Great FEMA article on CNN....

[SDS]

"FEMA Director Michael Brown told CNN's Larry King on Wednesday, "When I became the director of FEMA a couple of years ago, I decided it was time we did some really serious catastrophic disaster planning. So the president gave me money through our budget to do that. And we went around the country to figure out what's the best model we can do for a catastrophic disaster in this country? And we picked New Orleans, Louisiana.""

 

 

 

"But one of the drill participants, Col. Michael L. Brown, then-deputy director of the Louisiana emergency preparedness department, told the Baton Rouge Advocate newspaper that, in a worst-case scenario, there would be only so much government agencies could do.

 

"Residents need to know they'll be on their own for several days in a situation like this," Brown, who is not related to the FEMA director, told the paper."

 

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/02/hur...rill/index.html

 

It sounds like this was the 1st time that this type of extensive planning, drill had been done. They chose NO, who I believe still had a whole bunch of black people 2 years ago. They saw deficiencies and outlined a plan to address those weaknesses. They also knew that teh response would not be immediate, that residents would have to survive a few days, and that LA would need to stoock the initial supplies until FEMA could back fill.

[SilverNRed]

Amazing.

[Fake-Fat Sunny]

So I think this shows it wasn't racism it was jist flat-out incompetence.

[Crap Throwing Monkey]

"FEMA Director Michael Brown told CNN's Larry King on Wednesday, "When I became the director of FEMA a couple of years ago, I decided it was time we did some really serious catastrophic disaster planning. So the president gave me money through our budget to do that. And we went around the country to figure out what's the best model we can do for a catastrophic disaster in this country? And we picked New Orleans, Louisiana.""

 

"But one of the drill participants, Col. Michael L. Brown, then-deputy director of the Louisiana emergency preparedness department, told the Baton Rouge Advocate newspaper that, in a worst-case scenario, there would be only so much government agencies could do.

 

"Residents need to know they'll be on their own for several days in a situation like this," Brown, who is not related to the FEMA director, told the paper."

 

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/02/hur...rill/index.html

 

It sounds like this was the 1st time that this type of extensive planning, drill had been done.  They chose NO, who I believe still had a whole bunch of black people 2 years ago.  They saw deficiencies and outlined a plan to address those weaknesses.  They also knew that teh response would not be immediate, that residents would have to survive a few days, and that LA would need to stoock the initial supplies until FEMA could back fill.

427824[/snapback]

 

Saw basically the same thing somewhere else, too (I think it was USA Today). I'll have to see if I can dig it up...

[clumping platelets]

Katrina 2005: not an election yr, gross incompetance from BushCo on down the chain, Bush won Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, majority of those lost were African-American and poor

 

Hurricanes in Florida 2004: Brothers's the Gov, Election yr, swing state, response was much, much better

 

Discuss

[Ghost of BiB]

Katrina 2005: not an election yr, gross incompetance from BushCo on down the chain, Bush won Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, majority of those lost were African-American and poor

 

Hurricanes in Florida 2004: Brothers's the Gov, Election yr, swing state, response was much, much better

 

Discuss

427975[/snapback]

 

That is pretty damn disgusting, unless you are just trying to be sarcastic.

[kegtapr]

 

Discuss

427975[/snapback]

 

Discuss what? How ignorant you are?

[SDS]

Katrina 2005: not an election yr, gross incompetance from BushCo on down the chain, Bush won Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, majority of those lost were African-American and poor

 

Hurricanes in Florida 2004: Brothers's the Gov, Election yr, swing state, response was much, much better

 

Discuss

427975[/snapback]

 

what's there to discuss? your ignorance? no thanks.

[Nanker]

Yeah, but it still doesn't explain how George Bush had the audacity to be born white and why he vetoed all the aid to black New Orleans and ordered all the National Guard and FEMA people to pull out and move to Connecticut.

[Lemur King]

Katrina 2005: not an election yr, gross incompetance from BushCo on down the chain, Bush won Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, majority of those lost were African-American and poor

 

Hurricanes in Florida 2004: Brothers's the Gov, Election yr, swing state, response was much, much better

 

Discuss

427975[/snapback]

 

OK. I love good give and take discourse, but a response to this can be boiled down to something more elegant.

 

You're a d---.

