← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Sertorius
Thread ID: 19991 | Posts: 13 | Started: 2005-09-04
2005-09-04 04:48 | User Profile
washingtonpost.com Thousands Remain To Be Evacuated White House Shifts Blame to Local Officials
By Manuel Roig-Franzia and Spencer Hsu Washington Post Staff Writers Sunday, September 4, 2005; A01
NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 3 -- Tens of thousands of people spent a fifth day awaiting evacuation from this ruined city, as Bush administration officials blamed state and local authorities for what leaders at all levels have called a failure of the country's emergency management.
President Bush authorized the dispatch of 7,200 active-duty ground troops to the area -- the first major commitment of regular ground forces in the crisis -- and the Pentagon announced that an additional 10,000 National Guard troops will be sent to Louisiana and Mississippi, raising the total Guard contingent to about 40,000.
Authorities reported progress in restoring order and electricity and repairing levees, as a hospital ship arrived and cruise ships were sent to provide temporary housing for victims. As Louisiana officials expressed confidence that they had begun to get a handle on the crisis, a dozen National Guard troops broke into applause late Saturday as Isaac Kelly, 81, the last person to be evacuated from the Superdome, boarded a school bus.
But there remained an overwhelming display of human misery on the streets of New Orleans, where the last 1,500 people were being evacuated from the Convention Center amid an overpowering odor of human waste and rotting garbage. The evacuees, most of them black and poor, spoke of violence, anarchy and family members who died for lack of food, water and medical care.
About 42,000 people had been evacuated from the city by Saturday afternoon, with roughly the same number remaining, city officials said. Search-and-rescue efforts continued in flooded areas of the city, where an unknown number of people wait in their homes, on rooftops or in makeshift shelters. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced by the flooding -- 250,000 have been absorbed by Texas alone, and local radio reported that Baton Rouge will have doubled in population by Monday. Federal officials said they have begun to collect corpses but could not guess the total toll.
Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state's emergency operations center said Saturday.
The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. "Quite frankly, if they'd been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals," said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.
A senior administration official said that Bush has clear legal authority to federalize National Guard units to quell civil disturbances under the Insurrection Act and will continue to try to unify the chains of command that are split among the president, the Louisiana governor and the New Orleans mayor.
Louisiana did not reach out to a multi-state mutual aid compact for assistance until Wednesday, three state and federal officials said. As of Saturday, Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency, the senior Bush official said.
"The federal government stands ready to work with state and local officials to secure New Orleans and the state of Louisiana," White House spokesman Dan Bartlett said. "The president will not let any form of bureaucracy get in the way of protecting the citizens of Louisiana."
Blanco made two moves Saturday that protected her independence from the federal government: She created a philanthropic fund for the state's victims and hired James Lee Witt, Federal Emergency Management Agency director in the Clinton administration, to advise her on the relief effort.
[B]Bush, who has been criticized, even by supporters, for the delayed response to the disaster, used his weekly radio address to put responsibility for the failure on lower levels of government. The magnitude of the crisis "has created tremendous problems that have strained state and local capabilities," he said. "The result is that many of our citizens simply are not getting the help they need, especially in New Orleans. And that is unacceptable."[/B]
In a Washington briefing, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said one reason federal assets were not used more quickly was "because our constitutional system really places the primary authority in each state with the governor."
Chertoff planned to fly overnight to the New Orleans area to take charge of deploying the expanded federal and military assets for several days, he said. He said he has "full confidence" in FEMA Director Michael D. Brown, the DHS undersecretary and federal officer in charge of the Katrina response.
Brown, a frequent target of New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin's wrath, said Saturday that "the mayor can order an evacuation and try to evacuate the city, but if the mayor does not have the resources to get the poor, elderly, the disabled, those who cannot, out, or if he does not even have police capacity to enforce the mandatory evacuation, to make people leave, then you end up with the kind of situation we have right now in New Orleans."
