Wellllllllll
Nagin was quoted in that local radio interview -- replayed on CNN and other networks -- that there had been a proposal to use school buses. "School buses!" he ranted with disdain, "School buses! Where are the Greyhounds? Why isn't every bus company coming here to rescue these people."
Um, maybe because they were under THREE FREAKIN' FEET OF WATER? All of the buses in that pic have their engines underwater. They aren't going anywhere anytime soon. To say that they should have been moved to high ground before the storm is hindsight B.S.
I would put the mayor on suicide watch- this is not going to go over well. The Mayor should come clean right now- there was no plan- there never was a plan.Typical low life democrat in leadership- while others clean up the mess,save and reassure people-they spend their time spinning.
Drudge is great.
Freepers, you so totally rock!!!
Red
Because they weren't Greyhound busses, don'cha know.
You know, I keep hearing that all these "refugees" are poor people who could not afford cars and thus could not evacuate before the storm. EXCUSE ME! Those homes from which I see people being plucked from roofs are not owned by unemployed/welfare families. Those people had cars and stayed because they thought they knew better than the weather reporters: that they could ride it out as they have others; that the media was just hyping the storm because there was nothing more exciting going on. Some had real issues like elderly or sick family members that they did not want to "upset", but most could have gotten HAD THE MESSAGES FROM THE GOVERNOR AND THE MAYOR BEEN DELIVERED WITH AN AUTHORITATIVE, MATTER OF FACT - DO IT OR DIE - TONE. Also, I am sick of people equating poverty with lawlessness. Because one is poor does not mean one is a criminal. That is determined by the way people are raised - with or without values. Too many today are raised without values.
After seeing the caravan roll into N.O. today, it is obvious the mayor was out of the loop on any of the measures being taken to alleviate the problems.
His rant this morning on CNN does not square up with the caravan that started rolling into the city at 9 a.m.
I heard someone state that if they can do it for an election, then they can do it for an evacuation.
Has the Mayor answered the question yet? /sarc
New Orleans has, quite literally, been turned inside out, and America has had some of its most terrible national vulnerabilities exposed for the world to see. Our enemies are taking notes. We better be taking some notes, too.
It will be more difficult for people to ignore explicit hurricane warnings for at least a generation, so harping on the accuracy of the National Hurricane Center’s predictions of what would happen when this storm came ashore is pointless. Whether this renewed respect for the National Weather Service is transferable to the other agencies we pay to warn us remains to be seen.
The chattering classes have also had thrust upon them an unnerving look at America’s urban underclass, washed out from behind the curtain and shaken out on the living room floor. That’s the same New Orleans that was always there, by the way. It’s just been turned inside out. It’s not a pretty picture.
Among the working poor came the gangs and the addicts and all that they could carry through the floodwaters, and now they are angry, we are being told. They were angry before, of course, but now they are storm victims, with all the attendant trauma and dumbfounded astonishment that accompanies that unhappy state of mind and being.
A lot of people watching from a distance are angry for them, some with some sort of bizarre guilt and misdirected anger less for the victims, I would imagine, than for some sense that somebody, somewhere, has made a terrible mistake.
But this is not Chernobyl. A lot of people made a choice to be, or just happened to be, in the wrong place at the wrong time and lightning struck. There is plenty of the uniquely human kind of outrageous stupidity to go around, but FEMA isn't the problem.
Unless, of course, governments tend to foster dependence. Afterall, FEMA's original primary mission is COG, or "Continuity of Government," not search and rescue.
In Mississippi and Alabama, where the largest storm surge ever recorded has swept away whole communities and families, there is anger too. Anyone who has ever sat upon the ground in the stillness of the ruins after these storms understands how it feels to have the startlingly thin veneer of modern civilization ripped away. Patience does eventually transform to discomfort and then to fear, which manifests itself as anger as first the hours, then the days and then the weeks pass by and the illusion of self-sufficiency brings both humility and humiliation.
All the anger is useless, of course, but reason gives way at times like these. It’s important, however, all the more to rely on reason. Especially by all of us who are trying to help. It is reasonable, for example, to understand that nature is not your mother and government is not your father.
The 1900 Galveston Hurricane began the transformation of the National Weather Bureau from a meteorological survey into something that gives people warning of the impending arrival of killer storms. Hurricane Andrew in 1992 demonstrated the value of building codes and satellites, but it also showed the powerlessness of government to come to the aid of the storm’s victims in a timely fashion.
We’re going to learn a lot from Katrina. Not all of it will be welcome. None of it will be pretty.
If this is a preview of how America’s governments are prepared to react in the aftermath of a nuclear attack on a single city, for example, in a scenario more likely than a wholesale nuclear war these days, then this dress rehearsal is not very encouraging. Some of those problems, now exposed for our enemies to see, may be beyond fixing until long after it’s too late.
Andrew taught the federal government to preposition relief supplies and reduce response and rescue time by many days, but that’s not going to be good enough for some people.
For others, it begs the question of what would be good enough?
It demonstrates the stark reality that people, families, and communities need to prepare to take care of themselves for some reasonable period of time before disaster strikes. And I don’t mean by buying flood insurance.
Katrina is going to teach us a lot about New Orleans, and New Orleans will show us how quickly local governments, and then state governments, can simply collapse. In comparison to the magnitude of a such a vast and powerful storm, governments are simply frauds, and always were, and the indulgence of their constituents alone keeps them afloat.
This disaster has exposed a People who are too dependent on government and who become helpless when government staggers. It has exposed one of many of America’s Great Cities who have among their people some who will immediately turn on authorities when the support they voted to support fails, even momentarily.
For Americans to rely upon one another, we must also be able to rely on ourselves. As anyone who takes on the responsibility of being a part of a family knows, you can’t help others when you can’t help yourself.
Sure, try to blame it on the victim!
George Bush and Halliburton own those buses!
Has to be! Has to be!
It's all Bush's fault!
/outraged lefty voice
Exactly what I said to my husband.....when they were telling people who didn't have any transportation to go to the SuperDome.
Anyone with common sense could predict that cramping thousands inside that huge place with no electricity, no toilets, etc. would create another disaster.
There was plently of time for the NO Mayor to get those poor people out of there and to another state before Katrina struck.
I understand this is his first elected office......and I predict it will be his last!
Since he linked to the image, the "headline" is actually his editorializing. Good for him. Others too should ask the blatantly obvious questions, instead of fellating the race baiters and Kyoto groupies.
WHY DIDN'T YOU DEPLOY THE BUSES, MAYOR?... New Orleans Lost Opportunity
What I've been screaming about for at least 2 days now. The mayor KNEW New Orleans was gonna get a direct hit (even though it didn't) and he didn't get the buses to the appropriate areas. So now, it's a mess down there. Where is he? In Baton Rouge..screaming SOS, and blaming Bush. The blame is his.