I don't know. There was a photo in this morning's AJC, for example, of a helicopter that was trying to land with food and water, but couldn't, because the people kept pushing forward toward the 'copter, giving it nowhere to land. The caption said that they hovered there for quite sometime trying to get a landing area, but ended up having to just drop the food and water from the air and let the people fight over it. The Chaos Theory folks could have a field day with this one.

You ask a reasonable question, one that pretty much everybody here in the US is going to be asking too.

The problem with answering the question right now is: none of us really have any way to know without actually being there. Like you, we're limited to what we see/read/hear (if you're reading the internet information, I believe you're getting most everything of consequence that's on national television).

Right now, working with only the limited information I have, I believe that there are some things that could have been done theoretically that haven't been, but I'm not sure how much of that is ineptitude, how much is procedural inability (our Federal government does not have complete jurisdiction), how much was due to lack communication, and how much was due to the physical conditions. What role each played is something we aren't likely to know for months or years, well after the immediate crisis has ended.

I would add....

and how much is due to "hindsight is 20/20"... I think there is going to be a lot of that going on...

And much of that hindsight is going to be filtered through political glasses of assorted types of lenses.

Even with my general statement that "everything is political", I'll add an honest :( to that prediction.

While that is true, it's not like this came as a total surprise to anyone. People have known that this type of flooding was a likely reality for, what, 50 years? More? Hell, we here at FOFC talked about this in length a year ago. People wrote long articles describing detailed scenarios just like this.

This has to be one of the most anticipated natural disasters in history. We knew at least 48 hours in advance that the hurricane was going to hit New Orleans.

There doesn't appear to have been any sort of planning at all. The response has been pretty pathetic. Given that this has been anticipated for so long, I find it pretty shocking. It's not at all like this came out of nowhere.

This isn't a political thing because I agree with an earlier post that, regardless of who was in the White House, I doubt the results would be the same.

How much money has been pumped into Homeland Security over the last few years? FEMA is part of Homeland Security and if this isn't about "securing the homeland", I don't know what is.

Hindsight is 20/20, but, in this case, Foresight was pretty damn close to 20/20.

The response has been pretty shameful.

Agreed.

To me it is sad and disgusting that anyone uses this tragedy for political means.

is there more we could have done? sure.

Can we expect for ANYONE let alone our politicians to think of a) every possibility or b) how to perfectly handle every possibility? no.

Can we assume that our political leaders did everything they felt they could up until August 29th to deal with this possible situation? imo, yes.

I try to rarely jump into the political arena on this board, but i'm finally fed-up with some folks on this issue (more so in the media, not on this board)... What good do pot-shots at the president do right now? the mayor? the governor? FEMA? NOTHING. In fact, what good do pot shots do 2 years from now? NOTHING. Take these as lessons learned and come up with better plans, who cares who's fault it is? I'm sure some of the elements in place were designed/planned by democrats. Some were designed/planned by republicans. Hell, they could have been designed by Mickey Mouse for all I know - it DOESN'T FREAKIN MATTER.

Sorry for the rant..

but I often listen to both conservative and liberal talk radio for entertainment value and news... I agree with one side on many issues, agree with the other on many other issues... I enjoy the UIC on both kinds of talk shows also...

However... last evening on the liberal shows (Ed Schultz in particular) all it was was the host and callers bashing the administration over and over and over.. it was the first time I have truely gotten pissed from listening to radio commentary (usually I take it in stride as entertainment value)... Particularly right now, this serves no value and it angers me that people are spreading this mentality out there.

End of rant..... for now....

But Brown also acknowledged that little in the government's preparedness plan took into account the likelihood of lawlessness in such dire straits.

"Before the hurricane struck I came down here personally and rode the storm out in Baton Rouge," he said. "We had all of our rescue teams, the medical teams, pre-deployed, ready to go. ... The lawlessness, the crime that is occurring, did surprise us."

Short-sighted? Or planning documents that were diluted repeatedly in order to avoid anybody getting their feelings hurt?

My guess? Some of both.

Give me a break.

From what I have seen, there was pretty solid preparation. In fact, I'm willing to say if animals hadn't taken to the streets to hamper the efforts, we would probably be seeing a basically empty city with most of the evacuees/refugees in a relatively decent camp of some kind.

As Dutch has mentioned, it sounds like the shelters where folks evacuated to are very under control. Good volunteers, good supplies, etc.

The Super Dome was set up as a very solid base camp. How many people expected the roof to rip off and it to take the damage it did? You may say "oh yeah, we knew"... sorry, people did not think that the Super Dome would take the damage it did.

The warnings were given for days. People refused to leave despite the dooms day warning. How could we expect that over 25,000 people would not leave the city despite being required to? You may say that was easily predictable, I disagree.

However, there were plans for this.. there were rescue copters, boats, search and rescue teams, etc... However, they cannot perform their job now because of the animals in the streets.

There were plans for National Guardsmen to assist in this effort. They instead must control the animals.

The idea that we could have prepared perfectly for this absolute chaos is absurd. In my mind, the prepartion was pretty damned good. In fact, as someone else mentioned, on Monday evening Homeland Security, etc. were praised for their preparation. That was while things went 'as planned'. Then the events that no one expected happened.

It may just be a bad reputation, but weren't many parts of New Orleans lawless and crime filled when there wasnt 6 feet of water on the ground. This guy is a dumbass to be suprised at the violence.

They absolutely deserve to be bashed. The director of FEMA this morning said they would have help there by Sunday. Without water, most of the people will be dead by Sunday. The government did not create the conditions in New Orleans, but failing to provide basic supplies within 3 days is an absolute failure on the part of our government, so calling it a failure publicly is appropriate and fair. Since politicians only seem to respond to things that will affect their future ability to get elected, I think slamming them publicly is perhaps the only thing that might get these people some help.

As for the federal government not having authority? You don't need authority to load water in some sort of transport and get it there. Besides, both the mayor of NO and the governor have begged for some sort of help from the govt. whose response has mostly been - "maybe next week."

And they were probably trying to be PC, to not infer that people would act like animals.

You would allow your son to grow up without a father to save the life of your pet??

Absolutely ... especially since it isn't a sure thing that I don't make it out too, just on a later bus. The rough equivalent is going back into a burning house to rescue the pets.

