OT: Lootings, Carjackings, and shootings in New Orleans

[TheHiddenTrack]

This post basically wraps up my thoughts:

http://www.americablog.org/

"George Bush needs to step aside"

"Two things have become clear.

1. Fire FEMA Director Michael Brown.

FEMA director Michael Brown is either incompetent or a liar, and his only job seems to be giving non-stop interviews on TV when he should be coordinating hurricane relief. It's time for President Bush to appoint someone else who can handle the job, and give the guy $60,000 bucks to hire a spokesman.

2. President Bush needs to step aside.

It's time we talked about the elephant in the room. Bush isn't presidential, he never was, and we all knew it. He won reelection because John Kerry sucked, not because the majority wanted him in office. As a caretaker president, he might be fine, but when disaster hits we need a real leader, not some guy who simply isn't smart enough, and doesn't have the backbone or instinct to lead. We are witnessing first-hand what happens when a weak leader responds to a crisis. The crisis worsens, and people die.

I'd almost say that next time there's a terrorist attack we won't be so lucky, but in fact, we haven't been lucky at all. People are dying. An entire American city is gone from the face of the earth. And a good part of the blame goes to an "aloof" president (so says the Manchester Union Leader) who bullheadedly stayed on vacation two days after the storm hit (so says the Washington Times) and still hasn't been able to get his sea legs 5 days after the storm hit.

And now, the disaster response is a disaster itself. It's a chicken with its head cut off, and seemingly only getting worse and worse while people are starving and dehydrating, waiting for someone, anyone, to lead.

For those who are fans of the FOX TV shows "24." George Bush is the vice president who had to step in when the president was injured in a terrorist attack. The VP didn't want the job and certainly isn't up to the job, and basically, he just sits back in a wide-eyed panic. His aides say they need answers NOW, the country is falling apart as terrorists are striking, and the know-nothing scared-to-death but-proud-as-hell president just sits there and says "I'll have to get back to you."

The nation can no longer afford George Bush as president. Bush ought to just resign and leave office before he breaks something else, and since Congress is unlikely to impeach him (though they should). But at the very least, if the frat boy who would be president cares one lick about our country, George Bush should step aside and pass the hurricane relief baton to someone with the intelligence and guts to get the job done.

After this is all over, our country has a lot of hard thinking to do. We've got three more years of this president, and as New Orleans clearly shows, George Bush is not personally prepared to respond to a devastating attack on an American city, nor has he adequately prepared the nation with the four years he's had since September 11.

The next time George Bush panics, ignores a national crisis, or simply is incompetent in the face of a clear and present threat to our people, even more Americans will die.

And next time, Osama won't give us the advance warning we so graciously got from Katrina."

[blueduke]

Looks like those buses are flooded. Do we know how many of them could run?

They were not flooded before the mandatory evacuation I don't think. In any case they knew beforetime a storm of huge magnitude was coming and should have at least offered those that didn't have transportation a means of getting out before it got there. Btw, a kid stole one of those buses a couple days ago and got quite a few people out of there.

[bdoughty]

Looks like those buses are flooded. Do we know how many of them could run?

They were not flooded before the mandatory evacuation I don't think. A kid stole one a couple days ago and got quite a few people out there.

Okay time to STOP and use LOGIC. If 6% of the city DOES NOT HAVE A CAR, how do you get them to the BUSSES? It is not like all the people in the city GOT to the convention center and Superdome. I am also pretty sure a few of the people who could have driven the BUSSES you mention were already on their way out of town (you know EVACUATING).

[blueduke]

Okay time to STOP and use LOGIC. If 6% of the city DOES NOT HAVE A CAR, how do you get them to the BUSSES?

Let's use some more LOGIC. If you were the mayor and a Cat 4 hurricane was heading your way and you KNEW 6% of your population had no transportation AND you ordered an evacuation wouldn't school buses be a very attractive option? How does he get them to the polls on election day?

[pk500]

Okay time to STOP and use LOGIC. If 6% of the city DOES NOT HAVE A CAR, how do you get them to the BUSSES?

