More than a tragedy — a scandal
This terrible tragedy has now become a scandal.
Aaron Brown just asked a correspondent whether he thought he’d ever stand on the soil of the United States of America and report what he is reporting from New Orleans.
Through a lack of quick action and resources and any semblance of planning, the people left in New Orleans have been condemned to thirst, hunger, filth, disease, fear, crime, danger, and in too many cases death.
The convention center in New Orleans is a symbol of shame. How can we not figure out how to get water there? Babies are starving. People are dying. There is no authority; police have pulled back to defend their own stations or, according to CNN, deserted their posts.
Authorities — from Bush down to cabinet officials down to legislators down to state officials down to the soon-to-be-former-mayor down to those police — have failed these people. No one would argue that this was going to be smooth or easy. But the basics — water, food, safety, goals — are abandoned.
Political careers at every level will end because of this failure.
That is to say nothing of the storm’s terrible toll or the economic crisis that is building. This is about the failure of authority and thus civilization in the heart of New Orleans. This is a scandal.
: LATER: Angelos adds in the comments: “This is America, and this is the best we could do.”
Tags: neworleans, Politics
September 1st, 2005 at 10:37 pm
That’s it in a nutshell Jeff.
This is America, and this is the best we could do.
September 1st, 2005 at 10:47 pm
And there are rich white people stuck too.
And that’s NOT snark.
I know, I know, hard to believ, coming from me.
But read the interveiw with the tourist lady at the Ritz.
Scary enough, that the RITZ is out of food.
But then get to the second interview. The hotel arranged for buses for its guests. Cost, $25000, or $45 per person. People lined up, waiting for their buses to come.
What happens? The FEDS COMMANDEER THE BUSES!!!!!!
Yes, all of you wingers who want to blame the people still in the city. Even people with money, after their flights were cancelled, and after the government stole their transportation, can’t get the hell out.
America. For shame.
September 1st, 2005 at 10:50 pm
I don’t know, Jeff. Bush declared a disaster before the hurricane even landed. FEMA and Homeland Security staged supplies nearby beforehand. The Governor called out the National Guard and had them in the Superdome. The Navy had ships on the way before the storm cleared the Gulf. And the levee that failed was one that had already been upgraded.
Having the amount of aid that’s on its way in ther 48 hours since the levee failed is pretty spectacular; it hasn’t been slow by comparison even with recent disasters — and you might want to read up on the Galveston hurricane for more on what used to happen.
Were there failings? You bet: NO should have had a better evacuation plan, and instead of stopping the looters, the NO police were looting themselves. It seems a little much to blame anyone outside of New Orleans for those issues, though.
I know it’s the natural impulse to say Someone Should Have Done Something, but sometimes it’s just bigger than we are.
September 1st, 2005 at 10:51 pm
‘Political careers at every level will end because of this failure.’
Hehehe! Gr8 joke!
Almost every gross failure in the Bush administration has been punished with promotion. Being such a savvy consultant and all, you surely know that.
September 1st, 2005 at 10:52 pm
In Houston they are turning away the local variety of homeless people from the Astrodome. They are actually checking ID’s and verifying that you came from New Orleans (or the affected area). I guess compassion isn’t nescessary for the poor souls we see every day.
September 1st, 2005 at 10:54 pm
‘And there are rich white people stuck too.’
Yes. For example one presumably rich owner of a dynamic internet service and his dedicated team: http://www.directnic.com
Gr8 people. I was I was there…
September 1st, 2005 at 10:58 pm
I have been following this, and this is the first time I have left a note, so let me just say that no matter how much planning, how much work is done prior to the event, there is no way anyone can plan for this.
Think of the scope… we are not talking about a city, or even a metro area, we are talking about 300 miles of area that is gone.
Yes, there is much that could be done, but lets not pile on politicians just yet. What is not getting reported, and I guess because these people are all too busy getting stuff done, is just how much work, relief, lives saved, and hundreds of thousands of people all working 20 hour days doing the best they can.
So Jeff, with all respect, are you saying that the government should have at its disposal over 100,000 people, equipment, and millions of tons of supplies, not to mention all the transportation, and heavy equipment needed to move it, and clear the roads as they go, standing by and ready to move a moments notice? Would you be willing to pay for it?
Think about this, at this time from all over the south, trucks, equipment, supplies and personal are all moving in that direction. But in order to help they have to “build†their own support system as they go. It is exactly like dropping 200,000 people in the middle of the Amazon and then expecting the government to move and save them all in 48 hours. Just like on TV.
It the real world it doesn’t happen.
Do not fall prey to the media hype of doom, disaster, chaos and death. Theirs is one point of view, and ratings are the Holy Grail. And death sells.
It is bad… but think about what has been destroyed, and think about how large of an area that covers… then lets see in a few days the level of response.
I would rather you point out what is being done right, and stories of success and what is going on that is good, then pile on with the other media whores.
Bob
September 1st, 2005 at 11:00 pm
Worse yet, John, there has been a report that they turn away refugees who made the ‘mistake’ to come in their car and not to depend on the busses. Incredible.
September 1st, 2005 at 11:00 pm
John, you’re serious aren’t you…
September 1st, 2005 at 11:08 pm
I watched that too. I am in shock. Where is the help? Veterans For Peace are on their way to New Orleans. We need more groups to mobilize RIGHT NOW and go.
And yes, BOB, Americans pay taxes so that this kind of situation never happens. I cannot believe this is our country. The government should have been mobilized and ready to go on MONDAY!
For some reason I feel like I’m in the middle of Mad Max and the Thunder Dome……..only this time it’s the New Orleans Super Dome.
We are extremely vulnerable right now as a nation. Bush simply isn’t up to snuff.
September 1st, 2005 at 11:09 pm
Robert Siegel: We are hearing from our reporter, he’s on another line right now, thousands of people at the convention center in New Orleans with no food, zero.
Chertoff: As I said, I’m telling you we are getting food and water to areas where people are staging. The one about an episode like this is if you talk to someone or you get a rumor or an anecdotal version of something I think it’s dangerous to extrapolate it all over the place.
[Snip]
Robert Siegel: But Mr. Secretary when you say we shouldn’t listen to rumors. These are things coming from reporters who have not only covered many many other hurricanes, they’ve covered wars and refugee camps. These aren’t rumors, they are saying there are thousands of people there.
Chertoff: I would be–I have not heard a report of thousands of people in the convention center who don’t have food and water.
September 1st, 2005 at 11:09 pm
This is an email from my sister in Alexandria, La. That peaceful little city was virtually untouched by the storm, but the big storm is now blowing in. She is a paralegal for a law firm in that city and she jotted this note off to me from work today.
Subject: Planet of the Apes - We are nearing a police state in Alexandria
We have approximatley 50,000 refugees in town already.
Now this…..
Alexandria has received $500,000 to take in about 30,000 refugeess from New Orleans. The first buses arrived this morning. The problem is most of these people are from the 9th ward of N.O., the poorest or poor area of Orleans Parish. They couldn’t afford to leave. That area has the highest crime rate in the metro area. They think NOTHING of stealing, or worse.
The cities of Pineville/Alex are opening every commercial property that is for sale to house these refugees. They have reopend 2 abandoned housing projects in Alex.
The husband of one of the girls in my office is an officer with the APD. He has been calling her throughout the morning to report the goings on around town. He advises us that already today there have been 4 carjackings in Pineville and 7 in Alex and there has been a riot at the Pineville Walmart. According to him, a busload of 9th ward refugees was taken to the old Walmart in Pineville this morning. They did not want to be housed at that facility and began rioting. They beat away the emergency personnel that were assiting them and fled the area. They are now running loose over Pineville.
Just before lunch there was a riot at the Jackson street Red Cross with people breaking out the front glass to get inside. The channel 5 news at lunch today was basically local officials saying these events were just “rumors” and that there have been no such events actually taking place. However, the same events the officials described as “rumors” were being called in periodically, as they were occuring, by my co-worker’s husband. According to him the public officials are just trying to keep the peace and prevent a widespread panick. They are pulling detectives out of the station to ride with the patrol officers.
The APD was told at roll call this morning to advise their wives and familes as follows:
Do not to go out after dark.
Do not carry a purse in public.
Do not carry more cash than you can afford to have stolen.
Lock your vehciles and homes at all times
Leave room in front of your vehcile, when stopped in traffic so you can get your vehicle out should a carjacker approach your vehicle.
Do not use side streets - stay on main roads whenever possible.
Do not let your children play outside unattended.
Just night before last Pop’s dog, Travis, was barking in the early morning hours (2-3 p.m.) Pop had me get up to see what was going on. Naturally, I only looked through the windows and into our own yard. The next morning we learned that our next door and backdoor neighbors’ sheds were broken into. A generator and power washer were stolen from one and a power painter, lawnmower and weedeater from the other.
We have a large hurricane fence and a very large, very loud, very black guard dog and burgular bars on all the windows and doors. They didn’t get anything from our house. Yet. Robert is going to get our gun from our storage unit before he goes to work. We are parking our car against the door of our storage shed in the backyard with the dog.
One of the attorneys who works here has a friend in a State building downtown Baton Rouge. She just called to say their building was on lockdown due to rioting.
On my lunch hour I went past three service stations on Lee Street that had signs out to indicate they had no gas. There are so many people in town now that you can hardly wiggle. What used to take 15 minutes of a lunch hour to accomplish, now takes an entire hour. There is talk (and this probably is a rumor) that we will be rationing gas next week.
The partners just announced to us that they are sending our runner with a firm check to get pepper spray for all who want it.
Yall take care.
We will.
Love Ya All.
September 1st, 2005 at 11:13 pm
The oil reserves will be opened up. Bush will appear in New Orleans and make a speech.
A bump in his approval ratings of 10 points.
Really. Even with this. No one will take responsibility for their actions here.
No one.
September 1st, 2005 at 11:16 pm
Officials say rumors of an outbreak of crime in Alexandria and the surrounding area caused by Hurricane Katrina evacuees from New Orleans are not true.
