<p>The UK perspective…in The Times…</p>
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<p><a href=“http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1764177,00.html[/url]”>http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1764177,00.html</a></p>
<p>Is this the back story behind Brown appearing to be such a bozo?</p>
<p>I have no idea. All I know is that NBC News drove back and forth from the Convention Center (where residents were told to gather) in a simple SUV for two-and-half-days without any difficulties while FEMA and the National Guard couldn’t deliver a single bottle of water.</p>
<p>Conspiracy? I doubt it. But if Mr. Brown (or Bill O’Reilly) had had a daughter there, do you think they might just have managed it?</p>
<p>Yes. There’s a lot of truth to that. There’s really no other explanation for ZERO food and water deliveries for four days.</p>
<p>The only thing the Governor really said Monday night in her press conference was that they had to get everyone out of the city. </p>
<p>The problem was that nobody had ever dreamed of having to do a total evacuation of a city of 1.5 million people. Where do you put them? How do you transport them? They totally underestimated the task. When the decision was made Monday night to evacuate, nobody ever considered the posibility that it would be days before they could even put a dent in the evacuation.</p>
<p>Mini: </p>
<p>Are you aware that O’Reilly paid for a private retired special forces team to charter a helicopter and evacuate some families from some of N. Orleans’ worst neighborhoods?</p>
<p>I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a more moving condemnation of what happened to poor people in New Orleans this week than an exchange with Shepard Smith on Bill O’Reilly’s show on Friday night. Smith was absolutely livid with the fact that the mayor arranged for a police escort for 500 people from the Hyatt to the Superdome and PUT THEM AT THE FRONT OF THE LINE to get on the buses immediately. Shepard’s quote was something like, “If anyone believes that everything is equal in New Orleans, I can assure you that it is not!”</p>
<p>No one who has lived in New Orleans thinks anything has ever been equal but I have heard that many foreign tourists were escorted out on a priority basis after much insistance fromtheir respective embassies (See thread on Gap Year students).</p>
<p>I think it’s more a combination of sheer incompetence and typical Louisiana/NO style corruption than it is any kind of conspiracy. I also think that they want the poor out of the way, especially when it comes time to rebuild. The poor won’t get the cleanup & construction jobs and definitely won’t be able to afford the new housing that will be built.</p>
<p>Making arrangements for one SUV, etc., to get in and out is very different from making arrangements to mobilize large amounts of trucks, troops, etc. You don’t move an army on a minutes’ notice. No one foresaw the evacuation of a whole city, let alone a whole region. The plan was there as it was for other hurricanes, floods, etc. at those levels - and at normal levels even the poor can be accomodated. Water would normally recede, after a day or so, and people would be able to walk to shelters and get water, etc. But the proportions of this tragedy were so mind-boggling, that the normal things just didn’t work. Even in the tsunami, relief workers arrived to dry land, and were able to navigate around debris, etc. Here, the major roads usually used to transport aid were wiped out, the water was still rising, etc. I too agree that we should have moved faster, but understand the problems involved here. As to the poor, believe me, none of the areas taking them in will want them all forever, especially TX, (although we know many will stay here) since we have now approx. 200,000. The strain on this state’s economy will be tremendous. There will definitely be pressure from receiving states - Arkansas, TN, Mich, TX, FL, etc., to have that low income housing built. And NOLA cannot exist without the poor to do the jobs in the tourist industry that the monied people won’t do. They will have to do something to get these people back. BTW, many of the families with children enrolled in our school came saying they won’t be going back. The parents are looking for jobs, then once they get those and can get a little money together, they plan on finding someplace to live. Whether this is just a current reaction to the situation, and will be rethought, or whether this is the case, we won’t know for a long time to come. And finding jobs won’t be so easy. There already is unemployment in Houston, without adding another 100,000 looking for jobs. There go those summer jobs for our kids. Not complaining - just stating facts of what we have to look forward to. There has never been this great a relocation since WWII. My parents lived in a displaced person’s camp for a couple years until they found a way out to jobs and a life far, far away from family and friends. This situation is the only comparable one I could think of. Some people were able to stay, but many, many, were displaced permanently.</p>
<p>Many will need education/job training before they can even look for jobs. Why not INVEST in training them in the clean-up & construction skills needed to REBUILD New Orleans and other devastated areas?</p>
<p>On another note, America accommodates to some degree immigrants and/or refugees from Mexico, Asia (especially Vietnam), Europe and other areas around the world. Why is it so difficult for the US to help the new American refugees? NOT WELFARE, education and job training !!!</p>
