You people act like its wrong of the Bush family to make a living on oil.

Gee, lets just hang everyone sucessful in their field....

First Bill Gates, then Bush family...hmmm to bad Dave Thomas has already passed away, we cant chop him down for being a good businessman....

 

Refrence the 'got drunk and ran for president skit on SNL a few years ago'

Secret Service agent "No you did some great things while in office. Remember your 'give us your guns or we will blow your freakin' heads off', how about your 'give us your drugs or we will blow your freakin' heads off'", or when you marched into the UN and said "I am taking Cuba, ANYBODY got a problem with that?!!! " No sir you have been a great president now how about a bottle of Gin for breakfast?"

 

Please define for me what you deem to be "making a living"?!?!
Somehow, I don't think they are "barely making it" the way millions of other hard working people out here are, especially the ones with dirt under their fingernails.

So why is it that the automakers (who are losing money) are able to cough up millions to aid in this disaster, yet the oil companies (who are pulling in Billions a day) are still gouging away at us? In times like this, would it REALLY be unacceptable for them to actually give a little back to society?

Yet you defend them.

Do me a favor, don't try the pitiful defense of categorization to justify the rediculous fleecing the oil companies are putting on the American people. I have no problem with Bill Gates (he earned his money, and he is VERY philanthropic), nor do I have an issue with the deceased Dave Thomas. I have no problem with anyone being successful. I DO have a problem with people who take advantage of their might and economic clout through the use of government and then inflict their foul intents upon the people en-masse - especially when those people are trying to pull out of a huge national disaster... BIG difference.

 

wow......quite a few opinions in this thread!

I'm no expert on any of this.....and I'm quite sure I don't know enough about it to throw accusations around.

I DO have a question for the Mayor of New Orleans and the Governor of Louisiana however......and again, it's not an accusation.....just some questions:

>We have known for a long time that New Orleans lies below sea level. What plans were made for the day that the unthinkable would occur?

>In watching the various networks, I've seen a lot of municipal busses and school busses under water. My question is: If we knew that there was a hurricane coming.....and we know that a large percentage of New Orleans is poor and has no transportation.....why weren't the busses used to move people before the hurricane struck.......

........now......I'm gonna repeat this: I'm not making accusations......I'm just asking questions.

What I am bothered by is that the City and State are suddenly wanting to blame everything on the federal government.

One last observation: I hope some lessons are learned here...and REMEMBERED....because I'm sure this isn't the last tragedy to happen to our country.

 

One last question: How many of you believe that some of these areas should not be rebuilt?

(my concern is that there are a lot of small towns and parishes that no longer exist......I mean, they're simply GONE......are we, as a people, better off relocating complete towns rather than rebuilding only to have the same thing happen all over again?)

 

You would think, that they would have made some plans after the tsunami hit. In the following days the media was heavily reporting "what if this happened to us."

 

I agree, those are the real questions! I believe there were something like 500 busses! The city & local gov't ppl got out fine. Only a couple regular ppl had enough insight to "steal" busses, and pick ppl up, and head out of there! Just imagine how many ppl could have been evacuated, and saved from had the local officials used these busses, to get the ppl without the means to leave on their own! But since ppl are already primed by the media, that Bush is to blame for all their woes, they draw the line right to the whitehouse! The locals don't do **it, so the prez will take the hit! They were running out of material, so they had to find something. The Bush family should have made their $$$ on illegal activity, then the public would love them! As far as rebuilding........IMHO it would be a foolish waste of $$$, and would only set the ppl up for the same thing to happen again!

 

there was a big stink about being hit by a catagory 4 hurricane durring 2002... they knew the city would be in the same shape it is now... but nothing was done... it was a political thing but never fixed anything...

 

It was a failure on the local, state and federal level.. Everyone is to blame here. 40 years ago congress passed legislation to make New Orleans safe for sometng lek this. FOr 40 years in every presidency since, nobody put up the monies to fund levies for a cat 5.

 

That says it all.

IMO, every truck should have gone in loaded with water and food, and it should have turned around and left full of evacuees. Every chopper that was buzzing around taking pictures should have landed and loaded with evacuees before departing the area.