“We haven’t had a spike in crime,†Sgt. Clifford Gatlin with the Alexandria Police Department said Thursday. “There have been no carjackings, armed robberies or gangs of armed men wandering the streets.â€
Gatlin added, “There was crime in Alexandria before the evacuees came and there will be crime when they leave.â€
September 1st, 2005 at 11:16 pm
Bob, with all due respect, be realistic.
‘Would you be willing to pay for it?’
You ALREADY pay for it. As I understand it, it’s not only the job of FEMA to prepare plans for such an instance, but also that of homeland security. You believe it’s unavoidable that the US is still unable to evacuate a major city (not even one of the biggest) in case of a terrorist attack with poisonous agents? 4 years after 911? What did they do with all those billions for homeland security???
‘But in order to help they have to “build†their own support system as they go. It is exactly like dropping 200,000 people in the middle of the Amazon and then expecting the government to move and save them all in 48 hours.’
No, they don’t have to. This is not about herding a mindless mass of individuals in the middle of nowhere, this is the US where there’s a gr8 infrastructure of communication and transportation means and lots of miltiary bases. And this is basicaly a military operation. You need to organize command structures and destribution plans for equippment and supplies and you need a strategy. It shouldn’t be worse than training the military for defcon1. You don’t expect the military to behave like some crackpots in the Amazonas for 72 hours after the prez said ‘the shit hit the fan’, no?
All this should have been prepared years ago. Problem seems to be, FEMA is full of repubs who had to be awarded with a cosy admin job because of their help in the election. They are just not capable of doing emergency management.
September 1st, 2005 at 11:19 pm
In October 2001, Mark Fischetti wrote an eerily prescient article for Scientific American, titled “Drowning New Orleans”:
The boxes are stacked eight feet high and line the walls of the large, windowless room. Inside them are new body bags, 10,000 in all. If a big, slow-moving hurricane crossed the Gulf of Mexico on the right track, it would drive a sea surge that would drown New Orleans under 20 feet of water.
New Orleans is a disaster waiting to happen. The city lies below sea level, in a bowl bordered by levees that fend off Lake Pontchartrain to the north and the Mississippi River to the south and west. And because of a damning confluence of factors, the city is sinking further, putting it at increasing flood risk after even minor storms. The low-lying Mississippi Delta, which buffers the city from the gulf, is also rapidly disappearing. A year from now another 25 to 30 square miles of delta marsh – an area the size of Manhattan – will have vanished. An acre disappears every 24 minutes. Each loss gives a storm surge a clearer path to wash over the delta and pour into the bowl, trapping one million people inside and another million in surrounding communities. Extensive evacuation would be impossible because the surging water would cut off the few escape routes. Scientists at Louisiana State University (L.S.U.), who have modeled hundreds of possible storm tracks on advanced computers, predict that more than 100,000 people could die. The body bags wouldn’t go very far.
September 1st, 2005 at 11:25 pm
That’s why Louisiana official have been pressing this administration for financing class 5 levees for years, Off Shore. This year, congress even slashed the funding for the preliminary study.
September 1st, 2005 at 11:29 pm
‘President Bush, in a searing speech Thursday night touting his administration’s accomplishments and laying out the challenges ahead, fired some of his heaviest ammunition at the Democrat and education establishments: “We are challenging the soft bigotry of low expectations.‒
I guess Bob is a perfect example for that. Low expectations, indeed. Must be a democrat.
September 1st, 2005 at 11:33 pm
Gray,
Thank you for the respect. Yes, we pay for the planning, and for the framework of a system. Not the whole infrastructure including, most importantly, staff with the necessary skills to handle the groundwork. FEMA is a joke, and will always be a joke, but look at their website. They only have 2,500 employees. They do what they can with what they have, not much other then write plans, and look good in their jackets. Military operation? Come on! Those take MONTHS to plan and build logistics. Amateurs study tactics. Professionals study logistics. Now we are all getting a lesson on why.
And no, there is NOT infrastructure there. Any more, anyway. Bridges, power, roads, and airports all have to be rebuilt in order to be used.
I am sorry, but you are not being realistic on what can be accomplished in just a few short hours. In a few more days I expect huge changes as the logistics arrive on station. Meaning staff, transportation, power, supplies, and more. And they all have to come from someplace, and most Americans would not be willing to pay for them to sit around waiting for the next 100 year storm.
Bob
September 1st, 2005 at 11:35 pm
Gray,
I guess that respect was short lived…
you have no idea what I am, nor is this the place for cheep shots.
B
September 1st, 2005 at 11:36 pm
How much did the Alaska senator get for the bridge to the 500 person island in the latest highway bill?
was it 250 million?
September 1st, 2005 at 11:43 pm
Jeff, this rescue and recovery effort has been one cl*****f**k after another, but they all go back to one fundamental problem - an almost total destruction of communications infrastructure. The rescuers couldn’t communicate with each other but, even worse, they couldn’t communicate with the populace they are trying to help, who are spread over hundred of square miles. Cellphones don’t work, few people have battery radios (with a multi-day supply of batteries). News comes mostly by rumor, and a lot of it is wrong. That’s why you see people walking miles to meet buses that never came, etc.
The Superdome was hell, but in the end 99% of those who heeded advice and took shelter there are coming out of it alive; they’re a lot better off than many of their neighbors who stayed home. Looting was less of a problem than some impromptu gangsterism, which is being suppressed now that law enforcement has arrived in force.
I think there will be a lot of lessons learned out of this disaster, but they won’t come from finger-pointing and unrealistic expectations - this was, after all, as DISASTER.
September 1st, 2005 at 11:45 pm
Bob, I don’t have to know who you are to conclude that you have surprisingly low expectations on the emergency management of your country. You wrote very elaborate about that. Beside that, you’re probably a perfectly nice guy, k?
September 1st, 2005 at 11:45 pm
The HOU Chronicle has a reporter in the Astrodome blogging “under cover” it sounds like. http://blogs.chron.com/domeblog/
September 1st, 2005 at 11:47 pm
This is a tragedy of unbelievable scale. However, I recall the first cries after the tsunami was: America is stingy! America is not doing enough! Where is America?
The answer, of course, is that while America is capable of quite a bit, America is not God. America cannot walk on water. America did act, and act as quickly as possible under the circumstances. It did things nobody else could do. The criticisms subsided, and rightfully so.
New Orleans wasn’t prepared for this. Not just the levees; it seems as if they had no clear plan for this day when it came. So are we to sit here and lambaste the people of New Orleans for being unprepared, even as they struggle and die, just as some insist on lambasting everyone else within range? I know the answer for many is that New Orleans had no responsibility whatsoever; it was Bush’s fault for not signing on to Kyoto! (Hatred and fantasy trump reality and compassion)
For once, I’m really ashamed of Jeff Jarvis, for repeating Angelos’ despicable words. Angelos isn’t some freaking conscience, here, this tragedy is his triumph! This is his day! This proves everything nasty he ever said about anybody else is right! He’s doing a victory lap around the death of a city.
Like the tsunami, this was too big even for a great nation. There is much still to endure, but focus on what still can be done, not find ways to score political battles and play blame games. It may temporarily allow you to vent your anger, but it is, ultimately, an inhuman and grotesque exercise.
What’s the big news story today, by the way? What can I do? Where can I go to help? No, the big story I see posted all over the internet today is hand wringing over two photos, one labelled “looter” and the other called “finder” — great masses of energy that would be better spent *doing* something is wasted arguing that proof of racism has been found, although the situations described by the photographers/caption writers explicitly differentiate the two events by situation and not race. And I’m sure an Angelos will not even care — blindered by hate, he will barrel right along with his imaginary “proof” that America is wicked.
The great internet, gateway to the future. And this is how it’s being used. Not to bring missing people together, not to brainstorm ways of finding quicker help to people, but venting angry rants and pointlessly crowing about how lousy America is (just like we knew all along!)
John and Angelos: the last report I heard about the Astrodome is not that they are simply turning away homeless, they are turning away everyone who is not being bussed from the Superdome, which they are still trying to evacuate.
To allow the shelter to fill with locals before the evacuations are complete would *not* be compassionate. This is perhaps a good example, though, of how easy it is to blast people who are really responsible for unpleasant decisions. It’s easy to say “let everybody in” when you don’t have the very real responsibility of dealing with the consequences of such a potentially disasterous and inhuman mistake. I have no doubt that a great deal of the decisions having to be made now are not easy choices, but are similarly fraught with negative impacts on all sides.
September 1st, 2005 at 11:49 pm
As I was writing below, Jeff was writing above. I repeat:
The disaster zone is the size of Britain. The numbers keep changing, but we’re talking evacuations of in excess of 75,000 people from the NO area alone to Houston, Dallas and San Antonio via one passable highway, which is also shared by all other emergency vehicles, police, fire, etc.
The magnitude of this calamity is beyond belief.
Those here who keep blabbing about what wasn’t done when by Bush et al. are just too tiresome to respond to at this point. I guess they’ve been in on every meeting and telephone call since this was a category one storm crossing the state of FLA.
I am as anguished as the rest of you to witness the horrific suffering. But I doubt the crowd in NO would have been pleased if only 1,000 had been bused out on Tuesday followed by another 1,000 on Wednesday; i.e., in drips and drabs. Instead, by yesterday, Wednesday, they had mobilized sufficiently to begin continuous evacuations. That’s count em TWO DAYS after the storm stopped wreaking havoc, followed by Additional levee failure.
Given the enormity of this disaster, only God herself could have pulled off a more Herculean effort to save, transport, treat and feed so many in such short order.
Lessons WILL be learned about better ways to respond to the sheer scope of a disaster of this kind. Naysayers be damned. You’ll have plenty of time to bitch once you have all the facts. You’re not helping by criticizing when you don’t yet even have them. For example, anyone here have a reliable count on the number of people who, for whatever reason, remained in the city and now need EVERYTHING all at once? And don’t forget the the number of those who also Didn’t evacuate from the rest of the decimated Gulf Coast region.
