something just doesn't compute about the response to this disaster . . .

[OneBlueSky]

mile for mile, the devastation caused by Katrina is every bit as catastrophic as that caused by the Asian tsunami . . . and this is in one of the most economically important areas of our own country . . .

yet Bush ignores it, the media downplays it, the federal response is agonizingly slow and tepid, the National Guard is barely visible yet, no one seems to be in charge, etc. . .

maybe I'm missing something, but this just doesn't compute . . . imo . . .

[linazelle]

1. Maybe it's because it didn't happen in Jeb's backyard. n/t

[tedzbear]

2. Remember, it took days before we learned the real magnitude of the tsunami

It is taking just as long for the truth to materialize here too.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

45. Yeah except this happened in AMERICA.

[BigBearJohn]

3. What do you mean? Didn't I see Georgie reaching for his "little goat" book

[Daphne08]

4. You're right and I've been thinking the same thing all day.

I don't know what's up, unless it's a disorganizational problem at FEMA and DHS.

[blossomstar]

5. Doesn't feel right to me either!

Something is definitely wrong here. Packing all these thousands of people in the super dome with no basic necessities is not a good idea... they need to get them out of there asap! Also, why aren't trucks with water and food lined up and passing them out to the people there? That would stop a lot of the looting!

[newyawker99]

44. Hi blossomstar!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[blossomstar]

47. Thanks for the welcome!

This is the only SANE place on the planet!

[Desertrose]

6. Seems like everything is off....

from the late decision to evacuate to the nonexistant help these souls are waiting for....

This has just been surreal...like I am watching this in some other country.

Since when have Americans been allowed to just struggle so on their own? I can't ever ever remember ANYTHING like this ever happening before.

Granted this is so huge & widespread and the devastation...still...no NG, no nothin...?

What the hell gives???

[high density]

13. another country indeed!

I can't believe how the media has been ignoring it, especially after the day of hype and speculation that led up to it. The cable networks are in repeat mode and the broadcast networks feel that 22 minutes a night is enough to cover it. The only place to find information is on the internet!

[bluedonkey]

19. People have been evacuating

since friday am.Emergency respond teams have been on alert long before Friday.National Guard has been down there from the start.Boats were in place by Saturday.High winds kept them out and kept the helicopters away.Right now there is only ONE way into the city and the city is under water.Every time we have a hurricane they treat it like the mother of all hurricanes,a lot of people just didn't think it would get this bad.That's why they didn't leave!

[Beam Me Up]

7. remindes me of 9/11 in some way

as if no one knows what to do

perhaps this came as a kind of surprise and they lost their place in the script?

[NYC]

23. But on 9/11 the rescue workers were there, tried to help people.

Evidence was dumped in land fill and shipped to foreign countries, but the rescue workers worked to rescue people, and that happened immediately.

This is very different. Most important: Why did the National Guard not drop sandbags today when they were supposed to?

[WiseButAngrySara]

31. I agree...somethings strange about all of this.

Sandbags
Early airport closure

[bklyncowgirl]

46. Rescue workers on 9/11 were NYPD and NYFD--local agencies

They were incredible and all to many of them lost their lives.

If you'll remember the military didn't get it's collective asses in gear until all of the hijacked planes had destroyed their targets.

The reason--the kindest explanation is a tepid response from the Bush administration. Bush reading "My Pet Goat" and Cheney fighting with his wife in the bunker over the controls to the TV (according to Richard Clarke)

[NYC]

50. That's correct. Response from the locals.

Nonchalance from the federal government.

[librechik]

8. Louisiana voted 77% Kerry

but that couldn't have anything to do with Bush dragging his feet. I'm sure he was just playing golf.

[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Lecky]

34. Wow...

I'm no fan of Bush but I can't believe there are really people out there who believe that...

