# Are people being unreasonable in criticizing the government(s)response to Katrina? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 2, 2005, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-being-unreasonable-in-criticizing-the-government-s-response-to-katrina/319678 "2005-09-02T02:25:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2005, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-being-unreasonable-in-criticizing-the-government-s-response-to-katrina/319678/81 "2005-09-03T19:03:22Z")
> [@kinoons](#): > > Why on earth is the government responsible for my well being? The United States is founded on the principal that I am able to do what I want to, when I want to, where I want to (within accepted standards) Because I **PAY** them to. Because a society isn’t designed to function around “every man for himself”. Because your attitude would lead to people bleeding to death in the streets because, well, why get an ambulance? Fuck 'em, it’s not me. I don’t even know that guy. Besides, we don’t know if he’ll be able to pay when he gets to the hospital, and if he can’t that’s just more of a burden on the rest of us. You’d prefer living in an anarchic third-world country? There’s plenty to choose from. And they probably have pretty low taxes, too! -Joe ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2005, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-being-unreasonable-in-criticizing-the-government-s-response-to-katrina/319678/82 "2005-09-03T19:12:16Z")
Here are a couple of interesting posts on the subject by a self-described conservative. [Link](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6540213&postcount=150) [Link](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6540354&postcount=157) ---
**Author:** ![fessie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@fessie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fessie)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2005, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-being-unreasonable-in-criticizing-the-government-s-response-to-katrina/319678/83 "2005-09-03T20:05:44Z")
Just a quick thought to add (sorry if this has already been covered). At first I wondered why the citizens in the Superdome didn’t organize themselves. There had to have been some community leaders in the crowd, I know a few Reverands were quoted. They all just sat and waited, apparently, until the situation became critical. Then it occurred to me - that’s what being poor is like. A few years ago I was helping a relative who was poor, truly poor, and her days consisted of sitting and waiting. You don’t make appointments to meet aid workers, you show up and sit and wait. Just like the middle-class mentality says “just hop in your SUV and get the H outta there”, the poor mentality is “if we’re patient, they’ll get to us”. Of course, it’s the government’s job (local, state, federal) to recognize and respond to all of their citizens, not just the ones of a desirable demographic. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2005, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-being-unreasonable-in-criticizing-the-government-s-response-to-katrina/319678/84 "2005-09-03T20:14:00Z")
> [@fessie](#): > > Just a quick thought to add (sorry if this has already been covered). > > At first I wondered why the citizens in the Superdome didn’t organize themselves. There had to have been some community leaders in the crowd, I know a few Reverands were quoted. They all just sat and waited, apparently, until the situation became critical. Not all of them. I’ve heard stories about people commandeering buses, loading them up with stranded individuals, and getting the hell out of Dodge. ---
**Author:** ![kinoons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a698b9/32.png) [@kinoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kinoons)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2005, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-being-unreasonable-in-criticizing-the-government-s-response-to-katrina/319678/85 "2005-09-03T23:53:28Z")
> [@Merijeek](#): > > Because I **PAY** them to. > > Because a society isn’t designed to function around “every man for himself”. Because your attitude would lead to people bleeding to death in the streets because, well, why get an ambulance? Fuck 'em, it’s not me. I don’t even know that guy. Besides, we don’t know if he’ll be able to pay when he gets to the hospital, and if he can’t that’s just more of a burden on the rest of us. > > You’d prefer living in an anarchic third-world country? There’s plenty to choose from. And they probably have pretty low taxes, too! > > -Joe Nice job sniping off half of my post. If you’d have bothered to read the other half I cover why I do believe that we should be doing something to help those who, for whatever reasion (smart, not smart, not able, whatever) did not get our or are unable to take care of themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2005, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-being-unreasonable-in-criticizing-the-government-s-response-to-katrina/319678/86 "2005-09-05T16:44:39Z")