Anyone? If you can’t even answer that basic question, guess you’re not God either.
So how many people is it, EXACTLY, that needed/still need saving, transport, food, water, etc. *immediately*, over an area the size of Britain? Without passable highways and without means of communication?
Tragedy, yes.
September 1st, 2005 at 11:57 pm
Bob, really no offense intended, but I don’t think it would have been imposible to have plans ready for the 50 major residential areas in the US. You’re right about logistic, but all those 2500 FEMA vacationers had to do was creating the links to the national support units, checking the available resources and working out their emergency plans. In case of a serious warning, all they had to do was grab their plan and start with their equivalent of defcon 3 or 2. 50 specialists per target area should have accomplished something. The efforts would have been visible by now. The reports out of the desaster area don’t indicate that there’s a coordinated effort for supply and evacuation.
Just look at this Brown jerk in the TV. Do you believe he’s a leader type guy who gets things done?
September 2nd, 2005 at 12:05 am
Eileen, is ‘The disaster zone is the size of Britain’? Britain has about 244000 km², Louisiana 133000 and Missisipi 125000. Not all of the states is a desaster area, so pls check this fact again. Sry, I’m too tired to help you get the other facts straight. GN
September 2nd, 2005 at 12:06 am
[...] This is America, this isn’t supposed to happen here. BuzzMachine said it best. [...]
September 2nd, 2005 at 12:13 am
Eileen, is ‘The disaster zone is the size of Britain’? Britain has about 244000 km², Louisiana 133000 and Missisipi 125000. Not all of the states is a desaster area, so pls check this fact again. Sry, I’m too tired to help you get the other facts straight. GN
September 2nd, 2005 at 12:13 am
If a terrorist attack had caused this damage (how hard could it have been to explode something next to one of those levys) wouldn’t we all be asking why 4 years after 9-11 the Dept Of Homeland Security isn’t prepared to evacuate a city and serve up relief? Of course we would. They have accomplished nothing in 4 years. Nothing in airports and nothing in this regard.
Secondly, as has been well documented, everyone knew those levys were rated at category 3 and yet category 4 or 5 storms are possible at any time. So year after year after year the politicians placed the bet. They lost and others are paying. Those walls should have been rated for a Category 10 hurricane -10 feed thick then 30 yards of dirt then another 10 feet of concrete. They looked about 1ft thick on tv. You can’t be any more surprised that they fell than that terrorist used airplanes as weapons.
I HOPE Jeff is right about the political careers that this sinks. I predict Bush to have an approval rating of about 10% at this time next week.
September 2nd, 2005 at 12:14 am
So much for compassionate conservativism.
September 2nd, 2005 at 12:15 am
Well Gray, that’s what our MSM calculated, as I heard it on the nightly news.
September 2nd, 2005 at 12:22 am
So Angelos, they took the buses from the rich white people that paid for them and gave them to the poor black people.
Gee, maybe you can give them a pass now, one for being born white, forgive them o please for that….
and one for working hard..at least it sounds like that woman speaking did…all their lives….oh forgive them my son.
You racist bigot you…kiss my white ^%$&
September 2nd, 2005 at 12:27 am
Eileen, you’re right about the scale of this. You don’t need exact numbers, or to think you’re God, to see that we failed. And it’s not about Bush, really. WE failed. The infrastructure failed, both the physical and the social. Carson is right that part of this was communications system failure - but he omits that emergency systems still aren’t interoperable, four years after 9/11. Those systems, and the method for getting them into place, failed as well.
Could the hurricane have been prevented? No. Is there evidence of systemic failure in responding to it? Yes. Did we know this was coming, eventually? Yes. Did we fail to adequately prepare? Yes.
No one is dancing in the streets at this failure. It is our failure, collectively. I don’t care much about blame, though accountability is required. What I care about is learning as much as we can to ensure that this level of failure doesn’t happen again.
September 2nd, 2005 at 12:32 am
From Reuters:
Federal disaster declarations covered 90,000 square miles
(234,000 square kilometers) along the U.S. Gulf Coast, an area roughly the size of Britain. As many as 400,000 people had been forced to leave their homes.
September 2nd, 2005 at 12:33 am
Does it occur to anyone that the very people you are castigating also lost everything in the disaster? The people everyone counted on to have the plans and to be on the job afterwards were also wiped out in this disaster. This is not a simple high water mark on some rich folks barrier island vacation homes, this is the utter destruction of 4 major cities, I dont remember any of us walking around last week saying how much we knew about how this was going to play out.
We all sit miles away from the disaster ready to pass judgement, but can any of us have any idea what it must be like to be a low paid civil servant reporting to work, knowing that your house is underwater and your family is missing and theres 100,000 angry wet hungry people staring at you for answers?
Should the Mayor have declared martial law 24 hours prior to the landing of the hurricane? Maybe, but would you have supported him? Were there any sort of facilities, any people to carry off such a plan? Could you even implement that today even with all the clear need in full light of day? Were not talking about a few office blocks, this is city after city that needed to be fully evacuated, and where would you have evacutaed? Its just as likely that Houston was going to be hit as was New Orleans.Mybe Biloxi, oh whoops that got scratched too. We have no idea how to do this sort of mass migration, even today. We are now evacuating to Houston in full daylight outside of the storm and it still takes time to move people en masse that far away.
Stop thinking of this as a Hurricane and start thinking of this as an atomic bombing and you can start to see what happened here was just beyond anyones ability to deal with it. The hurricane didnt just destroy the buildings, it destroyed the authority and the infrastructure of government as well.
The lesson here is that in true large scale disasters, you cant count on the locals to even be there to take the lead. The assumption has to be that the locals are gone and cannot take part in their own rescue. That is not an assumption we make today in our planning, all planning says the locals “drive the show”. Katrina showed the weakness in that idea.
I have my issues with the way this was handled, but for now Im keeping it to my self. None of this half assed monday morning quarterbacking is going to do a damn thing to get those people out of there.
We all learned from this disaster, and none of us is going to get out of it without some of it on us. Weve all learned a valuable lesson that modern man doesnt like to admit very often but its true nonetheless - there are things in the world that you dont have control over that are much much bigger than you, and on occasion they can and often do reach out and bite your ass. Modern man is pretty cool and has lost of nice toys, but nature is much bigger than man and in the end, nature will always win.
Things are possibly going to get much much worse. When you have large numbers of people in that kind of water, Cholera is not far from the future. Western people have no idea what cholera is, but I fear we are about to learn. We are probably within 24 hours of a cholera outbreak in this area. Ladies and gentleman, if that occurs and god help us all if it does, you will look back on these last 4 days as “when things werent so bad”.
Stop looking for someone to blame and start looking for a way to help, were full up on critics at the moment we could use a few more “backs” in the process of getting these people out.
September 2nd, 2005 at 12:39 am
Hey Mr. President…meet your good budy Nero…
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/050830/480/capm10108301730
September 2nd, 2005 at 12:48 am
Greg,
I agree with most of what you’ve said. However, due to the magnitude and scope of this *natural disaster* I’m not prepared to label our relief effort an utter failure at this point. Hell, it’s just getting rolling. When all is said and done, how many people needed saving, and how many did we *in fact* save? That’s the baseline in my view.
Should we also have planned for the eventuality that not even one highway in the NO area would exist after such an unprecedented-in-size storm? How many helicopters would it take to ferry out UNKNOWN NUMBERS of those who DIDN’T EVACUATE? Where would they come from? How long would it take to evacuate 75+K humans by helicopter or small boats that could fit on city streets? No one knew *precisely* where the greatest damage would occur; to wit: Katrina veered at the last moment, thank God(?).
There are so many variables which combined to ‘create’ this tragedy. Some are institutional/infrastructural, as you say, but some are not.
We’re still in the midst. After the still unknown numbers get saved and the dead are buried, let’s assign blame. And learn.
September 2nd, 2005 at 1:00 am
Yea its to bad they did not tac on another 10 billion to build refiniers. It has my vote!!!
September 2nd, 2005 at 1:10 am
It seems to me that our government did a better job supporting the folks that got hit by the tsunami, than our own people in the Gulf Coast. There is no reason why people should be starving, dehydrating, and dying in the United States of America. All this talk by FEMA and Department of Homeland Security about how everything is under control is a bunch of political BS. It is PR spin at its worse. The government needs to admit that there is no control over the situation, but that it will deploy all assets (not just the National Guard) necessary to take care of the people effected. I am sorry but this country cannot afford to have the Republicans in charge, if this is the best that they can do.
September 2nd, 2005 at 1:23 am
As I understand it, Robert, most branches of our military also been deployed.
Fer cryin’ out loud, stop with the Repub bashing. (And I’m not even a Repub.)
Get real. This was a MONSTER of a natural disaster. Humans are currently doing their best to save other humans. Try supporting them for a change. Save your political posturing for another day.
Thanks, Frank, for your erudite observations. And also to you Carson Fire, as ever.
September 2nd, 2005 at 1:37 am
No Eileen. You get real. When you have Mr. Brown of FEMA blaming the people themselves for not evacuating, when many of them did not have the financial resources to leave, then there is a serious disconnect. Do you think that the response would be this slow if D.C. was hit by a natural disaster or L.A. was totally destroyed by an earthquake. I think not?
September 2nd, 2005 at 1:51 am
This event will mark the moment the US could no longer be called a Superpower.
September 2nd, 2005 at 1:58 am
I heard his comments [and btw, I'm not overly impressed with him]. But many with resources DID choose not to leave. I watched MSNBC on Sunday night. They interviewed too many to count who simply chose NOT to leave. How many? I don’t know. Neither do you. And btw, they haven’t been interviewed again in the aftermath.
Fact is, we still don’t know how many survivors who didn’t leave - for whatever reason - we need to save.
