43rd President of the United States lands in NOLA to help evac efforts - Page 5

gldstwmn · #61 09-03-2005, 11:26 PM

New Orleans, UNITED STATES: Former US presidential candidate Al Gore speaks to the media as military personel evacuate survivors at New Orleans International Airport in New Orleans, Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina 03 September, 2005. A total of 42,000 survivors of Hurricane Katrina and its deadly storm surge have now reportedly been evacuated from New Orleans

Brwn_eyes0511 · #62 09-03-2005, 11:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gldstwmn

New Orleans, UNITED STATES: Former US presidential candidate Al Gore speaks to the media as military personel evacuate survivors at New Orleans International Airport in New Orleans, Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina 03 September, 2005. A total of 42,000 survivors of Hurricane Katrina and its deadly storm surge have now reportedly been evacuated from New Orleans

Well in his defense...it does appear that he was actually helping...

but then again, right lately he has been looking "over worked" all the time.

strandinthewind · #63 09-04-2005, 01:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brwn_eyes0511

Well in his defense...it does appear that he was actually helping...

but then again, right lately he has been looking "over worked" all the time.

. . . as opposed to looking oh so swell with lots of grins at a photo op with a guitar at a fundraiser while people were drowning

Bush is soooo on my shiitte list right now and he should be on everyones' lists - again, mothers watched their babies die because W and FEMA could not get evacuation teams or food and water into there for FIVE days. Like Harry Connick, Jr. said - if Charmaine Nevell, a singer, can command a deserted city bus and take people in her neighborhood to safety, why was is so mother fu**ing hard for the Federal EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT Agency to get a few buses to NOLA. I hope people go to jail for this and they play 24/7 the images of those mothers holding up their babies to helicopters a la the last days of Saigon

I know I sound like I am attacking you, but I get the vibe that you think W has behaved in an admirable fashion here and I just do not get that. If I got the wrong vibe, I am sorry.

BombaySapphire3 · #64 09-04-2005, 01:58 AM

Another thing that is totally making me ill about all this is how Bush has presented himself as a great Christian and was elected by all these evangelicals.I don't see anything remotely Christian about doing basically nothing for nearly 5 days while the poor,elderly and afflicted are suffering and dying in the streets of a city in the nation of which you are the president of.This is hypocrisy of the highest magnitude.If there is a Hell there will be a special place in it for this man.

strandinthewind · #65 09-04-2005, 02:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BombaySapphire3

Another thing that is totally making me ill about all this is how Bush has presented himself as a great Christian and was elected by all these evangelicals.I don't see anything remotely Christian about doing basically nothing for nearly 5 days while the poor,elderly and afflicted are suffering and dying in the streets of a city in the nation of which you are the president of.This is hypocrisy of the highest magnitude.If there is a Hell there will be a special place in it for this man.

It is almost like visiting the house of a five year old who suffers from ADHD. You would see all these little projects greatly begun but never finished. I mean Iraq - great beginning - no end in sight. Economy - great initial spark from the tax cuts - no proper fiscal spending to support it. Katrina - great beginning - five days later the second act and tens of thousands of the promised troops will not be there for the next four or so days. Does anyone else see a pattern here

Brwn_eyes0511 · #66 09-04-2005, 02:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

. . . as opposed to looking oh so swell with lots of grins at a photo op with a guitar at a fundraiser while people were drowning

Bush is soooo on my shiitte list right now and he should be on everyones' lists - again, mothers watched their babies die because W and FEMA could not get evacuation teams or food and water into there for FIVE days. Like Harry Connick, Jr. said - if Charmaine Nevell, a singer, can command a deserted city bus and take people in her neighborhood to safety, why was is so mother fu**ing hard for the Federal EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT Agency to get a few buses to NOLA. I hope people go to jail for this and they play 24/7 the images of those mothers holding up their babies to helicopters a la the last days of Saigon

I know I sound like I am attacking you, but I get the vibe that you think W has behaved in an admirable fashion here and I just do not get that. If I got the wrong vibe, I am sorry.