New Orleans City Council President Oliver Thomas acknowledged that the city was surprised by the number of refugees left behind, but he said FEMA should have been prepared to assist.
"Everybody shares the blame here," said Thomas. "But when you talk about the mightiest government in the world, that's a ludicrous and lame excuse. You're FEMA, and you're the big dog. And you weren't prepared either."
In Baton Rouge, Blanco acknowledged Saturday: "We did not have enough resources here to do it all. . . . The magnitude is overwhelming."
State officials had planned to turn to neighboring states for help with troops, transportation and equipment in a major hurricane. But in Katrina's case, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida were also overwhelmed, said Denise Bottcher, a Blanco spokesman.
Bush canceled a visit with Chinese President Hu Jintao that had been scheduled for Wednesday and made plans to return to the Gulf Coast on Monday. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice scheduled visits to the region, as troops continue to pour in.
Top Bush administration officials met at the White House with African American leaders amid criticism that the federal response to Hurricane Katrina has neglected impoverished victims, many of them black.
Chertoff, Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson, White House domestic policy adviser Claude Allen and Pentagon homeland security official Peter Verga met for two hours with NAACP President Bruce Gordon, National Urban League President Marc H. Morial and Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), the former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus. The caucus's current chairman, Rep. Melvin Watt (D-N.C.), participated by phone.
"I think they wanted to make sure that the leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus, the Urban League and the NAACP knew that they were very sensitive to trying to make sure that things went right from here on out," Cummings said, according to his spokeswoman, Devika Koppikar. "And I think they wanted to try to dispel any kind of notions that the administration did not care about African American people -- or anyone else."
Caucus Executive Director Paul A. Brathwaite said Bush officials promised to keep black leaders informed. He credited the administration with reaching out to the caucus for the first time to solve a national problem.
In New Orleans on Saturday, smoke from several fires that have burned for days swirled over the French Quarter. Outside the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, the stench and heat worsened the long wait of the thousands of evacuees lining up for buses. Many of them said they had no idea where they would go.
Columbus Lawrence, 43, a landscaper, shambled down St. Joseph Avenue searching for the end of the line. He pushed a cart piled with packets of dry, chicken-flavored noodles. "It's like a chip," he said hopefully, putting another handful into his mouth.
Others have been here since the day of the storm, the early part of the week made increasingly awful because there were no toilets, no water, no food.
Herbert J. Freeman arrived in a neighbor's boat with his mother, Ethel M. Freeman, 91, frail and sick, but with an active mind. She kept asking him for a doctor, for a nurse, for anyone who could help her. Police told Freeman there was nothing they could do. She died in her wheelchair, next to her son, on Thursday morning.
It was half a day before he could find someone to take away her body, he said. "She wasn't senile or nothing," he said. "She knew what was going on. . . . I kept saying, 'Mom, I can't help you.' "
Next to Freeman, Kenny Lason, 45, a dishwasher at Pat O'Brien's, a French Quarter restaurant famous for its signature "Hurricane" cocktail, took a long slurp out of a bottle of Korbel extra-dry champagne. He broke a store window to get it, and he is not ashamed. "They wasn't giving us nothing," he said. "You got to live off the land."
Outside New Orleans, frustration boiled over among the boatmen who spontaneously left their homes in central Louisiana to rescue stranded residents in the first hours after reports of flooding hit the airwaves. For the past two days, many have been turned away because of security concerns in a city that had turned violent and chaotic.
"It's a tragedy that's unfolding now," said Moose Billeaud, a former New Orleans prosecutor who is now in private practice in Lafayette, La. "It is not organized at all."
The boatmen who made it in came back with harrowing memories. Kenny, who did not want to disclose his last name, said friends were shot at by stranded people who wanted to steal their boats. "It's total chaos," he said.
Isaac Kelly, the last to depart from the Superdome, said "it feels good" as he boarded the bus. A young guardsman put an arm around the stooped Kelly and said, "Good luck and God bless."
