Aug 28 2006
Remembering Katrina
Things to remember about Katrina:
(1) Bush pleaded and begged Nagin and Blanco for days to evacuate New Orleans, which they did too late to meet the requirements established in the New Orleans disaster plan.
(2) Nagin and Blanco tossed out their hurricane/flood disaster plan that they submitted and coordinated with FEAM, throwing the entire response effort into a shoot-from-the-hip scamper. This should be a criminal act on the part of state authorities because the Feds pre-position supplies and resources in accordance with the established plans.
(3) Nagin and Blanco did not want to use their local resources to assist their people (like school buses) instead the tried to get things done on the cheap by asking the Feds – who were dealing with hundreds of miles of coastline and tens of thousands of people – to get them air conditioned busses throught the storm ravaged areas.
(4) When the levies broke the day after the storm came through Nagin and Blanco did not react during the 24 hours the city SLOWLY flooded. That left thousands of people stranded in the center of New Orleans and it left Red Cross supplies a few miles away without authorization to come into the city.
(5) The levies that failed were on canals inside the city and these levies were the responsibility of New Orleans and Louisianna – not the Feds. The levies failed because, like the entire region, New Orleans is sinking. The city and state have known about this sinking problem for decades. Therefore they city and state should have been surveying the levies to make sure they were still at the same height relative to sea level required to deal with a hurrican surge. They were not, and that is not Bush’s fault, that is the fault of local governments who get millions of dollars in flood control support every year and couldn’t afford a simple surveying effort.
If you remember these five established facts, all media’s biased and uneducated reporting will come into sharp focus. Because they will not report all these facts together. It paints too strong a picture against Nagin and Blanco and his too helpful to Bush’s image. This is not about saving lives, this is about propaganda.
While you did an excellent job of listing these 5 key items, there were certainly many many more. For example, the flood control pumps wouldn’t start and run. No one(the city had the responsibility) had tested or run them. Watching the head of the city council, I think his name ws Oliver or something, said he drove in and out of the city every day so he didn’t know why the feds couldn’t get in. Doesn’t he realize in saying this that those school buses could’ve gotten out also. They just want to blame the feds when about 90% of the problem was Nagin and Blanco. I live in La, and that is typical of Blanco.
This whole situation is deplorable and has done great damage to our country. That is, this whole lie, whereby men are blaming the federal government and other men who were not responsible… for the ravages of this storm, of course.
The media is a huge culprit here. They have loved to hear the tale, and there have been plenty of people willing to tell it. The story justifies their hatred of white people and the federal government. It helps them believe that they can’t make it in America. It helps justify those who wish to not try, that their lack of effort is justified.
Men like Blanco and Nagin are sores on the disease, but they are also just peddlars of things some people want to hear.
New Orleans was lost long before Katrina to crime and the foul culture which comes with it. They didn’t fix their horrible criminal stats. They won’t fix their city now. They will continue to praise the murderers and condemn the innocents.
I think the media turning a natural disaster into a soap opera did not help.
Terrye
But the media does this so well. They have hysterics and turn into a soap opera everything that will make Bush look bad. And if there is anything he had no control over, they still try to make him look bad.
Barbara:
This is true. I heard Mort Kondracke say that Bush’s numbers now are as bad or worse than then when it comes to Katrina. I do not know if this is true, but if it is my guess is everyone’s numbers are worse..including the media’s. In the last year I have heard as many people talk about the hysterics of the press as I have anything else. I do think they got the message out early that Bush did not respond quickly enough and now of course they will blame him for not getting it all cleaned up fast enough. I guess he should have suspended the Constitution and just declared martial law on the Gulf Coast and told the locals to stay out of the way.