Let me just add that I work for the county here, and part of my job was having to work with FEMA when Pittsburgh got flooded last September from Hurricane Ivan. It was one of the most frustrating experiences I've had at my job. The incompetence was jut staggering. They would turn people down who's houses were wiped out and approve people who just had a puddle in the basement. I can only imagine NOLA is like what I experienced times about a million.

teke, just consider, how much of what you have to deal with now was caused by the feds waiting 4 days before deciding to act in the face of a disaster? How much was caused due to projects designed to help in emergencies like this getting their budgets slashed ? How much was caused by the fact that our government decided to gamble the safety of a major US city and shipping port in order to fund tax cuts and war?

 

I'm sorry that the shit's landing at your doorstep, just remember who flung it at you.

The city, financially, was fucked the second that the levees broke, which didn't have anything to do with the Feds.

 

That had to do with the way the floodwaters flowed beforehand and what broke down on the levees.

 

 

St. Bernard and other parishes were under 12 feet of water BEFORE the levees broke.

 

The levees also had nothing to do with Slidell, which is on the Northshore.

 

Large portions of Jefferson Parish (Kenner, Metarie, etc.) seemed to be underwater before the levees broke.

 

 

 

The losses in Orleans Parish (New Orleans proper), though, can be attributed to the loss of the levees.

 

 

The second these areas went underwater, it meant a near-total loss of all tax revenue of the forseeable future and, in many cases, PERMANENT loss of tax revenue.

 

People who have lost all ties to New Orleans due to this flooding are moving out and will NOT come back.

 

 

 

As for the loss of life, you can start placing blame on the Feds after about 72 hours after landfall of the storm.

 

Poor planning by the city and state beforehand, though, certainly haven't helped matters, as the city hadn't followed up on the 9/11 reports of the EMTs and police who had communication problems due to the destruction of the towers.

 

 

A lack of Fed troops on the ground NOW, though, is getting really bad.

Unfortunately, the ads at the bottom of the page now are advertising hotels in the French Quarter....

 

This situation just sucks all around. I hope that they get some semblance of order soon.

I agree with sek on alot of points and I feel for teke but I'm not really going in that direction. The whole thing is a clusterfuck. You're telling me that in this day and age that we can't drop 50 fucking porta-potties within 4 days to help minimize the shit on the streets? We can't have one fucking bottled water company send out about 50 shipments out within 10 hours? We can have 100 buses lined up to take them to Houston but not one fucking bottled water truck? We can't drop about 1000 cans of pork-n-beans in the vicinity? They can't drop a fucking parachute of fucking body bags to help spare people from rotten corpses in their cheelchairs as well as giving the dead some dignity? The news stations who are so keen on flying helicopters to get close-ups of the dead can't dispatch a fucking few cannisters of penicillin? The whole thing stinks more than the sewage and corpses floating in the water. Local, state, national govt, big business, FEMA, the media ... they all failed and failed miserably.

 

On a side note, it should be stressed that the difference between NO and Mississippi is night and day. The reason that no one is looting and going nuts in Miss. is because there is nothing there. The buildings are kaput, gone, adios. I wouldn't go raping and pillaging like some of these idiots are doing but I would be the first person to smash a fucking window to grab some bread and cookies for my kids.

Unfortunately, the ads at the bottom of the page now are advertising hotels in the French Quarter....

 

This situation just sucks all around. I hope that they get some semblance of order soon.

Cruel, cruel irony.

Man, some assbag on CNN basically just said (when asked about critics who say the government didn't act fast enough) that people have too much sympathy for the victims and not enough for the poor government officals trying to deal with the mess.

 

That kind of shit makes me want to smash my goddamn TV.

Sek and Helmet,

 

I'm not sure how aware you are of the political history of Louisiana and New Orleans in particular, which is why I lay so many of the problems at the feet of Nagin and Blanco.

 

 

If Nagin had declared an evacuation 1 day earlier AND provided bussing of people out of New Orleans, a lot of people at the Dome wouldn't have suffered for so long and more would still be alive.

 

Considering that Sen. Mary Landrieu, Rep. Willian Jefferson of New Orleans, and others use heavy bussing of voters to the polls in New Orleans at election time, it's not like it would be that hard for them to call up their contacts at Avis, Hertz, etc. and say "I need X amount of busses STAT!"

 

 

 

There's more, but I don't want to go on TOO much of a diatribe of how almost every place mentioned on the news recently has a special significance to me and my friends.

 

St. Bernard Parish, LA? I've got family there we haven't located yet, as well as family of close friends who I know went north before the storm.

 

Hattiesburg, MS? Close friends from college still live there, including one of my TKE Big Brothers, who is a city cop there.

 

Mobile, AL? The hometown of one of my pledge-brothers, the one I'm closest to of all 7 of them. His family still lives there.

 

Waveland, MS? The hometown of another of my pledge-brothers, who had become a chemistry teacher.