I'm not picking "sides" here, as I don't see sides to pick! It's America, and I would like to see everyone working together at this point in time! I am glad Gore is there helping out...the more the better! I just couldn't resist a little "Gore-making-fun-of"....it's that conservative blood in me...sorry didn't mean to upset!

JazmenFlowers · #67 09-04-2005, 02:19 AM

I think it is disgusting how this whole thing has been treated. I don't know where to begin with my disappointment, but one thing that sticks in my head is how long it took Bush to even make a statement about Katrina...he didn't fly directly to NOLA/Gulf Coast from his vacation, he flew to the White House - he should have had his a** there asap and start putting plans in action...other things I've learned: FEMA supports Pat Robertson, levee engineers asked for federal money to investigate/repair the levees 2 years ago and were denied, when Bush declared NOLA/Gulf Coast a disaster many thought/assumed it was becase of Katrina, maybe it was, but it was also in response to a weeks-old request for that declaration so federal money could be acquired to rebuild after damage from Tropical Storm Cindy. I swear if I see one more "W" bumper sticker I'm likely to go postal. He is embarassing, stupid and a total waste of tax dollars.

Also, they were aware NOLA was likely to be hit and destroyed by a hurricane at some point, why weren't there plans of action in place? Why weren't there national guard going in there with buses, trucks, trailers, anything to ship these people who had no cars/money to get out? NOLA has also been on the list of cities to watch for terrorist actions at the levees, why weren't we better prepared?

I'd put my money on the fact that this shows just how vulnerable and weak we have become because of the war...weaker even since 911

Brwn_eyes0511 · #68 09-04-2005, 02:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JazmenFlowers

FEMA supports Pat Robertson, levee engineers asked for federal money to investigate/repair the levees 2 years ago and were denied

I think this part, however true it may be, shouldn't be put alone on Bush and his administration. No president before him issued federal money for the levees either.

strandinthewind · #69 09-04-2005, 02:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brwn_eyes0511

I'm not picking "sides" here, as I don't see sides to pick! It's America, and I would like to see everyone working together at this point in time! . . . .

I agree, but your inability to say that W screwed up is a little hard to take - and mind you I defended his initial actions through FEMA, which were great and I stand by that. But, all this "let's all work together" talk is sort of to me the ostrich's head in the sand. If we did not complain, W would have done as little as he could. That is frighteningly obvious in that he could not be bothered to send in the calvary for five days. To put it in perspective, people were able to drive to NOLA on Tuesday and many many offers of help on Monday were just ignored or refused by FEMA. So, it is a little hard for everyone to work together when the big dog doesn't want to continue unless public opinion forces him to

And, I agree, though he is doing a great thing, Gore looks odd as he always does.

strandinthewind · #70 09-04-2005, 02:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brwn_eyes0511

I think this part, however true it may be, shouldn't be put alone on Bush and his administration. No president before him issued federal money for the levees either.

That is not true. Please check your facts before making such a statement. The Army Corps. of Engineers, which is a Federally funded entity, has been working on these levees for years. The problem people are raising with W and the lack of funding can be seen in this article:

Did New Orleans Catastrophe Have to Happen? 'Times-Picayune' Had Repeatedly Raised Federal Spending Issues

By Will Bunch

Published: August 31, 2005 9:00 PM ET

PHILADELPHIA

Even though Hurricane Katrina has moved well north of the city, the waters may still keep rising in New Orleans. That's because Lake Pontchartrain continues to pour through a two-block-long break in the main levee, near the city's 17th Street Canal. With much of the Crescent City some 10 feet below sea level, the rising tide may not stop until it's level with the massive lake.

New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been working with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major hurricane and flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.

Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.

Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.

