They Really Dropped the Ball..

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by Brwn_eyes0511

I agree with you.

I don't think blame for this needs to be placed on the national level but on the local level!

HUNDREDS of buses could have been used to pick these people up!

Please listen carefully this time - it was FEMA, which is Federal, not a state, Agency's job to do the evacuation. Do you not understand that FEMA evacuated according to their plan the people to the Dome in the first place. So, please stop incorrectly saying it is all the state's fault. That is wrong. Thus, the blame for dropping the ball is solidly on the shoulders of FEMA and W as the President. But, you will never admit this. Why, I have no idea.

[amber]

If anyone reads the article Heather just posted, it seems glaringly obvious why everything went down as it did.

[Brwn_eyes0511]

Originally Posted by dissention

And yourself, too.

haha!

[sodascouts]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

Well, then let's look at the facts, not the BS. FEMA took control of the situation on Sunday at Gov. Blanco's request. When a Federal Agency takes charge, they are in charge, not the state, though the state must also simultaneously use its resources in conjunction with FEMA. FEMA and Pres. Bush acted ahead of time and outfitted the SuperDome and other shelters with food and water for two or so days in anticipation of tens of thousands being evacuated to them. They also planned to do house to house searches and rescue tens of thousands of evacuees. Finally, FEMA and the government of Louisiana have been planning for a higher than class 3 hurricane to hit NOLA for years and FEMA had an approved plan. So, clearly they knew this storm was going to be bad and on August 28, the Gov. of Louisiana specifically called on FEMA to execute that plan. Any talk to the contrary is not supported by the facts.

Then, FEMA is overwhelmed by the rescue effort, which it had planned for mind you. Also, FEMA refused what appears to be hundreds of private and public requests from to ship food, water, and manpower into NOLA and the other damaged areas. Yet, FEMA refused it. Why they did so is unexplainable to me. Then, it takes FEMA on its own and with the self-admitted constant observation of the Pres. five days to get food and supplies and manpower into NOLA and the other damaged areas. How is that possibly explained on any rationale level when, again, hundreds stood ready five days before but were refused.

Those are the facts. If you want to draw the conclusion that W and FEMA did nothing wrong and that five or more days is a reasonable amount of time. So be it. I think, however, if you were watching your infant die in your arms from starvation, dehydration, and heat - you might just be a little angry at the Fed. Govt., whose job it was to save you and your dead infant.

For the life of me, I will never understand why people do not get that and instead want to defend W and his glacier like second response to this.

On a related topic, I think the people that could have gotten out should have done so and that they did not makes me angey at them because they hindered the evacuation of the needy by comparison. But, I think no one is saying the really poor and handicapped should be faulted for not evacuating a town that has essentially two ways out in an evacuation and no public transportation to do so and a FEMA plan to put them in the dome

It looks to me like they did make efforts to respond from the facts you posted above. I cannot explain why FEMA didn't accept some of the help either, but it surely wasn't because they weren't concerned about the people in New Orleans. That said, certainly any problems should be addressed and corrected. I'm just giving relief workers the benefit of the doubt. As for "defending W," his name didn't even come up in my post.

[sodascouts]

Originally Posted by dissention

No, I'm referring to Condi Rice and Hastert.

Rice adovcates bulldozing New Orleans? I hadn't read that.

[David]

It will be interesting to see whether anyone attempts to find out how many of those who stayed did so voluntarily, & how many simply couldn't leave. The opportunity to demagogue with either figure is so valuable that I would be surprised if they ever accurately determined. I heard Trent Lott on TV saying that only the left-wing media were questioning whether or not too many National Guardsmen were in Iraq. But I saw several residents of Biloxi on TV asking that question earlier -- they weren't reporters & editors!

Those folks in Washington are SO SO out of touch.

A decade ago the U.S. was making noises about weather modification in the western Pacific to reduce the intensity of typhoons around Guam & the CNMI. The Japanese asked them to give up on the idea -- a lot of the recharge of groundwater in the Philippines, Taiwan, Japan & China is from typhoons.

