Wow, I am sure glad we have this new department.
Could you imagine how bad the situation would be if the DHS wasent created?
Fortunatly they have a Six Piont Agenda and are prepaired for emergency situations. We lerned so much from 9/11. Now we have a whole Depearment and Chief dedicated to national emergencies.
Check this page out
This is I think their first real test.
This is emabrrasing
It’s like one of those meaningless but over-verbiaged mission statements that dot-coms made up just before handing out stock like it was toilet paper.
This is my favorite!
“maximize mission performance” haha HAHAHA
Seriously, who talks like this and what the fuck does it mean???
The assholes who wrote that prolly got paid in the 6 figure range, too. Buncha jerks.
Fucking pathetic. How they have the balls to publish that crap is beyond me.
I haven’t thought about DNS much through this but you are absolutely correct. They have completely failed in one of there major missions and somebody needs to explain and pay for it.
Frankly, I’m embarrassed by the government’s response.
We look fucking pathetic on TV, at least. Since that’s the standard we judge other countries by when they look like incompetent turds when Nature decides to let us know She’s boss, I ain’t giving the fucking DHS the fucking benefit of the doubt. They look clueless.
Thank god nobody is defending these horrible failures. I’m dumbfounded by the ineptitude of the response.
Why wasn’t there a lot more than 2800 Nat’l Guardsmen in the city as of noon?
Why did it take so long to mobilize the military?
Why wasn’t their a call out to the unions, especially the teamster to help out? You know they would have organized for relief.
Why did it take until today for Congress to decide, uh maybe we should cut our vacations short?
Why? Why? Why?
I’m switching between CNN, Fox, and MSNBC and I’m just getting more and more angry at the complete and utter failure of the government to be prepared for this and at the continued fucking ineptitude. I understand things can’t happen overnight but why the fuck weren’t National Guard and/or regular troops ready to go? 2,800 troops is nothing.
These scenes are heartbreaking–the dead woman in the wheelchair, the people in obvious physical distress, the men fighting in the streets. It reminds me of the disintegration of society in Stephen King’s The Stand.
The only entity that seems to have its shit together is the Red Cross–they’re feeding people in Houston and providing people with an e-mail message form so that families can be contacted.
Goddammit–I hate how helpless I feel, watching the scenes like a fucking vulture. :mad:
Actually The Air Force may be doing a good job too. The flew in all the equipment needed to reopen the Airport to 24x7 emergency flights and set up a 100 bed hospital and are now Airlifting in supplies.
My own service finally decided to get some boats going out of Norfolk today.
Army is apparently walking in. (yes angry sarcasms)
While I think the rescue effort has been lax I also have to fault the evacuation effort in the first place. Between the people that just blew off the warnings to the lack of effort in removing the people incapable of leaving on their own, a lot of this human tragedy could have been prevented with a better effort on the front end.
As for the follow-up effort, I also have to lay a lot of the blame for delays at the animals that evidently don’t want anyone rescued. The rule of law was allowed to completely collapse, so now you have to deal basically with armed militants in order to make it safe for the rescue teams.
Someone (Heinlein, I think, but I’m probably wrong) once said that civilization is only 3 square meals away from savagery.
New Orleans, sadly, is proving the point.
That’s very true, and this is where I fault the government. How long does it take to throw a shitload of MREs and water onto a plane, fly it to within helicopter range, and start dropping the shit anywhere you see people? Obviously, more than 72 hours. The politicians can pat themselves on the back all they want for their swift action; at least that’ll leave their asses clear for kicking shit out of.
The President was busy playing golf in Arizona.
The National Security Advisor was buying several thousand dollars worth of shoes in NYC.
The head of FEMA says it’s the refugees’ fault for not evacuating themselves.
What more do you want them to do?
It is fucking bullshit!
And for the National Guard and what not to suspend operations because someone fired a couple shots at them is outragous. They should be able to do this while taking machine gun fire during the hurricaine with their asses on fire and their heads catchin’
The govenment is trying excuse this shit because high flood waters, and crazed looters. Is that all it takes to bring this country to its knees? Poke a hole in a couple dams/levies/cananls and we are fucked.
Fuck the DHS. Michael Chertoff aught to be fired. What an utter failure. We have not only left people for dead, failed at protecting the people and property, have allowed a heath crisis to mature to who knows what yet, REVIELED WEEKNESS, embarreased and angerd the whole country, the list is endless.
Oh yea one more point. May I point out that it is
“National Preparedness Month 2005”
I might not celebrate it this year.
Chertoff wasn’t even aware that there were thousands of people in extreme distress at the Convention Center.
http://thinkprogress.org/2005/09/01/chertoff-reality/
That’s from an interview done Thursday. Yesterday. The day every single media station was STREWN with non-stop coverage of dead bodies left in the streets around the Convention Center to rot, lethargic babies with no formula or water, people with severe medical conditions with no medicine, thousands of people left stranded, some without food or water for DAYS, and every one of them becoming horridly desperate and ANGRY.
Maybe if someone in his office had turned on a fucking TV, he’d been aware of it.
Slate also offered some opinions on the complete incompetence of the DHS:
It is late, I’m up for 24 hours, and this is making me laugh my ass off. As my dear departed mother would have said, “laughing to keep from crying.”
Look, if you don’t want your National Preparedness present do you mind if I smoke it myself?
This really gets me. And he’s not the only one saying it. In New Orleans alone, at least 100,000 people had no transportation. Many of these people were also living paycheck to paycheck, so had no ready cash even if they could get away.
When this crisis is done, we need to start planning for the next one. We absolutely cannot tolerate this the next time such an event occurs The way it looks now, the difference between Baghdad and New Orleans is that one is flooded.
Hell, I know of a message board that’s dedicated to fighting ignorance where people said that.
You don’t understand what it’s like to have a big meeting and, at the end of the day, to have only “Do a better job” on that HUGE whiteboard.
Some poor peon (the only guy at the meeting who doesn’t make six figures) was told by his boss to turn it into a mission statement.
-Joe