The great failure of New Orleans was
a failure of the imagination on the part of all parties. Nobody planned for a scenario that was as bad as the reality. When your
worst-case scenarios are milder than the real event, you're going to have problems.
Every level of government blew it (city, state, local). Now the politicians are all desperately playing the
blame game to ensure that they catch as little of the political fallout as possible. I'd prefer it if they'd all forget placing blame and do something about fixing this problem and preventing the next one, but politicians ensure their own political survival above everything else.
Ciscokid said:
Since when is it the Federal Governments job babysit everyone and fix all our problems??
The federal government volunteered for the job when they created FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) with our tax dollars. I'd say that Katrina fits the classification of a
federal emergency.
Ciscokid said:
I think liberals have used the Katrina disaster to make Bush and the Gov. look bad.
Last hurricane season made every level of government look bad. (And Bush made himself look bad by staying on vacation during the crisis.) Weeks later when Rita was heading toward Houston, they couldn't manage to get gas out to the evacuation routes until after the evacuation was over (with tens of thousands of people stranded along the evacuation routes). The army and national guard have the equipment to do this. The local government doesn't.
Or do you feel that it was the evacuees fault that they ran out of gas? Houston ran out of gas two days before the evacuation began. One of my friends tried to evacuate his family. He headed out of town with 3/4 of a tank. He turned around and came back when he got down to 1/4 of a tank. He hadn't even gotten half way.
Regarding the picture of the looter
with the caption:
Because earning it is for suckas.
Did you actually
look at what the man is carrying?
I can't be certain, but those bottles look like Perrier.
Water. This matches the news reports that indicated most of the looting following the hurricane involved survivors getting food and water.
Ciscokid, you go three days without drinking anything and let me know whether you'd be willing to steal to get some water.
The compassion shown by Reverend Jesse Lee Peterson and EbaumsWorld for the people who suffered the worst is amazing.