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.
Congress needs to revise laws governing mandatory evacuations for natural disasters.
Mayors are not objective because fear backlash over inconvenience of evacuation if hurricane changes path and misses city.
wtf? tell me this is a joke.
i doubt congress is better able to order mandatory evacuations than is the mayor
I think the mayor did the right thing. BTW, the city is under his control, not the President of the United States.
No. Keep the power local.
Think of it like this... Do you want the guy down the street telling you when an evacuation is mandatory, or do you want the guy 1500 miles away doing that?
Ultimately, you're responsible for your evacuation and preparation. But why transfer the local authority to a governmental seat so far away?
What backlash? If it misses, hey, that's the weather for you. NO HUMAN controls the weather. If a political opponent tries to use the weather against you, just stand up to him and ask what he would have done. If the people are too stupid or sheeple-like to vote against you on that issue, screw 'em! Let their a***es drown. We don't need more federal control of any thing!
The LAST thing we need is FEDERAL CONTROL over anything.
You are exactly write on your characterizations of the mayor and governor taking too long but wrong in your solution. I lived in N.O. The locals know the situation better than D.C. They have to make the call. In this case, they waited too late and a lot of ticked people are probably still sitting in traffic somewhere including my brother.
They'll still blame Bush for it, though.
Not according to Daily Kos and the DUmmies.
is that the sort of world you want to live in? You're advocating greater government control over people's lives on The Conservative website, and noone's told you you're full of crap yet? Please, let me be the first.
The locals are obviously basing their decisions on emotions and intuition rather than science. They are looking back upon the false alarms of 2004 and the money they had to fork up to drive out of the storm zone and get hotel rooms and meals, and many are deciding that it just isn't worth it.
Fox has reported that thousands of residents are bunkering in their homes. Experts are in consensus that this storm is going to be possibly the worst hurricane in US history, and that it will likely produce a direct hit on New Orleans, the most susceptible place to hurricanes because of the proximity to the Mississippi River, several lakes, the Gulf, and furthermore its being below sea level.
The federal government has more resources and thus better knowledge about these storms than a city mayor does.
Who would you rather have making this decision? The president or the mayor? The mayor might know more about his city but the federal government and therefore the president via briefings, knows much much more about weather patterns.
So what specific provision of the US Constitution gives the President the power to do this? None that I can find. Its up to the states, not the feds. NO has elected plenty of corrupt losers. They have to find some better elected officials or live without.
All I'm saying is that since New Orleans has many people living in extreme poverty. Do you think all these people have the necessary resources, even such a basic thing as a TV to know whats going on, to make a decision about whether or not they should evacuate?
Right On! Let's leave it at the lowest level of Government, and let the upper level's kibitz as President Bush has done.
Not from what I have seen on other threads. Some have gone so far as to post pics of the Mayor (D) and Governor (D). Which is as silly as the Daily Kos blaming this all on Bush.
"It would be a really good idea if y'all just packed your things and got the hell out of here. If you call 911 after daybreak tomorrow, you'll have to leave a message 'cause we're all outta here. See you in a few days . . . GOOD LUCK!"
I don't need some liberal in Sacramento or Washington telling me to evacuate my home in Los Angeles. As an adult, I'm perfectly capable of evaluating risk and making an informed decision of evacuation without the government getting involved.
This is 2005, not 1905. Everyone knows the hurricane is coming, they should have the freedom to make their own decisions.
Why not just warn the people and tell them if they don't leave, you're not responsible instead of "mandatory" evacuations? I mean, that's basically what they're doing now.
I don't see them picking people up bodily and throwing them on vehicles against their wills. Let them decide if they want to live or die.
Surely this will be declared an incident of national significance and the Department of Homeland Security will save everybody.
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