I’ve been broke before. You? I know what it means not to have a working car or gas money. I would be the last person On Earth to criticize someone for their financial misfortune. But there are - it’s a safe bet - Many Thousands across the Gulf region who had the means, but chose NOT to evacuate, even when ordered to.
Slow response? How many WILL we save versus how many are LEFT ALIVE to save? At this point, you don’t even know. Nor do I. How many stayed? Of those, how many died? No one knows. No one will probably ever know. That’s part of this monstrous tragedy.
Let’s see how this pans out, as I said, and then learn from it.
September 2nd, 2005 at 2:15 am
Sean in Baton Rouge and your Mary and your baby….and Candice. Please, when you are able, let us know how you fare.
G’night All.
Prayers for the survivors of Katrina.
September 2nd, 2005 at 2:20 am
Robert Day,
Thanks for pointing out that a lot of people didn’t have the financial means to leave. It’s also important to note that the evacuation was ordered on Sunday. Greyhound and Amtrak were, I believe, shut down on Saturday. A lot of those people didn’t own cars.
So what, Eileen, do you think that they should have done?
September 2nd, 2005 at 2:21 am
Now should not be the time, as Kevin Drum of the Washington Monthly has noted, for the politics of blame. In the wake of Katrina’s devastation along the Gulf Coast, Americans should be united in providing relief, resources and support to all in need.
But sadly, that massive relief effort will take place during a time of divisive and fundamental debate about the very meaning of national unity in the United States. As New Orleans struggles for survival, the President and his amen corner are waging a full scale assault on the Estate Tax, what they derisively (and effectively )term the “Death Tax.” They will continue to pursue this massive transfer of the U.S. treasury to America’s wealthiest, even as a mountain of evidence shows that successive Bush budget cuts devastated New Orleans’ disaster preparedness and levee maintenance…
For the full story, see:
“New Orleans Pays the Death Tax.”
September 2nd, 2005 at 2:26 am
I posted this quote from the Los Angeles Times on http://www.childrenoftheuniverse.com
“For years, studies by federal and other authorities had pinpointed New Orleans as one of the most vulnerable areas in the country for a natural disaster…”
When your city is that vulnerable you don’t wait for a disaster to start thinking about what to do - planning and preparation is the responsibility of those in authority. The results of this flood have been scripted out for years. A response should have been cocked and ready to fire.
September 2nd, 2005 at 2:31 am
Lets look at the track record of failures in any Chertoff “aftermath ”
http://www.counterpunch.org/barry04012005.html
This nation needs to IMMEDIATELY review the plain fact… does this man even have the ability to serve this nation in helping the helpless citizens screaming for help.
All this country has seen is rhetoric and speeches. The citizens need and needed help for several days now… we do NOT need to hear “we are trying our best”… they heard that but there is NO arrival of the so called help for DAYS now! Turn on your TV and see for yourself…
Would we are Americans believe speeches or the stark and bleak visuals on every broadcast channel across the world! Chertoff OFF!
September 2nd, 2005 at 2:32 am
I am sickened and ashamed and scared too death that the people of New Orleans have been treated in this way. I imagine Mississippi is not getting great treatment either. I agree with most of you here. All this capability and we can’t manage dropping food, water, and baby formula from helicopters down to the ground. I could say more, but I think we have all said it. We can not let our government forget this. I have donated money for four days, but it is not helping them RIGHT NOW. I feel sad and helpless. If anyone from more a more northern place in Louisana reads this, please, if you ever see or meet someone that survives this, tell them they were not forgotten by the rest of the everyday folks in the nation and that we felt very upset and ashamed. I have written 25 State Senators tonight and the President-I encourage everyone to do so. This has been an outrage. I am so sorry Louisiana and all States affected by Katrina. I am an Andrew Survivor and I know what the after affects are like.
September 2nd, 2005 at 2:38 am
I definitely agree there are many ways the response to this disaster, and the planning before, could have been handled much better. But I also think we’re laboring under an illusion if we believe that just enough funding, just enough federal involvement or just the right administration would prevent a major natural disaster from being a disaster.
Perhaps it’s my conservative bent (though I still love your blog, Jeff), but no amount of funding or planning will completely prevent something bad from happening. I think many of us are confusing causes.
Many decisions might have been made that, in hindsight, we conclude increased the problems associated with this disaster. I really think, though, that’s “quibbling over 2%”–and it’s more suited to a dry, tedious study by some commission in the future.
The simple fact is, we are neither omnipotent nor omniscient. Long before we reached a level of planning and preparation that would effectively eliminate the danger from natural disasters, we would find our society a completely intolerable place in which to live.
I’m not trying to be cold or callous. In fact, I’m trying to redirect the emphasis to the attempt to salvage what’s left of the suffering population of New Orleans and the surrounding areas.
September 2nd, 2005 at 2:46 am
Well, Boston, what should ANY of us do in the face of calamities of all kinds? NONE of us are immune, regardless of our ‘current’ stations in life. For example, my relatively wealthy sister, her husband and family *also* just lost their home, jobs and very existence in NO. I’ve offered my own home to them in the aftermath… If anything, Katrina will be remembered as the great leveller. Aren’t ALL calamities great levellers?
I’m merely pointing out some baselines; i.e., until we know how many survived and need to be saved, and until we see how well we fared in actually saving them, we should stop the bashing.
September 2nd, 2005 at 2:47 am
Eileen and other Experts-
What you are saying is very sound. But, I really believe, supply drops since Monday, into the Super Dome and other areas would have prevented the folks from rioting from hunger, thirst, and desperation thus cutting off help for awhile. I went through Hurricane Andrew, all you want is your life preserved and a bottle of water-food is even a side issue-you stay alive out of fear.
September 2nd, 2005 at 2:51 am
OK, would we allow ourselves to be “helped” by this Chertoff when and God Forbid when we are suddenly caught in dire straits?
Lets get someone who CAN do the job and have done it right step in and HELP… not conduct meetings. Call on your elected officials now and let the citizens of this LAND BE HEARD. The nation for the nation … not POLITICKING BS while you lay dying…. Chertoff will bury you sooner that you can finish wondering what he can do to help us.
LET this NATION put its FEET DOWN NOW. CALL your TV stations, newspapers, governor, senator, congress people… your civil activists etc
ACT NOW, DELIVER or step down NOW. There is NO TIME to spin their political rhetoric… Exercise our GOD given rights as citizens - speak now and get the ones who can deliver and can serve… NOT pontificate and spin yarns. LEADERS who can SERVE, DELIVER and DO IT NOW! not tomorrow, not trying, not promising,… be on the scene with their hands on the job… Chertoff acts like he and his cronies are DEMI-GODs.
September 2nd, 2005 at 2:54 am
The New York Times makes this simple point:
“… neighborhoods that were long known to be vulnerable to disaster if the levees failed. Without so much as a car or bus fare to escape ahead of time, they found themselves left behind by a failure to plan…
No plan. No preparation.
September 2nd, 2005 at 3:02 am
JMD, I am a moderate Republican, but I am a human first. Do ya really mean what you say?? No one is talking about the government having fore knowledge of this, the outrage is that we don’t use our strengths. The government is the entity that coordinates us, they do promise to protect the people. Water, food, toliet paper…that is all that was required to sustain people until the big picture was all figured out. Have you not eaten, and I mean really, or drank, or watched your baby fade from dehydration over four days? I have been watching that for nearly a week and can not figure out why.
September 2nd, 2005 at 3:10 am
Europe’s offer of petrol places Bush in quandary
By Carola Hoyos and Javier Blas in London
Published: September 1 2005 22:22 | Last updated: September 1 2005 22:22
As news of massive, long-term damage at its refineries emerges, Washington appears to be in an unenviable position.
Long criticised for having no energy policy and an insatiable demand for gas guzzlers fuelled by cheap petrol, the US must now decide whether to accept help from Europe.
In so doing, US President George W. Bush would implicitly acknowledge some of his critics’ accusations and open himself up to demands for political and economic favours in return.
Officials from member governments of the International Energy Agency said they were waiting only for the US to agree to such a measure. The IEA, the organisation that co-ordinates the release, would only say it was still assessing whether the size of the shortfall caused by Katrina warranted calling an emergency release.
Germany has assured the IEA that it would participate if needed. This is particularly important because Germany holds the largest number of barrels of petrol in public storage. Public petrol barrels – those held by governments or agencies directly – are able to reach markets within one or two days, faster than emergency earmarked stocks held by companies.
France and Spain, which, like Germany, have had strained relations with the US over trade and foreign policy, and Italy are the other European countries that would tap big emergency petrol stocks. All three are likely to demand a political or economic reward from Washington for their help.
Europe has 168m barrels of petrol reserved for emergencies, with 53m of those held by governments or agencies. Japan, the US, Korea and the Netherlands all have public stockpiles of oil or products, such as petrol, diesel and heating oil, or both. The US holds only emergency stockpiles of crude oil.
So far, the US has lost 5m barrels of petrol production because of the refinery damage caused by Katrina. Based on information from the US government yesterday, some analysts say that could swell to 52m, which would probably be enough to trigger an emergency plan by the IEA, they say.
The plan would involve not only putting tens of millions of barrels of petrol – and perhaps also jet fuel – into the market but would also allow countries to curb demand through reducing speed limits by up to 25 per cent, mandating car-pooling or compressing the working week for civil servants.
The IEA is not the only group willing to help. Venezuela, a member of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries but not a member of the IEA, has offered to send petrol to the US. It has strategically well-placed storage tanks on Curaçao island, which houses the hemisphere’s biggest refinery, and Borco in the Bahamas.
Whether Mr Bush would be pleased to accept aid from one of his most vocal opponents is less certain.
There are other hurdles for petrol coming to the US as well. Pipelines have been ruined by the storm and port facilities are also badly damaged. The US yesterday reduced its environmental restrictions on petrol. But traders say there are other laws that still prohibit certain types of petrol from being imported. This problem would be solved if the IEA called an emergency, agency officials said.