[Name removed]

38. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Lars39]

39. Why is that so unbelievable? They're trying to kill off sick and elderly.

[Ediacara]

41. Not Louisiana as a whole

the 77% figure is just for New Orleans

[donheld]

43. Louisiana did not vote for Kerry

New Orleans did, but the state went for Numbnuts.

[Libby2]

9. I agree,

something is not right, and the response has been horribly slow.

[madrchsod]

10. it hasn`t hit yet....in the next few months this country maybe

facing the worse economy since the 1930`s. yes a full blown depression with a child in the white house.

[durablend]

27. May be a point here

Neither * or the MSM can come out and say it:

"WE'RE BROKE"

For fear that what little is holding everything up will immediately collapse.

[texpatriot2004]

11. Chimpy's selfishness and ignorance aside, it doesn't seem right

It's strange. Surely he has oil buddies there. As low as his poll numbers are you'd think the PR dept. would be all over this as an "opportunity" for him. Hmm. Odd?

[katamaran]

12. I've had a nagging suspicion the past few hours...

I've had a nagging suspicion the past few hours that they are just going to let the whole area go. They've crunched the numbers and looked at the logistics and decided that it's not worth saving or rebuilding. That would be exactly the kind of fucked up moronic bullshit that I would expect from this administration.

I'm also eagerly anticipating Pat Robertson saying that New Orleans deserved it or some stupid thing along those lines. You will see his little empire here in VA burned to the ground.

[chalky]

35. Fundies blaming the victims? That base has already been covered, my friend

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4519168

"Louisiana has 10 child-murder-by-abortion centers," the groups says, and "five are in New Orleans."

[shraby]

14. I get the same feeling. Important decisions are

being made too late and the excuse is we're coming up with a plan..then there is no plan. They should have started evacuating people out of that superdome right after the storm passed and things settled down a bit.

It seems they can only do one thing at a time. Put the people in the dome for the storm, then leave them there and go out and rescue people and put them in the dome, then think about the levee for a whole night and most of the next day..and do nothing to stop the leak.

Now the leak is too big (a five year old coulda told them it would be by the morning of the first day) and there are still all those people who should have been evacuated sitting under the gun. Apparently a plan wasn't even worked out to get them out of there.

What's wrong with that picture? They've known for years of this eventuality, there should have been several alternate plans in place and ready to go. They're even complaining about lack of communication with each other...another thing that should have been planned for. Hurricanes usually put the power and phone lines down and that would include towers for cell phones. Something stinks in New Orleans and it isn't brackish water.

[Mairead]

15. I think this fits perfectly with the far-right agenda: we are on our own

That's the whole far-right message: there are only predators and prey, and we prey are on our own. No matter what happens, we are on our own.

[AspenRose]

18. "Everyone does better when everyone does better."

That's a bumper sticker on my neighbor's minivan. (Next to the "W" with the circle and slash through it.)

How quickly we've forgotten that simple truth. Nah, it's not forgotten; the powers that be just don't give a damn.

[Rainscents]

16. I was thinking the same.

They all knew this was coming at least 4 days in advance. I heard on CNN 6 hours before the landfall, they had downgraded to CAT 4, however, wind measurment was done from the front NE instead from NW side. NW side is much stronger wind than, front NE. I have no idea, why they drop this to CAT 4 when the accurate mesurement wasn't done.

[PatriotMom]

17. Their main industry was Casino's ......hummmm

The devils playground, so they may have gotten what was coming to them, and after all it was an "Act of God"
OMG did I just say that!!

[politicat]

37. Maybe on the Gulf Coast, but not NOLA.

Look at the Department of Commerce Port information logs. The Port of New Orleans was the 5th busiest crude oil tanker port, the busiest grain export port, the fourth busiest port by total volume. It was critical to our nation's economic health.

Who knows how long it will take to re-open, if it can be re-opened. Houston, Freeport, Port Arthru, and the Florida ports can't cover New Orleans, Mobile (which was damaged, but not badly), Pascagoula and Gulfport (which is devastated) for very long; they don't have the rail capacity that New Orleans had.

