<p>“Texas public schools are open to every child that comes in.”</p>
<p>That’s generous? You mean they don’t always do that???</p>
<p>Heck, most places I’ve lived - you got space for your tent, you can attend. Parked cars work in a pinch, too. </p>
<p>“prepared to take over 100,000 on a long term basis” </p>
<p>Wow. You mean normally I’d need a permit to go to Texas? They’re gonna cap the number of folks that come at 100,000? What will they do, turn any overflow back at the border?</p>
<p>Seriously, bandit, I’m glad Texas is doing its part and maybe a bit more.</p>
<p>I do hope most cities and states in the US would be just as welcoming. Including my current hometown, Chicago.</p>
<p>The barb was aimed at those that want to sit back, second guess, and ***** about what isn’t being done. I’d like to see the energy turned toward helping for once. This board spends far too much energy mouthing instead of helping.</p>
<p>The television news special says that school buses are now being used, that the dome in Houston is now full capacity and that one possibility is the use of cruise ships to help get people out of there and to temporarilly supply housing. There are also reports of gangs of people wrecking havoc, raping and stealing from other survivors. In parts of the city where people waited patiently…no one seems to be bringing food. I do wonder about how this whole thing has been handled but I don’t see value in arguing fault at this point.</p>
<p>I just heard on MSNBC that 50% of the children of NO live below the poverty level. Sounds like a disaster the administration, and country as a whole, has been ignoring long before the storm.</p>
<p>Out West we are the midst of fire season (July, August, Sept, Oct). Fires can get real big fast. We’ve had a very green spring which makes a very dangerous forest in the summer. We have a very different weather pattern from the East of Rockies- No rain in summer and early fall, but a very wet winter and spring. I imagine that to send our NG blackhawks 2000 miles and leave our own yard exposed could be seen as shortsighted and destroy any fire disaster “planning.”</p>
<p>Oregon’s gov is sending what Louisiana gov wants most- Military Police!</p>
<p>what concerns me is: what if this had been a terrorist attack?
Hadn’t New Orleans done any terror attack logistical planning and drills?
Especially since they sit in a huge oil and gas refining area?
Hasn’t that kind of terror preparation been funded by millions of dollars?
If they had done this funded planning and drilling, aren’t those skills transeferrable to natural disaster scenarios?
If New Orleans has been such a planning failure…what about Chatanooga, Phoenix, Cleveland? …other under the radar cities where a dirty bomb or other event may cause wide spread panic? and real need for evacuation or relocation?
The beaurocrats are doing spin but the people on the ground are in hell and things do not seem to be moving. All with at least 4 days advance warning.
This should be a warning to all American cities that planning and practicing are ESSENTIAL. One of the things that helped New York was that they had just completed a comprehensive disaster drill the week before 9/11/01.
And I hope our foes are too busy to be paying close attention to this fiasco.</p>
<p>in 2003 FEMA is downgraded from a cabinet level position and put in the Department of Homeland Security, Its mission is refocused on fighting acts of terrorism</p>
<p>in 2003 FEMA’s preparation and planning functions were reassigned to a new Office or Preparedness and Response. FEMA would henceforth focus only on response and recovery</p>
<p>In 2001, FEMA said a major hurrican hitting NO was one of the three likeliest, most catastophic disasters facing this country</p>
<p>Saddest story I’ve seen. St. Bernard’s Parrish east of New Orleans is 100% under water. Totally by local action with private citizens going out in their boats, they managed to rescue 1500 people from roofs and take them to a dry levee top at a ferry landing on the Mississippi and use a ferry boat to evacuate them across the river. Two days ago, the police chief appeared on TV utterly begging for some supplies.</p>
<p>Tonight, it was reported that they have yet to receive a single bottle of water or morsel of food delivered to their gathering point. Of the 1500 people rescued and brought to the ferry landing, 100 have now died of dehydration and starvation.</p>
<p>How hard can it be to deliver a helicopter load of supplies? I guess it’s probably the police chief’s fault because he doesn’t have the official FEMA requistion forms or something?</p>
<p>It is not easy to absorb 100,000 people at one fell swoop, people who have lost everything and thus will need everything. More people mean more housing, food and health care needs; more students mean more classroom space needed, more teachers, and on and on. I very much appreciate Texas’ efforts to do so.</p>
