<p>Mini is so correct in his last statement. I shudder at the thought that religious fanatics could learn from the scope of this disaster. One has to wonder how much security existed in New Orleans before this week’s event. The local government and leadership -an nice oxymoron- has demosntarted to be even less effective than the groups that were flown in later.</p>
<p>Levees are seen are great protectors, but people often misunderstand their purpose. They are not meant to protect citizens, but property. The way you protect citiziens is by getting them OUT of the area, and not pretending the levees is protecting them. Some of the greatest catastrophies occured when dams and levees broke. </p>
<p>Regarding people NOT getting out, I cannot help that we are making a ton of exuses for the overhwelming majority of them. If 100,000 people stayed behing, not all of them were indigent or ill. Does anyone tryuly believe that 20% of the population of New Orleans was unable to move out? The majority of the people who stayed behing did it willfully relying on history that the Big One never hit the Big Easy. We should not forget that despite an order to evacuate, the French Quarter was getting ready for another night of revelry and debauchery at the time the levees broke. I wonder how many people would stayed behind if instead of facing flooding, the danger was in the form of a bacterial epidemy. I would think that tinstead of 100,000, the number would have been a fraction of the current disaster. It is also obvious that the government(s) would have imposed drastic evacuation measures. No matter how we look at it, it would have been easier to deal with 10,000 stranded people than with 20% of the population. </p>
<p>New Orleans is a city that has defied human common sense for the longest time and played the odds for too long. In the end, they lost their biggest gamble. However, it does not matter how much responsibility they bear … we have to help them. The critics of the various administrations that are supposed to be THERE are proven to be RIGHT. Inasmuch as I resent the finger pointing, I have to admit that not much positive is happening in Louisiana. A fact that gives cause to laughter is that New orleans organized a mock disaster preparation to check the city response. They must have designed the plan at a table in Bourbon Street. </p>
<p>In the meantime, we will have to witness asinine and factless articles penned by uber-morons such as Molly Ivins. The tragedy has only begun.</p>
<p>Xig - you’re good with numbers. A quarter of the adult population doesn’t own automobiles. If you think about it that way, likely more folks left than one could have counted on, even putting aside the question of the ill and elderly.</p>
<p>But we can’t put them aside. Is this FEMA’s new “lifeboat ethics”?</p>
<p>But has anyone seen any evidence of people that wanted to get out, getting out via public help, I have not seen any evidence of convoys of buses, trucks, etc getting people out before</p>
<p>Where there any convoys of people getting out with public help</p>
<p>I mean in the world were you to get out with no car, and not enough money</p>
<p>If someone knows about bus loads of people that were brought out before, show me…I must have missed it</p>
<p>NOLA city has a fairly large bus system and schools so they have control of probably 100’s of such vehicles. If they were so concerned before the storm THEY could have made these available to take people away. Now they are blaming everyone else for their shortcomings. We have no idea how many people left behind stayed because they wanted to.
I visted NOLA a couple of years ago and found it then to be a dirty delapidated crime ridden city. Our hotel warned us where we could go and not to go after dark. The schools and police are so bad they are laughable. That’s why I called it a cesspool. Maybe dysfuntional corrupt dump would have been better .</p>
<p>I am not arguing that there are people who could not get out. However, check the images that have come from the Stadium and the Convention Center: were all those people unable to leave town on their own two legs? </p>
<p>I still think that if the disaster had been a bacterial epidemy, the majority of the folks who stayed behind would have found the way to WALK towards security. When disaster strikes many other parts of the world, we always see caravans of people WALKING to safety. Here, we seem to insist that the only answer is public transportation. Do other countries not laugh at some of the comments that it was barbarian to put people on a bus that lacked AIR CONDITIONING for a 300 miles drive? </p>
<p>My point is that more people could have gone out. And if they did, it would have been easier to help the truly helpless. For instance, the citizens who have enough strength to loot weapons from a store and try to ransack hospitals and retirement homes should have had the strength to walk to safety. </p>
<p>In the end, a lot of what happens in New Orleans is a reflection of the mentality of a city called the Big Easy. In a sense, the fabric of that city is very similar to its precise foundation.</p>
<p>I agree that some folks could have gotten out if they wanted to. And the oddity is that, having made such a decision, many would have been proven correct in their assessment if the levees hadn’t burst (more than 24 hours later, I think.)</p>
<p>But FEMA did not provide even one bus. Not one. Not for 40 people, no less 40,000. Not one ambulance. Not one helicopter. Not one taxi. Not one car. Not one Hummer. Not one troop carrier. Not even a skateboard. And they knew that there were people who couldn’t get out without them.</p>
<p>And afterwards? 30,000 people at the Dome, with a Hyatt Hotel next door. With a nice neat roof for landing or dropping stuff. Similar situation (though smaller) at the Convention Center. Thousands of folks rescued themselves and made it to the highway overpasses. Not one bottle of water dropped. Not one can of rations. Not a Hershey Bar, Mounds, or Almond Joy. Not a Gerber’s Babyfood Pouch. Not a burger from MickeyD’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, Rally’s, or Checkers. Not a peach, apple, or banana. </p>
<p>I think my friends in India could teach them a thing or two…</p>
<p>As for walking, well I saw old ladies in wheel cheers and women with little kids, lets take that kids on a march of over a hundred miles in one or two days</p>
<p>XIggi, how do you think a mother with little kids,no car and grandma could have gotten out…how?
