The Hurricane Katrina thread

[LimeTwister]

It seems this board is missing one.

[NoelleNC]

I feel bad for the people down there and their situation, but it's ridiculous that 10,000+ people are dead in New Orleans alone. There was ample time for people to leave and to have 10,000+ dead and so many people still there hurt or stranded is ridiculous. I realize a lot of them were poor and didn't have the money, but I also think a large portion of them were just stubborn and didn't believe the magnitude of the storm. The shootings and gang rampages down there now are so terrible. I seriously hope the people doing that die because they are nothing but detrimental and make New Orleans look like hell on Earth.

[LimeTwister]

Well, for the most part, there was hardly anyway to get out.  Some people did stay for a family member who was sick/old/ felt like they would survive, but others had to stay because they had no way out-- no credit cards to rent cars, no way to pay for a bus ticket.  Many need help, but the federal government took days to actually start helping out.  What's ridiculous is that there wasn't more done to try to get the people out.  The governor of Louisiana wrote a letter to the president asking for aid on the 28th.  The government didn't act prepared for this, even though they had advanced warning for days.  A lot of the people that are now dead or dying haven't received the help they need.  This leaves questions of are we prepared for any sort of major attack?  The simple answer is, obviously, no.

[NoelleNC]

Ok, I was listening last night directly about the governments interaction with the hurricane. The reason there wasn't so much military support at the very beginning was because the soldiers couldn't get into New Orleans as quickly as would have been wanted. They were stationed about an hour and a half away bc of the flood conditions. I don't think it's Bushs fault that there was a lack of governmental force at the beginning of all this. For one, the state was doing a pretty crappy job of dealing with it, too. And the mayor of New Orleans seemed like a regular citizen of the city when I saw him on TV. He didn't speak with any sort of eloquence or even insight. He was just like ANYBODY.

And seriously this is like the worst natural disaster in the history of the U.S. and people are like "Oh the government is so unequipped". The fact of the matter is that we've never seen anything of this magnitude. And it's not like an earthquake that is over in a day or two. This flood is still there, the houses are still submerged. Just like 9/11, the government is dealing something very rare and very serioud. Of course we aren't going to be perfect at dealing with it. No government under any president would be able to deal with this as efficiently as an idealist would like.... that's just the plain fact.

[NoelleNC]

And I just wanted to point out something about your Willie Nelson quote... there was never peace on Earth. Sorry.

[Will]

Joey, I'm not sure where you're getting your information. Bush was begging the mayor of NOLA to put out a mandatory evacuation order on the 27th. The mayor said he would have to think about it. The levees breached on the 30th. Also, according to the evac plan for NOLA, the feds weren't the ones who were supposed to do the evacuation. The state and the local governments were supposed to coordinate the thing. They are the ones who dropped the ball, but they want to blame it on the feds to save face.

As for the delay in federal aid, it is a gigantic logistical problem. It takes time to pack up supplies and prepare them for travel. Workers need to pack  up themselves. The response has been about as quick as it could be, given the situation. The US military may have one of the best logistics trains in the world, but they still can't do the impossible.

[NoelleNC]

Yes, thank you. You are more eloquent than I am. I always feel like I know the gist of the situation but not the real numbers to back it up. But what you are saying is what I meant

[LimeTwister]

The governor's letter: http://gov.louisiana.gov/Disaster%20Relief%20Request.pdf

About the levees: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/index.jsp

a news conference 10 a.m. on August 28, shortly after Katrina was upgraded to a Category 5 storm, New Orleans mayor C. Ray Nagin, calling Katrina "a storm that most of us have long feared", ordered the first ever mandatory evacuation of the city. Thousands of poor city residents were unable to leave the area because they lacked transportation or the means to pay for it. Nagin established several "refuges of last resort" for citizens who could not leave the city, including the massive Louisiana Superdome, which housed over 9,000 people along with 550 National Guard troops when Katrina came ashore [11]. A National Guard official said on Thursday, September 1 that as many as 60,000 people had gathered at the Superdome for evacuation, having remained there in increasingly difficult circumstances [12], [13], [14].

