Do you think the Federal relief effort is being mismanaged?

Do you think the Federal relief effort is being mismanaged?

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Originally posted by Will Tinder
I think its safe to say that all levels of government, Feds, State, and Local, have all been caught with their pants down... everyone, regardless of state, of party, of whatever. No one apparently thought that extensive backup emergency communications for personnel would be needed if low-lying New Orleans flooded. Budgets for improvements were slashed, both by the current administration, and previous administrations. There is no single organ of government to blame... it is a colossal tower of screwups, from some of the lowliest officials to Washington D.C itself.

In the future, I think this will be a textbook example of what NOT to do during a crisis... and will make many a sociological, poli-sci, and anthropological dissertations for years to come...
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Damn Right! LOL!
 
I won't even touch the subject of "it's the peoples fault if they die"...it falls flat on it's face on it's own merit.

Only one word describes how I feel about the nations response to this disaster...disgusting. I am appalled at the way this has been handled...so much, in fact, that I am taking a trip to my District Representatives office tomorrow morning. Maybe the Governor of our state can be convinced to try to do something. Maybe not...but I do know that I am so angered by what is happening that I need to at least have my voice heard and my petition on record, if nothing else. Who knows...if enough people do this, maybe it will have an effect.
 
Originally posted by Chris Sokol
I won't even touch the subject of \"it's the peoples fault if they die\"...it falls flat on it's face on it's own merit.

Only one word describes how I feel about the nations response to this disaster...disgusting. I am appalled at the way this has been handled...so much, in fact, that I am taking a trip to my District Representatives office tomorrow morning. Maybe the Governor of our state can be convinced to try to do something. Maybe not...but I do know that I am so angered by what is happening that I need to at least have my voice heard and my petition on record, if nothing else. Who knows...if enough people do this, maybe it will have an effect.
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I didn't personally visit the offices but I have made numerous calls to Gov. Henry, state Reps. etc... They basically gave the same response. "We are doing all we can at this point". I do believe that if enough people voice their opinion it MIGHT have an affect on them enough to do more.
 
RE: New Orleans Flood control

rdale wrote:
I'm sure you aware Clinton was the first to do that
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I wasn't aware of that. Do you know of an web source I can read for this? According to the SELA website, http://www.selaprojects.com/faq.htm

"For the past three years Federal funding has been reduced due to competing homeland security needs and an increase in federal deficits. But the flood control initiative is expected to receive a much-needed infusion of funds from Congress for the fiscal year 2005."

The cuts correspond to 2001-2004. Unfortunately SELA's hopes for a increased budget in 2005 were dashed by the Bush administration, see the following...
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_...06/ai_n14657367

More information on the effects of the cuts can be found on the American Society of Civil Engineers website at: http://www.asce.org/pressroom/news/grwk/ev...se.cfm?uid=2286

including the statement:
"U.S. Army Corps of Engineers - President Bush has proposed to cut approximately $500 million from the Army Corps of Engineers civil works budget in FY 2005...
...The budget proposal would also cut funding for corps general investigations on flood control, navigation and shoreline protection by nearly $30 million, to $119 million."


You can argue how these funding cuts ultimately did or did not effect this disaster - but the cuts are there as fact - and they are a federal govt/national policy issue.
 
Originally posted by Dave Kaplow
The people who are responsible for disaster planning in this country knew perfectly well that NO was a catastrophe waiting to happen. The evacuate NO scenario was probably at the very top of the list of most likely natural disasters in this country, probably right below the inevitable \"big one\" out in CA. That there was no comprehensive plan in place, that money for fixing the levee system was knowingly diverted to homeland security, is inexcusable.
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That point about diversion of resources to homeland security is an interesting one to reflect on. I don't know if any or much resources were scratched from levees for homeland security, but we all know that tons of resources have been mobilized, commissions gathered, agencies organized, wars started, and money spent in order to help make the US a safer place from terrorists. Maybe our number just came up at the wrong time, not sure but it is amazing when you consider the scale of this disaster compared to two towers falling. Most likely terrorists could have never caused this much damage to the US - unless they started setting off nukes in many cities. And yet, as you bring up not many took the well known and publicized New Orleans hurricane disaster scenario very seriously. I'm not saying terrorists aren't a threat, but man think of all the resources that COULD have been put together in advance to plan for and save these communities' peoples. Isn't that what government at all levels is for? Looks like somehow our government system and beauracracies are very inefficient.

Makes you wonder how our non-funded meteorite protection program is going, or what about a Yellowstone supervolcano explosion plans, or the evacuation and safety plan for New York from landfalling hurricanes which was a disaster at the turn of last century.
 
