# I pit the substandard governmental response to the situation in New Orleans. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 2, 2005, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-substandard-governmental-response-to-the-situation-in-new-orleans/319747 "2005-09-02T16:04:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![flickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7bcc69/32.png) [@flickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flickster)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2005, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-substandard-governmental-response-to-the-situation-in-new-orleans/319747/81 "2005-09-03T03:47:34Z")
Yes, I know of Fire Dept Rescue Boats that were loaded up and taken back to their home town after being shot at while trying to rescue people. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2005, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-substandard-governmental-response-to-the-situation-in-new-orleans/319747/82 "2005-09-03T03:48:42Z")
> [@](#): > > What’s your fucking answer to it then? How about getting a few of [these](http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/us101/us10110.html) and some of [these](http://www.watchungspringwater.com/images/pr1187_PS_24oz_24_HO.jpg) (after all, some water company donated 12,600 cases of it as of Monday morning), guarded and distributed by a detachment of soldiers, and fucking get it to the Superdome before the frail old ladies die in their wheelchairs of dehydration? Y’know, like Tuesday, at the latest. The people were, after all, TOLD that the Superdome is where they should go. You’d think that there’d be some preparations in place. > [@](#): > > What the fuck are you doing other than sitting in your comfy home bitching about it? If you must know, I let my EMT training lapse over the last few years, so I can’t be a first responder, but I have donated money, I have volunteered my professional services in [this group](http://www.esri.com/news/pressroom/hurricanemaps.html), and I have contacted the Red Cross to come down and serve as physical labor to clear debris on the Gulf Coast whenever I’m needed. I’ll expect to be called after the first rush of rescues are finished. So take your self-righteousness and shove it up your ass. > [@](#): > > Is the DU site down tonight? What the fuck is DU? ---
**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, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-substandard-governmental-response-to-the-situation-in-new-orleans/319747/83 "2005-09-03T03:55:22Z")
> [@duffer](#): > > Enjoy your moment to shine. This really doesn’t answer my question, but thanks for playing. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Tiger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Mama\_Tiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Tiger)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2005, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-substandard-governmental-response-to-the-situation-in-new-orleans/319747/84 "2005-09-03T04:01:39Z")
> [@duffer](#): > > **HeelB4Zod** , I assume you think Kerry or Gore would have been able to sprinkle the pixie dust on this whole situation? The trucks and busses couldn’t get to the city any sooner. You see, we had the same problem up here. The vehicles can’t get across flooded bridges. Planes can’t land on Bourbon Street. _There was no way for a massive relief effort to enter the city._ What of that do you just not understand?!? Wrong, Grasshopper. I’ve been saying this everywhere I’ve been posting since Tuesday: **Highway 90, across the Crescent City Connection bridge and out the Westbank, remained open, undamaged, and never flooded. There has ALWAYS been at least one major highway route directly into downtown New Orleans, once the wind stopped blowing.** By Wednesday, I-10 west was open and clear to Baton Rouge. The airport was also up and running. I-10 into downtown from the airport was clear. Today, the rail lines were opened up and Amtrak is running trains in to evacuate people. The Port has also been opened to barge traffic. Transportation is not and has not been the major issue everyone has assumed it is because the media kept focusing on the destroyed Twin Span on I-10 east. But **the Westbank never flooded**. They could have had semi loads of emergency supplies delivered to the Superdome by Wednesday at the **latest**. They could have delivered battalions of troops into downtown by Wednesday at the **latest**. The mayor was begging for them. So why does everyone keep whining that there wasn’t any way to get stuff into downtown New Orleans? **There was!** ---
**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, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-substandard-governmental-response-to-the-situation-in-new-orleans/319747/85 "2005-09-03T04:03:20Z")
I posted this exact same thought in a GD thread, and I think it has something to add here as well… 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. 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. The only real way to get a large amount of supplies into the region is via rail or truck. 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. 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. 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. 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. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2005, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-substandard-governmental-response-to-the-situation-in-new-orleans/319747/86 "2005-09-03T04:12:08Z")