[mead107]

the overall size of the area affected and the number of people is a lot larger than florida . it is allways easy to say things should be done differently after the fact . there will be changes made on how to handle things for the next one . should things have been better run ,damm right they should have . but it is like everthing , to many layers of people that have to ok what is done and no one took the bull by the horns and said just do it .

[Tux of Borg]

Katrina 2005: not an election yr, gross incompetance from BushCo on down the chain, Bush won Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, majority of those lost were African-American and poor

 

Hurricanes in Florida 2004: Brothers's the Gov, Election yr, swing state, response was much, much better

 

Discuss

427975[/snapback]

 

Discuss what... Rudy Giuliani and Jeb Bush handled their situations much better than their Louisiana counterparts.

[Zona]

I fail to see how this is Governments fault. There were several warnings about intensity leading up to this event. I heard about Katrina for 4-5 DAYS before it hit. Anyone who stayed behind took their chances. They came up craps. And no, I am NOT talking about the Infirm or the elderly. They had virtually No Options. Their deaths fall on the management of the Nursing homes or their Families if you ask me.

 

As for the comparison to Fla, I can only say this. Fla Hurricanes didnt have the severe Flooding like this one, thus less fatalities and less of a problem. Power was back on soon after, sevices were able to get in and give aid where it was most needed because they could reach the area by land. Something they CAN NOT do in No, Ala, Miss. Most of the problems occuring now are due to the flooding, not the destruction.

[BigAL]

"FEMA Director Michael Brown told CNN's Larry King on Wednesday, "When I became the director of FEMA a couple of years ago, I decided it was time we did some really serious catastrophic disaster planning. So the president gave me money through our budget to do that. And we went around the country to figure out what's the best model we can do for a catastrophic disaster in this country? And we picked New Orleans, Louisiana.""

 

"But one of the drill participants, Col. Michael L. Brown, then-deputy director of the Louisiana emergency preparedness department, told the Baton Rouge Advocate newspaper that, in a worst-case scenario, there would be only so much government agencies could do.

 

"Residents need to know they'll be on their own for several days in a situation like this," Brown, who is not related to the FEMA director, told the paper."

 

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/02/hur...rill/index.html

 

It sounds like this was the 1st time that this type of extensive planning, drill had been done.  They chose NO, who I believe still had a whole bunch of black people 2 years ago.  They saw deficiencies and outlined a plan to address those weaknesses.  They also knew that teh response would not be immediate, that residents would have to survive a few days, and that LA would need to stoock the initial supplies until FEMA could back fill.

427824[/snapback]

 

Why in the days leading up to Katrina hitting New Orleans didn't we here from FEMA and the people that made this study warning those affected of their predictions? If they new it was going to be that bad, they had an obligation to be shouting from the rooftops before hand.

[Fake-Fat Sunny]

I fail to see how this is Governments fault. There were several warnings about intensity leading up to this event. I heard about Katrina for 4-5 DAYS before it hit. Anyone who stayed behind took their chances. They came up craps. And no, I am NOT talking about the Infirm or the elderly. They had virtually No Options. Their deaths fall on the management of the Nursing homes or their Families if you ask me.

 

As for the comparison to Fla, I can only say this. Fla Hurricanes didnt have the severe Flooding like this one, thus less fatalities and less of a problem. Power was back on soon after, sevices were able to get in and give aid where it was most needed because they could reach the area by land. Something they CAN NOT do in No, Ala, Miss.  Most of the problems occuring now are due to the flooding, not the destruction.

428016[/snapback]

 

Exactly. There are two disasters here.

 

1. The Hurricane disaster was not predictable as no one knows when a Hurrican will come and where it will land.

 

2. The Flooding however is the real disaster which though it was triggered by an unpredictable event like the hurricane was forseeable and in fact was forseen in detail in even 3 years ago in an article in the magazine Nature and in inadequate attempts by the government to run drills on this in the past year.

 

The answer to the question of how was the government involved? In two important ways among others:

 

1. The impact of flooding from the Levee break caused by Katrina was made even worse by the development patterns of NO and these zoning laws and the lack thereof or lack of enforcement by government is a key.

