMA who actually did have emergency management experience... he was the head of emergency management in Arkansas under Clinton, and has now been hired be the gov of LA to oversee the situation there.) When Allbaugh left, Brown was his hand-picked successor (and former college roommate).

The "new" FEMA is a Bush creation, post 9/11. This was its first major test, post 9/11, and it seems to have done an utterly terrible job. How can Bush *not* share some of the blame in that?

The local officials should be questioned over why their evacuation left 100,000 people behind, and I'll be interested to hear their answers. I think they do deserve credit for getting some of those people to the Superdome, where they survived the storm intact. Had the evacuation of the people there started Tuesday instead of... Friday? Saturday? ... I don't think the post-hurricane situation would have been as bad. As I understand it, THAT evacuation was FEMA's responsibility, and that's where they really dropped the ball.

Perfect Pony

Sep. 5, 2005, 09:40 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by pacificsolo:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Never have I experienced a place where people knew more about love, about family, about loyalty and about getting along than the people of New Orleans </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Huh..I guess she wasn't getting shot at from her neighbors...and being raped and robbed...by these so-called wonderful people...not to say there aren't wonderful people....but...I wonder how she missed the violence being displayed... </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

You know, I have to say I am so damn tired of this kind of response, it is really a tired and ignorant way of thinking.

I live in the SF Bay area, IMOP one of the most wonderful, incredible, amazing places on earth. It is considered one of the the most intellegent places on earth, the wealthiest places on earth. But you know what? I have no doubt that given the same situation here there would also be a small minority of people that would become angry, violent, would loot and rape and shoot.

This is the culture we have created, and no matter where, this is what we should expect to see. It's tragic but true. But to question people's love of a city, and the value of a city and culture like what exists in NOLA based on the terrible actions of a small minority, well it just makes me sick.

Policy of Truth

Sep. 5, 2005, 09:51 PM

Erin, that is VERY interesting info that I didn't know....and very disturbing....

Perfect Pony, just becasue I'm tired of people putting on Rose-Colored glasses does not mean I am ignorant...unless beign ignorant means I disagree with how YOU view Rice's work?

I never questioned this lady's love of her city....but in MY POV, she was ignoring the reality...but obviously you see it differently...and b/c of that....I'm ignorant..ok... http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif

JER

Sep. 5, 2005, 09:55 PM

Keith Olbermann did a hilarious bit on Mike Brown's IAHA background on Countdown tonight. Lisa Myers did an excellent report that included footage of Arabians trotting around a ring and noted that what happened at the IAHA is not included in Brown's FEMA bio.

Then Keith gave an impassioned, insightful commentary on this whole mess.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">The "city" of Louisiana (Keith Olbermann)

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. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

link (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240/)

ise@ssl

Sep. 5, 2005, 10:06 PM

Heidi Dear - don't put words in my mouth -
"If by ise's standards the federal government shouldn't assume any of the responsibilities for state disasters," I NEVER SAID THAT BUT NICE TRY.

What I stated was that the FIRST RESPONSE HAS TO BE AT THE LOCAL LEVEL. Now if you don't believe me SPEAK TO FIRE, RESCUE, POLICE, AND OTHER PROFESSIONALS - it's part of their training DEAR!

And I hope all of you will remember this scrutiny of the resume of the FEMA director - hoping some of you will step forward in other areas - such as our horse world when people are hired for big salaries - that haven't a clue about the industry!!!!!!!!!!

The list of people Democrat or Republican who have received appointments (some with big salaries) at all levels of government with little or not expertise or experience - would completely freeze this Bulletin Board.

And MAD - I don't recall Rudy Giuliani getting on the radio during 9/11 and acting like some shreaking crazed nut - swearing all the way through. As you well know - you can't run NYC with a Candy A** mayor - his predecesor proved that!

And even as we read or write here - there are PEOPLE in New Orleans refusing to leave - putting other people in jeopardy who have to keep going back to check on them and try to convince them to leave. Where's the Mayor or the Governor on this situation. MANDATORY EVACUATION - they should physically remove them and let the work begin when the pumping is finished.

And as tens of thousands of people are facing a horror - some of you find slapstick humor about anyone involved in this situation appropriate? NOW? When people are in need? That's just tasteless.

And Anne Rice is full of rice. I'm sure her view of this is crystal clear from her NYC Apartment. And stop this melodrama that only New Orleans has a history of poor people and that evacuation of an entire city is impossible. We've heard that before about areas of FLA and up the East Coast - and finally they realize now that getting people out - EVERYBODY - is possible and they do it.

New Orleans has a history of music, architecture, cultures, etc. Great place to visit. But be honest - anyone who has been there knows - it's a party town and every morning it looks like a fraternity house after a big football weekend and smells even worse.

I hope they can salvage the historic areas and the docks and shipping ports - but the rest - DO NOT REBUILD - turn it into a park and put the money into building housing for those survivors on land that is ABOVE sea level.

And Erin why don't you just start a thread - ALL THE REASONS WHY I HATE PRESIDENT BUSH BY ERIN - and get it all in one post instead of trying to constantly slip it in over and over and over again. Really - the twists and turns and suppositions and inuendos get to be diatribes - just go for it - skewer the man and get it over with. You believe he - yes he personally does everthing that's wrong with the Federal Government - BUSY MAN! Come on just start the new topic and GO FOR IT.

Well JER now the shoe is on the other foot.......why I remember back when Clinton was faced with the "CRISIS" of the government shutting down because the Budget was not passed by Congress. How did that great leader handle it....hmmmmmmmm .....let's check dates! Why he went down the hall and well how do we say??? what words do we use??? Hooked up with an Intern? No that's not right - well you all know the story. http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif And that was just a budget crisis - Good God think what a natural disaster like this might have forced him to do.
http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_eek.gif tee hee - go for it Ladies.

vineyridge

Sep. 5, 2005, 10:39 PM

Evacuate them where? FEMA has already announced that it is throwing pre storm evacuees out of their hotel rooms in Mississippi to make space for these mandatorily evacuated New Orleanians. Where are those smart (after all they evacuated early) folks to go now?
Who is going to support all the folks who are made to leave until they can return home? The old, the disabled, the sick, babies, working people without jobs?

And one small question--if all the working people, the ones with crafts and skills leave the city, where are the contractors going to find the labor to clean up and rebuild? What are they going to do? Empty the city of its residents and import labor from Houston? Keep thousands of military personnel building in New Orleans while Halliburton brings in civilian labor to rebuild Naval facilities.

It's too late now for mandatory evacuation, except for the old, the very young, and the ill. What's needed now are people, lots of people, who can clean up the city and start rebuilding infrastructure. New Orleans had lots of skilled workmen and women, and those folks need to come home, roll up their sleeves, and start to work.

In Mississippi we used to have the equivalent of press gangs when the levees were in danger. Maybe that is what martial law can accomplish in New Orleans. We have statutes on the books in Mississippi that allow our governor to call up all able bodied men to preserve order and deal with emergencies. Maybe now is the time to do something like that.

They will need people in New Orleans and in the rest of the Gulf Coast. Why force them all out if they are willing to stay and work?

JER

Sep. 5, 2005, 10:43 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> New Orleans has a history of music, architecture, cultures, etc. Great place to visit. But be honest - anyone who has been there knows - it's a party town and every morning it looks like a fraternity house after a big football weekend and smells even worse.

I hope they can salvage the historic areas and the docks and shipping ports - but the rest - DO NOT REBUILD - turn it into a park and put the money into building housing for those survivors on land that is ABOVE sea level. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

So what you're saying is this: rebuild the industry, fix up the French Quarter (it's in ok shape) but screw over the bulk of the population, especially the poor people. Someone has to work at those ports, someone has to provide services for those industries, not all jobs are white collar or skilled. Where exactly are these people supposed to live?

New Orleans may have a reputation as a 'party town' but most of the residents aren't participating in the party itself. They're the staff that keeps the party running -- sanitation, bar help, beverage distributors, truck drivers, hotel cleaning service, parking attendants, etc. Or they're employed in other industries or they're among NO's unemployed. But just because you don't like the way their city smells in the morning doesn't mean these people don't have lives every bit as real and meaningful as yours.

Kellsboro Jack

Sep. 6, 2005, 01:31 AM

For the record Anne Rice in early 2005 (finally) sold her two properties in New Orleans as well as her two apartments in NYC. She is now is a full-time resident of California in a gated community, if I'm not mistaken, within distinctly upper-end market La Jolla.

Anyhow one of the best editorials I've seen on this whole matter ...

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">HURRICANE KATRINA: Lead, don't blame
09/04/2005 Saint Louis Post-Dispatch (http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/editorialcommentary/story/F79136B51877B94C862570710032D173?OpenDocument&highlight=2%2C%22rudy%22)

THE INDIVIDUAL most responsible for the disaster that destroyed New Orleans last week was Jean Baptiste le Moyne, sieur de Bienville, the French explorer who decided in 1718 that a strip of land between the Mississippi River and the marshes south of Lake Pontchartrain would make a good spot for a settlement.

But he's been dead for 237 years, so he won't do as a scapegoat.

How about the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers? The corps built and maintained the 17th Street Canal levee, which failed shortly before midday Monday and turned a natural disaster into a national catastrophe. Had the levee held, there still would have been wind damage and localized flooding, but Lake Pontchartrain wouldn't have emptied into the center of the city.

But the corps never claimed the 17th Street levee would withstand a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. That would have required several billion dollars more work, and although the project was under discussion, reinforcing New Orleans' levees was not a national budget priority. You could blame the corps, but the corps could blame Congress, and institutions make unsatisfactory scapegoats, as do dead French explorers, as does Mother Nature.

The finger of blame is drawn, almost magnetically, toward the White House. As Katrina struck on Monday, President George W. Bush was at his vacation home in Crawford, Texas. Late in the day, he flew to Arizona to pitch his new Medicare prescription drug plan, and then flew on to California. He returned to Washington on Wednesday, making a tepid speech as New Orleans was descending into anarchy.

That casual approach, combined with the slow and fumbling response by federal disaster officials, recalled the president's slow reaction to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But on 9-11, other leaders stepped into the breech. Richard A. Clarke, the president's counter-terrorism advisor, ran the White House situation room. And Rudolph W. Giuliani, then mayor of New York, became a towering symbol of strength and resolve.

As the fires in the rubble of the World Trade Center were still burning, Mr. Giuliani appeared on television with words of comfort, power and determination.

"Tomorrow New York is going to be here," he said. "And we're going to rebuild, and we're going to be stronger than we were before...I want the people of New York to be an example to the rest of the country, and the rest of the world, that terrorism can't stop us."

