Freepers Blame Democrats For Impending Disaster

[iamjoy]

really. The N.O. mayor & Governor of LA are Democrats.

The Freepers feel the mayor & gov shouldn't have waited so long to make the evacuation mandatory and that they only did so when Dubya asked them.

They also point out that the mayor and governor should have mobilized buses to move people out of the city.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1472465/posts

[barbaraann]

1. I really don't understand why the Mayor didn't order an evacuation earlier

n/t

[iamjoy]

5. He Asked, But Didn't Make It Mandatory

I think I read somewhere that a mandatory evacuation would have meant evacuating hospitals and prisons.

As you can imagine, that would be quite an undertaking, and not something they would want to do only to have the storm turn.

[barbaraann]

7. Well, I think he made an error in judgement.

n/t

[Renew Deal]

28. The hurricane had a 1% chance of going category 5

when they were doing voluntary evacuations. It was at 115MPH with a 1% chance.

[barbaraann]

30. Well, New Orleans is a special case.

A direct hit by even a Cat 3 would be far more devastating than to most cities.

[Eloriel]

33. And about 100% chance of going Cat 4

I agree that Nagan waited tooooooo long, and I'd also rather he spent time today rounding up some food for the Superdome instead of hobnobbing with the cable news anchors.

[Waya]

12. Don't Hurricanes....

..have a tendency to change course?
Maybe they wanted to be absolutely sure it was coming their way before they mobilized everything? I'm sure this evacuation is expensive and timeconsuming and all - yea, I know, better safe than sorry is my motto, too. But you know how these beaurocrats are - don't do anything til the last minute.........

[iamjoy]

16. Yeah, Like Charley

Thousands evacuated Tampa and came to Orlando when they thought the storm was going to hit there.

Tampa is surrounded by water, not as bad as New Orleans, but some parts of it flood in an afternoon rain storm.

Anyway, they came to Orlando and when the storm turned, they found themselves in the eye of it.

Next time a powerful hurricane is taking aim at Tampa, I bet a lot of them stay put. And that could be disastrous if the storm doesn't turn.

[OrlandoGator]

19. Don't forget Jeanne...it made a crazy loop-the-loop in the Atlantic.

Hurricanes are not predictable:

[iamjoy]

29. We Knew Jeanne Was Going To Do That

the week before she did

[lpbk2713]

23. Here's one possible reason to consider .....

Last year hurricane Charley was forecast to come ashore in the Tampa Bay area. So while it was still out in the Gulf headed north Jebbie in his infinite wisdom advised people in the Tampa Bay area to evacuate inland away from the low lying coastal areas. As it turned out Charley made landfall much further south and proceeded on a northeasterly course. The bad part about that was that it hit full force a lot of the people the were told to evacuate right into its path. If they had stayed where they had come from they would have been safe.

Naturally Jebbie denied any responsibility for giving out the bad advice citing the unpredictability of Mother Nature. If he had just waited a little longer to cry wolf this would not have happened.

I would think the mayor and the governor are showing a lot more responsibility and restraint with the results of their decisions in mind.

[FloridaPat]

26. The other side of that coin was that the people that really got hit hard

had no idea the hurricane was coming their way until it was too late - after it changed course.

[lpbk2713]

32. That's true --- I was one of em

I was hit by all three. I live in Lakeland. I fared better than a lot of folks though. Something for which I am very grateful.

[FloridaPat]

35. I live there too!

[lpbk2713]

36. Nice to meet you Pat, always good to meet another DUer.

We lived through history didn't we? Direct hit by three 'canes in less than six weeks.

[FloridaPat]

37. Yes. Amazing year last year. Had enough of hurricanes that's for sure.

[Iris]

2. I thought they didn't believe in government interference.

[sakabatou]

3. They may be on to something...

Or this could just be a case study.

[iamjoy]

10. It Is Maybe A Collosal Failure At All Levels

federal, state, local

[JuniperLea]

4. I'd like to hear the Mayor Governor's side to this story

But that's me... not a freeper:)

[oasis]

6. Freepers should be asking why the National Guard is not doing more.

OOOOOOooooh, wait a minute....they're in Iraq.

[Fatima]

8. And dems here on DU are blaming the repugs

for the same shit!!! When does it end???

[iamjoy]

11. See My Post #10

[Fatima]

21. We do need better disaster planning!

So yeah, you are right, but what pisses me off is the back-and-forth partisan crapola- solves nothing. Head's spinning like Katrina. Damn I wish I had some answers- I have never felt more powerless.

[wli]

27. politically-biased regional defunding of FEMA is real

The rethugs are in fact culpable. It's the same as BRAC and prison regional porkbarrelling.

[bribri16]

9. Me either, but you can't blame the Mayor for the hurricane. 70% of the

people are already out and the ones remaining wouldn't have been able to get out anyway. If there was no organized airlift or some designated place to take over 100,000 people where would they go by bus?

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. So I guess what bu$h has done to destroy the improvements

Clinton made to FEMA does not matter?

Not to mention the National Guardsmen he sent to Iraq.

