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Just a Thought on Hurricane Katrina

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Date: 9/3/2005 5:19:09 PM
Author: icekid
Do I think that the rescue efforts probably could have been handled more efficiently? Very likely! But I also think everyone is doing the best that they can under the circumstances. What reason is there not to send aid immediately? Honestly? Do people think Bush is THAT stupid?
Click to expand...

Let me answer that (and I quote):

"Col. Terry Ebbert, director of homeland security for New Orleans, concurred and he was particularly pungent in his criticism. Asserting that the whole recovery operation had been 'carried on the backs of the little guys for four goddamn days,' he said 'the rest of the goddamn nation can't get us any resources for security.

We are like little birds with our mouths open and you don't have to be very smart to know where to drop the worm,' Colonel Ebbert said. 'It's criminal within the confines of the United States that within one hour of the hurricane they weren't force-feeding us. It's like FEMA has never been to a hurricane.'"

complete article here

Deborah
 
Shay37:

Perry, good point about the army needing a governor to ask for help before they can be brought in. I personally wouldn't want to live in a country where the leader of the armed forces (Commander in Chief George W) could just send troops in. This is a protection for us citizens. Before anyone says that this should have been an exception, I don't want the leader being able to decide the exceptions thank you very much. Those protections keep us from a military tyranny.


Very good Shay. The thunk many of you heard was the nail being hit solidly on the head.

There are extreemly few situations where the active US Military can intervien within the US proper for a civil issue. The US Military is - very delibretly - the resource of last resort.

Look arround the world. Countries where the Military is used as a resource of the first resort often descend into military dictatorships at some point.

The National Guard is however the troops of each state - and under the control of the state (usually the Governor). Each state can choose how big a National Guard it wants. Wages for National Guard members are funded by the State - with the exception of US Military duty under the "shared resource" agreement discussed next.

Most, if not all states, have signed "shared resource" agreements with the US Government for their National Guard's. This provides to the States a lot of expensive equipment and training that they are free to use as needed, and provided to the Pentagon the ability to call up those Gaurd Units for appropriate US Military actions overseas.

Several years ago there was a debate in some states about ending the "shared resource" agreement with the US Goverment to keep their Guard units home from foreign wars. While discussed I do not believe any State withdrew.

Not a single other state willing to help, nor the US Military, could send in a single solder or guardsman into Louisiana until requested by the Louisiana governor (or appropriate designee) - with the proper paperwork signed. Every one of us lives free in part because of that legal arrangment.

There is an arrangment where in the face of obvious inabiliity of the State Goverment to function; where the President of the US could in fact order in the US Military and other National Guard Units into a state. However, no President has wanted to exercise that to date because they do not want to set a precident and or end up in a major legal battle (Supreme Court level) and subject the US Goverment to possible damages. Of course, in a really truly major emergency - like a state's capitol being atom bombed with the loss of the state goverment - I am sure no one would object under that situation that the President would send in the troops (which is exactly the scenerio that created this clasuse in the first place).


Edited to add: As noted in a post above. It was late Wednesday morning before the Louisiana Governor requested other National Guard and US Militiary help. It started to arrive on Friday, with more on Saturday, and lots more on the way. It takes time to mobilize and deoploy troops.

Perry
 
Date: 9/3/2005 6:13:09 PM
Author: perry
Shay37:
Perry, good point about the army needing a governor to ask for help before they can be brought in. I personally wouldn't want to live in a country where the leader of the armed forces (Commander in Chief George W) could just send troops in. This is a protection for us citizens. Before anyone says that this should have been an exception, I don't want the leader being able to decide the exceptions thank you very much. Those protections keep us from a military tyranny.
.......................................................................................
Very good Shay. The thunk many of you heard was the nail being hit solidly on the head.
Click to expand...

If anyone heard a "thunk", let me know. I will help him to find a nice psychiatric hospital where he should spend some time. I mean, PLEASE!!!

You must live in a parallel universe to mine (and I live in the real one). In my US the Patriot Act removed any civil liberties that anyone ever had. Read "Around the World". Under the Patriot Act the FBI can, without a subpoena, obtain any information on anyone in the country without asserting that they believe said person may be a criminal. If the doctor (dentist, chiropractor, psychologist) even tells the patient, he is committing a felony. One of us (a Pricescoper) just had this happen to her.

Could you possibly believe that President Bush let old and critically ill people die in their wheelchairs outside the Superdome and in the New Orleans airport because the US suddenly became interested in the liberty of its citizens?

That the US was so concerned with the Constitution that somehow it didn't send aid because the governor (who said she asked for everything they could send) didn't say the magic words, "National Guard"?

Could the President have picked up the phone if she didn't say, "National Guard"? (And I sure bet she did!!!)

If terrorists drop an atom bomb on a US city will President Bush be too timid to send the national guard in there? What if that state's governor is dead from the bomb? Would President Bush too respectful to send in the National Guard then? If so, maybe we should work a few little things out before the next terrorist attack.