Nevertheless, the market is already starting to compensate. Some petrol meant for European consumption has been redirected to the US. Some 20 tankers have been booked to cross the Atlantic month, prompting a rise in tanker rates.
Petrol is not the only problem. As winter approaches, heating oil supplies will become critical. But the destruction of production of natural gas, also used for heating, has begun driving heating oil prices in the US higher. US commercial inventories of distillates are 4.3 per cent higher than last year’s levels. But the loss of refining capacity and the fact that some refiners have switched from making heating oil to filling the immediate need for petrol could spell trouble for the winter, analysts said.
Some refiners who are unable to get supplies of oil have requested loans of oil, but at least one company yesterday cancelled its request. The bigger problem is that eight refineries are still closed and unable to process crude oil into petrol. A further 12 have been compromised.
September 2nd, 2005 at 3:18 am
Kabri,
Re your comment addressed to me: I couldn’t agree with your more. I am horrified that we did not drop food and water sooner. Horrified! Quite frankly, there IS no excuse. For this lapse, we as a nation are responsible for how many deaths? Two? One is too many.
But of course MSM did NOT cover the fact that we HAVE dropped food and water. What accounts for that ‘breach’ in ‘fair and balanced’ news coverage??
For the same ‘ole, same ‘ole reasons.
As I’ve said, let’s assess when we determine *how many* we saved of those *who were alive to save* after Katrina. Only then will we know how well we stepped up to the plate. Not before. And no amount of rhetoric will change it.
September 2nd, 2005 at 3:22 am
And to think, yesterday was the kick off of national preparedness month. Ugh.
DHS officials were at Union Station today all cheerful for the media, handing out pathetic little emergency preparation checklists to the public, so Mr. & Mrs. American could be prepared. What crock. When I questioned why they didn’t include the recommendation that everyone have a gun or some other legitimate means of self defense on their checklists they looked at me incredulously and couldn’t believe that I would doubt their inability to provide for basic safety during a civil emergency.
What a pathetic, sad joke.
September 2nd, 2005 at 4:04 am
[...] What’s happening in New Orleans is disgusting. President Bush has dropped the ball in a major way. I agree wholeheartedly with Jeff Jarvis: This is a scandal, and heads should roll at all levels. [...]
September 2nd, 2005 at 4:16 am
And what ARE the results, Jackie?
Fact is, you don’t even know yet.
Simple question. Why are you so quick to judge this administration in the face of a major NATURAL disaster? What are your motivations?
BOTTOM LINE::: How many survivors of Katrina ultimately survived due to our efforts, of those who were left living?
Anyone who wishes to judge in advance of that basic question is motivated not by compassion, but by politics.
YOU DON’T KNOW YET. So pleaaaasssseee stop judging.
September 2nd, 2005 at 4:29 am
[...] Jeff Jarvis writes that the situation at the Convention Center in New Orleans is More than a tragedy — a scandal: This terrible tragedy has now become a scandal. [...]
September 2nd, 2005 at 4:58 am
I can’t BELIEVE you people.
Disgusting. Really disgusting.
You have NO CLUE what rescue efforts entail, what it takes to shift people and material over 100s of miles of randomly destroyed terrain in any sort of organized fashion, you’ve got no idea AT ALL what it takes to feed and house the people DOING the relief work, much less what it takes to actually get the job done.
One of the pissant little socialists here said:
“”"
And yes, BOB, Americans pay taxes so that this kind of situation never happens.
“”"
Really, tax dollars prevent hurricanes?
Oh, you mean you’re willing to spend upwards of a billion dollars a year nationally (in FY2000 FEMA requested 300 billion for disaster releif, this is one agency, and doesn’t include Coast Guard or National Guard budgets etc.) to keep men and material prepared for the kinds of disasters that happen once every decade or two?
Like hell you are. You’d be one of the first to whine about how that money could go to…well, let’s not get any nastier.
“”"
I cannot believe this is our country. The government should have been mobilized and ready to go on MONDAY!
“”"
They were. Bush made the “Disaster Area” declaration before the storm hit land.
Do some math would you PLEASE? I realize it’s “linear thinking”, and “hard”, but just stop and figure:
Let n be the number of buses needed to to shift people from one place to the other.
Let x be the number of miles you need to shift these people to get them to “saftey”.
Let y be the number of people you can shift per bus.
Let p be the total population you’ve got to move.
Let h be the time you’ve got to move them in.
The simple calculation is:
n=p/y
How many people on a bus? Well, let’s assume a big bus, I think that’s around 70 people, and we’re going to move them 300 miles from the coast (the effected area reaches inland /at least/ 120 miles, my daughter lives in Central MS, and as of 3 this afternoon they were w/out power and she was heading to Atlanta to be with her mom)
How many people have we got to move? 2000:
29=2000/70 (this is integer math, we get whole buses so we round up).
10000 people:
143 buses.
100,000 people:
1429 busses.
Now, 1429 buses is a lot. And that’s also 1429 drivers that have to be gotten somewhere on time etc. Where are you going to get that many? You won’t. You can’t. The buses in the damaged areas cannot be planned on, nor can the drivers (they have families etc.). So you do with fewer buses but make multiple trips, this gets even worse, because now you add time into it, and it becomes about how long it takes to shift people, and how many you can shift per trip or hour.
All this takes planning. And shifting resources around (buses have to be fueled people have to be fed and watered etc.).
And 100,000 is only 1/10th-1/12th of hte people in that area. In addition to just shifting these people you’ve got medical problems, rescue problems etc.
And you /cannot/ pre-plan and pre-stage because you don’t know where the damage will happen, so you can’t count on any particular route being open, and you can’t count on any particular *close* spot being safe, and if you’re too far away you’re running low on fuel inside the damage zone and and and and.
70 per bus, 300 miles each way. 60 miles per hour. That’s 70 people per bus in per 10 hours. Or 7 people per hour per bus.
You’ve got 100,000 people to shift, which means (basically) 14286 bus hours, so 10 buses finishes the job in 1428 hours, 100 finishes in 142 hours (actually add 5 to that for 1 one way trip). To get 100,000 people shifted in 48 hours you’re going to need roughly 298 buses. Which is also 298 drivers. This is all, of course, assuming that things go smoothly. You could probably gather up 3oo school buses from the states around the affected areas and get them in, but school buses are smaller (IIRC about 40 adults) than what I was talking about. WHich means almost (fudging because of the hour) twice as many buses and drivers.
Right after a hurricane. And we haven’t even begun to talk about how many buses go to where and at what time. Or about how to handle medical problems on the bus, feed the people etc. Hell, even refueling the buses.
And note, we’re just talking about getting 100,000 people out of New Orleans and the surrounding area.
And we didn’t /know/ it was going to be New Orleans until Saturday/Sunday.
And on Tuesday morning (before the levee gave way) it looked like things were going to be, well, not ok, but not worse-case. So the planners started shifting resources and planning to the areas that were obviously going to need it.
Then the damn broke.
There are good reasons why there are NO large scale evacuation plans for any metropolitan are in this country. You simply CANNOT plan that sort of thing. Really, Really bright people have tried, and they keep realizing it DOES NOT WORK.
Reality is NOT ameniable to our desires /just/ because we wish it. Maybe someday we’ll be able to predict this stuff 2-3 weeks out with reasonable accuracy, and get people out of the way in time. Now we cannot, so we have to clean up afterwards.
The government is moving just as fast (or faster) on this disaster as they have in all the others, it’s just that now information flows even faster, and we’re all–left, center and right–hurting for these people.
(Asside: why did people stay in the path of a Cat 4/5 hurricane? Because the leftist school system, coupled with the Christian foot stomping over science has left people without a basic understanding of weather, physics and math? Well, partly. Because there is still a perception of Meterologists being completely WRONG? Well, partly. Because of 2 decades of media/newspapers predicting TEOTWAWKI and it turns out to be not that big a deal? Partly. Because many were too poor to leave? Sure. Teach people math and physics and they’ll move when they realize how much energy is coming straight at them).
But you’re not interested in that, because that makes Bush (in this case) just someone reacting to events outside ANYONEs control, and that means you can’t whine more about him.
And quite frankly that petty, lame, and rather small.
September 2nd, 2005 at 5:33 am
Gov. Blanco is inept. Period. Other than tearing up, what the hell has this dingbat done?
September 2nd, 2005 at 6:07 am
Petro,
Kisses and applause!!!
Jeff Jarvis,
The very fact you would quote Angelos….??? No words for that one.
September 2nd, 2005 at 6:22 am
Speaking of not having the financial resources to leave… I finally posted something about my childhood. With so many vilifying the victims… I had to share a small piece of my experience -
I hope no one minds the link.
September 2nd, 2005 at 6:25 am
Wish that I had gotten in on this earlier. I cannot believe that anybody has time to start fingerpointing while this disaster is still going on. Would the situation have been different if the levees had been taller and stronger? Who the hell knows? At this point, it doesn’t matter. The situation is what it is, and it is awful and unprecedented.
The rescue/relief effort in New Orleans is different from that in any other situation you’ve ever witnessed. As the entire city (and much of the surrounding Parishes) is underwater, search and rescue has spent four days flying by helicopter over rooftops that have essentially become islands. Every place in New Orleans that is dry and inhabitable is essentially an island.
These islands number in the tens of thousands, with each one potentially being a place where a survivor is hidden away. If you had a thousand helicopters immediately dispatched to the area, it would still have taken days just to find the survivors and get them to the larger “islands,” such as the Superdome and the Convention Center.
And now, there are hundreds of these larger islands. Nobody has an accurate account of how many people are in each one, and you still have to go at them one at a time. I know New Orleans well, and sure there are TV cameras at the Convention Center, but I’m certain that if anybody could get down the the Riverbend area near where Carrolton and St. Charles Avenues meet, that there are hundreds of people there. And along Gentilly and Esplanade near the fairgrounds where land is higher. And along the levee at the park behind the Audubon Zoo, which is dry. And in tons of other places too. St. Bernard Parish is completely screwed, with thousands marooned and hungry, but the majority of resources are going to the city.
