Subj : Re: It seems not everyone shares the "Blame Bush All The Way" viewpoint... To : alt.tv.farscape From : Ken McElhaney Date : Tue Sep 06 2005 13:47:33 From Newsgroup: alt.tv.farscape Nick wrote: > Ken McElhaney wrote: > > > Over the weekend, ABC/Washington Post poll reveals that despite the > > massive criticism aired 24/7 on Bush, most Americans just don't see it > > that way; > > > > http://tinyurl.com/8lbd5 > > I am surprised that many Republicans approved of the handling. Well, from every news station, paper, and internet news source, you would think Bush's ratings would be in the single digets. Yet somehow, 55% of the American people don't think it was all his fault. > > And while the federal response was way too slow and disasters of this > > size should NOT be handled by FEMA, but rather the US military (which > > has no buerocracy to get in the way), I do have some questions for the > > local 'n state authorities, namely; > > I disagree. I think FEMA is the proper place to handle this sort of thing > but it needs more of a military type heirarchy in which quick decisions > can be made on the spot without a long approval process. Of course, any > decisions made will not look as good a few days later but that will happen > anyway. For most disasters, I would agree. But the scale of this one was so large, combined with the devestation to Mississippi & Alabama (where FEMA did do a decent job, much to John's ire I suppose), it was pretty clear from last Wednesday that FEMA simply could not react quickly. Bush should've federalized the national guard and sent in the military no later than Thursday, but he didn't do it. > > Why did the Mayor of New Orleans wait until SUNDAY to order the > > manditory evacuation of his city? 24 hours after both the govenor AND > > Bush pleaded with him to do so? > > My first guess is because he can't for certain predict the path a > hurricane will take. He knew by Saturday, when the gov & Bush told him to order the evacuation. > My next guess would be because of the cost. If he > had called for a massive mandatory evacuation of New Orleans and bussed > thousands of people out of there and the hurricane had turned east and > totally missed New Orleans there would be no federal money. Really? the Mayor of New Orleans has ordered manditory evacuations three times since 1998. I would think that if both the state & federal government begged him to evacuate, that the city would be compensated. > He would have > blown a huge part of his yearly budget on something that, in hindsight, > was unnecessary and he would get complete blame for it. > It's really easy to say what should have been done. > > Why didn't the Superdome & Convention Center have ANY water 'n food > > supplies IF they were suppose to be shelters? > > People were told to bring their own food. It really wasn't expected to be > as bad as it was and if the 17th street canal hadn't been knocked out it > wouldn't have been as bad. It still would have been bad, just not AS bad. For forty years, they knew that if a catagory 4 storm hit New Orleans, it could rupture the water barriers. Yet they did not prepare for that possibility. Unfreakin' believable. > > And if they weren't capable of handling that number of people, then why > > didn't they use the school 'n tourist buses (there were over 500 that > > survived the hurricane) to start getting them out BEFORE the flood > > waters cut off the city? > > That, I don't know. AP has a picture of the school buses (about 300 of them) in perfect condition sitting in their parking lot hubcab-high in water. > > In fact, why didn't they start moving people out on Saturday? > > Move them to where? Oh gee, perhaps out of the city? Perhaps to shelters in Baton Rouge? If they started on Saturday, they could've run until late Sunday afternoon, pulling thousands out of the Superdome BEFORE the storm hit. > > When word of the water barriers breaking reached the gov's office on > > Monday, why didn't she send in the National Guard (over 5,000 soldiers > > who had already been activated) into New Orleans right away before the > > flood waters cut off the city? > > Send in 5000 more people with no supplies? No supplies? Supplies had been pre-positioned BEFORE the hurricane hit. What little Johnny keeps forgetting is that Bush declared Lousiana a disater area BEFORE the storm hit, so that supplies could be used by the state. > I dunno if that is such a good > idea. BTW, National Guard units do not have live ammuntion on hand. It > would be far too dangerous to have a lot of automatic weapons and > ammunition sitting in the middle of cities with people only being around > one weekend a month. Considering that part of the New Orleans police department quit and there was NO security at the Superdome or Convention Center, I'd think 5,000 National Guard troops, even with minimal ammunition, stationed at both places would've made a huge difference in security. > > I think that after all this is over and the investigations are > > concluded, we'll have a new FEMA director, a new federal system for > > handling disaters of this massive size (which is larger than ANY in US > > history), and hopefully New Orleans will have a new Mayor and perhaps > > an actual plan to deal with a situation everyone knew could happen over > > the past 40 years. > > Well, yeah, NOW we know it is the largest disaster. Technically, the Galvaston hurricane of 1900 is still in the lead (8,000 dead), but this one will probably exceed it. > Did we know that 10 days ago? Everyone knew that a catagory 4 hurricane hitting New Orleans could rupture the water barriers, they knew that for over forty years. Yet apparently, the city had NO PLAN to deal with that probability. > By the way, there are always people who won't leave. > What do you do about them, shoot them? Leave them. If they won't leave, it's not worth the time to drag them kicking and screaming from their homes while a hurrincane is bearing down on the city. Again, FEMA is designed to work with state and local officials, it is NOT an independant agency with thousands of troops, truck, doctors, and the like on standby. In Alabama 'n Mississippi, the response by FEMA was pretty decent since those areas had a PLAN in place and local officials to direct the relief effort. In New Orleans, there was NO PLAN for this EXPECTED catastrophe. But having said that, the FEMA director looked like an ill-informed idiot and seemed woefully out of touch with what was happening in the city. Therefore, he's going to be quietly retired (i.e. fired) by the end of the year. I would not be surprised that an independant commision will put most of the blame on the local 'n state officials (particularly the Mayor) for their lack of planning and indecision. I think the poll I cited reflects most people's accurate assessment of that right now. Ken .