Deborah
 
in regards to transportation out of town= i heard of several cases where there were no rental cars to get out. there''s a point where airplanes are no longer flying. they put them somewhere safe.

when storm comes, you don''t know where the destruction will take place. had all those people been sheltered in the airport, who''s to say the it wouldn''t been hit by a tornado or something.

the city isn''t safe. you can''t just walk to higher ground. plus like i mentioned before, there''s know way to tell what''s going to happen in a storm, tonadoes, high winds. it''s not just the rain.

as far as the superdome goes--- that''s where they have sheltered people before for others storms. that was the safe place to be. when it was built, it was done so to withstand hurricane strength winds. however, that was 30 years ago. if not maintained and updated well, well, it''s not going to be able to do so.
 
AGBF (Deborah):

You must live in a parallel universe to mine (and I live in the real one). In my US the Patriot Act removed any civil liberties that anyone ever had. Read "Around the World". Under the Patriot Act the FBI can, without a subpoena, obtain any information on anyone in the country without asserting that they believe said person may be a criminal. If the doctor (dentist, chiropractor, psychologist) even tells the patient, he is committing a felony. One of us (a Pricescoper) just had this happen to her.
Could you possibly believe that President Bush let old and critically ill people die in their wheelchairs outside the Superdome and in the New Orleans airport because the US suddenly became interested in the liberty of its citizens?

No, we are in the same universe. I''m not sure you understand the difference and the rules. Yes, the patriot act greatly infringed upon our rights in relationship to the police agencies within the US. I agree (and shudder to this day).

However, that it much differerent than the Military and the National Guard. Those organizations have their own special rules, own ways of doing business, and own culture that even Presidents have not been able to alter (and a few tried). I am not sure of the oath that a National Guardsman takes, having never served in the National Guard. But I did searve for 5 years in the NAVY and the US Military takes a unique oath in the world. It is not to protect the President of the US, or Congress, or any individual who happens to hold office. It is to "Protect the Constitution of the United States," and the other significant clause is to only obey a "Lawfull Order" (after a discussion on what this meant and that we could challange any order we though was not lawfull). Yes the President is the Commander in Chief and as such has the ability to provide the ultimate directions to the Military. However, only so far as they are "Lawfull Orders." Military Officers and Enlisted are very aware of these clauses, and sometimes discussion does exist about a concept behind a peacetime order. The Officers and most Non-Commisioned officers are aware of the restrictions on actions within the US on civil matters - and the reasons why.

So yes, I believe that the Military would wait for proper authorization before doing anything.

However, I will grant you that perhaps President Bush was not aware of these clauses as my memory is that he served in the National Guard (my memory could be wrong).


That the US was so concerned with the Constitution that somehow it didn''t send aid because the governor (who said she asked for everything they could send) didn''t say the magic words, "National Guard"?

This week I have been home ill Tuesday - Current with only a few trips out of the house (I did have to go to work for about 3 hours Friday for an item that I had to cover).

The result is that I have watched more TV than I have in ages.

Yes the Louisiana Governer did ask for everything they (the National Guard and US Military) could send. It was late Wednsday Morning. I watched the newsconference where she announced it immediately after the meeting with the head of FEMA. Keep in mind the timeline: The New Orleans levees failed on Tuesday that created the massive disaster in New Orleans that we currently have. Prior to that things were not that desperate.

Reports in the local papers today indicate that some states did not get the appropriate approval paperwork until Thursday. The Governor of my home state of Wisconsin did a new and unique manuver. He has authority to activate the National Guard for any "declared emergency by the governor of the state." Governor Doyle formally declared an "out of state emergency" from which he could then activate the National Guard units to send down south - instead of waiting on the appropriate paperwork to arrive.


Perry
 
I just read an article entitled New Orleans Crisis Shames America on the BBC webpage. I'm not sure I agree with it, but I thought it was interesting to have an international perspective.

I am bothered that there is no tagline saying this is a commentary or editorial piece, so it reads like news.

New Orleans crisis shames Americans
By Matt Wells
BBC News, Los Angeles

At the end of an unforgettable week, one broadcaster on Friday bitterly encapsulated the sense of burning shame and anger that many American citizens are feeling.

The only difference between the chaos of New Orleans and a Third World disaster operation, he said, was that a foreign dictator would have responded better.

It has been a profoundly shocking experience for many across this vast country who, for the large part, believe the home-spun myth about the invulnerability of the American Dream.

The party in power in Washington is always happy to convey the impression of 50 states moving forward together in social and economic harmony towards a bigger and better America.

That is what presidential campaigning is all about.

But what the devastating consequences of Katrina have shown - along with the response to it - is that for too long now, the fabric of this complex and overstretched country, especially in states like Louisiana and Mississippi, has been neglected and ignored.

Borrowed time

The fitting metaphors relating to the New Orleans debacle are almost too numerous to mention.

First there was an extraordinary complacency, mixed together with what seemed like over-reaction, before the storm.

