Posted on 08/28/2005 6:42:16 PM PDT by bamaroots04
POLITICALLY MOTIVATED MAYOR WAITS TOO LATE TO DECLARE MANDATORY EVACUATIONS. THE FEDERAL GOVT NEEDS THE POWER TO OVERRIDE LOCAL POLITICS AND ORDER EVACUATIONS.
The Mayor of New Orleans has blood on his hands. It took President Bush's pleas to finally influence the mayor to call for a mandatory evacuation. Meteorologists have been fairly certain since Thursday that New Orleans was going to be the target of Katrina, and furthermore that in all likelihood Katrina would grow into a Category 4 storm. Experts have warned that a Category 3 storm would ravage New Orleans with 20 foot floods which would require months to drain from the city. A category 3 would induce catastrophic damage in New Orleans. And yet Katrina was predicted to be not just a category 3, but a category 4, so the damage would foreseeably be many times more devastating than the mere 20 foot flood catastrophe a category 3 would induce. Yet the mayor of New Orleans did nothing, wasted precious time, hoping foolishly that the storm track would change.
Now in America for some reason we have delegated the authority to declare mandatory evacuations to the mayors of affected areas. There is a tremendous flaw in this system. People become increasingly complacent and aggravated when they are forced to evacuate for a storm and it misses them entirely. The many "false alarm" evacuations prompted by the barrage of hurricanes that hit the US last year but missed New Orleans created a cynical citizenry, upset at the inconvenience of being moved for a false alarm hurricane evacuation.
Fast forward to August 2005, despite Katrina barreling towards New Orleans, the mayor hesitated and hesitated to declare mandatory evacuations because he feared repercussions @ the ballot box if the evac turned out to be another false alarm.
It took the President's persistence to sway the Mayor to finally declare mandatory evacuations Saturday morning. That left authorities in New Orleans two days to organize and assemble mass evacuations. As it stands, there are likely thousands of impoverished, backwoods people who in their reluctance to accept New Orleans impending doom refuse to leave behind the homes that they and their ancestors have proudly inhabited for decades. Naturally, they are induced by a mix of cynicism, denial, and pride to attempt to preserve the fruits of their lives' labor, namely their homes.
There is a good chance that many of the thousands of remaining people will not last through the 200+ wind gusts, +28 foot storm surge, and 20+ foot flood streams. All because of the political concerns of a mayor and an US policy that allows those political concerns to determine whether or not to order evacuations.
Is it really "communist" to suggest that the federal govt is better able to organize a response to a hurricane than a state that has not been hit by one in over 40 years? Yes 43 years to be exact. Im sure theyve been pouring in the dough and getting ready for something that hasnt happened in 40 years. The fed'l govt on the otherhand, with FEMA and the National Weather Service, has a little bit more experience with hurricanes (Florida anyone???) and can deal with it better.
ITS PEOPLES LIVES
Why the hell didn't they have at least SOME of the South bound lanes made into NORTH bound lanes so more people could get out faster!!
AC, that'd be a nice bit of well needed culture shock to the nanny-state dependents who have been nursing on the government teat for so many years.
It's a hard world sometimes, and no citizen of a free nation should be forced to ceed responsibility for their own liberty, safety, and welfare to an irresponsible bureaucracy - local, state, or federal.
Our federal government can't efficiently distribute free cheese, yet they've taken charge of transportation security - where they refuse to look for terrorists - and yet still here we have some calling for federal "takeover" of mandatory evacuation orders. I'm not sure where the constitution allows for this - not that we've paid much attention to that little document for the past 50 years or so.
Me thinks, they, that were stupid enough to build this city below sea level are dead years ago!
fuggeddabowdit.....
There should be no such thing as mandatory evacuation, if people wanna tough it out and die that's their decision.
Betsy in 1965, Camille in 1969, and Ivan last year. The later storms were glancing blows, but they should have been a wake-up call.
I heard that they saw all the animals moving inland and considered it wise to join them.
That isn't much of an argument for Federalization of local emergency evacuation procedures.
What makes you think the Federal Government is going to care more than you do about preserving your life?
It shows nothing of the sort.
It shows the need for the people to stop electing morons.
On the news tonight, a homeless couple was interviewed. The man said he wasn't going to evacuate or go to an evacuation shelter. He was going to go behind that wall. He didn't think the water would go over it, but if it did, he could swim!
First, Camille was in 1969, thirty-six years ago and I remember that storm. It was the most devastating thing I have ever seen. All the more reason for New Orleans to have developed a plan by now.
As far as comparing the systems, I have already said that every state on the Gulf Coast should be prepared for hurricanes. That is especially true of any state that has seen the devastation of Camille.
Don't use the 'they have not been hit in blah, blah, blah years' as an excuse. The Miami area had not been hit for years until Andrew came along. If some thing can happen and it's a really bad thing, you have to plan for when it does happen. Louisiana has not done their planning to their own detriment.
What really would have been helpful? New Orleans could have come out of its dream world and started making plans the day after Camille hit. Barring that, at the very least they should have started developing evacuation plans when they saw Florida hit four times, twice on the Gulf Coast.
The people of New Orleans live below sea level in a basin surrounded by water. This is probably the worst situation for a city in the path of a category five hurricane. The politicians knew this and had 36 years to plan for this event. They have no excuse. Their stupidity is on their own heads. There is no reason for the rest of the country to have to suffer under federal controls because of their idiocy.
Familiar with States Rights?
And this is what has become of the conservative movement. Statists that are no different than their Democratic counterparts.
The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.--Federalist 45, James Madison
Storms and their aftereffects fall under ordinary course of affairs. There is no Constitutional basis for your sick ideal of federal intrusion into the affairs of a state as it pertains to natural occurrences
And while you're trying to explain your statist dream, perhaps you can explain the Constitutional basis for either of those organizations (of which there is none. Both should be disbanded)
The specific words you use are not found in those combinations in the Constitution. Federal powers in the Constitution are enumerated, and not general. The words used are "general welfare" (akin to your "common welfare") as intended by James Madison (who is generally considered to be the primary author of the Constitution) mean the sum total of the enumerated powers. By the way the federal government does not have rights (people have rights), governments have powers.
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