Bravo, DMark. Someone that sees!
I pray you learn how to click on a link and then read the material.
Any comment on the link in post #30.
Here I’ll help you out;
Please read…
<copyrighted article deleted --Giraffe>
Sorry to have to do this Mods, but maybe this will convince the OP that his rant has little merit.
DMark, there’s a time for partisan bickering, and there’s a time when partisan bickering makes you look like a festering pus-hole. Guess which time this is?
The problem areas in New Orleans aren’t accessible by bus. They’re under several feet of water.
As far as the Louisiana National Guard, you’d have to ask the governor of Louisiana. Regarding other states, National Guard units are being mobilized by FEMA.
Contingency plans for a storm hitting New Orleans are the responsibility of Louisiana and New Orleans.
Allow me to dip into partisanship in response: the governor of Louisiana (again, on whom much of this responsibility falls) is a Democrat. In fact, since 1868, Louisiana has only had six Republican governors, according to Wikipedia. So why haven’t these Democratic governors allocated the money to adequately prepare Louisiana and/or New Orleans for a Category 5 hurricane in all that time? Why weren’t the levees strengthened before now?
I’ll tell you why … because partisan shitheads just like you (on BOTH sides of the aisle) refuse to work together for the good of the people. Because short-sighted idiots will always seek to use tragedy to make political hay. Because divisiveness and backbiting is more fun than rolling up your sleeves and actually doing some work.
You and your kind make me sick.
Not an exact duplicate, of course, but are you aware of the 1900 Galveston hurricane?
Agreed. Plenty of good reasons to bash Bush. This ain’t one of them.
Well put.
Ah, yes - the typical Republican cry for unity: “Let’s all work together, you festering pus-holes.”
I eagerly await the public opinion polls following this grand showing of crisis mis-management.
Jesus fuck, give it a rest already. This disaster is about the people of New Orleans, and decidedly not about Bush, so just cram it already.
A big storm occurs every few years. A really big storm happens every century or so.
Something like what is happening now was inveitable because of the way they put up levees. The levees keep water out, but once the water gets too high or the levee breaks, it actually makes things much worse. I won’t go into it all, but levees should never be used like they are in the US. We keep building in land much too low. Also, in New Orleans, the levees have destroyed the old overflow sites, making it impossible for the water to go out like it used to. The Chinese method of hydro control probably killed more of their people than all the their wars combained - same principle as here.
Part of the problem is land ownership law. If you lose your land to the river, you don’t get some back on the other side - it’s just gone to you. That makes people want to put of levees, and kep water flowing the way it used to. New Orleans would be sans river by now except that they keep screwing with it.
I’m ordinarily a Bush-basher, however…
Everybody in Louisiana and Mississippi with a functioning brain knew that this was going to happen sooner or later. The state and local governments are to blame for not preparing adequately for this kind of emergency. Blanco’s pretty good for a Louisiana governor, but she’s spent a lot more effort making life tough on smokers than on dealing with the fact that southern LA is a vulnerable place.
Here in Houston, BTW, everybody knows that the same thing is going to happen here eventually (except we won’t stay under water as long as N.O.). So what’s been done by way of preparation? About the same as New Orleans. The mayor suddenly says he’s paying attention; I hope so, because you can bet nothing’s going to come out of Austin.
Bottom line: this ain’t Bush’s fault. I think he’s doing all that can be done.
I’m sorry to say that you are in for a disappointment then. The only folks who are going to ding Bush about this are those who already would answer D, Bush is the Incarnation of Evil and all that is Wrong With the World Today! on the test. Like, well, you. And (surprisingly to me as he’s normally quite rational) BobLibDem if this thread is any indication.
To help you out, I’d estimate that the majority of the posters in this thread can’t stand Bush…yet they seem to think you are a loon on this issue. Fancy that…
-XT
Thanks for the kind words. I’m sorry if I disappoint you. It just seems to me that:
-
The most pressing thing needed in the past two days is to get people rescued off of or from under their roofs. Unless the air traffic in N.O. was getting too crowded, the more helicopters and rescue watercraft, the better. The military should be able to bring such resources to bear very quickly and it just strikes me that the response should have been on the order of “shock and awe”.