Newhouse News Service, in an article posted late Tuesday night at The Times-Picayune Web site, reported: "No one can say they didn't see it coming. ... Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation."

In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness.

On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; told the Times-Picayune: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

Also that June, with the 2004 hurricane season starting, the Corps' project manager Al Naomi went before a local agency, the East Jefferson Levee Authority, and essentially begged for $2 million for urgent work that Washington was now unable to pay for. From the June 18, 2004 Times-Picayune:

"The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don't get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can't stay ahead of the settlement," he said. "The problem that we have isn't that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can't raise them."

The panel authorized that money, and on July 1, 2004, it had to pony up another $250,000 when it learned that stretches of the levee in Metairie had sunk by four feet. The agency had to pay for the work with higher property taxes. The levee board noted in October 2004 that the feds were also now not paying for a hoped-for $15 million project to better shore up the banks of Lake Pontchartrain.

The 2004 hurricane season was the worst in decades. In spite of that, the federal government came back this spring with the steepest reduction in hurricane and flood-control funding for New Orleans in history. Because of the proposed cuts, the Corps office there imposed a hiring freeze. Officials said that money targeted for the SELA project -- $10.4 million, down from $36.5 million -- was not enough to start any new jobs.

There was, at the same time, a growing recognition that more research was needed to see what New Orleans must do to protect itself from a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. But once again, the money was not there. As the Times-Picayune reported last Sept. 22:

"That second study would take about four years to complete and would cost about $4 million, said Army Corps of Engineers project manager Al Naomi. About $300,000 in federal money was proposed for the 2005 fiscal-year budget, and the state had agreed to match that amount. But the cost of the Iraq war forced the Bush administration to order the New Orleans district office not to begin any new studies, and the 2005 budget no longer includes the needed money, he said."

The Senate was seeking to restore some of the SELA funding cuts for 2006. But now it's too late.

One project that a contractor had been racing to finish this summer: a bridge and levee job right at the 17th Street Canal, site of the main breach on Monday.

The Newhouse News Service article published Tuesday night observed, "The Louisiana congressional delegation urged Congress earlier this year to dedicate a stream of federal money to Louisiana's coast, only to be opposed by the White House. ... In its budget, the Bush administration proposed a significant reduction in funding for southeast Louisiana's chief hurricane protection project. Bush proposed $10.4 million, a sixth of what local officials say they need."

Local officials are now saying, the article reported, that had Washington heeded their warnings about the dire need for hurricane protection, including building up levees and repairing barrier islands, "the damage might not have been nearly as bad as it turned out to be."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Will Bunch ([email protected]) is senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992 when he reported for Newsday. Much of this article also appears on his blog, Attytood, at the Daily News.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/ea..._id=1001051313

_______________________________________________________________

The problem with NOLA is that the entire system needed to be updated and the levees raised or secured and they have been trying to do that via various plans for a long time. It appears that headway was being made, but W cut the funding, which has now bitten him in the a$$ according to a bunch of articles

JazmenFlowers · #71 09-04-2005, 02:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brwn_eyes0511

I think this part, however true it may be, shouldn't be put alone on Bush and his administration. No president before him issued federal money for the levees either.

I'm not putting it on Bush alone. I'm simply stating that he didn't issue money and especially in a time when terrorist attacks were very possible and the levees were a primary source for their attacks, he and his administration should've thought more about it in the instance than maybe other administrations would or should have.

JazmenFlowers · #72 09-04-2005, 02:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lux

And what exactly is the point of tax in this case? What is the point of having a government here? Of course I know the point, the actual answers to those questions but when it comes to the time that the government is not doing the job it exists to do, what is its point?

got me

strandinthewind · #73 09-04-2005, 02:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lux

And what exactly is the point of tax in this case? What is the point of having a government here? Of course I know the point, the actual answers to those questions but when it comes to the time that the government is not doing the job it exists to do, what is its point?

to make sure fags don't f**k