 

Daphne, AL? Where my *other* TKE Big Brother lived for a year until he moved to New York.

 

New Orleans and the direct suburbs of Metarie and Kenner? Family and friends there, including a family friend who'd recently had his third stroke and was in an area hospital. No one's heard from him or his wife yet to determine if he was out before the storm hit.

 

 

Because I've got these ties to the areas involved, I'd like to think I've got a better feel of the pre-existing conditions that probably AREN'T being reported by the media that contributed to the problems.

 

Many of those conditions are telling me that they were long-term systemic problems in LA that weren't being addressed due to corruption and/or incompetence, depending on the administration involved.

 

 

Believe whatever you want, but my perspective is that Blanco and Nagin helped NO get where it is, but the US Gov't certainly hasn't been doing too much to get it un-fucked.

teke, as a long-term partisan Republican, I have little faith that you would lay the blame at anyone BUT the Democrats. The same way I see sek pointing fingers at the ineptitude of the Administration. And I don't even blame you for that. It is the political climate that we live in. So be it.

 

However, it wasn't just a case of city politicians not ordering bussing out. How many of the people who did not evacuate were not going to evacuate? How many refugee camps were set up to place these people? The people who got out were ones with at least minimal resources to leave. The ones who stayed were either too impoverished or too sick to leave. And some were just too damn stubborn.

 

In fact, Monday, when I turned on the news, I was relieved to see that New Orleans wasn't submerged under water. By Monday night, I was singing a different tune. I thought, naively, that there would be some minor flooding (the likes of which we have experienced here) and some power outages as well as damage to building infrastructure. And Monday morning, that is exactly what it looked like. It's the 72 hours since that has me disgusted.

 

Where the fuck are the porta-potties, the bodybags and the pork-n-beans?

If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but I think there's a time to discuss who's at fault and what precautions could have been taken, but now, our energy and attention should be on the disastrous nature of the situation and not the politics of it all. The focus should be on getting people out of the city safely and providing rescue, not blaming anyone for what's ultimately an act of Mother Nature. I'm not saying these issues shouldn't be discussed, but I wish we could at least get through one week before a fucking hurricane becomes a partisan debate.

Thanks Loss...

 

 

I'm dealing with enough shit down here already that a political debate is the last thing I need.

 

Hopefully we can just cool it for now so that we can take care of business for the next week or so.

The looters are quite troublesome. I can't believe those fuckers are actually shooting at rescue workers.

If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but I think there's a time to discuss who's at fault and what precautions could have been taken, but now, our energy and attention should be on the disastrous nature of the situation and not the politics of it all. The focus should be on getting people out of the city safely and providing rescue, not blaming anyone for what's ultimately an act of Mother Nature. I'm not saying these issues shouldn't be discussed, but I wish we could at least get through one week before a fucking hurricane becomes a partisan debate.

The thing is, it's never going to be the time to discuss who's at fault. Those at fault will see to that.

 

It's important to see who and what failed, regardless of their political affiliation, so that we don't see a complete and total breakdown like this in a major US city again.

If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but I think there's a time to discuss who's at fault and what precautions could have been taken, but now, our energy and attention should be on the disastrous nature of the situation and not the politics of it all. The focus should be on getting people out of the city safely and providing rescue, not blaming anyone for what's ultimately an act of Mother Nature. I'm not saying these issues shouldn't be discussed, but I wish we could at least get through one week before a fucking hurricane becomes a partisan debate.

^^^

 

The man speaketh the truth. Really, my take on the whole situation is that preparing for a natural disaster is far, far different than preparing for a terrorist attack. No terrorist attack can match the dynamics and size of a hurricane or a whatever. Any attempt to stop it, no matter how large the army, or how soon they get there, is going to look amateurish by comparison. Mother Nature can be a bitch and nothing can stop her from slapping on a strap-on and fucking everyone up the ass, just like this situation. It's as simple as that. Just my opinion.

 

Really, it's sad to see what's happened even afterwards. Sad how the stuff Loss mentioned earlier about the negatives of the city are still apparent, even after the disaster (shootings, looters, etc.). It's bad enough that 80% of the homes and businesses there are fucked, now they have this to deal with, all while trying to get more people out of what used to be a city.

I think the Gov is letting it get bad so they will have a reason to go in and shoot first, ask questions later. If they went in on day one and started shooting hundreds of people, there would have been an uproar. Now that there are "bad guys" in NO, public sentiment (it seems) is leaning towards "secure the city by any means necessary".

 

And I don't know a lot about the sourthern united states, but are there REALLY that many black people in NO? Or is CNN just picking shots that misrepresents the racial distribution of the city.

Rudo,

 

The *normal* demographics of New Orleans are about 65% black, 30% white, and 5% other.

 

Most of the white people in the Greater New Orleans area lived in Jefferson Parish (Kenner, Metarie), the Northshore area (Slidell, Covington), etc.