Believe me when I tell you, there was no way to adequately plan in advance for this particular disaster. You just have to take the events as they come and systematically deal with the issues according to the priorities you set and change as events move.
First, you save the people whose lives are immediately threatened. Second, you move them to higher ground. Third, you restore order. Fourth, you get supplies in and distribute them where you can. All the while, you get as many people out as you can. And then you figure out what to do with them from there.
Whatever led anyone to think this couldn’t happen in America, or shouldn’t happen in America, is beyond me. Mother Nature doesn’t give a damn whether you’re American. And it takes as much time to sort out logistics in New Orleans, Louisiana as it does in Phuket, Thailand.
Nobody is being intentionally ignored or singled out. Death and destruction are very democratic in disaster-stricken areas.
As for the politicians, I’m no fan of Bush or Blanco or Nagin or any of them, even on the best of days. But laying out blame helps nobody at this point. I’m sure that once the survivors are sheltered, fed, and clothed, once the water is pumped out, and people start to piece together their lives, at that point there will be more than enough time for the blogosphere’s self-proclaimed experts to assign blame.
If you absolutely feel the urgent need to hold somebody responsible, don’t hesitate to point the finger of blame at me. I can safely say I never saw this coming, didn’t prepare for it, and have not personally sent any food or water to the Convention Center. I’ll take the responsibility, while the people who need to do their jobs go ahead and do just that.
For now, I truly believe that everybody is doing the absolute most they can in the midst of complete and total chaos and desperation. If Jeff had one good thing to say in all of this, it’s that everybody should contribute what they can to the relief effort. If you live anywhere near the affected areas, think about opening your homes to the displaced. When the call comes, consider going down there to volunteer in the recovery/rebuilding effort (or whatever evolves).
September 2nd, 2005 at 6:38 am
Petro:
THANK YOU for oh-so-methodically debunking the hysterical rantings of the off-with-their heads crowd (well, only if they’re Republican heads–Bush’s first, naturally.) Such glee at a potential loss of his political clout in the face of horrible human tragedy is beyond repulsive. One has only to look at the satellite images of the area involved to understand the logistical nightmare involved in getting goods and appropriate personnel in safely and unknown numbers of victims out in equal safety.
Sadly, it seems far too many of us view the world through the distorted prisms of cheesy ninety-minute Hollywood disaster flicks, the voracious 24 hour news cycle eager for bad news/scandal/unsubstantiated rumor and a spoiled brat populace demanding instant remedies for every ill, real or imaginary. (I just caught an interview with a recently rescued woman who, instead of expressing gratitude for being alive, complained shrilly and with great indignation that the “military food” she’d been given at a shelter tasted terrible–and besides it was cold. So what–she expected haute cuisine, served piping hot on damask cloth? Sheesh.)
The same dynamic seems at play with the armchair quarterbacks who equally shrilly demand perfection from Bush et al. Did these same “folks” (Lord, how the lefties hate it when Bush uses that Texas jargon!)–did these same folks yell “Off with their heads!” after Waco or when Elian Gonzalez was ripped out of his aunt’s arms by Spec Ops types at gunpoint? After Oklahoma City, did they excoriate Clinton for not anticipation such an occurrence? Hmm, methinks not. But then, Billy is great in front of a camera, isn’t he? Style trumps substance, right?
No administration, no President is infallible. Undoubtedly mistakes have been made, but not for lack of trying, nor for all the nefarious reasons the Blame America/Hate Bush crowd loves to spout.
From all I’ve read, NO was both a disaster and a riot waiting to happen. One of my most vivid memories while visiting the city in the early nineties was a rent-a-cop stationed in the lobby of the Marriott vehemently lecturing several of us on how to stay safe in the French Quarter. Looking back now, his advice seems reminiscent of advice one would offer to a visitor to Baghdad.
Is is Bush’s fault that the city didn’t crack down on the culture of thuggery before Katrina? Or that the NO city government didn’t anticipate the lawlessness and have a contingency plan? (Just wait until a looter gets his head blown off by a National Guardsman and, boy howdy, then listen to the screams! How DARE Bushitler send in the MILITARY! What about posse comitatus? Can you say impeachment? Sheesh, no wonder the man looked exhausted.)
My point, such as it is, is that the heart and soul of America is being eroded away by the acid of this irrational coiffed Howard hatred. I never thought I’d see the day when bringing down a President was more important to far too many of my fellow citizens than winning a war against barbaric murderers. Or the day when political gain takes precedence over love-thy-neighbor humanity.
Sadly, that day seems to be dawning, even here at what I considered one of the most balanced and reasoned forums. Katrina and its aftermath is a tragedy of biblical proportions, yes, but, Jeff, I think it’s way too soon to call it a scandal. Unless, of course, one has a political bias/agenda.
Which, clearly, many here do. Sadly.
September 2nd, 2005 at 7:03 am
Now we have real public policy initiative, the administration is requesting people avoid travel over Labor Day, to keep from exhausting the gasoline supply. Did anyone hear a snort of laughter out there?
Jerry Lewis is devoting a part of his MD Labor Day telethon too hurrican victims. That is lovely.
What’s revolting is laying blame or absolving, when the issue right now is help, and as much as quick as possible, from ALL sectors.
September 2nd, 2005 at 7:20 am
I speak with no technical knowledge of disaster planning and I know nothing about the logistics on the ground. I am a supporter of George W Bush and the war on terror. I am, naturally, what could be called a neo-con . I also think that the armed gangs roaming the streets of New Orleans have a lot to answer for. However all that being said, some images and issues stick in my mind:
1. A chinook helicopter taking on people in a large open area near the superdome. I just can’t help but think that area would look better if it were filling up with tents, porta potties and maybe a Army field hospital.
2. Michael Chertoff anouncing national preparedness day, yesterday.
The blame for this should not yet be an issue and it will no doubt find a home in many places and at many levels
For all that I just wish someone would grab a hold of this disaster by the scruff of the neck and make things happen.
September 2nd, 2005 at 7:32 am
Petro:
One question: What does it take to get water to the convention center? Start there. Tht’s what we’re talking about: Calculate how many bottles of water could fit on one of your buses.
September 2nd, 2005 at 7:35 am
We could drop supplies from the air in Berlin - in 1948 - but not New Orleans - in 2005?
September 2nd, 2005 at 7:42 am
Read this article from a National Guardsmen from Florida who is very familiar with the logistics of hurricane relief: http://iraqnow.blogspot.com/2005/09/logistics-of-disaster-relief.html
September 2nd, 2005 at 7:53 am
Hooray for Stephen Duncan Jr. Blow up your TV.
September 2nd, 2005 at 7:55 am
Whilst I totally accept the logistics of this are immensely difficult I do know that a Chinook is a mightily capable heavy lift helicopter. If a large amount of people are ill, dehydrated and in need of medical treatment at one spot, like the superdome, then surely its might be fairly straightforward to “Chinook” in some emergency supplies? I am not trying to sit in judgment over the effort. If any nation can sort this type of problem out its the US with the support of what is without doubt the finest military the world has ever seen. For all I know it might even be that this has been done. But it seems like it has not. Funny isn’t it the TV stations are all up and running down there with their sat dishes etc. By the way I am a Brit and I hate to see a nation that has saved mine from destruction suffer so badly.
September 2nd, 2005 at 8:33 am
The last internet co. of NO still standing is regularly updating their Jatrina blog. The blogger is ex-soldier, a no-nosense law and order type of guy. He has an eyewitness account about the situation at the convention center:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/
‘It’s been 3 days, and the buses have yet to appear.
Although obviously he has no exact count, he estimates more than 10,000 people are packed into and around and outside the convention center still waiting for the buses. They had no food, no water, and no medicine for the last three days, until today, when the National Guard drove over the bridge above them, and tossed out supplies over the side crashing down to the ground below. Much of the supplies were destroyed from the drop.’
All those aplogists here: No response for 72 hours, wrong informations for the refugees, and now valuable resources are wasted. No on in charge. Do you really want to make us believe that this is unavoidable?
September 2nd, 2005 at 8:47 am
I went to bed last night angry and woke up this morning inspired. It’s time to affect change so that we are never unprepared again. If this had been a terrorist attack or natural disaster with little or no warning, we would be talking about a human tragedy 10-times the scale we’re seeing right now. The nation has had four years since 9-11 to get something in place for a large scale disaster but as we can see, nothing effective has been done. In fact, money that could have lessened the impact of this particular disaster (one that was predicted many times for many years) had been cut. The folks in charge up in Washington now have a choice either fix the problem immediately or find themselves voted out at the next elections.
The answer I’m leaning to right now is a civil defense corp. Whether or not you agree with our nation’s armed forces, reserves, and nat’l guard being stationed in Iraq right now, it’s a situation we have to deal with. While plans were being drawn up to invade, federal level plans to replace the resources those lost reservists and guard members provided should also have been drawn up. In the past in the U.S. and in other nations that role was played by the Civil Defense Corps. Large groups of citizens, with some from every neighborhood, who are trained to deal with disasters, operate and distribute propositioned equipment and supplies, and are looked to in their community as leaders in time of emergencies, can step into the role of managing people in their communities during emergencies. This releases the National Guard members that are left as well as police and emergency personal to perform rescue missions and keep the peace as needed.
Hindsight is twenty-twenty, but it is already clear that this is a failure of monumental proportions by members of the government from the top on down. What must be done immediately is to get resources to the stricken areas ASAP. That effort looks like it is finally materializing. In a few days congress must enact legislation that brings into existence the ‘civil defense corps’ with a budget for training and procuring the equipment and supplies necessary to deal with an emergency a magnitude larger than the one occurring right now. Only then will we begin to be ready for the next catastrophe.