This is insanity.

I'm sorry but I value my children having teh support they need for their lives more then my pets

Wow....you have an interesting perspective on life. Now I am truly curious to learn about your life philosophy because I never heard so many interesting statements in my life. At the very least you are consistent in a complicated and emotional kind of way.

Yeah, actually you do.

-- When to "get it there", you've got to have adequate means to defend yourself while delivering it.
-- When to "get it there", you have to have access to an area to even unload it AND not make the situation worse by creating a riot (although it obviously doesn't require drinking water to get a riot in NO).
-- When to "get it there" means more than just dumping randomly & hoping that people will find it. (notice that FEMA was only made aware of any situation at the Convention Center at all yesteday? With all the media coverage throughout the aftermath, the first mention I heard of the CC was yesterday.

Or would just airdropping water from high altitude be enough to satisfy your criteria for "get it there"? All I see that accomplishing would be complaints about how the safety of the people was callously disregarded by those who would drop heavy objects on those below.

Ummmm....it isn't as simple as "we'll be there." Again, going back to the helicopter scenario, how in the world do you deal with that? Just shoot a few people? The refugees are overrunning the police. I'm not sure that something like that could have been anticipated. Like I said, the Chaos Theory folks are going to have a field day with this one. If the plan was (as it would appear) to helicopter supplies in, then that plan has been thwarted. If we're trying to throw blame around, would it not have made since for the city of New Orleans to have a plan to evacuate those who had no way to get out before a major storm was on the way? Let's not forget that an evacuation order was issued. Some who could get out chose to ignore it. Honestly, those are the very last people that I'm concerned about. I mean, I know Fats Domino is talented, but he has no one to blame for his plight than himself. Again, it would seem that the first order of business, given that we've known that this could happen for years, would have been figuring out a way to make sure people get out before we had to rescue them. Yes, the Superdome was listed as a "destination of last resort," but I doubt that message fully got through. I'm sure thousands thought it was a safe shelter. Maybe it would have been better to offer no "destinations of last resort" to hammer home the point that nowhere in New Orleans is safe.

Sorry, I know that was a rambling post, but my thoughts are rambling right now. :p

--Ben

You wouldn't go back into your house during a fire to make an effort to rescue your pets?

Umm, that seems a lot stranger to me than anything I've said on this subject.

when someone makes a fucking retarded comment like that, the only thing i can do is wish that person is one day in an actual situation where he has to make that decision, so he can look his son in the eyes and say "well, son, little Fido is gonna go with you. best of luck in life". i wish, nay, pray, that someone who has that mindset will one day have to actually be in that situation.

QOTM - True dat.

I have no idea how close the superdome is to a water landing, but you would think that it would be far easier to ship people out via barge, than to fuck around with buses, that may only hold like 60-80 people. It is possible that the water is so fucked up with debris, to make this not work.

Just posted on Cnn.com...





Bush: 'Results are not acceptable'

Frustration builds amid New Orleans chaos



NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- President Bush told reporters on Friday that millions of tons of food and water are on the way to the people stranded in the wake of Hurricane Katrina -- but he said the results of the relief effort "are not acceptable."

"A lot of people are working hard to help those who've been affected, and I want to thank the people for their efforts," Bush said before leaving the White House for a tour of the devastated areas in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. "The results are not acceptable."

He is scheduled to take part in a briefing in Mobile, Alabama, before taking an aerial tour of that area and nearby Biloxi, Mississippi.

Bush then plans move on to view Louisiana hurricane damage from the air, flying over the city of New Orleans. He is scheduled to make a statement at the Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans before returning to Washington Friday night.

At this point? Yes, that's exactly what needed to be done.


This is the big thing I'm personally torn about this morning. I think it's pretty safe to call me persistently pessimistic, but I'll admit that I've been surprised by how rapidly things deteriorated into full anarchy. I expected the looting, I expected the assaults among the locals, what I wouldn't have predicted accurately was the rapid escalation nor the degree of organization it appears to have. One clue to that may have been dropped by a state trooper my wife saw on FoxNews earlier this morning. (Paraphrasing, since I didn't see it) He said that the biggest crime problem in New Orleans right now is coming from three large gangs that they've been battling daily for the past 15 years.


Indeed, but on this one, I'm inclined to cash a reality check about it. IIRC, the evacuation plan was a 72 hour model, which only, what?, 36 hours or so actually took place? I'll withhold judgement, for now, on the adequacy of the plan until we can see what was called for & simply didn't have time to happen vs what wasn't planned for at all.



One of the most overlooked/ignored/white elephant in the room aspects of the whole situation.


Oddly enough, I knew about the Superdome's role in any disaster planning for more than a decade. It was something I learned from a lifelong NO resident that we knew. He laughed about it quite a bit, saying that "we'll be lucky if it doesn't collapse in that situation" and that there's absolutely no way it would handle any large amount of people safely for any length of time. He was just a regular guy, not any sort of official or anything, but watching this week unfold, he sure seemed to know what he was talking about.

From the sattelite photos, it looks like they have dammed up at least one of the canals into the city.

There's got to be a reason for that. It may be as simple as a length-of-time issue. I'm assuming lots of watercraft were either moved elsewhere, damaged, or destroyed.

The question was rhetorical. You may be right, but I have serious doubts that the person to whom I was posing the question would be willing to sign off on that.

Never thought about gangs.


Ah. Now that I think about, I believe you're correct on the 72-hour model.

People are not willing to "blame the victims," but come on. People were basically told, "Last one out of N.O., turn out the lights."

That lends a bit of support to my (admittedly 20/20 hindsight) thought that things might have been better if no "destinations of last resort" had been offered. It surely would have helped hammer home the message that nowhere in New Orleans should be considered to be safe.

Surprising comment from Ol' SkyDog:

The best 'net coverage I've seen has been wwltv. The shocker to me is that the second-best hasn't been one of the major news outlets. I've been consistently been getting more rapid updates and comprehensive 'net coverage on AJC.com :eek: than on cnn, foxnews, abcnews, cbsnews, or msnbc.

Is the water deep enough to handle the draft (right word? I'm not nautical) of anything large enough to be effective? And/or are the passages through the streets & such wide enough to handle such craft?