A genuinely heroic mayor orders a total evacuation of the city the day before Katrina arrives, knowing that for decades now, New Orleans has been living on borrowed time.

The National Guard and federal emergency personnel stay tucked up at home.

The havoc of Katrina had been predicted countless times on a local and federal level - even to the point where it was acknowledged that tens of thousands of the poorest residents would not be able to leave the city in advance.

No official plan was ever put in place for them.

Abandoned to the elements

The famous levees that were breached could have been strengthened and raised at what now seems like a trifling cost of a few billion dollars.

The Bush administration, together with Congress, cut the budgets for flood protection and army engineers, while local politicians failed to generate any enthusiasm for local tax increases.

Too often in the so-called "New South", they still look positively 19th Century

New Orleans partied-on just hoping for the best, abandoned by anyone in national authority who could have put the money into really protecting the city.

Meanwhile, the poorest were similarly abandoned, as the horrifying images and stories from the Superdome and Convention Center prove.

The truth was simple and apparent to all. If journalists were there with cameras beaming the suffering live across America, where were the officers and troops?

The neglect that meant it took five days to get water, food, and medical care to thousands of mainly orderly African-American citizens desperately sheltering in huge downtown buildings of their native city, has been going on historically, for as long as the inadequate levees have been there.

Divided city

I should make a confession at this point: I have been to New Orleans on assignment three times in as many years, and I was smitten by the Big Easy, with its unique charms and temperament.

But behind the elegant intoxicants of the French Quarter, it was clearly a city grotesquely divided on several levels. It has twice the national average poverty rate.

The government approach to such deprivation looked more like thoughtless containment than anything else.

The nightly shootings and drugs-related homicides of recent years pointed to a small but vicious culture of largely black-on-black crime that everyone knew existed, but no-one seemed to have any real answers for.

Again, no-one wanted to pick up the bill or deal with the realities of race relations in the 21st Century.

Too often in the so-called "New South", they still look positively 19th Century.

"Shoot the looters" is good rhetoric, but no lasting solution.

Uneasy paradox

It is astonishing to me that so many Americans seem shocked by the existence of such concentrated poverty and social neglect in their own country.

In the workout room of the condo where I am currently staying in the affluent LA neighbourhood of Santa Monica, an executive and his personal trainer ignored the anguished television reports blaring above their heads on Friday evening.

Either they did not care, or it was somehow too painful to discuss.

When President Bush told "Good Morning America" on Thursday morning that nobody could have "anticipated" the breach of the New Orleans levees, it pointed to not only a remote leader in denial, but a whole political class.

The uneasy paradox which so many live with in this country - of being first-and-foremost rugged individuals, out to plunder what they can and paying as little tax as they can get away with, while at the same time believing that America is a robust, model society - has reached a crisis point this week.

Will there be real investment, or just more buck-passing between federal agencies and states?

The country has to choose whether it wants to rebuild the levees and destroyed communities, with no expense spared for the future - or once again brush off that responsibility, and blame the other guy.
 
OK, here's what I didn't agree with in the article I just posted:

He implies that governmental neglect of states like Louisiana and Mississippi led to this catastrophe.

He contrasts this event with the rosy picture that the Bush administration puts out, as though this is the evidence to prove once and for that Bush is an evil, uncaring president. I've got my own opinion of the president which I shall keep to myself (but I'll say it's mostly neutral to negative just to make it clear that I'm not just reacting out of blind loyalty), but I don't think this is evidence of an evil conspiracy to "neglect" the "fabric" of our country.

He cites the high violence and poverty rates in NOLA and implies that they result from neglect and a lack of effort to curb them. He all but blames that neglect on racism, saying that they exist because no one wants to "deal with the realities of race relations in the 21st century."

He makes rebuilding the communities and levees "with no expense spared for the future" sound like a noble thing, as opposed to "brushing off responsibility."

As I've already said, I wonder if our money isn't better spent building on higher ground. It may not be noble to spend billions of dollars creating whatever unearthly contraption we have to in order to keep nature out to rebuild the city, when we know that it will happen again some day. They thought Mt. Vesuvius was dead after a long period of inactivity, but then it killed 4,000 people in the 1600s. It will erupt again. A hurricane will strike again. Again, I'm not saying don't rebuild it, I just didn't like his neat little black/white (no pun intended) analysis of the situation. It's not that simple.

He makes it sound like all we have to do is get the inner-city poor together and do a team building activity with them or something, and then when the next hurricane strikes, we can think kind, tolerant thoughts of each other as we still drown to death, or, best case scenario, sit in a stew of crud and wait for evacuation. But too bad that the evil Bush administration won't let us.

OK, sorry, I guess it hit more of a nerve than I thought. I know that poverty and racism and neglect are very real in our country and we don't have the socialist bent that a lot of European countries have (but they certainly have racism in the UK), but I think his analysis is unfair and simplistic.
 
 
Phenoxgirl & Movie Zombie...

Many people find it easier to make things seem black and white and blame it on something simple.