<p>No one foresaw the evacuation of a whole city, let alone a whole region. The plan was there as it was for other hurricanes, floods, etc. at those levels - and at normal levels even the poor can be accomodated.</p>
<p>Because of federal budget cuts, structural renovations of the levees that had been begged for, for years, could not be done. Sadly, this was not taken into account when damage was predicted.</p>
<p>Interestingly, I have just returned from Canada and the tragic setting of New Orleans is the first section of every paper. More so than in many papers I have seen in the states.</p>
<p>Yes, we do accomodate immigrants both legal and illegal, but not a wave of hundreds of thousands all in one moment of time, and not all in one geographic region - although it is getting more spread out as we speak. And many immigrants come to family, etc., or through organizations that support a cetain number at a time, as resources allow. The logistics of the numbers are mind-boggling. The news from the Dome, etc., is that many want to find jobs, etc., but being relocated to Kansas, Alaska, Wyoming, etc., is not in their view. It is going to be difficult. There was an advertisement that they are willing to hire welders that are evacuees, and more companies are starting to come forth, but the numbers unemployed are staggering. LA has waived its unemployment requirements, and all displaced will be eligible for unemployment comp. That will help as a stop-gap measure, but it certainly isn’t enough to pay for an apartment and food, medical, etc.</p>
<p>Before anyone says anything, I believe we should help, and continue to help. I have donated, and will be at the Convention Center next weekend with others from my church. We cannot let more people die. But how to do it, and respect the evacuees and their wishes, is going to be a problem of immense proportions. Local economies have only so many resources. Spreading it around the nation will solve the situation, but I just don’t see a cajun adjusting to Alaska that well. BTW, I love cajuns - love NO, Lafayette, Metairie, etc., having been there many times. I am deeply saddened at the situation.</p>
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That has got to be the stupidest headline ever written.</p>
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It’s a little early with people still sitting on rooftops.</p>
<p>“Making arrangements for one SUV, etc., to get in and out is very different from making arrangements to mobilize large amounts of trucks, troops, etc”</p>
<p>Certainly I grant the point. But what about 10 SUVs making 5 trips a day?</p>
<p>“Are you aware that O’Reilly paid for a private retired special forces team to charter a helicopter and evacuate some families from some of N. Orleans’ worst neighborhoods?”</p>
<p>I think he had to - after the single most racist hour of television in the past 30 years, as television pictures showed families in supermarkets carrying soup and cranberry juice, while he ranted and raved about shooting looters. It would probably count as the lowest hour in television history, after his 5 five hours on Janet Jackson’s breast.</p>
<p>“There will definitely be pressure from receiving states - Arkansas, TN, Mich, TX, FL, etc., to have that low income housing built. And NOLA cannot exist without the poor to do the jobs in the tourist industry that the monied people won’t do. They will have to do something to get these people back.”</p>
<p>This is something I know something about professionally (for a change). If you think FEMA has been gutted, wait til you see HUD. I very much hope to be proven wrong, but I can’t imagine ANYONE building more low-income housing - anywhere. Section 8 housing waiting lists in many cities now approach 5 years, and that’s before Katrina. No city officials are going to want them - the added strain on social services and schools would be tremendous, this at times when beginnning with the federal government and trickling down to the states, Medicaid has been eviscerated, school funding per pupil (based on state taxes) are capped, and government job-training programs overwhelmed - before Katrina.</p>
<p>Last night, HHS floated the idea of - get this - building trailers and motor homes ON THE GULF COAST to house 10,000 people (to help cleanup the city?) Who is going to build low-income housing in New Orleans to house the workforce for the new “Disney City”? I just don’t see it.</p>
<p>My questions for the loud-mouthed Mayor and meek Governor–First why no use of local and state owned busses to get people out to begin with??
Why were there no provisions in the shelter areas–water, food, portopots, cots, blankest,clothes?? It would not have been that hard to have some advance prep knowing that some people would not leave. My office has food and water for at least 3 days in case of emergency.</p>
<p>Barrons, unitl you apoligize for calling people garbage, I don’t think your posts should be responded to.</p>
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I read a lot of papers, and I have yet to see one since last Sunday where Katrina wasn’t the front section. What do you read? The PennySaver? Entertainment Weekly?</p>
<p>I said it( the city)was a cesspool. Corrupt ineffective government, corrupt ineffective police, high crime rate, dirty and ill kept. I was not saying individual people were not worthy of saving or anything of the kind. If that was your impression I apologize. I have been to the city and did not care for it. I would say the same of several others in the US.</p>
<p>“NO was a human cesspool befor the event and nothing much has changed.” barrons</p>
<p>I dont think I got the wrong impression.</p>
<p>Fine, whatever.</p>