At times of crisis, people need a leader to reassure them, to tell them the battle is winnable, to stand as an example of courage. New Orleans didn't have a Rudy Giuliani. It had instead Mayor Ray Nagin, who preferred blamesmanship to leadership. "I don't know whose problem it is," he told a radio interviewer Friday. "I don't know whether it's the governor's problem. I don't know whether it's the president's problem, but somebody needs to get their ass on a plane and sit down, the two of them, and figure this out right now."

This should have been said behind closed doors, not on radio station WWL's 50,000 watts. Mr. Nagin's own emergency planners, as well as some of his first responders, let him down. Their plan was inadequate, and too many members of the police and fire department didn't - or couldn't - show up for work.

This is not to say Mr. Nagin didn't have a point. The Federal Emergency Management Agency took too long to gear up. The Department of Homeland Security got bogged down in counting cots and bags of ice instead of racing to the rescue. America, in the age of terrorism, has to be better prepared.

Five days after Katrina blew in, order and relief started returning to New Orleans. The National Guard began patrolling, relief supplies began flowing and the evacuation moved toward completion. Had proper leadership, with an adequate plan, been in place, this timeline could have been cut by 72 hours - enough to save countless lives.

Proper leadership and planning will be needed in the weeks, months and years to come. Because this is a national disaster, that planning and leadership will have to come from the federal government. New Orleans and Louisiana, with their history of Byzantine political corruption, may need to come under federal control, under a strong leader who's not afraid to exercise power.

Rudy Giuliani's telephone number is 212-931-7300. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

ise@ssl

Sep. 6, 2005, 04:24 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">but screw over the bulk of the population, especially the poor people </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

JER - I believe you said this - I certainly didn't. What I did say was to use the money to build housing in other areas and provide a transportation system to move those people around. It would costs less money and would provide more assurances that the entire issue of the levees becomes less critical. And don't tell me people can't commute to work on light rail or buses. Here in the Northeast it's a way of life for people at ALL levels of income.

Why spend money to build housing where WE KNOW PEOPLE NOT ONLY ARE NOT SAFE - IT IS EXTREMELY DIFFICULT TO EVACUATE THEM.

Equibrit

Sep. 6, 2005, 05:18 AM

QUOTE

"I don't want to moderate the political slugfest you're determined to start. If you want to discuss this, do so in a reasonable and non-inflammatory manner, or I'm just going to close the thread. Like I'm going to close this one."

Erin

War Admiral

Sep. 6, 2005, 05:24 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">The list of people Democrat or Republican who have received appointments (some with big salaries) at all levels of government with little or not expertise or experience - would completely freeze this Bulletin Board. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm actually not arguing w/ you on this, ise. http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif But I guess - speaking for myself here - the reason Brown's appointment shocks me SO much is that Bush has always appeared to be so dedicated to homeland security that I sort of assumed that in that ONE department, at least (and its subsidiaries including FEMA), he would be making appointments where the people were actually qualified. Pretty obviously that's not the case here. http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_frown.gif

lawndart

Sep. 6, 2005, 06:58 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by ise@ssl:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">but screw over the bulk of the population, especially the poor people </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

JER - I believe you said this - I certainly didn't. What I did say was to use the money to build housing in other areas and provide a transportation system to move those people around. It would costs less money and would provide more assurances that the entire issue of the levees becomes less critical. And don't tell me people can't commute to work on light rail or buses. Here in the Northeast it's a way of life for people at ALL levels of income.

Why spend money to build housing where WE KNOW PEOPLE NOT ONLY ARE NOT SAFE - IT IS EXTREMELY DIFFICULT TO EVACUATE THEM. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

This statement makes sense. I fully understand how important the port area is, the city of NO can be rebuilt as a industrial/service/shipping area using that land for commerce. Putting humans back in there makes less sense.

My area has had some flooding in the last ten years, you can no longer build in a Flood Way, and need special insurance to build in a Flood Zone, along with a certification that it is above a 100 year flood level. An existing building in a flood way has to have less than 50% damage (of its assessed value) to be re-built, if more than that nothing permanent can be built there again. I think this is a good practice, we cannot keep putting people (rescue units especially) in harms way just because someone wants to be on the river/beach/lake no matter how much family history is there. History is not as important as human life.

A side benefit is that now the general public can enjoy these recreational areas instead of just a chosen few.

I know that is easy to say if you don't have a house there, and many years of family memories. But it sounds to me as if most of the residential houses are virtually destroyed, and memories can't be enjoyed if you are dead. Maybe the poor of NO would like to live out of harm's way, and a rail system would create even more jobs.

Erin

Sep. 6, 2005, 07:57 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by ise@ssl:
And Erin why don't you just start a thread - ALL THE REASONS WHY I HATE PRESIDENT BUSH BY ERIN - and get it all in one post instead of trying to constantly slip it in over and over and over again. Really - the twists and turns and suppositions and inuendos get to be diatribes - just go for it - skewer the man and get it over with. You believe he - yes he personally does everthing that's wrong with the Federal Government - BUSY MAN! Come on just start the new topic and GO FOR IT. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I believe my previous post was the first time in any of these threads that I have actually said that I hate Bush. Although anyone whose read many of my posts could probably figure it out pretty quickly.

So what? Does that make my opinion less valid, because I voted for the other guy? Am I not allowed to point out the FACTS about what this administration has done? (Or not done.)

I never said anything was all Bush's fault. In fact, I believe I said that all the gov't officials from the locals on up had some blame to share.

The problem is, you instantly assume anyone who doesn't like the president doesn't know anything about anything, and you put your blinders on and refuse to listen.

And I knew it was only a matter of time before you brought up Clinton and the cigar. http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

Katrina's blow job probably killed 10,000. Lewinsky's didn't kill anyone.

Janet

Sep. 6, 2005, 08:10 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">And even as we read or write here - there are PEOPLE in New Orleans refusing to leave - putting other people in jeopardy who have to keep going back to check on them and try to convince them to leave. Where's the Mayor or the Governor on this situation. MANDATORY EVACUATION - they should physically remove them and let the work begin when the pumping is finished. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>This sems to me to be the key top a lot of the problems.

They called it a "Mandatory Evacuation". But it only applied to people who had the means (car, money for busfare) to evacuate themselves.

When they defined it as a MANDATORY evacuation, THAT is when they should have provided the buses to evacuate all the pwople who didn't have cars, etc.

Yes, there would still be some die hards who would resist any attemots to make them evacuate.

But from what I understand, the vast majority of the people who "stayed behind", did so becuase they had NO WAY to evacuate, not because they didn't want to evacuate.

ise@ssl

Sep. 6, 2005, 08:29 AM

Have you seen the news reports today - they are going door to door and these stupid people are sitting in houses surrounded by toxic poop water saying they are staying. No water, no food, nothing and armed thugs still roaming the entire city.

THEY HAVE TRUCKS THERE READY TO TAKE THEM OUT AND THEY WON'T GO. Now are these National Guard members supposed to keep going in there to beg them?

And actually Erin the Budget Crisis was not the Clinton/Cigar night. That was later. He was a busy boy.

JulieMontgomery

Sep. 6, 2005, 08:42 AM

Ahhhh yes ........

the cigar.

Cartier

Sep. 6, 2005, 08:45 AM

Blow jobs… the cigar

When you can’t argue the facts, because you either have them all garbled or they are overwhelmingly against you… you attack on a personal level.

You want to see the real Clinton… go to the public library and rent the documentary The War Room.. it’s all there, from 1992.. he was always a "busy boy." You want to see and understand Bush, rent Fahrenheit 9/11… he is what he is.

If Clinton had looked America in the eye that cold day in January and simply said, “Yes, I scr**ed her… in the Oval Office, in the hall, under my desk… heck I’m scr**ing her at this very moment.. and it’s none of your business,” we could have dropped it. Unlike Bush, Clinton was not scr**ing the country and not a single American died as a result of the cigar episodes. So what if Clinton lied to us… it was about sex… and here’s news flash for you: Spouses cheat and then lie about it. People cheat and then lie about it.. even under oath. Even Catholic priests lie about it. What Clinton did was his private mistake… between him and his wife… and not a single American died as a result.

In contrast, Bush lied to the American people about the reasons for invading Iraq… thousands have died… we have a hideous mess in Iraq with no clear exit strategy… thousands more Americans will die… I see no credible reason for Bush to claim any moral high ground. Heck the man can’t even answer the simple questions, “Did you take cocaine? or Where were you when you were supposed to be serving in the National Guard? ”

I am tired of the price this entire country has had to pay because of the hypocritical exploitation of what is essentially a typical male mid-life crisis. It is gross hypocrisy to assert that marital infidelity is the exclusive proclivity of one man, one politician or one political party. Infidelity is as old as time itself.. and does not respect party affiliations.

Erin

Sep. 6, 2005, 08:45 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by ise@ssl:
Have you seen the news reports today - they are going door to door and these stupid people are sitting in houses surrounded by toxic poop water saying they are staying. No water, no food, nothing and armed thugs still roaming the entire city. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yup.

Do you see why people are saying it wasn't as simple as driving school buses around and saying "Hop on!" on the Sunday before Katrina hit?

SoEasy

Sep. 6, 2005, 09:03 AM

Because of course to evacuate people before the storm, the ones who had no cars, no money, no family elsewhere, the ones who stayed in other words ... YOU HAD TO HAVE HAD A PLAN AND A PLACE TO TAKE THEM. And a place where they could take their pets, or a nearby shelter for the pets. And it had to be ready, and accessible, and not in the path of the storm, and it had to be free - remember, we're talking about those without the means to simply cross the bridge and check into a hotel. OH, and the ones who DID evacuate on their own, and checked into hotels, have now been removed. To where? Why?

LJD

Sep. 6, 2005, 09:18 AM

Did not read the entire thread so I don't know if this was already stated, however, why is no one involved in Lousiana politics being lambasted? Indeed, the Federal government has been slow to move on this and the situation is atrocious. But why is no one placing blame on the LA governor or mayor of New Orleans? They deserve some criticism for not ordering buses prior to the hurricane hitting. Shouldn't they have made the evacuation truly mandatory? Closed roads leading into the city?

Erin

Sep. 6, 2005, 09:22 AM

I've been trying to find more detailed articles about what was and wasn't done for the initial evacuation, but am not turning much up. Here's one from Shreveport Times (http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050905/NEWS01/509050357/1002/NEWS).

New Orleans had an evacuation plan that called for buses to help evacuate those without cars. There apparently WERE buses running, but they took people to the Superdome.

Another part of the evacuation plan was to open up the INbound lanes of the expressways to OUTbound traffic, which was done and apparently did work relatively well in easing some of the traffic congestions. It was reportedly better than it had been for the last near-miss hurricane that went through the area. (Ivan, perhaps?)

I recall on the day before the storm hit, they were saying that people going into the Superdome were supposed to bring 2-3 days' worth of clothing and food. So, obviously, they expected to be able to move people out shortly after the storm, but I haven't seen whether the city had a plan for moving them out, or if they expected the feds to do it, or if they just expected that people would be able to go home.