While I won''t deny that there are people who did not know the history and problems - and expected disaster - who are now still living in denial about it. The fact is that there is not a single person who could have probably made a significant difference in what happened.

The real problems are major choices that society have made in general.

One thing that many foreigers (and some in the US too) do not understand. In order to allow people to achieve success in america (elsewhere too), you also have to allow them to fail. While we try to put in safety nets for those that don''t make it to success. No society in the world has a much better overall culture than the US. Yeh, they can poke at this or that. But they don''t look that close at home either...

I don''t really worry about it. There will always be critics like this.

Perry
 
perry, this pretty much says it all for me:

"This is America, the world’s richest nation, and world will judge us on how we treat our fellow human beings. The images on television and in the newspapers show that we are treating mostly poor and black people worse than refugees." ---Friday, September 2, 2005, USAction President William McNary

peace, movie zombie
 
Date: 9/3/2005 9:08:16 PM
Author: perry
However, I will grant you that perhaps President Bush was not aware of these clauses as my memory is that he served in the National Guard (my memory could be wrong).
Click to expand...

Well...he joined the National Guard, but then failed to show up for duty. This is, in my opinion, immaterial however. The lack of response by Federal authorities to this catastrophe was inexcusable. A supposedly "can do" president like Bush should've found a way to have done what was needed to save lives during those critical days after the hurricane passed.

I mean, this man is President. He declared a State of Emergency in Louisiana, Mississippi, and then Alabama before the hurricane hit. Why wasn't relief on the ground before the storm hit?

Read this letter to "The New York Times" from someone in the Philippines.

"As a citizen of a third-world country, I've been amazed at the reports from New Orleans, particularly at how inadequate the relief effort has been. Where I come from, relief and rescue teams are mobilized before a storm, not after. And never have I heard of evacuees going through the kind of conditions that the refugees in the Superdome have reportedly experienced.

Rather, government agencies and private foundations act quickly to provide relief goods to evacuees, who usually seek shelter in schools. Can it actually be true that the richest nation in the world can do no better than a third-world country in providing relief to its citizens in need?"

Do we need to send a team to the Philippines for lessons?

Deborah
 
Movie Zombie:

I think the world will judge us less harshly than some would like us to think

Today is Saturday. 4 days after the levees failed. I believe that we have rescued over 30,000 people from New Orleans through areas devastated by a class 4 (or 5) hurricane, and have a large land area also devastated by the same hurricane.

I''m not sure if there is a single other nation anywhere could have repsonded faster and done as much. The other nations that have such storms (Typhones, Cyclones) are probalby watching in amazement.

Let''s see where we are by day 7.

Dispite what the naysayers are saying; compared to other similar scale disasters we are way ahead of what anyone else has done in the world. (and that includes the fact that we evacuated about 80% of the people in 2 days). People may critisize, and yes we could have done somewhat better. I''d just like them to show me someone else who actually has done better. They can''t.

People get too down on the US about this. It is a major disaster. Things won''t be perfect, but we are still responding faster and doing more than anyone else has done or can. In a perfect world the National Guard and US Military would have been called in Tuesday Afternoon when the levee broke. That is about all that really could have been done much better that would have made much difference. All the other problems (cummunications, not knowing, even the looting) are really minor fluff in comparison.

Also, let the other countries explain how come it is the poor in their countries that are most affected by natural disasters, and certain manmade ones as well. This is not a unique trait to the US.

Perry
 
The Mayor of New Orleans was not on the same page as you, perry. To put it mildly. Here is an excerpt from the transcript of an interview with him.

NAGIN: Well, did the tsunami victims request? Did it go through a formal process to request?

You know, did the Iraqi people request that we go in there? Did they ask us to go in there? What is more important?

And I'll tell you, man, I'm probably going get in a whole bunch of trouble. I'm probably going to get in so much trouble it ain't even funny. You probably won't even want to deal with me after this interview is over.

WWL: You and I will be in the funny place together.

NAGIN: But we authorized $8 billion to go to Iraq lickety-quick. After 9/11, we gave the president unprecedented powers lickety-quick to take care of New York and other places.

Transcript of Interview with Mayor Nagin of New Orleans

Deborah
 
Here's something else to think over, the notion of shared sacrifice. This is a new notion to some Americans, but it has actually been practiced in the United States before. Yes, there is a precedent! I am referring to the kind of sacrifice citizens endured during World War II where food and gasoline was rationed so that the welfare of the entire country might be served.

"The pre-Katrina plan for this Congressional season was to enact more upper-bracket tax cuts for the least needy, while cutting into the safety-net programs for sick and impoverished Americans.
...
Will Congress dare to go forward with these retrogressive plans in the face of the suffering from Katrina? Its woeful track record suggests that, shockingly, the answer may be yes. G.O.P. leaders are set to mandate billions in Medicaid and antipoverty cuts this month, while the Senate is poised to try again to repeal the estate tax, a monumental folly that will deprive the deficit-ridden government of an estimated $750 billion in vital revenue in the first decade."

