Trapped in an Arena of Suffering

[Gonz]

The 9/11 attack had a leader who shut down the city & took control within minutes. The Police were on top of it from the beginning. Remember, they had the city under curfew with shoot to kill orders on the first night. There was, at worst, minimul looting & outright criminal activity.

As for FEMA, like any gov't agency, it's bloated & slow. In their defense, they had a contigency plan in place & it was operational last week. Chipper trucks & electricity vehicles were convoying their way there on Sunday. I passed most of them. They were prepared for a hurricane & its aftermath. They expected heavy damage & had people in place to walk in & take over.

This, the flood & looting, is a surprise & acts of criminals. The levee broke. The people, well explained by Unc in post 14, took advantage. If they had the mindset to take care of themselves, they'd have walked to Memphis or Houston by now. The numbers truly incapable of self-preservation can't be more than 15-25000. There are already over 11000 in the Astrodome with tens of thousands sittting around on their hands waiting for a handout & a ride. Fuck 'em. I have no sympathy.

FEMA was not prepared to need the Nat'l Guard. The weak wall hit New Orleans. Tell me, why isn't this crap happening in Biloxi or Gulfport or Mobile? Mind set. The shoot to kill order is 48-72 hours late. FEMA is overwhelmed. They, however, were there & working from day one. When tragedy strikes elsewhere, it takes several days to get there. People are less inclined to wallow in rising water & wail "woe is me" when they aren't used to having everything handed to them.

I personally applaud FEMA & the related agencies efforts in & following Hurricane Katrina. I despise the criminals who are hampering that effort.

 

[unclehobart]

I thought we had a Navy and the Marines. I wonder if they have any way of getting somewhere that's surrounded by water?

I thought we had an Air Force, too. Maybe they have some kind of way to fly over the area and drop some supplies out of the plane, and hopefully they have some kind of way to get those supplies to fall slowly and land gently.

I almost forgot, one time I heard something about an Army or something like that. Wouldn't it be great if they had some kind flying contraption that could float or hover in the air, which they could mount guns to, and shoot people who were shooting at other rescue workers. Or maybe they have a bigger one they could get down low and load people into them.

The portages are all rather screwed as well. It also takes a week for a navy flotilla moving 25knots to make it there. We could have dropped small squads in all over the place to hold general order ... but then you would have soldiers up to their knees in water generally being unsupplied. You need the rail and roads to get anything substantive in there. Were not talking about holding a city ... were talking about an area roughly 100 by 20 miles. That much space is just ...overwhelming.

 

[HomeLAN]

Sorry, but I believe FEMA fucked this up from the git-go. Underestimated the needs, underestimated the severity, didn't start coordinating with and seeking help from the military early enough. They completely blew it.

I wonder if it has anything to do with the shakeup at the top of that organization and the fact that they now operate under the dept. of Homeland (in)Security?

 

[chcr]

As I mentioned in another thread, I saw the director of FEMA on the news this morning. Backing and filling to beat the band. I switched from local news to "a cable news outlet" and watched Soledad O'Brien rip him a new one.

 

[greenfreak]

They shut down every thoroughfare into and out of NYC. No excuse there.

Actually, that's incorrect. How do you get millions of people off the island, and millions of EMS, police and fire onto the island? They only let certain traffic through... one way. Extra water ferries between Manhattan and Jersey, packed trains out to Long Island, buses, and everyone else walked over the bridges. They closed the bridges to civilians after the evacuation. Rusty and his mother walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and his father picked them up and brought them home.

Then the difference must be that NO has bigger bad asses in it that NYC, thus scaring all the good Sams away....but then, if that's true, why do we see NYPD Blue instead of NO Blue?

2000 population of New Orleans appx 500,000. 200 population of NYC appx 8 million. So you betcha, there's probably more criminals in NYC than there are people in NO.

Maybe the difference lies in the small catastrophe site in NYC v the large site in NO...but hell, chaos reigned supreme in NYC.

I don't think the chaos in NYC compares to the chaos I've been hearing about down there. Then again, NYC wasn't under water, didn't lose electricity in most places and lose scores of fuel supplies.

And God knows we are told at every available opportunity just how immensely huge NYC is.

NYC is only 309 square miles. It's not the size of the island, it's everything and everyone that is packed into it.

I don't see how you can compare them, at all. The property damage and casualties were centered around the World Financial Center. The damage in NO and surrounding areas is immense. We didn't have tens of thousands of people homeless, living like vermin, and knowing that they will not be able to go to what's left of their homes for months. The biggest difference was that we had no warning. You absolutely cannot say the same for NO.

I'm just as upset about what is going on down there as you guys are. I think the squalor that these people are putting up with is horrendous. The fact that there are dead bodies floating around worries me and the photos I see of children who were rescued without their parents wounds me.

Nothing that is done will ever be enough because it won't put a big band-aid on every person down there immediately. Even if the response and copious supplies were available from the get-go, it still wouldn't be enough because the amount of people who need help will force them to wait in a bad situation. And waiting is hard, it makes people who are caged like animals a little nuts. More so than normal.

And the press? OH you KNOW that they are only looking for the gut-wrenching, tear-jerking, blood-boiling stories. Why would this be any different than anything else? The news that gets reported will never be a complete indication of conditions. Who wants to hear the GOOD stories? Well, me. And you, maybe. But they don't sell papers or get viewers.

Fact is, unless you are part of the relief effort or one of the "captives", you just don't know the full story. And let's thank God, for us, that we aren't the captives.

 

[Gato_Solo]

I thought we had a Navy and the Marines. I wonder if they have any way of getting somewhere that's surrounded by water?

I thought we had an Air Force, too. Maybe they have some kind of way to fly over the area and drop some supplies out of the plane, and hopefully they have some kind of way to get those supplies to fall slowly and land gently.

I almost forgot, one time I heard something about an Army or something like that. Wouldn't it be great if they had some kind flying contraption that could float or hover in the air, which they could mount guns to, and shoot people who were shooting at other rescue workers. Or maybe they have a bigger one they could get down low and load people into them.

You're talking about LCAC's. The Navy and Marines use them for amphibious assault. The common name is 'hovercraft'.

Speak of the devil...