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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
 Posted - 09/07/2005 : 18:24:14 [Permalink]
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CourseKnot wrote: For those who could have left but didn't... here's your Darwin award. / Maybe the good that will come out of this is people heeding the warning
Bunk.
So the government shares no blame in an aftermath that involved filthy overcrowded gatherings of suvivors-in-shock? Shares no blame for the lack of basic necessities being provided that, thus, led to violent outbursts and more looting. Shares no blame for water so polluted with chemicals, rotting animal and human bodies, and heck-knows what else. Shares no blame for people sitting on their roofs and other places for DAYS, waiting to be rescued.
Given your amount of sympathy expressed, maybe you and Barbara Bush should hang out.
Barbara Bush, after touring the Astrodome complex in Houston on Monday, said, "What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them." (She was interviewed on NPR's "Marketplace") |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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| Edited by - marfknox on 09/07/2005 18:26:46 |
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CourseKnot
Skeptic Friend
USA
82 Posts |
Posted - 09/07/2005 : 19:46:59 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dude
quote:
What really bothers me is the loss of life. People stay behind instead of evacuating for every hurricane that has ever hit the US, some because they don't think they'll be harmed, some because they want to expierience natures fury, some because they want to loot.... etc. For those who could have left but didn't... here's your Darwin award.
You left out the 100K people who live in New Orleans that make less than $8K a year. Don't own a car, couldn't afford gas for a 200+ mile trip, had no place they could evacuate to even if they could afford some gas. Seriously, with incomes that low you don't think they have credit cards, or even debit cards, do you? You can't get a hotel room with cash these days. And I'm not even touching on the number of elderly and infirm that PHYSICALLY couldn't get out on their own. Reality check! So many people just simply couldn't evac.
There is plenty of blame to go around for this, with regards to the planning and preparedness for the disaster. It is a dismal failure from FEMA all the way down to the local officials.
And Bush gets a portion of that blame. His admin is the one that turned FEMA into a joke by folding them in with homeland security, removing the discretionary powers they had in an emergency, and then putting a lawyer who used to run an Arabian horse show in charge. WTF?
The hundreds of busses sitting under water in New Orleans is also a crime. Those busses should have been going around the city, block by block, people knocking on doors, to get people out of homes and into shelters.
The slow response by FEMA after the storm passed, the total failure of any federal agency to even comprehend the scope of the disaster once those levees gave out...
It's pathetic. Makes me ashamed to live in this country.
I guess you missed my quote where I said I feel badly for those who couldn't leave and died.
I don't think most of us realize the enormity of this hurricane. 3 states were declared disaster areas after the storm hit. New Orleans was a disaster waiting to happen for many presidential terms. I see all of our emergency organizations and workers and volunteers being stretched to the limit and doing the best they can. I feel that if there is someone to blame it's the idiot who thought it would be a good idea to put a city there in the first place.
And Marfknox, maybe I didn't express my sympathy to your liking but it is genuine and I would not care to hang out with Barbara Bush thank you. |
Just flying through space with the rest of you... |
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GeeMack
SFN Regular
USA
1093 Posts |
Posted - 09/07/2005 : 20:50:35 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by CourseKnot...
Sheesh... how can you blame ANYONE for a hurricane that causes a flooding disaster.
What really bothers me is the loss of life. People stay behind instead of evacuating for every hurricane that has ever hit the US, some because they don't think they'll be harmed, some because they want to expierience natures fury, some because they want to loot.... etc. For those who could have left but didn't... here's your Darwin award.
I feel very badly for the families of those who died and I feel terribly bad for those who could not leave and are now dead.
Maybe the good that will come out of this is people heeding the warnings from now on.
[...]
I don't think most of us realize the enormity of this hurricane. 3 states were declared disaster areas after the storm hit. New Orleans was a disaster waiting to happen for many presidential terms. I see all of our emergency organizations and workers and volunteers being stretched to the limit and doing the best they can. I feel that if there is someone to blame it's the idiot who thought it would be a good idea to put a city there in the first place.