> [@kinoons](#): > > Nice job sniping off half of my post. If you’d have bothered to read the other half I cover why I do believe that we should be doing something to help those who, for whatever reasion (smart, not smart, not able, whatever) did not get our or are unable to take care of themselves. Meh. You posited a “every man for himself” hypothetical, and I told you why I didn’t think it was a good idea. If you didn’t want to know, you shouldn’t have asked. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![Atrael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Atrael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atrael)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-being-unreasonable-in-criticizing-the-government-s-response-to-katrina/319678/87 "2005-09-06T14:55:54Z")
> [@kinoons](#): > > All of this arguing about the federal response has really gotten my goat… > > Lets really sit down and think about this. > > Idea one: airdrop supplies. You cant do that without controlling the ground its being dropped on. Africa is a great example of this. Drop food in the middle of a bunch of hungry people with no order and you have a riot for the food that is there. The majority of it is likely to be destroyed, and only the strong will get what is remaining. Sure you can. Perhaps dropping them into the middle of the city willy nilly isn’t a good idea, but there are known locations that you can use as staging points inside the city. That’s assuming that you have some type of coordination, and have someone that has a clue in charge of it. And even if you do decided to just drop the supplies, with no ground assistance, the key is to do it **a lot**. Not just drop one or two crates, but innundate the area with food and water. > [@](#): > > Beyond that, Helicopters simply don’t carry enough to make a serious difference. > The UH-60: Empty 11,516 Lbs > Mission gross weight - 20,250 lbs > > Inside the helicopter it can carry 2640lbs. . It can crank up to 8000 on an external hook. (per army.mil) > > 8000 lbs of food, water, supplies. (if it can be mounted below the helicopter, only 2600 lbs otherwise) Water alone weighs 8.345404 a gallon. The aircraft can’t even lift 1000 gallons of water. Food and supplies can weigh even more. Also, helicopters are extremely expensive to operate and take a large amount of upkeep. They also do not have extended ranges (320nm). So any supplies they are going to deliver have to be close enough to be delivered. In the case of a disaster of this magnitude, we cant keep supplies close enough to helicopter them in. From my understanding, the airport was pretty much in good condition, so they could have staged from there to transport supplies to the city center. And there are a lot of heavy hauling helicopters that could be used. From [this link](http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/h-53.htm), there are several helicopters that are curently in use by the marines that can haul up to 50 tons for short distances. Those are the units that should have been dispatched. Even a handful of those types of transports moving back and forth could have taken a huge amount of food/water to the city. > [@](#): > > The only real way to get a large amount of supplies into the region is via rail or truck. As oppsed to aircraft like the [C-130](http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/c-130.htm) and the [C-5](http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/c-5.htm)? Both of those aircraft can haul a great deal of supplies into the area, more than enough cargo capacity to make a real differance, then could also be used on the return trips as evacuation methods, transporting people out of the area, while bringing supplies in. > [@](#): > > Idea two: Have supplies pre-positioned. This too, is a bad idea. Nothing is expected to be anywhere near to coast to survive without extensive destruction. That’s why it was evacuated in the first place. What good does tons of supplies do you if they get ruined or swept away? Emergency personal are worthless without their supplies. Even more so, put those people in place before the emergency and they are just as likely to be injured. Now, instead of helping, they require help, compounding the situation. > > You have to keep all aid out of the way of the storm until it passes. Sure you don’t need to have them right on the coast, but 100 miles inland isn’t that far in real terms, close enough to get the supplies there fairly quickly. You can’t tell me that there aren’t any locations in that 100 mile radius that are secure enough to have staged supplies at. Again, lack of adequate planning before hand is to blame. > [@](#): > > Idea three: We should have been there the day after. Do you expect paramedics to arrive on the scene of a gang shooting before the police? I’m not going to get shot for anyone. Until the police are there to ensure it is safe, no one is getting medical attention. If there is civil unrest then rescue workers should not, and are not, expected to place themselves in harm’s way to help someone else. Until it is