Policy of Truth

Sep. 6, 2005, 09:24 AM

uh...Clinton was not all perfect either...he was President last time I checked when the first trade center bombing happened....and he did very little about it.

If you want to buy into Michael Moore's version and opinion on the events, go ahead. I choose not to buy into his opinion entirely. I personally don't like being told how to think about an event...I like to hear as many sides as I can before forming an opnion...but, to each his/her own. Same goes for reading books that paint Clinton as if he were the anti-Christ....whatever...I think both sides suck and are equal-opportinity jack asses who only serve to serve themselves.

Neither Bush nor Clinton is all good or all bad. They both have screwed up and trying to make "your guy" look great just makes me think you don't think anyone can be correct but you...

The poor WERE given the opportunity to evacuate by Red Cross. I do not know why a person would choose poverty AND being flooded over just poverty. If they were poor on Sunday, they were STILL going to be poor Monday....

I think the local government is the first to be repremanded for their lack of planning. The people of NO were paying taxes that paid salaries of people who did nothing to prepare for an event like this. The Federal government should NOT be the ones to decide if the levies of a city are appropriate. They DID their job...since when is it the Federal Governemnt who ought to dictate how states run? God help us if the Federal Government gets any more powerful! States have GOT to be more responsible for themselves...

I do not understand all the inner-workings of FEMA, but I know they USED to be ADDITIONAL help verses the primary help in a natural disaster.

If you are mayor of a city with lots of poor, as well as levies that could only withstand a cat 3, it is necessary to have some logical and reasonable and WORKABLE plans IN CASE BAD THINGS HAPPEN!!!! It is not Bush, FEMA, or any other person's responsibility but YOURS. When people quit expecting everything to be the Federal Government's responsiblity, I imagine we'll all be happier and less taxed....but that's a whole 'nother issue.

Glimmerglass

Sep. 6, 2005, 09:29 AM

Did anyone see the rather interesting flashback article on the drudgereport from the Times-Picayune that spoke to the whole crisis that would face the local folks in the event of a massive hurricane - from June 24, 2005?

It's not like an evacuation procedure by the idiot chuckle heads who oversee N.O. - including those worthless, corrupt police and the idiot mayor - shouldn't have been worked out well in advance. They were too busy counting their bribes and asking women to flash for beads to be bothered I assume with disaster drills.

NEW ORLEANS FLASHBACK: OFFICALS WARNED RESIDENTS 'YOU'LL BE ON YOUR OWN' (http://www.drudgereport.com/flash3kt.htm)

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">But the TIMES-PICAYUNE published a story on July 24, 2005 stating: City, state and federal emergency officials are preparing to give a historically blunt message: "In the event of a major hurricane, you're on your own."

Staff writer Bruce Nolan reported some 7 weeks before Katrina: "In scripted appearances being recorded now, officials such as Mayor Ray Nagin, local Red Cross Executive Director Kay Wilkins and City Council President Oliver Thomas drive home the word that the city does not have the resources to move out of harm's way an estimated 134,000 people without transportation."

"In the video, made by the anti-poverty agency Total Community Action, they urge those people to make arrangements now by finding their own ways to leave the city in the event of an evacuation.

"You're responsible for your safety, and you should be responsible for the person next to you," Wilkins said in an interview. "If you have some room to get that person out of town, the Red Cross will have a space for that person outside the area. We can help you." </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Lily

Sep. 6, 2005, 09:30 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by pacificsolo:
If you are mayor of a city with lots of poor, as well as levies that could only withstand a cat 3, it is necessary to have some logical and reasonable and WORKABLE plans IN CASE BAD THINGS HAPPEN!!!! It is not Bush, FEMA, or any other person's responsibility but YOURS. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

How many category 5 hurricanes have reached land in recent years? Not many. So the odds that one would hit New Orleans were fairly low.

To play devil's advocate, pacificsolo, what would you honestly rather the Louisiana government spend its money on: contingency planning for something statistically unlikely, or dealing with omnipresent problems like education and poverty? I'm sure they all thought they were making the right decisions at the time. Hindsight is 20/20.

Cartier

Sep. 6, 2005, 09:34 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">If you are mayor of a city with lots of poor, as well as levies that could only withstand a cat 3, it is necessary to have some logical and reasonable and WORKABLE plans IN CASE BAD THINGS HAPPEN!!!! It is not Bush, FEMA, or any other person's responsibility but YOURS. When people quit expecting everything to be the Federal Government's responsiblity, I imagine we'll all be happier and less taxed....but that's a whole 'nother issue. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

It has been long recognized that there are limits to local government’s budget and resources and that for the greater good of this society we all have an interest in providing assistance. We created federal agencies to address emergency situations (like Katrina) which exceed the resources of local government. The single purpose of these federal agencies is to step in when needed and assist - to the benefit of American citizens and America’s interests.

Erin

Sep. 6, 2005, 09:36 AM

Glimmer, that's obviously what happened... people were on their own.

But honestly... is it even POSSIBLE for a city to evacuate some 50-100,000 people within 24 hours? What do other hurricane-prone states do? Or is this only a problem because New Orleans has such a large percentage who live below the poverty line and are unable to evacuate on their own? Or is it only a problem because the city is so low and will flood, and it's not the hurricane that people have to worry about, but the rising waters?

I know the righty blogs are going nuts over the picture of the 200-odd school buses outside NO and saying those could have been used to get people out. (Before they were underwater of course.) But what I want to know is, REALISTICALLY, is that possible? Or is talking about a complete evacuation total folly because no city can ever achieve it?

Glimmerglass

Sep. 6, 2005, 09:37 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Lily:
How many category 5 hurricanes have reached land in recent years? Not many. So the odds that one would hit New Orleans were fairly low.
</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Ok apply the same statement to California with talk of "the really big one" hitting. Hasn't happen since the last one since the 1906 one in SF.

So you could say the same about there too - do you really think No. California is sitting on it's hands claiming "well it hasn't happened yet". Nope - they work on disaster drills as do most metro cities, from Chicago to New York.

So why did a city below sea-level with a surrounding levy (clearly warned by the Army Corps of Engineers that it couldn't take Cat 4 or above) just play the "odds are it won't ever happen" game?

Sep. 6, 2005, 09:41 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Erin:
I've been trying to find more detailed articles about what was and wasn't done for the initial evacuation, but am not turning much up. Here's one from Shreveport Times (http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050905/NEWS01/509050357/1002/NEWS).

New Orleans had an evacuation plan that called for buses to help evacuate those without cars. There apparently WERE buses running, but they took people to the Superdome.

Another part of the evacuation plan was to open up the INbound lanes of the expressways to OUTbound traffic, which was done and apparently did work relatively well in easing some of the traffic congestions. It was reportedly better than it had been for the last near-miss hurricane that went through the area. (Ivan, perhaps?)

I recall on the day before the storm hit, they were saying that people going into the Superdome were supposed to bring 2-3 days' worth of clothing and food. So, obviously, they expected to be able to move people out shortly after the storm, but I haven't seen whether the city had a plan for moving them out, or if they expected the feds to do it, or if they just expected that people would be able to go home. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

There were shelters set up all over the state for those that could not afford or locate a hotel - the Superdome was a shelter of last resort. But you have hit the nail on the head - everyone planned to be home in three or four days at the latest. That is historically the way it had been. The problem was when the levee broke. Then you had a situation where many of the people that could have helped with a situation like that had been evaucated. They were spread out over Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana...etc. One thing to really keep in mind regarding the evacuation is that the first time NOLA officials were informed that the hurricane was headed towards them was late Friday night. So people went to bed on Friday night under the assumption that the Florida panhandle was at risk and woke up Saturday morning and were told to leave. So really you had about 36 hours to evacuate EVERYONE in that region (Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama). You are talking probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 million people. It was a nightmare before it started.

Glimmerglass

Sep. 6, 2005, 09:49 AM

Erin - worthy of another flashback ...

CNN Monday 8-28-05 12:10 am - "New Orleans braces for monster hurricane" (http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/08/28/hurricane.katrina/)

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Katrina is blamed for at least seven deaths in Florida, where it made landfall Thursday as a Category 1 hurricane. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

So they had several days not 24-hrs to address the issue of it being projected to hit N.O. Again the local officials just glad handed and talked with the media instead of doing their jobs in leading, preparing, and commanding.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Jesse St. Amant, the emergency management chief for Louisiana's southernmost Plaquemines Parish, said nearly 95 percent of the parish's 27,000-plus residents had fled by Sunday afternoon. Those who remained were being told that they are "gambling with their own lives." </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Looks like they were able to get out so and we can't say all were "rich" or had cars either.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Nagin estimated that nearly 1 million people had fled the city and its surrounding parishes by Sunday night. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

And these people got the hint too and when 1 million flee don't you think you could have had commondeered every freaking greyhound bus, school bus, tour bus, et al in the northern counties to start evacuating?

Duffy

Sep. 6, 2005, 09:49 AM

Not that it matters, but I heard those headed to the Superdome were told to bring 3-5 days of food/water/supplies.

This is the first I've heard that there WERE sites available for shelter outside of the Superdome. I do NOT understand why more people were not evacuated. Period. It sure looked like there were school buses available. I don't CARE who's responsibility it was ultimately. Initially, it's the local and state governments' jobs, imo.

The political bashing is getting really old, folks... http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif

Lily

Sep. 6, 2005, 09:49 AM

Glimmerglass, I in no way meant to suggest that contingency planning should not be a budget item! I think it is horrible that there was no plan in place for such an incident.

What I meant to say was, because Louisiana is a low-wealth state, I can see how government officials would be able to justify to themselves low prioritization of contingency planning. Again, I don't agree- but it is easier to explain to taxpayers that you are spending money on current problems rather than a "just in case" for something that's never happened.

SGray

Sep. 6, 2005, 09:50 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Lily:
How many category 5 hurricanes have reached land in recent years? Not many. So the odds that one would hit New Orleans were fairly low.

To play devil's advocate, pacificsolo, what would you honestly rather the Louisiana government spend its money on: contingency planning for something statistically unlikely, or dealing with omnipresent problems like education and poverty? I'm sure they all thought they were making the right decisions at the time. Hindsight is 20/20. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Exactly the point of the gentleman from the Army Corps of Eng. -- he said that they looked at statistics, probabilities and relative costs - this is what led to the decision to build to withstand a Cat 3 vs a Cat 5. They decided that the amount of money that it would take to upgrade to Cat 5 standard was not worth it given the probability of a direct hit.

