Nice!…

I’m breaking my personally imposed comment silence on your website so that I can direct your attention to this story today on MSNBC’s website:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9368952

This story totally debunks as a complete falsehood everything Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard “cried” about on NBCs Meet The Press, and everything you posted here.

He was able, successfully I might add, to deflect his own culpability in the deaths in his parish off to Michael Brown and others in FEMA.

You helped him get away with it.

At the very beginning of the comments on this post, I questioned the credulity of this story. Any media member worth his salt, I believed at the time, could see right through this charade.

Rather than search out the facts, the MSM tends to take as an article of faith everything that comes out of “grieving” Louisiana politicians, who are desparately seeking to deflect the cricitism for their criminally negligent failure to act in the days before Hurricane Katrina.

The man whose mother died in that nursing home is none other than a Louisiana government official responsible for emergency management in Jefferson Parish, Thomas Rodrigue.

Rather than order that nursing home evacuated, which his MOTHER was in, and rather than go pick his own mother up OUT OF THAT NURSING HOME when he knew it wasn’t being evacuated, he left her there to drown.

He admits that now.

He also admits that Aaron Broussard made up the entire story of his mother calling frantically for a week before she drowned. She never called once, because she died in the flooding caused by the hurricane.

This is a tragedy, not for Aaron Broussard or that sick, sick son who left his mother to drown in a nursing home he knew wasn’t being evacuated, but for that poor old woman.

Her death is now being used by those Democrats in power in Louisiana who should have prevented her death to cover up their scandal. Democrats will stoop to nothing to retain their political grip on the state.

If you are a resposnible blogger, then I believe that you should revisit this post on your blog and address the poor reporting of it, since you passed this tirade off as established fact as a way of criticizing the Federal response to the aftermath of the hurricane.

We have always known what the ”worst case scenario” was. I’ve heard it all of my life. I’ve heard stories of Betsy (I was just a babe then) and Camille.

I purchased all of my supplies to ‘hunker down’ as usual, but by Saturday morning, I was packing us up.

Now, I hate to bash the people who stayed, like I said, I’m typically a stayer, but ultimately, each individual (or family) needs to take responsibility for their own safety.

We have been told over and over that a ‘mandatory evacuation’ means that you need to go… that if you stay, you may be endangering the lives of rescue workers that will potentially have to rescue you.

PEOPLE DON’T LISTEN.

Now New Orleans is a poor city, and I am sure that there were a number of people who couldn’t get out (financially) - but I saw interviews with some of the people who ended up sheltered in the dome and they just didn’t want to deal with the traffic leaving town.

If everyone who could’ve left WOULD’VE left… then perhaps the resuce operations could’ve been more effective… there would’ve been far few people who needed saving.

There are STILL people waiting to be saved. There are STILL people who refuse to leave. There are SO SO SO Many people who are unable to locate loved ones.

I understand the desire to stay…. I want to be home right now so so badly… but not if it will hamper the efforts of others to get my city up and running again.

Swift FEMA Action

You know, it’s become so fashionable to beat up on the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the lack of accountability therein. In reality, the agency has acted swiftly on some occasions to quell bad actors in its ranks. Why, just look at how promptly it addressed the conduct of Nicole Rank, a Corpus Christi-based FEMA administrator who was dispatched to the Charleston, West Virginia site of a flood last year. It so happened the president turned up in town at the same time, for a Fourth of July speech, and Rank turned up at the event with her husband Jeff. Both were wearing a T-shirt that read “Love America, Hate Bush” and “Regime Change Starts at Home”; the Charleston police told them to “cover [the shirts] up, take them off, or leave completely.” When the Ranks refused they were forcibly removed from the premises and briefly imprisoned, so that the president could proceed with his speech declaring the Fourth an occasion to celebrate “the freedom for people to speak their minds, the freedom for people to worship as they so choose. Free thought and free expression, that’s what we believe”.

And within two days, FEMA informed Ms. Rank that because of the incident, she was being released from the Charleston assignment. That’s some rapid action to protect the security of the homeland. A heck of job, you might even say.

It sucks that things might’ve been done differently, that more people might have been saved, that many people have behaved like animals… but there is a lot to be done right now.

Let’s fight about this later, for now, if you want to do some good, grab a bag of ice, some jugs of water and go help someone. If, for whatever reason you are unable to help, then shut the hell up.