Oh, I'm sure the streets couldn't handle much more than a Sea-Do for any continual movement. Yeah, there are parts that are deep enough to handle larger craft, but you'd run into water only 1 to 3 feet deep in many places. I'm assuming the question was about bringing a barge onto the lake or the Mississippi.

My bad, I misunderstood the question / intent of the suggestion.

My guess would be that the biggest fly in that ointment is getting people from the 'dome to the barges/whatever.

Someone above insisted that nobody knew the Superdome could be damaged like it is. That's not true. I know I read before it hit that the Superdome was not designed to withstand winds over 100(?) mph. There was concern it would be damaged before people started getting seriously concerned about the human aspect.

As a park ranger I was involved in multiple mandatory hurricane evacuations on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Keep in mind this is a situation perhaps more obviously dangerous than that of New Orleans (if that's possible): a narrow ribbon of islands with literally nothing to stop the storm surge from covering the entire place.

People never "got it." Locals and tourists together, they just never got it. This is a storm will 100+ mph winds and a massive wave of water that will cover the island and take whatever it wants with it. There will be no access in or out. This is a MANDATORY EVACUATION. No one can guarantee your safety. But...

"We're gonna ride the storm out. This is my home and I ain't leaving." Okay, buh-bye.

"I've never seen the ocean during a storm. We're gonna stay and watch." Okay, buh-bye.

"We've had reservations for months. I'm not just gonna throw away my $1000 house rental fee." Okay, buh-bye.

In the defense of some New Orleans tourists, the airlines cancelled a bunch of flights prior to the storm, and apparently many could not get transportation out of the city in time. But I think there's still many thousands of people who just shrugged off the threat, and now they are reaping the whirlwind.

Sucks to be a tourist...

Tourists realize they're afterthought


04:04 AM EDT on Friday, September 2, 2005

By ROBERT TANNER / AP National Writer

NEW ORLEANS — First the federal government took the buses they had hired to evacuate them.

Then their hotels turned them out onto the desolate streets.

They trudged for blocks to walk over a bridge, but officers wouldn't let them cross – and fired a few warning shots over their heads to convince them.

And the night was coming down.

Despairing, dozens of trapped tourists huddled on a downtown street corner and waited for dark.

"I grew up in an upper-middle class family. Street life is foreign to me," said Larry Mitzel, 53, of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. "I'm not sure I'm going to get out of here alive."

The fate of tourists in dozens of hotels here was caught up in the days of chaos and confusion that came after Hurricane Katrina's 145 mph winds.

Many smaller hotels shut down. The largest housed hundreds and hundreds of guests and took in refugees from the storm. How many remained Thursday was unclear.

Tourists and hotel managers alike condemned government officials for ignoring them.

"The tourists are an afterthought here," said Bill Hedrick of Houston, who came to town on business and was trapped with his wife and elderly mother-in-law.

"We're appalled," said Jill Johnson, 53, of Saskatoon. "This city is built on tourism and we're their last priority."

Peter Ambros, general manager of the Astor Crowne Plaza in the French Quarter, said, "Guests who bring business to the hotels are treated 10 times worse than the people at the Superdome."

He helped arrange the hiring of 10 buses to evacuate 500 guests from his and a nearby hotel – at a cost of $25,000.

Then the Federal Emergency Management Agency commandeered the buses and police told the guests to go to the nearby convention center, where a crowd left without food, water or security was growing angry.

Instead, the tourists – dragging their rolling luggage through broken glass, smashed bricks and trash – tried to cross a huge bridge blocks away.

They were turned back when another group trying to cross began to threaten the officers, said Whit Herndon, 32, of Jonesboro, Ark.

As night approached, the tourists stuck close together on a corner of the downtown waterfront and within sight of a police gathering point.

Officers brought them food and water and promised buses would come for them. Most prepared to sleep, sheltered by a concrete overhang.

The tourists put on a game face and prepared to sleep.

Ann Robertson, a 50-year-old vocational counselor from Nashville, Tenn., looked on the bright side. They had food, there was safety in numbers – but then she looked at the sky.

"I don't know," she said, "I never slept on the street before."

WSUCougar brings up another one of those points that isn't getting enough prominence IMO -- how many of these people now blaming the various governmental agencies for their problems chose to stay.

I don't have a figure ... but how many people are even asking the question?

And it all reminds me of a general question I meant to ask yesterday but never got around to -- anybody know how much authority local/state/federal officials had with regard to forceable evacuation before the storm actually hit? I'm under the impression that the imposition of martial law would grant much more leeway in that regard, but how much more is something I don't know.

While the "Superdome Plan" may have not gone exactly as hoped for and it sounded like it was "living hell", at the end of the day, the vast, vast, vast majority of those people lived. They survived the hurricane and the few days after. I wouldn't call the Superdome Plan a failure. The people there fared far better than the people who stayed in their homes.

Now THAT is predictable.

Give me a break.

This planning has been piss-poor. It's unacceptable. Even the President has acknowledged this.

The fact that 25,000 people (though I think it's closer to 100,00) stayed behind shouldn't be all that surprising. I honestly don't think "events that no one expected happened." I think there was reason to believe that what happened was expected.

Other than the evacuation order, I didn't hear of any sort of pre-planning. Any mobilization of rescue teams, FEMA teams, national guardsmen. No massing of supplies for the victims.

If this what you consider "good" preparation, then your standards are quite low and I am sure there are about 50,000 or so people that would disagree with you.

I believe CNN says the W Hotel in New Orleans is now on fire.

I don't have time to look up the articles now, maybe someone else does, but...

I have read several articles about the staging happening outside of New Orleans in preparation for the shelters.

Uh, no. He said the results are unacceptable, not the planning. That's an important distinction. You may think I'm splitting hairs on that one, but I'm quite sure his words were chosen carefully.

Fires...as if they don't have enough to worry about.

This photo is rather wicked-looking:

I don't know SD. Bush sucks at speaking off the cuff. Sounds like he pulled those words out of the air.

Wacky idea, borne of seeing a guy on the news just trying to let his family know he made it to Houston:

There's no shortage of cable channels with airtime to spare. Ditto the ability to add programming to XM & Sirius. How about somebody start rolling tape on the people in Texas, and the other shelters.

