Chris
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- May 24, 2005
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OK, someone put me in my place if I'm off-base here, but all this talk about slow response and possible racism as a factor in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast has me a little annoyed and I have to vent.
1) Comparing 9/11 and the Gulf Coast is USELESS. We were able to respond to 9/11 quickly because it was only 10 blocks or so in a major city, not a coastline that spanned 5 states with major routes cut off by damaged bridges and littered highways..
2) If the media could get in, why not a truck of water? Well, if I'm not mistaken, the media were there BEFORE the hurricane reporting on it's approach and such. The trucks bringing in supplies needed to traverse all kinds of debris strewn roads just to GET to the area. And who know show many hundreds of miles of damage, desolation, and darkness needed to be covered.
3) Pretty hard to be efficient when rescuers are also VICTIMS. Most of the people doing the rescues in the first few days were in fact the very people who had lost everything. I'm sure they were just SO efficient because of that. NOT.
4) Two days before the storm hit, it was still being predicted as only a Cat 1 or Cat 2 in some media reports. Would you get all the resources for a Cat 5 mobilized with that kind of prediction?
5) The worst of the storm was not known until a weekend when many people were probably not even reachable or had to return to the 'office' from where ever. I'm sure Sunday is such an easy day to mobilize a massive response team.
6) Why is it that the Federal Government is the one who needed to manage a city or state? They saw the HUGE storm a day in advance, yet we never heard of all the city busses and school busses being mobilized to move out people, or long lines of people walking over the bridge out of the city in the hours before the storm hit. Fact was, they made no real evacuation effort other than to say "ya might want to leave". Forgive me but people in that area have been hearing evacuation suggestions for years, why should they have looked at this one any different? And this is somehow the Federal Government's fault? When the city itself had no credibility with it's citizens that this time it was not crying wolf!
7) The flooding didn't happen immediately. The storm passed and while there was wind damage, most of the city survived just fine. Wasn't until almost a half day later that the flooding began. I'll guarantee the first 'help ' to arrive had no way of helping because the situation CHANGED!
8) People were being passed by rescuers. I'll bet they were. With the limited resources I'm pretty sure that people standing on solid dry areas were not looked upon as the 'needy' when others were on pitched roofs, trees, and other less stable places. Too bad the media only aired the crybabies on the overpasses instead of the people clinging for life on a roof or worse.0
9) The storm didn't hit just New Orleans. The width of hurricane winds were 210 miles across. It's like a storm hitting from Boston to Albany and focusing only on the flooding going on in the Back Bay. Did these people even consider that help from other places could not respond because they were busy with their own troubles? Damage from this storm ran from Texas to Florida. You'd have to pull from BEYOND those areas to get any real help.
10) Given a choice, would you rush into an area of looters and people shooting at recuers or nip over to Beloxi and actually help people you can get to? I'll guarantee you that a lot of resources were diverted to where they could actually be used.
11) I saw trucks from Los Angeles rolling in on Thursday and Friday. If help had to come from that far out, it takes a while to ARRIVE!
12) Look at all the things that DID get done. Ports were cleared, so help could come in from the sea. A focus on heavy equipment was put on the source of the floods so that they could try to stop the water. When you have limited resources available, you make choices. I'm sorry some people sat in uncomfortable places for a few days, but their life wasn't in danger, so they were not a top priority. They just had a big mouth.
13) All the power was out, no running water, flooded conditions, etc. Just where were the support and relief peopel supposed to set up base? Or are all these helpers magical and not need rest, food, shelter, etc?
14) Where the hell does it say that the people have a right to swift and perfect support from the government when disaster strikes? I think the very attitues of the people were the worst thing. All I saw on the news coverage was "ME ME ME ME ME ME ME". Granted those people had some needs, but standing on an elevated highway bitching to news reporters doesn't seem like a very productive way to secure your survival in a disaster.
15) Every single person I've seen open their mouth regarding the slowness, or crying racism, or any of the derogatory remarks are always NOWHERE near the situation, and usually dressed in a suit. How come we are not hearing from the police officer or fire fighter who's been trying to save a sinking city? Where is the interview with the relief agency explaining the difficulty getting to the areas where help was most needed? Or would that information defeat their real agenda?
16) Could relief have arrived quicker? I am 100% sure it could have. As soon as the computer models show a 10% chance of anything about to strike we could send in everything we've got. 99 times out of 100 much of that effort would be pure waste and then we'd have the liberal media complaining about the waste and the overkill. It's a damned if you do and damned if you don't problem.
17) The only way you CAN 'respond' to an event is to see what you need when it's over. Took the Mayor three days to declare Marshal Law. How long do you suppose it took to notify up the ladder what kind of help was needed? You live below sea-level and yet no public alarm system seems to have been built to warn of flooding in the event of a seawall failure. And you KNOW that no real evacuation plan existed. Oh yea, George Bush is so responsible for that.
18) The Gangs seemed more organized than the local authorities, yet for some reason people in washington were expected to have an even better plan?
19) The local newspaper ran a special series several years ago that showed how a large storm would have caused the walls to fail in almost the exact same scenerio, and yet people were surprised that they did? Further, if walls are known to be sufficient for Storm size maximum of X and Storm approaching is X++, why was there ANY hesitation to get the hell out of Dodge? Should not have been a question.
20) Could it be that the complainsts are not directed to the Mayor or Governor not acting before the storm because they are Democrats?