The first equipment on-site should have been Cat D9 dozers with 12' blades, and drove straight down the roads pushing everything to the side. Trucks and APVs loaded with supplies and LEAs should have been 200yds behind the dozers.

The feds should have had truckloads of water, food, and supplies staged and ready in Texas, Georgia, and Arkansas by Sunday night (the night before it hit). This is an operation too large to expect the City of New Orleans or even the state of Louisiana to accomplish - this was on the Federal level. We all watched the storm cross Florida, and we had days to prepare - and we were told it was going to strengthen to a category 4 or 5 to boot.

As stated by Red above, why didn't the local govt get more involved in PREVENTION? Bussing the people to the Superdome was a lame attempt at housing a city the size of New Orleans, especially given their mean income levels in the inner-city. Why didn't the entire mass transit system carry them all north 100 miles to shopping malls, convention centers, National Guard barracks, closed military bases, etc? Busses should have been running nonstop, making multiple trips per day for 3 days prior to the storm.

I could go on - I'm sure we all could do the Monday-morning quarterbacking at this point, but the thing that is most obvious is that all the governments involved missed the boat on this one - BADLY. Even Monday night after the storm hit, the big 3 news agencies were all saying that there was some flooding, but things didn't appear to be as bad as predicted... how wrong they were. All entities were sitting idly by, watching, instead of being prepared and proactive.

Lastly, I am with Red (again) regarding the rebuild. If they want to rebuild that area, do it without the benefit of governmental support, and do not allow insurance to be levied against any property at or below sea level. Basically, it would be "build at your own risk". You see, one thing we have not yet even begun to consider is how the cost of reparation and relocation of this city is going to impact every one of us... from our insurance premiums (that WILL go up due to the massive outlay of cash they will endure from this), to our health care costs, all the way down to the local impact of absorbing the evacuees into our communities.
(Just this morning, they announced that our local schools in Greensboro, Raleigh, Durham, and Charlotte NC will be absorbing about 1500 students from the gulf area as they are housed and enrolled. Our state mandates that any student displaced by natural disaster can not be denied access to public schools, regardless of their residence/school district. So if the kids get here and enroll, they WILL go to school. Since about 15% of our students
are already in trailers waiting for school expansions, this will be tough - but we MUST make it happen. We owe it to these kids, IMO.)

Bottom line - nobody prepared, we were reactive instead of proactive, the losses are unimagineable, and we (the rest of the nation) have not yet even begun to realize the true impact of what has happened, both economically and in humanitarian terms.

 

True, but I have heard, that there were three times when politicians tried to get the levees beefed up, but were heavily criticized by the NY Times. Apparently they felt it would hurt the environment? Anyone else ever heard about this? The other thing, that I was thinking is, all the kids being put into surrounding schools. I hope first they make sure that, all these kids are free of disease, so they don't spread anything to the others kids in the schools. After them being in that area so long, there is bound to some ill children! Obviously, its the right thing to do! I just hope they get a clear bill of health first.

 

I think they did a good job. Any previous Hurricane the most people ever evacuated was 60% of New Orleans. They evacuated 80% of the population for this hurricane and did it without hardley ANY WARNING. You have to remember this hurricane wasn't way out in the atlantic targeting Myrtle Beach and everybody saw it coming. This hurricane was to hit Florida and most people did not predict it would go into the gulf and become a Cat 5.

They evacuated 80% of the city in basically two days. I think that is an incredible response by state/local.

Let's remember New Orleans would have been fine had the levee not broke. I see Red's statements and I agree - they should actually move New Orleans back on "land" not some death trap of a spot that the French didn't even want....

Now that the disasters are over people are going to point fingers at EVERYBODY. But you have to consider N.O. was/is one of the most poorest populations with murder rates 8 times higher then the national average. What is happening now should not be a suprise to anybody.

Jesse Jackson needs to crawl back in his hole too. They were interviewing a black lady who was forced to evacuate her home and she said that she didn't need to and this was like the "slave" days (fitting isn't it...).