Bolding is mine

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina

35% of the Louisiana National Guard is in Iraq...If you need my sources on that, I will get you a link.

The mayor wasn't speaking with "eloquence" because he wasn't seeing any help...he said what he said yesterday (which was Friday...the storm hit Monday...flooding started Tuesday).  I just saw on CNN where a photographer was dropping supplies.  It's funny how news crews were in and taking pictures on Monday, but it took days for rescue crews to start helping.  As for it taking awhile to react...meteorologists predict where hurricanes will hit days in advance.  They were calling this possibly the worst storm on recorded history last Saturday.  If it takes awhile to get help, then help should have been called on then.

[LimeTwister]

And as for "peace on earth," he means wanting it...not it actually being here.

[jlmusicchick]

i think what we need right now is for everyone to band together and help in anyway possible. When tragedies like this strike, it's not a time to start pointing fingers and spend all our time talking on whose at fault and what could have been done -that can wait. It's a time to stand up and help those in need and act like the united country we boast to be.

The American Red Cross

donate money, give to food and clothing drives, etc. If there aren't any where you are, go to different businesses in your town and ask if they are planning anything, and if not how you can help to start one.

One.org has many sites listed that you can go to to donate as well.

[JazzyManda]

Well, it's pretty safe to say this was "the perfect storm".  It was a category 4 when it hit.  The levees weren't even stable enough to hold the water at a category 3.  So the water broke them down and flooded the city and the pumps can only push out one inch per hour.  It will take weeks to drain the city.  

Not to mention the city of New Orleans shut down all of the bus lines that could have made shuttles to the poor counties before the storm hit.  They could have at least made a dent in the population that couldn't get out.  And then even if they did get all those poor people out... where would they stay? They have no money to rent a car or stay in a hotel.. They’d all have to be put in shelters which don't exist.

I don't know.. I know we can't blame it all on the government.  It was the people's fault for not leaving.  Even if they didn't have a car, they could walk.  

But what really upsets me is the fact that they left people in nursing homes, they left people in hospitals, they left people who wanted to leave but had no way of leaving.  Then to top it all off the government takes 5 days to get water and food to the people stranded in the flooded city.  I know they were preparing to save them, but really, it shouldn't take 5 days.  

And I agree with Jessica.  I've been giving money to our school that will send all of the money to the Red Cross. So far we've raised 18,000 in just 2 days. Hopefully we can get more.

Amanda

[Will]

• Bush did declare the state of emergency upon receipt of the letter.
• That letter acknowledges that the state and local governments are responsible for the evacuation.
• Nagin called for the evacuation nearly twenty-four hours after Bush asked him to put out the evacuation order.
• DHS and FEMA are providing everything asked for in the letter. They are being blamed for not providing more than has been asked from them. Which is stupid.

Oh yeah... 35% of National Guard troops in Iraq? Groovy. They have tons at home. More than they need, actually. No more than 50% of a state's National Guard troops can be sent overseas at one time so states will be prepared for disasters like this.

[LimeTwister]

Yes, Bush did declare a state of emergency.  The letter also asked for federal assistance.  And the director of FEMA blamed the people who were stranded.  It's not time to blame the people, it's time to get help in.  It took 4 days to get help.

We can go back and forth all day, but that's rather pointless.

[Will]

As I said before, it was a logistics nightmare. And, I don't know about your director of FEMA claim. It wouldn't be out of line to blame the people who stayed in the city.

[Holly]

Seeing it on the news and in pictures makes me cry... That is soooo sad! It's really hard to believe! I was just there, in New Orleans, a few months ago, walking around those streets which are now detroyed! Actually, I have my mardi gras beads (i did not do anything for them) on my desk right now and it's really weird looking at them, thinking of the fun time I had there, and thinking of whats going on there now!
Just makes you think that you never know what can happen!