Posted on 09/06/2005 4:26:40 PM PDT by RWR8189
"With several highways, 2 major and other smaller airports, a Republican government and 6 million generally decent people in the greater area, Houston would not be lawless for long (if at all)"
If there was looting and violence in huricane Alicia, or TS Allison, I didn't hear about it. I'm sure it happened in a city that size, but it wasn't rampant. I lived in Houston in 83, after Alicia there was price gouging but looters just didn't have the guts to try. Wherever you are, know your neighbors and look out for each other
Well the good news is that there are no other major cities with any drug problems.
America dodged a bullet there.
If we can fix this then Houston will be drug free just like LA, Motown and DC.
Thanks for the ping thackman. Fergot to ping you to the above pos# 17t.
I knocked my cough Syzurrp off the desk and lost my train of .............
Or post 22 or Wild Cherry.................
Ummmm.................
Yeah, this is a middle class problem.
There is all that.
I understand from an acquaintance that the violence that came to town with the refugees is going and will continue to go largely un/under reported.
bttt
I think the author over speaks Houston's glories given the mess the Houston Police department is in.
Because they NEVER know which Texan will pull out a self-defense implement and use it correctly ending the looting event and the looter's life. Still that way today. A lot of homes look like the displays in WalMart but better tools.
Are you nuts?
No city in the world could handle 26 inches of rain in a 24 hour period.
Tropical storm Alicia was an anamoly, and in no way reflects negatively on Houston's "planning."
Houston has its problems, as does any major city. But the ability of the city to mobilize and set up the Astrodome to accommodate 11,000 people, in 24 hours, is nothing short of miraculous, to say nothing of dispersing another 12,000 people in other shelters.
That would be Tropical Storm Allison, not Alicia.
The reason we don't have riots is mostly because we're generally friendly, polite and well-behaved.
Also it's because of the reputation of HPD. You just know they'd love to have free reign to crack heads if they were ordered. LOL
The violent crime that I spoke of (and that police won't investigate) predates the rain.
Also Chuck Rosenthal has already said he will ignore the law passed by the legislature making it permissible to carry a gun in your glovebox without a concealed carry permit.
They'd rather nannystate the citizens with jaywalking tickets, red light cameras, and mandatory tows (with the claim "if it saves ONE life it is worth it").
Part of the poor planning had to do with the destruction at the Medical Center.
Downtown construction also kept drains from working properly.
A bad situation got worse.
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3b21ae1b2c1e.htm
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3b22258f5ec0.htm
Also the rains caught everyone by surprise. What is the weather service for?
I am sure we could criticize Houston non stop for its faults. I am just glad that some neighbors in LA seemed happy for a hot shower, good meals, dental and medical care, a 24hr. pharmacy, clothing, volunteers to play with their children while they got paperwork done plus a warm welcome all set up in 2 days inside the astrodome.
No one is going to be thrilled with this situation, but the people around here did their best to meet needs and give comfort. I would like to rejoice in the good as well as absorbing all the bad news I have heard.
I was out of town this past week and forced to endure CNN and MSNBC for all my news. This hasn't happened to me in over a decade and I honestly would have thought George Bush was the anti christ if I didn't follow politics except on the evening news. I felt like I was in an enemy camp where only democrats ran the country and pubs gleefully watched people suffering. You cannot out 'care' a democrat and especially a dem reporter.
As much as I loathed and still loathe unindicted rapist William Jefferson Blythe Clinton, I did not want America to fail. I did not want more soldiers to die in Bosnia. I did not want the stock market or economy to tank. I did not root for natural disasters. It is a shame that those on the political left hate America and want bad things to happen unless their guy is in charge.
This writer has clearly never been to Houston's Third Ward.
Houston is to be commended for its generosity. But if a disaster similar to Katrina had hit there, or any other major city, the outcome wouldn't have been a whole lot different. Nobody is prepared for something like this. Katrina was an order of magnitude greater than anything the US has encountered in at least a century. It's easy and comforting to point fingers; it's a way of convincing ourselves it can't happen to OUR community. But it can and at some point will.
That's why we had better be figuring out how we can do things a LOT better and quit looking for scapegoats on the other side of the political fence...and that comment is directed to BOTH maor political parties. Al Quada is looking at what happened in New Orleans and salivating. Blanco may have dropped the ball, but plenty of things went wrong, and continue to go wrong, with the federal response. We had better correct them ASAP, because we're going to get a chance to run this exercise again, and maybe sooner rather than later.
Not sure I really know what he's saying. He should check the welfare rate of Houston before he proclaims victory. That town is one twister away from chaos.
-------
What he's saying is five paragraphs of self-congratulatory twaddle.
Greetings from Virginia....
I saw the FEMA (feds)...
I still to this day am not sure what they actually were doing...
That whole Allison thing really did a number on us...We learned from it what we needed to do to prepare for the next one...
And we didn't need any relief organizations to get us to do that...We figured it out...
So we're ready now...
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