McTag wrote:
All emergency planners knew the scale and severity of what was about to happen. They should have been rolling.
Which is a major point of the article if you had read it. There was a plan in place at the local level which was not followed. When things went downhill, suddenly all of the blame is shifted to the Federal government for not getting there in time. The fact of the matter is, if the disaster plan was follwed by local government, much of the disaster could have been avoided in the first place.
I must be the only person who clicked on revel's links.
I wouldn't say you're the only one who read the articles revel linked, Duck. I venture to say most folks draw different conclusions than do you and revel and the general Bushophobe club.
Quote:CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll
... who is to blame for the problems in the city following the hurricane -- 13 percent said Bush, 18 percent said federal agencies, 25 percent blamed state or local officials and 38 percent said no one is to blame. And 63 percent said they do not believe anyone at federal agencies responsible for handling emergencies should be fired as a result.
In recent days, 62 percent said they believe progress made in dealing with the situation is satisfactory
So lets see here - 87% don't blame Bush, 82% don't blame Federal agencies, and 63% don't believe anyone responsible for the Federal effort should be fired.
Meanwhile, now Blanco
IS second-guessing Nagin's latest evacuation order:
Quote: ...
Gov. Kathleen Blanco said she was the only person who could call for such action. Blanco said she doesn't want to "put more grief on people" by ordering them to leave, noting that some may have everything they need.
She said state officials were encouraging New Orleans residents to leave the city, adding that if it becomes obvious that the spread of dangerous diseases poses a danger, "we'll have to move to that next stage" of telling people to leave.
Source
And who blocked the Red Cross from distributing relief supplies and sanitary equipment to the teemimg thousands trapped in the "Refuge of Last Resort"?
Quote:Red Cross Says "We Were Kept From Superdome By State"
September 7, 2005 7:01 p.m. EST
Douglas Maher - All Headline News Staff Reporter
Washington, D.C. (AHN) - A report on Fox News from correspondent Major Garrett Wednesday night reveals a major break into what exactly went wrong at the Louisiana Superdome in the days after Hurricane Katrina struck the city.
An American Red Cross representative tells Fox News that
the Louisiana State Homeland Security Department refused the relief organization permission to take food and water to the Superdome because they did not want to "encourage people to go there."
The State office of Homeland Security wanted to get people out and were afraid that providing support would be a "magnet" attracting more displaced citizens of New Orleans.
Yup, the Bushophobes have a real smoking gun here. Another one. And just like all their similar past discoveries of the sort, its in their hand, and pointed directly at the newest hole in their own foot.
(surprise, surprise, surprise)
Edit to Add: Either I gotta start using "Preview" and verifying links work, or quit hot-typing BBCode - timber 
They can't see it. Hands over eyes...
Quote:I wouldn't say you're the only one who read the articles revel linked, Duck. I venture to say most folks draw different conclusions than do you and revel and the general Bushophobe club. .
What I meant was that I keep seeing it repeated that the state didn't ask for help when it's clearly documented (those were documents, not articles) that it did. I'm on record as saying the blame goes to all three governments, so tread lightly when you imply my conclusions align with your favorite "Bushophobes". By contrast, the Bushophiles seem intent on absolving their favorite golden boy and any and all associated with his administration of all responsibility. Even when he himself says the response was unacceptable. They blame the victims, the mayor, and the governor for all of it and act as if the victims are not entitled to help at all from the feds. But it's pretty much universally acknowledged that FEMA screwed up all over the place. You can type Bushophobe as many times as it takes to make you feel happy, but that's not going to change the facts. This incident illustrates how woefully unprepared we are to handle disasters, including terrorist attacks. Unprepared on all levels of government. Who's supposed to be leading that?
For those interested, you can watch the video of Major Garrett on FOX News breaking the story of the Red Cross being kept away from the Superdome by the State of Louisiana Homeland Security Department ...
HERE.
Very informative video.