clear that it is reasonably safe to do so, there should be no expectation of aid. This is as much the fault of the refugees as the lack of the police effort/presence. I don’t think anyone is saying that medical personel should have rushed in and been first on the line. What I do think is that they could have had a 5 or 10 thousand troops on the ground to help with security, and assisting the police. Enough of an armed presence would have curbed some of the armed gangs roving the city. > [@](#): > > Idea four: people are getting in and out, so why are not supplies? This one isn’t quite so easy. But lets remember, moving a small car, SUV, or small boat over a less than perfect road is more easily done than a large truck loaded with supplies. Large trucks with supplies move more slowly, and need roads to move over, or they move even more slowly. > LMTV A1 Cargo MTV A1 Cargo > Payload: 5,000 lbs 10,000 lbs > Towed load: 12,000 lbs 21,000 lbs > > Road speeds at max are appx 55mph. (clear road). If the road is not clear they have to slow down. They can’t ford major rivers, and even a few feet of water will slow them to almost a crawl. While we have a lot more trucks, and they carry a lot more than helicopters (which is why they are ideal) they are slow. They have to stop and refuel. Oh, and BTW, these trucks run on jet fuel, so they cant stop at the local giant station and get gas. With a range of appx 300 miles they are going to need fuel tankers to go anywhere. These tankers have to get the fuel from somewhere (Takes time) and need fuel themselves… > > So are people able to get in and out, yes. But the trucks that are needed to get supplies in and out are slow, and need time. They were able to get the buses in to evacuate from the dome, they also could have used the helo’s to move in shallow draft zodiacs to use to help patrol and rescue people from the flooded sections of the city. If people are able to return to certain sections of the city, there must be some skeleton methods of roadways that are passable. > [@](#): > > I have been on a ground search and rescue team. I am required to take disaster training every year as a paramedic. Almost uniformly we are told to expect to be totally cut off for a week if we are the sight of a major disaster that destroys the local infrastructure. Bridges, roads, and railways are a necessity for mass movement of supplies. I guess that word didn’t get out to NO. > > So is the organization of the rescue and re-supply effort in disarray, absolutely. Could it be done better, probably. But is it realistic to expect tones of supplies to be onsite one or two days later, not a chance. As another poster said above, why there wasn’t a detailed plan in place somewhere marked “New Orleans Hurricane” is beyond my understanding. While it may not have been possible to cover every eventuality, there certianly could have been a rough idea of a plan in place. "Ok, we’re going to need to get a lot of things in and out of the city, and roads may not be passable, so we need to notify the 3rd helo squadron out of somewhere, USA to be on standby, and they can stage at these three potential locations…ect ect. ect. " As I said before, I can understand being taken aback by the sheer scope of the disaster for that first day or so, but there is no way it should have taken till Friday to get the major movement of manpower and supplies to the city. ---
**Author:** ![kinoons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a698b9/32.png) [@kinoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kinoons)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-being-unreasonable-in-criticizing-the-government-s-response-to-katrina/319678/88 "2005-09-06T16:04:11Z")
Atrael – sorry you caught onto my post 4 days late. My argument is to why there is little to no support for the initial 48-72 hours. There after there a lot of blame to go around to a lot of people. Pardon me for being lazy, this argument has been carried out much futher in there relevent pit thread. Feel free to look there for more topics of discussion. > **[I pit the substandard governmental response to the situation in New Orleans.](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=333006)** > > There are a ton of threads surrounding Katrina, looters, people who didn’t leave, etc. What I am infuriated by is the seeming lack of coordination of governmental agencies - from the NO police to the mayor’s office to the state level, and even the... ---
**Author:** ![kinoons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a698b9/32.png) [@kinoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kinoons)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2005, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-being-unreasonable-in-criticizing-the-government-s-response-to-katrina/319678/89 "2005-09-06T16:07:37Z")
must proofread first…Its time to go to bed. …why there WAS little… There after there IS a… …much further in THE RELEVANT pit… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-people-being-unreasonable-in-criticizing-the-government-s-response-to-katrina/319678.md?page=4)