Politicizing hurricane Katrina

[DavidJames]

It should only take what, 4 hours to restore essential services in a city underwater?

straw man

I think "slow/inept response" is probably the DU meme.

Note: After guessing that "slow/inept" was the democratunderground meme, I checked their site. I was right. They also are carrying all this "Levee's Broke is Bush's Fault" stuff.

accusation of source w/o any proof

Always good to see who the marks on the forum are.

Indeed, what took you so long to show up?

 

[Cylinder]

Since we're playing the blame game, I'll quote Mayor Nagin - two days before landfall:

“We may call for a voluntary evacuation later this afternoon or tomorrow morning to coincide with the instatement of contraflow."

 

[corplinx]

I think politicizing the hurricane is great in one respect. It reveals who the truly closed minded are. What does it say when in the face of this sort of humanitarian crisis people are merely using it as an excuse to criticize a politician not of their liking?

----------

New Orleans could not have been saved if a cat5 had hit them head on. This was a cat4 that missed and look what happened.

 

[Renfield]

It should only take what, 4 hours to restore essential services in a city underwater?

I think "slow/inept response" is probably the DU meme.

Note: After guessing that "slow/inept" was the democratunderground meme, I checked their site. I was right. They also are carrying all this "Levee's Broke is Bush's Fault" stuff. Always good to see who the marks on the forum are.

Er, try four days and they can't get even the barest necessities to people gathered at shelters in side the city.

Sarcasm always come in handy when you can't come up with a real argument doesn't it? Was your "guess" helped by the fact that they've handled this in an incredibly "slow/inept" way?

slow/inept is the judgement of quite a few people - like anyone watching this thing with a clear head, or mothers at the shelters whose kids are dying of dehydration. you don't have to go to "DU" to find them.

 

[Renfield]

I think politicizing the hurricane is great in one respect. It reveals who the truly closed minded are.

WTF is next, corp? You going to start accusing people of being unmerican for saying anything critical in this time of crisis?

New Orleans could not have been saved if a cat5 had hit them head on. This was a cat4 that missed and look what happened.

And your point is...


Edited to add:

"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."

When the prez makes statements like that, I think its hard to blame people for criticizing his leadership. Sorry.

 

[Renfield]

/

 

[peptoabysmal]

As ghastly as the video is, I see very tangible progress. The bottleneck right now is airspace above dry land. Everyone is rightfully calling for more troops but how do you get them to their duty station?

NO airport was opened today with C-130s on the ground. Conditions should start improving tommorow. The priority needs to remain evacuating the population to the supplies, not the reverse. Since the airport is open you will see troops and equipment needed to project force across the city.

They can get in with helicopters and amphibious vehicles, but the troops who train for those missions are Marines and Navy and aren't trained for civil disobedience like the National Guard supposedly are now, in reaction to the Watts riots in the 60's.

An interesting read worth the download:
PDF file: LA Times Story On Watts Riots (1965)

 

[a_unique_person]

As ghastly as the video is, I see very tangible progress. The bottleneck right now is airspace above dry land. Everyone is rightfully calling for more troops but how do you get them to their duty station?

NO airport was opened today with C-130s on the ground. Conditions should start improving tommorow. The priority needs to remain evacuating the population to the supplies, not the reverse. Since the airport is open you will see troops and equipment needed to project force across the city.

Police shoot at tourists escaping New Orleans
New Orleans
September 2, 2005 - 2:27PM


Frightened Japanese, European and American tourists told today how police fired over their heads to end their attempt to leave New Orleans.

Stranded since Hurricane Katrina hit the city on Monday, the 200 tourists were thrown out of their hotel on Thursday morning and said they were confronted by police as they attempted to get to buses to take them to safety.

Turned back to the centre of New Orleans, where looters were still roaming the lawless streets, the tourists huddled together on their suitcases under a pavilion next to the Mississippi River.

The hotel in the French Quarter told the tourists to leave saying their safety could no longer be guaranteed.

They said police gave them conflicting information. At one stage they were told to head to the Superdome arena or the city's convention centre where deadly shootings and rapes have been reported among the thousands of refugees.

