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Serious Problems are Afoot in New Orleans (pg. 16)
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| Q5echo |
| quote: | Originally posted by ogvh5150
In other news
"The Homeland Security Department has requested and continues to request that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans," said Renita Hosler, spokeswoman for the Red Cross.
"Right now access is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities. We have been at the table every single day [asking for access]. We cannot get into New Orleans against their orders."
Calls to the Department of Homeland Security and its subagency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, were not returned yesterday.
Homeland Security won't let Red Cross deliver food
DU poisoning? |
you forgot the rest of the article
| quote: | Though frustrated, Hosler understood the reasons. The goal is to move people out of an uninhabitable city, and relief operations might keep them there. Security is so bad that she fears feeding stations might get ransacked.
"It's not about fault and blame right now. The situation is like an hourglass, and we are in the smallest part right now. Everything is trying to get through it," she said. "They're trying to help people get out." |
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| donnybrasco |
| quote: | Originally posted by George Smiley
Your grasp of English is appalling. Please go back and read that line you quoted off me and tell me how, from what I wrote there, you came to the conclusion that I said "the rich should pay more taxes". |
:eyespop:
Amazing. :haha: |
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| George Smiley |
| quote: | Originally posted by donnybrasco
:eyespop:
Amazing. :haha: |
Ok here's your verbal reasoning aptitude test...
| quote: | | with a message for all you who think rich people shouldn't have to pay as much tax |
From the statement, answer the following questions either 'true', 'false' or 'not enough information'
George Smiley thinks...
1) Rich people should pay more tax
2) Rich people should pay less tax
3) Rich people should pay the same amount of tax
4) donnybrasco will answer all questions above incorrectly |
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| ogvh5150 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Q5echo
you forgot the rest of the article |
I guess people should suffer by your statement.
Sept. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Cargill Inc., the world's largest agricultural company, was forced to halt shipments from its four grain terminals in Louisiana after flooding from Hurricane Katrina led the U.S. Coast Guard to ban ocean-going vessels.
Panamax-class ships used for exports have been barred from entering the Mississippi River, preventing grain from leaving the Port of New Orleans, said David Feider, a spokesman for Wayzata, Minnesota-based Cargill. The U.S. is the world's largest exporter of corn and soybeans, and the nation's farmers will begin harvesting this year's crop during the next month.
``Until the authorities OK loading those Panamax vessels, we can't get going,'' Feider said yesterday in a telephone interview. ``We need those big boats freely operating on the river.'' Panamax-class vessel, which are the largest capable of moving through the Panama Canal, carry 50,000 metric tons of grain, or 2 million bushels, he said.
The U.S. Coast Guard, which regulates traffic on inland waterways, restricted shipments since Katrina struck the area Aug. 29 around New Orleans, disrupting operations by Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland Co. and Bunge Ltd. About 59 percent of unprocessed grain and oilseed exports are handled by the Port of New Orleans, the biggest U.S. by tons shipped, the National Grain and Feed Association said.
Cargill Says Grain Exports Halted on Mississippi After Katrina |
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| donnybrasco |
| quote: | Originally posted by George Smiley
From the statement, answer the following questions either 'true', 'false' or 'not enough information'
George Smiley thinks...
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I say False;
George Smiley doesn't think.:thepirate |
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| George Smiley |
| quote: | Originally posted by donnybrasco
I say False;
George Smiley doesn't think.:thepirate |
Ah bless, just realised your mistake haven't you? |
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| MisterOpus1 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Shakka
That article is simply restating the obvious from 2 days prior to the storm striking. What is your point? Why are you choosing this battle? |
Well let's be honest here, this IS the becoming battle - whom to blame? I was discussing this with Fir3start3r in this thread here:
http://www.tranceaddict.com/forum/s...12&pagenumber=3
And I am demonstrating the absolute complete failures of FEMA AS WELL AS the Dept. of Homeland Security, which FEMA falls under. Their response was nothing shy of a complete and utter failure. Everything from paperwork being sat on to get NG troops to the area to the complete lack of experience of Brown prior to being hired as FEMA director. I will not allow any excuses for state local officials either mind you, but the buck stops at the very top, and I want Bush and his Dept. of Homeland Security to take the blame where it is due.
