With choice comes ramifications. Both in the choice to stay and the choice to not bring food or water.

--> OK. So, there's a hurricane bearing down. You cant afford to leave. If you decide to seek shelter in the Superdome/Convention center your supplies (btw... lets assume a fam of 3, at 1 gal per person per day at 8 lbs/gal = 120 lbs + food, how are you going to carry that?) would already be out and there is still no plan in place. If you decide to hunker down in your house with 5 days food and water, the levee broke *after* the hurricane passed and washed it away. Not a lot of practical choices there.

Rescue efforts are going about as well as one can expect given the circumstances of a flooded city

--> It's been 5 days, there are bodies floating in the streets, little kids dehydrating, old people dying and looting. I expect much, much more.

 You cant afford to leave. If you decide to seek shelter in the Superdome/Convention center your supplies(btw... lets assume a fam of 3, at 1 gal per person per day at 8 lbs/gal = 120 lbs + food, how are you going to carry that?) would already be out and there is still no plan in place. If you decide to hunker down in your house with 5 days food and water, the levee broke *after* the hurricane passed and washed it away. Not a lot of practical choices there.

Carry it or expect to go without it...the superdome was only a shelter. Not a catered party. When it comes to survival people needed to do whatever possible to keep themselves sufficient for 5 days. Period..end of sentence. The only other choice would be to die.




It's been 5 days, there are bodies floating in the streets, little kids dehydrating, old people dying and looting.

Are you not aware that a category 4/5 hurricane ust hit the area? That's why they call it a natural disaster. Did you expect mcdonalds to open a day or two later?

I woudl not argue the point made by the mayor. I would like to see the data that he based the statement on. I suspect that the data is very liberal and likely 134,000 he speaks of also includes those that will stay even with transportation.

From the actual National Geographic article that some of the information came from....

"Some 200,000 remained, however—the car-less, the homeless, the aged and infirm, and those die-hard New Orleanians who look for any excuse to throw a party."

Personally I suspect that a large portion of this 200K is the last group rather than the first three. Typically this is the case. People simply don't heed the warnings, believe it won't that big of deal and that they can "Make it thru"...This time they didn't.

~Matt

First you say...

With choice comes ramifications. Both in the choice to stay and the choice to not bring food or water

Then you say...

Carry it or expect to go without it...the superdome was only a shelter

Then you say

"That's why they call it a natural disaster. Did you expect mcdonalds to open a day or two "

basically 1. leave the city 2. if you dont you're on your own 3. we'll get around to treating you like human beings when we get around to it. I am so fucking enraged at that I am shaking typing this.

What the fuck do we have FEMA for?!?! we should just tell people to move somewhere safe and dont bother us. You need to PLAN FOR DISASTERS. there has been none of that and you dont seem to have a problem with that. No one expects to give these people a new car and a catered suite at the marriot but there are bodies that are being eaten by rats for Christ's sake! How does this not piss you off?

Any loss of life is horrible. I'm enraged as much as you. Not at the response. I cannot place blame on anyone or anything.

I have a more realistic and broader view. The worst natural disaster that can be imagined just hit New Orleans. An act that is bigger than man. You seem to think that man can somehow plan and instantly react to a storm that has the power equivalent to detonating a 10 megaton nuclear bomb every 20 minutes. For reference one 10 megaton bomb will destroy an entire city.

I don't know what you expect when it comes to rescuing people from a disaster as large as Katrina. You're off base if you think that people are intentionally not caring or not rescuing fast enough.

Somehow we in this country have lost our perspective that we can't control everything or plan for a scenario as large as this. Tell me..show me...explain to me how you plan for 100,000 people who willingly or unwilling stay put in the face of something as big as Katrina. After that tell me what resources are needed to save and evacuate enough people to fill a football stadium twice. Add to that being fired upon and civil unrest.

You have no idea what the magnitude of this disaster. Nor do I.

one more then I am getting out of here and going for a run and then donate blood.

No one can prevent disasters natural, terrorism or otherwise. You can prepare for them. If there had been better planning at every level over the last 100 years (democrat and republican) the levees would not have failed (the netherlands is a perfect example of this). If you had an evacuation strategy that included getting those without private transportation out of the city there would have been far fewer refugees. If you had pre-positioned food, shelter, and medical supplies and had earth moving equipment on contract they wouldnt have had to wait for so long for basic supplies. If there were a clear, redundant chain of command that had access to all the resources of the military and civillian relief organizations then we could have had boots on the ground in under 24 hours and supplies shortly thereafter and there would be someone to police distribution of supplies and over see the evacuation.

this is what I expect from my government. None of this would have prevented the hurricane or loss of property and life, but it's a damn site better than what has been happening, which as far as I can tell was nothing until this afternoon. the fact that we have allowed tax-paying American citizens to suffer unnecessarily is, to my mind, criminal and I want to see who ever is responsible hang.

in the mean time all we can do is contribute as much as we can, pray that the recovery progresses smoothly and quickly and that we learn from this so that next time there is a disaster, terrorist strike, whatever we are not just throwing up our hands and saying to each other "it was a disaster, how could we have known, there's nothing you can do"

I used to think you were merely misguided. Now I'm not sure. What about the golden rule? What about Karma? What about charity for the poor, the mis-guided and even the stupid?