-
It should not take days to evacuate a mere tens of thousands from the Superdome. Get a military transport plane as close as possible, unload whatever equipment it takes and get the job done. Ferry people from the dome to dry ground using whatever is handy, then bus them to a holding ground. Set up tents if you have to. If one compares the tsunami response to the hurricane response, I’m afraid the hurricane response seems lethargic.
Well put.
From The Washington Post:
“[R]escue teams have plucked 10,000 people from attics and roofs after they were stranded there by the floodwaters.”
You’re saying that 10,000 people wasn’t much of an effort?
From same article:
“[T]he evacuation could take as long as two days to complete. They said some of the logistics depend on the extent of the flooding around the Superdome; they hope buses can be brought up to the building.”
So, let’s see- when should we have sent the plane in? During the storm? Maybe right after the storm, before we had a chance to actually assess which areas were under water and which areas were in danger of being flooded? 'Cause that would have been great- “Transport planes drug under by sudden rising water- 10,000 refugees killed”.
It seems to me that what you’re asking for was logistically and logically impossible; but because Bush didn’t wave his Presidential Magic Wand and make it suddenly safe and clear, it’s his fault.
You haven’t been reading the news then.
"The Pentagon effort includes the Navy amphibious assault ship USS Bataan, whose helicopters have been flying relief missions from off the Louisiana coast.
The ship, which resembles a small aircraft carrier, can produce large quantities of fresh water and is equipped with 600 hospital beds. (Watch video report on storm-related health risks)
Several other ships, including a rescue and salvage vessel and the USS Iwo Jima, another amphibious assault ship, are on their way from Norfolk, Virginia, the Navy said.
The USNS Comfort, a floating hospital based in Baltimore, Maryland, will depart in coming days. A medical crew from Bethesda Naval Hospital will staff the ship. It has full hospital capabilities, including operating rooms and hundreds of beds.
More than 125,000 National Guard troops have been activated in 19 states and Washington, D.C., to help local agencies with traffic control, security, distributing food, and search and rescue, a Guard spokesman said.
The Coast Guard, whose crews have been assisting in the rescue of people stranded by high water in the New Orleans area, is recalling 550 reservists to assist in the relief effort."
From here.
Speed of rescue isn’t the only factor. Safety, consistency and organization all take time.
You do realise that the damage from the storm wasn’t isolated to NO only, right? there are five states that got hit pretty hard. Flooding all over the place and wind damage of unknown billions of dollars.
How do you mobilise for everything everywhere in five different states at once?
FWIW, the airspace over NO and vicinity is restricted to emergency and evacuation operations only. A Navy P-3 is providing advisory air traffic control. Louis Armstrong airport is closed due to lack of power, and may not reopen for weeks.
The text of the current Notice to Airmen, for those of ya:
According to this thread, I am not the only Commie Pinko Loon who thinks Dubya is showing a lack of leadership and typical mis-managment. That supermarket rag, the New York Times, also seems to agree.
There are, and rightly so, legal barriers to using regular military personnel and equipment inside the borders of the United States, too, ya know. That is, if by “military” you mean resources outside of the 125,000 National Guardsmen that have been activated.
Your link goes to your own post. And the NYTimes article linked in the OP of that thread isn’t exactly what I call “critical” of Bush’s actions in the relief effort. It doesn’t even mention Bush, or anything he’s done/not done, with respect to relief efforts. It has but one lone sentence about Bush - and one that’s pretty meaningless anyway:
“But this seems like the wrong moment to dwell on fault-finding, or even to point out that it took what may become the worst natural disaster in American history to pry President Bush out of his vacation.”
I’m glad someone can understand those notices. What I was thinking was the air traffic of all those rescue helicopters themselves. There has to be a point where there are too many helicopters.
Sure it’s a big effort. But if it’s out of 100,000 people, it isn’t enough.
And if buses can’t be brought up, what then? Rather than wait for buses, ferry them out by boat.
I think they had a good enough idea of where the flooding was going to be. They could have erred on the side of caution by 100 miles, still better than not going. As soon as the winds died down they could have been within reasonable distance of the target.
Certainly this is a multistate logistical nightmare. I’m just not convinced that our best and brightest are running the show here.