No interviewing, no polticizing, no grandstanding, just straight up name/neighborhood/location i.d.'s from the evacuees & maybe what relative(s) they're trying to let know they're alive. 60 seconds per person max maybe. Tape 'em, air 'em, loop 'em & let volunteers start compiling the lists. Do it all privately, off to the side, don't take up trained volunteer time with it. It'd give (IMO) at least some feeling of "trying" to the evacuees, something for them to do instead of just worry, it'd be at worst a well-intended attempt at putting some minds at ease, and it might just succeed. Something better than nothing.

Agreed. If that was a prepared speech, it was one of the worst in history. He just walked up there and said what he said. He stumbled twice as much as usual.

Yeah, sounds like a great idea. Do they have a list of all the people in the Astrodome on the Web yet? If not, it needs to be out there. Or at least searchable by people who are looking for a lost loved one.

convoy rolling. tons of school buses going into New Orleans right now. About time.

Looks like a whole bunch of crap is going into action now, maybe. About time if so.

edit-undola

Looks like snipers on top of those fire trucks.

Fire trucks from Los Angeles (apparently just drove themselves in) in large convoy, impressive sight & impressive effort on their part.

Somewhat serious looking guy holding what appears to be a shotgun sitting on top of the firetruck, perhaps revealing some of what's been holding up the arrival of some of the help.

FNC - Am I hearing this correctly? The leader of the Congressional Black Caucus is blaming the lack of relief efforts on the fact that it's black people who are suffering?

Edit - Jesse Jackson Jr. is there. That answers my question.

Some Los Angeles S.W.A.T. guys would work well right now. Maybe they brought some. ;)

Again, predictable. I'm surprised it took this long. And I'll be very surprised if by this time next week, much of the discussion is broken down along racial lines. And it will be as ugly as anything we've seen on race since the 60's.

Okay, let's just save time & everyone just pretend they've yelled at me for this already. But doggone it, you have to laugh at something somewhere or you'll go nuts (anybody else reminded a great deal of how much we all watched 9/11 aftermath coverage?)

Okay, here goes: Where's Rodney King when you really need him?
(I've been hearing "Can't we all just get along" in my head on & off for at least 24 hours)

Even my wife has made that connection. She makes a good point when she said "if this were Seattle, and the people in the city mostly white, would it have taken this long to get help to them?" I do wonder.

I posted this NYT editorial in the "looting" thread, but since it's been brought up here, I'll plunk it down.

It discusses the race/political aspect of this from a interesting historical perspective.


The Storm After the Storm

By DAVID BROOKS
Published: September 1, 2005
Hurricanes come in two waves. First comes the rainstorm, and then comes what the historian John Barry calls the "human storm" - the recriminations, the political conflict and the battle over compensation. Floods wash away the surface of society, the settled way things have been done. They expose the underlying power structures, the injustices, the patterns of corruption and the unacknowledged inequalities. When you look back over the meteorological turbulence in this nation's history, it's striking how often political turbulence followed.

In 1889 in Pennsylvania, a great flood washed away much of Johnstown. The water's crushing destruction sounded to one person like a "lot of horses grinding oats." Witnesses watched hundreds of people trapped on a burning bridge, forced to choose between burning to death or throwing themselves into the churning waters to drown.

The flood was so abnormal that the country seemed to have trouble grasping what had happened. The national media were filled with wild exaggerations and fabrications: stories of rivers dammed with corpses, of children who died while playing ring-around-the-rosy and who were found with their hands still clasped and with smiles still on their faces.

Prejudices were let loose. Hungarians then were akin to today's illegal Mexican immigrants - hard-working people who took jobs no one else wanted. Newspapers carried accounts of gangs of Hungarian men cutting off dead women's fingers to steal their rings. "Drunken Hungarians, Dancing, Singing, Cursing and Fighting Amid the Ruins" a New York Herald headline blared.

Then, as David McCullough notes in "The Johnstown Flood," public fury turned on the Pittsburgh millionaires whose club's fishing pond had emptied on the town. The Chicago Herald depicted the millionaires as Roman aristocrats, seeking pleasure while the poor died like beasts in the Coliseum.

Even before the flood, public resentment was building against the newly rich industrialists. Protests were growing against the trusts, against industrialization and against the new concentrations of wealth. The Johnstown flood crystallized popular anger, for the fishing club was indeed partly to blame. Public reaction to the disaster helped set the stage for the progressive movement and the trust-busting that was to come.

In 1900, another great storm hit the U.S., killing over 6,000 people in Galveston, Tex. The storm exposed racial animosities, for this time stories (equally false) swept through the press accusing blacks of cutting off the fingers of corpses to steal wedding rings. The devastation ended Galveston's chance to beat out Houston as Texas' leading port.

Then in 1927, the great Mississippi flood rumbled down upon New Orleans. As Barry writes in his account, "Rising Tide," the disaster ripped the veil off the genteel, feudal relations between whites and blacks, and revealed the festering iniquities. Blacks were rounded up into work camps and held by armed guards. They were prevented from leaving as the waters rose. A steamer, the Capitol, played "Bye Bye Blackbird" as it sailed away. The racist violence that followed the floods helped persuade many blacks to move north.

Civic leaders intentionally flooded poor and middle-class areas to ease the water's pressure on the city, and then reneged on promises to compensate those whose homes were destroyed. That helped fuel the populist anger that led to Huey Long's success. Across the country people demanded that the federal government get involved in disaster relief, helping to set the stage for the New Deal. The local civic elite turned insular and reactionary, and New Orleans never really recovered its preflood vibrancy.

We'd like to think that the stories of hurricanes and floods are always stories of people rallying together to give aid and comfort. And, indeed, each of America's great floods has prompted a popular response both generous and inspiring. But floods are also civic examinations. Amid all the stories that recur with every disaster - tales of sudden death and miraculous survival, the displacement and the disease - there is also the testing.

Civic arrangements work or they fail. Leaders are found worthy or wanting. What's happening in New Orleans and Mississippi today is a human tragedy. But take a close look at the people you see wandering, devastated, around New Orleans: they are predominantly black and poor. The political disturbances are still to come.