Actually I think most of us on these forums do realize the enormity of this storm. Within the relevant threads are links to dozens of articles with data and descriptions. There are even a handful of extremely accurate predictions made anywhere from months to years in advance of this storm. Those predictions include the possibility of thousands of fatalities if the levee system continued to be neglected and if evacuation planning continued to be ignored. And of course they were. From those predictions, and from what we know so far of the actual losses, negligent citizens were only a minuscule portion of the total victim count.
There are many good reasons for having built New Orleans where it is, not the least of which were commerce and transportation concerns. Those issues are still important to our current national economy. And although there may have been some oversight on the part of the original settlers in New Orleans, it would be naive say they should take the blame for the deaths resulting from Katrina.
Upon re-reading the links in the threads it's obvious the Feds were indeed negligent. George Katrina Bush withdrew necessary funds from levee upgrade projects to finance his campaign of terror. There were poorly planned and miserably executed evacuation programs. Thousands of people died while Bush and his cohorts stood around wondering what to do next and posturing for the media. Much of the protective wetland areas, which might normally buffer the effects of winds and storm surges, have been destroyed to make way for commercial projects. And all that before we factor in the possibility that human caused global warming gave this hurricane a big boost on its way across the Gulf. Again, the people who chose to sit on their porches drinking beer until the flood waters swallowed them up were almost incidental in the total number of deaths.
The blunt answer to the question posed at the top of this thread... Yes, George Bush, his supporters and backers, through negligence, setting lousy priorities, and severe lack of foresight, are responsible for the major portion of the fatalities that came about from this hurricane.
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Starman
SFN Regular
Sweden
1613 Posts |
Posted - 09/08/2005 : 01:12:24 [Permalink]
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Jon Stewart is also back from vacation
Video:George Did It
Shame that a comedy show should be the best news show in the US. |
| Edited by - Starman on 09/08/2005 01:14:19 |
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CourseKnot
Skeptic Friend
USA
82 Posts |
Posted - 09/08/2005 : 04:12:18 [Permalink]
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| Thanks GeeMack for the very well written reply. I stand mostly corrected. |
Just flying through space with the rest of you... |
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GeeMack
SFN Regular
USA
1093 Posts |
Posted - 09/08/2005 : 07:12:21 [Permalink]
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Continuing to gather information about Katrina, the government's inept handling, and other random thoughts...
Apparently the hurricane victims don't want to go to Washington D.C. They probably realize the filth and squalor there is worse than on the Gulf Coast. Gee, I wonder why.quote:
WASHINGTON, Sept 7 (Reuters) - Ten buses sent from Washington to help evacuate victims of Hurricane Katrina returned nearly empty on Wednesday after volunteers could find only one person willing to come to the U.S. capital, a city official said.
The convoy drove around several days looking for people displaced by the disaster but poor federal planning hampered their efforts, city spokeswoman Sharon Gang said.
"As we were in touch with federal officials we were told different things along the way," Gang said. "There was a lack of coordination."
Washington Bus Convoy Returns With Only One Evacuee
And from The Salt Lake Tribune we learn that cities all over the United States have been requested to send firefighters and other emergency personnel to assist with hurricane efforts. It turns out they are leaving their own cities potentially short of essential emergency services in order to pass out leaflets for FEMA. Many are currently in Atlanta for FEMA training, which includes a course on sexual harassment. Now there's some effective use of highly trained firefighters, eh?quote:
Many of the firefighters, assembled from Utah and throughout the United States by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, thought they were going to be deployed as emergency workers.
Instead, they have learned they are going to be community-relations officers for FEMA, shuffled throughout the Gulf Coast region to disseminate fliers and a phone number: 1-800-621-FEMA.
On Monday, some firefighters stuck in the staging area at the Sheraton peeled off their FEMA-issued shirts and stuffed them in backpacks, saying they refuse to represent the federal agency.
