How long did it take to get aid to Florida after hurricanes?

[prolesunited]

Were there this many problems in getting aid to people there? I'm just wondering what the comparison is.

FEMA head "lives disrupted" -- No, people don't have food or water. People are going to die without medicine and dialysis. How many people will die due to delays?

[DoYouEverWonder]

1. Last year was an election year

so the response was definitely better.

However for Andrew, Bush Sr. hardly even noticed.

[pacifictiger]

5. and brother Jeb was

there last year - not while poppy was pres. Its who you know remember?

[Island Blue]

6. You beat me too it.

If this had been last year, Shrub himself would be swimming to NO if he had to - just for the photo op of course, but you can bet your ass he would have been there yesterday a.m. if not before.

[distantearlywarning]

2. Michael Brown is an ass.

Saying that he knows how they are hot and unhappy and have their lives disrupted? I'm sure he has no idea whatsoever what these people are going through. What an asshat. And I think at this point it's just a little bit more than "disrupted lives". More like life-and-death situation.

The reporter sounded pretty pissed off. Probably because he's down there on the ground and actually sees the chaos and death. Kudos to him for asking the tough questions.

[MidnightWind]

3. Remember too that those hurricanes were small in size---

geographically speaking. It was much easier for the feds to target their relief efforts. This same thing happened when Hugo struck the Carolinas. It was a big storm geographically and impacted a huge area and FEMA wasn't worth shit. It took DAYS for the feds to even acknowledge that there was any damage outside of Charleston where the storm originally came in at. The truth of the matter is that the feds can't handle widespread destruction on this scale.

[Island Blue]

9. And the devastation of Hugo reached well inland in SC & NC

Who was president when Hurricane Hugo hit? Oh yeah, that's right it was Poppy Bush. I'm just sayin'.

[kdmorris]

12. Actually, Frances was quite large

(though not as large as Katrina. Frances had Hurricane force winds up to 85 mi, Katrina 120) When Frances came through, there was damage all up and down the East coast of Florida, as well as severe flooding inland. Most of this was due to her moving so slowly. On top of that, when Frances came through, FEMA and the Red Cross were still trying to deal with the Charley aftermath (which was a tiny storm, but made a swath of damage across the state. Orlando got a CAT2 storm.). And of course, in the three weeks after Frances, 2 more hurricanes had hit Florida.

We didn't have to deal with the same sort of flooding here that they have to endure in the Bayous down there. And Frances never reached CAT5. So the storm surge was only listed as 5-12 feet, which is less than half of what Katrina's was.

However, that said, the National Guard had food, ice and water in Palm Beach County the next day. It WAS an election year, after all. And I have NO doubt that had it been this year, we would have had to scrounge around for our own ice.

[merbex]

4. Good question, and to expand on this we should only compare

Katrina to Andrew and Camille and what the response was then by the Federal gov't

I haven't even googled but I remember eeing on a post here that B 41 sent 25,000 troops to FLA after Andrew

43 is making 3 states SHARE 10,000 troops

[prolesunited]

13. That would be great if you found

something to back that up

[Inland]

7. Two things.

One, New Orleans is particularly difficult, granted but

Two, you would think we would get better at it with every hurricane.

Everybody knows that you can't get real help to the damaged areas because there is going to be twenty miles of damaged roads, flooded byways, downed wires, no electricity or communications.


FEMA and others fell down on the job.

[Misunderestimator]

8. Part of the problem is that the water has not receded as it did in Florida

Florida did not have the standing water after the hurricanes were over. And the situation was not nearly as dire. The hardest hit community, as I recall, was Punta Gorda, FL, which is a MUCH smaller population than was affected by this storm. Miniscule in comparison.

I don't think there is any comparison.

[Jacobin]

10. the water drained in Florida

New Orleans is now venice.

But that is no excuse for the lack of response.

The reason is IraqNam

[converted_democrat]

11. We had help in 2 days........

We live in a rural area on the west side of Florida.