[jec41]

Let me get this straight. The chief of the New Orleans police blames the federal government for letting the situation get out of hand?

I don't like NY but I do congratulate them on the way they handled 9/11. There was no rioting and looting or hoped for uprisings. They were about as prepared as possible and no fireman or police walked off the job until it was finished. Nor did they stand in the street and cry and try to blame the NG and president. They all stepped up to the plate and took care of their responsibility. Its the difference between professionals and amateurs. The soft and the ready. Make a flexible plan and do it. I also might add that even with the incompetence most were saved in spite of themselves. In most countries the majority of these people would have died.

[kabar]

I don't like NY but I do congratulate them on the way they handled 9/11. There was no rioting and looting or hoped for uprisings. They were about as prepared as possible and no fireman or police walked off the job until it was finished.

NYC did a great job, but what happened in NO and the Gulf Coast makes 9/11 look like a minor event. The disaster area in NYC was confined to a relatively small area (city blocks) compared to NO's 181 square miles or the 90,000 square mile regional disaster area. The number of people affected is also far greater. NO had a police force of about 1,500 compared to the 38,000 NYC police force. The 9/11 attack lasted a few hours and the site was cleaned up by May 30, 2002, less than 9 months later. We are talking about years to get NO back on its feet.

[Cicero]

I was in New York during 9/11, and the blacks in the city were, in my opinion, very patriotic. Everyone came together in a kind of solidarity, for the first few weeks at least. There was NOTHING like what happened in New Orleans. I think Giuliani was partly responsible for that, not only because he handled it so well at the time, but because he had instilled respect for law and order over the previous years. If 9/11 had happened under Mayor Dinkins, I hate to think what the reaction would have been.