The dome, which once housed more than 20,000 evacuees, became a symbol of the chaos that gripped New Orleans, with television network cameras capturing scenes of filth and misery.
Just before Kelly stepped aboard, Isaiah Bennett, leaning heavily on a wooden cane, was helped onto the bus. "It was hell," said Bennett. "I don't like this kind of mess," he said. "I never thought it would be this bad.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has said that it will take as long as 80 days to remove the water from New Orleans and surrounding areas.
Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) sent a letter to Bush Saturday urging him to provide cash benefits and transportation assistance to stranded people and to use federal facilities for housing. They wrote that they "are concerned that rescue and recovery efforts appear to remain chaotic and that many victims remain hungry and without adequate shelter nearly a week after the hurricane struck. Clearly, strong personal leadership from you is essential if we are to get this effort on track."
The administration said that 100,000 have received some form of humanitarian aid and that 9,500 have been rescued by the Coast Guard. The administration said it is providing funds to employ displaced workers and has arranged for Amtrak trains to help in the evacuation. The rail service expects to remove 1,500 people daily. In addition, the Energy Department reported that 1.3 million customers were without electricity, down from 1.5 million Friday.
The 7,200 additional troops announced by Bush on Saturday are scheduled to arrive within three days. They will come from the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C., the 1st Cavalry Division at Food Hood, Tex., the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton, Calif., and the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Lejeune, N.C.
The decision to employ active-duty ground troops and Marines was particularly significant given the administration's initial desire to limit ground forces largely to Guard units. Regular military troops are constrained by law from engaging in domestic law enforcement. By contrast, Guard troops, who are under the command of state governors, have no such constraints.
At a Pentagon news conference Saturday, Lt. Gen. Joseph Inge, the deputy commander of the Northern Command, said the active-duty ground forces would be used mainly to protect sites and perform other functions not considered law enforcement.
The Air Force is repatriating 300 airmen from Iraq and Afghanistan so they can assist their families back in their home base in Biloxi, Miss.
Law enforcement officials said order is beginning to be restored in the city. A temporary detention center has been set up in the city to house those arrested for looting and other crimes after the hurricane, and the city's court personnel have been relocated to neighboring jurisdictions unaffected by Katrina, said New Orleans U.S. Attorney Jim Letten. Trials are expected to begin within two weeks, he said. "We're going to bring these guys to justice," he said.
Members of federal law enforcement agencies are in the city, he said. More than 200 Border Patrol agents have been sworn in to reinforce New Orleans police, and state police officials said hundreds of law enforcement agents from other states are expected in the coming days.
Hsu reported from Washington. Staff writers Justin Blum, Dana Milbank, Jacqueline L. Salmon and Josh White contributed to this report.
é 2005 The Washington Post Company [url]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/03/AR2005090301680.html[/url] [IMG]http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2005/09/03/PH2005090300892.jpg[/IMG]
2005-09-04 05:07 | User Profile
Guardsmen 'played cards' amid New Orleans chaos: police official
Sat Sep 3, 5:58 PM ET
A top New Orleans police officer said that National Guard troops sat around playing cards while people died in the stricken city after Hurricane Katrina.
New Orleans deputy police commander W.S. Riley launched a bitter attack on the federal response to the disaster though he praised the way the evacuation was eventually handled.
His remarks fuelled controversy over the government's handling of events during five days when New Orleans succumbed to lawlessness after Katrina swamped the city's flood defenses.
The National Guard commander, Lieutenant General Steven Blum, said the reservist force was slow to move troops into New Orleans because it did not anticipate the collapse of the city's police force.
But Riley said that for the first three days after Monday's storm, which is believed to have killed several thousand people, the police and fire departments and some volunteers had been alone in trying to rescue people.
"We expected a lot more support from the federal government. We expected the government to respond within 24 hours. The first three days we had no assistance," he told AFP in an interview.