So while drinking, dicing and dancing played a part in the New Orleans economy, I really think the shipping industry was both baking the bread and buttering it.

Besides, MS and AL are pretty god-fearing places, or have you forgotten the Right Reverend, Former Hizzoner, Roy Moore and his big piece of rock?

[NVMojo]

20. it almost makes the whole thing feel contrived ....

[MichaelHarris]

22. Being from the area

it's a little harder to mobilize relief to a city that's surrounded by swamps, connected with highways that are underwater or completely gone. Boats and barges could be used but it will take days to get them in place. So we come to down to airlifts, airlifts that could fall into rising water that people would risk their lives getting to, airlifts that could be snatched up by people only wishing to hoard the items. Basically airlifts seldom work without people on the ground distributing the goods fairly.

I have to think back to when the storm had just passed, reports of how New Orleans had been spared and how efforts may have been stalled by that thinking. I really doubt there is some sort of red/blue thing going on in a time of crisis.

[Libby2]

24. I personally don't think it's a red/blue thing

I think it's piss poor planning.
Even after they knew that the levee was not going to hold.

[MichaelHarris]

29. extremely

piss poor planning, especially right after the storm when the media had reports down on canal street right after the storm reporting, "New Orleans had been spared". Those levee's have always been a problem area even during periods of heavy rain, provisions should have always been on hand to repair them.

What resulted was a situation where while relief could be mobilized quickly it could not get into the city in any great numbers. I've been in city's right after hurricanes that had nothing for weeks and our roadways were open.

The delay everyone is complaining about is not a plot to kill the poor, destroy liberals, put an end to the abomination know as casinos, or thin out a minority population. Talk like that makes it onto fundie boards and Fox News talk shows. We don't need that.

[NYC]

25. But why wasn't the levee sandbagged?

It was supposed to be. The mayor was surprised when he found out it hadn't been done. The National Guard helicopter that was supposed to sandbag had been diverted. What explains that?

[MichaelHarris]

33. Maybe

someone did the math? It may have been a futile effort that diverted help needed elsewhere? Like evacuation efforts. Seriously I know the country is very divided but talk like this only gives Bill Oreilly stuff to rant about.

Think about the logistics and the problem at hand.

[NYC]

36. It was agreed they would sandbag.

Futile effort? No one decided it was a futile effort. It was supposed to be done. Bill O'Reilly can rant about anything he wants. Is his opinion valuable?

[OneBlueSky]

26. "I really doubt there is some sort of red/blue thing . . .

going on in a time of crisis." . . .

one would hope . . . but . . .

ever hear of Karl Rove? . . .

[MichaelHarris]

32. I have heard of

Rove but I also realize that this is a city, in the middle of a swamp, surrounded by a delta, protected by levee's fed from the biggest river in the nation that have broken. Not to mention the major roads have been washed away. It takes time to move into an area with very little access to it.

I just don't want threads like this ending up as fodder on some Fox News talk show.

[donheld]

28. Yes it is very strange. This is a 9/11 size disaster yet

Bush has acted like he just does not give a damn. He cut his vacation short, by one day, for it, but then went to other parts of the country as if nothing had happened at all.

[paineinthearse]

30. NorthCom

You "feel" something, and are right to do so.

Perhaps this is a plausable answer.

See http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4519574

[earth mom]

42. Thanks for posting that.

I am chilled to the bone by it. :scared:

[underthedome]

40. BlackHawk Helicopters Never dropped the sandbags -Mayor

The plan was for BlackHawk Helicopters to drop 3000 pound sand bags to stop water from rushing through the breach levels but never occured and "he doesn't know why" -N.O. Mayor

[shance]

48. Do you have a link for this?

thanks.

[donsu]

49. the bushgang never liked NO anyway

it's too much in the way of the corp./military suits