He won't do that. He never does that. I recall Occ mentioning how he knew of an associate or two in Homeland Security that stated how much of a cluster that Dept. is and how bad the communication lines are. Of course you take an opinion at face value, but it appears Occ couldn't have been more correct.
And you want to know why I'm taking issue with this, and why I want Bush and Co. to own up to their share of the failure? Because he's ing getting ready to ing Swift Boat Louisiana's ass once again:
| quote: | Under the command of President Bush's two senior political advisers, the White House rolled out a plan this weekend to contain the political damage from the administration's response to Hurricane Katrina.
It orchestrated visits by cabinet members to the region, leading up to an extraordinary return visit by Mr. Bush planned for Monday, directed administration officials not to respond to attacks from Democrats on the relief efforts, and sought to move the blame for the slow response to Louisiana state officials, according to Republicans familiar with the White House plan.
The effort is being directed by Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, KARL ROVE, and his communications director, Dan Bartlett. It began late last week after Congressional Republicans called White House officials to register alarm about what they saw as a feeble response by Mr. Bush to the hurricane, according to Republican Congressional aides.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/n...agewanted=print |
Emphasis and capitalization mine above. Shocking, ain't it?
Now we see just how helpless Bush really would be if Rove actually were to be fired and/or arrested by Fitzgerald.
What's more, there seems to be some internal debating on who and how to take charge, ALL THE WHILE PEOPLE IN NO WERE DYING:
| quote: | Up to now, the Bush administration has not hesitated to sweep aside the opinions of lawyers on such matters as prisoners' rights. But after Katrina, a strange paralysis set in. For days, Bush's top advisers argued over legal niceties about who was in charge, according to three White House officials who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the negotiations. Beginning early in the week, Justice Department lawyers presented arguments for federalizing the Guard, but Defense Department lawyers fretted about untrained 19-year-olds trying to enforce local laws, according to a senior law-enforcement official who requested anonymity citing the delicate nature of the discussions.
While Washington debated, the situation in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast deteriorated. Bush traveled to the region in part to work out a deal with local officials to establish a clearer chain of command. By the weekend, federal officials said there could be tens of thousands of troops in New Orleans in short order. Saturday, Bush pledged to return to the region on Monday--and to deploy 7,000 additional active-duty troops under the Pentagon's control. But for many, the help was arriving too late. Officials worked through the weekend trying to hammer out the jurisdictional issues.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9179587/page/5/ |
There's blame to be taken all around, and I will not ing allow this president to try and shift some blame away from him and his FEMA/Homeland Security good ol' boys. Everyone involved should get bent over while we figure out how to avoid such horrible responses in the future. |
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| ogvh5150 |
Mike Brown: Oh that meeting...nope, I don't remember that meeting I had the other day what about you Mike? Mike Chertoff: Nope can't say that I remember seeing you at that meeting:
NEW YORK Dr. Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center, told the Times-Picayune Sunday afternoon that officials with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Homeland Security, including FEMA Director Mike Brown and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, listened in on electronic briefings given by his staff in advance of Hurricane Katrina slamming Louisiana and Mississippi--and were advised of the storm’s potential deadly effects.
"Mayfield said the strength of the storm and the potential disaster it could bring were made clear during both the briefings and in formal advisories, which warned of a storm surge capable of overtopping levees in New Orleans and winds strong enough to blow out windows of high-rise buildings," the paper reported. "He said the briefings included information on expected wind speed, storm surge, rainfall and the potential for tornados to accompany the storm as it came ashore.
"We were briefing them way before landfall," Mayfield said. "It’s not like this was a surprise. We had in the advisories that the levee could be topped."
Hurricane Center Director Tells Paper He Briefed Brown and Chertoff on Danger of Severe Flooding |
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| josh4 |
what the hell happened to independent committees? |
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| Shakka |
From the Times today:
| quote: | Magic Marker Strategy
By JOHN TIERNEY
It was the climax of George W. Bush's video introduction at the Republican convention: the moment at Yankee Stadium during the 2001 World Series when he threw a pitch all the way to home plate. The video ended, and the conventioneers cheered as Mr. Bush strode onto a stage shaped like a pitcher's mound.