Riley went on: "We have been fired on with automatic weapons. We still have some thugs around. My biggest disappointment is with the federal government and the National Guard.
"The guard arrived 48 hours after the hurricane with 40 trucks. They drove their trucks in and went to sleep.
"For 72 hours this police department and the fire department and handful of citizens were alone rescuing people. We have people who died while the National Guard sat and played cards. I understand why we are not winning the war in Iraq if this is what we have."
Riley said there is "a semblance of organisation now."
"The military is here and they have done an excellent job with the evacuation" of the tens of thousands of people stranded in the city.
The National Guard commander said the city police force was left with only a third of its pre-storm strength.
"The real issue, particularly in New Orleans, is that no one anticipated the disintegration or the erosion of the civilian police force in New Orleans," Blum told reporters in Washington.
"Once that assessment was made ... then the requirement became obvious," he said. "And that's when we started flowing military police into the theatre."
On Friday, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin denounced the slow federal response as too little, too late, charging that promised troops had not arrived in time.
"Now get off your asses and let's do something and fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country," the mayor said in remarks aired on CNN.
Blum said that since Thursday some 7,000 National Guard and military police had moved into the city. President George W. Bush on Saturday ordered an additional 7,000 active duty and reserve ground troops.
Blum said any suggestion that the National Guard had not performed well or was late was a "low blow".
The initial priority of the Louisiana and Mississippi National Guard forces was disaster relief, not law enforcement, because they expected the police to handle that, he said.
The police commander was unable to give a death toll for New Orleans.
"We have bodies all over the city. A federal mortuary team was supposed to come in within 24 hours. We haven't seen them. It is inhumane. This is just not America."
Riley said he did not even know how many police remained from a normal force of 1,700.
"Many officers lost their homes or their families and there are many we have not heard from. Some officers could not handle the pressure and left. I don't know if we have 800 or thousands today."
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2005-09-04 12:05 | User Profile
Mr. Mayor Of New Orleans, you are no Mayor Giuliani" September 04, 2005 12:12 AM EST
Every human being that has a heart is seeing what has taken place in New Orleans. What we are seeing is truly unbelievable! When looking at this disaster and the horrors that have taken place we are all shaken with sadness. Our eyes and ears can hardly believe what we are seeing and hearing. After three days, thousands of people are still wondering when they will be rescued. It seems that man has no way to pull themselves together to save and protect dying people. Bush Says "Relief results not acceptable"
We all can see that government is almost totally helpless to take care of things. This is the lesson we all need to learn as we watch people perishing as big government stumbles all over it's incapable feet! However the local government failed it's people! Where was their plan of escape? Our president is working to take care of the total breakdown of communications and the lawlessness that now seems to reign. We have seen America's breakdown as God has been shoved aside as if he were a monster. Thanks to the ACLU and their ilk, any form of godliness is unacceptable. The very liberal and progressive one-world government envisioned by the ACLU and the United Nation seems also to be embraced by the far left in America. Thus we now see in these dire desperate days the results of their miserable works in New Orleans. Mayhem rapes the United States of her dignity at the hands of lawless thugs. The Democrat's (DNC) form of socialism robs people from taking stock of their responsibility for their own lives.
The lack of some people's personal responsibility was very much at fault in New Orleans. How can one person by the name of G. W. Bush be expected to give back in three days what has been stolen for many decades of spiritual neglect and willful robbing a nation of it's moral compass!
Open your eyes and see that lawlessness and neglect comes from a nation that has pushed the almighty aside and told it's people that the Ten Commandments are really a relic and a man made myth! The thugs and monsters of society are now the face seen all over the world as America's new face. Everyone knew this horrifying event was going to take place, yet people rolled the dice and played the odds!