The piece goes on to say that the government had planned to ignore the longterm implications of the loss of revenue that came with another tax cut for the rich, but that that might become problematic for Mr. Bush and his Republican friends if people keep their eyes on New Orleans.

"That can't be the case now, when those implications are sitting in filthy refugee centers, when the streets of New Orleans are under water and when the nation must take care of hundreds of thousands of homeless people. Yet President Bush has still managed to repeat his no-taxes mantra."

On Shared Sacrifice

Deborah
 
when legislation specific to a brain dead woman needed to be signed GW determined it was important enough to fly from his ranch to the white house to sign the paper. however, the day after katrina hit NO he was in san diego rather than in the white house...excuse me?! what was so urgent in san diego?!

GW certainly wasn''t responsible for the hurricane but he is responsible for his own lack of involvement and leadership.


peace, movie zombie
 
This is cool -- I wrote in to the BBC webpage and said I would have liked to see that opinion piece labelled as such. Now it says

Viewpoint: New Orleans crisis shames U.S.

Originally it was just linked to the main page with no disclosure or anything. Now I'm not an expert in journalism (although I was talked into running the school newspaper and teaching a journalism class, but I have no real background in it), but I knew that was wrong. We only put opinion pieces on our "commentary" page and always try to have at least two points of view.
 
AGBF (Deborah):

The Mayor of New Orleans was not on the same page as you, perry. To put it mildly. Here is an excerpt from the transcript of an interview with him.


NAGIN: Well, did the tsunami victims request? Did it go through a formal process to request?
I can''t get the link to open (something I commonly have problems with for the NYTimes).

However, I''m sorry, the mayor and many others are missinformed - and making a lot of - in my opinion - emotional driven nonsense (that they and others then accept as facts).

Many people are assuming that we just instantly showed up for the tsunami (and many other foriegn deployments). It just isn''t so.

Many people are assuming that the US Military (and other coutries Military) can go anywhere without approval. It just isn''t so.

We either get approval, we are on a planned act of aggession/defense, or in rare cases a mistake is made on postion and defined boundries (note the US honors internationally accepted boundries - not boundries that other countries claim just for the sake of claiming them).


While I will present a summary below; here is the link where you can check out the facts on the US Military Tsunami relief effort.

www.pacom.mil/special/0412asia/


Here are the facts:

Dec 26 , 2004 3PM Hawaii time (1500) earthquake and Tsunami

Dec 27, 2005 Initial deployment ordered of various Militaty assetts (note they havn''t left yet - this is only order to start getting ready to leave, one ship is diverted).

Dec 27, 2005 Calls to US Ambassadors of affected countries & Senior Millitary Officers of affected countries. This was to get permission, and it is how the US routinely gets permission.

Dec 28, 2005 Decision to form (stand up) Joint Task Force.

Dec 30, 2005 First Actual Relief Flight, Release of Maritime Prepositioned supply ships (PREPO ships).

Dec 31, 2005 First Helocopter relief flight.

In conclusion for the Tsunami relief effort:

Yes, we asked permission - of every country that was affected before we sent a single military asset or person to help them within their borders.

It took 4 days after the event for the first relief flight to bring supplies directly into the disaster area (dispite the fact that military assessts were "deployed" the next day).

It took 5 days after the event for the first helo to hit ground with direct support.

All those other Militaty things that people talk about too a good amount of time as well.

In the case of New Orleans:

Permission was first granted on Wednesday. While I have heard reports that there might have been a few helo''s and a few ground troups that showed up on Thursday I have not been able to confirm that. However, on Friday troups, helo''s, and at least one Navy Ship was onsite. 2 day response time.

The entire country will be a lot better off if we stick with the facts and not just retoric.

Perry


 
Phoenixgirl

This is cool -- I wrote in to the BBC webpage and said I would have liked to see that opinion piece labelled as such. Now it says

Viewpoint: New Orleans crisis shames U.S.


Originally it was just linked to the main page with no disclosure or anything. Now I''m not an expert in journalism (although I was talked into running the school newspaper and teaching a journalism class, but I have no real background in it), but I knew that was wrong. We only put opinion pieces on our "commentary" page and always try to have at least two points of view.



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Good Job !

Perry
 
Though semantics, Perry is correct. In both Andrew and Hugo, the national guard was called in PRIOR to the hurricane hitting. The FEMA papers were already drawn and signed. The lack of preparation on the local level of government is appauling. And, once called, the coordination between local levels and federal levels was a failure.

There is enough blame to go around, including the people of N.O. & surrounding areas., Situations where a vehicle was available, a place to relocate to available, money to locate more than available, the education & ability to receive and process informatin available - YET, no evacuation. Which leads me to believe that like every other hurricane sent N.O., the bullet would be dodged. I think we (collective we) were all in a state of some sort of denial.