I don't think it will come anything close to as ugly in the 1960's. Sure I do realize people will take differing sides of the fence, but a lot of people do not look at this situation as a purely racial issue. In fact, I look at this situation as sad state of affairs. Because we have spread our resources so thing (people in Afghanistan, people in Iraq), there is not enough military personnel that could contribute more to this disaster. In my view, it is just a matter of bad timing, possibly poor planning (I am not quite sure if this is the case of not since I havent bothered to look heavily in this area), and I contribute the poor response to a number of variables that I won't bother to list.

The fact is, that there are plenty of cities that have contributed in helping the people and I have not seen this kind of response before to any other disaster. People tend to be more angry at the President or the mayor than thinking more along racial lines.

It will if everything I expect to be said gets said.


I've seen no indication, nor even much in the way of suggestions by anyone on the ground, that there's any military shortcoming in terms of available manpower.

There are logistical issues that have to be taken care of before you put troops on the ground, they've got to be supplied, they've got to have a mission detailed, etc.

And I believe what we will find is that there was initial resistance to them being given the freedom to do whatever is neccessary to make other efforts possible.

Heres a snippet from Louisanas Governor...

Hope you enjoyed your stay as Governor. Yes! Lets KILL people over insured merchandise that is UNSELLABLE even if it remains pristinely placed on the store shelves.

They are stealing guns too. I have a problem with that.....

I agree, except for one thing. I don't think they had fully planned for a situation where there would be no power, no water, no dry land, very little to no infrastructure, no ports/docks, no communications in the midst of urban warfare. I think the plans do call for at least one or two of things being constant (like communications and ports).

People keep bringing up the Tsunami relief as a comparison. We all like to think that everything got there in time but in reality, many places were not even helped and that supplies did take weeks to get to needy hands. There just wasn't much coverage after all of the outpouring of help on what actually got accomplished, besides politicians patting themselves on the back.

That's EXACTLY what is called for, and MUST happen if anything resembling order is to be restored.

It's time to quit running around like animals, get your ass to a relocation point, and get the fuck out of the city. And if they aren't doing that, then shoot them & be done with it.

Too much time that could have been spent on solving problems has been wasted fucking around trying to overlook & excuse the behavior of of people who couldn't manage to retain a veneer of civility for 48 freakin' hours.

Without a single doubt in my mind. What else could it be? Every single person in this country if not let alone the world knew a monster hurricane was going to slam the gulf coast days in advance. Why werent all the NG units in all the border states put on red alert and readied for deployment (at the very least!) in the days prior? Why does everyone seem to forget every Florida hurricane and how response was IMMEDIATE? Remember Bush just 3 years ago handing out water to all the folks from the back of the truck, the very day after the Hurricane hit?

Racism/Classism at its finest.

Just think, what if this was a major terror attack? It would take them 5 days to get help to people? It appears so, because if I hear Bush is already making excuses of how "no one anticipated the levys breaking" which is complete pure distilled BS. Just replace the words 'hurricane katrina' with 'terror attack' and you now see how competent this "Post 9/11 World" President is.

And the water rushed and then rush out leaving the survivors with out the flooding issues.

How many people were shooting at police officers and rescue workers after the Florida hurricanes? I'm thinking maybe that might have something to do with the delay in getting relief, but that's just me.

I have no problem with her saying it, but it sounded rather weak coming from her. She just didn't sound real sure about saying it or something. Also, a little sooner, say when the looters could have actually heard it, would have been nice.

Sort of reminds me of the UN setting up shop in Baghdad then immediately left when had gunshots/explosions nearby.

Gee, let's start with "maybe Seattle & Florida didn't rush into anarchy at the first available opportunity.

If there was so much advance warning, why didn't the mayor order the evacuation sooner, to prevent some of this? Maybe he's a racist too.

Why didn't the city & state officials already on the ground make any real attempt to prevent anarchy from breaking out? Probably all racists too.

The people who kept attacking relief workers? Well surely they're racists, since all the attackers are rich white guys attacking their heroic poor black rescuers. Obviously racist since the KKK is currently roaming the streets of New Orleans robbing, raping, and generally pillaging.

Better yet, why don't you get your head out of your sorry & demonstrably worthless ass long enough to get a fucking clue?

Do you truly believe that we have a number of military personnel here in the states at this time, when we are already stretching the reserves as it is at this point?

Now as far as logistical issues, I don't see how supplying the people with food would be that difficult earlier, and I do want to emphasize earlier, when it was well known that the people who were able to get out of the water concentrated in 2 areas. Just 2 areas. This was much simpler to do than the hurricanes in Florida where more people tended to be scattered. If there was no shortage of help, how come we couldn't get people there until now and yet Florida could get help to people that are more scattered out.

I agree with this, to a point. New Orleans is a world unto itself. Underneath all of the fun, it's a fairly violent city.

This is 100% fact. Bastards. :p

On a different note, anyone watching Bush get briefed by the FEMA guy and the Governors and others? Seems very odd to me this is happening like this, too 'made for T.V.'

But thats you and you are lapping up the chaos/looting reports. Ive seen multiple reports LIVE from the Convention center, every reporter says "The reports of violence are FALSE, there are no shootings, there is no chaos!" Ive heard that MULTIPLE times, from every anchor to Harry Freaking Connick Jr. The Mayor of New Orleans even said its highly exaggerated. Right this very second im watching a MSNBC reporter live from the convention center, he just watched another person DIE right in front of him AND there still hasnt been a bus... in 5 days! There are 20,000 people there, with no food or water. Where are the heli drops? One report of a 'sniper' that does no damage in any form and it still remains unconfirmed, yet that LONE rumor is keeping relief workers away?? BULLSHIT.

I believe the looting/chaos/armed thug hysteria is perpetuated by some inherint subconscious racism/classism, pure and simple. You guys continue to talk about. Its bullshit. Its disgusting the news media even mentions it, but its expected since its sooo 'sensational', but you and the MSM are pissing in the faces of every single survivor by creating the impression New Orleans is overrun with "wild eyed natives".

Honestly, Tuesday, I really overlooked the reports of people taking electronics. I could really care less about that, given the state of the city, its not a cool thing to do but in that situation even a large number of generally good people may break down and do stupid things b/c its there and so easy to do.

