Although the original post kind of got lost, it’s appropriate that what’s going on at the moment should get our attention. But should mention that 6,000 sexual offenders have gotten ‘lost’ in the evacuation of NO, and are turning up in communities in shelters. Shelter residents are being advised that they need to keep close watch on their families.

Also hearing much comment about how the excruciating exodus out of Houston seems to have been completely useless. Also, like John, so many people could have done so much better to go west than north. (Why not open a shelter in Crawford? hee hee) And next time those people who hit the road this time will not listen. Some public officials have been saying they never told EVERYONE they should leave Houston. :-}

There are problems… a huge mass of people are on the move. Until you hand us the blueprints to the matter transporters from Star Trek, there is no way such a massive movement can be done smoothly and without major obstacles. We’re talking about cities that have difficulty moving traffic on NORMAL DAYS. If you have all of the answers, please enlighten us, and in detail.

From the tenor of your complaints, I am assuming that you have access to or at least have some knowledge of the coordinates of the big freaking magic wand that allows an entire modern city to bug out seamlessly. Please share.

We’ve got big traffic going through Dallas, today. I’m sure you heard about the bus that caught on fire and then blew up. There were other accidents that snarled traffic. I have witnessed some of this first-hand, and while I am angry and upset that these things happen, I know there is a reason. No amount of contingency planning can alleviate all of this. You either try to evacuate or deal with the consequences of not evacuating.

Putting those buses into motion was at least the responsible course to take, in light of the storm; nobody ever said that makes everything all perfect and dandy. But it has a better chance of saving lives than leaving rows and rows of buses unused. Your complaint that not everybody is going to be saved by those buses is stupid and inhuman. The alternative to trying to save as many people with buses as possible? Leaving the buses sit and let *everybody* chance dying?

Can you not recognize how insane that is? Every single bus *not* used represents many lives needlessly put at risk by the incoming storm. Your equation apparently is: can’t save all lives, so forget it and let everybody without a car be left at risk. This is simply a weird and desperate stretch in order to defend the early and erroneous position that the federal government was responsible for the incompetence of Democratic presidential front-runner Nagin.

And, good lord, if I *was* an alcoholic instead of a teetotaler, I’d at least have an excuse to be irrational and inhuman — the only excuse on the left to be irrational and inhuman is nothing but unshakable, incurable, and self-delusional self-righteousness.

And on another point, a minor one, but one that should be addressed, anyway:

relatives in Dallas that had to wait 1 1/2 hours in line for gas

This was not endemic throughout the city. Unfortunately, I had to be on the road yesterday, and it was very clear that the gas stations that were out of gas were the ones on the highways. Many gas stations away from the highway were out of regular unleaded, but did not run out of the premium grades. But not this morning, or in the afternoon, did I see any gas station with a 1 1/2 hour-style line. This run on gas must have peaked and dissipated the day before.

This is where even better communications would help. But this strikes me as not something the government should coordinate, but media (who are patting each other on the backs because they were able to bare their teeth and GRRRR act angry about what other people were and weren’t doing). Most media reported only how rotten everything was; instead, many stations *should* be preempting their regular programming for a STREAM OF HELPFUL INFORMATION.

For instance, the local Wal-Marts were swamped, out of water, etc. But locals who know where to go still had plentiful supplies in dollar stores, grocery stores, corner stores; people fleeing through the area don’t know where the alternatives are. Media should use its reach — a mass communications reach that the federal government simply does not have — to pass along help, but instead simply pepper short news rants throughout the regular soap operas, music, judge shows, whatever.

Media — fourth estate — if you’ll forgive the movie analogy, is like David Niven in “Guns of Navaronne”, constantly carping about everybody else who is in a position of having to make hard, no-win decisions, but unwilling and unable to step up and take responsibility to do what they can — and should be doing. Media should be at its heart a public service, but is really only a noise machine.

On the sauce again, Carson?

Or have your comprehension abilities finally dropped sub-zero?

Right, so the answer is not to do anything.

That’s the most brilliant plan I’ve heard yet.

I just happen to be from New Mexico too. So your coincidental location isn’t going to win you any points without hard cold facts.

I won’t bother agreeing with you again.

Well, Angelo, mass evacuations by definition are large and difficult tasks unlike classroom fire drills. They are messy and not perfect.

Maybe you should reflect on the fact that unlike 50-100 years ago people in that area didn’t have a 6-8 lane highway and as many family cars to get to safety. They died in large numbers.

Aside from the state/federal government equiping every coastal American with a private helicopter just in case of a cat 4 hurricane, what exactly do you want done to make things better?

You might not be coping but I think most folks are.

They certainly are a tax revenue source:

It all means more money for state coffers. The state collects “revenue sharing” payments from the tribes, which range from four to eight percent of the net win from slot machines. The racetracks pay a 20 percent tax on their slots’ net win, raised to 22 percent this year. In 2004, the tribes paid more than $38 million and the tracks paid $37 million in taxes and revenue sharing fees

New Mexico isn’t a wealthy state. That’s a nice extra source of income.