Let's use some more LOGIC. If you were the mayor and a Cat 4 hurricane was heading your way and you KNEW 6% of your population had no transportation, wouldn't school buses be a very attractive option? How does he get them to the polls on election day?

If New Orleans is like any other fairly compact major American city, there are polling places within reasonable walking distance in nearly every urban precinct or ward.

Take care,
PK

[bdoughty]

Okay time to STOP and use LOGIC. If 6% of the city DOES NOT HAVE A CAR, how do you get them to the BUSSES?

Let's use some more LOGIC. If you were the mayor and a Cat 4 hurricane was heading your way and you KNEW 6% of your population had no transportation, wouldn't school buses be a very attractive option? How does he get them to the polls on election day?

Okay you have school busses and people with no transportation. You have a couple days (MAX) to get the two things together, meanwhile you have told the masses to flee your city because of the Hurricane.

Does not compute

Maybe they are not registered voters?

[Inuyasha]

I just saw a news report of today's activities and Bush was stammering thoughout all his speechs. Again, I think it caught everybody off guard. Ya it was a big hurricane, but they've had big hurricanes in florida and they've really never had the outcome of what NewOrleans had. These guys were just not prepared, regardless of political party.

[blueduke]

It didn't take the kid who stole one of the buses very long and he did it after the catastrophe

[blueduke]

I just saw a news report of today's activities and Bush was stammering thoughout all his speechs. Again, I think it caught everybody off guard. Ya it was a big hurricane, but they've had big hurricanes in florida and they've really never had the outcome of what NewOrleans had. These guys were just not prepared, regardless of political party.

True.

[bdoughty]

It didn't take the kid who stole one of the buses very long and he did it after the catastrophe

Always fun to bust balls for busting balls sake. Now if only you could give an explanation outside of ONE KID.

[Inuyasha]

Say he did use all those buses, that still wouldn't have transported even a quarter of the people who were stuck in New Orleans.

[blueduke]

It didn't take the kid who stole one of the buses very long and he did it after the catastrophe

Always fun to bust balls for busting balls sake. Now if only you could give an explanation outside of ONE KID.

The dumbass should have used the buses before the storm even hit. 6% of the population with no transportation in a city sitting below sea level with a Cat 4 on the way with levees built to only wistand a Cat 3. Duh

[bdoughty]

It didn't take the kid who stole one of the buses very long and he did it after the catastrophe

Always fun to bust balls for busting balls sake. Now if only you could give an explanation outside of ONE KID.

The dumbass should have used the buses before the storm even hit. 6% of the population with no transportation in a city sitting below sea level with a Cat 4 on the way with levees built to only wistand a Cat 3. Duh

Duh? Plus now he is a dumbass? Yet you have not been able to explain how you could get the busses to the people or people to the busses at the same time you are calling for an evacuation. Well that's a good way to end this conversation with me.

[blueduke]

Always fun to bust balls for busting balls sake. Now if only you could give an explanation outside of ONE KID.

The dumbass should have used the buses before the storm even hit. 6% of the population with no transportation in a city sitting below sea level with a Cat 4 on the way with levees built to only wistand a Cat 3. Duh

Duh? Plus now he is a dumbass? Yet you have not been able to explain how you could get the busses to the people or people to the busses at the same time you are calling for an evacuation. Well that's a good way to end this conversation with me.

I know it's stunning but he actually has people working in city gov't with him. He actually runs the city. That means if he barks out orders people jump. Shocking I know

Yet you have not been able to explain how you could get the busses to the people or people to the busses at the same time you are calling for an evacuation.

They have people that know how to drive and know how to talk on the radio, know how to talk into a bullhorn, and know how to talk into a bullhorn while driving through housing projects (or wherever else people with no transportation are likely to live) at the same time. They even know how to announce pickup points in various parts of the city too.

[bdoughty]

The dumbass should have used the buses before the storm even hit. 6% of the population with no transportation in a city sitting below sea level with a Cat 4 on the way with levees built to only wistand a Cat 3. Duh

Duh? Plus now he is a dumbass? Yet you have not been able to explain how you could get the busses to the people or people to the busses at the same time you are calling for an evacuation. Well that's a good way to end this conversation with me.