But as soon as the reports of shooting started coming in, I felt that it was time to start using lethal force and to keep the criminal element on a pretty short leash. I'm not one of the ones finding major fault in the operations around the board, but, for example, when 90 or so cops were sent to the convention center and got chased away by the mob, I consider it a signifigant failure that a bigger force wasn't immediately sent back to secure the location by any means necessary, there are little pockets of that all over the place, and the time to begin using lethal force on these roving gangs that are interrupting medical care and relief efforts was, IMO, Wednesday.




With regards to getting people in touch with each other, your idea on using a network/radio station for that purpose is a great one. I saw a report on the news last night that the Red Cross in Baton Rouge had forms they were collecting where anyone could give the e-mail addresses of family/friends and the red cross would send out e-mails for those stuck in various refugee locations without working cell phones or internet access, I thought that was a pretty cool idea.

I see JIMGA and chinaski are readily demonstrating JIMGA's point about how bad the racial recriminations might get....

That can be put to use in the current situation in New Orleans? No shortage of available personnel at all that can serve a purpose for which they're trained.

Ant, you gotta have somewhere to put these assets. AND some way to get them there. AND some way for them not to be killed while they're there. AND some way to not only have the manpower but also the supplies for them to accomplish something.

Unfortunately, teleportation isn't quite working yet. And when you lose almost the entire communication infrastructure, as well as much of the transportation infrastructure, moving things around & knowing where to move them is going to take more time than under normal conditions.


Not being able to land helicopters with supplies & having supplies looted create a few difficulties all on their own.

Like I said, it's pretty much inevitable.

Has anyone been able to verify if food and supplies were placed at the Convention Center and the Superdome or any other "points of las resort" ahead of time. This would seem like a no-brainer to have some kind of emergency rations at these locations.

Help will get to the needy soon. Its gonna take time. Remember its a logistical nightmare, not to mention that troop and supply mob takes time. The govt will be there, maybe not in time for some but the needy will be helped.

Since there were some manner of supplies there at the earliest stages, it seems almost certain that they were put there beforehand (since they weren't being delivered during the height of the storm itself.

If they were, I highly doubt they were enough to handle the crowds that came. I had to laugh a little at the suggestion by the mayor that the Superdome was a place of "last resort". It's the biggest structure in the entire city. Consequently, people will go there because they know the odds are staggeringly high they won't be turned away like they would from a high school or something similar. There's (relatively speaking) plenty of space because, after all, it's designed to accomodate 75,000 people. (True, it was never meant to be housing, but I seriously doubt the people descending on the dome gave consideration to long-term possibilities.) It may have done the job had everything not gone to hell in a handbasket the day after the storm, forcing everyone to stay put.

chinaski, wasn't the priority - as clearly stated by the mayor and governor - was to rescue people first? Caring for those already rescued was clearly a secondary priority and all available resources in the first 48-hours went to getting to people trapped on the roofs and their places of residence. That was hard enough given the rising water. Are people forgetting already what took place Monday and Tuesday and what the priorities were?

fire trucks no good. no water pressure. firemen standing around watching buildings burn. doh!

If that is the case, it seems they underestimated how much would be needed or the amount of people and how long the supplies would be needed. Depots of food and water stationed around town before hand would seem to have been a good idea.

The order was to evacuate the city, BEFORE the hurricane hit, then water and food points around the city would have worked against that order.

This is a must listen/read. Mayor Nagin called WWL's radio station and was FURIOUS. You can listen to the call by clicking on the link not far down this page (after some of the Mayor's comments). You can read the transcript here:

NAGIN: I told him we had an incredible crisis here and that his flying over in Air Force One does not do it justice. And that I have been all around this city, and I am very frustrated because we are not able to marshal resources and we're outmanned in just about every respect.

You know the reason why the looters got out of control? Because we had most of our resources saving people, thousands of people that were stuck in attics, man, old ladies. ... You pull off the doggone ventilator vent and you look down there and they're standing in there in water up to their freaking necks.

And they don't have a clue what's going on down here. They flew down here one time two days after the doggone event was over with TV cameras, AP reporters, all kind of goddamn -- excuse my French everybody in America, but I am pissed.

WWL: Did you say to the president of the United States, "I need the military in here"?

NAGIN: I said, "I need everything."

Now, I will tell you this -- and I give the president some credit on this -- he sent one John Wayne dude down here that can get some stuff done, and his name is [Lt.] Gen. [Russel] Honore.

And he came off the doggone chopper, and he started cussing and people started moving. And he's getting some stuff done.

They ought to give that guy -- if they don't want to give it to me, give him full authority to get the job done, and we can save some people.

WWL: What do you need right now to get control of this situation?

NAGIN: I need reinforcements, I need troops, man. I need 500 buses, man. We ain't talking about -- you know, one of the briefings we had, they were talking about getting public school bus drivers to come down here and bus people out here.

I'm like, "You got to be kidding me. This is a national disaster. Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get their asses moving to New Orleans."

That's -- they're thinking small, man. And this is a major, major, major deal. And I can't emphasize it enough, man. This is crazy.

I've got 15,000 to 20,000 people over at the convention center. It's bursting at the seams. The poor people in Plaquemines Parish. ... We don't have anything, and we're sharing with our brothers in Plaquemines Parish.

It's awful down here, man.

WWL: Do you believe that the president is seeing this, holding a news conference on it but can't do anything until [Louisiana Gov.] Kathleen Blanco requested him to do it? And do you know whether or not she has made that request?

NAGIN: I have no idea what they're doing. But I will tell you this: You know, God is looking down on all this and if they are not doing everything in their power to save people they are going to pay the price. Because every day that we delay, people are dying and they're dying by the hundreds, I'm willing to bet you.

We're getting reports and calls that are breaking my heart, from people saying, "I've been in my attic. I can't take it anymore. The water is up to my neck. I don't think I can hold out." And that's happening as we speak.

You know what really upsets me, Garland? We told everybody the importance of the 17th Street Canal issue. We said, "Please, please take care of this. We don't care what you do. Figure it out."

WWL: Who'd you say that to?

NAGIN: Everybody: the governor, Homeland Security, FEMA. You name it, we said it.

