Posted on 09/02/2005 1:57:33 PM PDT by gitmo
The official version; then there's the in-the-trenches version
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Diverging views of a crumbling New Orleans emerged Thursday. The sanitized view came from federal officials at news conferences and television appearances. But the official line was contradicted by grittier, more desperate views from the shelters and the streets.
These conflicting views came within hours, sometimes minutes of each of each other, as reflected in CNN's transcripts. The speakers include Michael Brown, chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, evacuee Raymond Cooper, CNN correspondents and others. Here's what they had to say:
Conditions in the Convention Center
FEMA chief Brown: We learned about that (Thursday), so I have directed that we have all available resources to get that convention center to make sure that they have the food and water and medical care that they need. (See video of CNN asking why FEMA is clueless about conditions -- 2:11)
Mayor Nagin: The convention center is unsanitary and unsafe, and we are running out of supplies for the 15,000 to 20,000 people. (Hear Nagin's angry demand for soldiers. 1:04)
CNN Producer Kim Segal: It was chaos. There was nobody there, nobody in charge. And there was nobody giving even water. The children, you should see them, they're all just in tears. There are sick people. We saw... people who are dying in front of you.
Evacuee Raymond Cooper: Sir, you've got about 3,000 people here in this -- in the Convention Center right now. They're hungry. Don't have any food. We were told
(Excerpt) Read more at edition.cnn.com ...
I agree that a great deal of responsibility lies with the local government.
That said, the FEMA chief sounds like an absolute idiot.
How can he say that FEMA was unaware of the crowd situation
at the Superdome until Thursday? It's been on every TV and internet outlet since Tuesday. And then in the interview he states that he doesn't think the social breakdown is that bad. It makes the entire administration look like aloof uncaring idiots.
I hope the president publicly chastises him at some point after things are under control
Are you serious with this last comment? Since when is it the "job" of "local government" to forcibly move nearly half a million people from their homes in under 72 hours?
Name on city anywhere on earth that can and would do such a thing. One.
I read this mayor's interview and in the entire interview Nagin did not mention a single thing he or the city is doing about anything. It was all him saying he doesn't know what needs to be done but help is needed and the feds should be creative and think of something. He was no more proactive than any trapped citizen I've seen on the air. Mind you, this is the city's mayor. Everyone is mentioning Giuliani but nagin is this crisis' Giuliani.
I don't get it? What's wrong with school buses? Why does it have to be cushy Greyhounds? Am i misinterpreting this?
Guiliani led. Nagin is chicken little.
"What's wrong with school buses?"
They just didn't have enough style, apparently.
The river itself has wanted to change direction for some time now, but leaders from the Federal level on down consider letting it do so to be a non-starter. This is just a small example of how complex the situation really was, so to place all blame at those "typically lazy and corrupt" Louisianians is, well, lazy.
Actually, it's the citizen's job to get themselves out. It's nice when the city can help out. Hopefully you're not saying that it's the job of the feds to run willy nilly around the country to make sure people get out of the way of tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc?
If it was not local govt's job to evacuate the city, they should have turned it over to the feds WAY back. The mayor called for evacuation, I think. If you assume responsibility, then you have to TAKE responsibility.
Nope. You see it clearly. He wouldn't use school buses to evacuate the city. Nagin wanted Greyhounds.
So he'd rather his people die than ride in an ugly school bus?!
How the mayor and governor decided to plan for that was their job. Had they called for voluntary evac sooner (without having to be forcibly shoved by President Bush and the head of the Weather Channel met. team) they would have had fewer people to forcibly evacuate. With that in mind, having a plan to utilize the available school buses (and incidentally save the city's bus fleet) would have been a good idea.
Doubt they would have gotten them all. But they could have moved the sick, the elderly, and the destitute, and a plan that included more encouragement to leave (door to door, leafletting, regular radio announcements) would have helped as well.
Just because you can't move everybody is no excuse to sit down in the road and not even TRY. But I suppose that is what years of corrupt liberal rule will get you.
You said: "What's wrong with school buses?"
They just didn't have enough style, apparently.
Before the next disaster there should be an agency in charge of installing spinners on the wheels of all of the school buses. I am shocked the mayor didn't think of this.
Oh please Oh please! Start a thread! I have to go out soon and won't be back for about a day....so I'm gonna be scarce on FR for a day or so soon. :-)
May I ask what vintage of shan't-can't-won't you are drinking?
>>It should have it's own thread, if it doesn't already.
It does.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1475798/posts
Hurricane path prediction has improved dramatically. They were saying last week that this one was probably going to hit NO, by Thursday or Friday they pretty certain it was going to hit there Monday. FEMA says you need 3 days to evacuate a city, they got enough notice from the weather service but they did nothing with the information until late Saturday. New Orleans didn't gamble, the mayor and governor did nothing. They didn't order an evacuation until to late, they didn't mobilize hardly any NG troops to help with the evacuation, they didn't comandere equipment to help with the evacuation, they didn't do a damn thing. After they gave the too late evacuation order apparently they figures that meant everybody would magically leave. And let's not forget the "dodged the bullet" press conference.
The good new about hurricanes is that they're so predictable and so much much disaster preperation can be done before they hit. Because of gross innactivity this wound up blindsiding the city. The "unlistening" dodge just doesn't work here, they had a known large population that relies on public transportation for everything, we're already getting reports that these people were waiting for some word from the government on how they should be leaving. Now sure they should have been more pro-active, but you can't accuse these people of not listening, they were listening, unfortunately they were listening to nothing because the mayor forgot he owns a bunch of school buses.
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