Blaming President Bush; our readers weigh in

www.powerlineblog.com ^ | 9/2/05

[Lacey]

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/011542.php

I bring this up because I saw a lot of ambulances, police cars, and fire equipment flooded in the Katrina footage. It will be interesting to see what the NO preplanning was since their director of emergency response is all over the tv blaming Bush. We went through Frances (cat 4) and three weeks later Jeanne (cat 3) last year and I think Palm Beach County and Jeb Bush did a pretty good job. It's up to local and state people to tell the feds what they need and to run the emergency command centers, not just throw their arms up in the air and start blaming everyone else.

[Old Grumpy]

To show you the mind-set of several of the people I work with, one of them approached me this morning and told me that a tent city needs to be erected for all these displaced folks and it should be placed on President Bush's ranch in Crawford. Can you believe this crap!

[pollyannaish]

I've noticed this. Has there been hourly updates from the Mayors office? Have there been daily press conferences from the Governor?

Have you seen their presence on the street comforting people? Have the Parish commissioners (do they have them?) from the hardest hit areas been giving updates on what is going on in their sectors?

The lack of local government on this is astonishing!

[Logic n' Reason]

My eyes get "bleary" trying to count these buses, but my conservative guess is about 190.

If each bus could transport 40 folks (maybe more), that would have been 7,600 folks moved out of harms way...and the trip only had to be about 10 miles northwest.

So...figuring 8 round trips per bus, that would have removed 60,800 folks from harm's way.

Not a bad effort....of course, it didn't happen.

[fmonkey]

I live just outside Orlando and there was a story after one of the hurricanes we had last year on a local radio station. Jeb was out helping (I don't remember if he was handing out food/water or helping clean up) when a woman came up crying. She was an older woman and didn't speak any English. Being as he's bilingual he asked the woman what was wrong and she told him that she couldn't start making the insurance claim that was needed to get repairs to her house started. So Jeb, being a leader, takes the time to sit down with this lady and the insurance people to translate. The point being, he had his ducks in a row before anything happened. People in the government knew what they were supposed to be doing and did their jobs. He had lined up workers from other states to come in after the storm and repair downed power lines and other utilities by the time the hurricane watches were being issued.
I realize that the situation is a little different being as I'm not living under sea level, but there are things that the leaders of these areas should have done to help minimize the damage. It's not that they screwed up one big thing, it's that they didn't do the thousand little things that would've helped. Like sending a portion of emergency vehicles out of harms way so that they can respond to the situation afterwords. Or getting the National Guard involved before all hell broke loose.

[Hot Tabasco]

Just listening to Michael Medved and it has been reported that buses were dispatched to neighborhoods, cars with loudspeaker driving around announcing where the pickup points were but very few people were willing to take advantage. Why? Because the majority of those who stayed were staying to collect their government checks which arrive around Sept. 2nd..........

[conserv13]

I'd say the Louisiana governor is very responsible for this mess. As far as the mayor: to be fair, a lot of NOPD did not show up for work, or participated in the looting themselves. Many NOPD were heroes too.

With a disaster of this scale, FEMA really needed to step up.

God help us if there is is large scale terror attack. We've seen how prepared we are, 4 years after 9/11. We should all be ashamed and learn from this.

[TomasUSMC]

Did they say how many stinking buses are in that lot, looks like over 200 to me.

[lonestar]

The buses could have been used to evacuate the people who went to the Superdome and convention center...

assuming they wouldn't have been hijacked by the crackheads!

[Travis McGee]

I'm hearing over 360 buses, more than are captured in that picture.

[rolling_stone]

btt

[maineman]

Question.....

I've only heard Col. Hunt (On O'Reilly) say that the Gov. of La. NEVER 'pulled the trigger' to request Fed. assistance. Correct me if I'm wrong, doesn't the Gov. of any State have to request help in order receive Fed. help? From what I understand, NG troops from one State cannot enter another State without being requested by said state's Gov. Correct? If what I've heard from Col. Hunt is correct, how can the MSM continue to critize the President and his response time. This is really bothering me and if anyone can set me straight I'd appreciate it.



///I've heard back that the Gov. requested the state of emergency on the 27th. The Pres. acknowledged and granted the request on the 28th. Is this bogus??///

[billnaz]

Even before the winds died down I could sense the looney-tunes left and their buds in the lamestream media licking their chops over a Bush-bashing opportunity.

The good news is that the more they lie about President Bush the more they will get busted. The America-hating socialists don't have a monopoly on the means of communication any more.

[Bob]

Did they say how many stinking buses are in that lot, looks like over 200 to me.

I counted about 200 in the frame. It's pretty obvious that there are more buses outside of the picture; it's impossible to tell how many, though.

[Southack]

"I'd say the Louisiana governor is very responsible for this mess. As far as the mayor: to be fair, a lot of NOPD did not show up for work, or participated in the looting themselves. Many NOPD were heroes too."

The Mayor put into place a policy that mandated all N.O. police officers must live in the N.O. city limits.

But because of the high crime over the years, fewer and fewer policemen want to live inside the city limits of N.O.

That put demands on police recruitment that could only be met by lowering the standards for police hiring...so much so that former felons were permitted to wear the N.O. badge.

That's outrageous...and should shock no one that former felons with current police badges and guns suddenly participated in the looting.

Which all goes back to the Mayor's flawed police living mandate.

---

"God help us if there is is large scale terror attack. We've seen how prepared we are, 4 years after 9/11. We should all be ashamed and learn from this."

New Orleans was on the weaker West side of Hurricane Katrina. In contrast, Mobile was on the more powerful East side of Katrina's eye.

...Yet Mobile is doing fine, all things considered. Sure, it was damaged, but its evacuation plan worked and its disaster response plan worked and its pre-hurricane planning worked.

Same for Florida. Consider that Katrina made landfall near N.O. as a Cat 4. Well, Florida weathered a Cat 4 and a Cat 3 hurricane last year, as well as weathered Katrina herself days before N.O.

No chaos in Florida. No chaos in Mobile.

Yet it's the same FEMA. It's the same federal government. What's different between Florida, Alabama, and Louisianna?

Local leadership.