Posted on 09/04/2005 5:03:08 PM PDT by Prince Charles
Saturday, September 03, 2005
There has been a lot of criticism of President Bush for the handling of the New Orleans disaster and the alleged diversion of funds from the work on the levee, to the Iraq war. Theres only one problem with this argument, two actually. The representative of the Army Corps of Engineers has stated that the critical Levee work was completed, that it was up to designed specs. The problem is, those specs were for a class three hurricane, not a four or five. Secondly of the funds that were transferred to New Orleans over the last decades, were diverted by the local levee boards to buy a Gambling Casino and a private marina. It would appear that the Big Easys reputation for inept governance and corruption is well deserved. President Bush has done everything within his power to take care of the disaster area. When he saw that Democrat incompetence was unable to deal with the crisis, he went down to shake things up and get people moving. Within a very few hours of his visit, massive truck convoys began entering the city carrying water and food to those in need. This morning, less than 24 hours after his visit, the buses were flowing into the city to carry people to safety. President Bush had to go down to Louisiana to do the jobs of the Mayors and Governors jobs. Okay, I know that the massive response was mostly coincidental, but if this had occurred during Clintons watch, the MSM would have been saying that very thing.
The President called on Mayor C. Ray Nagin and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco to order a mandatory evacuation on Saturday, 36-48 hours prior to the storms arrival. Nagin expressing concern about the legality of ordering people out of the city when New Orleans had some safe hurricane shelters to which they could evacuate, failed to act. National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield in Miami called Nagin at home Saturday night and told him: Get people out of New Orleans. Two days before the hurricane made landfall, President Bush declared the area a federal disaster area, giving the Governors of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama all of the resources they needed to prepare for this chaos, all of the troops, all of the supplies, all of the transportation, all were available to the Democrat Governor, the Democrat Mayor, Democrat City Council, Democrat Levee Board in Louisiana. The problems arose because Governor Blanco couldnt make up her mind to pull the trigger and begin mobilizing until two days after the storm hit. That means she lost four days before acting to begin the rescue of the people in New Orleans. It is readily apparent that Governor Blanco was incapable of doing her job. It is also apparent that Mayor Nagin was neglectful in doing his job. New Orleans had a plan for this contingency:
The authority to order the evacuation of residents threatened by an approaching hurricane is conferred to the Governor by Louisiana Statute. The Governor is granted the power to direct and compel the evacuation of all or part of the population from a stricken or threatened area within the State, if he deems this action necessary for the preservation of life or other disaster mitigation, response or recovery. The same power to order an evacuation conferred upon the Governor is also delegated to each political subdivision of the State by Executive Order. This authority empowers the chief elected official of New Orleans, the Mayor of New Orleans, to order the evacuation of the parish residents threatened by an approaching hurricane.
The person responsible for recognition of hurricane related preparation needs and for the issuance of an evacuation order is the Mayor of the City of New Orleans. Concerning preparation needs and the issuance of an evacuation order, The Office of Emergency Preparedness should keep the Mayor advised.
...Evacuation notices or orders will be issued during three stages prior to gale force winds making landfall.
> Precautionary Evacuation Notice: 72 hours or less
> Special Needs Evacuation Order: 8-12 hours after Precautionary Evacuation Notice issued
> General Evacuation Notice: 48 hours or less
The entire plan is here: City of New Orleans Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan.
A reading of the entire plan, reads like a step by step summary of what Mayor Nagin failed to do. President Bush provided the local officials every resource they needed to deal with this emergency. The failure was a failure of the local government (Democrat) bureaucracy. This is President Bushs fault? There were stockpiles of food and water setup at depots all around Louisiana. We know now that it was the gross incompetence, over an extended period of time, of local Democrat controlled government that has been the cause of this mess. Tuesday morning, within 24 hours of the storm, the federal government began rushing baby formula, communications equipment, generators, water and ice into the storm ravaged areas of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, along with doctors, nurses and first-aid supplies. The U.S. Defense Department sent experts to help with search-and-rescue operations. This was 24 hours prior to the levee failure which occurred on Wednesday.
