Plenty of people chose to stay. And just how would you provide free transportation to hundreds of thousands of people in a very, very short amount of time?
Just how short was the time? As I said petrol pries went up here a week ago…there was some warning!
I am fully open to being wrong but it seems, NO you left if you could afford to. Surely with the warning available some transport could have been made available for those who couldn’t afford it.
Day 5, Bush tours? Too fucking little and wayyyyyyy too fucking late!
We all want to be safe. I think that in these kinds of circumstances people like Stephe96 need to find a way to make the people in the cituation be the OTHER otherwise danger could happen to them. Anyone who loses a job is Other. Anyone who lives in tornado zone, or earthquake zone, or near a river, or whatever the current natural disaster is, is somehow Other. It is essential for his idea of safty for those people to be somehow responsible for their own fate. If they aren’t then disaster could happen to him, and that is just too hard to cope with.
I look around my cluttered livingroom with its cacoon of books, art supplies and cats and wonder how I would respond if it was all swept away. Most people aren’t the nasty people that loot and burn, but most aren’t also like the young man with the violin who are still even able to think of giving when all else is gone. I hope in the circumstances, I would like the violin man. It can happy to any of us, we are not really as safe as we try to convince ourselves we are.
Do have any concept of the fact that some natural disasters are bigger than any government? Fats Domino, for one, could certainly have afforded to leave. He chose to stay and, as he told a friend, “ride it out.” Is that Bush’s fault, too? Should President Bush have sent federal troops to storm into Fats Domino’s home and dragged him out by the ear?
“Anyone who loses a job is Other?” I have no clue what you’re talking about here. I don’t think people trying to survive in New Orleans are “responsible for their own fate”…they fucking are responsible for their own fate right now! Sitting around in the water and bitching about government response is not going to feed your family or keep them safe! My God, at what point does a person think, “You know what? We’re on our own here for awhile” and band together and come up with some kind of plan? Wow, some overwhelmed cop who is dealing with same chaos you are wasn’t quite sure where to send you, so you complain about the fact that he’s not doing anything to help you? Why not pitch in and help him ?!?!
This is one of those “mile in their mocassins” things, Stephe.
By chance, do you work in the Bush administration, Stephe96?
I’m not saying these people are not in a desperate situation. But I am saying that bitching about government response isn’t really the answer right now. There comes a time when you just have to pretend that there is no government to help you.
You appear to be asking several different things.
Can natural disasters can take the govt by suprise? Yes!
We had major floods in NZ earlier this year that were a complete surprise.
Was Katrina a suprise? NO
Was New Orleans deemed to be in a sitiuation that required evacuted manditory evacution? YES
Were poor people evacuated with govt (state or Federal) assistance? No.
Have those people unable to evacuate (due to finances) been evacuated? No.
Nope. And I’d be saying the exact same thing if John Kerry was in the White House. This disaster is bigger than the government right now. As horrible as it is, many of these people are on their own right now. There are times when you have to adapt to the situation.
And you may be right- the disaster IS bigger than the government. Maybe the government is only part of the solution. My beef with the government is that they are not doing very well at all on their part of the solution. In fact, I am far from alone in calling it a national disgrace.
A time when the govt should not help you?
There are plenty of those times. When you are up to your arseholes in water with no food, no water, no power or phone then you ask the govt to help and help QUICKLY!
I would just like to point out that this neatly describes the thought processes of the the gangs who armed themselves by looting the WalMart and who are now attempting to threaten helicopter crews into rescuing their families first.
Actually, as hurricanes go, Katrina was a bit of a surprise. Nobody knew exactly where she was going to hit. In those last few hours before landfall, a zig this way or a zag that way and we’d be looking at an entirely different situation. And a mandatory evacuation order was issued. People were warned. There is only so much any government can do in that situation. Would it have been beautiful if the state and federal government had provided each and every citizen in the path of Katrina their own personal helicopter and rescue team? Absolutely. But, unfortunately, that is not how things happen in the real world. Please tell me how you would have evacuated millions of people from their homes in two days or less, the criteria you would have used to determine just exactly who was in the path of the storm, and what you would’ve done with the hundreds of thousand who chose to remain home?
Are these people insane? What kind of idiot thinks that shooting at rescue crews will get them save first? The rational people down there ought to band together and take these morons out.
I didn’t say “should not” help you…I said can not help you!
Didn’t thousands evacuate themselves?
Where was the govt assisted transport for those who couldn’t.
I am not sure I could trust my lil socialist leaning govt to rescue me…I would have more faith in them though.
The first part of this is the most intelligent thing you’ve said yet…but then you go and contradict it. You’re not sure you could “trust” them but you’d have more “faith” in them? 
Can not? Well they certainly have the resources and probably the warning.
All that aside it is 4/5 days later! The ‘Richest country in the World’ does have the resources and is yet to ask for help? Huh?
Oh dear, I would love to explain that to you but while my counties flood victims are S-L-O-W-L-Y being compensated, we are all still watching to see if you save yours. Sadly for those trapped there is no winner.