Posted on 09/08/2005 1:28:36 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Read on . . .
Sep 8th, 2005: 14:29:14
According to Garrett:
The Red Cross was ready. I got off the phone with one of their officials. They had a vanguard, Brit, of trucks with water, food, hygiene equipment, all sorts of things ready to go where? To the Superdome and convention center. Why weren't they there? The Louisiana Department of Homeland Security told them they could not go.
Why not? Garrett again:
The Red Cross tells me that state agency in Louisiana said, look, we do not want to create a magnet for more people to come to the Superdome or convention center, we want to get them out. So at the same time local officials were screaming where is the food, where is the water? The Red Cross was standing by ready, the Louisiana Department of Homeland Security said you can't go.
Garrett was later interviewed by radio talker Hugh Hewitt [transcript, very much worth reading, from Radio Blogger].
Garrett to Hewitt:
I think they are. I mean, and look. Every agency that is in the private sector, Salvation Army, Red Cross, Feed The Children, all the ones we typically see are aggrieved by all the crap that's being thrown around about the response to this hurricane, because they work hand and glove with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. When FEMA is tarred and feathered, the Red Cross and the Salvation Army are tarred and feathered, because they work on a cooperative basis. They feel they are being sullied by this reaction.
Hewitt later asked:
I also have to conclude from what you're telling me, Major Garrett, is that had they been allowed to deliver when they wanted to deliver, which is at least a little bit prior to the levee, or at least prior to the waters rising, the supplies would have been pre-positioned, and the relief...you know, the people in the Superdome, and possibly at the convention center, I want to come back to that, would have been spared the worst of their misery. Garrett replied:
They would have been spared the lack of food, water and hygiene. I don't think there's any doubt that they would not have been spared the indignity of having nor workable bathrooms in short order.
http://www.redstate.org/story/2005/9/8/142914/9010
Yup, Nagin neglected something very basic.
Result: reports indicate that the anarchy started almost as soon as the lights went out.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
However, we should all forward this piece to our local newspaper and see what they do with the information. My guess is NOTHING!
BFLR
It's hard to anticipate how things will unfold in a national disaster but the state and local government of LA is doing a big CYA (with additional don't-look-at-us voices from their senators and reps on the Hill, and the Congressional Black Caucus).
Is this saying that FEMA was in charge of getting aid to the Superdome and convention center but was stopped by the locals?
So FEMA was there?
its amazing what people in power have the power to do, yet they do not. Alot of lives could have been saved if Blanco/Nagin had followed simply evacuation plans, but then I wonder if the violence would have been any less...probly not....considering
Or, if Blanco had let the supplies in when it looked like Nagin had failed to do so, they could have gotten to the people inside, then forced them to evac.
It's looking like local and state couldn't coordinate between themselves, and Fed had to fill the void. No wonder there was a vacuum in the interim...
I saw President Bush give a speech earlier this afternoon saying they are staffing up the phones and for people to please be patient.
This would almost be funny if I just weren't so sick of hearing the dems complain constantly.
FEMA works with the Red Cross but it sounds like until the Gov gives the O.K., they can't begin.
Who cares...the pajama media will get this plastered everywhere.
The early sci-fi story "The Machine Stops" was actually written by H.G. Wells and was one of my favorites. About a utopian future world where humans spend most of their lives in high-tech little hexagonal cells in sealed-off cities which cater to their every need. All linked together by some kind of supercomputer (it was written in 1914) the "Machine" of the title. The heroine of the story has a rebellious younger brother who makes his way to the world without just long enough to realize there are people living unconnected to this system (shades of "THX 1138") but the robots recapture him before he can get away. He returns to tell her of his discovery but she does not believe him. Then one day the great machine "stops" and everything falls apart.
And when I hear "The Matrix is soooo original" I just laugh. :-)
Nagin has the Red Cross just outside the city with supplies. He could have bussed everybody out to where the Red Cross was, used schools as shelters, and none of this would have happened.
Dems are desperate to conceal the failure of a Dem Mayor and a Den Governor.
I wonder how hard it is to get a line into Jane Harmon's office. Give me a break.
Result: reports indicate that the anarchy started almost as soon as the lights went out.
I spoke to a few people who were in the Superdome. Their stories were about the same.
Everyone was being checked for weapons, etc when they first got there. There was a call(don't know who)to let everyone in since it was begining to rain and familes were getting wet.
It was at this time people were coming in with guns and such.
On Sunday night several speakers got up and spoke about the Dome and told the evacuee's there was plenty of food and water, etc.
Once they ended their speech, they were never to be seen again. This included the security presence.
Rival gangs started fighting with one another, gun shots could be heard all night, etc, etc.
Hell broke out and no one wanted to control it or at least felt powerless to control it.
Yes!
The idea that the government should/can take care of you is nonsense! The big government LIE is being exposed.
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