Perfect Pony

Sep. 6, 2005, 09:50 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Erin:
I know the righty blogs are going nuts over the picture of the 200-odd school buses outside NO and saying those could have been used to get people out. (Before they were underwater of course.) But what I want to know is, REALISTICALLY, is that possible? Or is talking about a complete evacuation total folly because no city can ever achieve it? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

You know, one thing people don't like to talk about is what really was the correct thing to do? What would have been better, thousands of people stranded in busses in a hurricane, or thousands of people in one place (the superdome)?

IF aid had arrived the next day as it should have (I mean, what do we pay our federal government to do??), would it not have been better to have all the people safe and dry in one place rather than spread all over the country?

The problem as I see it is that the aid never came. People waited days at evacuation spots and things decended into chaos. Had the national guard swepped in immidiately and food and water arrived within 24 hours, I believe we would have seen a much different outcome.

Erin

Sep. 6, 2005, 09:58 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Glimmerglass:
And these people got the hint too and when 1 million flee don't you think you could have had commondeered every freaking greyhound bus, school bus, tour bus, et al in the northern counties to start evacuating? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

But that's exactly what I'm asking...

What would it take for a city to evacuate all those people left behind for whatever reason? Can they legally comandeer buses? Who would drive them? I can't see some Greyhound driver saying "Sure, I'll head SOUTH into the path of the storm and drive around the ghettos of NO and pick up people for you."

I believe Katrina was originally expected to turn northeast rather quickly and thus, as kb said, would have hit the panhandle. It didn't, so it got much stronger and bigger. Realistically, I think the earliest anyone knew it was going to be as bad as it was was about 48 hours ahead.

Part of the problem, I'm sure, is that people who live in the area get used to being told "Oooh, this could be bad!" and don't always take it seriously. I remember when Isabel was headed here, the local news was going NUTS... I'm from tornado country, and I don't know nothing about no hurricanes! So it freaked me out and I took it seriously. But I'm sure if this is an annual occurence, people wait until they're SURE it's going to be bad before taking off.

Whether that's right or wrong, that's human nature, and an evacuation plan has to take that into account. Realistically, I think in most cases you're talking about a 24-36 hour window in which to evacuate people.

nhwr

Sep. 6, 2005, 10:04 AM

There are 2 significant factors that cause the problem in New Orleans; poverty and the lack of a coordinated relief plan.

It is easy for all of us, who just got off our horses, to say the poor should have left behind everything they have worked their whole lives to acquire. But let's face it, if you own a horse, you don't know the first thing about being poor. We may fret if we have to wait an extra week to get our horse's feet done or wonder how we are going to pay the vet, but we don't have a clue about the life of the poor. We dimissively say they should have just boarded the buses (that Nagin did provide, BTW). But I don't think it would be that easy to leave behind all that you truly had. I have been evacuated because of a wild fire. It was pretty hard to face. I turned my horses loose, took some photo albums, some heirlooms and thought I'd have fun shopping for anything else with the insurance money. But I knew I'd have the means to recover what I'd lost. I was amazed that many of my neighbors refused to leave. For those of you that don't understand why some stayed, thank your lucky stars for your ignorance. You guys need to start a clique for the Marie Antionette school of social consciousness http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif

The storm cause the devastation. But the lack of response after the storm is what caused people to die by the thousands. If you think Nagin sounded "inappropriate", consider where he was, watching suffering and choas, not on TV, not from an Airforce 1 fly by. He was living it. The premise of his question is valid, why did it take so long? I am sure we will have followup investigations and commissions to find this out. And they will be as elucidating as what we learned from 9/11. What is the purpose of the Federal government, if not to respond to a crisis like this.

Sep. 6, 2005, 10:08 AM

Erin - that is exactly the case...they evacuated for Ivan and Georges....and nothing. My sister left Saturday kicking and screaming about it. The only reason she did so is because my parents (who reside in Houston) were in town and the literally forced her to do so. Her exact words - we do this all the time for nothing.

There were busses at the Superdome to take people to the shelters outside of the city...they refused to get on them and go.

Erin

Sep. 6, 2005, 10:24 AM

nhwr, I agree... I think those who are really, seriously poor probably have a much stronger attachment to what little they do have than the rest of us. Again, it's not necessarily right or wrong, but is human nature.

kb, are you sure about the buses going out of the city? Like I said earlier, I haven't turned up much info about the local response and I'm really curious what actually happened.

I tend to agree with Perfect Pony that the people who were in the Superdome (which was still structurally quite sound... I don't think the people there were ever in danger from the storm itself), while obviously not in ideal conditions, were more or less OK the day after... and the day after that. When we started to hit 3 and 4 days (and longer) and they were still there, that's when things really began to fall apart.

Could people have been moved out of the Superdome earlier, and whose responsibility was it at that point... the locals or the feds?

Duffy

Sep. 6, 2005, 10:36 AM

In my expert http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif opinion. The initial stocking of the Superdome should have been handled by the local/state level of government and the individuals who were supposedly advised to BRING provisions to last 3-5 days. I think the Feds should have been set up to take over within 5-7 days.

SGray

Sep. 6, 2005, 10:58 AM

if Galveston could raise itself in 1900 then surely New Orleans can be raised now

http://www.1900storm.com/rebuilding/index.lasso

The 1900 Storm: Tragedy and Triumph

Dredge material is pumped into the island during the
grade raising after the 1900 hurricane. Residents endured
years of pumps, sludge, canals, stench and miles of catwalks
during the project. Photo courtesy of Rosenberg Library.

Post-storm rebuilding considered
'Galveston's finest hour'

By MICHAEL A. SMITH
The Daily News

GALVESTON - The great storm that came roaring out of the Gulf of Mexico 100 years ago, destroying this island city and assuring its place in history, deserves its due.

But the wind and water and death brought by the unnamed hurricane, even the acts of courage and sacrifice played out in its face, are only half the story.

For while the story that began Sept. 8, 1900, is one about the fate of people at the hands of nature, it's also one about people altering their own fates by changing the face of nature.

Storm and early aftermath

Historians contend that between 10,000 and 12,000 people died during the storm, at least 6,000 of them on Galveston Island. More than 3,600 homes were destroyed on Galveston Island and the added toll on commercial structures created a monetary loss of $30 million, about $700 million in today's dollars.

The Great Storm reigns today as the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history. But while the storm was phenomenal, so was the response of the people who survived it.

"Sunday morning, the day after the disaster, began with the sound of bells from the ruined Ursuline Convent calling people to worship," wrote historian David G. McComb in "Galveston: A History."

It was a fitting beginning.

Despite the unimaginable devastation and what must have been a hard realization that it could happen again, the city immediately began pulling itself out of the mud.

By 10 a.m. Sept. 9, Mayor Walter C. Jones had called emergency city council meetings and by the end of the day had appointed a Central Relief Committee.

Ignoring advice from its sister paper, The Dallas Morning News, that it move temporarily to Houston, The Galveston Daily News continued publishing from the island and never missed an issue. Sept. 9 and 10, 1900, were published together on a single sheet of paper. One side listed the dead. The other reported the devastation of the storm.

In the first week after the storm, according to McComb's book, telegraph and water service were restored. Lines for a new telephone system were being laid by the second.

"In the third week, Houston relief groups went home, the saloons reopened, the electric trolleys began operating and freight began moving through the harbor," McComb wrote.

Residents of Galveston quickly decided that they would rebuild, that the city would survive, and almost as soon, leaders began deciding how it would do so.

The two civil engineering projects leaders decided to pursue - building a seawall and raising the island's elevation - stand today and are almost as great in their scope and effect as the storm itself.

Raising the grade

It's impossible to stand anywhere in the historical parts of Galveston and get exactly the same perspective a viewer would have gotten 100 years ago.

Everything is higher than it was back then, and some spots are much higher.

The feat of raising an entire city began with three engineers hired by the city in 1901 to design a means of keeping the gulf in its place.

Along with building a seawall, Alfred Noble, Henry M. Robert and H.C. Ripley recommended the city be raised 17 feet at the seawall and sloped downward at a pitch of one foot for every 1,500 feet to the bay.

The first task required to translate their vision into a working system was a means of getting more than 16 million cubic yards of sand - enough to fill more than a million dump trucks - to the island, according to McComb.

The solution was to dredge the sand from Galveston's ship channel and pump it as liquid slurry through pipes into quarter-square-mile sections of the city that were walled off with dikes.

Their theory was that as the water drained away the sand would remain.

Before the pumping could begin, all the structures in the area had to be raised with jackscrews. Meanwhile, all the sewer, water and gas lines had to be raised.

McComb wrote that some people even raised gravestones and some tried to save trees, but most of the trees died. In the old city cemeteries along Broadway, some of the graves are three deep because of the grade raising.

The city paid to move the utilities and for the actual grade raising, but each homeowner had to pay to have the house raised.

By 1911, McComb wrote, 500 city blocks had been raised, some by just a few inches and others by as much as 11 feet.

The Seawall

The most apparent of Galveston's efforts to prevent a repeat of 1900's devastation is the seawall, which today runs from just past Boddeker Drive on the east end to just past Cove View Boulevard on the west.

The current span of just more than 10 miles was built in six sections in a period of almost 60 years, said County Engineer Mike Fitzgerald.

The oldest part of the seawall still visible runs from Sixth street to 39th street and was built between 1902 and 1904, he said.

"The original seawall ran from Eighth Street at the Galveston Wharf front to Sixth Street and from Sixth to 39th," he said.

The next section, which runs from 39th Street to 53rd Street, was built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to protect its property at Fort Crockett and was completed in 1905.

In the early 1920s, the county and U.S. Army extended the original wall eastward to protect Fort San Jacinto. That project took a sharp northward curve that originally ran from Sixth Street to Eighth Street out of the seawall.

The eastward run of the wall was extended again in the late 1920s and by 1926 ran all the way to the bay just past Boddeker Drive.

In 1927, a section of wall running from 53rd Street to 61st was completed, and the final run of the wall, from 61st to its current end, was built between 1953 and 1961, Fitzgerald said.

Fitzgerald, whose crews are charged with inspecting and maintaining parts of the wall, said he always was impressed with the engineering and construction of the wall.

"They did a great job," he said.

He said that aside from paving and painting stripes on Seawall Boulevard, there is very little to maintain. But while the engineers and builders did a good job, he said there are some glitches with the wall.

One is the fact that it's only 15.6 feet above sea level, when it was supposed to be 17 feet.

"These were marine engineers who were accustomed to measuring from mean low tide," he said.

Because of the difference between sea level and mean low tide, the seawall came out a little short.

One of the most important aspects of the seawall often goes unnoticed, he said.

"In a severe Category 4 or a Category 5 hurricane there will be some over-topping of the seawall," he said. "What a lot of people don't know is that the ground across Seawall Boulevard is sloped upward so it is 4 or 5 feet higher on the inland side than at the top of the concave surface."

The slope helps to break the action even of waves that manage to top the wall, he said.

