<p>Texas is already enrolling the students. Dallas school officials will be at Reunion Arena tomorrow to start interviewing parents and getting a head count. They just absorbed several thousand from a neighboring district that went bust from mismanagement and they are saying they’ll teach all they get. We are assuming at this point that a great many of these people will become permanent residents. Even if they eventually return home, it will be many months.</p>
<p>CGM guess you missed Mrs Bush today!!!</p>
<p>Really, what did she say!!! And did I miss Cheney too!! He is VP after all…</p>
<p>I heard she was on CSpan</p>
<p>Wow, what did she say and what is she gonna do? Was she inspriring?</p>
<p>So, how did the tv stations get supplies? How were they able to move around</p>
<p>And why did the FEMA guy say he didn’t know things were that bad at the superdome when it was all over the tv</p>
<p>And, again where is CHENEY!!! It deep freeze or what</p>
<p>cgm</p>
<p>when was the last time you took a vacation?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The two locations where the networks have had satellite trucks set up (the Convention Center and Shepard Smith’s I-10 overpass) are the two most accessible dry locations in New Orleans. </p>
<p>Logistically, the Convention Center would be the easiest supply and evacuation point in the entire city. It is in a totally dry neighborhood, on the banks of the Mississippi, lying directly under the large bridge providing the only dry major highway access to the city. There are exit and entrance ramps right at the Convention Center. Buses could roll in from Baton Rouge, cross the bridge, exit the highway, circle into the Convention Center, and go back directly onto the bridge.</p>
<p>Shepard Smith was able to get to the I-10 overpass (with several thousand dying refugess) because the highway from the Convention Center to that overpass is totally dry. Every bus or truck that has entered the city has driven right by both locations, yet the first food or water delivered to either gathering point was today. Shepard Smith said tonight that he has still not seen a single Red Cross truck in the city of New Orleans.</p>
<p>The primary failures have been:</p>
<p>a) Total communications failure. The networks can establish sat phone links, but the state of Lousiana has not done so, nor have they effectively monitored the news media reporting.</p>
<p>b) The Governor and the state emergency apparatus has been an abject failure. Rightly or wrongly, FEMA relies on local knowledge and directives. The Governor has been so out of it that I think she must be heavily sedated.</p>
<p>c) Every official, state and federal, spent the first two days in total denial, believing every pollyanna forecast for plugging the levee, evacuation timeframes. They squandered two days that were critically important and, by the time they understood the true scale of the disaster, it was too late.</p>
<p>d) FEMA is so mired in red tape that it is more of hindrance than a help. The mayor of a small town on the north shore of Lake Ponchitrain was on the local news tonight literally cursing FEMA. Saying that a FEMA generator arrived and was not unloaded because a FEMA inspector had not arrived to signoff on site preparation. The truck turned around and hauled the generator back to Baton Rouge.</p>
<p>The mayor was furious, saying he’s got a total disaster on his hands and desperately needs to get the generators going so that he can provide basic services. He also said that FEMA officials had tried to confiscate privately-owned equipment his people were using. He made no bones about it on television. He said that the next time a FEMA official tried to interfere with his town’s efforts, they better be armed because his police would shoot them! This mayor was absolutely fuming.</p>
<p>e) The evacuations are going slowly because nobody has any place to evacuate these people to.</p>
<p>interesteddad,</p>
<p>good observations. The Chicago Trib as well as other sources, including the FEMA website, discuss how FEMA has changed since the dept of Homeland Security was formed a few years ago, including a changed mission and staffing by political hacks instead of people with relevant experience. </p>
<p>It is indeed sad that we no longer have a federal agency able t take prime responsibility for natural disasters.</p>
<p>Why do I think federal? Because such problems are so often bigger than one state, and the last thing we need is states competing for resources. Thank goodness that does not appear to have happened yet.</p>
<p>“It is indeed sad that we no longer have a federal agency able t take prime responsibility for natural disasters.”</p>
<p>We’ve never had such an agency…primary responsibility for natural disasters has always fallen to state and local government.</p>
<p>We had FEMA, and Bush gutted it, after Andrew, FEMA was set up, but now fEMA is under DHS</p>
<p>NATIONAL GUARD- and where are they, gee IRAQ, when there primary duty is to the state</p>
<p>Can’t have it both ways</p>
<p>And please don’t tell me we had enough, obviouslly we did not</p>
<p>With 40% away, we can only draw from the remaining 60$ who have lost things themselves, </p>
<p>Didn’t someone here say, well they are sending in 1000 on Monday and that should be okay, ummm, NO</p>
<p>FEMA and DHS, it is there job to keep us safe and secure us, what are we paying them for</p>
<p>IF this had been a terrorist attack, you think they would have handled it better, and if so why? If they can’t pull it together to deal with this I am scared of what they will do when its a real suprise</p>
<p>Keep making excuses while people die</p>
<p>da** those gnats</p>
<p>annoying gnats</p>
<p>buzz buzz buzzing</p>
<p>Feel free to buzz off.</p>
<p>Awwww…that was going to be my next line…</p>
<p>Are you guys joking around or being rude, I can not tell</p>
<p>Joking around. How do you get past the one post per minute rule, CGM?</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/03/AR2005090300248.html[/url]”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/03/AR2005090300248.html</a></p>
<p>I have connections…</p>
<p>I have cspan on, watching FEMA and DHS</p>
<p>“we couldn’t have anticipated this much damage or this many people and this much land” or something to that effect</p>
<p>I would have thought that you plan for the worst case, that absolute worst thing, esspecially in case of a terrorist attack, what they don’t plan for the absolute worst</p>
<p>After all the talk of terrorist attacks, and the devastation, that after 4 years, they would have planned for worst case</p>
<p>Guess not</p>
<p>Marite posted that article in another thread…it has its problems.</p>
<p>Yeah, only ones that agree with your assestment and make the Pres look good are the ones to read</p>
<p>I understand that</p>