quote:

Originally posted by Renegade Huh? http://edition.cnn.com/ELECTION/200...ults/states/LA/

Well, I was referring to the political leadership there, but in all honesty I was quoting something I heard on CNN while I was on vacation. I did not have access to a computer. The mayor of NO is certainly a dem, but politics should not be an issue in this sort of catastrophe. Nor do I think that they are.

And to anyone who thinks that aid was slow for some bullshit racist or political reason...

On Monday morning, the hurricane hit, it was terrible as everyone expected, though it just missed being far worse with the last minute turn to the right and downgrade from a cat 5 to a cat 4. In any event, on Tuesday morning, prior to the damage being assessed, I think most people thought that the worst was likely in the past (i.e. the hurricane had moved on, and while everything was destroyed, things couldn't much worse). It was only on Tuesday afternoon when damage assessments started to come in that people realized that the levee system had been compromised and the flood waters and sewage started to rise. The city was 90% out of commission with only 1 or 2 roads that I'm aware of even being remotely travelable. Then to mobilize a massive convoy of military support, get millions of MREs and water together, loaded on trucks, not to mention Red Cross baggies, etc, after calling together a late night emergency session of congress...and then to get all of that stuff (BY ROAD) through a narrowly naviagable route to New Orleans (through what was no doubt roads and highways covered in debris, tree limbs, etc) and finally to New Orleans is simply a massive feat. In fact, I have heard many call it "The largest humanitarian relief effort in the history of this country" on many occasions... so to get together the largest humanitarian effort in the history of this country, and have everything arriving in New Orleans, travelling through several feet of shit and water, in what I will call 3 days (Tuesday night once damage reports were more clear until Friday afternoon when the convoy started rolling in) is PRETTY GOD DAMN FUCKING INCREDIBLE. The logistics of such an operation are a friggin nightmare for chrissakes.

Yeah sure, it's easy to look back and criticize and say what could've been done better or quicker, but this isn't the kind of thing you exactly have a "Plan A" at the ready for at any given time. Everyone realizes that peoples' lives are at stake and that the clock is running and people are rapidly regressing into a state of pure savagery; that they're desperate, angry, frustrated, destitute and confused. However, for you to sit back in your air conditioned room and use this as an opportunity to take a cheap pot shot because they didn't have this situation resolved by Wednesday afternoon is, in a word, pathetic.

I wish aid and rescue could've gotten there faster. I wish it could've gotten there days earlier, but the simple fact is that it was hardly conceivable. We should certainly learn from this for future catastrophes which will, no doubt happen, but to use it to shout political insults from your political soap box is deplorable.

I have a cousin who just bought a house in New Orleans. I have a good friend who is a doctor in the Charity Hospital, where thugs are shooting at doctors for god knows why(while no doubt slowing down any rescue and survival efforts). I am as sympathetic as anyone and I would expect you to hold yourself to a higher standard and resist the temptation to make this a political issue.

do they realise how similar they sound to Islamic Fundamentalists?

quote:

Originally posted by Shakka Well, I was referring to the political leadership there, but in all honesty I was quoting something I heard on CNN while I was on vacation. I did not have access to a computer. The mayor of NO is certainly a dem, but politics should not be an issue in this sort of catastrophe. Nor do I think that they are. And to anyone who thinks that aid was slow for some bullshit racist or political reason... On Monday morning, the hurricane hit, it was terrible as everyone expected, though it just missed being far worse with the last minute turn to the right and downgrade from a cat 5 to a cat 4. In any event, on Tuesday morning, prior to the damage being assessed, I think most people thought that the worst was likely in the past (i.e. the hurricane had moved on, and while everything was destroyed, things couldn't much worse). It was only on Tuesday afternoon when damage assessments started to come in that people realized that the levee system had been compromised and the flood waters and sewage started to rise. The city was 90% out of commission with only 1 or 2 roads that I'm aware of even being remotely travelable. Then to mobilize a massive convoy of military support, get millions of MREs and water together, loaded on trucks, not to mention Red Cross baggies, etc, after calling together a late night emergency session of congress...and then to get all of that stuff (BY ROAD) through a narrowly naviagable route to New Orleans (through what was no doubt roads and highways covered in debris, tree limbs, etc) and finally to New Orleans is simply a massive feat. In fact, I have heard many call it "The largest humanitarian relief effort in the history of this country" on many occasions... so to get together the largest humanitarian effort in the history of this country, and have everything arriving in New Orleans, travelling through several feet of shit and water, in what I will call 3 days (Tuesday night once damage reports were more clear until Friday afternoon when the convoy started rolling in) is PRETTY GOD DAMN FUCKING INCREDIBLE. The logistics of such an operation are a friggin nightmare for chrissakes. Yeah sure, it's easy to look back and criticize and say what could've been done better or quicker, but this isn't the kind of thing you exactly have a "Plan A" at the ready for at any given time. Everyone realizes that peoples' lives are at stake and that the clock is running and people are rapidly regressing into a state of pure savagery; that they're desperate, angry, frustrated, destitute and confused. However, for you to sit back in your air conditioned room and use this as an opportunity to take a cheap pot shot because they didn't have this situation resolved by Wednesday afternoon is, in a word, pathetic. I wish aid and rescue could've gotten there faster. I wish it could've gotten there days earlier, but the simple fact is that it was hardly conceivable. We should certainly learn from this for future catastrophes which will, no doubt happen, but to use it to shout political insults from your political soap box is deplorable. I have a cousin who just bought a house in New Orleans. I have a good friend who is a doctor in the Charity Hospital, where thugs are shooting at doctors for god knows why(while no doubt slowing down any rescue and survival efforts). I am as sympathetic as anyone and I would expect you to hold yourself to a higher standard and resist the temptation to make this a political issue.

Well, it was a known fact that this was a category 5 storm comming in, towards a city that is mostly under sea level, with leeves that can only handle a category 3 storm. If there would have been any decent planning that would have mean that lots of things went to standby, ie the army, hospitals, helicopters etc. The massive air rescue they are using now could easily have been put in place after a day or two with some decent planning, but it wasn't.

Okay if this happend as a total suprise, then it would have been a bad response by the government, but kind of understandable since you don't expect things like this to happen. But now it was a very expected thing to happen, it was not a question of wheather this would happen but when. In this case there should have been massive plans for how everything should have been done in the fastest way possible.

quote:

Originally posted by Shakka Louisiana is predominately Democratic.

quote:

Originally posted by Renegade Huh? http://edition.cnn.com/ELECTION/200...ults/states/LA/

don't you hate when the facts get in the way?
thx renegade too busy to point out the obvious

quote:

Originally posted by St_Andrew Well, it was a known fact that this was a category 5 storm comming in, towards a city that is mostly under sea level, with leeves that can only handle a category 3 storm. If there would have been any decent planning that would have mean that lots of things went to standby, ie the army, hospitals, helicopters etc. The massive air rescue they are using now could easily have been put in place after a day or two with some decent planning, but it wasn't. Okay if this happend as a total suprise, then it would have been a bad response by the government, but kind of understandable since you don't expect things like this to happen. But now it was a very expected thing to happen, it was not a question of wheather this would happen but when. In this case there should have been massive plans for how everything should have been done in the fastest way possible.

You're right. We should be busy pointing fingers. Hindsight is like soooo 20/20.

Furthermore, why is everyone so eager to point fingers at the Federal Government (as if they secretly planned to launch the hurricane themselves?) Why is there no criticism of the state and local governments for not having a contingency plan? Why is there no criticism of the fact that people were told to evactuate days before the storm hit? This is astonishing.

Last edited by Shakka on Sep-04-2005 at 13:51

quote:

Originally posted by igottaknow don't you hate when the facts get in the way? thx renegade too busy to point out the obvious

Don't you hate it when your massive ego gets in the way?

By my count, that's 10 Dems (including the governor) and 6 Repubs, but who's splitting hairs. If you really believe that race is an issue here, why don't you prove it instead of making asanine comments? Oh...cuz you can't.