**Monstro** : Hear, hear. Outstanding post. I have rarely encountered such ridiculously contrived attempts to present rumor, hearsay, and innuendo as support for blind prejudice as I’ve seen from a certain few posters on this board in the past few days. The appalling indecency of twisting the plight of desperate, trapped, unprovisioned people to serve some reactionary political viewpoint is utterly revolting. Thank fucking Christ they’ll lose interest in the next couple of days and go one spew their bile on some other subject that they are totally ignorant of. That said, yep, looks there’s gonna be one hell of a lot of fingerpointing going on over the next few weeks. I suspect that various politicians and bureaucrats are gonna have their feet held to the fire; at least I fervently hope so. I think, however, I will wait till the inevitable investigative report comes out before I join in the poo-flinging. ---
**Author:** ![Large\_Marge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/50afbb/32.png) [@Large\_Marge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Large_Marge)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2005, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-substandard-governmental-response-to-the-situation-in-new-orleans/319747/87 "2005-09-03T04:12:46Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > An interesting tidbit on how people are responding… > > [Cops join in looting a walmart.](http://www.zippyvideos.com/8911023771013466/countdown-looting-in-walmart/) > > Is it any wonder that things have become chaotic? That was one of the Top 5 most disturbing things I’ve seen in all this coverage. It’s bad when the police abandon their posts, but it’s far worse to _join_ the criminals and abandon the people who trust them and who are counting on them for HELP. It made me sick to my stomach. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2005, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-substandard-governmental-response-to-the-situation-in-new-orleans/319747/88 "2005-09-03T04:15:50Z")
Y’know, I think about this on a whole lot of levels. I don’t have any real answers, but I think some of my thoughts are worth sharing. I think the Federal response has been bad and slow. No question about it. I think Bush did a poor job of leadership. But, the more I think about it, the angrier I am at **everybody.** I think everybody has really sucked through this thing, with a few notable exceptions. I think the Mayor of N.O. Sucks. Apparently he’s been hanging out in Baton Rouge the last few days, and suddenly last night he appears on radio and whines and curses and complains and acts all indignant. Rudy was in the streets showing a presence half an hour after the trade center fell. He led. I think just about any other Mayor would have shown up at the Superdome the next day, or the Convention Center. I think any other Mayor would have attempted to lead. Where was this guy. I’ve heard some police have just turned in their badges and left. Horrible. The city needs these guys. I think the FEMA response and the Federal response has been just terrible. Get food and water in there. Get medics in there in the first 24 hours. I also think the people have sucked. The victims. There is far too much opportunism and looting. There is too much “help me, help me.” There are a lot of able bodied people at the Superdome and the Convention Center. There are things an able bodied person could do to help themselves and give aid and succor to those who can’t help themselves. You don’t sit around waiting to be rescued. You don’t complain or whine that nobody is doing anything for you. If nothing else, you clean up the shit and the garbage so the helpless people don’t have to sit in it. You do **something**. Some disasters show mankind at its best. Some show it at it’s worst. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2005, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-substandard-governmental-response-to-the-situation-in-new-orleans/319747/89 "2005-09-03T04:18:09Z")
Incomplete, **kinoons**. The military also has CH-47D Chinooks, which carry up to 17 tons externally (34,000 pounds,) and presumably, they have more than one of them. In any case, we’re not talking about enough water for everybody to take a bath. We’re talking about survival. Let’s say you have pint bottles of water. That’s eight per gallon, and roughly 4 times your 1000 gallon estimate for one Chinook. That’s 4000 gallons times 8 pints per gallon, or 32,000 servings of water. Per helicopter. ---
