CNN announces those in Superdome to be moved to Houston Astrodome!

[flpoljunkie]

Is this the best they can do? Send them on buses to Dubya's home state?

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. Well, when you don't have governmental infra-structure, you're left

with your private connections.

[Javaman]

29. To paraphrase rumspuke...

"You run the country with the gov't that was elected."

(actual quote, "you go to war with the army you have")

In other words, you elect a worthless prick* you get a worthless gov't.

colossal failure*.

[Mass]

2. What do you propose?

These people cant stay where they are. They are risking their life every minute. There are tens of thousands. which does not make the relocation any easier.

[Ian David]

7. How about moving them to that country club Bush was at yesterday? n/t

[Mass]

12. 30,000 people in a country club?

Hope the country club is big.

[Ian David]

21. Well, how big is Bush's Pig Farm in Crawford? n/t

[flpoljunkie]

9. It's a long way from New Orleans to Houston. Perhaps this saves money?

[Mass]

11. Do you really think there is a place in LA that can have so many people

[flpoljunkie]

13. Why is Texas the only option other than Louisiana?

Although it is not as far as I imagined--only 347 miles according to this google map.

http://maps.google.com/maps?spn=4.459042,8.067810&saddr=New+Orleans,+LA&daddr=Houston,+TX&hl=en

[Mass]

15. Listen - These people need to go now.

Their life is at risk.

When they are in a safe place, we may begin to wonder where they should go for a long period (LA will probably not be hospitable for several months, between water, electricity, and sewers being repaired and building being tested for solidity) and who is responsible (starting with who wrote this plan that did not involve evacuating those who did not have cars).

But first thing first. Let's make sure that no more people lose their life.

[flpoljunkie]

17. Listen. That would be "people lose their lives."

[Mass]

18. Thanks, and I think we agree. I did not see your post below.

[AnneD]

10. This idea had been kicked around

since yesterday. Of course we would love to have them here. Lez le bon temp roullet. It will take a long time to get the water out of the bowl in NOLA. One day we may need the favor returned. Looking forward to saying Howdy...by the way, bring your own Tabasco Sauce---somethings you don't share;)

[Bluzmann57]

3. What would you suggest they do?

Turn them loose and tell them to fend for themselves in the disease infested city the N.O. is certain to become? I imagine moving these people to the Astrodome is just temporary anyway. They are at least doing something.

[moc]

4. The Astrodome is air conditioned and relatively close to the

Texas Medical Center. Houston has already mobilized to provide assistance, still grateful to all those who helped Houston when it was flooded after Allison.

Please, don't forget that Dubya is NOT a Texan.

[flpoljunkie]

20. As Molly Ivins says there are some wonderful and decent folks in Texas.

[Inland]

5. See, public moneysgoing to huge sports stadiums WERE well spent!

All you fuckers who thought that public funds should go to public works like levees and pumps rather than stadia all have egg on your faces!

Next, the refugees will be housed in prisons.

[Julius Civitatus]

6. Are there no better options?

Hospitals?
Schools?
School gyms?
Army bases?

This thing about hoarding people into stadiums has a whiff of fascism (as in Pinochet coup) that makes us look bad and unprepared. Well, this catastrophe has made us look very bad and very unprepared.

This Katrina catastrophe has been a <B>major DEBACLE OF LEADERSHIP AT A GIGANTIC SCALE</B>: no preparedness, lack of coordination, FEMA almost worthless prior to the hurricane, poor people with no transportation left behind to fend for themselves, not enough national guard to secure rescue operations, looting all over, mess of massive proportions...

Thank the Bush administration for cutting the FEMA budget to ridiculous levels.

[Mass]

14. Where? We are not talking about a few hundred people

We are talking about between 20 and 30000.

So, if your question is why there were not evacuated before the hurricane, I agree. But now, speed is what is needed. These people have been living in horrible conditions for 3 to 4 days and at least 4 of them have died.

[flpoljunkie]

16. It is a quick fix, but agree that is what is needed for these folks who've

been trapped in the Superdome since Kritina hit.

[many a good man]

23. Link? I heard eight or nine thousand in Super Dome

during storm on TV. How many more have arrived after the storm ended?

We need refugee camps, not football stadiums. Its gonna be a long time before those folks can go home.

[Mass]

26. That too, but there is an emergency right now.

Any immediate solution is better than nothing. And here is a link.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/31/AR2005083100724.html

ALEXANDRIA, La., Aug. 31 -- As flood waters continue to rise and power supplies deteriorate in New Orleans, relief officials have decided to move the 25,000 people being sheltered at the Superdome to the Astrodome in Houston, Red Cross officials said Wednesday.

[Ian David]

8. Great. Now they'll lose their home field advantage. n/t

[chalky]

19. God almighty! Moving to Tom Delay's playground? The Minute Men will be

shooting at them as soon as they cross the LA border!
Haven't these people been through enough?

[peaches2003]

22. Prairie Chapel

Move them to His Highnesses G-D Prairie Chapel Ranch in Crawford.

[flpoljunkie]

24. There is no way to get buses up to the Superdome. Logistical nightmare.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/31/AR2005083100724_pf.html

To repair one of the levees holding back Lake Pontchartrain, officials late Tuesday dropped 3,000-pound sandbags from helicopters and hauled dozens of 15-foot concrete barriers into the breach, Maj. Gen. Don Riley of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers told the Associated Press. Officials also had a more audacious plan: finding a barge to plug the 500-foot hole, the AP.

Riley said it could take close to a month to get the water out of the city. If the water rises a few feet higher, it could also wipe out the water system for the whole city, said New Orleans' homeland security chief Terry Ebbert told the AP.

Gov. Blanco suggested there was no blueprint yet for evacuating the Superdome, which, by all accounts, has become a dank and hot and stinking hole of humanity.

"We can use boats," she said. "We can use vehicles that can travel in water. If we can't use vehicles we can helicopter them out."

___________________

There are up to 25,000 people who have sought refuge in the Superdome--many have been there since Sunday, before Katrina hit.

[Broken Acorn]

25. AstroDome

Houston sucks, but I drove it many times from New Orleans. It is roughly a 4 hour drive in a car; probably closer to 5 hours in a big bus.

But what else are these people going to do? What pisses me off about the media is that they have no understanding of what it's like to live in New Orleans.

The poverty level is unreal there and many (if not most) of the locals there don't have cars, don't have decent jobs, don't have any money, etc. So initially, where were they supposed to go to evacuate (besides the Superdome)?

Why do you think there is so much looting going on there now?

Because that city has MANY elements of a Third World Country.

I think going to Houston sucks, but if I were one of those people trapped in Nola, I wouldn't care where I went as long as it is out of there.

And by the way, the house I used to live in there is completely gone now.

[Devil Dog Dem]

27. Haven't they suffered enough? It is the ugliest stadium in all of sports!

How about sending them to Wrigley Field? It is the most beautiful stadium in all of sports? They deserve no less!


Sorry. Humor is my defense mechanism when confronted with tragedy.

[welshTerrier2]

28. Like a rolling stone ... to yet another dome ...

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone
To yet another dome ...

[maxsolomon]

30. spread them out around the country in private homes

there are 30,000 americans who would take in refugees.

at the former Sand Point NAS in Seattle, there are mothballed, EMPTY brick barracks - room for a couple hundred families.