Last edited by Shakka on Sep-04-2005 at 13:55

quote:

Originally posted by Shakka You're right. We should be busy pointing fingers. Hindsight is like soooo 20/20. Furthermore, why is everyone so eager to point fingers at the Federal Government (as if they secretly planned to launch the hurricane themselves?) Why is there no criticism of the state and local governments for not having a contingency plan? Why is there no criticism of the fact that people were told to evactuate days before the storm hit? This is astonishing.

Well, it's important to deal with it if you have a serious problem. And like 80% of the ppl on this board realised from day one that this was a really serious event and that too litle was done. If we can see that, why the hell wouldn't your government?!

quote:

Originally posted by St_Andrew Well, it's important to deal with it if you have a serious problem. And like 80% of the ppl on this board realised from day one that this was a really serious event and that too litle was done. If we can see that, why the hell wouldn't your government?!

From what I heard, there was a lot of relief pre-positioned prior to the storm hitting. The most serious problems didn't arise until after the storm passed through and flood waters started to rise. I don't think you saw that in your glass ball days before. And I don't think the limited access made getting certain supplies there happen any quicker. They were using helicopters and boats to rescue people the day after, but getting food and water to the refugees was a more complicated task.

quote:

Originally posted by Shakka From what I heard, there was a lot of relief pre-positioned prior to the storm hitting. The most serious problems didn't arise until after the storm passed through and flood waters started to rise. I don't think you saw that in your glass ball days before. And I don't think the limited access made getting certain supplies there happen any quicker. They were using helicopters and boats to rescue people the day after, but getting food and water to the refugees was a more complicated task.

Of course it's a complicated task, but it's by no means impossible. Yesturday it was somthing like 10 helicopters landing at NO airport every minute, a very effective way of getting people out of NO. This could easily have been done the second day instead of the 5th. Secondt day was perhaps 10 helicopters in total I donno?

Also, foreign governments has offered aid, such as water and so on, but have been declined by your federal government. Since you apperently can handle it yourself, meanwhile you in fact, can't.

And seriously, what is the first thing you think about when there is a hurricane comming into a city thats under sea level, FLOODING! It's not that hard my friend! And it was predicted by many experts to happen!

quote:

Originally posted by St_Andrew Also, foreign governments has offered aid, such as water and so on, but have been declined by your federal government. Since you apperently can handle it yourself, meanwhile you in fact, can't.

What I heard was not that offers had been declined--I think the people that addressed this question were very specific that no offers had been turned down, rather there is an issue of figuring out what offers are applicable now and what offers are applicable longer-term. Furthermore it is a matter of how best to assign those offers to the necessary tasks at hand. It is not as if Indonesia says, we pledge such and such, and 5 minutes later, "such and such" is at the ready. Particularly if it's shipping food or aid from half-way around the world. Could this process occur faster? Maybe, maybe not, I'm certainly not one to speculate. What is important is that there is a global reach to aid those who need it and the less we belly ache and criticize how we think things ought to have been done and the more we focus on allocating resources and plans as quickly as possible, the better this relief effort is going to go.

quote:

And seriously, what is the first thing you think about when there is a hurricane comming into a city thats under sea level, FLOODING! It's not that hard my friend! And it was predicted by many experts to happen!

Granted, when there is a hurricane, there is almost always going to be flooding--but how many people predicted that the vital pumping system would go down in advance of the hurricane? Furthermore, I'm not sure what could've been done to prevent that from happening. The problem doesn't stem so much from the fact that there was flooding, rather the fact that the flood that ensued couldn't be eliminated via the broken pumps and the levee system was compromised which further complicated the effort. The problem was that the flood water could not be removed and unfortunately the major flooding happened after Katrina was long gone.

quote:

Originally posted by Shakka What I heard was not that offers had been declined--I think the people that addressed this question were very specific that no offers had been turned down, rather there is an issue of figuring out what offers are applicable now and what offers are applicable longer-term. Furthermore it is a matter of how best to assign those offers to the necessary tasks at hand. It is not as if Indonesia says, we pledge such and such, and 5 minutes later, "such and such" is at the ready. Particularly if it's shipping food or aid from half-way around the world. Could this process occur faster? Maybe, maybe not, I'm certainly not one to speculate. What is important is that there is a global reach to aid those who need it and the less we belly ache and criticize how we think things ought to have been done and the more we focus on allocating resources and plans as quickly as possible, the better this relief effort is going to go.

