"You sound like the 'rats that were saying on Friday that it's been 6 days since the hurricane hit.
Go buy a calculator."
Actually I was more or less quoting the head of FEMA who raised the issue that they had three days warning.
The Hurricane was Monday. It wasn't really til this morning (Saturday) that large quantities of food and water arrived. That's five days plus three days notice. Again this matches what FEMA was saying this afternoon.
The President also said the results were not coming fast enough.
I don't know how much blame is gonna be divided although it's clear the mayor and the governor get lots of blame.
Clearly President Bush is something of a hero for pleading with the mayor to evacuate. A President shouldn't have to do that and he may have save 100,000 lives by putting his ego aside.
But just because the President personally was effective and smart doesn't mean the whole Federal mechanism moved fast enough. That's another issue. The Federal response in force was much slower than the hurricane effort in Florida and much slower than on 9/11.
Water has a way of slowing things down. There was none in 9/11 and Andrew was relatively dry for a hurricane. Florida was not under water. Also read the first three lines ('Fact:')of the timeline.
You have apparently yet to fully grasp the colossal magnitude of what Katrina wrought.
Did it ever occur to you that this crisis is infinitely larger than 9/11. You are looking at tens of thousands of square miles. It is much more than NO.
Add Ala. and MS. to the mix and you have an almost impossible situation. Frankly, it is amazing that as much has been done as has been done.
Plus the fact that in areas other than NO, the local leaders (Barbour for one) are much more capable and more willing to stand on their own feet rather than helplessly wait on the Fed. Gov't.
The Dems know only to wait on the Feds for help.
Could we have had better response? If the governor had agreed, certainly.
All plans can be better. All plans fail when faced with reality.
I am sick to death of the criticism of people who were and are doing their very best to help people in need, regardless of income or color.
To all those who are griping, Shut up and help or shut up and get out of the way.
Who would say the opposite knowing the gravity of the situation ?
Will people please get this through their heads - THERE IS NO COMPARISON BETWEEN THIS MASSIVE DISASTER AND 9/11!
The disaster area in 9/11 was measured in city blocks, the disaster in Katrina is roughly the size of Great Britain.
The disaster area in 9/11 was surrounded by a near fully functioning major city with easily accessable resources that were untouched by the disaster. NYC was surrounded by cities that were untouched with resources that could be mobilized and sent immediately. 9/11 was a tragedy, but it dwarfs in comparison to this disaster. The UN has said in scope this is THE biggest international natural disaster ever.
Please open your minds and digest the facts. This is bigger than the tsunamis. In the tsunamis the waves came on shore and then washed out. Here a hurricane came on shore the waves washed in and the hurricane kept churning on with mass destruction in it's path long past exiting New Orleans.
You cannot even count the first day as a feasable day for FEMA response to have begun because there was a freaking hurricane passing through the city all day!
Your paraphase of the President's statement is wrong. He said the response was good, but the results were not acceptable. FEMA could have everything there, but if the city officials and state officials won't coordinate with them and help them make plans, then they can't do anything. FEMA is there to ASSIST the state and local relief effort, to HELP them execute their disaster plans. They are not in freaking control of it.
Measured how? By how long it took to get 200 Blackhawks over WTC and rescue 10,000 people by Skyhook? By how long it took to get TSA in the Airports (7 months) or secured cockpits? (2 years) or to overun Tora Bora?
IIRC, apart from a handful at the Pentagon, there was not a singer soul rescued by Federal "effort" in the 9/11 attack, so how cab you compare?
I honestly think the feds response has been pretty fast concidering they havn't had the support of the local goverment. How fast they can respond in any area depends on having people who are familiar with the city or area and actaully show leadership by sharing that info. with FEMA so they can do their job and co ordinate the fed resources coming in. States and cities in FL and NY show that they did have people in place to get the chaos under control and with the knowledge and the guts to make decisions on the run. There has been way to much hesitation on the part of the Gov. of LA and the mayor of the city of NO.
Whining doesn't help when people need guidence in an emergency, save the whinnyness for later, after you've dealt with the immediate chaos and needs.
I don't remember submerged roads and submerged thousands of acres of in either of those instances.
Was 80% of the city flooded and were the bridges down?
Tuesday 07:00 - Notified of immediate activation. Report to assigned armory within 24 hours. They both had to make arrangements with schools, employers and families in that time frame.
Wednesday 07:00 - Check-in at designated armory. Prepare, pack and load equipment and supplies around the clock.
Thursday 06:00 - Already on the road headed 500 miles south.
I don't know when they arrived or anything else about where they are or what they did when they got there. If you or anyone eles thinks you could do the same in less time or more efficiently then why in HELL aren't you there instead of sitting on you f** a** in front of your computer bitching?