The wall got its first real test in mid-August of 1915 when a hurricane of severity comparable to the 1900 Storm blew across the island.

While much of the city was flooded and most of the structures outside the protection of the original wall were destroyed, those behind it fared well.

The cost of such protection was high, though.

McComb estimated that it cost about $16 million to build the seawall and raise the grade.

For comparison, Fitzgerald said it would cost $10 million a mile to build the seawall in today's dollars - or more than $100 million total.

While Galveston received financial help from the county, state and federal governments, a large portion of the burden had to be carried by the city itself, at the expense of other projects.

McComb sums it up about as well as it can be:

"Human technology made it possible - for the city of Galveston to remain on such unstable land. The city did not flourish. Houston - left the island city far behind. Galveston simply survived.

"The public defenses against nature came at a high cost, but they succeeded for the most part. Its struggle for survival against nature through the application of technology represents the strongest tradition of Western civilization. Galveston's response to the great storm was its finest hour."
...

Heidi

Sep. 6, 2005, 11:00 AM

Yabbut...how were the poor supposed to bring provisions to last 3-5 days when they lacked transportation and cash - and physical mobility in some cases?

And given the flood waters, loss of electrical power and communication networks, and the fact that local and state employees were also personally affected by the hurricane, how were they supposed to, in a matter of a day, mobilize sufficient water/food/medical resources to care for hundreds of thousands of people?

Policy of Truth

Sep. 6, 2005, 11:13 AM

nwhr, I don't have to be a cocaine addict to know it's bad...so I don't have to be poor to know I have a choice between life and death...

As far as the levies go, it is NOT the Federal government's responsiblity to pay for NO's levies! NAGIN was given an opportunity to have the Army Corps of Engineers to RE- ROUTE the damn river! HE SAID NO!!!! You may not like his choice, obviously he didn't...but he made the decision to NOT move the river which would have assisted or even ALLEVIATED the entire water issue!! I fail to comprehend HOW we are not to look to Nagin for his lack of action!

HE FAILED TO DO EVERYTHING IN HIS POWER TO PROTECT HIS PEOPLE!

SGray

Sep. 6, 2005, 11:18 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by pacificsolo:
........As far as the levies go, it is NOT the Federal government's responsiblity to pay for NO's levies! NAGIN was given an opportunity to have the Army Corps of Engineers to RE- ROUTE the damn river! HE SAID NO!!!! You may not like his choice, obviously he didn't...but he made the decision to NOT move the river which would have assisted or even ALLEVIATED the entire water issue!! I fail to comprehend HOW we are not to look to Nagin for his lack of action!

HE FAILED TO DO EVERYTHING IN HIS POWER TO PROTECT HIS PEOPLE! </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

huh? I thought it was Lake Ponchatrain (sp?) that spilled in to NO, not the Mississippi?

Cartier

Sep. 6, 2005, 11:23 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">In my expert opinion. The initial stocking of the Superdome should have been handled by the local/state level of government and the individuals who were supposedly advised to BRING provisions to last 3-5 days. I think the Feds should have been set up to take over within 5-7 days. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I’m not sure I can last 5- 7 days without food and water… I know I’d be purdy cranky and may use –oh horrors- a cuss word or two.

Here's the bottom line: Neither you nor I are paid to be experts at protecting American citizens in times of National Disasters. In stark contrast, the folks at FEMA and our federal government are.

About FEMA and the federal government waiting 5-7 days to respond... I believe that at first they said they thought things were essentially under control.

But what if some really observant FEMA employee was say... watching the soaps on day one or day two and the news came on (interrupting the program) and showed what we all saw… i.e., the total devastation of the Gulf Coast. Don’t ya think that someone at FEMA might have taken the initiative to say, “Oh heck… there’s something happening down there in the Golf Coast… they’re underwater and it’s interrupting my soaps…maybe we should do something… now!”

It was clear early on that the Gulf Coast was overwhelmed by this unprecedented natural disaster. FEMA and the feds should have stepped in immediately to protect American interests and save American lives. As was reported, “President Bush could have quickly "federalized" the National Guard and handed over the security aspects of the relief effort to the military - as his father, George H.W. Bush, did during the 1992 Los Angeles race riots.”

Glimmerglass

Sep. 6, 2005, 11:28 AM

Worth noting the National Guards of MS and LA are - and have remained throughout - under the command and control of the respective governors not the US Military.

The oft cited - and seemingly wished - view that the "Federal Government" should have restored order and civility with say distribution or stopping looters is actually illegal.

With the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 (http://www.northcom.mil/index.cfm?fuseaction=news.factsheets&factsheet=5), the US military is barred from engaging in law enforcement activities within the United States. Ironically it came about by the Southern lawmakers resentful of Northern troops post Civil War making arrests, et al.

Ghazzu

Sep. 6, 2005, 11:29 AM

And moving the river, even assuming Nagin has the authority to block such a project, would have kept the Lake Ponchartrain levee from failing how?

Cartier

Sep. 6, 2005, 11:35 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">The oft cited - and seemingly wished - view that the "Federal Government" should have restored order and civility with say distribution or stopping looters is actually illegal.

With the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, the US military is barred from engaging in law enforcement activities within the United States. Ironically it came about by the Southern lawmakers resentful of Northern troops post Civil War making arrests, et al. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

President Bush could have quickly "federalized" the National Guard and handed over the security aspects of the relief effort to the military - as his father, George H.W. Bush, did during the 1992 Los Angeles race riots.”

Here’s a good site on the PCA… http://law.wustl.edu/WULQ/75-2/752-10.html

quoting in part:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">The PCA expressly applies only to the Army and Air Force.[66] Congress did not mention the Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, or National Guard in the PCA; accordingly, the PCA does not limit them.[67] However, the Department of Defense has extended by regulation the PCA's prohibitions to the Navy and Marine Corps. [68] Although, the Coast Guard is part of the armed forces, in peacetime it falls under the authority of the Department of Transportation[69] and has an express law enforcement function.[70] Additionally, the PCA only applies to forces in federal service, and therefore, the National Guard is not limited by the PCA in its normal status of state service.

Exceptions-in-fact include protection of the rights of a discoverer of a guano island,[126] removal of persons illegally occupying Indian lands,[127] protection of national parks, [128] investigation of crimes against the President or others in the line of succession,[129] and protection of civil rights where local authorities do not or cannot protect them.[130] Exceptions-in-fact also include the quelling of civil disturbances and labor strife that rises to the level of civil disorder. For example, Troops were used to put down the Whiskey Rebellion[131] long before the PCA was passed and to maintain order during school desegregation in the South after the Act's passage. Troops have also been used to quell riots in Detroit and other cities.[132] More recently, they were deployed on the streets of Los Angeles in 1992 after the Rodney King verdict.[133 </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Sandy M

Sep. 6, 2005, 11:38 AM

Re the great turn of the century storm and Galveston: Yeah, Galveston's still there, but Houston is now the prosperous city and Galveston is just a footnote, not the big port it was in the 19th century.

Also, WE (whomever you want to group into that - Corps of Engineers, various state governments, etc.)have mucked with the Mississippi for the last century.

"Floods are part of the natural flow of life in lowland Louisiana, and left alone, floodwaters can actually do good. They carry silt from the Mississippi River that replenishes the delta and keeps the coastland above the waterline, creating a gradual buffer from the sea. But we have short-circuited this natural process by constructing hundreds of miles of levees along the river, channeling the rushing water into the Gulf of Mexico, where essential sediment is dumped. As a result, the lowlands are sinking nto the gul at a rate of 25 square miles each year. (quoting Ellen Ruppel Shell, Co-director of the Graduate Program in Sciene Journalism at Boston University)." (And the bigger the levees, the worse the devastation when they DO break.)

Also, it is generally held at one mile of wetlands reducing tidal surge/flooding by one foot, but the current administration has gutted all the tough wetlands protection legislation put in place by the Clinton administration (see ref. to 25 MILES of LOWLANDS SINKING INTO THE GULF YEARLY.

This was obviously not entirely preventable, but it COULD have been less devastating had we not ignored Mother Nature and clung to "our abiding belief that technology will protect us from the clumsiest acts of hubris." (E. R. Shell)

"....government officials know full well that people should not build on flood plains. But when faced with a developer who might contribute to the community's tax base, they rarely have the strength to insist on sensible measures......they cling to the dangerous canard that nature can be tamed." (E.R. Shell)

Quotes are from a longer version which appaered originally in the Washington Post.

Trakehner

Sep. 6, 2005, 11:50 AM

Dang, the liberals are sure foaming away.

The pinhead mayor Nagin was the disaster in all this...wouldn't evac. the city and didn't use the school buses that were part of the plan to get out the poor people.

The city of NO, famous for it's corruption (like the rest of Louisianna) spend a bunch of the money for the walls on gambling boats and other stupidity. Their corrupt choice.

The Gov. of LA, sure didn't do much but wring her hands. It wasn't the government's fault so many of the locals are looting, robbing, raping scum. They're not grabbing food, they're stealing TV's. How bout' them scum who robbed the old folks nursing home of their food...yeah, boy! Shooting at rescue boats and choppers...real quality boys down there.

The quality people of NO are suffering, a lot of it caused by the sons of their neighbors.

Pity the liberals and race-pimps like Jackson are doing their damndest to make things worse as their political antics are doing. These same scum, at the first 100 or so looters shot, would have screamed racism (as they already have since all the looters shown on TV have been black). Oh well....

Cartier

Sep. 6, 2005, 11:56 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Dang, the liberals are sure foaming away.

The pinhead mayor Nagin was the disaster in all this...wouldn't evac. the city and didn't use the school buses that were part of the plan to get out the poor people.

The city of NO, famous for it's corruption (like the rest of Louisianna) spend a bunch of the money for the walls on gambling boats and other stupidity. Their corrupt choice.

The Gov. of LA, sure didn't do much but wring her hands. It wasn't the government's fault so many of the locals are looting, robbing, raping scum. They're not grabbing food, they're stealing TV's. How bout' them scum who robbed the old folks nursing home of their food...yeah, boy! Shooting at rescue boats and choppers...real quality boys down there.

The quality people of NO are suffering, a lot of it caused by the sons of their neighbors.

Pity the liberals and race-pimps like Jackson are doing their damndest to make things worse as their political antics are doing. These same scum, at the first 100 or so looters shot, would have screamed racism (as they already have since all the looters shown on TV have been black). Oh well.... </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

People are little assessment machines… we are comfortable with labels. Once we’ve attached a label, we can generalize and become further polarized. And, if we label each other, we don’t actually have to bother to listen to each other… and listening to each other might – oh horrors – alter our view point.