Here’s an url from someone who describes Florida evacuation planning….
http://www.theblackrepublican.net/archives/003023.html

A few excerpts: “I’m not a government official at any level, just an ordinary citizen. But in Florida, we try to take hurricane season rather seriously. All our schools drill the mechanics of hurricanes into science classes and TV stations repeat the basics of hurricane safety endlessly, even during the dry months. (”It’s never too early to establish your hurricane plan!” yadda yadda)…

There’s usually no actual force involved. It’s the force of the word itself that usually gets people moving, as in: “Oh, you mean it’s so dangerous and imminent, I really don’t have a choice?” Right - you don’t have a choice if you want to be sure you’ll be alive tomorrow.”

As far as FEMA…this url may be helpful..it deals a bit with their timeline…(just scroll down to FEMA)http://junkyardblog.net/archives/week_2005_09_04.html#004765

http://www.floridadisaster.org/bpr/Response/Plans/Nathaz/Brochure/placetogo.htm

Basically, it says if Jeb has ordered an evacuation, they you are instructed to get yourself out.

In the case that you can’t get yourself out, there’s a list of shelters that you need to get yourself to. Please note, you have to get yourself to that shelter. I haven’t found anything that says buses are going to be driving around the neighborhood looking for people to evacuate.

I don’t even find anything saying who you should call if you’re handicapped, elderly or whatever, though I’m sure there must be some kind of provision. At least I hope there is.

The question, why are you holding the LA officials to a higher standard than Jeb?

Another gentleman on an earlier thread posted a linked to the Red Cross site, where they advise the original plan to evacuate to points outside the city was changed to evacuating to the Superdome. The Red Cross (not some leftist organization) commended the city officials for that decision and that it probably SAVED lives.

My primary issue with FEMA was this. The declaration was made by Bush on Saturday Aug 26, which gave FEMA 72 to 96 hours to respond. That means FEMA should have been in high gear no later than Wed Aug 31. They weren’t even close to ready, even though they were busy turning away organizations that could have helped (Walmart with water, etc). I haven’t found anyone that can tell me why food, water and medicines were not air-dropped starting on Wed. There are millions of those ready-to-eat meals already packaged and available.

Or did he only issue an evacuation order and those with the means/ability moved themselves out? My granddaughter lives just north of the Miami area. She managed to drive herself and her son out (luckily, she had a car), but the roads were choked with traffic and she just bearly made it out before the storm hit to meet us in Norfolk.

There were people who died in those storms. You didn’t see me pointing the finger at Jeb and blaming him because he didn’t pick up everyone in a bus and move them out. That would have been logistically impossible in such a short period of time. But I want to know why Fema didn’t respond to New Orleans in the same urgent manner as they responded to Florida.

And it just came out in the news that Brown didn’t even issue his orders to move FEMA into position until after the storm.

Owl 1, you bet your sweet ass, I’m pointing at YOU! With all DUE respect, of course, since you seem to be so proud of it.

A commenter from Florida wrote: “Last year, Florida faced two huge hurricanes. Jeb Bush had everyone from southern to central Florida evacuate (my Mom was one of them).

Well, both storms bypassed southern Florida–& he was subjected to much harping & politically motivated criticism from media for being too “alarmist.”

When you hear Dallas shut it down, people that don’t know the politics of Dallas and Austin think “oh those mean rich people”. Shame. But the real shame is that lousy red tape that keeps the best of the best from happening for the victims. Typical. A state government with all it’s resources, 70 miles away, and this is the best they can do……waiting for the professionals……. They finally had some real victims and this is what they do.

http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=32144&dcn=todaysnews

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001051313

http://news.yahoo.com/s/latimests/20050904/ts_latimes/despitewarningswashingtonfailedtofundleveeprojects

http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/002331.html

Please let me know when you’re through and I’ll send you the next four links.

It isn’t rocket science. FEMA and the federal government according to their own policy are ultimately responsible for responding quickly to a national disaster (4 states were involved, by the way). This does not mean that local and state officials aren’t also at fault. Did you read that last sentence?

Of course, last year was, well, last (election) year.

And yet, brother Jeb’s state gets hit over and over, every year, by hurricanes. And people don’t evaculate when told. And I’ve not heard of Jeb ordering school buses to cruise the cities looking for people to pick up. I’ve never heard anyone say it was Jeb’s responsibility to make sure every citizen was out of harm’s way. I’d like to know what Jeb’s evacuation plan is, short of telling people to get in their cars and drive away. What are his plans for gathering up all the poor people who don’t have cars, the sick, the elderly, etc. I mean, isn’t this a state where hurricanes are a way of life?

I didn’t hear anyone from the right griping that the feds shouldn’t have been counted on to take charge.

I also posted in another thread a recent NYT editorial claiming that efforts by the administration to send more funds that way was “pork” and a “boondoggle”. I’m off to work, so somebody will have to go find that. They confidently cited environmentalists who said that this work would harm the wetlands, which, as I understand was supposed to be enough to hold back such storms.

If we only had more wetlands!

