Posted on 09/06/2005 5:35:09 AM PDT by pittsburgh gop guy
Yes. They know they live in a "possible" disaster area. For instance, this city had a large flood several years ago near where we live. We did not depend on the national government to get things done. The churches took over feeding the people in that area. They brought chainsaws to cut trees into smaller pieces so they could be moved. We depended on our neighbors to help us. The city bought out houses that were flooded and widened the drainage creek to make sure it would not happen again. We are in a tornado zone but again, we depend on our neighbors. Sure the Salvation Army and Red Cross come in but even that took a few days but neighbors helped care for the people in the area that was hit.
Read my post - #216.
FEMA did not set up the convention center as a mass care center. Did not happen. New Orleans or ARC did - and then abandonded it. How the hell is FEMA supposed to know everything? Yes - reporters went there and shot footage, but guess what people that work for FEMA were: DOING WORK and not watching tv. Or - should FEMA employ people to just watch tv. ANd they would have to employ A LOT of people because of all the coverage. Gee - wouldn't it be better to have FEMA employees actually working on getting aid to the people they do know about?
The failure at the convention center was a local one. Once it was brought to FEMA's attention, the clock was ticking on how long it took the feds to get aid there and the place evacuated. If they knew about it and did nothing, then they can be blamed, but it is very legitimate that they may not have known about it until Thursday. Then they had to figure out a way to get massive quantities of aid there. If they knew about it for several days and did nothing, blast them for it - but if they found out about it on Thursday and arrived to the rescue on Friday, not too bad in my book. Yeah, Thursday night would have been nice, maybe early Friday morning, but better to do it with the right number of troops and supplies.
GEEZ - some on here are forgetting that the feds don't know everything about everything (and they know nothing about a lot of things). If you think that someone at FEMA knows where you will go to if you are evacuated from your home - you need to check into Disneyland full-time. FEMA does not know - and for them to know would take a lot more employees than what they have - and what you would be happy to pay in taxes to support.
from the DHS's own website:
"Response -- Lead, manage and coordinate the national response to acts of terrorism, natural disasters, or other emergencies."
Perhaps we shouldn't get ahead of ourselves here. The responsibility for leading, managing, AND coordinating is in the lap of the DHS (which owns FEMA).
Let's not look silly defending FEMA, PLEASE!!!!
Oh, come now. I served almost eight years in the military as a Supply Officer. I have some idea as to capabilities and logistics. We could have ferried in enough people with the helicopter assets on hand to maintain order and security until the convoys came in. You don't need "overwhelming force." Enough supplies could have been sent in by chopper to take care of the most needy.
And everyone is getting on FEMA's case over the convention center - and that they didn't know about it. My question is: Who the hell set that shelter up?
Some people just gravitated there. I assume the city used it previously. Certainly FEMA had nothiung to do with it nor did they have anything to do with the Superdome. Nagin is totally responsible for the arrangements.
Trent Lott now wants to punch PRESIDENT Bush??? How did I miss that?
Yes, it does. The same goes for people who build on flood plains.
If you build your house in an area that is prone to some sort of cataclysmic event, you shouldn't be surprised when that event occurs. There's nothing wrong with building/living there, you just have to be ready to deal with the hand mother natures deals. And if something does happen, it's not "Bush's Fault."
It is more difficult to make those comments before the event happened. I did say the Sunday morning that Nagin declared a mandatory evacutation, that we should have sent in military aircraft to evacuate people.
How many military aircraft would it have taken to airlift 100,000 people? You want this done in less than 24 hours? Heck, probably less than 12 hours since it would have been too dangerous to fly as the hurricane came closer. So, even if the planes had been requested at 0600 Sunday, how many flights do you think could have gotten in and out of NO in 12 hours? (I know, every life saved is valuable but it's still not the answer to the problem)
I saw that, and about 45 minutes later she was interviewed (split screen unlike FOX which was just phone, so you could see her squirm)by CNN's Soledad O'Brien.
Amazingly, Soledad was much tougher and direct with her than FOX.
You said: That's the crux of the matter. In this case, I say legalisms and laws be damned. Save lives and alleviate suffering. Just as we praise the 18 year old who broke the law and commandeered a school bus to save himself and others, we need to assist our fellow citizens in the name of morality and humanity.