I think the extreme emotions we see here and we ’ve seen in American politics in general over the past few years are a reflection of our fear…and politicians have exploited our fears for their political agenda. Americans are afraid for this country; for its security, for its future, for our future and for the future of those we love. Everyone feels threatened… and striking out (finding a scapegoat) seems to ease our fears. Fear is easily exploited by political leaders… we have only to look back at Nazi Germany or Korematsu vs. US http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/democrac/65.htm to refresh ourselves on that dynamic.

History teaches that we don’t make good judgments or wise choices out of fear. Fear brings out the worst in us.

War Admiral

Sep. 6, 2005, 12:10 PM

Well, now, here's an interesting CNN story (http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/05/katrina.lott/index.html)...

20,000 trailers are sitting in Georgia ready to go, and FEMA is holding them back until contracts are signed??!!!

Paging the fruitbat. People in Alabama and Mississippi are without shelter, food and water, and FEMA is worried about CONTRACTS???

Attention Mr. Bush: this moron has to go.

Erin

Sep. 6, 2005, 12:10 PM

pacificsolo, to what are you referring exactly when you say Nagin refused to reroute the river?

Obviously, it's been long known that the levees needed to be shored up, and it's been long ignored. (Going back before Nagin AND Bush.) Apparently, what's required to really "fix" the problem is a massive $14 billion project comparable to Boston's Big Dig.

Here's one article from American Wetlands that describes the problem and the lack of funding: http://www.americaswetland.com/article.cfm?id=280&cateid=3&pageid=3&cid=18 (http://www.americaswetland.com/article.cfm?id=280&cateid=3&pageid=3&cid=18) (Edited to clarify... the article is actually from the Times-Picayune, but was reprinted on the American Wetlands website.)

And here is a transcript from this Sunday's Meet The Press, in which the expert emphatically states that no reconstruction should take place in New Orleans until the flooding problem is alleviated:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">MR. RUSSERT: Welcome all.

By now this animation by NBC News has become very familiar. It shows exactly how New Orleans is that so-called bathtub, a city in between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain. And when those levees break, the city can be flooded and disaster can occur.

Mark Fischetti, you wrote an article for Scientific American 2001...

MR. MARK FISCHETTI: Right.

MR. RUSSERT: ...and you basically predicted this very thing happening.

MR. FISCHETTI: Right. The article came out in 2001. It was based on computer models that Louisiana State University had been running for several years. A plan had been put together in 1998 already by scientists and engineers what could be done to protect New Orleans if a Category 4 or 5 hurricane came from the south as it did.

MR. RUSSERT: So when the president and Secretary Chertoff say, "We were surprised that the levees were breached," were you surprised?

MR. FISCHETTI: I wasn't surprised. I felt sick Sunday night myself having written this piece and seen the computer models about what could happen in this very instance. I wasn't the only one to write about it. Others have written about it. The models have been out there.

MR. RUSSERT: Mike Tidwell, you've written about it as well, and you say that in order to rebuild, there's going to have to be some serious undertakings in recognition of the environmental realities of what exists in the New Orleans area.

MR. MIKE TIDWELL: Well, the question and the answer is: Why in the world is New Orleans below sea level to begin with? I think the media has sort of accepted it uncritically that this city is below sea level which is why we have this problem. Miami is not below sea level. New York's not below sea level. It's below sea level because of the levees. The levees stop the river from flooding and the river's what built the whole coast of Louisiana through 7,000 years of alluvial soil deposits. And if you stop that flooding, the other second natural phenomena in any delta region in the world is subsidence. That alluvial soil is fine, it compacts, it shrinks. That's why New Orleans is below sea level. That's why the whole coast of Louisiana is--the whole land platform is sinking. An area of land the size of Manhattan turns to water in south Louisiana every year even without hurricanes.

You can't just fix the levees in New Orleans. We now have to have a massive coastal restoration project where we get the water out of the Mississippi River in a controlled fashion toward the Barrier islands, restore the wetlands. If you don't commit to this plan which is this $14 billion, costs of the Big Dig in Boston, or two weeks of spending Iraq, you shouldn't fix a single window in New Orleans. You shouldn't pick up a single piece of debris because to do one without the other is to set the table for another nightmare.

MR. RUSSERT: So if you keep status quo, rebuild the levee and not do the other environmental corrections that you're talking about, this will happen again?

MR. TIDWELL: I don't think we should fix a single window in New Orleans unless as a nation we commit to this $14 billion plan called Coast 2050. You can Google it under the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana. It's been on the table since the mid-'90s. The Bush administration has had all kinds of folks in New Orleans and in Louisiana begging for funding for this--the cost of the Big Dig--to restore the Barrier islands, to fix the wetlands because without that, New Orleans is an endangered city forever. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Sep. 6, 2005, 12:17 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Erin:
nhwr, I agree... I think those who are really, seriously poor probably have a much stronger attachment to what little they do have than the rest of us. Again, it's not necessarily right or wrong, but is human nature.

kb, are you sure about the buses going out of the city? Like I said earlier, I haven't turned up much info about the local response and I'm really curious what actually happened.

I tend to agree with Perfect Pony that the people who were in the Superdome (which was still structurally quite sound... I don't think the people there were ever in danger from the storm itself), while obviously not in ideal conditions, were more or less OK the day after... and the day after that. When we started to hit 3 and 4 days (and longer) and they were still there, that's when things really began to fall apart.

Could people have been moved out of the Superdome earlier, and whose responsibility was it at that point... the locals or the feds? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yep Erin - what my sister says (who was there and deals with evacuation of the oil rigs) is that the busses were set up during the voluntary evacuation phase on Saturday. At that time, the mayor said the Superdome would not be open...he did not want to encourage people to stay. Then he realized that they were not leaving and the shelter of last resort had to be opened. Now that being said, in my opinion I am not sure anyone had a plan to evacuate the superdome.....my guess is they thought hey we have never had to do that before kind of thing.

Erin, you have a really good grasp of the sitaution (including the big issues and obstacles) and are asking all the really hard quesitons. Now, any chance you can get some government officials to answer those?

SGray

Sep. 6, 2005, 12:29 PM

bears repeating

"You can't just fix the levees in New Orleans. We now have to have a massive coastal restoration project where we get the water out of the Mississippi River in a controlled fashion toward the Barrier islands, restore the wetlands. If you don't commit to this plan which is this $14 billion, costs of the Big Dig in Boston, or two weeks of spending Iraq, you shouldn't fix a single window in New Orleans. You shouldn't pick up a single piece of debris because to do one without the other is to set the table for another nightmare."

SGray

Sep. 6, 2005, 12:48 PM

New Orleans: A Geopolitical Prize
By George Friedman

The American political system was founded in Philadelphia, but the
American nation was built on the vast farmlands that stretch from the
Alleghenies to the Rockies. That farmland produced the wealth that funded
American industrialization: It permitted the formation of a class of small
landholders who, amazingly, could produce more than they could consume. They
could sell their excess crops in the east and in Europe and save that money,
which eventually became the founding capital of American industry.

But it was not the extraordinary land nor the farmers and ranchers who
alone set the process in motion. Rather, it was geography -- the
extraordinary system of rivers that flowed through the Midwest and allowed
them to ship their surplus to the rest of the world. All of the rivers
flowed into one -- the Mississippi -- and the Mississippi flowed to the
ports in and around one city: New Orleans. It was in New Orleans that the
barges from upstream were unloaded and their cargos stored, sold and
reloaded on ocean-going vessels. Until last Sunday, New Orleans was, in many
ways, the pivot of the American economy.

For that reason, the Battle of New Orleans in January 1815 was a key
moment in American history. Even though the battle occurred after the War of
1812 was over, had the British taken New Orleans, we suspect they wouldn't
have given it back. Without New Orleans, the entire Louisiana Purchase would
have been valueless to the United States. Or, to state it more precisely,
the British would control the region because, at the end of the day, the
value of the Purchase was the land and the rivers - which all converged on
the Mississippi and the ultimate port of New Orleans. The hero of the battle
was Andrew Jackson, and when he became president, his obsession with Texas
had much to do with keeping the Mexicans away from New Orleans.

During the Cold War, a macabre topic of discussion among bored graduate
students who studied such things was this: If the Soviets could destroy one
city with a large nuclear device, which would it be? The usual answers were
Washington or New York. For me, the answer was simple: New Orleans. If the
Mississippi River was shut to traffic, then the foundations of the economy
would be shattered. The industrial minerals needed in the factories wouldn't
come in, and the agricultural wealth wouldn't flow out. Alternative routes
really weren't available. The Germans knew it too: A U-boat campaign
occurred near the mouth of the Mississippi during World War II. Both the
Germans and Stratfor have stood with Andy Jackson: New Orleans was the
prize.

Last Sunday, nature took out New Orleans almost as surely as a nuclear
strike. Hurricane Katrina's geopolitical effect was not, in many ways,
distinguishable from a mushroom cloud. The key exit from North America was
closed. The petrochemical industry, which has become an added value to the
region since Jackson's days, was at risk. The navigability of the
Mississippi south of New Orleans was a question mark. New Orleans as a city
and as a port complex had ceased to exist, and it was not clear that it
could recover.

The Ports of South Louisiana and New Orleans, which run north and south of
the city, are as important today as at any point during the history of the
republic. On its own merit, POSL is the largest port in the United States by
tonnage and the fifth-largest in the world. It exports more than 52 million
tons a year, of which more than half are agricultural products -- corn,
soybeans and so on. A large proportion of U.S. agriculture flows out of the
port. Almost as much cargo, nearly 17 million tons, comes in through the
port -- including not only crude oil, but chemicals and fertilizers, coal,
concrete and so on.

A simple way to think about the New Orleans port complex is that it is
where the bulk commodities of agriculture go out to the world and the bulk
commodities of industrialism come in. The commodity chain of the global food
industry starts here, as does that of American industrialism. If these
facilities are gone, more than the price of goods shifts: The very physical
structure of the global economy would have to be reshaped. Consider the
impact to the U.S. auto industry if steel doesn't come up the river, or the
effect on global food supplies if U.S. corn and soybeans don't get to the
markets.

The problem is that there are no good shipping alternatives. River
transport is cheap, and most of the commodities we are discussing have low
value-to-weight ratios. The U.S. transport system was built on the
assumption that these commodities would travel to and from New Orleans by
barge, where they would be loaded on ships or offloaded. Apart from port
capacity elsewhere in the United States, there aren't enough trucks or rail
cars to handle the long-distance hauling of these enormous quantities --
assuming for the moment that the economics could be managed, which they
can't be.

The focus in the media has been on the oil industry in Louisiana and
Mississippi. This is not a trivial question, but in a certain sense, it is
dwarfed by the shipping issue. First, Louisiana is the source of about 15
percent of U.S.-produced petroleum, much of it from the Gulf. The local
refineries are critical to American infrastructure. Were all of these
facilities to be lost, the effect on the price of oil worldwide would be
extraordinarily painful. If the river itself became unnavigable or if the
ports are no longer functioning, however, the impact to the wider economy
would be significantly more severe. In a sense, there is more flexibility in
oil than in the physical transport of these other commodities.