[Brwn_eyes0511]

Originally Posted by sodascouts

It looks to me like they did make efforts to respond from the facts you posted above. I cannot explain why FEMA didn't accept some of the help either, but it surely wasn't because they weren't concerned about the people in New Orleans. That said certainly any problems they should be addressed and corrected. I'm just giving relief workers the benefit of the doubt. As for "defending W," his name didn't even come up in my post.

I agree with you. I don't think unless you were there...that anyone of us could know what it was like, and what it is like now. Time, energy, effort, all these things a good evacuation make! I think considering we are only human, things are being taken care of now as fast as they can be.

[Brwn_eyes0511]

Originally Posted by sodascouts

Rice adovcates bulldozing New Orleans? I hadn't read that.

I think he was talking about Hastert. Rice is the one who went to the broadway play.

[sodascouts]

Originally Posted by Brwn_eyes0511

I agree with you. I don't think unless you were there...that anyone of us could know what it was like, and what it is like now. Time, energy, effort, all these things a good evacuation make! I think considering we are only human, things are being taken care of now as fast as they can be.

It's not like I'm saying everything went hunky dory and all is well. That's obviously not the case. But does this mean we should go around condemning? We should identify problems and fix them - but some folks think they know all the problems and whose fault they are when that is not necessarily the case. I for one have heard all sorts of conflicting information about where the problems lie.

[sodascouts]

Originally Posted by Brwn_eyes0511

I think he was talking about Hastert. Rice is the one who went to the broadway play.

Ah. Perhaps we should compile a list of things one is not allowed to do within a certain number of days after a disaster, which also needs to be determined. I am sure Josh can help us with this.

Edit: Oops there I go being sarcastic again! But that's the way some of us deal with conflict. In fact one of my friends wrote an interesting article on sarcasm being the weapon especially of women... but I won't get into that. At any rate I do not see why sarcasm is any less legitimate than other means of expressing criticism. In fact I often find it a little more amusing than the other types.

[estranged4life]

bulldoze any city I think Washington DC should be first in line

Calling politicians out of touch is like stating that Fleetwood Mac is slow in releasing new studio material..."Kinda obvious there aint it Capt.Obvious"? (The "Capt.Obvious" isnt referred to anyone specifically....Just like the commerical with that character is all!)

[amber]

Originally Posted by Mad4stevie

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9207190/

Storm’s victims unlike much of America
Census analysis shows how demographics of poverty contributed to disaster

People living in the path of Hurricane Katrina’s worst devastation were twice as likely as most Americans to be poor and without a car — factors that may help explain why so many failed to evacuate as the storm approached.

An Associated Press analysis of Census data shows that the residents in the three dozen hardest-hit neighborhoods in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama also were disproportionately minority and had incomes $10,000 below the national average.

“Let them know we’re not bums. We have houses. Our houses were destroyed. We have jobs. It’s not our fault that we didn’t have cars to leave,” Shatonia Thomas, 27, said as she walked near New Orleans’ convention center five days after the storm, still trapped in the destruction with her children, ages 6 and 9.

‘A different equation’
Money and transportation — two keys to surviving a natural disaster — were inaccessible for many who got left behind in the Gulf region’s worst squalor.
“It’s a different equation for poor people,” explained Dan Carter, a University of South Carolina historian. “There’s a certain ease of transportation and funds that the middle class in this country takes for granted.”

Catina Miller, a 32-year-old grocery deli worker who lived in the Ninth Ward, a poverty-stricken New Orleans enclave created in the 1870s by immigrants who were too poor to find higher ground, said she certainly would have liked to have left the city before the hurricane hit.

“But where can you go if you don’t have a car?” she asked. “Not everyone can just pick up and take off.”