With no transportation provided by anyone, how? And where would she have gone -25 miles out - maybe 50 if she trekked it</p>
<p>And what about water, food, etc along the way?</p>
<p>WIth a bus, they could have been hundreds of miles away</p>
<p>You ever walk a full day, all day, in the muggy heat? much less an old man pushing himself in a wheelchair on bumpy roads</p>
<p>Yeah those people could have gotten out no problem</p>
<p>I suggest you go out and hike for one day none stop and see how far you get</p>
<p>The people actually doing the work are angels, but the leadership on all levels, from Mr. Bush on down has been a joke</p>
<p>FEMA’s new job, under Bush, was to deal with disator AFTER THE FACT, so who was to plan ahead of time</p>
<p>The Department of Homeland Security, which FEMA is now under? Anybody in the Federal Governemnt who is in charge of emergency planning and dealing with an evernt we know is coming for sure…not a suprise attack, nope, one we were warned was imminent</p>
<p>Who on the Federal level has any responsiblity what so ever anyone</p>
<p>There will be plenty of blame to go around. It tells us the Hillary Clinton, while supporting foreign interventions, has been right for the past four years in saying not enough has been done to prepare for domestic response to catastrophe. Whether one is a dem or a repub, I think we can at least acknowledge she was on to something, and the administration should have listened to her and others.</p>
<p>“And afterwards? 30,000 people at the Dome, with a Hyatt Hotel next door”</p>
<p>Mini, do we know if the Hyatt was “usable”. It is fair to assume that hotel did not have power. I think that a multi-story building without services could be an ever worse death trap. </p>
<p>“XIggi, how do you think a mother with little kids,no car and grandma could have gotten out…how? With no transportation provided by anyone, how? And where would she have gone -25 miles out - maybe 50 if she trekked it
And what about water, food, etc along the way? WIth a bus, they could have been hundreds of miles away”</p>
<p>You keep on misreading my statements and distorting the truth. I am talking about the people who WERE able to walk. You use the small percentage of wheelchairs and children as an excuse for ALL of them. Are youtrying to tell me that 10% of New Orleans used wheelchairs as mode of transportation? Also, who said they would have had to walk all the way to Baton Rouge or Houston. The main problem for the evacuation has been that the first disaster was followed by the flooding that made the evacuation 100 times more difficult. It would have been easier to deal with 20,000 people camping along an interstate than to get them out. If the healthful had been on the road, we could have had a better idea on whom needed help getting out. The issue is that the local authorirties stopped way short of EVACUATING the city. They pretended to do it … big difference. </p>
<p>Again, if one of the petrochemical plants had started spewing out harmful chemicals in the air and inched its way towards New Orleans, how many people do you think we would have had in the stadium or staying long enough to loot?</p>
<p>" Whether one is a dem or a repub, I think we can at least acknowledge she was on to something, and the administration should have listened to her and others."</p>
<p>Was Hillary an example during 9-11? Was she even aorund? Have you forgotten her smirks during ceremonies honoring the heroes of 9-11. </p>
<p>CGM, yes they would have been farther way in a bus. Preferably, in a n air conditioned bus with catering aboard destined for a resort-like hotel? While I wish that would have been made available, we know that it did not happen. Neither did they get food and water immediately.</p>
<p>That is why there should have been a plan of evacuation in place - a plan the citizens KNEW they had to follow. The chaos in New Orleans started at the local level because the city was completely unable to address the short term issues that were taking place. If you live next to a river, you better learn to swim. If a city is build next between two possible dangerous waterway, it is their sole responsibility to ensure that their citizens know what to do and where to go. This is especially true for a city that was ROUTINELY shut down at the slightest rainfall. I visited New Orleans twice and saw it under water twice. </p>
<p>By the way, would YOU know what to do in case of another earthquake in San Francisco? Would you know what to do if the water were to rise by twenty feet in California? If the answer is no, you could always blame Dubya!</p>
<p>Tell, me, what is the Department of Homeland Securty’s job…what are they supposed to do, what is FEMA supposed to do</p>
<p>LA is one of the poorest states in the country…with some of the poorest people, who live day to day</p>
<p>It is not their sole responsiblity, far from it…we have a National Guard, why, why do we have one,what is it for…</p>
<p>Our government to protect us and keep us safe…yet they do not a whole lot here where it is needed</p>
<p>The Department of Homeland Security is responsible for security of the Nation, and under them is FEMA, if not to protect and help the people of the nation, what are they there for?</p>