Originally posted by Jeff Snyder
Unfortunately, funding has been diverted (straight from the mouth of some city officials) away from things that could have helped. I've had a professor here at OU tell me that the Dept. of Homeland Security has so much money that they are practically giving it away for any projects (however ludicris) that can be earmarked for \"terrorism\" response or prevention.
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Perhaps Katrina should have been given a terroristic Arabesque name. Oops...I don't want to be accused of profiling!
 
i just want you all to imagine how different this would be if a lot of resources werent be taken up by people on their roofs
 
Originally posted by Kevin Bowman
i just want you all to imagine how different this would be if a lot of resources werent be taken up by people on their roofs
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I just want you all to know how different this would be had this happened to Florida. Even if Florida faced the same scope of disaster as New Orleans, I can guarantee that things would be very different. I can guarantee that President Bush would be responding differently (i.e. not taking a guitar lesson on Tuesday). I can guarantee that the federal response would be much more efficient and speedy.

Regardless of the people who could have left but didn't, you can't tell me that the officials didn't PLAN for this. You can't tell me that they didn't think they'd have a ton of folks who wouldn't evacuate. If they seriously thought everyone would evacuate, I would be at a complete loss of words. Heck, the mayor said by late Saturday that he expected 100,000 people to remain in the city. Not planning for things such as this is absolutely unacceptable.

Instead, what do we have? We have a President saying that he is proud of the federal response to this catastrophe; we have a FEMA director who is saying that there is no food supply problem in New Orleans and that the security situation is "pretty darn good"; we have congressman patting themselves on the back for leaving their vacations and passing a bill to give money to the effort. I got a huge kick when Anderson Cooper got in the face of a congresswoman who was essentially saying how nice it was that Congress was giving money to the effort. The back-patting going on in the federal level is mindboggling.
 
Originally posted by Jeff Snyder+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Jeff Snyder)</div>
<!--QuoteBegin-Kevin Bowman
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i just want you all to imagine how different this would be if a lot of resources werent be taken up by people on their roofs
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I just want you all to know how different this would be had this happened to Florida. Even if Florida faced the same scope of disaster as New Orleans, I can guarantee that things would be very different. I can guarantee that President Bush would be responding differently (i.e. not taking a guitar lesson on Tuesday). I can guarantee that the federal response would be much more efficient and speedy.

Regardless of the people who could have left but didn't, you can't tell me that the officials didn't PLAN for this. You can't tell me that they didn't think they'd have a ton of folks who wouldn't evacuate. If they seriously thought everyone would evacuate, I would be at a complete loss of words. Heck, the mayor said by late Saturday that he expected 100,000 people to remain in the city. Not planning for things such as this is absolutely unacceptable.[/b]
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Florida is a completely different story than this, last time i checked not to many cities there are located inside a bowl with water on each side. you are going to have a hard time destroying 90000 square miles of florida with one hurricane

This happened on monday and people are still being rescued and while some probably couldnt leave i highly doubt every single person you see on TV had no way out of the city. Im willing to bet they thought it wouldnt be this bad and they had their asses handed to them for being complacent and this lies the problem, people and their own stupidty.
 
Originally posted by Jeff Snyder
I'm not sure he can do much more NOW, but it's what has already happened that peeves me... Just as ONE example:

In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness.

On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; told the Times-Picayune: \"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.\"
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http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/ne...t_id=1001051313
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Well, what's interesting since you mention that is I now recall that the 17 street levee which failed was UNDER CONSTRUCTION.
 
Originally posted by Bill Tabor+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Bill Tabor)</div>
<!--QuoteBegin-Jeff Snyder
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I'm not sure he can do much more NOW, but it's what has already happened that peeves me... Just as ONE example:

In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness.

On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; told the Times-Picayune: \"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.\"
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http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/ne...t_id=1001051313
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Well, what's interesting since you mention that is I now recall that the 17 street levee which failed was UNDER CONSTRUCTION.[/b]
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the fact of the matter is that it shouldve been done years ago
 
Makes you wonder how our non-funded meteorite protection program is going, or what about a Yellowstone supervolcano explosion plans, or the evacuation and safety plan for New York from landfalling hurricanes which was a disaster at the turn of last century.
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Speaking of that, I believe there is something possibly headed in our direction in 30years. If we want to correct any possible problem we should do that well, now, and not 3 years from a possible impact. I do not believe there is enough funding going into this field of research to correctly ascertain the correct trajectory of near earth objects in a timely enough fashion to give adequate time to react. This hurricane is merely a show that if we take chances long enough with Mother Nature in any form we will eventually loose. That includes nature several AUs out. We’re worrying about a city right now, I wouldn’t be surprised in a few years/decades we’re worrying about a planet.

P.S. Sorry about the side track...
 
Thats the exact point Kevin. These levees were built 40 years ago and nobody since then had seen fit to build them up so I dont see how cutting funding last year caused this. Even if they had increased funding the construction would not have been completed for years to come so this argument is mute. They should have built them to withstand a cat5 to begin with or built them up with new construction decades ago.

Better yet how about not being stupid enough to build a city below sea level in a swamp!!! I just hope they dont waste tax payer mobey building it the same way. Either build up the oundation by 30 ft or move it north of the lake.
 
The failed levee was NOT a Corps Of Engineer project. It was privately contracted.
 
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