I know it's stunning but he actually has people working in city gov't with him. He actually runs the city. That means if he barks out orders people jump. Shocking I know

Come on you are getting worse with every post.

How about all the cops who turned in their badges due to fear of being shot at, and the ones caught looting. When I think City Employee, I think loyalty to the death.

[blueduke]

How about all the cops who turned in their badges due to fear of being shot at, blah blah

BEFORE it hits, man. Why can't you get that? They called for a voluntary evac but they knew 6% didn't have a way out and knew the storm was larger than the levees could hold plus they're sitting BELOW SEA LEVEL!!!!!. A little common sense would have helped a whole lot more than bawling "It's Bush's fault!"

[Wrekcut1]

Look at the size of the problem here. The problem is huge. The disaster area is over 100,000 square miles. A solution to that big of a problem is going to take a little bit of time to start moving. Look at all the things the federal government has done today. You can bet that it will continue from this point forward.

With a problem this big they couldn't just start doing tiny food drops here and there. They have to do something massive so everyone gets help at once, so it doesn't cause chaos at the small random food drops. Look at all the other hurricanes up to this point. Everyone so far is comparing this disaster relief to those. You can't. In those, an entire city was not put under water and had to be abandoned. The second the hurricane was over people could go back and start rebuilding and cleaning up. New Orleans is a different case entirely. New Orleans for the most part is a dead city. Everyone has to leave. This creates an enormous problem....where to put the people that are leaving, where to put the people that already left, what to do with the rioters, what to do with people that are trapped, what to do with the people waiting to leave. These are all very big questions. And this country expects it to be dealt with immediately. I think it has been so far been pretty good, not great, but good. It could have been alot worse. There were some big screw ups, for example all the people that went to the convention center for help and no one was there, but they fixed that today. Of course the news doesn't cover that anymore because it is more positive than negative now and who wants to watch that.

Think of it like boxing. All the other hurricanes have been jabs and this one was an uppercut. If a boxer gets hit with a jab he rebounds and continues boxing pretty easily. With an uppercut it stuns the boxer and could possibly knock him down. It takes a little more time to get back up, dust yourself off and recover.

For this disaster of "biblical proportions", as quoted in the media, how can they expect a 100,000 square mile relief the very next day.

[blueduke]

For this disaster of "biblical proportions", as quoted in the media, how can they expect a 100,000 square mile relief the very next day.

Good question and good post

[TheMightyPuck]

One thing I can say I learned from this disaster is that if something really big hits you are on your own. Have a survival plan for you and your family. Have emergency supplies on hand. Know how you are going to defend your family and/or property.

[Wrekcut1]

One thing I can say I learned from this disaster is that if something really big hits you are on your own. Have a survival plan for you and your family. Have emergency supplies on hand. Know how you are going to defend your family and/or property.

I agree.

[Jayhawker]

This is getting ridiculous. There will be plenty of time for finger pointing later. Believe me, there will be hearings and investigations, as well there should be.

Right now, all the leaders need to hear are ideas on how to improve the situation. There is no time to force them to explain themselves. That goes for Bush on down.

We only have anecdotal evidence, and there is no way we know all of the details about how and why things went so terribly wrong. So laying blame at anyone's feet right now is just silly.

We all wish we were witnessing the miracle of Americans saving the day right now. It hurts to see that in many ways, we have failed. But taking political shots right now is just a lack of focus.

[mobiggins]

Yes, it is a disaster of 100,000sq-mile proportion, but there's also a large, historic metropolis in the middle of that 100,000sq miles that the local and federal government should have been prepared to aid within 12-24 hours of a catastrophe such as this one. 4 years on from 9/11, we had a test of national security THAT WE SAW COMING and we failed miserably. The evacuation may have been a local matter, but the quick aftermath response was a federal matter at which Bush, Chertoff, Brown (FEMA Head) and all attendant government leaders failed miserably. Chertoff has to have NPR reporters tell him that people are starving, and Brown's take on every single post-hurricane emergency is akin to a child's view of things. Go to CNN.com and read what his official response was vs. the on-the-ground reporting of news agencies, local officials, and civilians, and you'll see how out of touch the government was on things. And Bush apologists can apologise all they want, but the fact of the matter was that G-Dub was on vacation before, during, and after the hurricane, and had no clue.