That being said, assigning blame & talking about all that shoulda woulda coulda been done is not helping the current situation. Here is something that is helping the current situation. As I type, hubby is painting our front porch railing and flooring. With the estimate we received from our too busy painter, all the money has been donated Friday night in our local Red Cross telathon. It was not w/o a payback to us. It was at the end of a long shift for the person on the other end of the phone. She was originally from N.O. with many family and friends left behing. When we made our donation, she cried. She was so overwhelmed with grief and the generosity of others. I will be joining in on the painting shortly.

So instead of searching the net for articles of blame or in my case reading the articles, DO SOMETHING to HELP the current situation. Sell a piece of jewelry, do a chore that you normally would pay someone to do, go without cigarettes or starbucks coffee for a month, don''t go out to dinner, - donate the money to any charity of your choice to help all the victims of Katrina. Heck, at the very least, search EBAY and bid on one of the many charity auctions for Katrina victims - get yourself a nice bauble & help out to boot.

This is my thoughts on Hurricane Katrina. There will be tons of time in the future to try to assess AND hopefully FIX the meltdown.
 
I''d like to change the focus onto starting to discuss what should be done for the future to minimize this event.

Let us assume that a similar sized New Orleans is rebuildt within a set of levees:

It has to be assumed that at some future date that the bowl within the levees will again flood, either by hurricane surge or by levee failure.

It has to be assumed that hurricane warnings will most probably give a 24 - 48 hour range of notice.


What should the City, State, and Federal Goverment be ready to do?

I will note that as part of my job that every year we study several disasters and look for lessons learned and what should we be doing at work to prevent those kinds of mistakes (most of the significant effects from most disasters are the result of mistakes made by people; either in lack of planning or in lack of exection of the plan). Accidents almost never "just happen."

First: there needs to be a well thought out - and exercised - emergency plan for the forseeable events (hurricane, levee break, etc). Each event has its own plan. You run drills (exercises to ensure that the plan in its essanse will work - and to find holes in it and holes in the support staff and supplies).

Emergency plans have at least 2 parts: What does the local''s do, and what does the next level up do to help the locals.

To the best of my ability to discover to date(if anyone has better information let me know): The New Orleans never developed a plan for the levee''s failing. Their "old" Hurricane plan acknowledged that there was a large group of people that could not be evacuated from the city, and never addressed how they would eventually get out of the city should the hurricane surge fill the bowl (other than someone will rescue us).

While there was a new plan being developed to address some of the known shortcommings of the old plan - it had been backburnered, had been under development for years, and no one knew when or if it was ever going to be finished.


Key point of any new plan:

There must be designated disaster contol centers (primary and backup) built in buildings that are designed to survive the anticipated events.

There must be designated - and trained - emergency center staff; with arrangments to ensure that their familiies are safe during an event (otherwise most will leave to take care of their families).

There must be provisions for communcation with all people in responsibile positions (down to the policeman/firefighter level; and up to the national authorities) that assumes loss of normal electicity and phone circuits.

The plan needs to include what kind of help and who to ask for for different scenerios. To me it seems so simple to just have a line on the order of: If the bowl floods ask for National Guard and Millitary help for rescue and evacuation.

In hindsght from this event: The plan needs to address how to handle the people who are going to loot and committ other criminal acts to maintain civil control of the area (There is at least one Louisians Parish that has issued shoot to kill orders. I feel that is quite appropriate in a disaster area). Remember the goal is to save as many as possible; and if possible minimize property damage.

Any other suggestions: The past is past, how do we make the future better.

Perry
 
Date: 9/4/2005 10:33:39 AM
Author: perry
I''d like to change the focus onto starting to discuss what should be done for the future to minimize this event.
(snip of thoughtful post)
Any other suggestions: The past is past, how do we make the future better.
Click to expand...

As I have said elsewhere, I am not averse to assigning blame. I do not think the world is a better place when people refuse to assign blame where it belongs or refuse to be "optimistic", looking for the good in all the horrors of the world. On the other hand, looking to what can be done in the future can (in my opinion) only be constructive.


Deborah
 
I got the following in an email and I thought it would be of intreast to the people on this thread:
An Unnatural Disaster: A Hurricane Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the Welfare State by Robert Tracinski Sep 02, 2005 by Robert Tracinski It has taken four long days for state and federal officials to figure out how to deal with the disaster in New Orleans. I can''t blame them, because it has also taken me four long days to figure out what is going on there. The reason is that the events there make no sense if you think that we are confronting a natural disaster.
If this is just a natural disaster, the response for public officials is obvious: you bring in food, water, and doctors; you send transportation to evacuate refugees to temporary shelters; you send engineers to stop the flooding and rebuild the city''s infrastructure. For journalists, natural disasters also have a familiar pattern: the heroism of ordinary people pulling together to survive; the hard work and dedication of doctors, nurses, and rescue workers; the steps being taken to clean up and rebuild.

Public officials did not expect that the first thing they would have to do is to send thousands of armed troops in armored vehicle, as if they are suppressing an enemy insurgency. And journalists--myself included--did not expect that the story would not be about rain, wind, and flooding, but about rape, murder, and looting.