**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, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-substandard-governmental-response-to-the-situation-in-new-orleans/319747/90 "2005-09-03T04:28:33Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > Y’know, I think about this on a whole lot of levels. I don’t have any real answers, but I think some of my thoughts are worth sharing. > > I think the Federal response has been bad and slow. No question about it. I think Bush did a poor job of leadership. > > But, the more I think about it, the angrier I am at **everybody.** I think everybody has really sucked through this thing, with a few notable exceptions. > > I think the Mayor of N.O. Sucks. Apparently he’s been hanging out in Baton Rouge the last few days, and suddenly last night he appears on radio and whines and curses and complains and acts all indignant. > > Rudy was in the streets showing a presence half an hour after the trade center fell. He led. I think just about any other Mayor would have shown up at the Superdome the next day, or the Convention Center. I think any other Mayor would have attempted to lead. Where was this guy. > > I’ve heard some police have just turned in their badges and left. Horrible. The city needs these guys. > > I think the FEMA response and the Federal response has been just terrible. Get food and water in there. Get medics in there in the first 24 hours. > > I also think the people have sucked. The victims. There is far too much opportunism and looting. There is too much “help me, help me.” There are a lot of able bodied people at the Superdome and the Convention Center. There are things an able bodied person could do to help themselves and give aid and succor to those who can’t help themselves. You don’t sit around waiting to be rescued. You don’t complain or whine that nobody is doing anything for you. If nothing else, you clean up the shit and the garbage so the helpless people don’t have to sit in it. You do **something**. > > Some disasters show mankind at its best. Some show it at it’s worst. On the evening news, I saw plenty of victims trying to do something. I saw people with brooms sweeping up garbarge and covering dead and trying to comfort people with in tears, people collasped on the ground. I also saw people scrambling for the cameras, pleading directly to the audience. Even on that stupid entertainment news show, they showed a story about a man, one of the victims, who had taken charge of the convention center and was doing his best to control the situation. The media has gotten a bad rap in the past, and I know it hasn’t come out unscathed through this mess, but today I was actually felt like the reporters had a better handle on what’s going on than anyone else. And all the ones I’ve seen have been fully sympathetic to the victims. Today I saw no footage of looters or thugs; I only saw people who are just in need of help. ---
**Author:** ![lisacurl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/41988e/32.png) [@lisacurl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisacurl)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2005, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-substandard-governmental-response-to-the-situation-in-new-orleans/319747/91 "2005-09-03T04:29:33Z")
I just saw an interview with Charmaine Neville, a local musician of the famous family. She was telling Bishop Alfred Hughes of Baton Rouge what she went through escaping the 9th Ward and New Orleans, and had apparently given the station permission to broadcast it. She was so broken and emotional, but holding it together long enough to tell her story, I am just speechless. That woman has been through the fires of hell, and I defy anyone to deny it. it’s on the WAFB website, [http://www.wafb.com/](http://www.wafb.com/) – click down to “featured videos” on the left margin. I’m transcribed it, because it’s so powerful: > [@](#): > > I was in my house when everything first started. I was in my house in the Bywater area in the Ninth Ward in New Orleans. When the hurricane came, it blew all of the left side of my house, the north side of my house completely off. The water was coming in my house in torrents. I had my neighbor, and an elderly man who is my neighbor, and myself in the house with our dogs and cats, and we were trying to stay out of the water but the water was coming in too fast. So we ended up having to leave the house. We left the house and we went up on the roof of a school. I took a crowbar and I burst the door open on the roof of the school to help people, to get them up on the roof of the school. > > Later on we found a flatboat, and we went around in the flatboat, getting people off the roof of their houses and bringing them to the school. We found all the food that we could, and we cooked and we fed people. But then, things started getting really bad. By the second day, the people that were there – the people that we were feeding and everything – we had no more food, no water, no nothing. And other people were coming into our neighborhood. We were watching the helicopters go across the bridge and airlift other people out, but they would hover over us and tell us “hi”, and that would be all. They wouldn’t drop us any food, any water, nothing. > > Alligators were eating people. They had all kind of stuff floating in the water. They had babies floating in the water. We had to walk over hundreds of bodies of dead people – people that we tried to save from the hospices, from the hospitals, and from the old folks homes. I tried to get the police to help us, but I realized we rescued a lot of police officers in the flatboat from the Fifth District Police Station. The guy who was driving the boat, he rescued them and brought them to a lot of different places where they could be saved. We understood why the police couldn’t help us, but we couldn’t understand why the National Guard and them couldn’t help us, because we kept seeing them. But they never would stop and help us. > > Finally, it just got to be too much. I just took all of the