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Re: Hurricane Katrina Aftermath [message #170994 is a reply to message #169990] Sun, 11 September 2005 11:00 Go to previous messageGo to previous message
msgtpain is currently offline  msgtpain
Messages: 663
Registered: March 2003
Location: Montana
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Crimson wrote on Thu, 08 September 2005 23:10

I can definitely agree that the timeline there is slanted towards Bush GREATLY. Unfortunately for me, I only screened the first couple of lines which showed the timeline leading up to the hurricane. Sorry about that.



Here's a better timeline from the Washington Post.. It's quite a bit longer, but it explains every little detail they could find instead of just "Bush has cake with McCain"

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9286534/

I know that as this turns in to the "Blame Game".. Democrats really want to make you believe that it was Bush's fault, he had the power to act and failed (intentionally).. However, Bush had been requesting that Blanco allow Federal takeover as early as Monday, and quite a few times in between; Every request, she denied --- stating that she had it under control. On Friday, even his own cabinet had a heated argument about the true legalities (and impression) of the President making a forceful takeover from a Democratic Governor via the Insurrection Act.

You have to take in to account exactly what a full, mandatory, forceful evacuation could have done. This area has been on the "watch" for this storm for 40 years. They had "warned" and evacuated many times in the past, but Hurricanes aren't predictable and the local/state governments simply weren't willing to take that route, just in case the storm bypassed them. In fact, they were worrying about the liabilities they would be taking on if they did just that. You can't deny the possibility of billions of dollars of law-suits on the heels of a false alarm forced evacuation. <- Maybe this is one of the things they should look in to in the aftermath discussions; maybe some sort of federal protection against this, alleviating administrators concerns over carrying one out.

New Orleans had in place a disaster plan which called for the city and state to evacuate the poor and elderly in the city via busses; the topic came up and Nagin actually made the decision himself NOT to follow their own evacuation plan. Amtrak offered assistance in transporting people out on their last few trains, Nagin turned them down too. Their own disaster plan called for public buss removal of all these people and it stated very clearly that it would take a minimum of 72 hours at best to carry out this plan. On Saturday, they were still discussing what they wanted to do with their city.

I just don't think people understand what it takes to have millions of tons of supplies ready and waiting on the outskirts of a disaster area, then to have 100% of all communications knocked out of the area you are trying to aid. I'm sort of left wondering why they didn't commandeer all the reporters satellite equipment for the emergency response; would anyone have cried about the First Amendment if they had? Or would you think it was a really good idea?

The bottom line is, the ONLY way to have avoided the human suffering in this scenario is to have 100% of the humans out of the affected area. Once that didn't happen, it was up to the Mayor and Governor to coordinate the disaster UNTIL they themselves became overwhelmed and ASKED the Federal Government to take over; they flat out refused this transaction.

I do agree that FEMA was slow in their response, it shouldn't take 48 hours to have personnel on site in a disaster like this, but I do also recognize the chaos which was going on and I can't fault them for being able to supply a city with millions of tons of supplies in a day; a city which was under water and out of communication.

To me, this was simply a failure on ALL levels: local, city, state and Federal in carrying out the disaster plans which we as tax payers have spent billions of dollars to create and which thousands of people have spent years practicing and preparing for. But then I have to also wonder, are they correct that they could be held liable for carrying them out and being wrong? Could those same localities, cities and States be sued by those very people they were attempting to protect, if they didn't end up needing the protection? THAT should definitely be resolved, if it is true.

[Updated on: Sun, 11 September 2005 11:25]

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