VERY Disturbed with Bush and the Federal Response!!!

[Kevin Bowman]

"but the biggest atrocity has involved the 20,000 at the Superdome"

Why were they sent to the Superdome without having a plan to feed them? Or keep them safe? Did the mayor really expect that a few thousand hot dog buns in the concession stands would keep everyone happily fed and hydrated for 72 hours?

and tahts where the real problem lies, New Orleans wasant even close to prepared for this. Exactly where is the mayor right now is what i want to know

 

[Anonymous]

I too im not very happy with the response so far and the lack of serious resources directed into the effort until 3-4 days after the event. I think some of the blame does go with President Bush and the FEMA director for not assessing and responding to the situation with all the power of the federal government more quickly. But also recgnoize a situation of this magnitude is hard for even the federal government to cope with quickly. As far as preventing this disaster I think there is enough blame to go around. It wasn't a failure of imagination, a team of experts had determined the whole levy system could be strengthend to support CAT 5 impact for 14 billion dollars. Of course Washington politicians are not very forward looking and did not make the commitment. After 9-11 FEMA categorized NO as a serious disaster threat and to Bush's credit earmarked tens of millions of dollars to revise the Levy system. However, alot of the money has been diverted to the war effort and progress has been slow since then.

Some of the things I've heard about and seen on television seem very preventable. The disaster at the Superdome with elderly people dying having blankets thrown over their heads is just ridiclouis. After four days they couldn't find a damn plane to drop pallets of water and food?
Also a distinct lack of leadership has been present, with the mayor of NO, the governor, Bush and the FEMA director all seemingly having different opinions of the ongoing situation. We were talking about the potiental of this disaster back on Friday by Sunday it was IMMINENTLY CLEAR that a major storm was going to hit NO. I don't understand why any major mobilization effort wasn't started then and I don't think there is any excuse for this. As far as race is concerned I don't think that it is really a factor but the appearance could further damage race releations in this country.
These people didn't deserve it just because they stayed and didn't goto a shelter, hell even the shelters were terrible situations. Bad decision, yes!
But motivated by a culture of riding out or *braving* Hurricanes. Yuck I hate that term.

To date 60 countries have offered aid, including 60 million barrels of processed petroluem products and a very generous aid offer from SRI LANKA (a poor country involved in civil war that was hit by the Tsunami and we assisted in) so all that misinformation in the thread about other countries not helping out was unfounded and premature. In fact our government has accepted no aid to date. I guess they need to appoint a commission to decide which aid might be needed immediately. RETARDED.

Prayers and thoughts goto the victims and the survivors who now have nothing left and little to look forward to but a FEMA loan.........

 

[j_scheerer]

Canada is sending a lot of support and supplies.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/cpress/20050902/ca...katrina_cda_aid

 

[-ed]

Mobilization

I think its ridiculous to assume that this country has the fiscal willingness to pre-mobilize the amount of people and resources that would have been necessary for a speedy bailout of New Orleans. Imagine the outcry of 'wasted tax-dollars' that we'd hear had the eye veered off 100 miles east, or the cost of doing that everytime a major hurricane threatend a metropolitan area. You can pre-position people, but it takes at least a few days to mobilize a 10,000 person relief effort.

On the other hand, the local and state government of New Orleans failed miserably in setting up even a simple catastrophe plan. How incompetent is the local police and government that they didn't even have satellitle phones, knowing full well that landline and cellular communications would be wiped out and/or overwhelmed? The mayor can complain all he wants, but he's ulitimately responsible for the city's complete lack of even simple contingency planning.
How stupid were the thousands of people who were perfectly capably of getting out of the city, but stayed anyway, and now expect their government to take responsibility for their idiocy? How many times have the people heard to keep at least a weeks worth of food and water on-hand for a hurricane, but end up looting stores two days after?

If you always expect the government to take care of you, you will always be setting yourself up for disappointment (or worse).

 

[Rob_Davis]

Re: Mobilization

This pretty well says it all, and deserves to be repeated. I really don't need to add anything to it.

On the other hand, the local and state government of New Orleans failed miserably in setting up even a simple catastrophe plan. How incompetent is the local police and government that they didn't even have satellitle phones, knowing full well that landline and cellular communications would be wiped out and/or overwhelmed? The mayor can complain all he wants, but he's ulitimately responsible for the city's complete lack of even simple contingency planning.
How stupid were the thousands of people who were perfectly capably of getting out of the city, but stayed anyway, and now expect their government to take responsibility for their idiocy? How many times have the people heard to keep at least a weeks worth of food and water on-hand for a hurricane, but end up looting stores two days after?

If you always expect the government to take care of you, you will always be setting yourself up for disappointment (or worse).

 

[Anonymous]

FEMA is for when all else fails.
If they can not handle there needs to be a restructuring of the organization.
A.K.A. Fire many people!

 

[Joe Nield]

FEMA is for when all else fails.
If they can not handle there needs to be a restructuring of the organization.
A.K.A. Fire many people!

I'm sure this will lead to quite a bit of examination about the way we handle disaster response and recovery in this country, not to mention mitigation.

Perhaps some good will come out of this in that our leaders will be more reluctant to neglect such concerns. FEMA has been losing good people like rats from a sinking ship since they were folded into DHS, due to anti-terrorism concerns sucking up every dollar that isn't nailed down.

At the very least, some people will realize that we meteorologists aren't joking around when we talk about the need for disaster mitigation and planning.