Posted on 02/09/2006 8:34:49 PM PST by blogblogginaway
Among the findings that emerge in the mass of documents and testimony:
¶Federal officials knew long before the storm showed up on the radar that 100,000 people in New Orleans had no way to escape a major hurricane on their own and that the city had finished only 10 percent of a plan for how to evacuate its largely poor, African-American population.
¶Mr. Chertoff failed to name a principal federal official to oversee the response before the hurricane arrived, an omission a top Pentagon official acknowledged to investigators complicated the coordination of the response. His department also did not plan enough to prevent a conflict over which agency should be in charge of law enforcement support. And Mr. Chertoff was either poorly informed about the levee break or did not recognize the significance of the initial report about it, investigators said.
¶The Louisiana transportation secretary, Johnny B. Bradberry, who had legal responsibility for the evacuation of thousands of people in nursing homes and hospitals, admitted bluntly to investigators that "we put no plans in place to do any of this."
¶Mayor C. Ray Nagin of New Orleans at first directed his staff to prepare a mandatory evacuation of his city on Saturday, two days before the storm hit, but he testified that he had not done so that day while he and other city officials struggled to decide if they should exempt hospitals and hotels from the order. The mandatory evacuation occurred on Sunday, and the delay exacerbated the difficulty in moving people away from the storm.
¶The New Orleans Police Department unit assigned to the rescue effort, despite many years' worth of flood warnings and requests for money, had just three small boats and no food, water or fuel to supply its emergency workers.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
You need to relax. I was refering to the media's attempt to blame the WH for all of Katrina...like they have been doing since day 1. The article itself is not concerned with currently helping those in need. All it is focused on is to place blame on the WH.
Oh, and as a side note, if someone lives below sea level or near a coast, insurance is a good idea.
Why even have a city government, if the Feds are expected to do everything?
V537
I'll have you know that I arrived home to Houston for a medical leave two days before Katrina hit. I was heartbroken as the news became worse and worse and volunteered the Reliant Center / Astrodome for several days working with the evacuees as well as coughing up generous donations to various groups helping out.
Don't be so quick to judge people and jump up on your soapbox from just a few words. I believe Frank was making fun of the media flurry, not the victims.
Believe me, in my line of work, a sense of humor is essential. Be grateful it isn't required in yours.
And lighten up a little. Life is too short.
Just as I suspected. Again, ROFL! ;-)
Your comment was flippant and hurtful no matter how you try to spin it after the fact. And you'll have to excuse me. I wasn't aware that if people had only had insurance their houses wouldn't have flooded and they wouldn't have lost everything dear to them. What was I thinking?
I was not trying to spin it. Now, talk to the hand!
You say don't be so quick to judge people and yet from one post you come to the conclusion that I have no sense of humor. Interesting.
Actually the flooding did start the night of the storm, despite Shep's exuberance. The low lying areas were flooding but they were miles away from the French Quarter.
I don't think that the WH, state or local officials knew though because it wasn't reported until the other breeches happened. I saw the Discovery channel story of it and it was shown in the documentary where the flooding was happening earlier than reported.
Ultimately it's the individuals fault for not taking care of their family members and themselves. I have had to evacuate with a sick elderly parent before and even though state and local agencies were available to help with the evacuation *I* made sure my wheel chair bound father was taken out of harm's way. My father was receiving home health nursing care and as soon as there was a chance that this area was in the cone of probability the evacuation protocol was enacted. Every one of his nurses and the agency called ahead of time, scheduled a pick up time and made sure his oxygen bottle and other meds were filled. It's the same plan on the books state wide.
Most of those elderly folks that drowned in the nursing home had children who should have taken care of their own family member. The problem we have today is that families don't take care of their own anymore. We have abdicated the responsibility to the state. Whose fault is that?
Is it easy, no, been there done that, but I can sleep at night without any guilty feelings. My sister knows one of the children of the drowned nursing home residents and they are ate up with guilt and remorse. Except for those who were on life support or totally bed bound there really isn't any excuses for children not to go get their mother or father and evacuate them themselves.