Later, the tourists were told to make their way to a highway overpass where buses would take them to safety.

The tourists dragged their suitcases through a notoriously dangerous inner city neighbourhood, got drenched in a thunderstorm and were then turned back.

"All of a sudden, police cruisers rushed in with sirens blaring," said Patty Murphy, a 57-year-old saleswoman from Massachusetts. "They were shooting over our heads telling us to go back."

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world...ing-new-orleans/2005/09/02/1125302726757.html

It's been the story from the start. I thought the authorities just tried to keep a lid on the bad news, to keep morale up. In fact, they appear to have had less idea of what was going on and what to do about it than anyone else.

 

[a_unique_person]

I think politicizing the hurricane is great in one respect. It reveals who the truly closed minded are. What does it say when in the face of this sort of humanitarian crisis people are merely using it as an excuse to criticize a politician not of their liking?

----------

New Orleans could not have been saved if a cat5 had hit them head on. This was a cat4 that missed and look what happened.

http://www.indyweek.com/durham/2004-09-22/cover.html

A rant from a year ago on the downfall of FEMA. Who's politicising the issue? Those who criticise, or those who mismanage disaster handling?

 

[Yahweh]

From the swarthy deep of Fundies Say the Darndest Things:

"[Apparently blaming Republicans for Hurricane Katrina]

Now we are all learning what it’s like to reap the whirlwind of fossil fuel dependence which [Mississippi Governor] Barbour and his cronies have encouraged. Our destructive addiction has given us a catastrophic war in the Middle East and--now--Katrina is giving our nation a glimpse of the climate chaos we are bequeathing our children.

In 1998, Republican icon Pat Robertson warned that hurricanes were likely to hit communities that offended God. Perhaps it was Barbour’s memo that caused Katrina, at the last moment, to spare New Orleans and save its worst flailings for the Mississippi coast."

Robert F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy Blog

 

[The Fool]

Does america have a shortage of land that is a reasonable height above sea level for the purpose of living on?

Some really serious thinking needs to be done on who is going to win in the long run...US engineers or inevitability.

 

[a_unique_person]

Who was appointed by the Bush admin to run FEMA?

Federal Emergency Management Director Michael Brown told CNN that federal officials were unaware of the crowds at the convention center until Thursday, despite the fact that city officials had been telling people for days to gather there.

"We just learned about that today, and so I have directed that we have all available resources to get to that convention center to make sure that they have the food and water, the medical care that they need," he said.

Brown also said his agency was attempting to work "under conditions of urban warfare."

Maybe he could have turned on CNN.

 

[corplinx]

Er, try four days and they can't get even the barest necessities to people gathered at shelters in side the city.

Do you even have the foggiest clue what is going down there? Many of the land based ways into new orleans are down. Many of them have above ground bridges and sections, some go on 1/8 of a mile or more (and guess what, they are toast). There is no logistical flow into New Orleans right now. The problem isn't that we can't get supplies in, the problem is that _people_ _didn't_ _leave_ when they were told New Orleans could be destroyed.

 

[a_unique_person]

Do you even have the foggiest clue what is going down there? Many of the land based ways into new orleans are down. Many of them have above ground bridges and sections, some go on 1/8 of a mile or more (and guess what, they are toast). There is no logistical flow into New Orleans right now. The problem isn't that we can't get supplies in, the problem is that _people_ _didn't_ _leave_ when they were told New Orleans could be destroyed.

An informed emergency agency would have known that a lot of people couldn't leave. Poor, elderly, disabled, no car, nowhere to go, tired of evacuating other times when nothing happened.

There were always going to be people left behind.

 

[Mona]

Who was appointed by the Bush admin to run FEMA?



Maybe he could have turned on CNN.