Jim, Nagin and Blanco are not the g-ddam victims! They are the Katrina equivalent of Giuliani and Pataki. When 9/11 happened, those men *acted*. They didn’t spend all of their time telling reporters that somebody in Washington isn’t doing enough!

Tiresome: the left, from moderate to fringe start pointing fingers at *everybody*. Everybody else must respond, not happily, because this is not the time, but respond they must because charges continue to escalate. This response is then turned around and characterized as the accused leading an attack on “victims”!!! I repeat: Nagin and Blanco are not “victims”, and neither are you or Jeff Jarvis!!! It is asinine, repugnant, and self-aggrandizing to try to pretend you represent the actual victims more than anybody else. Those people are my brothers, sisters, friends, and family, just as much as anyone in the nation. What you want here is not justice or help for the helpless — what you are seeking is the ability to browbeat your sworn political enemies while silencing them from responding. To the left: this is *your* compassion! You don’t care about those people, you’re f-cking using them!!! You’re standing on the backs of the victims in the most pathetic attempt I’ve ever seen to try to build back power and respect.

At the end of my last post, I almost reported a little off-topic aside that I was happy with my city’s incredibly effective response. No more. I am now at the limits of my outrage because in a city (Dallas) that was pouring out a massive volunteer effort to help Katrina transplants, the volunteer effort has just been ordered shut down by the city’s wonks (the city itself is like many major cities… the suburbs are conservative, but the central government is liberal). It’s being shut down because of concern over the city’s LEGAL F-CKING LIABILITY!!! The volunteers are being told to leave so the “professionals” can take over. The volunteers are shaking their heads, because they know its a mistake. Our transplants have been some of the luckiest in the nation — until now.

Don’t give me this crap about “gee, conservatives sure are compassionate, aren’t they?” The people working to help are compassionate, conservative and liberal alike; a bureaucracy by *definition* is not! And people seeking political gain by exploiting a tragedy certainly are not.

SheRa asked questions on grades. I think Bush was slow to get the facts. I refer you to the transcript that Kat referred to…..CNN O’Brien/Nagin. I have laid most of the blame for the whining and poor planning at his feet but, I say read what he says took place between himself, the president and governor of LA. Bush was my state governor. He does understand power of command at state level. You really must read the interview over at CNN.

Back to John’s quote…..when 9/11 happened, the LEFT stomped their feet and DEMANDED a 9/11 Commission. Like yesterday. Now they ignored 10 years of people attacking us in small doses, and building. This happened under that man that stole their election. Do the hearings. They gave us things like Clarke, that great terrorism czar. They DEMANDED that all the things that crazy commission said to do……be done……yesterday. This I do blame Bush. Nuts. He caved as far as I was concerned. This smart group (see John T’s quote) created another layer of tape. Great.

If you set up a trade show in a convention center. a)you put your name of a list to be connected to electricity (half dozen people for this) b)you can see the plug slot in front of your nose c)You also paid a couple hundred dollars for that $5 of juice d)If you plug in your plug, yourself, they will disconnect you permanently e)you wait at least an hour for the pluggers f)2-4 people come by with their list…..one of them reaches over…..and plugs in a plug.

If you consider what the law is concerning the above mentioned plug, you might understand why I was against another layer of red tape. I do not understand why I can not reach over and plug in that darn plug.

I heard Nagin and the governor’s press conference to evacuate. About the weakest appeal possible. The governor went so far as to blame it on Bush, saying that he had called and begged for this.

I also heard the governor’s interview this morning on FOX. She said quite plainly that the lines of power are clear. She said that “she was in charge, all the National Guard were under her authority.” Well, I knew that. Nagin didn’t. Quite a few on this thread do not know this. Read her interview this morning and Nagin’s at CNN. And yes, I believe every word I hear about FEMA. Something like this would only work well for regular disasters. Those 4 people plugging that plug, doncha know?

Linda Edwards, point at me when you say disgusting, because I did not believe one word of Jefferson’s president. What kind of man would sit up there and tell such as that? Why the hell didn’t he go get a boat and go get her? And that’s the real crunch of the matter. Many who read here do not understand the distance between Baton Rouge (the capital of LA) and New Orleans. The governor sits in BR. Her state troopers sit in BR. Nice city with hundreds of buses in BR. The state authority for the state of LA is in BR. Now Nagin says that when he saw the president and the governor on AirForce1, the governor needed 24 hours to “make a decision”. This jives with what WaPo reported.

How far away is Baton Rouge? Approximately 73 miles, or an hour and half from the New Orleans. I give FEMA a low grade, but what do you expect from pluggers that are not even in charge? Now put it to music…..”Do you know the way to Baton Rouge”