[WePurrsevere]

24. If it hadn't been posted on DU (ink below)...

I would not have known about this. :grr:

How much you want to make a bet Mr total lack of personal responsibilty "what me worry" BUSH and his butt wipers spin it to make it look like he actually gives a hoot when the reality is he and his cohorts don't unless there's mega bucks to line their pockets with. :grr:

"Bush has slashed Clinton's Disaster Mitigation Program"

posted by Barbaraann - Links and discussion here : DU thread

Quotes from articles linked in above linked thread.
<snip>
Federal funding of post-disaster mitigation efforts designed to protect people and property from the next disaster has been cut in half.

<snip>
Consequently, the residents of these and other disaster-prone states will find the government less able to help them when help is needed most, and both states and the federal government will be forced to shoulder more recovery costs after disasters strike.

<snip>
Maestri is still awaiting word from FEMA officials as to why Louisiana, despite being called the "floodplain of the nation" in a 2002 FEMA report, received no disaster mitigation grant money from FEMA in 2003 ("Homeland Insecurity," Sept. 28). Maestri says the rejection left emergency officials around the state "flabbergasted."

[AnnInLa]

14. Are these types of posts doing any good?

This is getting kinda scary...from DU? I wouldn't have expected it.

In the Louisiana forum, under "Acadiana Thread"


Poster #1 (first post on DU) takes many of us to task about being insensitive to what's going on in Nola. He/she makes the point that the officials HAD TO DO SOMETHING. If there's just a teensy more chance that they will survive in the Super Dome rather than in their unstable home, why not try it? Honestly, there's nothing else they could have done with that many people. It's not a plot against the poor...it's trying something desperate that might work, might not.

((I'm still not sure what set off that poster, sure hope it wasn't something that I said.))

Why aren't yall sending postive thoughts, or prayers, or donations? Whay are yall second-guessing officials who have the lives of thousands on their minds right now?

[iamjoy]

31. There Is Something To Be Learned

It would be a shame to have hundreds (or, I sincerely hope not thousands) to die for this country to get a wake up call about natural disasters.

You might say September 11 was a wake up call for national security, although some would say we haven't done enough, or haven't done the right things. But even with all the "little" terrorist attacks around the world and the 1993 attack we just continued on our merry ol' way. And then, September 11 Democrats and Republicans alike realized the need for change. Sure, in some cases both blamed the other, there was a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking, but for the most part, we tried to put in place systems to prevent an attack of such scale from occurring again without compromising our liberties.

Maybe some miracle or fluke will happen and this won't be as bad as many people think, but we will learn lessons going forward. Just as 9-11 was a massive failure on many levels and across both parties, so to some level, is the impending disaster in New Orleans.

I realize my analogy is off 'cos you can't do a darn thing to prevent hurricanes, but my point is, maybe all of this is not just finger pointing (some of it is, sure). Maybe it is what can we learn from this and how can we better handle the next monster hurricane. Let us not assume it is "once in a lifetime" event, but something that could (I sincerely hope not) happen again within the next thirty (or even ten) years.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

15. Damn. How the hell did they figure it out?

And we were sitting in the planning room thinking they didn't have enough of a brain between them to see the truth.

Boy, were we wrong!!

Now we have to kill them.

:rofl:

[Prodemsouth]

17. 80 % evacutaion is the most successful evacuation ever. What

proof do they have that W asked them to call for an evacuation.

[Kazak]

18. It might help if the National Guard weren't overseas...

:shrug:

[zulchzulu]

20. How low can you go, Freepers...

The fact that they are celebrating something as a political point before this event happens proves they are sadistic, ill-mannered and clueless assholes.

[Horse with no Name]

22. President Bush didn't do shit except record a soundbite

He is IMPOTENT.

[SofaKingLiberal]

25. Could have sdomething to do with..

FEMA's diminished capacity to respond to natural disasters, and to thwart preventable damage from a major catastrophe, is especially worrisome to Louisiana. Areas of Louisiana once received hundreds of thousands of dollars from "Project Impact," FEMA's largest disaster-prevention program, until the Bush Administration eliminated it in 2001. It gets worse: Not only did FEMA reject all disaster-mitigation grant applications from Louisiana for 2003, but the state might not get any funding in 2004. Maestri says that as of Sept. 28, FEMA hadn't notified his office that any grant money was available for fiscal year 2004, which ended Sept. 30.


http://www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/2004-10-05/commentary.html

(This link was posted by a Duer in another thread.

[salin]

34. heck I've seen some posts around here asserting a "residents" fault

line (ala they chose to live there knowing there could maybe someday be a problem... those folks would clearly be real compassionate if an earthquake kills in California, or a vicious ice storm kills in the north east, or when a series of tornadoes decimate a community in the midwest.)

Not really related to the original post - but the sentiment - rather disturbs me when expressed when thousands upon thousands of people may be in peril.

[iamjoy]

38. Well, There's Something To That

You choose to live in certain areas, knowing there are certain pitfalls associated with it. But I think that logic is only good when people are inconvenienced by these things. It falls flat when people's lives are in jeopardy.

[QC]

39. People here have made the same complaints

about the lateness of the evacuation and such.

[iamjoy]

40. Are You All OK?

You were east of it, but the east side is always the worst.

[QC]

41. We did OK here.

Just a bit of wind and rain--nothing worse than a standard afternoon thunderstorm. Further east, like in Pensacola, they had some more flooding. We are very relieved, since until Saturday morning the forecast had Katrina passing right over us.