Frustrated: Fire Crews to Hand Out Fliers for FEMA
Michael Moore offers his advice on how you can provide assistance to the victims without some huge charity corporations skimming their percentages off the top...quote:
There is much to be said and done about the manmade annihilation of New Orleans, caused NOT by a hurricane but by the very specific decisions made by the Bush administration in the past four and a half years. Do not listen to anyone who says we can discuss all this later. No, we can't. Our country is in an immediate state of vulnerability. More hurricanes and other disasters are on the way, and a lazy bunch of self-satisfied lunatics are still running the show.
Michael Moore: You Can Make an Immediate Difference in Louisiana
Hurricane Frances crossed Florida just a year ago on September 4th and 5th, 2004. Of course we know George Bush's brother Jeb is Florida's governor. To put the Feds' handling of Katrina in some perspective here is the statement posted on the White House web site on September 6th, 2004, a single day after the eye of that storm moved out of Florida into the Gulf. It sure seems Bush, Bush, & Co. were right on top of this one...quote:
As of noon Monday [September 6, 2004], in response to Hurricane Frances, FEMA and other Federal response agencies have taken the following actions:
* About one hundred trucks of water and 280 trucks of ice are present or will arrive in the Jacksonville staging area today. 900,000 Meals-Ready-to-Eat are on site in Jacksonville, ready to be distributed.
* Over 7,000 cases of food (e.g., vegetables, fruits, cheese, ham, and turkey) are scheduled to arrive in Winter Haven today. Disaster Medical Assistance Teams (DMAT) are on the ground and setting up comfort stations. FEMA community relations personnel will coordinate with DMATs to assist victims.
* Urban Search and Rescue Teams are completing reconnaissance missions in coordination with state officials.
* FEMA is coordinating with the Department of Energy and the state to ensure that necessary fuel supplies can be distributed throughout the state, with a special focus on hospitals and other emergency facilities that are running on generators.
* The Army Corps of Engineers will soon begin its efforts to provide tarps to tens of thousands of owners of homes and buildings that have seen damage to their roofs.
* The National Guard has called up 4,100 troops in Florida, as well as thousands in other nearby states to assist in the distribution of supplies and in preparation for any flooding.
* The Departments of Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs, and Defense together have organized 300 medical personnel to be on standby. Medical personnel will begin deployment to Florida tomorrow.
* FEMA is coordinating public information messages with Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, and North Carolina so that evacuees from Florida can be informed when it is safe to return.
* In addition to federal personnel already in place to respond to Hurricane Charley, 1,000 additional community relations personnel are being deployed to Atlanta for training and further assignment in Florida.
Background: Federal Response to Hurricane Frances
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GeeMack
SFN Regular
USA
1093 Posts |
Posted - 09/08/2005 : 19:05:31 [Permalink]
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In their ongoing effort to insure that everything they touch turns to shit, George Bush's comrades in the House are refusing to allow the other 47% to have access to, or input into, the Katrina relief bill.quote:
In the wake of what the Wall Street Journal projected may be the most expensive natural disaster in American history, the Republican Leadership in the House of Representatives limited floor consideration of the $52 billion Katrina relief bill proposed by President Bush and voted to reject any Democratic efforts to amend the bill to include a wider array of relief measures, RAW STORY has learned.
Republicans Block Efforts to Amend Relief Bill, Hold Vote Without Providing Copy of Bill
* edited for typo |
| Edited by - GeeMack on 09/08/2005 19:10:25 |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 09/11/2005 : 13:11:48 [Permalink]
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For those of you who think folks should have done more to leave I strongly urge you to listen to a pod cast of Ira Glass', "This American Life", from yesterday, 09/10/05. It made me sick. This wasn't Bush or FEMA, it was local cops who didn't want the riffraff to make it across the Mississippi into their towns via a perfectly good highway bridge. Absolutely disgusting!
http://www.thislife.org/
quote:
After the Flood
Surprising stories from survivors in New Orleans. Broadcast the weekend of September 9-11 in most places, or available via RealAudio next week.