<p>On rehashing mistakes - with hurricane season just starting, I think that one of the leasons to be learned is the issue of evacuating those that can do so themselves. Florida has a lot a elderly - I wonder if facilities have to have a plan in case of disaster.</p>
<p>“Appearing on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” the FEMA director said he “never thought I’d see” the lawlessness that has overtaken the city and interrupted emergency relief efforts. “It’s heartbreaking and very, very frustrating to me from a broad operational perspective,” he said.”</p>
<p>Gee, didn’t we say the same thing in response to the looting of Baghdad? In fairness, the Baghdad invasion was planned, sort of…</p>
<p>When will our leadership learn? Planning, Planning…</p>
<p>I agree that the scale of the need is staggering. </p>
<p>One thought keeps occuring to me over and over again: if every religious congregation in the country would agree to “sponsor” ONE family and provide services for indefinite resettlement in their community, perhaps the individual needs of each family could be addressed in a more humane way.</p>
<p>Our church sponsored a family of Bosnian refugees a few years ago. Various members of the congregation helped with locating an apartment, furnishing it, helping family members with whatever they needed—English lessons, finding appropriate medical services, job training and placement, navigating the public transportation system, driver education, etc. There was no proseltyzing involved–the family was not religious and there was no pressure on the family to join our church. They don’t attend services, but they have always been welcome at our church’s social events and have made a number of good long-term friends in the congregation, despite linguistic, cultural, and religious differences.</p>
<p>It’s been four or five years and they seem to have settled well into the community, contributing their talents–they have been self-sufficient for several years. One family member chose to return to Europe (not sure where–not Bosnia, I think it was Germany) with a fiance, the others seem to prefer it here.</p>
<p>Anyway, to me, this seems like a far more humane option to offer the displaced families than just herding them into huge domed stadiums or school gyms or armories. Large extended families that want to stay nearby one another could perhaps be sponsored by several nearby congergations.</p>
<p>I realize that placement and transportation to distant congregations would likely take some time, so this isn’t an instant solution, but it does seem like a better medium-term solution than indefinite housing in mass facilities like the Astrodome or tent encampments or school gyms.</p>
<p>citygirlsmom,
Just how could those school buses make it to Miss. and Louisiana with the roads being virtually destroyed?</p>
<p>Who would drive the buses? Certainly there should be better transportation available than Florida school busses.</p>
<p>The question shouldn’t be why aren’t school buses headed to Miss. and Louisiana, but what the heck happened to home security? The National Guard? Why wasn’t there a decent evacuation plan – for everyone, not just those fortunate enough to be healthy and to have cars? Why isn’t there a thoughtful way to get food and other necessities to people.</p>
<p>There was plenty of warning that catastrophic damage could happen in New Orleans and low lying areas due to hurricanes. Why weren’t we prepared?</p>
<p>Some roads are working. I-10 is down, true, but other roads are working. How do you think they got the buses in so far? By ferry? </p>
<p>I don’t want to play down the logistics issues. They are real and substantial. But, we were able to get a rescue submarine to Siberia in under 36 hours (never mind that the Brits beat us!), we’ve moved massive amounts of people and material on short notice for military operations and so forth.</p>
<p>“If we could get out 7000 prisoners before the quake, why couldn’t we get out babies and old people”</p>
<p>Sounds harsh, but it’s because the prisoners are… prisoners. You know exactly how many of them there are; where they are; and the State is responsible for their well-being. You know that they are, by definition, incapable of transporting themselves. </p>
<p>It’s the same reason why it’s easy to move people from one Dome to the next - they are all in one place and you know where you can direct your efforts. Contrast that with elderly or babies - thank God we don’t have a national database which would instantly tell us so much about everyone that we would know exactly who can’t move on his own, who didn’t evacuate last time, where they live, and what size underwear they all wear.</p>