Okay donno about all the cases, but I know sweden offered to send some water purification equipment, and a special emergency cell phone network that is easy to set up fast and can handle 50 000 ppl (more than enough). Anyhow, they offered this on thursday or friday, and they didn't get any answer from the US gov, however they decided to leave anyway on Sunday but when they were about to leave they were told they couldn't go. Too bad for the ppl in NO that don't get clean water or an easier way to communicate... Similair stories from other EU countries.

Although we can hope that they change their minds

quote:

Granted, when there is a hurricane, there is almost always going to be flooding--but how many people predicted that the vital pumping system would go down in advance of the hurricane? Furthermore, I'm not sure what could've been done to prevent that from happening. The problem doesn't stem so much from the fact that there was flooding, rather the fact that the flood that ensued couldn't be eliminated via the broken pumps and the levee system was compromised which further complicated the effort. The problem was that the flood water could not be removed and unfortunately the major flooding happened after Katrina was long gone.

Well, I don't think it could have been prevented either, at least not without any major new funding, which hadn't happend the last 30 years so... Anyhow, what should have been done better is the planning of what should have been done after such an event occoured. Isn't there supposed to be a plan for every worst case scenario there is? And this was one of those that was likely to happen, sometime. And even if there was no planning, there should have been more improvisation faster. Anyhow, I guess there will be plenty of inquires about this so I think we will get something official on if this was good response by the government or not, although I have my guess already.

I often wonder if the adherents of the American Taliban realize how closely their views mirror those of radical Islamic fundamentalists/>>??


http://archives.seattletimes.nwsour...uery=dodge+city

quote:

Abortion foe sees wrath of God WASHINGTON — Steve Lefemine, a Columbia, S.C., anti-abortion activist, was looking at a color satellite map of Hurricane Katrina when something in the swirls jumped out at him: the image of an 8-week-old fetus. "In my belief, God judged New Orleans for the sin of shedding innocent blood through abortion," said Lefemine, who e-mailed the weather map to activists and put a message on the answering machine of his organization, Columbia Christians for Life. "Providence punishes national sins by national calamities," it said. "Greater divine judgment is coming upon America unless we repent of the national sin of abortion." Lefemine isn't the only person to see the wrath of God in the damage Katrina inflicted on the Gulf Coast. "It is almost certain that this is a wind of torment and evil that Allah has sent to this American empire," a Kuwaiti official, Muhammad Yousef Mlaifi, wrote Wednesday in the Arabic daily Al-Siyassa under the headline "The Terrorist Katrina is One of the Soldiers of Allah ... " In Philadelphia, Michael Marcavage saw no coincidence, either, in the hurricane's arrival just as gays and lesbians were to participate in a New Orleans street festival called "Southern Decadence." "We take no joy in the death of innocent people," said Marcavage, who runs Repent America, an evangelistic organization. "But we believe that God is in control of the weather. The day Bourbon Street and the French Quarter was flooded was the day that 125,000 homosexuals were going to be celebrating sin in the streets. ... We're calling it an act of God." The Rev. Jerry Falwell and the Rev. Pat Robertson, criticized for suggesting the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were divine retribution for abortion, homosexuality, feminism and the proliferation of liberal groups, have been silent on Katrina.

Marcavage apparently either doesn't realize that Bourbon Street and the French Quarter were some of the only parts of New Orleans that survived the storm, or he simply overlooks that fact to suit his own agenda.

The fact remains that the soul of The Big Easy is still alive and well.

___________________
http://www.discoboomer.com/forums/

Last edited by DaveSZ on Sep-05-2005 at 05:44