August 13th 2004-- Hurricane Charley hits Florida

[spooked911]

It was the first of three Florida hurricanes that season (Charley, Frances and Ivan).

Does any one remember any complaints about the FEMA response then?

If anything, FEMA was overly generous in giving aid-- which resulted in cries that of poitical favoritism because of the upcoming November presidential election.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/18/AR2005051802076.html

The point is-- maybe FEMA isn't incompetent, but VERY POLITICALLY motivated.

So what does that tell us about the Katrina response?

[Cooley Hurd]

1. It was an election year and Florida was a vital swing state...

...nuff said.:grr:

[ixion]

2. it tells us that it was NOT an accident

it was intentional.

I was just a few miles north of where Charley hit. The response was fast and complete, and very generous, indeed.

I think it's interesting how all of a sudden "it's hard work" doing disaster management, so hard, in fact, that nothing happens at all, except for thousands dying. :grr:

[dogday]

3. Lack of NG caused a lot of deaths with Charley

you know Charley turned at the spur of the moment and caught those people off-guard. No NG to go trailer to trailer to help the elderly out. A lot of elderly people died. They say there were body bags on every street....

[spooked911]

5. Really? I didn't think the death toll was that high.

How many died, do you know?

[Media_Lies_Daily]

7. Unknown. But there were eyewitness reports, ridiculed at the time,....

...that the number of dead was in the hundreds because very few people were able to evacuate. Virtually every trailer park in the area was destroyed.

They also talked about refrigerator trucks being driven into the area to preserve the bodies of the dead.

A couple of days ago, I either read or heard the story of refrigerator trucks waitng to go into New Orleans.

[expatriot]

4. landfall: 3:30PM, August 13th. Bush arrives: 7:30AM August 15th. nt

[Junkdrawer]

6. There was quite a bit of controversy on DU regarding body counts...

Initial media accounts had several locations where bodies were being "stacked like cord wood". Then several refrigerated semis appeared and reporters were kept out. Then a total death toll of 13 then 19 and, as I remember, stopping at 22.

Also, a person appeared here who claimed to have cleaned up after Andrew in Homestead and who said the real toll was orders of magnitude higher than reported.

Unifying factor? Bush family members running for office at the time of both hurricanes.