New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said that, before the storm hit, the buses were moved to higher ground that traditionally didn't flood. But this time the area, like 80 percent of New Orleans, did flood.Give someone a break enough to understand that everyone has habits. Storm's coming? Park the busses on (what in New Orleans had in the past passed as) high ground. The problem here was the single decision not to failure to decide to order mandatory evacuation - of the nursing homes in particular - in a timely fashion.
When my Dad died I was stunned at my own indecisive behavior. A friend who had been an officer in the Navy told me, "In the Navy we drilled for emergencies all the time. It was amazing - when the real thing hit you couldn't do things by the numbers." It can just be hard to accept that "this is the real thing."
The famous first report of the bombing of Pear Harbor said, "Air Raid, Pearl Harbor. This is no drill." And after some soldiers struggled to get to the armory to get ammunition to shoot at the Japanese attackers, the sergent in charge wouldn't release the ammo without orders. At a subsequent hearing he was asked under what conditions he would dispense the ammo without a requisition and he replied, "Only in an emergency."
"This is an emergency" is a thought. "You will release those school busses to people you don't know who are willing to drive them - or be arrested" is an emergency action. Nagin and Blanco knew it was an emergency; they just could not get things done in an emergency.
Nagin and Blanco knew it was an emergency; they just could not get things done in an emergency.I was sitting on the port side of the ship, in the chow line, for lunch. We were slowly heading north, about four miles off the beach, along I-Corps. Suddenly, there were geysers of water shooting up into the sky, near our tin can.
The alarm bells rang, and men leaped to action. I flew over to the starboard side, and went up to the gun director, my station. We skewed it to face the shore, and waited for the gunnies to load the 5 inchers. The steering went out, and briefly, we headed toward the beach, but they got to the after steering, and made the correction. (Note: had we not had a malfunction with the steering, the line of guysers led right to where we SHOULD have been heading...) We returned rapid free fire.
Quickly a bird dog appeared, in a cub (or something similar), and directed our fire. Within minutes, the shore batteries had been idled. We responded as we had been trained, and retrained.
Some people feel like a nut, some people don't!
Why are you an apologist for Nay-gin/Blank-o?
