I am sure Michael Moore is preparing his feature length docu on the buses as we speak…not!

No, his next film is about the FEMA genius who wouldn’t let the Red Cross into New Orleans.

If they attended to people dying in hospitals, then those people might want to stay.

Not. As in your feeble defense of the Bushies are not gonna cut it this time.

But…they had buses.…

Did they have the local manpower to organize one of the largest evacuations in US history?

But…they had buses.…

Did local officials have the resources to feed, water and provide medical aid to the tens of thousands of people they’d needed to evacuate?

But…they had buses.…

Did they have a destination? Or were the buses supposed to travel North until they ran out of gas? And If they had destinations, were these destinations equipped to deal with thousands and thousands of survivors for days on end?

But…they had buses.…

Yes, they had Buses. Almost 600 of them. They just didn’t have any support from the Federal Government. And if you think it’s possible to evacuate a major US city without it…well, the term Batshit Insane has been escaping my lips at an acceleratred pace the more I hear apologists for FEMA, the DHS and The President.

Source.

Oh, and while we’re desperatly trying to pass the blame to the one level of Government that actually DID something in the crisis, let’s not forget who was actually supposed to be in charge of the whole thing.

Link

Statement on Federal Emergency Assistance for Louisiana

The President today declared an emergency exists in the State of Louisiana and ordered Federal aid to supplement state and local response efforts in the parishes located in the path of Hurricane Katrina beginning on August 26, 2005, and continuing.

The President’s action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives, protect property and public health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in the parishes of Allen, Avoyelles, Beauregard, Bienville, Bossier, Caddo, Caldwell, Claiborne, Catahoula, Concordia, De Soto, East Baton Rouge, East Carroll, East Feliciana, Evangeline, Franklin, Grant, Jackson, LaSalle, Lincoln, Livingston, Madison, Morehouse, Natchitoches, Pointe Coupee, Ouachita, Rapides, Red River, Richland, Sabine, St. Helena, St. Landry, Tensas, Union, Vernon, Webster, West Carroll, West Feliciana, and Winn.

Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency. Debris removal and emergency protective measures, including direct Federal assistance, will be provided at 75 percent Federal funding.

Representing FEMA, Michael D. Brown, Under Secretary for Emergency Preparedness and Response, Department of Homeland Security, named William Lokey as the Federal Coordinating Officer for Federal recovery operations in the affected area.

Get it?

Source

While you’re playing your little game of blaming-the-blamers, you can post this story about how little Republicans really do care about America:

Hastert Questions Rebuilding New Orleans

And if thats the house leader saying it, I dont want to think about what the higher-up Republicans are saying.…

-Q

Sorry, me again.

I also think anyone willing to blame the Local or State Authorities, especially the Local ones, needs to have a look at this.

Link

Starting at page 43, it outlines the Proactive Federal Response to Catastrophic Events. Several phrases immediatly jump out at you. (Beside the obvious word “Proactive”)

“A catastrophic event could result in sustained national impacts over a prolonged period of time; almost immediately exceeds resources normally available to State, local, “

and this one

“coordination process must not delay or impede the rapid deployment and use of critical resources. “

Source

And you can read this as well…

[A entire page of inane liberal cut-and-paste deleted here]

No thank you. Post a link instead next time. Or better yet, get your own blog Razzy.

JYB Ed.

Now the liberals have a defense on the bus issue. George Bush was supposed to send in bus drivers to evacuate New Orleans. Good one brainiac.

As for the other crap, Louisiana has a person called a Governor. We don’t have as dictatorship. She does things like coordinate with other states and assist them and the feds when they arrive to help. She is not supposed to allow lawlessness to break out first, to have no communication or clue as to what is happening, to BS the feds to keep them at bay, to cry, or to obstruct those trying to assist her. The feds mobilized immediately under a state of emergency, then they ran into a state of anarchy and found the governor in a state of political panic and complete denial.

Get a clue.