And they allowed that pumping station next to Pumping Station 6 to go under water. Our sewage and water board people ... stayed there and endangered their lives.

And what happened when that pumping station went down, the water started flowing again in the city and it starting getting to levels that probably killed more people.

In addition to that, we had water flowing through the pipes in the city. That's a power station over there.

So there's no water flowing anywhere on the east bank of Orleans Parish. So our critical water supply was destroyed because of lack of action.

WWL: Why couldn't they drop the 3,000-pound sandbags or the containers that they were talking about earlier? Was it an engineering feat that just couldn't be done?

NAGIN: They said it was some pulleys that they had to manufacture. But, you know, in a state of emergency, man, you are creative, you figure out ways to get stuff done.

Then they told me that they went overnight and they built 17 concrete structures and they had the pulleys on them and they were going to drop them.

I flew over that thing yesterday, and it's in the same shape that it was after the storm hit. There is nothing happening. And they're feeding the public a line of bull and they're spinning, and people are dying down here.

WWL: If some of the public called and they're right, that there's a law that the president, that the federal government can't do anything without local or state requests, would you request martial law?

NAGIN: I've already called for martial law in the city of New Orleans. We did that a few days ago.

WWL: Did the governor do that, too?

NAGIN: I don't know. I don't think so.

But we called for martial law when we realized that the looting was getting out of control. And we redirected all of our police officers back to patrolling the streets. They were dead-tired from saving people, but they worked all night because we thought this thing was going to blow wide open last night. And so we redirected all of our resources, and we hold it under check.

I'm not sure if we can do that another night with the current resources.

And I am telling you right now: They're showing all these reports of people looting and doing all that weird stuff, and they are doing that, but people are desperate and they're trying to find food and water, the majority of them.

Now you got some knuckleheads out there, and they are taking advantage of this lawless -- this situation where, you know, we can't really control it, and they're doing some awful, awful things. But that's a small majority of the people. Most people are looking to try and survive.

And one of the things people -- nobody's talked about this. Drugs flowed in and out of New Orleans and the surrounding metropolitan area so freely it was scary to me, and that's why we were having the escalation in murders. People don't want to talk about this, but I'm going to talk about it.

You have drug addicts that are now walking around this city looking for a fix, and that's the reason why they were breaking in hospitals and drugstores. They're looking for something to take the edge off of their jones, if you will.

And right now, they don't have anything to take the edge off. And they've probably found guns. So what you're seeing is drug-starving crazy addicts, drug addicts, that are wrecking havoc. And we don't have the manpower to adequately deal with it. We can only target certain sections of the city and form a perimeter around them and hope to God that we're not overrun.

WWL: Well, you and I must be in the minority. Because apparently there's a section of our citizenry out there that thinks because of a law that says the federal government can't come in unless requested by the proper people, that everything that's going on to this point has been done as good as it can possibly be.

NAGIN: Really?

WWL: I know you don't feel that way.

NAGIN: Well, did the tsunami victims request? Did it go through a formal process to request?

You know, did the Iraqi people request that we go in there? Did they ask us to go in there? What is more important?

And I'll tell you, man, I'm probably going get in a whole bunch of trouble. I'm probably going to get in so much trouble it ain't even funny. You probably won't even want to deal with me after this interview is over.

WWL: You and I will be in the funny place together.

NAGIN: But we authorized $8 billion to go to Iraq lickety-quick. After 9/11, we gave the president unprecedented powers lickety-quick to take care of New York and other places.

Now, you mean to tell me that a place where most of your oil is coming through, a place that is so unique when you mention New Orleans anywhere around the world, everybody's eyes light up -- you mean to tell me that a place where you probably have thousands of people that have died and thousands more that are dying every day, that we can't figure out a way to authorize the resources that we need? Come on, man.

You know, I'm not one of those drug addicts. I am thinking very clearly.

And I don't know whose problem it is. I don't know whether it's the governor's problem. I don't know whether it's the president's problem, but somebody needs to get their ass on a plane and sit down, the two of them, and figure this out right now.

WWL: What can we do here?

NAGIN: Keep talking about it.

WWL: We'll do that. What else can we do?

NAGIN: Organize people to write letters and make calls to their congressmen, to the president, to the governor. Flood their doggone offices with requests to do something. This is ridiculous.

I don't want to see anybody do anymore goddamn press conferences. Put a moratorium on press conferences. Don't do another press conference until the resources are in this city. And then come down to this city and stand with us when there are military trucks and troops that we can't even count.

Don't tell me 40,000 people are coming here. They're not here. It's too doggone late. Now get off your asses and do something, and let's fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country.

WWL: I'll say it right now, you're the only politician that's called and called for arms like this. And if -- whatever it takes, the governor, president -- whatever law precedent it takes, whatever it takes, I bet that the people listening to you are on your side.

NAGIN: Well, I hope so, Garland. I am just -- I'm at the point now where it don't matter. People are dying. They don't have homes. They don't have jobs. The city of New Orleans will never be the same in this time.

WWL: We're both pretty speechless here.

NAGIN: Yeah, I don't know what to say. I got to go.

WWL: OK. Keep in touch. Keep in touch.

good (and underrated) point.

That's funny. Depots of foods and water stationed around town would have been destroyed by the flooding, assaulted by the looters and most likely, unable to be reached in time. Besides there are just that - in the many grocery stores around the region - but who do you assign to get them when all resources were about search and rescue?

I believe that they are pumping flood water through the pumper trucks.

LSU Medical School finally has an area for staff to sign in, report where they are, where they are planning on going. Hopefully, my request to be given work (after I move there) in the Shreveport area is granted.

They are planning on expanding the number of hospital beds in Baton Rouge and Lafayette right now and moving many of the Residents there to continue their training and serve the population of evacuees.

I agree, but I don't think that they expected everyone to either be willing to evacuate or to be able to (health, age, money, whatever).

That link isnt working, NoMyths.

Jim, I understand that's what needs to be done now. That is why I emphasied earlier in my previous post. Before the shootings began, there was a definite time period in which they could have easily been able to go in and supply the people and it has been done rather quickly before in other disasters. I mean no one even comminicated to the people that help was even coming.