Nationally, casinos are also players in the political lobbying game.

Who isn’t a player in the lobbying game?

Two scenarios-
a) If it’s a dud (which we all hope), are people going to get jaded again? This “evacuation” is ONLY happening because of Katrina, after all.
b) If it’s a 4 or 5 when it hits, and the highways are turned into giant scrapyards, and there are still tons of people in town because of the frustrations with the attempted exit, or the lack of ability to exit, then what. Just another demonstration of our inability to cope with large-scale problems. This is NOT a political comment, BTW.

Nationally, casinos are also players in the political lobbying game. There have been many questions about contributions and lobbying fees (google Abromoff), and potential indictments, but not of the tribes.

The WaPo editorial is short on analysis and depth just like the Saudi Arabia article that started this thread.

[snip]
Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, said Thursday that he had been warning the Bush administration in recent days that Iraq was hurtling toward disintegration, a development that he said could drag the region into war.

“There is no dynamic now pulling the nation together,” he said in a meeting with reporters at the Saudi Embassy here. “All the dynamics are pulling the country apart.” He said he was so concerned that he was carrying this message “to everyone who will listen” in the Bush administration.
[/snip]

With “friends” like these…

Don’t they know that bad news is treason? Why aren’t they “supporting the troops?” Why do they hate America?

All is going right according to plan. Well, the best plan our “leaders” can come up with any any give time.

“Uh, dudes, maybe if we all panic at the same time, we can wait this out on the highway, together.”

[snip]
“Jack Colley, coordinator of the state emergency operations center, said the state evacuation plan included getting fuel to stranded motorists, but that the number of people coming out of Houston was a surprise.

“The number of people, the amount of cars, the amount of compliance with this (evacuation order), there’s some things you can predict and some things you can’t, that are unpredictable,” Colley said. “We are compensating. They may run out of gas, but we’re going to get them gas.”
[/snip]

Um, it’s like, you know, call the DMV to find out how many cars are registered in the Houston metro area. Let’s say, 3.6 million, for 4.7 million people. Then talk to some highway engineers, get some estimates as to how many vehicles could the highway radials out of Houston (90, 190, 290, and 59) support in a 36-hour period. Then do the math. Will this work or not? If our call to evacuate is “successful” and 80% respond, what will happen? But, like, that would involve science and stuff? And government and science, don’t like, mix, you know?

As to our sanctions, as noted in the article cited, we also are judging most SE Asian allies as too friendly for sanctions, although their efforts also are not notable in the area of ending child prostitution especially. So where does State see imposing sanctions? North Korea, Myanmar … original,yes?

What a plan.

On the Gulf Coast “some casino companies have already declared that they plan to rebuild “bigger and better” on the Gulf Coast, but the Go-Go Zone would extend tax breaks to them anyway. This charity amazes even the casino people. A spokesman for Harrah’s Entertainment Inc. confessed to The Post: “We’re actually scratching our heads. We can’t ever remember an instance of being offered a tax credit — ever.”‘

From WaPo editorial: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/22/AR2005092202069.html

Sorry, Angelos. That one doesn’t fly. Lines of schoolbuses are being used to cart people out. Nagin’s lame excuse — “where would they go?” — somehow is crystal clear in Texas: away from the effin’ storm.

Somebody has a great photo of a line of school buses, but I forget who. You can find other news references, though, like the buses being used to evacuate Beaumont: The mood was anxious at Smith Middle School, where a caravan of city and school buses waited to take evacuees out of town.

Also, in Houston: METRO buses were also used to distribute water and provide some shelter to those who need it.

I’m sure there are people who don’t know where to go for help, or are unable to. Not everything bad, unfortunate, or tragic is somebody’s “fault”.

There’s also horrible gridlock. We’re talking massive evacuation, here. The biggest problem is a shortage of fuel — EVIL OIL!!!!!

BTW, please, every single tedious person who parrots the “evil oil” line… pelase do us a favor and stop using it. Stop using plastics, stop running motors. But if you can’t refrain from using Evil Oil in your everyday life, then please stop being loud hypocrites.

cheap gasoline for the SUV

Blame Nagin! Where are the schoolbuses!?!?!?

HOUSTON Sep 22, 2005 — Wilma Skinner would like to scream at the officials of this city. If only someone would pick up their phone.

“I done called for a shelter, I done called for help. There ain’t none. No one answers,” she said, standing in blistering heat outside a check-cashing store that had just run out of its main commodity. “Everyone just says, ‘Get out, get out.’ I’ve got no way of getting out. And now I’ve got no money.”

With Hurricane Rita breathing down Houston’s neck, those with cars were stuck in gridlock trying to get out. Those like Skinner poor, and with a broken-down car were simply stuck, and fuming at being abandoned, they say.

“All the banks are closed and I just got off work,” said Thomas Visor, holding his sweaty paycheck as he, too, tried to get inside the store, where more than 100 people, all of them black or Hispanic, fretted in line. “This is crazy. How are you supposed to evacuate a hurricane if you don’t have money? Answer me that?”