Hurricane Katrina

[Realgirls4me]

Where is the National Guard?
They are over in Iraq dying needlessly instead of being home so that they could attend to matters such as this.
Allegedy there were NO amphbius vehicles because there were ALL SENT TO IRAQ!
The situation in Louisiana and others areas are a HORRIFIC disaster.
But what is an even WORSE disaster is the beedy-eyed blue blooded bastard that currently occupies the white house!

Geekmeat: I'm sure the Limbaughs, O'Reillys, and Hannitys of the Conservative talk show world can "explain" the question as to where the National Guard is at the moment.

Nowhereboy: You beat me to the punch. We certainly can't blame dumbfuck-in-charge for the hurricane, but we can certainly blame him for diverting or misappropriating dollars (illegal war, Halliburton, etc) that could have been used for the infrastructure of this country ... Imagine if all those hundreds of billions squandered in Iraq were put to use shoring up this country's deficiencies. Imagine.

[JohnnyWalkerBlackLabel]

As long as gas is $3 a gallon I am for blaming anything on the little monkey aka "Curious George" Bush.

Seriously..................

1000's of people are assumed dead, towns, villages, and national landmarks are gone, and support for our own is nowhere near what it was for the Tsunami victims right after Xmas.

[Ecstatic]

Imagine if they didn't have the Superdome.

Well, we now know the Superdome wasn't the safe haven they thought it would be. I didn't know about diverting funds from the flood control project, though. That's scary.

[Shining Star]

Yes, the Gulf waters were warm, but they have always moved well within that range for this time of year. Furthermore historically the Gulf of Mexico has been known as a great "feeder" of hurricanes exactly because of its warm waters. There have been several very nasty storms that have come of the Gulf such as Camille and the great one that hit Texas in the early 1900's.


Katrina actually weakened to a level 4 before it made landfall, however it's strong winds and storm surge caused more damage to the east because the storm moved slightly off it's predicted course. This is why the damage is so bad along Mississippi.

New Orleans is a host of bad problems that came out with Katrina. For years little or no work as been done in building up/new the levy system, and certianly nothing was done about the vast poverty which exists in that area. Granted nothing could have been done to make everyone "rich", but everyone knew sooner or later a hurricane of Katrina's size and strength was going to hit in or around the city.

The gov of Louisiana was on television and is getting pretty testy about people "complaining" about not being rescued/the rescue effort. According to her the state/feds and others are doing their best and had people headed the evacuation order they might not find themselves in this situation. Now some of that may be aimed at tourists who stayed behind against the mandatory evacuation order, but clearly she was also speaking to the poorer elements that chose to stay behind.

Now it could be argued those people lacked priviate transport, but there were buses (saw woman and her elderly mother a few days before the storm hit waiting for a bus to take them to a shelter), and they could have gone to the Superdome or other place set up at a shelter of last resort.

Calling in more National Guard/police/LE even if LA and Texas had a full force of the former, may or may not have helped. Some pepole simply would not obey the mandatory evacuation order. Those hell bent on looting causing mayhem probably wouldn't let a few Guards stop them. Again you really have to have been in South Louisiana or New Orleans outside of the French Quarter to understand just how poor (and dangerous) that area truly is. As one observer put it, "these people have been oppressed all their lives, and now they are getting getting some of their own back". New Orleans is not all Emeril Lugasse and "Lassiez Bon Temps Roll On". Stray too far off Bourbon Street and you can get mugged, shot, sliced, gutted like a cat fish and chucked into a bog, never to be heard from again.

SS

[ezed]

No time to critisize, moralize or hypothotize. It's time to help, however you can. We can do the rest of that stuff later. What ever you can do...do. Critisim only puts people in a defense mode and diverts what ever talents they have from helping to defending their mamby pamby jobs. Let's get relief to to those poor bastards that are in hell and do the commentary afterward. First things first.

[geekmeat]

I just heard that the army core of engineers in louisiana asked for money to finish repairing the levees in new orleans.
The bush administration gave less than 20% of what they asked for.
Why didnt the bush regime give this money?
The reasons supplied were:the war in iraq and TAX CUTS.

[geekmeat]

Ok
It finally happened.
Remember how I told you the right wing christian nuts ALWAYS blame gays for natural disasters saying it is gods wrath?
Well its happened.
A group called REPENT AMERICA(from loiusana) has stated in a press release the new orleans was destroyed because of some annual gay gathering in the french quarter AND girls gone wild.
I fully agree with god being mad at the girls gone wild people....they have telemarketers calling me all the time about that shit.
But yeah.......there you go.......just like have have muslim fanatics lopping off peoples heads you have the wacky religous sickos making vile statements at the most inappropriate time immagineable.

Cheers

[NYCe]

I just heard that the army core of engineers in louisiana asked for money to finish repairing the levees in new orleans.
The bush administration gave less than 20% of what they asked for.
Why didnt the bush regime give this money?
The reasons supplied were:the war in iraq and TAX CUTS.

Pull up a FEMA report, The levees haven't been properly funded for decades. As much as I enjoy a well deserved Bush bashing, this particular point isn't one. If anything the lack of National Guard helicopters (due to their being sent to Iraq) was much more tragic than the lack of leeve funding.

[NYCe]

Hey geekmeat

http://www.repentamerica.com/pr_hurricanekatrina.html

[JohnnyWalkerBlackLabel]

On a sidenote I want to add this about Katrina

The Oil Suppliers in just about every major city in the U.S. are using her wrath as a reason to make a profit........

30% of the oil refinaries in the lower southeast were damaged and because of that prices have skyrocketed
this isn't just gas anymore, it's going to be felt hard in the ultra-cold winter coming as people wonder why their heating bills have gone through the roof. If you have a home start seriously considering investing in solar panels........