One of the teenagers interviewed in "After the Flood," Ashley Nelson, is the author of an amazing book called The Combination, about her neighborhood in New Orleans. All the copies that were available are now underwater. But The Neighborhood Stories Project, which collaborated with Ashley and several other New Orleans teenagers on books about their neighborhoods, plans to print another run as soon as possible.
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| Edited by - beskeptigal on 09/11/2005 17:43:23 |
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 09/12/2005 : 08:20:33 [Permalink]
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And to re-iterate the dismal response by local leaders to the encroachment of Katrina, the missus was watching Fox News (a bastion of really whacked out and slanted stories, but occasionally has a kernel of truth) and saw an interview with the Mayor of New Orleans where Bill O'Reilly was asking why the Mayor's office never took Amtrak's offer to evacuate people free of charge as they were evacuating equipment anyway.
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Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion |
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GeeMack
SFN Regular
USA
1093 Posts |
Posted - 09/12/2005 : 09:01:43 [Permalink]
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Apparently doctors and nurses in some New Orleans hospitals chose to intentionally end the lives of some patients rather than risk them dying due to the negligence of various government officials. I don't know how the demented George Bush can spin this any other way, but I'm sure he'll try.
I'm afraid there will be a lot of stories of this type coming in over the next several weeks. I'm also afraid that many other such stories will be squelched due to our current government's policy of censoring any news that might cast them in an unfavorable light.quote:
Doctors working in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans killed critically ill patients rather than leaving them to die in agony as they evacuated hospitals, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
With gangs of rapists and looters rampaging through wards in the flooded city, senior doctors took the harrowing decision to give massive overdoses of morphine to those they believed could not make it out alive.
[...]
Their families believe their confessions are an indictment of the appalling failure of American authorities to help those in desperate need after Hurricane Katrina flooded the city, claiming thousands of lives and making 500,000 homeless.
We Had To Kill Our Patients
If any of my family members were victims of this situation I'd certainly explore the option of finding a prosecutor with some balls and have George Bush arrested and tried for manslaughter.
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GeeMack
SFN Regular
USA
1093 Posts |
Posted - 09/12/2005 : 09:11:59 [Permalink]
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And more about beskeptigal's comment above...quote:
A Louisiana police chief has admitted that he ordered his officers to block a bridge over the Mississippi river and force escaping evacuees back into the chaos and danger of New Orleans. Witnesses said the officers fired their guns above the heads of the terrified people to drive them back and "protect" their own suburbs.
'Racist' Police Blocked Bridge and Forced Evacuees Back at Gunpoint
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 09/12/2005 : 11:37:36 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Valiant Dancer
And to re-iterate the dismal response by local leaders to the encroachment of Katrina, the missus was watching Fox News (a bastion of really whacked out and slanted stories, but occasionally has a kernel of truth) and saw an interview with the Mayor of New Orleans where Bill O'Reilly was asking why the Mayor's office never took Amtrak's offer to evacuate people free of charge as they were evacuating equipment anyway.
Be careful what you buy from FOX without corroboration.
http://mediamatters.org/
They are slick and they think nothing of putting on outright lies. There was a real "kernel of truth" in the aftermath of Katrina when their reporters were on the scene and couldn't help but be as appalled as the rest of the country. But that glimmer of hope that someone at FOX would actually see the truth in their harmful biased reporting quickly faded and they are back to pure propaganda.
The supposed train could have only carried a few hundred people if you believe it even happened. Since there were numerous first hand accounts that folks could not get on a commercial plane, train nor bus, one has to question the account. And, like I said before, where were these folks being taken to? The mayor was told those who couldn't get out could go to the Superdome. Folks did that, and, they were OK the next day. That is when the flooding started and no relief came.