There is clearly good news as information comes in. By all accounts, the
Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, which services supertankers in the Gulf, is
intact. Port Fourchon, which is the center of extraction operations in the
Gulf, has sustained damage but is recoverable. The status of the oil
platforms is unclear and it is not known what the underwater systems look
like, but on the surface, the damage - though not trivial -- is manageable.

The news on the river is also far better than would have been expected on
Sunday. The river has not changed its course. No major levees containing the
river have burst. The Mississippi apparently has not silted up to such an
extent that massive dredging would be required to render it navigable. Even
the port facilities, although apparently damaged in many places and
destroyed in few, are still there. The river, as transport corridor, has not
been lost.

What has been lost is the city of New Orleans and many of the residential
suburban areas around it. The population has fled, leaving behind a
relatively small number of people in desperate straits. Some are dead,
others are dying, and the magnitude of the situation dwarfs the resources
required to ameliorate their condition. But it is not the population that is
trapped in New Orleans that is of geopolitical significance: It is the
population that has left and has nowhere to return to.

The oil fields, pipelines and ports required a skilled workforce in order
to operate. That workforce requires homes. They require stores to buy food
and other supplies. Hospitals and doctors. Schools for their children. In
other words, in order to operate the facilities critical to the United
States, you need a workforce to do it -- and that workforce is gone. Unlike
in other disasters, that workforce cannot return to the region because they
have no place to live. New Orleans is gone, and the metropolitan area
surrounding New Orleans is either gone or so badly damaged that it will not
be inhabitable for a long time.

It is possible to jury-rig around this problem for a short time. But the
fact is that those who have left the area have gone to live with relatives
and friends. Those who had the ability to leave also had networks of
relationships and resources to manage their exile. But those resources are
not infinite -- and as it becomes apparent that these people will not be
returning to New Orleans any time soon, they will be enrolling their
children in new schools, finding new jobs, finding new accommodations. If
they have any insurance money coming, they will collect it. If they have
none, then -- whatever emotional connections they may have to their home --
their economic connection to it has been severed. In a very short time,
these people will be making decisions that will start to reshape population
and workforce patterns in the region.

A city is a complex and ongoing process - one that requires physical
infrastructure to support the people who live in it and people to operate
that physical infrastructure. We don't simply mean power plants or sewage
treatment facilities, although they are critical. Someone has to be able to
sell a bottle of milk or a new shirt. Someone has to be able to repair a car
or do surgery. And the people who do those things, along with the
infrastructure that supports them, are gone -- and they are not coming back
anytime soon.

It is in this sense, then, that it seems almost as if a nuclear weapon
went off in New Orleans. The people mostly have fled rather than died, but
they are gone. Not all of the facilities are destroyed, but most are. It
appears to us that New Orleans and its environs have passed the point of
recoverability. The area can recover, to be sure, but only with the
commitment of massive resources from outside -- and those resources would
always be at risk to another Katrina.

The displacement of population is the crisis that New Orleans faces. It is
also a national crisis, because the largest port in the United States cannot
function without a city around it. The physical and business processes of a
port cannot occur in a ghost town, and right now, that is what New Orleans
is. It is not about the facilities, and it is not about the oil. It is about
the loss of a city's population and the paralysis of the largest port in the
United States.

Let's go back to the beginning. The United States historically has
depended on the Mississippi and its tributaries for transport. Barges
navigate the river. Ships go on the ocean. The barges must offload to the
ships and vice versa. There must be a facility to empower this exchange. It
is also the facility where goods are stored in transit. Without this port,
the river can't be used. Protecting that port has been, from the time of the
Louisiana Purchase, a fundamental national security issue for the United
States.

Katrina has taken out the port -- not by destroying the facilities, but by
rendering the area uninhabited and potentially uninhabitable. That means
that even if the Mississippi remains navigable, the absence of a port near
the mouth of the river makes the Mississippi enormously less useful than it
was. For these reasons, the United States has lost not only its biggest port
complex, but also the utility of its river transport system -- the
foundation of the entire American transport system. There are some
substitutes, but none with sufficient capacity to solve the problem.

It follows from this that the port will have to be revived and, one would
assume, the city as well. The ports around New Orleans are located as far
north as they can be and still be accessed by ocean-going vessels. The need
for ships to be able to pass each other in the waterways, which narrow to
the north, adds to the problem. Besides, the Highway 190 bridge in Baton
Rouge blocks the river going north. New Orleans is where it is for a reason:
The United States needs a city right there.

New Orleans is not optional for the United States' commercial
infrastructure. It is a terrible place for a city to be located, but exactly
the place where a city must exist. With that as a given, a city will return
there because the alternatives are too devastating. The harvest is coming,
and that means that the port will have to be opened soon. As in Iraq,
premiums will be paid to people prepared to endure the hardships of working
in New Orleans. But in the end, the city will return because it has to.

Geopolitics is the stuff of permanent geographical realities and the way
they interact with political life. Geopolitics created New Orleans.
Geopolitics caused American presidents to obsess over its safety. And
geopolitics will force the city's resurrection, even if it is in the worst
imaginable place.

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

DMK

Sep. 6, 2005, 12:52 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Heidi:
Yabbut...how were the poor supposed to bring provisions to last 3-5 days when they lacked transportation and cash - and physical mobility in some cases? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yup, and think about it... say you have 2 small children - or maybe you are in a wheelchair yourself - exactly HOW do you "bring" 3-5 days water supply with you?

Pacificsolo - you need to 'splain that one a little more so I am less confused... If you mean the Mississippi, I'm not sure that would have a lot to do with what happened (being that the Ponchatrain levees system failed). In any event, I sincerely HOPE a city mayor does NOT have the authority to impact an international system like the Mississippi river.

At the very least, that should be a state level issue, and more likely - given that you just about can't do anything on the lil old Chatahoochee in Georgia (up to and including the city of Atlanta) unless there is a federal mediator working with GA, AL and FL to work out all the downstream impacts... Well I am going to go out on a limb and say its even tougher in what - the 5th largest navigable river on the planet?

mbp

Sep. 6, 2005, 01:10 PM

Every simulation and projection ever done about NO dealt with a scenario of at least a couple of hundred thousand people not being evacuated, for whatever reason.

For everyone who wants to beat the drum about why not every last person was evacuated, look at the fact that every expert who has ever dealt with this has predicted about 200,000 or more "in-City" left behind for whatever reason. It is my understanding that Nagin did not fully follow the evac plans prepared for the City - OTOH, I think he got numbers well within anything that was dealt with in any projections or simulations.

See, e.g., 12-1-2001 Houston Chronicle article
which predicted that a severe hurricane striking New Orleans "would strand 250,000 people or more, and probably kill one of 10 left behind as the city drowned under 20 feet of water. Thousands of refugees could land in Houston"

If you want perfection - let's see that get applied across the board, ok? http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

IMO, Wikipedia (my new favorite toy and it links to the Houston article & a great LSU site that includes info on the Hurricane Pam simulation last year) has a nice summary and some very good links Wikipedia/New Orleans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funding_for_hurricane_preparedness_of_New_Orleans)

As to the whole situation being a NO/Nagin problem, or a LA/Landrieau problem - I do not agree at all.

FLOOD CONTROL, as anyone knows who has lived along a navigable river much less in NO - is a huge federal government issue and area of responsiblity. Flood control responsiblity in the NO area has been recognized as a Federal commitment for 50+ years.

NO is not "just a city" It is a national security, national welfare, national distribution site. It is the main Gulf port access to the major north/south river and that river is fed by major east-west rivers. Navigable rivers, a national concern AND ASSET, and our national waters are both at issue re: NO as well. To say that the City of NO should be calling the shots/providing all the funding on the long terms flood retention and development issues, IMO, is pretty silly and very insular.

The article on FEMA contracts was highlighted here locally (So. IN) today. Mead Johnson/Bristol Meyers Squibb, which locally makes Enfamil, got their act together quickly and loaded 21,000 cases of formula on a semi and sent it to the area. It stalled for 60 hours. Not bc of Mayor Nagin. Not bc of flood damage making it impossible to reach areas. Not bc of armed looters.

Bc of FEMA.

FEMA held them 60 hours bc, according to the semi driver being interviewed, they didn't have any reports of need or orders for infant formula. The semi driver had been watching & listening to news reports about mothers desparate for formula and finally he disregarded FEMA orders (is that 'lawlessness'?) and took his truck to Baton Rouge and found ways to offload his shipment and get it to some shelters there.

Again, anyone who wants to look at incompetence, EXPLAIN to me both Brown's failure to recognize for DAYS that people were at the COnvention Center (despite non-stop coverage) and the fact that DHS itself has propogated that IT IS THE PRIMARY ENTITY TO COORDINATE in the event of natural disasters.

Again, from the DHS website:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">In the event of a terrorist attack, natural disaster or other large-scale emergency, the Department of Homeland Security will assume primary responsibility on March 1st for ensuring that emergency response professionals are prepared for any situation. This will entail providing a coordinated, comprehensive federal response to any large-scale crisis and mounting a swift and effective recovery effort. The new Department will also prioritize the important issue of citizen preparedness. Educating America's families on how best to prepare their homes for a disaster and tips for citizens on how to respond in a crisis will be given special attention at DHS. </div></BLOCKQUOTE> bold added

DHS was a huge power grab by the Admin. Responsiblity for the exercise of that power is a part of the territory.

Duffy

Sep. 6, 2005, 01:25 PM

I just received this in an e-mail from my stepmother. Evidently this family got to some relatives of hers in DC. Looks like they left a family pet in their attic in NO? This relative is/(was?) a school counselor in NO.

"Those Were Sunny Days in The Crescent City

To all government officials and reporters who have the audacity to accuse Mayor Nagin of an ill-planned evacuation of the Crescent City, you should be ashamed. Are you unaware that Amtrak, a federally subsidized corporation, canceled regularly scheduled trains in and out of New Orleans seventy-two hours before Katrina was scheduled to make landfall? I called Amtrak at 2 a.m. Sunday, August 28 asking for the train schedule only to be told,“ Ma’am Amtrak doesn't send trains to places where they could be damaged.” I was shocked to learn no trains had been dispatched to New Orleans for days. Are you aware that Delta, United, and other major airlines canceled flights Saturday evening a full forty-eight hours prior to the then projected landfall Monday, August 29 between seven and eight p.m.? Do you know that New Orleans International Airport closed its doors to citizens Sunday morning stranding those attempting to exit via air? Have you taken the time to find out when the bus station next to the train station and within walking distance of the poorest areas in New Orleans, closed its doors to our people?

