Decius wrote:

Michael Brown also agreed with other public officials that the death toll in the city could reach into the thousands."Unfortunately, that's going to be attributable a lot to people who did not heed the advance warnings," Brown told CNN."I don't make judgments about why people chose not to leave but, you know, there was a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans," he said.

They are not letting people leave. The Astrodome has stopped accepting people. Rattle's theory is that they have a disease problem and so they don't want to evac people until they are ready to quarantine them. This spin, however, is terrible. Some people couldn't leave. Some people didn't get the memo. The Governor of Mississippi has gone on record saying that as of Friday they had no idea it was going to be this bad, so blaming the people on the street is unconsionable.

The Brown guy is the BIGGEST asshole. Brian Williams interviewed him last night and asked him point blank about why relief efforts are slow and where all the aid is going. All the Brown guy could say is they had buses on the way and that people at the convention center were being fed everyday. Bullshit. The people on TV talk about not eating or hardly getting water at all since the disaster began, much less every day. Who the hell does this guy think he's kidding?

-janelane, infuriated

Decius wrote:
They are not letting people leave. The Astrodome has stopped accepting people. Rattle's theory is that they have a disease problem and so they don't want to evac people until they are ready to quarantine them. This spin, however, is terrible. Some people couldn't leave. Some people didn't get the memo. The Governor of Mississippi has gone on record saying that as of Friday they had no idea it was going to be this bad, so blaming the people on the street is unconsionable.

You can call it unconsionable if you like, but there's tons and tons of people down there who have absolutely no justification for not having left, and who by their *mere presence* are making the situation a magnitude of order worse. You can see them on every newscast with live footage. Just look at the pictures of the crowds around the convention center--we should be seeing a majority of infirm and crippled but instead we're seeing tons of otherwise healthy and mobile people who could have gotten on the buses and left when evacuation was declared mandatory. Every single one of those people who did not leave when they had the chance is one more person the evacuation forces have to deal with and are detracting from saving the lives of the people who really could not get out of there. Every one of those people are proudly exhibiting non-survival traits by sitting there waiting instead of banding up and moving north on their own. Remember, there was a time in America where "mass transit" meant "wide dirt roads". Although it appears that now is the time in America where an "emergency response" is something only the U.S. Army is allowed to give, since they've just told the Salvation Army they're not allowed past their barricades. (...yet news agencies have been doing fine going in and out.)

Unfortunately now we're finding out how badly Bush has fucked this country over in his pursuit of personal goals (i.e., the "war on terror" to protect the interests of big oil), and it's making all the stupidity and hubris of the residents of the former city of New Orleans irrelevant.

We're finding that FEMA was supposed to have gotten a large sum of cash specifically earmarked for them so they could set it aside specifically to deal with a problem like this at New Orleans. Instead Bush apparently pillaged that fund and put that money towards The War.

We're finding out that mysteriously we can send forces and supplies to help out Asia literally _overnight_ but we can't seem to get more than a handful of buses and... [ Read More (0.3k in body) ]

Dagmar wrote:

Decius wrote:
They are not letting people leave. The Astrodome has stopped accepting people. Rattle's theory is that they have a disease problem and so they don't want to evac people until they are ready to quarantine them. This spin, however, is terrible. Some people couldn't leave. Some people didn't get the memo. The Governor of Mississippi has gone on record saying that as of Friday they had no idea it was going to be this bad, so blaming the people on the street is unconsionable.

...
To put it bluntly, I blame _Bush_ for this massive collection of fuckups. If his war on terror were anything more than a smokescreen for taking some oil fields, they'd at least be able to use all the so-called emergency plans that everywhere is supposed to have been drafting up to deal with a massive terrorist attack to get _some_ of those people out of there. Bush, on the other hand, has apparently refused to allow some spoiled peasants in New Orleans to screw up his vacationing plans with actual work.

Well said, but that doesn't make the FEMA guy any less of an asshole. Also, you weirdly neglected to mention the irony of the police spending time fighting looting when the people have literally been left with no alternative.

I am forced to disagree with you on a big point, however. As far as packing up and walking north, they have absolutely no reason to believe it's any better anywhere else. They have no idea how far the destruction spreads. They can't imagine facing the unknown terrors of 20' deep floodwaters, no neighbors to help them, possible getting trapped if it starts to rain again,etc. I'd say they learned their lesson; after failing to evacuate, they have since done what they were told by sitting it out in the Superdome. If they leave, who's to say their children won't die the day after authorities arrive with supplies? Its a pretty big risk, especially for families with children. Afterall, even the dirt path had towns for stocking up on necessities.

-janelane, sympathetically

Dagmar wrote:
You can call it unconsionable if you like, but there's tons and tons of people down there who have absolutely no justification for not having left, and who by their *mere presence* are making the situation a magnitude of order worse.

You are certainly correct, but they ALL don't fit into that catagory, and the reality is that we don't know why these people didn't leave. To have a FEMA manager on TV saying "Ah, its their fault anyway" instead of explaining what his organization is doing about the situation is a problem. The people are there and its his job to get them out. He can do a PR campaign on evacuation notices once he has actual quantitative survey data about why people stayed.

Of course, the people could always get up and start walking out of there.

After 4 days without food that may not be practical anymore.