The failures really were on the local level primarily because Southwest Louisiana has had several mandatory evacuations and they always get the people out. When Rita slammed into us just three weeks later not one person died because the local officials knew the evacuation plan and put in in place as soon as they knew that they were the bullseye. The evacuation plan works when used.
The truth is many people chose to stay behind because they figured that the storm would turn like usual. They of course were wrong. Many did have a way out despite all of the complaining otherwise.
You post contained more than "a few words." ;-)
Now, let's see that sense of humor. C'mon...you can do it. It's Friday. Laugh and be merry. Life is good.
I see you like cats. Anybody that likes cats can't be all bad in my book. How's that?
Gawd, this is staggering:
"Mr. Bradberry, the state transportation secretary, told an investigator that he had focused on improving the highway evacuation plan for the general public with cars and had not attended to his responsibility to remove people from hospitals and nursing homes. The state even turned down an offer for patient evacuation assistance from the federal government."
They failed to plan to evacuate the most helpless. AND THEN TURNED DOWN A FEDERAL OFFER TO HELP WITH SUCH.
That is criminal incompetence. Blanco and Bradberry should be impeached, removed, tried and convicted - they left people It should have been its own shrieking above-the-fold headline. But the NY Times is too interested in what damage it can do to the Bush Admin, so it buried this stunning revelation at the very bottom of the article.
This is, IMO, the worst bias I have ever seen on the part of the NY Times. And that's saying something.
But....but....Shepard Smith, the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-hot air reporter said New Orleans had "dodged the bullet." In fact, he said it so many times it sounded like a mantra or something. And of course, at least according to him, he knows so much more than President Bush!
I know what you are saying. I live in FL, in Jacksonville, where like NOLA, we have not had a major hit since 1969 (although I have only been here since last summer). I was in Houston in 1983 when Alica came in as a Cat III. There was a lot of flooding, as I recall about 80 people died, all downtown had the glass blown out of the buildings, but we survived. When I saw Shep Smith in the quarter, I figured, yeah, there's localized flooding, it's going to be horrible for some, but the city was spared. I think everyone was ready for a Hurricane, but despite all the warnings, when it came in as a high Cat 3 or low 4, everyone figured NOLA might make it. I have been to NOLA, and it was (and probably will be again) a beauiful city. I do believe that the Administration did not ignore the problem and that the primary responsibility, like you stated is individual responsibility, followed by local, State and lastly Federal responsibility. I don't think because W. was on the ranch that he ignored it. I think everyone relied on what they were seeing on cable news and the newspapers who have more "eyes" than anyone but the military. I simply resent the politicization of Katrina. It is interesting that after the earthquake in Pakistan which killed more than 100,000 people, there was the exact same criticism of Musharref. I suppose it's natural to blame whoever is in power. I even heard some moonbat blame President Bush for the earthquake (something with global warming affecting tectonic plates, LOL). So, I guess all I'm saying to the Dims is not to use this as a stick to beat the Bush Administration.
Maybe we should understand and accept that for catastrophes such as Katrina, we can expect some bottled water and some MREs, but that we are on our own for medium- and long-term housing, etc. And maybe we should also understand and accept that repair of major infrastructural damage (unless critical to national security) is going to take so long that life as we knew it in that area is over.
It seems less cruel to tell victims of a disaster like Katrina that whatever life they had before is gone.
Mumps, the big problem we're seeing in New Orleans is classic liberal behavior. Few are willing to do anything for themselves and want the nanny-state to do it for them. They hole up in hotels and whine when someone suggests they go out and actually look for a job and support themselves. Before the storm, they shuffled their feet and waited for the government to do whatever was required--it goes on and on. Mississippi was hit just as hard if not harder, yet they're pulling themselves together, and scarcely a whine is heard.
After all, I'm not a liberal. ;-)
Oh...and yes, I adore cats.
Careful. Halliburton is well on its way to ruling the whole world. ;-)
Halliburton afforded me the opportunity to put quite a few bucks into the ol' retirement / rainy day fund and I worked HARD for that...
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