My question is, the mayor of New Orleans knew the Superdome was going to be a refuge, no matter how much they denied it. It was used last year for Ivan, and they knew there were people who weren't going to get out. In fact they told people to bring 4 or 5 days of provisions. Why were there emergency stockpiles in the Dome. Was the money allocated, and then diverted?
Could the trucks even get there? Wasn't the dome surounded by 4' of water? Idk, someone inform me of this. That was my argument: How do you set up staging for relief efforts in 4-8 feet of water? I could tell they were on higher ground. But, how do you get there?
These aren't rhetorical, someone answer these please.
Yep. It was early last week, and I heard it too. I think it got lost in the shuffle.
Before the storm hit, a Louisiana official was on TV talking about how the Super Dome was ready to receive all these people. He lied, obviously. They most certainly were NOT ready. No food and water!! He was going on and on about how that structure could withstand the hurricane and furthermore that the people would be safe there. He had to have known that they were not prepared. I don't like being lied to. That guy was a bold-faced liar. He said the Super Dome was part of their hurricane response. Barf.
This is my suspicion only: It looks as though there was a concentrated effort to keep city money from being spent. They were waiting for the Federal spigot to be turned on. Then there would be no more need for city money and, in the confusion, would then slip out of sight and into big easy pockets. Just a suspicion knowing that buses did not roll causing drivers to be paid and fuel costs to be made. Just a suspicion.
Knew it? Despite the pictures of swamped buses, Nagin had people bused to the Superdome, as reported by the AP on August 28th:
"Conceding that as many as 100,000 inner-city residents didn't have the means to leave and an untold number of tourists were stranded by the closing of the airport, the city arranged buses to take people to 10 last-resort shelters, including the Superdome."
And the governor, despite some reports, did have the National Guard on hand prior to the hurricane, as well. They were at the Superdome, patting people down for weapons before allowing them to enter!
Further, the Superdome evacuation began on August 31st (again, thanks, AP.)
Not trying to defend Nagin here, but while the Feds certainly knew that there were people at the Superdome and Convention Center, those were clearly designated by local authorities as shelters. It would have been an outrageous waste of resources to start pulling people out of shelters, when the primary focus the first few days was to rescue those in immediate jeopardy and putting htme into shelters. And, as has been well documented elsewhere, Lousiana authorities had not asked for Federal intervention yet (although, according to AP again, the White House had decided by Wednesday the 31st, that they ought to have done so.
According to Nagin's current account of the meeting between Bush and Blanco, this must have been around the time that Bush laid out options for Blanco, begging her to do something.
But Nero Blanco fiddled...