Ok, turning on CNN we see Bush 41 and Bill Clinton being interviewed. They were asked whether the relief efforts shouldn't be criticized. Clinton emphatically was not disposed to use the occasion in a partisan manner about a massive tragedy:

CLINTON: Let me answer this. The people in the Superdome are in a special position. And let me say, I've been going to New Orleans for over 50 years. There's no place on earth I love more. They went into the Superdome, not because of the flooding, but because we thought the hurricane was going to hit New Orleans smack dab and they'd be safe in there if they didn't leave town.What happened was, when the levee broke and the town flooded, what did it do? It knocked out the electricity and it knocked out the sewage. They're living in hellacious conditions. They would be better off under a tree than being stuck there. You can't even breathe in that place now.So I understand why they're so anxiety-ridden. But they have to understand, by the time it became obvious that they were in the fix they were in, there were a lot of other problems, too. There were people -- they were worried about people drowning that had to be taken off roofs.

MALVEAUX: So you two believe that the federal response was fast enough?

CLINTON: All I'm saying is what I know the facts are today. There are hundreds of buses now engaged in the act of taking people from New Orleans to the Astrodome in Houston. And you and I are not in a position to make any judgment because we weren't there.All I'm saying is the way they got stuck there, I see why they feel the way they do. But the people that put them there did it because they thought they were saving their lives. And then when the problems showed up, they had a lot of other people to save. Now they've got hundreds of buses. We just need to get them out. I think they'll all be out by tomorrow. Didn't they say they would all be out by tomorrow morning?

G.H.W. BUSH: Yes.

MALVEAUX: OK. Well, thank you very much. I'm sorry. We've run out of time. Thank you.

G.H.W. BUSH: Let me -- I just to want finish. I believe the administration is doing the right thing, and I believe they have acted in a timely fashion. And I understand people being critical. That happens all the time. And I understand some people wanted to make, you know, a little difficulty by criticizing the president and the team. But I don't want to sit here and not defend the administration which, in my view, has taken all the right steps. And they're facing problems that nobody could foresee: breaking of the levees and the whole dome thing over in New Orleans coming apart. People couldn't foresee that.

CLINTON: Yes, I think that's important to point out. Because when you say that they should have done this, that or the other thing first, you can look at that problem in isolation, and you can say that.But look at all the other things they had to deal with. I'm telling you, nobody thought this was going to happen like this. But what happened here is they escaped -- New Orleans escaped Katrina. But it brought all the water up the Mississippi River and all in the Pontchartrain, and then when it started running and that levee broke, they had problems they never could have foreseen.And so I just think that we need to recognize right now there's a confident effort under way. People are doing the best they can. And I just don't think it's the time to worry about that. We need to keep people alive and get them back to life -- normal life.

 

[Orwell]

Telling people it's wrong to play politics with war, disaster relief, selecting judges, etc. is really just another form of playing politics.

 

[Jocko]

An informed emergency agency would have known that a lot of people couldn't leave. Poor, elderly, disabled, no car, nowhere to go, tired of evacuating other times when nothing happened.

There were always going to be people left behind.

Okay, but if the able-bodied and capable left when they were orderd to, there may not be such problems as privation, looting and general mayhem for the 1-2% of the population that is genuinely unable to comply with the order.

Or are you suggesting that old people in wheelchairs are the ones smashing windows of electronics stores on Canal Street and raping women in the convention center?

"An informed agency..." feh. AUP, if you were in a lifeboat with me, I'd make it my business to make sure we ate you first.

 

[zakur]

slow/inept is the judgement of quite a few people

Even this guy (although he used the word "unacceptable.")

 

[rikzilla]

Okay, but if the able-bodied and capable left when they were orderd to, there may not be such problems as privation, looting and general mayhem for the 1-2% of the population that is genuinely unable to comply with the order.

Or are you suggesting that old people in wheelchairs are the ones smashing windows of electronics stores on Canal Street and raping women in the convention center?

"An informed agency..." feh. AUP, if you were in a lifeboat with me, I'd make it my business to make sure we ate you first.

Watch it Jock!...AUP's gonna run to the mods!! Besides remember; you are what you eat!

-z

 

[Jocko]

Watch it Jock!...AUP's gonna run to the mods!! Besides remember; you are what you eat!

-z

I think I could suffer the aftertaste more than the noise.