More than ever we need God in our lives. A Master's plan was correct from the very beginning. We hide our faces from it. Without God being foremost in our lives, improper thinking to look after a city that was doomed for a disaster, has finally come to fruition. The bigger the government, the slower the response. Mayors come and mayors go. Mr. Mayor Of New Orleans, you are no Mayor Giuliani. Fact: Crime is very very intense in New Orleans. New Orleans has a murder rate that is eight times that of New York City. After five days the National Guard came in to save a people. We cannot think that big government can take care of all Americans. The Lord has a better time and a better place. Lets take ourselves there this day in prayer. . Following are writings from different newspapers
"Storm victims were raped and beaten, fights and fires broke out, corpses lay out in the open, and rescue helicopters and law enforcement officers were shot at as flooded-out New Orleans descended into anarchy Thursday. "This is a desperate SOS," the mayor said. " The levy system needed attention as Alaska a bridge to no where! "Anger mounted across the ruined city, with thousands of storm victims increasingly hungry, desperate and tired of waiting for buses to take them out."
"We are out here like pure animals. We don't have help," the Rev. Issac Clark, 68, said outside the New Orleans Convention Center, where corpses lay in the open and the and other evacuees complained that they were dropped off and given nothing - no food, no water, no medicine. "
"About 15,000 to 20,000 people who had taken shelter at the convention center to await buses grew increasingly hostile. Police Chief Eddie Compass said he sent in 88 officers to quell the situation at the building, but they were quickly beaten back by an angry mob. "
"We have individuals who are getting raped, we have individuals who are getting beaten," Compass said. "Tourists are walking in that direction and they are getting preyed upon."
"In hopes of defusing the unrest at the convention center, Mayor Ray Nagin gave the refugees permission to march across a bridge to the city's unflooded west bank for whatever relief they can find. But the bedlam at the convention center appeared to make leaving difficult. "
"A military heliocpter tried to land at the convention center several times to drop off food and water. But the rushing crowd forced the choppers to back off. Troopers then tossed the supplies to the crowd from 10 feet off the ground and flew away. "
National Guardsmen poured in to help restore order and put a stop to the looting, carjackings and gunfire that have gripped New Orleans in the days since Hurricane Katrina plunged much of the city under water. "
" In a statement to CNN, Nagin said: "This is a desperate SOS. Right now we are out of resources at the convention center and don't anticipate enough buses. We need buses. Currently the convention center is unsanitary and unsafe and we're running our of supplies."
"In Washington, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the government is sending in 1,400 National Guardsmen a day to help stop looting and other lawlessness in New Orleans. Already, 2,800 National Guardsmen are in the city, he said. "
"But across the flooded-out city, the rescuers themselves came under attack from storm victims. "
"Hospitals are trying to evacuate," said Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Cheri Ben-Iesan, spokesman at the city emergency operations center. "At every one of them, there are reports that as the helicopters come in people are shooting at them. There are people just taking potshots at police and at helicopters, telling them, `You better come get my family.'"
"Some Federal Emergency Management rescue operations were suspended in areas where gunfire has broken out, Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said in Washington. "In areas where our employees have been determined to potentially be in danger, we have pulled back," he said. "
"A National Guard military policeman was shot in the leg as he and a man scuffled for the MP's rifle, police Capt. Ernie Demmo said. The man was arrested. "
"These are good people. These are just scared people," Demmo said.
Outside the Convention Center, the sidewalks were packed with people without food, water or medical care, and with no sign of law enforcement. Thousands of storm refugees had been assembling outside for days, waiting for buses that did not come.
At least seven bodies were scattered outside, and hungry people broke through the steel doors to a food service entrance and began pushing out pallets of water and juice and whatever else they could find. "
"An old man in a chaise lounge lay dead in a grassy median as hungry babies wailed around him. Around the corner, an elderly woman lay dead in her wheelchair, covered with a blanket, and another body lay beside her wrapped in a sheet. "
"I don't treat my dog like that," 47-year-old Daniel Edwards said as he pointed at the woman in the wheelchair. "I buried my dog." He added: "You can do everything for other countries but you can't do nothing for your own people. You can go overseas with the military but you can't get them down here."
