Re: Positive Hurricane Rita reactions?
 

Abraham,
You are as regular as clock work. The problem is you see facts as "you" want to see them. Irregardless of using common sense.
"factual assesments" Thats a laugh.
The problem is that ya'll see things as action-reaction. Their is more to running an organized operation then that.
This is another case of agree to disagree.

I know that and thats not what upset me about this. The main concern was the humanitarian effort ie. food, water and medical care.
When individuals from out of state can react faster then goverment agencies something is broke.
I guess my knowledge of military reaction capabilities isn't getting across.
I was also under the assumption that the president presigned for Rita not Katrina. If it's the other way around then the problem was even worse.

Re: Positive Hurricane Rita reactions?
 

I don't agree, Bradclark1 and think you're wrong.
I don't 'see' any 'facts'.
August gave an extensive list of witness statements, that paint a greatly different picture from the sketchy and often inaccurate reports that were shown the first days.
Knowing that people hate to change a first impression, especially when based on flimsy evidence, I 'reprimanded' him for provoking some critical thinking.These facts were not mine, but Augusts. All credits - including your criticism - goes to him (sorry August).

It's a fact that history paints a more accurate picture than TV news channels.
It's also a fact that it takes an open mind to accept new information after a first assesment of the situation, which is disturbing for many because they may have to rethink...

I don't really appreciate your personal attacks, Bradclark1, like Especially without any substantiation.
On the other hand, I'm quite used to opponents in a discussion who use personal attacks and ridiculise the other in order to conceal their lack of arguments.
Too bad, but that's life...

I'll allow the president and congress do my talking for me.
Yesterday the president said he is going to get with congress about maybe letting the military take natural disasters from now on.
The ex FEMA director appeared before congress today. I'll let this speak for me also. See the news or read about it in the paper tomorrow.
I'll add this one thing on top of this. The ex FEMA director is still being paid by the U.S. goverment. What does this mean? Anything he says has to be cleared by the White House. Why would this be?
I think thats all there is to say on the subject.

You are right. Please accept my apologies.
See. If I think I'm wrong I will own up.

edit As I said earlier my critisism is directed at humanitarion efforts not rumors of violence. I know better than running my mouth on that subject without seeing the bodies.

Brad

Look Brad I understand you're angry and dissapointed but it was not the Feds that really screwed the pooch in New Orleans.

The White House declared an impending disaster area for Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana on Fri 26-Aug at 9:00 AM, and ordered FEMA and DHS to begin preparations a full 4 days before Katrina hit. By Sunday FEMA had prepositioned stocks of food and humanitarian supplies along the edges of the expected disaster area in both Georgia and Texas.

Now you talk about knowing military reaction capabilities (and you're not the only one here that's familiar with them btw) but really, what could have the feds have done better? After all, we're talking about, as Abraham notes, an effected area the size of England. Putting a bunch of troops and material near enough to significantly improve the federal response time to any one part of that huge area would likely have put them right in the bullseye of the hurricane, then it becomes a question of who will rescue the rescuers and how to replace the supplies that the storm has destroyed.

Besides, nearly all of the problems in New Orleans, where ALL the complaining is coming from, can be traced right back to not getting people to leave the city in a timely and effective manner, as well as a weak police and national guard presence to both enforce the evacuation and provide security afterwards. Although New Orleans own Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan calls for city buses to evacuate citizens out of the city, Nagin never put it into effect. Why? Was he lulled into a false sense of security by all the near misses NO has had in the past? I don't know.

What i do know is instead of evacuating the city like he should have and his own disaster plans called for, he encouraged people who hadn't left by their own means to go to the superdome and the convention center and wait the storm out. These places had little in the way of food or potable water (the convention center wasn't even supposed to be used) and were located where they would be very hard to reach and supply in the event of a flood, which he knew (or should have known) was a significant likelyhood.

Now the hurricane and subsequent flood hits and an estimated 50,000-100,000 that should have been evacuated beforehand remain in the city. It's too late to get enough supplies in to such a huge mass of people and there's pitifully few police and NG (the latter thanks to Blancos incompetance) to maintain order. All kinds of wild rumors circulate about gang rapes and hundreds of murders which are gleefully reported as fact by the media and are now being found to be largly untrue or hugely exaggerated. Blanco and Nagin then start screaming for the Feds to come and save them.

Within 24 hours of the second levee breaking the Feds have opened a way into the city, assembled transport to replace all those NO busses lost in the flood, and have begun evacuations while simultaniously plucking people off rooftops and setting up emergency treatment areas. Now given the fact the Feds had much more than just one city to worry about, i'd say they did a pretty decent job. Not mistake free mind you, but pretty darn good for something they shouldn't have had to do in the first place.

Bottom line here is that incompetance by local and state officials, both current and past, are what created the problems in New Orleans, but because they're Democrats they'll be defended and excused by their party, regardless of their culpability, and how better to deflect criticism than to try to pin it on somebody else, the Feds and Bush in particular being the normal targets of choice.

Sorry for the rant Brad but it's becoming irritating to hear the non stop "It's all Bushes fault" mantra coming from the left for all things including, apparently, their own incompetance and the very weather itself. It don't particularly mind it but when it gets in the way of getting the nations business done i think it does us all a great disservice that we shouldn't stand for.

Positive Hurricane Rita reactions?
 

O.K. I do.
:up:

Positive Hurricane Rita reactions?
 

I might help you here.
According to Time, Sept. 19th, 2005 the major lost a full 24 hours because he was afraid of (legal) claims from the tourist branch and from business in case of an unjustified full-scale evacuation. On Saturday Ray Nagin was called by director Max Mayfield of the National Hurricane Center, who stressed the seriousness of the coming storm. Then on Sunday morning Nagin ordered the evacuation - but still did not use the hundreds of school busses that were later flooded...
I fully agree, although I would make an exception here for Skybird. I quite like his line "Hurricane Rita ripped a mask off." It sounds so dramatic and descriptive and implies so much.
Like: Knowbody really knew how bad the U.S. was but me.
Now it's exposed for all to see...
:D

It's not a rant.
I'm leaving for Ohio in an hour or so for a week. I don't have the time to carry this on but I do understand where you are coming from.
Maybe I'll even look up what the left, center, and right actually means. Terrible I know but I've never bothered to find out. I'm always just concerned over what I think is right. Not what party has the white house. I do have this obsessive dislike for this administration but the disaster overrode 'who' was in the white house, so it's not my anti-Bush thing speaking. I'm neither a democrat or republican. I'm for who I think can do the best job. If McCaine had of been a choice for president I would have voted for him.

Brad

Strange. Amongst all options one could imagine - I would have preferred McCain, too. No holy saint, but the lesser evil.

I'm an independant centrist myself because i've seen political parties of all flavors quite willing to ignore inconvenient parts of the constitution whenever it suits their purposes. Every election i go to the polls trying to decide which half of my rights i'm more willing to risk.

For example: The Democrats see nothing wrong with eminent domain extending to the outrageous level of kicking people off their land to make way for a private corporations luxury condo project on the chance, not even the guarentee mind you, just that it might generate some more tax money, someday.

The Republicans claim to oppose this and have written a bill against it, but in spite of being a majority in both houses of congress it goes nowhere. And then there is that whole owned by big business thing which as far as i can tell extends to both parties pretty equally nowadays.

As for McCain, while i respect his service to this country both as a military man and as a senior US Senator, i feel his legendary temper in the White House would be a dangerous thing for the nation.

Anyways enjoy your trip to Ohio and maybe you'll catch this reply on your return.