RANT OFF. It's sad to see what happened along the Gulf Coast, but it is even sadder to see the political advantage being taken by the crisis from those that only have ambition of power.
1) Comparing 9/11 and the Gulf Coast is USELESS. We were able to respond to 9/11 quickly because it was only 10 blocks or so in a major city, not a coastline that spanned 5 states with major routes cut off by damaged bridges and littered highways..
2) If the media could get in, why not a truck of water? Well, if I'm not mistaken, the media were there BEFORE the hurricane reporting on it's approach and such. The trucks bringing in supplies needed to traverse all kinds of debris strewn roads just to GET to the area. And who know show many hundreds of miles of damage, desolation, and darkness needed to be covered.
3) Pretty hard to be efficient when rescuers are also VICTIMS. Most of the people doing the rescues in the first few days were in fact the very people who had lost everything. I'm sure they were just SO efficient because of that. NOT.
4) Two days before the storm hit, it was still being predicted as only a Cat 1 or Cat 2 in some media reports. Would you get all the resources for a Cat 5 mobilized with that kind of prediction?
5) The worst of the storm was not known until a weekend when many people were probably not even reachable or had to return to the 'office' from where ever. I'm sure Sunday is such an easy day to mobilize a massive response team.
6) Why is it that the Federal Government is the one who needed to manage a city or state? They saw the HUGE storm a day in advance, yet we never heard of all the city busses and school busses being mobilized to move out people, or long lines of people walking over the bridge out of the city in the hours before the storm hit. Fact was, they made no real evacuation effort other than to say "ya might want to leave". Forgive me but people in that area have been hearing evacuation suggestions for years, why should they have looked at this one any different? And this is somehow the Federal Government's fault? When the city itself had no credibility with it's citizens that this time it was not crying wolf!
7) The flooding didn't happen immediately. The storm passed and while there was wind damage, most of the city survived just fine. Wasn't until almost a half day later that the flooding began. I'll guarantee the first 'help ' to arrive had no way of helping because the situation CHANGED!
8) People were being passed by rescuers. I'll bet they were. With the limited resources I'm pretty sure that people standing on solid dry areas were not looked upon as the 'needy' when others were on pitched roofs, trees, and other less stable places. Too bad the media only aired the crybabies on the overpasses instead of the people clinging for life on a roof or worse.0
9) The storm didn't hit just New Orleans. The width of hurricane winds were 210 miles across. It's like a storm hitting from Boston to Albany and focusing only on the flooding going on in the Back Bay. Did these people even consider that help from other places could not respond because they were busy with their own troubles? Damage from this storm ran from Texas to Florida. You'd have to pull from BEYOND those areas to get any real help.
10) Given a choice, would you rush into an area of looters and people shooting at recuers or nip over to Beloxi and actually help people you can get to? I'll guarantee you that a lot of resources were diverted to where they could actually be used.
11) I saw trucks from Los Angeles rolling in on Thursday and Friday. If help had to come from that far out, it takes a while to ARRIVE!
12) Look at all the things that DID get done. Ports were cleared, so help could come in from the sea. A focus on heavy equipment was put on the source of the floods so that they could try to stop the water. When you have limited resources available, you make choices. I'm sorry some people sat in uncomfortable places for a few days, but their life wasn't in danger, so they were not a top priority. They just had a big mouth.
13) All the power was out, no running water, flooded conditions, etc. Just where were the support and relief peopel supposed to set up base? Or are all these helpers magical and not need rest, food, shelter, etc?
14) Where the hell does it say that the people have a right to swift and perfect support from the government when disaster strikes? I think the very attitues of the people were the worst thing. All I saw on the news coverage was "ME ME ME ME ME ME ME". Granted those people had some needs, but standing on an elevated highway bitching to news reporters doesn't seem like a very productive way to secure your survival in a disaster.
15) Every single person I've seen open their mouth regarding the slowness, or crying racism, or any of the derogatory remarks are always NOWHERE near the situation, and usually dressed in a suit. How come we are not hearing from the police officer or fire fighter who's been trying to save a sinking city? Where is the interview with the relief agency explaining the difficulty getting to the areas where help was most needed? Or would that information defeat their real agenda?
16) Could relief have arrived quicker? I am 100% sure it could have. As soon as the computer models show a 10% chance of anything about to strike we could send in everything we've got. 99 times out of 100 much of that effort would be pure waste and then we'd have the liberal media complaining about the waste and the overkill. It's a damned if you do and damned if you don't problem.
17) The only way you CAN 'respond' to an event is to see what you need when it's over. Took the Mayor three days to declare Marshal Law. How long do you suppose it took to notify up the ladder what kind of help was needed? You live below sea-level and yet no public alarm system seems to have been built to warn of flooding in the event of a seawall failure. And you KNOW that no real evacuation plan existed. Oh yea, George Bush is so responsible for that.
18) The Gangs seemed more organized than the local authorities, yet for some reason people in washington were expected to have an even better plan?
19) The local newspaper ran a special series several years ago that showed how a large storm would have caused the walls to fail in almost the exact same scenerio, and yet people were surprised that they did? Further, if walls are known to be sufficient for Storm size maximum of X and Storm approaching is X++, why was there ANY hesitation to get the hell out of Dodge? Should not have been a question.
20) Could it be that the complainsts are not directed to the Mayor or Governor not acting before the storm because they are Democrats?
RANT OFF. It's sad to see what happened along the Gulf Coast, but it is even sadder to see the political advantage being taken by the crisis from those that only have ambition of power.