I think the Gov is letting it get bad so they will have a reason to go in and shoot first, ask questions later.  If they went in on day one and started shooting hundreds of people, there would have been an uproar.  Now that there are "bad guys" in NO, public sentiment (it seems) is leaning towards "secure the city by any means necessary".

 

And I don't know a lot about the sourthern united states, but are there REALLY that many black people in NO?  Or is CNN just picking shots that misrepresents the racial distribution of the city.

The Gov asked for national guard troops on Tuesday but Bush was too busy fundraising.

 

I hate how they're trying to spin this to place the blame on the local officals. This is a multi-state disaster, that makes it a federal matter. From what I've seen, all the local officals in every state involved busted their asses to do whatever was in their power to do.

Updates on some of the stuff I'd mentioned earlier from my personal post.

 

 

1. The family friend who had a stroke had to ride out the storm at a NO-area hospital but was driven to BR yesterday. He and his wife are OK.

 

2. My family from St. Bernard and Destrehan have been located. Destrehan wasn't hit hard but my Great Aunt's house in St. Bernard came loose from the foundation and floated into another house and my cousin's trailer next door was ripped in half.

 

They're all either in hotels or in the Greater BR area right now.

Wow, that's great to hear. Stuff is stuff, houses can be rebuilt, people are what matters now.

I'm so proud of my aunt and my dad at the moment. Both are taking in strangers and allowing them to get on their feet. Yes, there is a risk, but these people are essentially starting from scratch.

 

We're already getting a lot of evacuees (I don't like the term 'refugee' because it implies that those stranded in NO aren't Americans or something) here in Little Rock. Going to Wal-Mart today and seeing a man who had to be in his early 60s with nothing but a suitcase and some ravaged clothes sitting alone and playing his harmonica nearly made me cry. Went to lunch today and one of the evacuees was our waitress. She was explaining her story to a table near us, about how she, as a single mom, immediately brought her family here because she didn't know what else to do. She just drove until she felt she was in an area with some opportunity. Really, Texas is getting all the credit in the media, but Arkansas is doing its fair share as well. She enrolled her kids in school today. She was explaining to a co-worker how she has the job so she can pay for a hotel room every night when my aunt turned around and told her that her and her three kids could stay with her until they could get on their feet. Totally spontaneous. I think that will always remain one of the most amazing moments of my life.

 

It's been an emotional week for sure. I'm leaving in the morning for New Jersey and I'm staying the night at my aunt's house and will be on the road tomorrow morning at 4AM. I'm in the computer room and the kids are in the den of my aunt's house playing video games. It took a few hours for them to get comfortable, but a shower and a home-cooked meal did a lot for their disposition, and now they're laughing and lounging. Their mom is working a double shift, so she'll be 'home' later. Kids are 14, 8 and 4. The oldest kid is in their bedroom reading a book. They apparently lived with a grandparent in a New Orleans suburb and still haven't located her. I'm hoping that she's alive, warm, dry and fed.

 

What a way to leave home.

Is it true that NO had 350 + working buses that people could have used to escape NO instead of shacking up in the Superdome? If so, why weren't they used?

They showed a parking lot with probably 100+ school buses, so I'd believe it.

 

On MSNBC, they had someone explaining that their first priority was the freeway system. He then implied, that they never got around to making plans for people unable to drive.

If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but I think there's a time to discuss who's at fault and what precautions could have been taken, but now, our energy and attention should be on the disastrous nature of the situation and not the politics of it all. The focus should be on getting people out of the city safely and providing rescue, not blaming anyone for what's ultimately an act of Mother Nature. I'm not saying these issues shouldn't be discussed, but I wish we could at least get through one week before a fucking hurricane becomes a partisan debate.

Just for emphasis.

 

And this disaster would have convinced me how much I had mainstream media and the idiotic talking heads that show up on the "news" channels, except that I had already abandoned hope years ago. The coverage is absolutely disgraceful.

The only reason people are talking about who is to blame is because we have thousands of fucking AMERICANS living like fucking animals because the govt. (local, state, federal) FAILED them . The fact that 200 patients and countless medical staff are still stuck in Charity Hospital while the private Tulane Hospital had all people evacuated should be a fucking wake-up call. This is an issue of who is to blame. This is an issue of race. This is an issue of economics.

They showed a parking lot with probably 100+ school buses, so I'd believe it.

 

On MSNBC, they had someone explaining that their first priority was the freeway system. He then implied, that they never got around to making plans for people unable to drive.

That's a lapse in logic to me. I mean, instead of getting everyone *out* of the city, the people in power over there decide to keep the people *in* the NO Supderdome, which, for years, was a rat trap.

 

Tom Benson, owner of the Saints, asked the city for years and years, for a new or renovated Superdome and he got told to piss off with each request. Now, he's probably just smirking in San Antonio and throwing darts at pictures of the local officials who turned down his motions.

 

Honestly, when I heard that people were going to be under the "protection" of the Superdome, I was like "...you gotta be joking me." That place is, now, literally a shithole.