Well, live by the pitch, die by the pitch. When you campaign as the man on the mound, the great leader whose arm rescues Americans in their moment of need, they expect you to deal with a hurricane, too.
Mr. Bush made a lot of mistakes last week, but most of his critics are making an even bigger one now by obsessing about what he said and did. We can learn more by listening to men like Jim Judkins, particularly when he explains the Magic Marker method of disaster preparedness.
Mr. Judkins is one of the officials in charge of evacuating the Hampton Roads region around Newport News, Va. These coastal communities, unlike New Orleans, are not below sea level, but they're much better prepared for a hurricane. Officials have plans to run school buses and borrow other buses to evacuate those without cars, and they keep registries of the people who need special help.
Instead of relying on a "Good Samaritan" policy - the fantasy in New Orleans that everyone would take care of the neighbors - the Virginia rescue workers go door to door. If people resist the plea to leave, Mr. Judkins told The Daily Press in Newport News, rescue workers give them Magic Markers and ask them to write their Social Security numbers on their body parts so they can be identified.
"It's cold, but it's effective," Mr. Judkins explained.
That simple strategy could have persuaded hundreds of people to save their own lives in New Orleans. What the city needed most was coldly effective local leaders, not a president in Washington who could feel their pain. It's the same lesson we should have learned from Sept. 11 and other disasters, yet both liberals and conservatives keep ignoring it.
The liberals bewailing the insensitivity and racism of Republicans in Washington sound like a bad rerun of the 1960's, when urban riots were blamed on everyone but the rioters and the police. Yes, the White House did a terrible job of responding to Katrina, but Democratic leaders in New Orleans and Louisiana didn't even fulfill their basic duties.
In coastal Virginia - which, by the way, has a large black population and plenty of Republican politicians - Mr. Judkins and his colleagues assume that it's their job to evacuate people, maintain order and stockpile supplies to last for 72 hours, until federal help arrives. In New Orleans, the mayor seemed to assume all that was beyond his control, just like the mayors in the 1960's who let the riots occur.
They said their cities couldn't survive without help from Washington, which proceeded to shower inner cities with money and programs that did more damage than the riots. Cities didn't recover until some mayors, especially Republicans like Rudy Giuliani, tried self-reliance.
Mr. Giuliani was called heartless and racist for cutting the welfare rolls and focusing on crime reduction, but black neighborhoods were the greatest beneficiaries of his policies. He was criticized for ignoring social services as he concentrated on reorganizing the Police and Fire Departments, but his cold effectiveness made the city a more livable place and kept it calm after Sept. 11.
Yet Mr. Bush, with approval from conservatives who should have known better, reacted to Sept. 11 by centralizing disaster planning in Washington. He created the byzantine Homeland Security Department, with predictable results last week.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, often criticized for ineptitude, became even less efficient after it was swallowed by a bureaucracy consumed with terrorism. The department has spent billions on new federal airport screeners - with no discernible public benefit - while giving short shrift to natural disasters.
The federal officials who had been laboring on a one-size-fits-all strategy were unprepared for the peculiarities of New Orleans, like the high percentage of people without cars. The local officials who knew about that problem didn't do anything about it - and then were furious when Mr. Bush didn't solve it for them. Why didn't the man on the mound come through for them?
It's a fair question as they go door to door looking for bodies. But so is this: Why didn't they go door to door last week with Magic Markers? |
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| St_Andrew |
^^
Good article :) |
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| ogvh5150 |
I am not about to finger point but those of you outside of the US that say this is the "richest" country in the world I have this to say.
As far as I am concerned I am not rich. I don't know any one that is rich. If I was rich I wouldn't dare be with the likes of folks like you. I would be somewhere on some island resort reading about you "little people".
That being said I also have to say that there are only a few that hold all the country's if not the world's wealth at their hands and they feel they haven't a damn to do with us.
For a few people (whether on or off this forum) to obsess on why the US needs handouts is a tad misguided if not a gross misjustice. |
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