"The street outside the center, above the floodwaters, smelled of urine and feces, and was choked with dirty diapers, old bottles and garbage. "
"They've been teasing us with buses for four days," Edwards said. "
"People chanted, "Help, help!" as reporters and photographers walked through. The crowd got angry when journalists tried to photograph one of the bodies, and covered it over with a blanket. A woman, screaming, went on the front steps of the convention center and led the crowd in reciting the 23rd Psalm."
John Murray, 52, said: "It's like they're punishing us."
"The Superdome, where some 25,000 people were being evacuated by bus to the Houston Astrodome, descended into chaos as well. "
"Huge crowds, hoping to finally escape the stifling confines of the stadium, jammed the main concourse outside the dome, spilling out over the ramp to the Hyatt hotel next door _ a seething sea of tense, unhappy, people packed shoulder-to-shoulder up to the barricades where heavily armed National Guardsmen stood. "
"At the front of the line, heavily armed policemen and guardsmen stood watch and handed out water as tense and exhausted crowds struggled onto buses. At the back end of the line, people jammed against police barricades in the rain. Luggage, bags of clothes, pillows, blankets were strewn in the puddles. "
"Many people had dogs and they cannot take them on the bus. A police officer took one from a little boy, who cried until he vomited. "Snowball, snowball," he cried. The policeman told a reporter he didn't know what would happen to the dog. "
"Fights broke out. A fire erupted in a trash chute inside the dome, but a National Guard commander said it did not affect the evacuation. After a traffic jam kept buses from arriving at the Superdome for nearly four hours, a near-riot broke out in the scramble to get on the buses that finally did show up. "
"Col. Henry Whitehorn, head of state police, said authorities are working on establishing a temporary jail to hold people accused of looting and other crimes. "These individuals will not take control of the city of New Orleans," he said. "
"The first of hundreds of busloads of people evacuated from the Superdome arrived early Thursday at their new temporary home _ another sports arena, the Houston Astrodome, 350 miles away. "
"But the ambulance service in charge of taking the sick and injured from the Superdome suspended flights after a shot was reported fired at a military helicopter. Richard Zuschlag, chief of Acadian Ambulance, said it was too dangerous for his pilots. "
"The military, which was overseeing the removal of the able-bodied by buses, continued the ground evacuation without interruption, said National Guard Lt. Col. Pete Schneider. The government had no immediate confirmation of whether a military helicopter was fired on. "
"Terry Ebbert, head of the city's emergency operations, warned that the slow evacuation at the Superdome had become an "incredibly explosive situation," and he bitterly complained that FEMA was not offering enough help. "
"This is a national emergency. This is a national disgrace," he said. "FEMA has been here three days, yet there is no command and control. We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can't bail out the city of New Orleans."
"In Texas, the governor's office said Texas has agreed to take in an additional 25,000 refugees from Katrina and plans to house them in San Antonio, though exactly where has not been determined. "
"In Washington, the White House said President Bush will tour the devastated Gulf Coast region on Friday and has asked his father and former President Clinton to lead a private fund-raising campaign for victims. "
"The president urged a crackdown on the lawlessness. "
"I think there ought to be zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this _ whether it be looting, or price gouging at the gasoline pump, or taking advantage of charitable giving or insurance fraud," Bush said. "And I've made that clear to our attorney general. The citizens ought to be working together."