Yes, but the buses were part of an evacuation plan even before Katrina was a blip on the radar screen. Preparations were lacking and execuation fell apart, at the local level.

The feds supplement rather than supplant locals. This makes common sense, as can be seen in an number of other large scale evacuations undertaken in modern times in other locations. You want to make NO an exception — due to anticipation of local incompetence?

The movement of local people on local buses on local roadways with local knowledge is the key to any evacuation. The scale of the need and pecularities of this migration all stem from the desire of locals to survive. And everyone else has shown great responsiveness in lending all kinds of assistance.

It shouldn’t take a presidential intervention to prompt local authorities to order a mandatory evacuation, to kick-in preparations to meet the pre-known large scale need, and to accomodate pre-Hurricane refugee destinations.

Now, if the local preparations were inadequate, or if the plans were poorly executed, there’s not much that the feds could have done any faster than they did. Stuff happens and contingencies are part of the planning and execution process. Locals knew that even if everyone who wanted to get out did get out quickly, there would still be thousands who’d choose to stay in harm’s way. Whatever the plan was for helping those people had to be enlarged on a huge scale because those who wanted to get out did not have the means to do so. The locals were authorized by local planning authorities to make use of local assets, such as buses, to avoid this scenario. They had plans for traffic flow as well as for security in the mass movement of people, and they had the mechanisms to coordinate with destinations. There was a massive failure at the local level; the feds had to compensate but they needed the specifics from the locals. With the breakdown in communications — and whatever its cause — the command structure collapsed and had a tragic ripple effect that cost lives. To make solid decisions and to effect those decisions on the ground requires local input. The quality of information need not be perfect but it needs to be confirmed as the plan is executed, adapted, and objectives are reached.

“Administration ignored it’s own plan for dealing with a threat like Katrina.”

What precisely in the plan was ignored, according to your information?

Umm, first of all, I DID post a link.

Link

Either your mad that I linked it to the actual DHS site instead of the TPMCafe site or your mad that I didn’t (and still didn’t) bother to make it one of those fancy embeded links, I haven’t figured out yet.

Secondly, is the line “George Bush was supposed to send in bus drivers to evacuate New Orleans.”

suppose to refer to my original post? Because i believe what i said was

“Did they have the local manpower to organize one of the largest evacuations in US history?”

Not just bus drivers. Enough people to make sure everyone got on the buses. Enough people to make sure the area was secured afterwards. Enough people to coordinate, as i said before, one of the largest evacuations in US history. Not to mention the supplies needed for such a trip, as well as a destination for the evacuees.

It just seems to me that you expect/expected the Local Government of New Orleans to be able to handle all of this without Federal assistance of any kind. Clearly (uh-oh, more non embedded links) the primary responsibility for making sure the response professionals were prepared for this situation rested with the DHS.

Link

And do I (A Canadian) need to tell you that FEMA has responsibilities in what it defines as four domains of emergency management.

1. Mitigation: Reducing the severity or likelihood of the hazard. 2. Preparedness: Ensuring you have the capability to respond to the hazard. 3. Response: Immediate actions taken to save lives, property, the environment, and the economy. 4. Recovery: Subsequent actions taken to restore property, jobs, and services.

Clearly it failed miserably in the first 2 domains. They might have met the requirments for the 3rd if it wasn’t for the word “Immediate”. Let’s hope they do better with the recovery end of things.

Don’t Impeach Bush. Just fire Brown and Chertoff. And get a new congress next year.

Source

And as for the comment about me starting my own blog…that’s not a bad idea. I’ll certainly take it under consideration. I’ll make sure to post a link here if I ever decided to do it.

Maybe I’ll call it “Rolled up Newspaper”?

Source.

Did the buses have gas? I mean, I’ve heard there was no gas in town and that’s why a lot of people couldn’t leave. (Was gas shortage considered in the evac plan?)

Also, I don’t recall seeing anything in the evacuation plan about coordination with the Feds for evacuating the city. Did anyone ever scrutinize this plan, test this plan, rehearse this plan? It seems grossly inadequate—reminds me more of the logistics for my sixth grade field trip to the Museum of Science.