[Jared]

BEFORE it hits, man. Why can't you get that? They called for a voluntary evac but they knew 6% didn't have a way out and knew the storm was larger than the levees could hold plus they're sitting BELOW SEA LEVEL!!!!!. A little common sense would have helped a whole lot more than bawling "It's Bush's fault!"

Do you want to talk about common sense? Estimates were that there were approximately 50,000 or more citizens without cars in New Orleans. They ordered a mandatory evacuation on Sunday morning. You could say that the evacuation started earlier (Saturday evening). The hurricane hit around dawn on Monday. How many people could they evacuate in 24 hours? Considering all the traffic from people leaving the city and everyone else leaving, how many people could they reasonably get out? Not many.

So what the plan was was to use the buses to take people to shelters like the Superdome, which they did. Obviously, it's not the best situation....but unless you've got a few hundred jumbo jets, there's not much else you can do logistically. You put people in there, and then you have buses to get them out AS SOON AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE after the hurricane passes once there are signs of flooding/levee breaks.

I really can't believe that you think that busing people out beforehand is something that would work.

And there's a reason why people are saying that this is the fault of the federal government (which is headed by Bush). It's because this is something that's been planned for for a LONG time, and the federal gov't didn't do much in the critical period when the flooding started. In fact, Bush wasn't even AWARE that this was a realistic possibility. He said this:

"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."

Do you want to talk about common sense? Why don't you start here.

And by the way, I'd be disgusted by the response of the federal government regardless of who is running it...Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Carter, Washington, Lincoln, anyone. This is just sheer, complete incompetence.

[blueduke]

Lets just let the city and state off the hook okay, Jared? It's all Bush's fault. Hell everything is. JFK Jr blamed him for the freakin hurricane. Let's dismiss Broussard's warnings about emergency planning re: other storms too...

http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:DTO ... =firefox-a

that's got to be bush's fault too I'm sure. Btw, Bush has vetoed ZERO spending bills while president. ZERO. Now why pray tell hasn't requests for help with levees come before now (perhaps you should check with your enviromental friends on this one. While you're at it ask them now if it's okay to drill for oil where we know we have it and build more refinerys)? It's not like they've haven't been warned.

And by the way, I'd be disgusted by the response of the federal government regardless of who is running it...Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Carter, Washington, Lincoln, anyone. This is just sheer, complete incompetence.

ME TOO

[bdoughty]

Do you want to talk about common sense? Estimates were that there were approximately 50,000 or more citizens without cars in New Orleans. They ordered a mandatory evacuation on Sunday morning. You could say that the evacuation started earlier (Saturday evening). The hurricane hit around dawn on Monday. How many people could they evacuate in 24 hours? Considering all the traffic from people leaving the city and everyone else leaving, how many people could they reasonably get out? Not many.

So what the plan was was to use the buses to take people to shelters like the Superdome, which they did. Obviously, it's not the best situation....but unless you've got a few hundred jumbo jets, there's not much else you can do logistically. You put people in there, and then you have buses to get them out AS SOON AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE after the hurricane passes once there are signs of flooding/levee breaks.

I really can't believe that you think that busing people out beforehand is something that would work.

And there's a reason why people are saying that this is the fault of the federal government (which is headed by Bush). It's because this is something that's been planned for for a LONG time, and the federal gov't didn't do much in the critical period when the flooding started. In fact, Bush wasn't even AWARE that this was a realistic possibility. He said this:

"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."

Do you want to talk about common sense? Why don't you start here.

And by the way, I'd be disgusted by the response of the federal government regardless of who is running it...Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Carter, Washington, Lincoln, anyone. This is just sheer, complete incompetence.

Mark the TIME, DATE and THREAD folks. Brent and Jared agree on something.