Americans have the right to expect competency in their elected officials. What we are witnessing in Louisiana is complete incompetence. And what is the response of the Congressional Black Caucus NAACP, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and the usual suspects? Recriminations of the President, vague and not so vague hints that the President just doesnt care about black people, and most shallow of all the complaints, my personal favorite for most useless complaint of the decade...refugees. There has been an almost universal complaint that the refugees from the storm are being called refugees. What an irrelevant, inane, useless, diversionary concern to be addressed. What good are you doing your people by making that an issue?
Oh yes there was gross incompetence involved in the disaster that used to be New Orleans, but it wasnt the Presidents, it was the local authorities failure, dare I say, it was a Democrat failure. Local government is supposed to be actively engaged during the early stages of emergency response activities. Normally the Federal government doesnt step in until asked by the Governor of the state. The more information that becomes available, the better the Bush Administrations response looks and the worse the Democrat finger pointers appear to be. By jumping to conclusion (something Liberals are really good at), they have, once again, made themselves look like the mascot of their party...EEEHAW...EEEHAW!
Of course I am not so naïve as to believe Democrats or Liberals will comprehend what I have stated, because their irrational hatred of President Bush blocks all reasoned thinking. They are so blinded by hatred that, for example, I have read in one comment, on a certain liberal blog, criticism of President for hugging and kissing a couple of the young black girls, victims in Mississippi, commenting that it reminded her of a sexual predator. Perhaps Michael Savage is correct, Liberalism is a mental disease.
Evil is most easily seen where those most familiar with its feel seek it. posted by Will Malven at 5:02 PM
Bingo. The fools pi$$ed away their levee money buying everything BUT levees.
Bump!!!
Read later.
bump for later.
Excellent summary of the case. As I've said before, we need to get the word out by every means possible, to counteract the lies of the corrupt MSM. This article and others like it should be emailed to your contacts, wherever you think it will do some good. We need to show up the MSM propaganda campaign that is blaring from the New York Times and the network talking heads.
He'll spin it by simply repeating ever bigger lies. He's just a part of the Category 5 'Rat onslaught against Bush & the GOP that I predicted last Wednesday or Thursday. The Pubbies need to take off the gloves and put on the brass knuckles, something which this story does quite nicely, if I may say so.
Watching CCN spin it against Bush all day... it's sickening.
Good idea, I'll email the original out to my list.
Clinton News Network has ratings that are circling the drain. And rightly so.
Ping.
"the dark side will try to make this the campaign issue."
But of course!
They have NO solutions so they need to be critical of the opposing party.
Excellent. Thanks for the ping. This needs to have legs.
MUST READ BUMP!
Ping! :)
Do you have references for this? I've seen this posted a couple of times and I've been looking for the citation, but haven't found it yet.
Jesse Jackson, and the STUPID BLACK CAUCUS, and our mainstream press, all that are BLAMING PRESIDENT BUSH, have tried to jump the gun and get out their message to COVER UP what they all KNOW!
It was corruption, lack of FOLLOWNG THEIR OWN evacuation plan set in place in 2001 (which of course called for use of school buses!), being suspicious of President Bush and failing to ORDER a MANDATORY EVACATION...that has caused MANY MANY DEATHS. Many. And THEY KNOW IT. ALL OF THEM.
Interesting articles about New Orleans leeve systems.
....Federal officials are so stunned by these sorts of findings that they're rethinking their assumptions about New Orleans. Officials in the U.S. Army say, 'There's got to be a way to prevent some of that devastation.' So they'll study whether they should build more levees and build them higher. They'll study whether the region needs new highways, so people can evacuate faster.
Critics say, 'We don't need more construction, we need less.'
Oliver Houck from Tulane University. Photo: William Brangham/NOW with Bill Moyers
Oliver Houck from Tulane University says, "Stop the foolishness of permitting yet more residential development. We are granting permits every week for new subdivisions right in the path of where this stuff is going to go. We're still covering those people with flood insurance, Daniel."
And state and federal officials are asking Congress to launch a massive project to restore the region's natural defenses. They want billions of dollars to try to rebuild some of the crumbling wetlands, which buffer New Orleans from hurricanes raging up from the Gulf. Scientists say that's the best way to save the city: make that ancient shield of wetlands strong again.
http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/wetlands/hurricane1.html
Get a transcript of Neal Cavuto's show from Sunday morning. One of his guests went through a laundry list of things the levee board wasted money on.
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