Kevin Bowman
EF4
where is the New Orleans Mayor in all this? i have yet to see one shot of him since early sunday
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CITY OF NEW ORLEANS THREAD
- Thread starter B Ozanne
- Start date
Anonymous
I have heard but not seen that he has been down on the streets since all this. I know that the Lt gov was. The Lt gov was in a boat rescuing people. They did show that on the news. The LA gov has also been down in the superdome but I think that was not too long after flooding started but not since then.Anonymous
On CNN they described the mayor as being afraid to walk down the street in his own city.......
Hmmmm....and who is to blame for that, someone won't be back in office.Mike Umscheid
EF4
The mayor is emotionally distraught. In an interview with WWL radio yesterday, he was pretty much putting his foot down at the complete inept, in his eyes, of any ACTION being taken to save lives. He's frustrated, and rightly so, at the complete miscommunication, "talk" of resources, and the political "spin". The bottom line is, not enough is being done to save hundreds, if not THOUSANDS if lives in the entire southeast Louisana and MS coast region, and it finally reached a boiling point with Nagin. He has been in the streets, he has seen it. He just isn't in front of the camera like Anderson Cooper, Sheppard Smith, etc...
What is the nation's worst natural catastrophe ever has now become the the WORST possible humanitarian crisis ever in America.
Incredible.
Mike UNysee
I just got to hear that interview with the mayor and I have to say he is expressing what people are feeling and at the end he was crying and the reporter was crying after a silence following the interview and he aburptly siad he had to go.
Chris Hayes
EF5
In my opinion the Mayor and Governor are the ones screwed this up in the first place. Here's my reasons why I believe this:
Mayor:
Not ordering a mandatory evacuation soon enough
Not sending buses around the city to pick up people who couldnt leave on their ow
Having the police do rescues instead of maintaining order. If you dont have civil order, it's harder to do rescues. Have firefighters, medics, coast guard, etc do rescues
Needed a lot more security presence inside the superdome
Governor:
Not mobilizing the national guard fast enough
Should have sent the state police into the city as soon as looting was heard of
Jeff Snyder
EF5
Chris,
He only had a limited number of police officers to "maintain" order. With a disaster of this magnitude, you CANNOT control a city with a limited police force. Remember, many of the cops in NO lost everythign that had as well. In addition, one NO cop said there were many cops who have drowned in the past few days. The mayor can control his police officers, but the police force is at 50% in most places -- hugely undermanned for a task of "controlling" the city. If he stopped doing rescues Monday evening to "maintain" order, people would be screaming that he isn't doing enough to save those on rooftops. He just CAN'T control the situation -- it's just too big. He needs thousands and thousands of Nat'l Guard.
Chris Hayes
EF5
I guess you're right, Jeff. The blame game is just getting old, and I decided to put my 2 cents in.Rob_Davis
That's what he's afraid of. That's why he is going on the attack to pass the blame on to the federal government. He shouldn't have any problems convincing the people of New Orleans that he did a wonderful job, but it was "the man" who screwed them over. They'll re-elect him and call him a hero.
He'll be Governor in four years. :roll:Kurt Wayne
...
...yep, blaming "the man", "the great Satan" or whomever is a tried and true tactic of third world leaders desperate to shift blame for their own inadequacies.
Just today a BBC reporter said this was becoming less of a "man against nature" and more of a "man against man" situation, and said it was resembling Africa more than America.
Except this...
WWL-TV reports that doctors and nurses at Charity hospital are giving each other IVs to keep going.
I fully believe our (national) cavalry is coming. In Africa (where I can still see so many similarities in particular to Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo I mentioned elsewhere, and a former Sister City to New Orleans in the late 80s) they might never arrive.Anonymous
There's plenty of blame to go around and let's not pretend that Bush had no role in contributing towards this (including moving 6,000 Louisiana National Guard [current number] into Iraq)...
"It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that’s the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."
-- Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 8, 2004
Chris Hayes
EF5
It's 3,000 troops, not 6000. There was an officer from the Army Corps of Engineers on TV today saying that the levees were complete. Let's try not to judge when we dont know the FACTS.
The mayor is emotionally distraught because he knows if he goes down onto the streets of NO he'll probably get killed ... frustrated because he knows he screwed up ... boiling point because he knows he didn't do enough and he can't do anymore
Chris Hayes
EF5
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/0...flpc21109012015
Wow, look at all of them buses. Why didn't the "Mayor" use them buses to evacuate people who couldnt leave on their own? Not only does he order the mandatory evacuation too late, he doesnt dispatch what could have saved hundreds, if not thousands. Even if the bus drivers are already evacuated, other city employees could have drove them. Hindsight is 20/20 I guess.
B Doss
EF2
How are a few dozen buses expected to evacuate the 100,000-200,000 that remained? And where do you take them? What shelters were predesignated to handle these numbers?