But this is not a natural disaster. It is a man-made disaster.


The man-made disaster is not an inadequate or incompetent response by federal relief agencies, and it was not directly caused by Hurricane Katrina. This is where just about every newspaper and television channel has gotten the story wrong.


The man-made disaster we are now witnessing in New Orleans did not happen over the past four days. It happened over the past four decades. Hurricane Katrina merely exposed it to public view.


The man-made disaster is the welfare state.


For the past few days, I have found the news from New Orleans to be confusing. People were not behaving as you would expect them to behave in an emergency--indeed, they were not behaving as they have behaved in other emergencies. That is what has shocked so many people: they have been saying that this is not what we expect from America. In fact, it is not even what we expect from a Third World country.


When confronted with a disaster, people usually rise to the occasion. They work together to rescue people in danger, and they spontaneously organize to keep order and solve problems. This is especially true in America. We are an enterprising people, used to relying on our own initiative rather than waiting around for the government to take care of us. I have seen this a hundred times, in small examples (a small town whose main traffic light had gone out, causing ordinary citizens to get out of their cars and serve as impromptu traffic cops, directing cars through the intersection) and large ones (the spontaneous response of New Yorkers to September 11).


So what explains the chaos in New Orleans?


To give you an idea of the magnitude of what is going on, here is a description from a Washington Times story:


"Storm victims are raped and beaten; fights erupt with flying fists, knives and guns; fires are breaking out; corpses litter the streets; and police and rescue helicopters are repeatedly fired on.


"The plea from Mayor C. Ray Nagin came even as National Guardsmen poured in to restore order and stop the looting, carjackings and gunfire....


"Last night, Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said 300 Iraq-hardened Arkansas National Guard members were inside New Orleans with shoot-to-kill orders.


" ''These troops are...under my orders to restore order in the streets,'' she said. ''They have M-16s, and they are locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot and kill and they are more than willing to do so if necessary and I expect they will.'' "


The reference to Iraq is eerie. The photo that accompanies this article shows National Guard troops, with rifles and armored vests, riding on an armored vehicle through trash-strewn streets lined by a rabble of squalid, listless people, one of whom appears to be yelling at them. It looks exactly like a scene from Sadr City in Baghdad.


What explains bands of thugs using a natural disaster as an excuse for an orgy of looting, armed robbery, and rape? What causes unruly mobs to storm the very buses that have arrived to evacuate them, causing the drivers to drive away, frightened for their lives? What causes people to attack the doctors trying to treat patients at the Super Dome?


Why are people responding to natural destruction by causing further destruction? Why are they attacking the people who are trying to help them?


My wife, Sherri, figured it out first, and she figured it out on a sense-of-life level. While watching the coverage last night on Fox News Channel, she told me that she was getting a familiar feeling. She studied architecture at the Illinois Institute of Chicago, which is located in the South Side of Chicago just blocks away from the Robert Taylor Homes, one of the largest high-rise public housing projects in America. "The projects," as they were known, were infamous for uncontrollable crime and irremediable squalor. (They have since, mercifully, been demolished.)


What Sherri was getting from last night''s television coverage was a whiff of the sense of life of "the projects." Then the "crawl"--the informational phrases flashed at the bottom of the screen on most news channels--gave some vital statistics to confirm this sense: 75% of the residents of New Orleans had already evacuated before the hurricane, and of the 300,000 or so who remained, a large number were from the city''s public housing projects. Jack Wakeland then gave me an additional, crucial fact: early reports from CNN and Fox indicated that the city had no plan for evacuating all of the prisoners in the city''s jails--so they just let many of them loose. There is no doubt a significant overlap between these two populations--that is, a large number of people in the jails used to live in the housing projects, and vice versa.


There were many decent, innocent people trapped in New Orleans when the deluge hit--but they were trapped alongside large numbers of people from two groups: criminals--and wards of the welfare state, people selected, over decades, for their lack of initiative and self-induced helplessness. The welfare wards were a mass of sheep--on whom the incompetent administration of New Orleans unleashed a pack of wolves.


All of this is related, incidentally, to the apparent incompetence of the city government, which failed to plan for a total evacuation of the city, despite the knowledge that this might be necessary. But in a city corrupted by the welfare state, the job of city officials is to ensure the flow of handouts to welfare recipients and patronage to political supporters--not to ensure a lawful, orderly evacuation in case of emergency.


No one has really reported this story, as far as I can tell. In fact, some are already actively distorting it, blaming President Bush, for example, for failing to personally ensure that the Mayor of New Orleans had drafted an adequate evacuation plan. The worst example is an execrable piece from the Toronto Globe and Mail, by a supercilious Canadian who blames the chaos on American "individualism." But the truth is precisely the opposite: the chaos was caused by a system that was the exact opposite of individualism.