Stop accusing my mayor of an ineffective evacuation causing New Orleanians to die. There was only one way out. The government and private industries abandoned New Orleans well in advance of Katrina’s arrival as sunny days blanketed the Crescent City. To blame Mayor Nagin for an evacuation that went so smoothly with so few resources is despicable. I remain indebted to my mayor for saving countless lives.

Thank you Mayor Nagin. My children and I stand by you in spirit and will be back to stand by you in person as we rebuild our beloved city.

Status of New Orleans residence as of 9/02/05:
20 feet of water in home. family pet alive in attic. "

Duffy

Sep. 6, 2005, 01:35 PM

If they knew they had no other way out other than buses 72 hours out and they had shelters to go to, I still don't understand why more weren't evacuated. (I'm NOT condoning Amtrak/Feds/whatever here, just still wondering why some things didn't happen...)

As far as the 3-5 days of food, I'm sure there were SOME people who could not, for whatever reason, comply with this. But, I'm sure there were plenty who could, and heck, maybe they did. I don't know. I just don't think we should sit here and think just because they were poor, they didn't have food to bring; or because a family member was in a wheelchair, that other family members or friends couldn't have helped out. Plus, I stand by my statement that there were other sources of food available 72 hours and counting to stock the SuperDome.

No, I'm not heartless. I'm just looking for answers, just like everyone else. But, first, let's just take CARE of these survivors and figure out the blame game later. It would be nice if the powers that be could learn from this disaster...

War Admiral

Sep. 6, 2005, 01:49 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Amtrak, a federally subsidized corporation, canceled regularly scheduled trains in and out of New Orleans seventy-two hours before Katrina was scheduled to make landfall? I called Amtrak at 2 a.m. Sunday, August 28 asking for the train schedule only to be told,“ Ma’am Amtrak doesn't send trains to places where they could be damaged.” I was shocked to learn no trains had been dispatched to New Orleans for days. Are you aware that Delta, United, and other major airlines canceled flights Saturday evening a full forty-eight hours prior to the then projected landfall Monday, August 29 between seven and eight p.m.? Do you know that New Orleans International Airport closed its doors to citizens Sunday morning stranding those attempting to exit via air? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I am speechless. Absolutely speechless. http://chronicleforums.com/images/custom_smilies/cry.gif

Erin

Sep. 6, 2005, 01:53 PM

I think that, despite telling people to bring food, they HAD food for them in the Superdome, didn't they? I thought it was just the people outside the convention center who were totally without supplies.

showmom07

Sep. 6, 2005, 02:04 PM

Governor Blanco admitted that it was President Bush who called her and demanded that a MANDATORY evacuation of New Orleans be issued. Without that, the estimated 80% of the city residents who left may have been caught in the storm. The President also declared the gulf coast region a National Disaster in ADVANCE of the storm, so relief funds could be appropriated.

Mayor Nagin had hundreds of school buses at his disposal which the disaster plan noted were to be used for evacuation. Instead of using them to get folks out of the city, they were also caught in the flood and useless. He evacuated his family and himself to Baton Rouge and did NOTHING but whine about the poor drug addicts caught without a fix so of course they would loot hospitals.

City officials (read Nagin) had no plan other than to put stragglers up in the Super Dome. Why had they not stockpiled food and water and provided security in that location in advance? Why were hospitals and jails not evacuated in advance? Why were prisoners turned simply loose to prey on innocent survivors? Why did a huge percentage of the NO police force quit?

Blanco failed to deploy National Guard troop under her control. In the early days, it was the Coast Guard who lead the rescue effort. She also failed to REQUEST assistance from the Feds, which is her job to do in the case of such a disaster.

The first days of such a disaster are on the state and local government's emergency plan. The Feds can't be expected to come up with an emergency plan for every community in the country. However, upon the REQUEST of the state, they help implement that plan. To this day, Blanco has still failed to turn over control of LA national guard troops.

Perhaps there have been glitches in the Fed effort, but much of it stems from the incompetence of the state and local officials. Face it, the Fed is a big lumbering bureaucracy. Nat. Guard troops in other states were told on Wed they would be deployed and they left on Thur. That's a pretty quick response considering.....

Plenty of blame and not enough prayers.

Erin

Sep. 6, 2005, 02:24 PM

Um, showmom...

Nagin, I believe, issued the mandatory evacuation of New Orleans, not Blanco.

Nagin was erroneously reported to have been in Baton Rouge when he was, in fact, in New Orleans. I don't know when this was, specifically, but he was definitely in New Orleans when some news outlets were reporting he wasn't, so you might want to recheck your facts on that one. His OFFICE and most of the staff moved to Baton Rouge temporarily, obviously anticipating that NO would be without power and communication... both of which they needed in order to try to keep things running.

I have not seen any references to prisoners being turned loose, other than in one opinion column posted here. (I think that was the TIA piece?) I *have* seen numerous references in the mainstream press to prisoners drowning in jails, and to their being evacuated. But none -- repeat, none -- saying any were released. So might want to check your facts on that too.

The National Guard was most definitely deployed ahead of time (I assume by the governor) -- they were the ones providing the admittedly limited security at the Superdome and checking people in. You can easily see them in the pictures from the Sunday before the storm.

You appear to be regurgitating talking points straight from the National Review... they might very well be true, but I'd verify them in more neutral media outlets before putting too much stock in them.

Instant Karma

Sep. 6, 2005, 02:42 PM

How in the WORLD could someone running a horse association have the first friggen idea, or INKLING even, as to how to run a FEDERAL DISASTER AGENCY??! Oh.... My... God...

That is a joke. I mean, look at the clusterfart that the USEF has become- incapable of making decisions, operating in the red... if I heard they were taking someone out of there to run the local Sheetz store I would be running for the hills.

To think Mikey was put in a position like this from running the AHA, I can't even start to fathom the logic behind it.

Perfect Pony

Sep. 6, 2005, 02:48 PM

You know, I read a British article today that mentioned the fact that the disaster zone on the gulf coast is larger than Great Britain.

Maybe some of you should think about the scale of this disaster before you start blaming the victims for not getting out in time.

I can only imagine what would happen if the entire state of California was given 48 hours to evacuate.

bjrudq

Sep. 6, 2005, 02:49 PM

You guys need to start a clique for the Marie Antionette school of social consciousness Roll Eyes

omg, i am indebted to you for this one!

(cleaning dietcoke and meyers rum off screen.)

poltroon

Sep. 6, 2005, 03:50 PM

There are far, far too many stories of FEMA blocking efforts to help. I just don't get it. Among them are:

- A Wal-Mart truck full of water and food
- Chartered planes to evacuate the ill from hospitals were blocked for days
- a fleet of chartered buses meant to evacuate guests from a hotel (that was still dry and still totally accessible by road)
- At least one person with an airboat was told he'd have to pay for his own fuel ($500 a day) if he wanted to help

That's just off the top of my head.

FEMA and the national guard weren't getting into Mississippi and Alabama, either.

SOMEONE at FEMA has their priorities wrong. There are people who need to be fired in all three levels of government, and I don't care what their party affiliation is.

This isn't red v. blue, or Bush v. Clinton (who seem to be getting along with each other better than we are, I might point out http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif). It's competence vs. incompetence. Clearly there's been mass incompetence. Those people work for us. We, the people, need to ensure that it is fixed.

dogchushu

Sep. 6, 2005, 03:58 PM

Ghazzu

Sep. 6, 2005, 04:06 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Instant Karma:
How in the WORLD could someone running a horse association have the first friggen idea, or INKLING even, as to how to run a FEDERAL DISASTER AGENCY??! Oh.... My... God...

That is a joke. I mean, look at the clusterfart that the USEF has become- incapable of making decisions, operating in the red... if I heard they were taking someone out of there to run the local Sheetz store I would be running for the hills.

To think Mikey was put in a position like this from running the AHA, I can't even start to fathom the logic behind it. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Brown never ran IAHA (not AHA, either.)
He was a commissioner charged with monitoring and enforcing ethics guidelines.
And he was hires because he *wasn't* an Arabian owner/breeder.
They wanted someone impartial.
He started out well, and it all went downhill.

Erin

Sep. 6, 2005, 04:07 PM

Ditto, poltroon... honestly, I was skeptical of those stories when they started coming out (plus, in any disaster there are going to be a few screw-ups... it's not exactly a scripted and highly organized event), but they just keep coming, and it's just... bizarre... for lack of a better word.

No one here knows more about city-wide evacuation plans? Darn. Guess I will have to go back to Google News. http://chronicleforums.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif Hopefully now that the footage of people dangling from helicopters is thinning out, the media will do some more digging around.

I did find a couple of other interesting articles, both from Slate...

The first, The Thin Line Blew (http://www.slate.com/id/2125575/), talks about the "isolated incidents of criminality." An excerpt:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">It's clear from the comments of the president, the governor, the FEMA director, and the secretary of homeland security that they never planned for this. I don't mean that they failed to anticipate the magnitude of the flooding; we knew that already. I mean that they have no idea how easily a natural disaster can turn human beings into a second-wave destructive force. They don't understand that disasters often bring out the worst in us, that the human dynamics are collective, and that "responsibility" is quickly swamped. If you don't understand these dynamics, you can't plan for them. You end up pleading for "personal responsibility" when what you needed was air drops and the National Guard.

It's not like this hasn't happened before. The 1977 New York City blackout led to an epidemic of stealing. The mayor of Charleston, S.C., during Hurricane Hugo says FEMA was clueless about law and order during that 1989 crisis. He thinks we need a military unit to take charge of these situations. That may be going a bit far, but we certainly need to think more systematically about the human dynamics of natural disasters. We run computer models of hurricanes, levee breaches, and flooding. What about isolation, desperation, looting, fighting, and shooting? It took the mayor of New Orleans three days to tell his cops to switch from rescue operations to controlling post-hurricane crime. Why? Because crime wasn't in the model.

When I see federal officials bragging that they were well-prepared for Katrina because they've been organizing for terrorist attacks, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. In a terrorist attack, the human dynamics will be far worse. That's why they call it "terrorism." The terrorists won't have to inflict most of the deaths directly. They'll just hit us with a dirty bomb to start the panic. We'll do the rest. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Uh, I hope they have some sociologists on staff there at FEMA... http://chronicleforums.com/images/custom_smilies/uhoh.gif

The second article, While Chicago Baked (http://www.slate.com/id/2125572/), points out that this has happened many times before, including in Chicago in 1995, when more than 700 people died during a heat wave. Most of them were poor, many were black, many were elderly... many literally cooked in their homes because they lived in crime-ridden areas and were afraid to have their windows open. Basically, the city was accused of abandoning its residents most in need of help and leaving them to fend for themselves. (Sound familiar?) Anyway, it makes interesting reading. Obviously this is not an isolated problem.