September 2nd, 2005 at 9:05 am
I strongly agree with those who say that this is no time to begin the blame game and subsequent butt covering.
It seems as though the finger pointing has begun in earnest nevertheless.
I detect a spin in the Liberal Media that the blame belongs to the Feds.
I believe it is important to note that those primarily responsible for acting effectively before and after this catastrophe are the elected officials of New Orleans and the State of Louisiana.
September 2nd, 2005 at 9:06 am
I read today that some Islamist websites are calling the disaster “Private Katrina”. Those barbaric fools seem to have forgotten that the Tsunami affected Indonesia the world’s most populous muslim nation and the US responded with nothing but kindness and compassion.
But I have to ask this question - the armed gangs that have got so much attention. They seem not to be looting but trying exacerbate the situation. There has been talk of links between street gangs, prison and al-qaeda. Could there be a link to the armed lunstics and jihadist cells ? I don’t mean to wander off at a tangent but that could well be an explanation for the inexplicable.
September 2nd, 2005 at 9:11 am
My god, did you see Bush’s impromptu press conference. Long-term help? Looking forward to his trip?! Only SIX HUNDRED MPs?!?!?! I can’t believe this is coming out of anyone’s mouth 5 days later, let alone the President’s. What a dark day in our history.
September 2nd, 2005 at 9:24 am
Bush Says Relief Results ‘Not Acceptable’
By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer
7 minutes ago
President Bush, facing blistering criticism for his administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina, said Friday “the results are not acceptable” and pledged to bolster relief efforts with a personal trip to the Gulf Coast.
“We’ll get on top of this situation,” Bush said, “and we’re going to help the people that need help.”
He spoke on the White House grounds just boarding his presidential helicopter, Marine One, with Homeland Security Department secretary Michael Chertoff to tour the region. The department, which oversees the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has been accused of responding sluggishly to the deadly hurricane.
“There’s a lot of aid surging toward those who’ve been affected. Millions of gallons of water. Millions of tons of food. We’re making progress about pulling people out of the Superdome,” the president said.
For the first time, however, he stopped defending his administration’s response and criticized it. “A lot of people are working hard to help those who’ve been affected. The results are not acceptable,” he said. “I’m heading down there right now.”
September 2nd, 2005 at 9:26 am
Clinton went on TV last night and took on those who are criticizing the administration’s response. He did it on CNN, and told all the nitpickers and naysayers that they had no idea what they were talking about. See the transcript here:
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/005360.php
September 2nd, 2005 at 9:33 am
Here comes the approval ratings spike I talked about earlier…
Damn they are good at making themselves look good.
September 2nd, 2005 at 9:42 am
Democrat city, Democrat state.
You figure it out.
September 2nd, 2005 at 9:52 am
Yeah Revo, I’m the racist… You’re completely insane.
But really, I’m beginning to see the point all you apologists are making. I mean, really, George and Dick and Condi et al were on vacation. It’s hard work bankrupting a nation. And you figure, it takes at least 3 days to pack up, book a commercial flight, and get back to DC.
Look, I know you cannot break the laws of physics Jim. There are physical limits to the actual speed of operations. There were no limits on preparation though. And other than telling those who could to evacuate, there was none. This was a complete and utter failure on a local, state, and national level, and you people are fucking making excuses?!?! We pay their salaries, and you think this is OK?
THIS is what you get from 4 years of Homeland Security preparation?
I ask again (Eileen) - this is the best America can do?
Where is the private sector? For the cost of 2-3 million dollars, Coca Cola could have sent 4 million bottles of water from Atlanta, and had it in NOLA on Wednesday. And there is probably a CLOSER bottling plant. After all, Dasani is just heavily-advertised tap water. That’s more goodwill than a Super Bowl ad could ever buy.
September 2nd, 2005 at 9:53 am
I gotta say that while I don’t lay blame at the national level in this particular case, the reaction and ability to help massive groups of people has been less than spectacular. If there was a reason we should just stick to isolationism when it comes to politics and support it’s looking at us right in the face. Watching what I saw on television last night for a few hours made me realize that people in other countries were seeing it and thinking “wow, they can’t even handle that kind of situation in their own country.”
The fact of the matter is, if MSNBCCNNFOX can get journalists into the area with video and audio equipment, why can’t we get trucks or helicopters with supplies into a lot of these areas? The parishes that declared what amounted to martial law have done a lot better, apparently, than the rest of the areas. I hear a lot of talk from politicians saying they are being “ruthless” with looters, but do we have any reports of a looter being shot or shot at? Nope - whether or not that slippery slope is something we need to cross is a tough decision, but we’re certainly not donig any better by leaving the area when thousands of people need help. Seeing dead people in wheelchairs with paper notes on them with information for next of kin in our country, in a major city, let alone the outlying areas, is just too much.
September 2nd, 2005 at 10:02 am
[...] From Jeff Jarvis — This terrible tragedy has now become a scandal. [...]
September 2nd, 2005 at 10:32 am
All top FEMA and DHS personnel should be executed immediately as they are clearly worthless and in the way of helping the poor survivors. Maybe now people will wake up to the criminality of the Bush regime and turn their rage on the scum who are already profitting from this tragedy. Big Oil must be doing a jig knowing that they can now increase the price of gas at least !0% every day with impunity. Democrats who have sat back and taken the massive screwing should be disembowled on the steps of the Capitol, though they don’t deserve getting off so easily. When will this insanity end? When the heads of Bush, Cheney and every member of his criminal cabinet are perched atop the flagpoles ringing the Washington monument. Now that’s what I call compassionate conservatism!
September 2nd, 2005 at 10:52 am
Given the evident hatred between people of the US who share different politics, particularly those who think of themselves liberal, I am surprised anything gets done. I really do not understand where the hatred and the bile that spits forth comes from. You should be pulling together.
September 2nd, 2005 at 11:11 am
Rock on, Hen!
September 2nd, 2005 at 11:20 am
The best thing they could do is send Rudy Guiliani.
If the best Americans can do is have snipers shoot at rescue people and policemen,loot like the Baghdad terrorists, etc. then I am sadly disappointed. What kind of people are these??
Hen is about as goofy as Randi Rhodes who suggests we are allowing these people to die because they are Black and Democrat. The stupidity of the Left never ceases to amaze me. Carry on, your gloating in time of crisis becomes your kind. Maybe you could dance in the streets and hand out candy.
September 2nd, 2005 at 11:22 am
John T:
Democrat city, Democrat state, Republican congress, Republican senate, Bush administration.
You figure it out why all those flood prevention funds were slashed.
The Louisiana officials did beg for the finances to bolster the levees. Even FEMA reported in 2001 that this desaster was among the three most likely to happen. The repubs crippled the funds for the engineering corps instead.
There are several accounts of this criminal neglect, for example:
http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001051313
September 2nd, 2005 at 11:30 am
I would like nothing better than to pull together in the face of a tragedy, but when the tragedy is caused by individuals who then deny all responsibility and blame others, there is no common ground on which to stand, and someone needs to be voted (or pushed) off the island. When a convoy of aid to NO is delayed for a day because FEMA insists they have a registration number; when thousands slowly die bc. some ignorant slimebags can’t figure out how to deliver suupplies; when nobody can find vehicles to move refugees at the convention center and superdome to safety; when all this shit transpires openly; the only solution is for heads to roll. Maybe Halliburton could hire Zarqawi’s crew to come on down and start dispensing some real justice. If this criminal regime is not brought down by this unfolding scandal and unprecedented display of incompetence, then our society is doomed.
September 2nd, 2005 at 11:37 am
I agree that heads should roll for the mess. I don’t think anybody would disagree with that. But it seems to me that its the machinery of the state that is causing the problems that and some bad government decisions about the New Orleans flood defences.
I seem to remember when the democrats were in power they stood by and let over 1,000,000 people be slaughtered in Rwanda. I don’t think I would say that failure was caused by their antipathy toward Africans. Let’s apply the standards uniformly to all political parties and see where that leaves us.
September 2nd, 2005 at 11:45 am
Heads should still roll for the complaceny on Rwanda that allowed the slaughter of a million people. They should roll for the slaughter of four million in Congo. They should roll for the ongoing slaughter in Iraq. One result of all these slaughters was establishment of an Intl. Criminal Court, but, gee, what has the GOPig position been on this issue? The Democraps share in responsibility for much of what sucks in this slimy greedfest spewed forth by Washington, but the GOPigs have upped the ante with policies that so blatantly against the laws of nature and common decency that they deserve summary execution as a first step in righting the wrongs. Once these pigs have been slaughtered (humanely of course - I am a pacifist at heart) or reeducated, then there might be a chance for real progress. It’s clear the US public is too ignorant, greedy and/or evil to rid society of these criminals through democratic means.
September 2nd, 2005 at 12:05 pm
Gray,
The obligation to prepare for contingencies such as how inform the populace, evacuate the city, mobilize and concentrate resources while maintaining the rule of law belongs to the local and state governments, which in this case, are both in the control of Democrats.
As far as I can see, the only public official willing to step up to the plate and get things moving is President Bush.
Blaming the President for not acting sooner is an admission of ineffectiveness on the part of the blamers.
September 2nd, 2005 at 12:07 pm
ABC Sydney Local Radio Drivetime has been interviewing Ozzies in NO.
One was the director of a 60 bed holding pen err… nursing home with patients of an average age of 88. There are 16 staff. They have no AC, no power except for a small generator to power fans, no water or food. They cannot hold out another day.
A 29 yo woman working as a lawyer and living in the FQ finally phoned home and is safe after riding out the storm with a 60 yo neighbour and her cat but they are running out of supplies.
The mayor (Nagin?) ain’t as slick Guiliani but his interview on radio was very telling.
September 2nd, 2005 at 12:07 pm
“They should roll for the ongoing slaughter in Iraq” - Yes how about the many sunni muslims who want to slaughter and do slaughter their fellow muslims
Hen - you sure you’re not really Mussolini or Pol Pot ? You seem to like the idea of re-education, de-humanisation and the killing your political foes, and you view the masses as ignorant. Oh yes that’s right, the left has always liked that way of doing business.