people that I could. I had two old women in wheelchairs with no legs. I rolled them from down there in that Ninth Ward to the French Quarter, and I went back and got more people. There were groups of us, there was about 24 of us, and we kept going back and forth rescuing whoever we could get and bringing them to the French Quarter since we heard that there were phones in the French Quarter and that there wasn’t any water [flooding]. They were right, there was phones, but we couldn’t get through. > > I found some police officers. I told them that a lot of us women had been raped down there. [her voice breaks] Men were coming in through the neighborhood, not the men that were helping us save people, but others. [begins crying] And they came and they started raping women, and raping them, and then they started killing. And I don’t know who these people were, I’m not going to tell you I knew who they were, because I don’t. But what I want people to understand is that if we were not left down there like the animals they were treating us like, all of those things wouldn’t have happened. People are trying to say that we stayed in that city because we _wanted_ to be rioting and we wanted to do this. We didn’t have resources to get out; we had no way to leave. When they gave the evacuation order, if we could have left, we would have left. > > There are still thousands and thousands of people trapped in the homes down in the downtown area, in the Ninth Ward. And not just in my neighborhood, but in other neighborhoods in the Ninth Ward. There are people still trapped down there – old people, young people, babies, pregnant women – nobody’s helping them. And I want people to realize that we did not stay in that city so we could steal and loot and commit crimes. A lot of those young men lost their minds because the helicopters would fly over us and wouldn’t stop. We’d do SOS with the flashlights, we’d do everything. And it came to a point, it really did come to a point, when these young men were so frustrated that they did start shooting. They weren’t trying to hit the helicopters, they figured that maybe they weren’t seeing, maybe if they hear this gunfire, they will stop then. But that didn’t help us, nothing like that helped us. > > Finally, I got to Canal Street with all of my people that I had saved from back there. There was a whole group of us. _I_ – I don’t want them arresting nobody else – _I_ broke the window in a RTA bus. I never learned how to drive a bus in my life. I got in that bus, I loaded all of those people in wheelchairs and everything else into that bus, [begins sobbing] and we drove and we drove and we drove and millions of people were trying to get me to help them, to get on the bus with us [breaks down in sobs, Bishop Hughes comforts and praises her inaudibly] I don’t know how God gave me the willpower to do… I just tried… [segment ends] ---
**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, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-substandard-governmental-response-to-the-situation-in-new-orleans/319747/92 "2005-09-03T04:36:28Z")
**lisacurl** , I’m on the verge of tears. ---
**Author:** ![duffer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duffer/32/1026_2.png) [@duffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/duffer)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2005, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-substandard-governmental-response-to-the-situation-in-new-orleans/319747/93 "2005-09-03T04:37:28Z")
> [@Mama Tiger](#): > > So why does everyone keep whining that there wasn’t any way to get stuff into downtown New Orleans? **There was!** Fuck, I’m tired of this shit. Again (andagainandagainandagain) I ask, have you personally experienced this situation? Have you seen it first hand? Do you know that it takes longer to get supplies to the area than it does to post to a fucking message board? I know that the stress level is unbeleivable in NO. To a much smaller extent it’s frustrating the rest of us because we sit here typing and not able to do anything. I just hope somebody, somewhere will make everyone understand what is happening. It is the worst disaster in American history. 9/11, Pearl Harbor, Camille, Galveston, Andrew, San Francisco. We’ve never experienced anything like this. We’re watching the process of the government learning how to better handle these situations. This is new. This has never happened before. Remember 9/11? Never had that happened before. Yet the FDNY and NYPD were criticized for not saving everyone. They had no training nor preparation for such a disaster. This is nothing new. Think back to the middle ages. When a castle fell and the town was destroyed, the people blamed the king. Guess what happened after that? The next community came up with a better system, structure and protocol. People, as always, adapted and changed. For the most part, we adapt and change based on experience. This situation has never been experienced before. We’re still learning. Unlike you, unfortunately, the rest of us Trogs don’t have all the answers. We understand that we don’t know everything about everything. I realize you have a wealth of information from Google at the drop of a hat, but for things not yet experienced, us mere mortals have to slog through some learning of how to handle things _that have never happened here before._ Hope you enjoy your warm dinner tonight. I’m sure the hungry appreciate you posting your political hatred on their behalf. ---