I notice that a number of posters are concentrating on now instead of what could have been done just a couple of days after the storm. First of all there was a large concentration of people sitting around waiting for any type of news to whether they will get either transportation, food, something. I mean, most people watching the events unfold was assuming help was already on the the way shortly after the storm.

And I do agree with chinaski to a certain point. While I don't believe it is a racial issue, I do agree that some of these stories have either been exaggerated or embellished. I have yet to see a live report of mass shootings. There have probably been shootings, but you guys make it sound like there's a shootout everyday in the streets of New Orleans. Yet with all of the reporters who are at the location, I don't see this. With the news always seeming to suck on the most sensational thing, why am I not seeing this. Not on FOX, not on MSNBC, not on CNN (which is just railing on Bush any chance they get).

One sec, I'll correct.

It can be found from this page, not far down.

Good point, wouldn't it be possible to store rations in some safe manner and have personnel whose job it is to distribute and be stationed in the area of the rations ahead of time. Just curious.

Only in a predictable scenario. Last Thursday, no one knew what was going to go down. The mandatory evacs didn't happen till late Saturday. The priority then, as the mayor said, to get everyone out and then will figure out how deal with the aftermath - not knowing form it would take.

Do you all remember Nagin's interview at WWL on Sunday? Despite all of this understandable emotions now, nothing was prepared ahead of time by the city - it was all a matter of getting as many people out as possible. And then when it hit, all the help was directed at search and rescue.

By golly, I believe we've just identified a big part of the problem -- this motherfucker is clueless.


What do you suggest genius? Drop the President of the United States in the middle of a war zone? You've done such a bang-up job of securing the city so far, I'm thinking that's not a good idea.


No shit Sherlock, the first of your obvious fuck-ups.


Note to the good Mayor: it doesn't work like that. You can't do that, nor could the President or Congress arbitrarily seize those assets.


"Figure it out" ? Okay, how about "don't build a fucking city underwater". The Feds didn't make that decision, neither the rest of the nation.


Hey dumbass, the pulleys were the creative solution. If you're so brilliant, wave your own magic wand, otherwise deal with the reality of things taking time to pull out of people's asses.


I know communications have been limited, so I'll cut you a little slack on this one. The first waves of things dropped into the abyss basically got swallowed up. I believe the quote was "like putting things into a black hole, they just disappear".


Hmm ... instead of talking about it now, how about you DO something about it before now?


Okay, NOW I think I'm starting to see the problem. He thinks stuff just magically happens for everybody but him.


And you just got 10.5 BILLION dollars, in less than a week. That works out to a pretty good hourly sum.


Again, maybe there's a communication problem here, but ... the authorization doesn't come with a Star Trek transporter device. Come on, man.


Well, I relieved to know your addled state isn't drug related, I'll trust you on that part. But we probably need to discuss the differences between "clearly" and "addled".

I've done a little research, going back over time at the NHC site with their forecast advisories with Katrina. The first time New Orleans was put essentially into the forecast margin-of-error (that cone you always see on hurricane forecasts) was with the 5 AM EDT advisory on Friday 8/26, roughly 72 hours before landfall. At that point, the official prediction had the storm in the east central Gulf early Monday morning, turning north and heading towards Pensacola. Winds were only 75 MPH at that time. Given this sort of information, it would be highly unlikely that anyone in Louisiana would have considered evacuation given the track and relative weakness of the storm. 12 hours later (60 to landfall), I'm sure they started to think about at least evacuating the coastal areas because the forecast track had moved west and put landfall around Passcagoula mid-afternoon on Monday and Katrina had strengthened to 100 MPH. By 11 PM EDT Friday, the track had shifted west again (in actually this forecast was the first one to be "right" in the end) to a MS/LA border landfall. Katrina was up to 105 MPH, a serious, but not catastrophic threat. Every forecast from that point forward generall had the track right with some minor variations from update to update. So they had 54 hours basically before landfall if they could be certain the track was accurate (not a given considering where it was expected to be just 18 hours before). I don't think they got one iota of how bad it might get until the early morning hours of Sunday when the track was established right over New Orleans and the wind speed jumped from 115 to 145 MPH in just three hours. It was grave enough a possibility that the NHC starting issuing updates to the track every three hours instead of six hours from that point on. At this point, though, landfall was just 30 hours away. By 10 AM CDT Sunday, nine hours after the storm reached 145 MPH, it was up to 175 MPH and under 24 hours were left until landfall. It was at this point that the mayor issued the manditory evacuation. There just wasn't enough time to prep the city.

Go in "how" exactly? The difference in this & other previous disasters starts with the fact that you normally aren't dealing with this degree of impassable streets.


Agreed. But how can you communicate with them when there's no form of communication working? Throughout the first 24-48 hours, there were consistent complaints by the local officials that they couldn't even communicate amongst themselves there on the scene. There was no power for radio or TV, the stations themselves were lucky to be on air at all (mad props here btw for the performance of WWL radio). You can't exactly go around with loudspeakers on trucks when you can't get the trucks through the streets.


And I don't think anybody is suggesting that. What I'm getting much more of a feel is that there's the danger of being shot at any moment, randomly.

AP Offers Satellite Image of New Orleans
Email this Story

Sep 2, 9:08 AM (ET)

NEW YORK (AP) - The Associated Press is offering Internet access to a satellite image that covers most of New Orleans, detailed enough that viewers can zoom in to check on particular neighborhoods and streets.

The image's resolution is high, at 2.4 meters per pixel. It is posted in a format that allows quick viewing of any area a user zooms in on. Users can quickly see what areas are under water and what structures are still standing.

The initial image was taken Wednesday and supplied by the company DigitalGlobe. AP will offer updated satellite images as as they become available.

The image is available at:

---

http://hosted.ap.org/specials/neworl...ite/index.html

My understanding is that it was intentionally called a "place of last resort" rather than a "shelter" or whatever else because they didn't want people thinking it was a safe place to go. Safer, yes, but not a true shelter. This goes back to the whole mentality of people remaining in the city when they were told they had to leave.

Bottom line is that the tragic things that happened at the Superdome were not because it was inadequately prepared as a shelter, but because it was never intended as one to begin with and was nevertheless swamped with people.