The people were fine and would have been fine had the federal government done it's job in the days that followed. The Superdome remained above the water if I am not mistaken. But food, water and personnel that could have been sent in at that point weren't sent in for 5 days. FIVE DAYS!!! Give me a break, that wasn't the mayors fault. It's directly related to Bush and his incompetent appointments to jobs for political payoffs. |
| Edited by - beskeptigal on 09/12/2005 11:43:19 |
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 09/12/2005 : 12:40:56 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by beskeptigal
quote:
Originally posted by Valiant Dancer
And to re-iterate the dismal response by local leaders to the encroachment of Katrina, the missus was watching Fox News (a bastion of really whacked out and slanted stories, but occasionally has a kernel of truth) and saw an interview with the Mayor of New Orleans where Bill O'Reilly was asking why the Mayor's office never took Amtrak's offer to evacuate people free of charge as they were evacuating equipment anyway.
Be careful what you buy from FOX without corroboration.
http://mediamatters.org/
They are slick and they think nothing of putting on outright lies. There was a real "kernel of truth" in the aftermath of Katrina when their reporters were on the scene and couldn't help but be as appalled as the rest of the country. But that glimmer of hope that someone at FOX would actually see the truth in their harmful biased reporting quickly faded and they are back to pure propaganda.
The supposed train could have only carried a few hundred people if you believe it even happened. Since there were numerous first hand accounts that folks could not get on a commercial plane, train nor bus, one has to question the account. And, like I said before, where were these folks being taken to? The mayor was told those who couldn't get out could go to the Superdome. Folks did that, and, they were OK the next day. That is when the flooding started and no relief came.
The people were fine and would have been fine had the federal government done it's job in the days that followed. The Superdome remained above the water if I am not mistaken. But food, water and personnel that could have been sent in at that point weren't sent in for 5 days. FIVE DAYS!!! Give me a break, that wasn't the mayors fault. It's directly related to Bush and his incompetent appointments to jobs for political payoffs.
I am still working to find colaboration on the story concerning a letter sent to FOX news from Amtrak concerning the Mayor's complaint of not having rail cars to evacuate at least some of the people. It seems genuine, but I have yet to find a second source.
It is still the mayor's fault for not commandeering school buses in which to evacuate people who did not have means to evacuate.
I don't fault the mayor for the follow up failures, just the pre-disaster failures. I lay the blame for this one at all levels of government. Some of the brunt is the fault of the New Orleans mayor and local government. The aid response is wholly a federal failure.
Seriously, we can get a freighter full of food and medicine across the ocean in three days for tsunami victims, but can't get supplies to our own people in 5 days. This was a cluster fuck and people died because of it. |
Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion |
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 09/12/2005 : 13:37:43 [Permalink]
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I found it. It's wasn't Fox. It was "Meet the Press" with Tim Russert.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9240461/
About 3/8ths the way down the page. Nagin claims ignorance of the offer.
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Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion |
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GeeMack
SFN Regular
USA
1093 Posts |
Posted - 09/12/2005 : 13:57:09 [Permalink]
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And then there's the issue of toxic waste being pumped into Lake Pontchartrain, the Mississippi River, and ultimately the Gulf of Mexico. The pollution problem has already been mentioned by a few, but now another insider tells of George Bush trying to keep a cap on the true extent of the damage.quote:
Mr [Hugh] Kaufman, who has been with the EPA since it was founded 35 years ago, helped to set up its hazardous waste programme. After serving as chief investigator to the EPA's ombudsman, he is now senior policy analyst in its Office of Solid Wastes and Emergency Response. He said the clean-up needed to be "the most massive public works exercise ever done", adding: "It will take 10 years to get everything up and running and safe."
Mr Kaufman claimed the Bush administration was playing down the need for a clean-up: the EPA has not been included in the core White House group tackling the crisis. "Its budget has been cut and inept political hacks have been put in key positions," Mr Kaufman said. "All the money for emergency response has gone to buy guns and cowboys - which don't do anything when a hurricane hits. We were less prepared for this than we would have been on 10 September 2001."
Cover-Up: Toxic Waters 'Will Make New Orleans Unsafe for a Decade'
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