**Author:** ![Hippy\_Hollow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hippy_hollow/32/4841_2.png) [@Hippy\_Hollow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hippy_Hollow)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2005, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-substandard-governmental-response-to-the-situation-in-new-orleans/319747/94 "2005-09-03T04:43:03Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > I also think the people have sucked. The victims. There is far too much opportunism and looting. There is too much “help me, help me.” There are a lot of able bodied people at the Superdome and the Convention Center. There are things an able bodied person could do to help themselves and give aid and succor to those who can’t help themselves. You don’t sit around waiting to be rescued. You don’t complain or whine that nobody is doing anything for you. If nothing else, you clean up the shit and the garbage so the helpless people don’t have to sit in it. You do something. **Scylla…** what the fuck? Give me the numbers on the estimated 20,000 people who were involved in the looting. Listen, I’ve said it before: looting sucks, but why is it a major focus instead of ensuring that law and order are in place. Do you think that there is any place in America that after a major disaster, when there is no communication or presence of law enforcement, that it would be safe in the streets? The fact that this is a major focus of what’s going on is tragic. What coverage are you watching? At the Convention Center, I saw a nurse rescuing a child in diabetic shock. She needed insulin and screamed for it. Somehow, someone in the crowd produces insulin (no doubt one of the worthless looters). Child’s life is saved. One man, probably in his twenties, rowed a boat from the housing project with EIGHTEEN children by himself because their mothers couldn’t travel in the boat. Christ, I want to be charitable, but part of me wants to tell you to wake the fuck up and realize that EVERY reporter on EVERY network I have watched - FOX, CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, NPR - has commented on the way that people, considering the horror they have experienced, are generally calm and working to help each other. Where the fuck do you put garbage where the cans are overflowing - hello, no sanitation in town right now! - and when these same people are trying to stack dead bodies away from the living. I’m going to attribute this ignorant nonsense to the late hour. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2005, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-substandard-governmental-response-to-the-situation-in-new-orleans/319747/95 "2005-09-03T04:45:07Z")
> [@](#): > > Again (andagainandagainandagain) I ask, have you personally experienced this situation? Yes. I kept up my first responder qualifications for a while, but let them lapse over the last few years. In addition, I have seen everything from hurricanes (I grew up in Montgomery, Alabama) to F5 tornadoes (I was in Tuscaloosa when the Bessemer was ravaged.) Anything else? ---
**Author:** ![SanibelMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@SanibelMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanibelMan)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2005, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-substandard-governmental-response-to-the-situation-in-new-orleans/319747/96 "2005-09-03T04:46:07Z")
For the record, [The New York Times](http://nytimes.com/2005/09/03/national/nationalspecial/03mayor.html) says Ray Nagin, mayor of New Orleans, has stayed in the city: > [@](#): > > He has been camped out for days on the 27th floor of a structurally damaged and powerless hotel in New Orleans, sending runners to communicate with the few staff members who remain in an increasingly futile effort to run some semblance of a municipal government. > > Like many others in New Orleans, Mayor C. Ray Nagin is a man with a home under water, a man whose family has fled to higher ground, a man who is worried about food and clean drinking water. > > But at this moment, what defines Mr. Nagin is that he is a mayor without a city. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2005, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-substandard-governmental-response-to-the-situation-in-new-orleans/319747/97 "2005-09-03T04:48:32Z")
> [@](#): > > I’m sure the hungry appreciate you posting your political hatred on their behalf. You’re the politician here. I have missing friends in New Orleans. You’re the one talking about making political hay. I’m talking about getting water to dying people. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Tiger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Mama\_Tiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Tiger)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2005, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-substandard-governmental-response-to-the-situation-in-new-orleans/319747/98 "2005-09-03T04:51:22Z")
