posted on Anti-Strib...

Sequel who is a friend of mine, and very smart, has this to say.

Who to blame?

The media have decided that this is a good way to make the President look bad,
although many have tried to lay the blame at the feet of Bush, that's just partisan mud slinging. Yesterday a Ms. Rhodes at Air-un-America said that Bush was happy to see all those dead bodies because they were (a) democrat voters, (b) black, (c) he just digs seeing people dead. What the hell is wrong with these people?
Whose fault is this disorganized mess? Let me lay out my view of the situation:

The Mayor and city government of N.O. and the governor and state agencies of LA really seem to have dropped the ball on this thing.
The federal government does not set up the local disaster contingency plans. State and local agencies are responsible for that.

Let me make a few examples. To avoid being partisan myself I'm going to praise a Democrat.
In San Francisco when I lived there the Mayor was Diane Feinstein. When she was told that an earthquake would kill thousands at Candlestick Park because the concrete awning would collapse, she said fix it now, we'll make room in the budget. When they wanted to eliminate the fire boats and she was told that the marina district would probably burn to the ground in an earthquake without the pumps those boats provided, she said Keep them, safety is more important, we'll make room in the budget.
That earthquake happened in 1989, the awning at candlestick held during that World Series game, thousands did not die there because of advanced planning and the retrofitting for earthquakes.
The fires in the marina district could be put out because of those fireboats.

The San Francisco cops and emergency management folks drilled over and over thinking of various scenarios and how to deal with them. When that earthquake happened they were ready. Things were screwed up to be sure, but the plans were there and in place and they mostly worked. The hundreds of thousands of daytime suburban workers were directed out of the city on some very odd routes by police and radio broadcasts. Without the multi department, multi municipal coordination and planning it would have been chaos. No one had to drive over damaged and collapsed bridges because they had thought of this stuff in advance. It was a long surreal, blacked out night of fires and destruction, but everyone got out in an orderly fashion.

In N.O. they have been predicting since 1965 that if the city were hit by a category 3 or larger hurricane the levies would give. They did not fix them. Year after year the city government asked the feds to do something, the feds gave the army corps money here and there for some levy projects, but the city never took control of the situation like SF. They just said it's someone else's problem to take care of our city, and kept putting it off. There was no leader who stepped up and made the safety of that city their cause. It' been decade after decade of passing the buck.

Having known that a category 4 or 5 storm was coming which plan did the city of N.O. implement for the evacuation in the event of a levy breach? Well none, there were no contingency plans for a levy breech (!?). As the storm approached the Mayor called for the evacuation of the city. What about those without transportation? They never considered that. So only those with a car and a full tank of gas were able to leave. All they could do was say that those who couldn’t leave should go to the superdome. Once the storm hit, the air conditioning and plumbing at the dome predictably stopped functioning. There was no water, food or any other supplies for the tens of thousands of people the city asked to go there.
They never thought of that, never planned for that.

In one of the most vulnerable cities for a disaster in the country, it seems they were caught completely flat-footed. No one seemed to know what should be done. There seemed to be no contingency plans for a flood at all. The police cars were all flooded out. Police communication is out because there is no back up to the radios if they lose power. The pumps that keep the city dry have no back up power supply that won’t be affected by a flood! Small boats for rescue operations? There are no boats. Evacuation pick-up sites? None. Emergency flood evacuation routes? They don't have any. Food and water distribution sites planned in advance? Nothing. Why the hell not? This is the event N.O. should have been planning for and drilling on for decades.
Can you imagine San Francisco or Los Angeles not knowing what to do after a disastrous earthquake? Overwhelmed maybe, but confused and doing nothing? Unthinkable!
This seems to me like Denver or Buffalo being shocked and confused as to what to do by a big snowstorm. (Ever see those emergency snow routes?)

Now I see the emergency management guy from N.O. on TV holding press conferences blaming Bush for not being fast enough to bail his city out of the mess this guy helped create.

In every US natural disaster the city county and state have to hold things together for the 3 to 5 days it takes to get the feds and the national guard ramped up to take over with their larger resources etc.
In this case N.O. just floundered for those 3 to 5 days, nothing was done by the city or state, NOTHING. Citizens and the Coast Guard did the only rescues I saw. Now the feds are in there and I would expect the dying will promptly stop, the looting will be over in the next 24-48 hours, and the city should be empty of its citizens by early next week, and then the cleanup can begin.

I wish that the media would stop using this disaster as another opportunity to take all the usual cheap shots at Bush and focus on the events, relief work, and the actual incompetence of the local authorities in this mess.

Well Sequel, they have a right to free speech, and we have a right to call them complete morons, they just don't get it. I beyond being angry, I'm sad for them.