"On Wednesday, Mayor Ray Nagin offered the most startling estimate yet of the magnitude of the disaster: Asked how many people died in New Orleans, he said: "Minimum, hundreds. Most likely, thousands." The death toll has already reached at least 126 in Mississippi. "
"If the estimate proves correct, it would make Katrina the worst natural disaster in the United States since at least the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, which was blamed for anywhere from about 500 to 6,000 deaths. Katrina would also be the nation's deadliest hurricane since 1900, when a storm in Galveston, Texas, killed between 6,000 and 12,000 people. "
"Nagin called for a total evacuation of New Orleans, saying the city had become uninhabitable for the 50,000 to 100,000 who remained behind after the city of nearly a half-million people was ordered cleared out over the weekend. "
"The mayor said that it will be two or three months before the city is functioning again and that people would not be allowed back into their homes for at least a month or two. "
"We need an effort of 9-11 proportions," former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial, now president of the Urban League, said on NBC's "Today" show. "
"A great American city is fighting for its life," he added. "We must rebuild New Orleans, the city that gave us jazz, and music, and multiculturalism."
"Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu toured the stricken areas said rescued people begged him to pass information to their families. His pocket was full of scraps of paper on which he had scribbled down their phone numbers. "
When he got a working phone in the early morning hours Thursday, he contacted a woman whose father had been rescued and told her: "Your daddy's alive, and he said to tell you he loves you."
"She just started crying. She said, `I thought he was dead,'" he said. "
President Bush, facing blistering criticism for his administration's response to Hurricane Katrina, said Friday "the results are not acceptable" and pledged to bolster relief efforts with a personal trip to the Gulf Coast.
"We'll get on top of this situation," Bush said, "and we're going to help the people that need help."
"He spoke on the White House grounds just boarding his presidential helicopter, Marine One, with Homeland Security Department secretary Michael Chertoff to tour the region. The department, which oversees the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has been accused of responding sluggishly to the deadly hurricane. " "There's a lot of aid surging toward those who've been affected. Millions of gallons of water. Millions of tons of food. We're making progress about pulling people out of the Superdome," the president said. "
"For the first time, however, he stopped defending his administration's response and criticized it. "A lot of people are working hard to help those who've been affected. The results are not acceptable," he said. "I'm heading down there right now."
[url]http://www.theconservativevoice.com/articles/article.html?id=8016[/url]
2005-09-04 13:13 | User Profile
Hi, Gabrielle. Long time, no see. [QUOTE]The lack of some people's personal responsibility was very much at fault in New Orleans. How can one person by the name of G. W. Bush be expected to give back in three days what has been stolen for many decades of spiritual neglect and willful robbing a nation of it's moral compass![/QUOTE] The person that wrote this is a lunatic. To answer his question it comes from removing funds from the SELA project to finish the work on the levees and wasting them on Iraq. In fairness to President Clouseau, he had plenty of help in this man-made disaster in the form of the idiot mayor of New Orleans and an incompetent governor. All of these so-called "leaders" have been found wanting. You could say this was a "bi-partisan" screw up. [QUOTE]"We'll get on top of this situation," Bush said, "and we're going to help the people that need help."[/QUOTE] Starting with the administration's image. Bush can count on the sycophants in the Neocon media to blame this on everyone else.
2005-09-04 16:57 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Sertorius]Hi, Gabrielle. Long time, no see.
The person that wrote this is a lunatic. To answer his question it comes from removing funds from the SELA project to finish the work on the levees and wasting them on Iraq. In fairness to President Clouseau, he had plenty of help in this man-made disaster in the form of the idiot mayor of New Orleans and an incompetent governor. All of these so-called "leaders" have been found wanting. You could say this was a "bi-partisan" screw up.
Starting with the administration's image. Bush can count on the sycophants in the Neocon media to blame this on everyone else.[/QUOTE]
Hello Sertorius. :smile: I see you are still blaming Bush for everything... I mean, it couldn't have been that moron black mayor's fault. Let's blame whitey! LOL!
2005-09-04 17:23 | User Profile
Gabrielle,
Nice to see you again too. Now, I want you to re-read my quote. Kindly note that I wrote "In fairness to President Clouseau, he had plenty of help in this man-made disaster in the form of the idiot mayor of New Orleans and an incompetent governor." You see? I really am non-partisan. I don't like stupidity and ignorance whether it be from "Conservatives and Republicans", or "Liberals and Democrats" I think all those who put party ahead of country should be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail. The US doesn't have the luxury for this sort of foolishness anymore.