***
We also aren't going to arrest those who may have "looted" food, water and necessities in this emergency, and I do understand your point. The problem is that, if what you suggest were to become precedent, the feds would be able to act whenever they thought it was in the best interest of those being served. Someone earlier in the thread asked that you state how this concept you support would be limited, and you did not directly respond. How about fed action to forcibly close abortion mills? (But it does sound tempting.) Some religious organizations don't believe in blood transfusions, perhaps the army should come in and close the doors of such religious practitioners. It would almost certainly save lives. How about federal intervention on our highways to slow down traffic? Sure, some of these may sound silly to you, but how do we define the paramater for ignoring state officials and substituting federal agencies? This is a very thorny problem, even in the face of what APPREARS to have been a tardy federal response.
"Rush just read most of this article on the air."
That's cool. Although we should have learned from the Rathergate affair last year - let no one doubt that FreeRepublic has an impact. I am pretty sure that Rush or one of his minions saw the article here - I mean, who reads the Pittsburgh Post Gazette? (Other than me and some other ex-pats).
I also saw it posted on NRO - The Corner by KLO. I would bet she saw it on here too.
Wish I had written it.
So what should our response be if SF gets hit by the big one? Call them idiots for living there and refuse any federal assistance? There are very few places in this country that are immune from natural disasters. Most of our major citites are built on rivers and oceans. Tornados and earthquakes zones are all over the country.
How many military aircraft would it have taken to airlift 100,000 people? You want this done in less than 24 hours? Heck, probably less than 12 hours since it would have been too dangerous to fly as the hurricane came closer. So, even if the planes had been requested at 0600 Sunday, how many flights do you think could have gotten in and out of NO in 12 hours? (I know, every life saved is valuable but it's still not the answer to the problem)
We could have evacuated the hospitals, old age homes, and children.
Finally! Thank you for this post ... I am STUNNED at the ignorance of just how things work in this country by so many in the media, the general public, even a few on these BBS sites.
Are you getting your talking points from Jesse Jackson?
This was a storm of Biblical proportions; people were going to die, regardless of how soon the aid got there; and you cannot save people who don't have the sense or will to save themselves.
Just because you wrote some disaster plans doesn't mean you could implement them without anything going wrong.
Maybe you could put them up here for us all to go over with a find tooth comb; I'm sure some on here could find something wrong with what you did.
Da** that pesky Constitution of the United States, the laws on the books ... what a nuisiance. [/sarc]
I heard an interview on FOX-NEWS with a retired Louisiana official who said that the department/association responsible for maintaining the levees had used the money to buy a casino and to invest in each others' businesses rather than strengthen the levees. I'm sorry that I didn't note the name, but I hope this info comes out on the Internet somewhere.
I know your "how many years" was a rhetorical question, but the last storm to really slam New Orleans was Betsy in 1965. And not surprisingly, it destroyed the same area that was first hit in Katrina--the Lower Ninth Ward.
}:-)4
I might be inclined to agree with you. If you would phrase the last part ('Fed blameless') this way:
The Feds share some responsibility for failing to recognize, or even believe, the complete incompetence of the local and State 'leaders' sooner.
Just a thought process I'm working through. I might be wrong.
We can worry about setting precedents later. Congress, the MSM, university professors, and the rest of the elites can discuss it ad nauseum after lives are saved and order established.
Someone earlier in the thread asked that you state how this concept you support would be limited, and you did not directly respond. How about fed action to forcibly close abortion mills? (But it does sound tempting.) Some religious organizations don't believe in blood transfusions, perhaps the army should come in and close the doors of such religious practitioners. It would almost certainly save lives. How about federal intervention on our highways to slow down traffic? Sure, some of these may sound silly to you, but how do we define the paramater for ignoring state officials and substituting federal agencies? This is a very thorny problem, even in the face of what APPREARS to have been a tardy federal response.
You can set up all the what-ifs you want and make all kinds of linkages to other issues. The bottom line is that there is an ongoing crisis of historic proportions involving millions of Americans. Sometimes people have to make hard and immediate decisions based on the circumstances. Saving lives trumps bureaucratic red tape.
ping
Where'd you find that 'consensus'?
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