‘Enough blame to go around’
Jack Harrald, director of the Institute for Crisis, Disaster and Risk Management at George Washington University in Washington, said emergency planners have known for years that the poverty and lack of transportation in New Orleans would be a significant problem, but the government spent more time and money preparing itself — rather than communities — for disaster.

“All issues were known,” said Harrald, whose institute had been scheduling a series of emergency planning community meetings through a partnership with the University of New Orleans. “But it was still a work in progress. ... There’s enough blame to go around for everybody.”

From the analysis
The AP analysis showed:

Median household income in the most devastated neighborhood was $32,000, or $10,000 less than the national average.
Two in 10 households in the disaster area had no car, compared with 1 in 10 in nationwide.
Nearly 25 percent of those living in the hardest-hit areas were below the poverty line, about double the national average. About 4.5 percent in the disaster area received public assistance; nationwide, the number was about 3.5 percent.
About 60 percent of the 700,000 people in the three dozen neighborhoods were minority. Nationwide, about 1 in 3 Americans is a racial minority.
One in 200 American households doesn’t have adequate plumbing. One in 100 households in the most affected areas didn’t have decent plumbing, which, according to the Census, includes running hot and cold water, a shower or bath and an indoor toilet.
Nationwide, about 7 percent of households with children are headed by a single mother. In the three dozen neighborhoods, 12 percent were single-mother households.
“It’s the same people who don’t have the wherewithal to get out of Dodge,” said National Guard Lt. Col. Connie McNabb, who was running a medical unit at the besieged convention center in New Orleans.

The disparities were even more glaring in large, urban areas. One of the worst-hit neighborhoods in the heart of New Orleans, for example, had a median household income of less than $7,500. Nearly three of every four residents fell below the poverty line, and barely 1 in 3 people had a car.

“I didn’t have much in there,” said Deanna Harris, a 57-year-old unemployed New Orleans resident, “but it was mine.

“Now, this is what I’ve got,” she said, patting a plastic bag.

‘Out of sight, out of mind’
The Ground Zero victims of Mississippi have much the same story. In one Pascagoula neighborhood, where 30 percent of residents are minorities, more than 20 percent live in poverty.

In Alabama, where Katrina wasn’t as severe, one of the hardest hit areas was a downtown Mobile neighborhood, where the median household income is barely $25,000 and 1 of every 4 residents lives below the poverty line.

“There’s not a lot of interest in this issue, except when there’s something dramatic,” said Carter, the South Carolina historian. “By and large, the poor are simply out of sight, out of mind.”

© 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

You guys who are saying we shouldn't be blaming, and denying that the gov't didn't care about these people might want to read this.

[sodascouts]

Originally Posted by amber

You guys who are saying we shouldn't be blaming, and denying that the gov't didn't care about these people might want to read this.

Nowhere in that article do I read that the government didn't care about the people of New Orleans.

[dissention]

Originally Posted by sodascouts

Rice adovcates bulldozing New Orleans? I hadn't read that.

I never said she did, I said she went to a Broadway show in the midst of this. And she went shopping in Saks Fifth Avenue and played some tennis.

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by sodascouts

It looks to me like they did make efforts to respond from the facts you posted above. I cannot explain why FEMA didn't accept some of the help either, but it surely wasn't because they weren't concerned about the people in New Orleans. That said, certainly any problems should be addressed and corrected. I'm just giving relief workers the benefit of the doubt. As for "defending W," his name didn't even come up in my post.

So, denounce him now if that is not what you implied. The buck stops at him and even he admits his actions were inadeqaute

Again, if it were not for the massive public outcry, I truly believe the vast majority of the people would still be in the Superdome and at the Convention Center.

Also, I know you care about the people in NOLA and have said nothing to the contrary. I also know that you are saying the people actually giving relief - the people in the field - are doing a great job - I agree, they are. My beef is with the brass and I think we cannot complain enough about them.

In fact, I just got off of the phone with my brother who said FEMA is still refusing assistance from some. I mean how much more of this are we to take before getting out the march on Washington