 

Hurricane impacts like storm surge are apparently reduced by the existence of marshland on the shoreline. The effects of Katrina would have been different 10-20 years ago (and they were because Hurricane Betsy was a simlar sized storm which hit NO even more directly) because local zoning had not allowed development and people to live right up to the shoreline. We saw a similar effect in Missippi where casinos were allowed and in fact encoraged to be built on the shoreline or in barges on the water. Thousands of jobs were lost and several of those who refused to evacuate did so out of concern that they might lose their casino job on the morning after the hurricane if they did not show up.

 

2. The government was also deeply involved in that those we are spending big bucks on now to rescue and who were mostly killed live in the poorest blackest sections of NO apparently known as Ward 9.

 

There are some foolish thrill seekers and criminals who chose to stay. However, there are also a lot of people based on the reports I have seen who had little choice but to stay and hunker down as they had no funds or family to evacuate to. It also does not recognize the facts to claim that those who stayed lives are simply forfeit because they failed to heed the mandatory evacuation order. One of the stories I saw yesterday was of 60 or so folks in walkers and wheelchairs from some swamped nursing hiome. Some folks deserve our disapproval because they chose to stay, but some folk deserve out sympathy and help because they could not go and GOVERNMENT failed to evacuate them effectively.

 

This is not only true of the sick and elderly whose are not everyone but whose numbers do seem to be substantial, but the 29% of all people in NO and 50% of children (who are powerless to leave anyway as their parent (s) are in charge) in NO who are below the poverty line, and also folks like the tourists shown wandering around town yesterday who brought their son to Tulane to show him the college, had their flight canceled, the rental cars were gone and they were marooned.

 

It is not everyone who was not there due to their own fault or whom government has a responsiblity to help or to move because they are sick, old or stupid. However, it simply does not fit the reality to claim that government has no role or duty because some folks were able-bodied idiots.

[Ray]

The local and state response--which is always the first response--was incompetent. It is their responsibility to maintain order and have a disaster plan. Their plan seems to be wait for the Feds to do everything. How can Louisiana have no plan for this? The mayor there is way over his head! Let's stop all the bickering now and just start helping the people and learn some things from this disaster--as we should do from all disasters.

[Zona]

I hear you FFS. I really do.

 

But everyone who lived in NO knew the city was built in a bowl. Everyone knew it would flood if a hurricane hit it, regardless of levies. And everyone who stayed in NO could have taken shelter at one of the Facilities that city Government had talked about. There was more than enough space to house them all, and time to get them there. The Hunker down where I am people, while i do feel sorry for them, chose poorly. I am not saying that they deserved to die, I am saying they chose a course of action that was EXTREMELY risky given the facts.

 

If the Government had gone around NO and FORCED people out of their homes, and taken them all by force to shelters, then the hue and outcry would have been Deafening. Big Brother this ! Government Bastards have no right to That! This is a FREE COUNTRY! It was a no win Situation for the City Officials and the Federal Government if you ask me....

[Crap Throwing Monkey]

Why in the days leading up to Katrina hitting New Orleans didn't we here from FEMA and the people that made this study warning those affected of their predictions?  If they new it was going to be that bad, they had an obligation to be shouting from the rooftops before hand.

428025[/snapback]

 

And they were. Why do you think a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans was ordered, with people saying publicly "This the situation we've all feared for years"?

[Max Fischer]

Message: America should just shut up and stop whining about Katrina. If you're not with GWB you're against the Nation and have no common sense.

 

Thanks for all for continuing to clear this up. We get it.

 

Now back to "The Apprentice."

[Dan Gross]

Why in the days leading up to Katrina hitting New Orleans didn't we here from FEMA and the people that made this study warning those affected of their predictions?  If they new it was going to be that bad, they had an obligation to be shouting from the rooftops before hand.

428025[/snapback]

 

I believe it was only due to President Bush's pleading to the Governor of LA that they enacted a mandatory evacuation (not exactly "shouting from the rooftops" but certainly the same effect). It should have been a no-brainer, and things should have gone a lot more smoothly, especially with having Ivan last year as a dry run of the evacuation plans...It should have been clear with a city like that, facing the possible catastrophe of a Cat 4/5 demolishing the city, that city folks should have had detailed evacuation plans with last resort shelters outside the city being pre-arranged, and a plan to evacuate those withtout their own form of transport to said cities...From what I can tell, they are still scrambling to find places to keep the refugees once they are out of the city...