I've been avoiding the coverage. By all accounts, it is horrific.
Anyone who thinks that the blame game rhetoric is running a little too hot right now, wait until we have a final death toll. I've been avoiding the coverage, true, but it sounds to me as if it's already an outrageous disgrace out there. There won't be any "it's really Clinton's fault" this time.
6 comments:
There also shouldn't be any "Blame President Bush" rhetoric. Realistically, all disaster relief should start with the state and local levels. If anyone is to blame for the plight of the people affected by this natural disaster, I offer the following list:
1) Whoever decided that building a city in a below-sea-level swamp was a good idea
2) The mayor of NO, for, after issuing a manfatory evacuation order, failing to commandeer city busses and other modes of transportation to ensure that the poor and ill would have a means of leaving the city
3) Whoever decided to place everyone in the Superdome and not add a copious supply of food and water. I don't care if you think that the storm may pass - stockpile water and food just in case it doesn't.
Article here about why New Orleans is where it is. Long story short, before the railroads, being on the river was the best way to move freight and do business. The Mississippi is a big river.
Sooo, you think all that money that was going to be budgeted for completeing and repairing levees but was allocated for the military instead is inconsequential? No blame on shrub for that one?
And as far as #3 - They've seen hurricanes before. People were smart enough to stockpile supplies before the storm. But go figure, the storm blew it all away or it ended up under water.
Yes, the change in budget is largely inconsequential, for two reasons. First, it was mainly for the 2006 budget (IIRC), and second because the levees which broke were only rated for a Cat 3 storm. Katrina was a Cat 4 - if unfinished levees had broken, I'd be more prone to assign blame - but I'd also lay some at the state level. With as much pork as has gone through Congress in the last few years, how come La. couldn't manage to get some for the levees?
Second - yes, some people doubtless lost stockpiles. My point was that, when you tell people to congregate in an area, you'd better also plan on having food and water in that area, in case the storm is worse than you believe.
If I am going to lay blame on anyone, it would probably be Terry Ebbert - head of New Orleans' emergency operations. NOLA had a plan to evacuate the city by using municipal busses (school and city). Guess what wasn't done when Ivan came through, and guess what wasn't done when Katrina came through? Those busses were not only unused (people using Google earth have managed to locate hundreds of busses, a single trip of which would have saved over 20,000 people), but they were left in areas where flooding was a possibility. Those busses are still there, spewing gasoline and oil into the floodwaters which surround them, ruined and unusable.
Hurricane Protection A Low Priority For Bush:
Due to lack of funding, major construction stopped in 2004 ? the first such stoppage in 37 years.
The article shows budget numbers for 2004, 2005, and 2006. In 2004 and 2005, the Bush administration actually proposed less than Congress approved (which was still less than the Army requested).
Oops - my fault. I was looking at the wrong report. The reports, however, deal with completing levees which withstood Katrina - the ones which failed were done. No amount of funding would have prevented them from failing - only rebuilding them to withstand a Cat 4. Until NOLA had plans to to that (though they did have a study underway to figure out how to withstand the inevitable Cat 4 or Cat 5 storm), the levee system as it was was going to failt. Which it did.
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