September 2nd, 2005 at 12:08 pm
[...] The main issue, of course, is not just looting but the fact that, as more and more people are now saying, this is America and this is the best we can do. Looting is one symptom of the problem, which includes a whole lot of other unnecessary evils, including suffering and deaths. It’s not enough to spend the whole time whining about the WOT- we have to buck up our ideas at home, in what I would regard as some pretty basic areas. [...]
September 2nd, 2005 at 12:12 pm
“Clinton went on TV last night and took on those who are criticizing the administration’s response. He did it on CNN, and told all the nitpickers and naysayers that they had no idea what they were talking about. See the transcript here:
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/005360.php ”
Has willy boi gone over to the other side? What sort of favour did gWb hafta perform for that helping hand? Is there some sort of Preznits’ union?
Seriously though Clinton made Bush look very bad
September 2nd, 2005 at 12:18 pm
From Wonkette:
But you know, the GOP could ensure Republican dominance to the end of the century if instead of heading to the airport, George Bush took Marine One to the Convention Center and just started handing out water.
From Angelos:
Seriously. You think Clinton wouldn’t be IN THERE, shaking hands, hugging, biting his lower lip and being sad, feeling some pain?
Seriously, is Bush that afraid of the Negros?
Kat, this is anger you’re hearing, babe, not gloating.
Here’s come more compassionate conservativism:
TALLAHASSEE - Hundreds of Katrina evacuees who fled to Tallahassee seeking refuge from the storm have been politely told by their hotels and motels to leave this weekend to make room for a football game: FSU vs. Miami.
Here’s Reuters:
The New Orleans disaster is already viewed as an illustration of what can go wrong in an American city under siege.
“In many ways, this is a test of our national capacity,” said James Carafano, senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “If we can’t do this 24-7-365, we aren’t doing our job for preparedness.”
But hey, what the hell are we doing, holding our elected officials to standards…
September 2nd, 2005 at 12:22 pm
Hen: All top FEMA and DHS personnel should be executed immediately
Angelos: Rock on, Hen!
Again, the ugly victory lap of hatred. For the rest of this is *not* a matter of being apologists for the system, it’s a matter of being realistic, and, dare I say: SANE?
The *biggest* scandal is that the levees required to protect New Orleans from a category 4 or 5 would be a massive project that would have taken at least 30 years to build. Get that? 30 freaking years. That’s decades of *national* disgrace and scandal by Republicans, Democrats, and independents alike. For this tragedy to have been avoided, we would have had to start major construction in the *70s*… and the government should have been on the fast track to doing this in the mid-60s, after the first horrific flooding. We have had many Republican and Democratic presidents since then, and it is foolish to try to lay this at the feet of any one. If Bush is guilty, then so is Clinton. If Clinton is guilty, then so is Reagan. And if Reagan is guilty, so is LBJ and Nixon. Not to mention everybody else who was in a position to make noise about it during all those decades. Who do we line up for execution first, Hen? We start with more recent politicians who might have done more to get the ball rolling, so that New Orleans might be ready to avert this kind of disaster by the year 2030, thirty years too late? Or do we first line up the old codgers who had time to do something about it?
The “apologists” here recognize that ghouls like Angelos are trying to repeat their terrific performance from the Paul Wellstone memorial, hoping to gain political traction off of tragedy and rumor mongering. It didn’t work then, and it won’t work now; but it is still ugly and objectionable.
I still have to credit JJ with not being political so much as emotional. He is angry… and so are we! But it is a mistake to listen to too many Angeloses and anti-Bush propaganda disguised as news. If we were under a Democratic administration, it would be just as moronic to listen to anti-Clinton propaganda during a tragedy like this. And, yes, some Republicans are prone to this kind of ugliness as well. That does not excuse it now.
September 2nd, 2005 at 12:24 pm
John T, you should be aware that the prez has the command over the US forces and their assets. Orders to the navy ships for example went out on wednesday, that’s just to late. The National Guard of Louisiana was activated monday, not friday after the dire warinings. Dunno who’s to blame for that, Blanco or Brown? One way or the other, it should have been clear that 3700 troops aren’t enough for an area of this size. I’m sure Blanco has not the command over the National Guards of the neighboring states, guess it would have been FEMAs job to get the reinforcements on the way.
I guess there will be an interesting aftermath when all the failures will be discussed. But it should be clear right now that the emergency management was nowhere nearly sufficient. And that’s the opinion of the Prez, too: “The results are not acceptable”
September 2nd, 2005 at 12:33 pm
Way to go, Jeff!
People are dying. Babies, elderly, infirm, poor, not-poor, black, white and all shades, ages, conditions, social statuses and political persuasions in between are starving, dying of thirst, living in filth, surrounded by rotting corpses and living through the unimaginable trauma of losing everything. EVERYTHING!
So yeah, by all means, let’s take our cues from the once-mainstream media and get right to the business of blaming those who had nothing to do with the cause of the problems and those who were physically incapable of getting aid to those in need due to impassable roads and lack of resources! Good form!!
Not.
There is only one culprit here, at least with respect to the tragedy of the aftermath in New Orleans. Whine all you want about the federal money for underdesigned levees, which in their best state of repair would have failed. Whine all you want about “slow” federal response (jeebus, is there any other kind of federal response!??!) to an unprecedented catastrophe, the magnitude of which was only just being fully realized three days ago. And whine all you want about what FEMA should be capable of (please!).
The fact remains that the New Orleans city government’s Disaster Preparedness Plan can be distilled to a single word: denial. Nagin should quit blaming the feds for the results of his own criminal irresponsibility in this regard.
We have a TRIAGE situation going on down there. In circumstances like these, every decision is going to have a downside and some people are going to just plain lose out. You want “reality-based”?? Take a good look.
Trying to make political hay out of a triage situation is certainly the height of something. Something really ugly.
September 2nd, 2005 at 12:37 pm
Apparently your VP is still on vacation. That’s soooooooooooooo Cheney.
September 2nd, 2005 at 12:40 pm
Seriously. You think Clinton wouldn’t be IN THERE, shaking hands, hugging, biting his lower lip and being sad, feeling some pain?
Seriously, is Bush that afraid of the Negros?
Kat, this is anger you’re hearing, babe, not gloating.
No, *that* is not anger or gloating, *that* is *hate*. You just slurred a guy who’s appointed more blacks to higher positions than any other president in history as being racist because he and his administration aren’t performing a fantasy that, if actually attempted, would make the job of the relief workers that much harder. To chance hampering the relief work by parading in front of cameras simply to score cheap political points — hopefully that would be beneath even Clinton. But are you really suggesting that he would stoop so low?
It is a stupid, asinine idea, but that isn’t the point, is it? It’s a neat way to slam somebody you don’t like as you ride the crest of death and destruction.
September 2nd, 2005 at 12:52 pm
Heeee!
MCINTYRE: And as to your question about political, I talked to a lot of people at the Pentagon today who were very frustrated about the fact that the perception was being created that the military didn’t move fast enough. And they did it somewhat as political. They thought that part of the motivation was the critics of the administration to make the president look bad.
And they seemed to question the motives of some of our reporters who were out there and hearing these stories from the victims about why they had so much sympathy for the victims, and not as much sympathy for the challenges that the government met in meeting this challenge.
And I have to say thinking about that, it doesn’t really seem all that unusual that you would tend to understand the plight of the victims a little more than the bureaucrats in Washington.
Wow, I feel so bad. I’ll start crying for the government next…
September 2nd, 2005 at 12:53 pm
Excellent - always time for a presidential photo-op
Look at this. These are our resources being used, in real time…
September 2nd, 2005 at 12:54 pm
Yes, Bob, I would like 100,000 trained people at the ready with heavy machinery and supplies. Oh wait, they’re called the National Guard. Oh wait, they’re all over being someone else’s National Guard.
September 2nd, 2005 at 1:03 pm
Can someone please tell me how it’s possible for Martin f-ing Savidge (who is completely intolerable, by the way) and an NBC news crew following Harry Connick Jr around to get to the Convention Center but they can’t get some trucks full of water? Can Michael Chertoff answer that question for me? Harry Connick Jr was beside himself on the Today Show this morning–saying that he had just driven from the Convention Center to Baton Rouge in an hour on a highway that was completely open and empty–now where’s the infrastructure problem that seems to be preventing them from getting trucks in there? What the hell is going on?
September 2nd, 2005 at 1:03 pm
I can’t believe that people on this board are actually apologizing for the way officials have handled this nightmare. Had this happened in your own backyards, I doubt you’d all be as forgiving. Is GOP loyalty so strong that we dare not hold those who fail to meet the challenges that face our nation accountable for fear of losing valuable political points to the hated opposition? It is a national disgrace that we need to rely on Anderson Cooper to point out the fact that the emperor has no clothes, but thank goodness for him nonetheless.
Surprise, surprise: you can’t gut the Federal government through a combination of war, irresponsible spending, and ideological hatred towards the very notion of social responsibility and expect someone to be there to help you when the shit truly hits the fan. This is your neoconservative utopia, people! We’ve got New Orleans drowning in the bathtub — who wants to be next?
September 2nd, 2005 at 1:05 pm
anybody knows where james wolcott is on this issue? i wonder, if he still cheers for mother gea? (obscure refeence, but old readers of this blog will know)
September 2nd, 2005 at 1:06 pm
Angelos: Heeee!
I’m not wrong about this. These are some of the happiest days in Angelos’ life.
September 2nd, 2005 at 1:09 pm
Gray,
The Feds forecast the landfall of Katrina to within 50 miles. They ordered evacuation while the locals were still discussing whether to make it mandatory. From the time they were able to fly the USCG has been running helicopter rescues around the clock.
If you recall, after Katrina passed and before the levee breaks began, many of the people who ignored the order to evacuate were congra