Why you should give money to the red cross

[Skar]

An excellent phrase.

For my own protection I wish to point out that had I been referring to the, naturally, more organized activities of the Ninja Monkeys I would have used the term "squad of monkeys" rather than "band."  

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

The ninja monkeys appreciate the clarification.

[Entsuropi]

Skar, you have to remember that not everyone has a car. Or has one that can go that far. Or has anyone to stay with outside the city, or money for hotels.

Where was the evacuation schedule? The buses, lorries, trucks and whatnot loaded down with those without their own transport, taking them out? The forced movement of those too stubborn to move? What happened is the governor said 'uh, everyone leave plz'. And guess what? Not everyone did. Not everyone could.

The levee system recieved a 6th of the budget this summer it's maintainers asked for.

Where was the teams of guys along the motorway maintaining food, water, medicine and petrol supply stations? Instead people had to abandon their cars as they ran out of petrol. As far as I can tell, it was every man for himself, get out however you see best with no support. Oh, they openned the statium. Big whoop.

America certainly must have plans made in the cold war to evacuate everyone from a city in a matter of days, in anticipation of advancing clouds of chemical/biological warfare agents. Why were these not used? I know for a fact that Britain has these types of plans kept on file and waiting to go, since my dad helps make them.

While britain never gets hurricanes, I do not believe our preparation for a class 5 one would be so shambolic and meager.



And thats about all I'm wanting to say. Tragedy, and on a far larger scale than should ever have happened.

[stacer]

What gets me most is that they've know for years that New Orleans couldn't withstand more than a Category 3. Here's a surreal article for you:

http://205.188.130.53/ngm/0410/feature5/index.html

[Tink]

I couldn't find a date when this was written, but it sounds like it was written before this all happened. Am I right? (The map they have with the article was copyrighted in 2004.)

[Skar]

Skar, you have to remember that not everyone has a car. Or has one that can go that far. Or has anyone to stay with outside the city, or money for hotels.

Where was the evacuation schedule? The buses, lorries, trucks and whatnot loaded down with those without their own transport, taking them out? The forced movement of those too stubborn to move? What happened is the governor said 'uh, everyone leave plz'. And guess what? Not everyone did. Not everyone could.

You're right.  I should have just said blame the people who didn't bother to find out if their neighbors needed help instead of referring only to invalid neighbors.

The levee system recieved a 6th of the budget this summer it's maintainers asked for.

Exactly, it's maintainers.  The levee didn't fail because it wasn't well maintained.  It failed because it wasn't built to withstand a level 5 storm.  There were only long range plans in the works to maybe someday upgrade to level five resistance.  This summer and the last 15 summer's full budget requests wouldn't have prevented this.

Where was the teams of guys along the motorway maintaining food, water, medicine and petrol supply stations? Instead people had to abandon their cars as they ran out of petrol. As far as I can tell, it was every man for himself, get out however you see best with no support. Oh, they openned the statium. Big whoop.

America certainly must have plans made in the cold war to evacuate everyone from a city in a matter of days, in anticipation of advancing clouds of chemical/biological warfare agents. Why were these not used? I know for a fact that Britain has these types of plans kept on file and waiting to go, since my dad helps make them.

While britain never gets hurricanes, I do not believe our preparation for a class 5 one would be so shambolic and meager.

You're right.  Painfully bad planning.  The governments of New Orleans and Louisiana over the last 50 years should be feeling very very ashamed.

And thats about all I'm wanting to say. Tragedy, and on a far larger scale than should ever have happened.

[stacer]

I couldn't find a date when this was written, but it sounds like it was written before this all happened. Am I right? (The map they have with the article was copyrighted in 2004.)

Yes, the article was written last year, Sept 2004 (?), after the southeast was hit by a milder hurricane (Category 2? 3? don't remember the name of it). If you read further down, the writer is warning that they barely made it through this one, and if a stronger hurricane hit, the events described would happen. And now they are.  It was deemed to expensive to build the levees to Category 5 standard.

[Fellfrosch]

Money is certainly an issue, as is planning, but it's very short-sighted to blame this on the Bush administration and the war in Iraq (none of you have done this, I'm talking about multiple articles I've read such as this one: http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001051313).

New Orleans is one of the oldest cities in that part of the country, and the lake and the levees and the hurricanes have been around for a very long time. That the local leaders would not do more to prevent this, and that they would not have plans in place to deal with it, is inexcusable.

I was very sympathetic with the authorities for the first few days--this was a disaster of unprecedented proportions, and they did their best to find their feet and start helping people as early as possible. You have to remember that the destruction was so bad most of us didn't even know about it until late Tuesday or early Wednesday, since there was literally no communication coming in or out. But for goodness sake, it's now 5 days later and they're still trying to find their feet. I have nothing but respect for the police and guardsmen and pilots and searchers who are in there doing their job despite being just as lost and cut off as everyone else, but the leaders and bureaucrats who should be organizing this from outside should be ashamed of themselves.

[Entsuropi]

Even Bush has said 'I'm not happy with how this is being handled'. While I'm sure that could be regarded as him distancing himself from a truly massive PR disaster, I don't think the president truly has that much control over what's going on in new orleans.

[Spriggan]

Doesn't mean people aren't already blaming him, though the silliest is from places like the NYT, Michal Moore and Cindy Sheehan who say it's his fault that the hurricane even existed in the first place and he's directly responsible for it killing people.  It's sad that people are going to politicize this aspect of the disaster

[Entsuropi]

Cindy Sheehan

Who? Some random pop star turned geopolitics expert?

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

whats sadder is that anyones paying attention to them.

[Archon]

Actually she is more like a very angry mother of a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq who decided that that was grounds enough for her to become a critic of every move our current government makes.

[Skar]

As for the Sheehan character.

If I haven't been misinformed by the press Bush met with her shortly after her son was killed and she emerged from the meeting still sad but happy to have met with him and full of praise.

About a year later some liberal activists had gotten hold of her and convinced her that Bush was a prick, that the death of her son was a waste and that she should make a stink.  So she very publicly asked for a meeting with him and told everyone, through her new PR manager, that she was going to tell him to withdraw from Iraq right this very instant because he was a bad man for invading in the first place.  He refused to meet with her again and she's been making very public and rather silly statements and protests ever since, fully covered by the media at every turn.

Among other things, she's claimed that Bush is being controlled by a cabal of jewish masterminds who are getting rich off the oil prices and want all arabs and the American way of life to die.

I've heard her interviewed a couple of times and it's obvious she's not the fastest bunny in the forest and totally in thrall to her leftist controllers.  

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

Lets leave her off this topic, please...

This topic really should be about why people should help.
Im sorry I digressed.

Oh

I almost forgot. Please consider a blood donation today or in then next few weeks.