Anyhow, the senator told her that they evacuated everybody in that community regardless of age/race/gender/breast size or whatever. She then had the audacity to say; well that may be true but I'm "African American." Please - seriously, they will never be "equal" until they realize they are an AMERICAN - NOT an "African American." The racial overtones and mudslinging is sickening. Hell, if that's the way their going to treat the people that saved their lifes, just should have let them take on Katrina by themselves... [/rant]

 

While blame should be absorbed everywhere............ pointing fingers at this point is nothing but counterproductive. There will be plenty of time in the months and years to come, to figure out how we could have done things better. The reality of the matter is that most planning is based on experience. The US has NEVER had an experience like this (9/11 doesn't count as it was a very concentrated event). We have to remember the scope of the destroyed area. Even though most attention has been focused on NO, the gulf cities were completely destroyed. Not damaged........... but destroyed. The serious destruction from this hurricane covers an amount of space equal to the entire country of Great Britain. The entire infrastructure of the affected area was completely destroyed. There was absolutally no communications.

I have been reading forums all over the place, and have read alot of what "actually" happened as far as preparedness. This comes from military people who are actually involved, and those who actually came from the cities.

Days before the hurricane hit, the US Govt was preparing. They were preparing navel vessels (which takes a great deal of time to prepare), and moving resources to areas around the region. When the storm intensified significantly, they had to move their resources back, further out of the area. Relief does no good if it is all destroyed by the storm. In the meantime, the Governor of LA ordered a voluntary evacuation. A day later, as the storm got worse, Pres Bush begged her to change it to a mandatory evacuation (you have to remember that he cannot do anything himself, as the cities and states are those with the responsibility............ there are many laws on this). She finally changed it to a mandatory evacuation, but did not send in transport for the poor, or those unable to leave on their own. She also did not force people to leave (very dumb, but people in that region feel they have toughed it out before and been fine........... so they will be fine now). She evacuated people to facilities that had next to no resources (where were all of the supplies waiting in the dome and convention center?). She also ordered up a very small amount of National Guard troops. The Feds asked if she wanted to ask for their help (how it has to work............ she has to request it). She requested money only, and a very small amount at that (the Feds approved 100X what she asked for).

When the storm passed, Coast Guard troops were moving into position to help, when the levies broke. They had to pull back until the extent of the damage was known. The Governor of LA finally asked for Federal assistance, which started to arrive in force, appx 24 hours later.

The problems of NO have been know since the city was built. The city was originally built on high ground (the parts that did not flood). As the city has gotten bigger, it has branched out into the lowlands. Due to the levy system, the city is sinking due to the lack of replenishing of silt in the lowlands (from flooding........... which is a naturally occuring event in that city). The barriers to the ocean............. the swamps, have also been shrinking dramatically due to the lack of silt replenishing (it all goes out into the Gulf). Eventually, if things kept going the way they were, NO would be right on the Gulf.

Fixing the problem is a double edged sword. Stronger levies, and the silt problem, and degradation of the coastline will continue to get worse. There is no happy medium between the environmentalists and those who advocate fixing the levies (bringing them up to a stronger standard).

Thus, it is everybodies fault.................. going back about 100 years. LA's environmental record has always been about the worst in the states.

As for the gas/oil thing. The problem we have is not the lack of oil............... there is plenty. The problem we have is a lack of new refineries. We have no capacity left in the refineries we have, and no new ones have been built since the 60's (many have actually been closed down due to the cost to upgrade them to new environmental laws). This lack of refineries is not due to a lack of desire on the part of the oil companies.............. it is strictly due to environmentalists, and environmental laws. Requests for building permits have, in some cases, been out there for a decade or more. Excess capacity is a good thing, as it allows the entire system to run more efficiently. Regular maintenance can get done better, because there is no pressure to have the refinery back online immediately.

Thus, we are our own worst enemy. We want cheap fuel, but we don't want to allow new refineries to be built, and we don't want new drilling to happen. Until that happens, we will always be vulnerable to situations like this.

Off my soapbox.

Make your own conclusions to what I have posted. I just laid down alot of what happened, but I will not outright accuse anyone of anything. Like I said, there will be plenty of time in the future to figure out what we could have done better. You know............ after all of the accusations, lawsuits, and political posturing.

 

Good Post

 

ESPECIALLY the last 2 parts.


and they WILL come.