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What a drag it is getting old. -- Stones

What about it?

I am just glad to see that the poor victims finally have something to drink....

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What if the Hokey Pokey is what it is all about?

You would think that anyways.

I saw a lot of the "I am staying" bravado during the Rodeo-Chedeski Fire in Northern AZ 3 years ago and am sure that the same mentality is to blame for a large percentage of the people who are suffering horribly now.

"It won't happen to me"

"I'm gonna burn with my castle"

"Nobody can make me leave my homestead"

Luckily for most during the fires, the decision did not end up to be a deadly one. The Katrina victims were not so lucky.

While I sympathize and support those who were truly unable to leave..........due to age, fragile health, and even poverty. I gotta believe that most of the residents had ample warning and the means to get out.

By not leaving when they where ordered to, they have compounded the situation they are now experiencing. By making the choice not to evacuate, they chose to become part of the problem.........making it harder to help them, and those who legitimately had no choice.

Fingers will be pointed over this, no doubt about it. I only hope that some of them are pointing right back at the ones doing the pointing.

G

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It's a little like wrestling a gorilla.........you don't stop when you're tired.........you stop when the gorilla is tired.

i dont think you guys GET IT. NO isn't like other cities in the US. Its Southern -mostly black and poor-like catching catfish in the swamp out behind the shack for dinner poor. There are rich white people and then theres the rest of em. "The racial makeup of the city is 28.05% White, 67.25% African American, 27.9% of the population and 23.7% of families are below the poverty line." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Orleans,_Louisiana#Demographics)They hadnt gotten their paycheck on friday yet and couldnt afford a bus ticket out. what can they freaking do.

Is being poor a valid excuse for doing nothing but waiting for help to come to you?
What excuses you from helping them? its pretty amazing thet someone with half million dollar cars and 5k + bikes can stare at people dying from a hurricane and tell them they suck. If there weren't poor people there wouldnt be rich ones.

Is being poor a valid excuse for doing nothing but waiting for help to come to you?

That, unfortunately, is the fallout of the main definition of Liberalism: humans need government's help to survive. And so many people believe that, hence much of the anguish occurring in that region. "They won't possibly let me get hurt!"

Someone mentioned the welfare state in another post, and there's some validity to that. Liberals like to feel good about "helping", yet they (generally, not all, but generally speaking as what Liberalism is all about) don't go quite far enough---just enough to make one become dependent on said help. Heavens no, don't make people responsible for their own actions, their station in life...they can't possibly comprehend what it takes to succeed on their own. We must help them. Without us they will fail.

If you want to blame government in this situation, look to Louisiana and New Orleans, not Washington. Both state and city had plenty of warning to have all sorts of contingencies in place to prepare for the disaster that everyone knew was heading their way.

Agreed, but again...is their being from a welfare state permission to sit back and watch while the rest of us fix their mess? And if so, do we fix it back to the squaller that NO was until last week (with exception of the tourist areas - yes I have been there, and anyone who has been to NO off the beaten track can tell you it was mostly ghetto). I would think our first failure to these people was the current state of welfare that gave them no human reason to do better for themselves than eat Govt Cheese...how do we now prevent that with the "victims" and their next generation? Hard questions that the liberals dont want to ask, and will certainly blast me over - seems they are not willing to debate the issues with out name calling and deciding someone is a jerk...but at the end of the day is after this mess, we can teach these people to fish (as in teach them a trade such as carpentry)...or we can hand then a fish for today...I would bet that the liberals want to give them a fish...and feel good that they just fed the hungry.

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What if the Hokey Pokey is what it is all about?

"We must help them. Without us they will fail."

I should have been clearer and continued with my quoting the fictitious Liberal as they were continuing with the explanation of the basic ideology which drives them. The "we must help them" notion is at the very core of Liberal ideology, which believes that we cannot do for ourselves---we always need governmental help to achieve that which otherwise we might not achieve. More specifically, it is the Liberal from which we need that help as they are the only people on earth compassionate enough to understand what we need.

Which is bull from its very core.

What is happening is truly sad. There is a systemic, root cause for it all...and there is a time to debate this. As each day unfolds and passes I'm thinking less and less that now is that time, but it's hard not to comment as this disaster turned political in a great hurry.

We don't have much choice but to bail everyone out of there---literally---as it will be hard to distinguish (except for the true hoodlums) who had the opportunity to get out and who had no way or no chance to get out. Those blinded by Liberal ideology are suffering the consequences of that as well, and will likely continue to do so as they know nothing but the rhetoric that has been drilled into their heads for years and years. "Without us, you will fail".