What is a lie? Any of this?
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Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state's emergency operations center said Saturday.
The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law.
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In case you have not noticed, we are a constitutional Federal Republic and not an absolute monarchy.
It is illegal for the President of the United States to barge in and take over control if the Governor stonewalls, which she did.
The true disaster of Katrina was not the anarchy and the looting. That is penny ante stuff.
The true disaster of Katrina is the fact that 200,000 low income residents were abandoned by an incompetent Governor and Mayor in a "flood bowl" that scientists had all but guaranteed would catastrophically flood in a Category 4 storm because the Governor and the Mayor had no evacuation plan in place for their 200,000 low-income citizens.
A FEMA Hurricane disaster exercise conducted in 2004 was modeled on catastrophic flood damage from a hypothetical "Hurricane Pam" that was modeled as only a slow-moving Category 3 storm. (Katrina was predicted to be a Category 5).
It was a given fact that staying within the New Orleans flood bowl ( yes, it is so far below sea level that scientists actually call it a "bowl") was suicidal so the Hurricane Pam Exercise specifically modeled to have "one million residents evacuated" BEFORE the storm struck.
Once that evacuation was completed (yes, including the 200,000 low-income residents that the Governor and Mayor left stranded like drowning rats in the New Orleans flood bowl), the Hurricane Pam scenario stated, "State resources are adequate to operate shelters for the first 3-5 days."
The Federal Government cannot be at all places at all times all across the 50 States and, in any case, it is folly to send your equipment, supplies and personnel on the move into the teeth of the storm so that they too can be destroyed or crippled. Therefore, the 3-5 day lag in the Federal surge of support supplies was part of the Hurricane Pam scenario plan.
State resources would have been adequate if the incompetent of the Governor and Mayor had not changed the Hurricane Pam scenario from:
1. "Shelter one million evacuated people"
to
2. "Shelter 800,000 evacuated people and then rescue 200,000 unevacuated low-income people abandoned in the New Orleans flood bowl".
No troops to quell a "Lord of the Flies" situation would have been necessary if those 200,000 low-income citizens had not been abandonded inside the "flood bowl".
Hurricane Pam Exercise Concludes.(2004 New Orleans Disaster Prediction)
The Louisiana Evacuation Plan supplement, most recently revised in 2000. Page 13, paragraph 5 states: "5. The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles. School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating. "
That is how the low-income people that did not own cars were supposed to get out the New Orleans flood bowl that experts almost guaranteed was going to catastrophically flood with a Category 4 storm.
Instead an incompetent Governor and an incompetent Mayor left those 200,000 people stranded in an area that the Hurricane Pam scenario predicted would be devastated.
Those two idiots had to have Bush begging them to order an evacuation.
Those two idiots refused to allow the Federal Government to handle the evacuation.
Those two idiots ran away to Baton Rouge and left the bus transportation called for by the Louisiana Evacuation Plan, page 13, paragraph 5 in neatly parked rows thereby dooming 200,000 low-income citizens to the hell of a catastrophically flooded New Orleans flood bowl.
"Bush's fault?"
Bullsh#t!