Finally, Where in the plan does it say where these people should be evacuated to? I mean, even if the bus drivers got everyone on board safely (drug addicts, cripples, people on artificial support et al) Where now?

Source,

Let me update for some clarity for you. Actually if that was you using a different name (which it probably was), you only had that URL within a full page of someone else’s writing that you posted. So don’t be a deceptive smartass. If it was not you, then nevermind and stop complaining like you’re Razzy. It applies to whoever Razzy is.

URLs or links are fine (though links are easier). But if you’re going to cut and paste an entire page of text out of context without attribution to the leftist site you got it from it will be deleted, and next time I won’t be nice and replace it with a link. Then if you want to continue to hijack the comments everything will be deleted and you’ll be back to square one.

Got it?

This is why you need your own blog anyhow Source.

“It just seems to me that you expect/expected the Local Government of New Orleans to be able to handle all of this without Federal assistance of any kind.”

Supplement not supplant. It is not a matter of finger pointing. It makes common sense to depend on the local authorities and the locals on the ground. That’s how good decisions are made, with reliable info from those on the spot with knowledge of the local area, assetts, priorities, and so forth. The view from Canada must be very advantageous as far as seeing what was happening on the ground, eh?

To repeat: What precisely in the plan was ignored, according to your information? Get to the hard facts rather than abstract concepts. Or concede that you have less to contribute than even the Mayor of NO.

Here in California we have to be prepared for “The Big One” (earthquake)all the time. We are told not to expect any type of asistance for at least 4 days. We don’t get 5 days notice.

I have: a Coleman stove and lantern, 2 cases of propane fuel for them, 30 gal of water in 1 gal bottles, a 5 gallon water bag and a bath tub ready to fill before the pressure drops off. I have 2 weeks worth of canned/dry food and a canopener! Finally, I have a tent in case the house endss up as kindling.

Is it too un-PC to ask about any form of self reliance?

This is to philly2dc

The Red Cross can not tend to people dying in hospitals. In fact, they are able to do little more than provide water and shelter and give you BASIC first aid, (including insulin to diabetics), but beyond that, they are NOT doctors and can not treat serious injuries or diseases. They function as organizers in temporary camps for displaced persons—they certainly can’t perform surgery.

It seems to me you believe the Red Cross is imbued with magical care taking powers. It’s simply not the case.

Erik,

You’re a fine American citizen and I don’t think your governor would let you down by allowing anarchy and lawyers to block whatever help he needs from the rest of us.

The Canal Street bus facility was shown, inadvertently, on Sept 5th in a CNN report by Nic Robertson.

The white rooftops are clearly visible at the 1:13 to 1:16 mark in Collecting the thousands of dead.

Sadly, the report was about the retrieval and evacuation of corpses.

The CNN video shows this yard as noted by Cylnder who linked to the google map image in another thread.

Sorry, this yard and this thread.

Thanks for the good info Beef,

Everyone is posting nice easy links now. I actually updated my comment above to clarify the mixup with Razzy/Source. It wasn’t about the link so much as about him posting a massive amount of somebody else’s blog stripped of the formatting as a “comment.” Why not just give us the link to the person’s formatted work or post a small excerpt? Source was already flooding the comments so it made it even more annoying.

Before quickly tiring of the stupidity on display on this thread I read that a Republican leader said he questioned the wisdom of rebuilding NO. The deep minds on board equated this with “not caring” about NO and its people. The problem with these threads is that you sometimes don’t know if you are reading someone who is twelve or or a liberal who stopped growing at age 12. Logic, children. Try thinking. If the city is going to fill up with water again and people are going to die again maybe discussion is warranted about its future. Caring? What does that have to do with it? You are all idiots. Orcs. Moonbats. Children is the worst sense of the word. And a drag on the future of the country. You should each trade places with someone who values the idea of coming here and being a citizen. You hate it here, don’t you? Well, go to France and visit with Johnny Depp and his friends. I’m sure they would love to have you over for dinner.