Timberlandko wrote:....So lets see here - 87% don't blame Bush, 82% don't blame Federal agencies, and 63% don't believe anyone responsible ....
A
poll! Well, that solves everything. Moment by moment, we have been witnessing a historical event unfold before our very eyes, and for the significant impact of it all, we turn to public opinion polls.
We have finally reached the brain-mush state where we are unable to guage the significance of any event without consulting what the polls are saying.
In the latest Gallup Poll, E=MC² has been disproven, 63% to 25%, with 12% "no opinion".
These sort of disasters are always going to be a no-win situation for government - especially the federal government.
Post 9-11, the newly created Dept of Homeland Security took to using a color coded warning system to keep the public informed of the current threat status.
Undoubtedly, because the DHS did not want to be criticized for failing to alert the public before the next big attack, they raised the warning level to orange whenever they had reason to believe an attack might possibly take place.
What was the result of this practice? Ridicule, and apathy.
The simple fact of the matter is that we are not able to predict the course of a hurricane with reasonable certainty until it comes within about 24 hours of landfall.
Well within 24 hours of landfall, Katrina was predicted to hit New Orleans dead on and at a status of 4. As we now know, the eye moved west of NO and hit the Mississippi gulf area, and as a status 3 storm. It would not have been amazing in the least if it had moved sufficiently to the west as to essentially miss NO entirely.
Local governments are reluctant to issue early evacuation orders because they know that the cost and disruption of evacuations are high and should they prove to be unnecessary, (as is more likely to happen if they are ordered early on) they will anger their constituents and feed their political opponents. A local government can probably get away with one unnecessary evacuation, but only one.
The federal government is in the same boat, and do we really want it to assume control of a local area whenever a catastrophe becomes possible?
We get to see horrors like the Katrina aftermath on TV, as they are happening and we want to see them immediately put to right. We want to believe that if we might find ourselves in such dire straits that we can rely on the powers that be to immediately come to our rescue.
Our expectations, although understandable, tend to exceed the capabilities of government.
Mistakes were made by city state and federal agencies. Hindsight will enable us to zero in on each and every mistake, and hopefully appropriate changes will be made.
In my opinion, the negligence of the Mayor of New Orleans was so egregious that he deserves to be thrown out of office, but what is to be gained in the short term, when the crisis continues, to pillory him?
Ditto with the governor. Why were thousands of national guardsman and state police mobilized when it became apparent that there was a good chance NO would be hit by Katrina?
It is interesting to hear critics of the Administration clamor about how the feds should have had buses and troop carriers on the LA border before Katrina even hit, and yet ignore the fact that the city had hundreds of buses that could have been used, but never were, to transport those who had no means to flee the city.
It certainly does seem that FEMA didn't act as quickly as it could have, but no matter how quickly they may have acted, they could never have prevented all of what we witnessed on TV.
And let's not forget that we as individuals have responsiblity to take reasonable efforts to protect ourselves, to help our fellow citizens, and to not take unlawful advantage of a catastrophe.
There's plenty of blame to go around.
That's a very good and balanced viewpoint, Finn.
The spin machines are at full throttle. It's an unedifying spectacle.
Barbara Bush made an amazing statement yesterday, but I haven't seen much comment. Maybe it's unimportant in the light of everything else that's happening.
Any info on planning for new refugee townships?
Timber:
I have a question about those satellite photos you posted. Did your source also look for parked cars in large numbers? It might shed some light on the somewhat controversial question if everyone who could have left did.
From this morning's Albuquerque Journal (I'm typing it verbatim from the hard copy--the Journal requires registration and subscription to access on line):
"BATON ROUGE LA - A New Mexico medical team that spent two tense days working inside the hurrican-battered Louisiana Superdome said lives were saved there, despite all the reports of squalor and chaos.
The New Mexicans, in interviews Wednesday, also said the now heavily criticized Federal Emergency Management Agency had mobilized them to help Hurrican Katrina victims even before the monster storm lashed New Orleans and unleashed deadly floodwaters over 80 percent of he city.