What Hurricane Katrina exposed was the psychological consequences of the welfare state. What we consider "normal" behavior in an emergency is behavior that is normal for people who have values and take the responsibility to pursue and protect them. People with values respond to a disaster by fighting against it and doing whatever it takes to overcome the difficulties they face. They don''t sit around and complain that the government hasn''t taken care of them. They don''t use the chaos of a disaster as an opportunity to prey on their fellow men.


But what about criminals and welfare parasites? Do they worry about saving their houses and property? They don''t, because they don''t own anything. Do they worry about what is going to happen to their businesses or how they are going to make a living? They never worried about those things before. Do they worry about crime and looting? But living off of stolen wealth is a way of life for them.


The welfare state--and the brutish, uncivilized mentality it sustains and encourages--is the man-made disaster that explains the moral ugliness that has swamped New Orleans. And that is the story that no one is reporting.


Source: TIA Daily -- September 2, 2005


 
thank you matatora! some things that needed to be said and hopefully heard. banjo
 
Matatora:

Thank you for finding that marvelous piece.
36.gif


Truth is truth. I hope this gets published on the major networks as well.

Perry
 
Date: 9/4/2005 12:12:51 PM
Author: Matatora
But this is not a natural disaster. It is a man-made disaster.
...
The man-made disaster is the welfare state.
...
Click to expand...

This was a shameful article. Did you happen to read Garry Holloway's observation of the United States as seen by a foreign observer who visits here...and has also visited India? As my father said, when I told him of some of the observations made here (like that the people affected by the hurricane need a hand up, not a handout), "Why not just drop a bomb on them?"

People wih no access to fresh water or food need a handout of fresh water and food. That in Common Sense 101. But no...let's blame the victims. How dare they be poor or stranded? They must be out to get something "for free".

Deborah
 

I''ve been watching with dismay the terrible news on the computer screen... Some of my close friends I meet every day are American, but none remotely from the area. They are more touched than myself, but thankfully no one close to them came under direct danger.

However... this morning I clicked casually on one of those beautiful jewelry sites to pass the time over coffee. The link was supposed to lead to Rau Jewelry. And there is no more Rau Jewelry in New Orleans. Because there is no more New Orleans at all !

32.gif
It dawned to me. I truly cannot imagine what it could be like down there.


If anyone can do something to help (or reason others who could but would not), blessed be
1.gif


 
deborah, i don''t think this will reach you but i will go against my better judgement and try.

i think everyone wants to give anyone in this predictament water and food and anything else they need to help them at this time. and here i am only speaking for myself but what needs to be addressed is not encouraging people to depend on others to save them on a daily basis. that is what i got from the article matatora posted.

if people learn to depend on themselves they will equip themselves with the skills for survival. if those skills are developed if a similiar situation occurs maybe they can take charge and organize others to help each other instead of standing and screaming for someone to save them.

instead of pulling your hair and spacing out you can try to work to make a more sanitary, safe and orderly place to await help. if they get a hand up instead of a handout maybe next time they will not be in such a volunerable position.

i feel your heart is in the right place and so are the hearts of others who want to help the people who have less have more by aspiring to more. i respect your opinion and it was not i who suggested that anyone needed a psychiatic hospital because of their views. please try to understand that because someone else''s way is not your way it is no less compassionate.

i am for helping all of the people harmed by this storm and resulting events. i think i have said enough on this topic. banjo

l
 
Date: 9/4/2005 7:28:48 PM
Author: thebanjodog
but what needs to be addressed is not encouraging people to depend on others to save them on a daily basis. that is what i got from the article matatora posted.
...
if people learn to depend on themselves they will equip themselves with the skills for survival. if those skills are developed if a similiar situation occurs maybe they can take charge and organize others to help each other instead of standing and screaming for someone to save them.
Click to expand...


You write, "but what needs to be addressed is not encouraging people to depend on others to save them".

I do not feel that that is what needs to be addressed. I feel that what needs to be addressed is how to help normal, civilzed, able people who lost their homes, possessions, livelihoods, pets, relatives, access to fresh water and food, and often their health to regain those things.

I see no reason to think that hurricane victims need to be taught life skills. If one is stranded without food, water, electricity, phone, blankets, car, or money, having organizational skills will not get you much. As a social worker, I know that my phone is one of the tools I need most. That phone is what helps me to cut through bureaucracy, find necessary resources, and make things happen. Put me in the Superdome with no power or toilet and I will be...well, a bit less than totally effective.

Deborah
 
well if you and others trapped there selected a spot to deposit trash it would not be in the sinkbowls as was shown on tv. if you or others set up an area outside for persons to relieve themselves the inside would not have toilets overflown with human waste. if all dead bodies were moved to one area they would not be sitting on street sides for journalists to film as abandoned souls. if some persons set up some rules maybe we would not have heard of rapes and beatings. it took a reporter and one survivor ( a lady) to go into an area in the center to get some juice. the lady told the reporter no one was willing to do anything to help but her.

these are live skills that would serve anyone in a time of emergency. the author of the article was calling for the good old american way of trying to help yourself until the calvery arrives. banjo
 
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