I guess only Mayor Nagin can explain WHY there are flooded busses in the city of New Orleans? If any proper evacuation was even attempted, one would not expect to see even one bus left in the city…

only he knows that answer

Supprot from the government to drive the buses…

did I read a comment correctly? Does the federal government drive the buses Monday thru Friday and the city buses on the weekend? Enough said.

Lesson learned…when major disaster strikes…call the federal government if you have a Democrat as your local elected officials (because they can’t help you)

It sure does look as though some among the reactionary Left have been pulling out brain cells on their Q-Tips instead of ear wax. That bit about “Who was going to drive the buses?” is particularly hilarious.

Do these people have no concept whatever of how even as chronically dysfunctional a city as New Orleans makes it from day to day? Do they have no concept of when evacuations take place? (Hint: BEFORE everybody has left!)

I guess here’s the living proof: Bush Derangement Syndrome really does cause brain damage in its sufferers.

Must the president personally wipe every single snotty nose and personally fill in every pothole in America?

The Feds come in to offer LONG TERM SUPPORT and help RECOVERY not provide PRIMARY or FIRST RESPONDER CARE. That is the responsibility of LOCAL and STATE agencies.

At what point did the state and local authorities become so pathetically helpless? What is the purpose of state and local government if everytime they are asked to do something they whine about how the FEDS should handle it? Why do we pay state and local taxes if these whiners are not needed?

And what about the personal responsibility of the citizens of N.O.? They were told to evacuate and many chose (and are still chosing at this time) not evacuate. Why do stupid personal lifestyle choices on other peoples parts become my financial and physical obligations? I do exempt the old and ill from this condemnation.

Anyone read the disaster plan for New Orleans? It states “in case of hurricane, impending disaster, all city vehicles, buses, motorized vehicles, boats, etc. will be used to evacuate residents”. Anyone remember Andrew and the more than 4 day response the citizens got? Anyone see FEMA or the Coast Guard in South Dakota in 2003 when 17 tornadoes hit and wiped 2 rural communities off the map? Anyone see them in Wisconsin this summer? Why is it that when a predominantly white community is hit by a disaster the fed. government seldom shows up? It is so much easier to play the race card when you are black, that way you can give the ignorant and corrupt LA officials a pass.

I find it sad that the worst natural disaster in the history of our country is met first by lefty finger pointing and bomb throwing. Oh well. Maybe Hillary’s new Katrina Commission will shed some light on Nagin’s inability to drive a few folks out of there with three days warning.

Yea, right.

About all the questions concerning where and how the folks would be sheltered. Is no one remembering Sunday August 28? Katrina is heading right at NO with CAT5 force. If it had hit at that strength, I fear we would not be debating the time it took to get supplies and order into NO but whether the death toll would be 100,000 or 120,000. That’s what the Mayor knew on Sunday, he had abandonded almost 20% of his city’s population. He gambled; he was not as lucky as Hurrican Ivan last year.

My question about sheltering was, even if the buses were used, TO WHERE were these people supposed to be evacuated? WHERE????? Maybe that’s why Nagin didn’t use the buses… he had no where to take them. How do say, BIG OVERSIGHT in the evac plan. Another big oversight in the Evac plan was factoring in the possibility of GAS shortage. Many people could not get out because there was no more gas left in the city.

The plan should have been scrutinized and reviewed DAILY given the inevitability (at least five months of the year, every year) of a catastrophic hurricane. It’s what you do when you live 8-feet below sea level.

George Bush doesn’t care about blacks? Guess again Mr. Kanye West; blacks don’t care about blacks. I don’t know what this mayor was doing, or where he thought he lived or what his responsibilities were, but I suspect he was too busy sniffing coke off of whores asses in the French Quarter to give it a second thought.

The real tragedy is he’s probably going to get busloads of money now to rebuild this hell hole.