> [@](#): > > [Fuck, I’m tired of this shit. Again (andagainandagainandagain) I ask, have you personally experienced this situation? Have you seen it first hand? Do you know that it takes longer to get supplies to the area than it does to post to a fucking message board? Well, considering that I just left New Orleans a month ago and am intimately familiar with every portion of all those highways, have joined in previous evacuations, and have a pretty damn good idea of what the roads are like there, I’d say I have a damn sight more knowledge of it than you do. And I didn’t say I knew they had the trucks ready to go and didn’t send them. I said the excuse that there weren’t roads open won’t fly because **there was a major highway open all along**. What part of that sentence do you fail to understand? ---
**Author:** ![Large\_Marge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/50afbb/32.png) [@Large\_Marge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Large_Marge)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2005, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-substandard-governmental-response-to-the-situation-in-new-orleans/319747/99 "2005-09-03T04:52:37Z")
> [@5que](#): > > The Ritz-Carlton payed for the buses – they were hired privately. They also evacuated their staff, not just the rich white customers. > > Private businesses & organizations are the ones getting something done, at least in these early days. Cite? Equipoise says in another thread that FEMA sent the buses: > [@Equipoise](#): > > Watching CNN yesterday and today…yesterday a woman, a tourist from Baltimore, called CNN to let them know that there were about 300 people stranded at the Ritz Carlton in New Orleans. She said they had food and water but the situation was starting to get uncomfortable. She was very calm, not demanding that they be rescued. She just wanted to let someone know that people were there, while understanding that they were not a priority. I was very impressed with her. > > She just called back into CNN and told Blitzer that she and her husband were back home in Baltimore. He asked her for details and she said that shortly after her phone call to CNN helicopters started showing up, buzzing above the hotel. A couple of hours later everyone was called to the ballroom where the hotel manager told people they would have to walk 4 blocks to the Marriott because busses couldn’t get to the Ritz. FEMA would have busses there waiting for them. She said there were doctors with them and they “were able to commandeer” some antibiotics from a Walgreens across the street, and gave doses of antibiotics to everyone. Armed guards accompanied the group to the Marriott. They expected 8 busses to be waiting for them, but at midnight 18 busses showed up, along with more armed guards, police escorts, and helicopters with searchlights. They were transported to Baton Rouge, greeted at the hotel there with food and showers. They then took flights to Houston, then a flight back home to Baltimore. > > She did send her thoughts and prayers for the people who had to stay in the city. She didn’t sound smug. I think she was very aware of how lucky she and the other people were to be white folks with money. ---
**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, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-substandard-governmental-response-to-the-situation-in-new-orleans/319747/100 "2005-09-03T04:53:53Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > Incomplete, **kinoons**. The military also has CH-47D Chinooks, which carry up to 17 tons externally (34,000 pounds,) and presumably, they have more than one of them. In any case, we’re not talking about enough water for everybody to take a bath. We’re talking about survival. Let’s say you have pint bottles of water. That’s eight per gallon, and roughly 4 times your 1000 gallon estimate for one Chinook. That’s 4000 gallons times 8 pints per gallon, or 32,000 servings of water. Per helicopter. The Army only has 425 of these helicopters in the inventory. 300 of these airframes are scheduled for remanufacture. So out of the possible 425, worst case is only 125 are available to the Army. So for arguments sake lets call it 250 airframes available to the Army at this time. I am not privy to the location of these airframes, I’m willing to bet that a large number of them are in Iraq, Afganastian, Keora, or elsewhere around the world. I’d be surprised if there are more than 50-75 airframes in the US. Out of these 50-75 airframes I’d bet a few are down for maintenance. So I’d say 40-60 are operational. They cruse at 137 MPH. These vulnerable airframes need to be kept hundreds of miles away from the area to ensure they are not damaged during the storm. You’re going to loose a day or two just ferrying them to the area of operations. (biggest disadvantage) While it is great to be able to carry 26,000 LBS (if you can sling the supplies), the supplies cannot be close to the area, so you’re looking at a 300 or 400 mile range to the site of the disaster and back. Allowing for loading times, you might get two flights in during a day. Also, those 26,000 lbs of supplies have to be brought to one central location to load the helicopter. You’re not going to just land at the local bottled water factory and load up. Trucks are still needed to bring supplies to where the helicopter is. This also takes a lot of time. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-substandard-governmental-response-to-the-situation-in-new-orleans/319747.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-substandard-governmental-response-to-the-situation-in-new-orleans/319747.md?page=6)