2005-09-04 17:32 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Sertorius]Gabrielle,
Nice to see you again too. Now, I want you to re-read my quote. Kindly note that I wrote "In fairness to President Clouseau, he had plenty of help in this man-made disaster in the form of the idiot mayor of New Orleans and an incompetent governor." You see? I really am non-partisan. I don't like stupidity and ignorance whether it be from "Conservatives and Republicans", or "Liberals and Democrats" I think all those who put party ahead of country should be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail. The US doesn't have the luxury for this sort of foolishness anymore.[/QUOTE]
I made note of that, but Bush had nothing to do with this at all. :smile:
Guess what I did today, Sertorius? I went to a Southern Baptist Church! :eek:
2005-09-04 21:31 | User Profile
Gabrielle,
You and I disagree. Bush is very much a part of this ugly affair. I and others have posted plenty about this. [QUOTE]Guess what I did today, Sertorius? I went to a Southern Baptist Church! [/QUOTE] Why, bless your heart! I come from a So. Baptist background and the only problem I have with them is the various degrees of belief in the nonsense about "god's chosen people" and apologizing for the acts of my ancestors, i.e., slavery. :bag:
2005-09-04 21:48 | User Profile
The Bush administration isn't shifting any blame anywhere! The fact of the matter is that this horror was due to incompetance and stupidity on the part of state and local officials. It is not the role of the federal government to oversee and implement state civil defense policy. Typical of the liberal mindset though, (as evidenced by some of the posts in this thread) is the notion that 'Big Daddy" in Washington will take care of everything. This type of thinking is inexcusable and, in cases such as what is happening in NOLA right now, undeniably criminal.
2005-09-04 22:04 | User Profile
Opera,
This is for you and Gabrielle. [url]http://www.originaldissent.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19924[/url] [url]http://www.originaldissent.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19984[/url]
2005-09-04 23:30 | User Profile
Why is anyone to blame? Clearly this is just God's way of saying He backs the Kelo decision. First NO, then Rehnquist. Does He have to spell it out in lights?
2005-09-05 03:37 | User Profile
I think that it would have been ILLEGAL for the President to just send troops in to Louisiana without the Governors permission. The Governor is to blame for not getting the LNG into action and then requesting that the president declare it a disaster area first off.
The one thing that just gets me is that NOLA has always been kept afloat by the army corp of engineers. They've known for at least the past half century that one good hurricane and the city would be wiped out. In fact I think that the ACE had done a doomsday scenario about 10-15 years ago and it was down to the "T" what actually happened. Right down to the amount of people being trapped at the superdome for about a week before anything could be done for them. These people knew that in the case of an emergency that the Superdome was the safety shelter for the city. When they got there, no one was there for them. The local officals dropped the ball and forgot the plan.
2005-09-06 15:17 | User Profile
[QUOTE=BlueBonnet]I think that it would have been ILLEGAL for the President to just send troops in to Louisiana without the Governors permission. The Governor is to blame for not getting the LNG into action and then requesting that the president declare it a disaster area first off. The one thing that just gets me is that NOLA has always been kept afloat by the army corp of engineers. They've known for at least the past half century that one good hurricane and the city would be wiped out. In fact I think that the ACE had done a doomsday scenario about 10-15 years ago and it was down to the "T" what actually happened. Right down to the amount of people being trapped at the superdome for about a week before anything could be done for them. These people knew that in the case of an emergency that the Superdome was the safety shelter for the city. When they got there, no one was there for them. The local officals dropped the ball and forgot the plan.[/QUOTE]You are correct. Lawton Chiles came under much criticism in his delay, for Hurricane Andrew, in his request to the Feds to nationalise the guard and other disaster relief steps.
He's gotta ask. That is tied, I believe, to the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878.
AE