[Captain Kirk]

Bush could have been sending in helicopters from a very early stage repairing the levees. The is a bi-partisan screw-up of the first order. No politician can be left off the hook, nobody.

[Blessed]

>Bush could have been sending in helicopters from a very early stage repairing the levees. <

LOL! your just making this up as you go along aren't you? You would do this and let people drown? You are such a good engineer that you know you could dam swift running water that easily?

[Jack Black]

Bush could have been sending in helicopters from a very early stage repairing the levees. The is a bi-partisan screw-up of the first order. No politician can be left off the hook, nobody.

And your degree in mechanical engineering is from what college? Helicopters repairing levees is a desperate hail-mary pass. Levee failure is fast amd complete in many cases. There are hundreds of miles of them around N.0. There was no way to do what you suggest, especially in 40mph - 140mph winds. The fault lies with the the ubelievably bad job that the City Government did in disaster planning. If they knew the Superdome was going to be refuge of last resort it should have been hardened to make it so. Public Transportation should have been used to evac the poor days before the order was given.

The mayor should be prosecuted for criminal negligence. The Governor is not much better. If it is true that the National Guard do not have authority or means (bullets) to put down rioting due to her squeamishness that is pathetic and she is a pathetic fool. Feds and FEMA always take 48 hours to arrive. I was 10 miles from Loma Preita when it cracked and it was a lot longer than that before I saw FEMA people. It is always to city and state agencies who own planning and execution of emergency measures. The incompetents in LA failed badly, and thousands died as a result.

[Rokke]

"Bush could have been sending in helicopters from a very early stage repairing the levees."

Your ignorance is just stunning.
First, the President does not control National Guard assets.
Second, there are more than enough helicopters supporting the effort in New Orleans.
Third, since you are obviously not an engineer, I won't even ask you to describe the complexity of repairing a levee break in a flood zone, but just realize that you are clueless on that topic.
And finally, have you somehow missed the fact that this is one of the most major natural disasters to hit our nation in its history? Inherent to natural disasters is the fact that they are "disasters". That means that people die, things are destroyed, it takes months and even years to repair the damage...and this one happened just 4 days ago. Your head may be full of science fiction, but your body exists in reality. And the reality of this situation is that it will take time to respond and begin recovery.

[Belasarius]

So Bush is running the helicopter dispatch office? Those breeches are just now repairable because the water in NO has reached the level of the water in the lake. There wasn't any chance that they were going to actually stop a 200 yard breech with anything you could dump from a helicopter anyway. Once you started to close it the water pressure just increased blowing away whatever was dropped.

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

Which levees, the river or the canal levees? The river levees were in good order. The canal levees were a joke and nothing could improve them. Maintenance of the levees is the responsibility of the Army Corps of Engineers and they work primarily with Congress for funding.

I haven't been impressed with Bush's public response either. As always, he hasn't given enough face time and ends up looking removed. But you can hardly blame him for what has happened. A sea-coast city 7 feet below sea level. It's not LIKE trying to keep the ocean out, it IS trying to keep the ocean out.

[arjay]

It must be nice to be as smart as you. The only person on FR to have good judgment and common sense. I am awed!