It is absolutely impossible to evacuate a large population before a hurricane strikes. Fuel, transportation, and shelter space are all limiting factors.
My home has been hit directly by two major hurricanes within the last year and has been within Category 1 winds of two others. I had first hand experience with FEMA after hurricanes Ivan and Dennis. FEMA's responses were very uncoordinated and inconsistent. Their responses in those cases only caused a prolonged recovery period but those same problems in Louisiana and Mississippi have caused a large loss of life and prolonged misery.
That is criminal negligence. FEMA has had multiple opportunities to learn from their mistakes but they have not done so. As long as Chertoff and Brown remain in control all Americans face a greatly increased risk from disasters and terrorist attack.
WHY HAVEN'T CHERTOFF AND BROWN BEEN FIRED ALREADY???
You made a choice to live in a hurricane zone, and it's YOUR responsibility to ensure safety of family members, not mine - and CERTAINLY not the government! I made a choice to live in a tornado zone, so it's up to me to heed early warnings of severe weather.
Don't act like a child and play the blame game. Any blame would rest solely on state and local government, but ultimately it's you. It's called RESPONSIBILITY!
Obviously you're never going to get everybody out.
However, most were able to evacuate from NO. Most of the rest should have evacuated as well...and there should have been a workable plan in place for those without transporation.
There wasn't.
That is an unsupportable assertion...
If one KNEW the following:
1. A Category 5 hurricane was targeting New Orleans, as they were informed.
2. That much of New Orleans was below sea level.
3. That MOST of the folks living in the lowest areas were the poorest welfare dependent blacks ---- Their primary base constituency.
4. That these poor folks lacked the initiative or means to leave the low ground on their own.
5. There was enough time and enough buses available to have moved 100s of thousands of folks before the hurricane struck.
6. There was also enough time to have moved "STOCKED SUPPLIES" to the evacuated folks - IF - there were any to be had..
However -- there is ample evidence that NONE of this took place -----either BEFORE or AFTER the storm...
The only evidence we have to date is the that most of the responsible infrastructure of New Orleans and Louisiana is behaving like the murderer who killed his parents and is begging the court to have mercy on him as an orphan.
The rest of them and the DNC, NAACP, Congressional Black Cacao's, Jackson, Sharpton, etc, etc, etc.....are attempting to ignore the TOTAL failures of the locals -- who in an emergency of ANY type are responsible for pre-storm preemptive and post-storm first responder activity --- and blame EVERYTHING on the Federal Government...
I'm not proposing that the entire population could have been evacuated -- but at least those too ill or old to be left behind and those smart enough to accept a ride out of town could have been saved.
It didn't happen.....and hundreds of CITY buses are still sitting in water up to their axles...
Semper Fi