The team was called up Aug 27 and the hurricane struck on Aug 29. The team got to the Superdome on Aug. 30.
"We were in Houston waiting for the hurricane to hit" said Byron Platt, a New Mexico Disaster Medical Assistance Team member. . . .
. . ."The plan for us was to go in, and other (medical) units to go in behind us," Platt said. "The (unknown) factor was the levee breaking."
The account goes on to say the team went from the Superdome to the Pete Maravich Assembly Center at LSU where they set up a makeshift field hospital and treated more than 6000 Katrina victims."
Now these are our own local hometown heroes so they'll get local coverage. But how many stories are you seeing like this in the national MSM, on TV, or being reported by the squawking Democrats on Capital Hill? Sounds to me like FEMA was doing the normal preparation. They just didn't prepare for the three-state hit and were not ready for that.
Screw ups? Sure. And I imagine 100 years from now we'll still be seeing the same kinds of screwups in massive disasters. Back in my YWCA days, we helped stage a lot of mini-disasters so the local rescue agencies (Fire, Police, hospitals, etc.) could practice. Even on that small scale there was always confusion and errors made.
FEMA will take its licks as it should for its failings. But dammit, it should also get credit for what it does right too.
kelticwizard wrote:Timberlandko wrote:....So lets see here - 87% don't blame Bush, 82% don't blame Federal agencies, and 63% don't believe anyone responsible ....
A
poll! Well, that solves everything. Moment by moment, we have been witnessing a historical event unfold before our very eyes, and for the significant impact of it all, we turn to public opinion polls.
We have finally reached the brain-mush state where we are unable to guage the significance of any event without consulting what the polls are saying.
In the latest Gallup Poll, E=MC² has been disproven, 63% to 25%, with 12% "no opinion".
Based on his reaction, one gets the impression that KW is not pleased with the results of this particular poll.
McTag wrote:Barbara Bush made an amazing statement yesterday, but I haven't seen much comment. Maybe it's unimportant in the light of everything else that's happening.
Maybe it's because she's a former first lady, and who gives a rat's patooty what a former first lady says (unless she's a sitting Senator, of course).
Compare the AP account Walter posted -- note its tone and implications and how it is reported -- compared to the account reported by our home town newspaper who interviewed the same team leader.
If you need any better graphic description of the bias of the national MSM, you need look no further.
I'm mostly in agreement with Finn. I don't quite share the hostility against the mayor, but that's because I think he had the least resources of the three governments and the least ability to coordinate with the feds. I found an interesting time line yesterday.
here
It paints the most comlete picture so far. What really stands out is the poor cooperation and communication between agencies. I think we have uncovered yet another shining example of how terrible we are at sharing.
Ticomaya wrote:Based on his reaction, one gets the impression that KW is not pleased with the results of this particular poll.
There was another poll taken at the same time which was conveniently not mentioned. I'll let you do the homework. KW's point that a poll doesn't really have anything to do with what we're talking about, is relevant.
Tico writes
Quote:Based on his reaction, one gets the impression that KW is not pleased with the results of this particular poll.
Yeah. It is so much more practical to not talk to anybody and draw your conclusions without any basis other than ideology to back them up.
FreeDuck wrote:Ticomaya wrote:Based on his reaction, one gets the impression that KW is not pleased with the results of this particular poll.
There was another poll taken at the same time which was conveniently not mentioned. I'll let you do the homework. KW's point that a poll doesn't really have anything to do with what we're talking about, is relevant.
I tend to agree ... but that has never stopped rabid anti-Bushies from posting polls left and right whenever they seem to indicate Bush's popularity is slipping. So a poll is posted that tends to indicate most Americans are not caught up in the anti-Bush crowd's hysteria to blame the hurricane disaster on Bush ... good. It's nice to see that most Americans aren't idiots.
