Re: Re: Re: NO Mayor is sick of Bush
 

I don't think that is true, Tony!

Yeah. (I hope I don't have to quote everyone as I review the thread LOL) AND, the budget was cut!!!

Senator Mary Landrieu had to remind a CNN correspondent early last week that if it wasn't for Louisiana, we would not have the country we do today. Louisiana/LP was the port responsible for getting goods and services to the rest of the country.

Its amazing (as I watch) C-SPAN that I see a picture of Louisiana and our eroding coastline. I guess something good has to come out of this.

The Congressional Hearings are going to be a mess. Mike Brown is shakes in his boots everytime a reporter asks him about his fate with FEMA and who is responsible for this fiasco. :o

I'm glad that RD and her family members were reunited! I know that experience has traumatized many. Some of the interviews and reports of what happened in the dome, near the Convention Center and during rescue attempts are unbelievable!

It's a shame!

Glad to know that those affected by the hurricane on GC are ok. I received information via email about what we as African Americans can do to assist those devastated by the storm:

make donations to: www.naacp.org/disater/contribute.php
I just saw the National director on Tavis Smiley and he stated that he will hold those officails accountable for what has happened in New Orleans!

www.teamrescueone.com Set up by New Orleans rapper Master P and his wife Sonya Miller

BlackAmericaWeb.com Relief Fund set up by Tom Joyner
www.blackamericaweb.com/relief

Benefit for New Orleans hosted by Kevin Powell in New york City on Thursday September 8, 2005 at Canal Room 285 West Broadway at Canal Street, downtown Manhattan in New York City 7pm-11pm 21 and over with id - RSVP to cher-harrison@yahoo.com Admission is Free but you must bring items for the victims of the Hurricane items will be loaded onto a big truck in front of Canal Room and driven directly to Claiborne County Health Center in Port Gibson Ms. run by Dr. Demitri Marshall. Please make sure clothing and shoes and sneakers are new or clean and in good condition they need Clothing, Adult Shoes and sneaker Socks etc.


Alternative media where you can get a more accurate and balance view of the New Orleans catastrophe

www.diversityinc.com
www.blackelectorate.com
www.allhiphop.com
www.democracynow.org Also Jewel Diamond Taylor has a community board set up for those trying to locate relatives www.donotgiveup.net

This broke my heart :(
 

Me too....I've not cried this hard since 9/11. This show really impacted me :( I just don't understand the raping aspect, I really don't!!

Deep....
 

I heard snippets from Oprah's show on the radio yesterday from Tuesday, and I saw part 2 yesterday myself, and all I can say is...I have nothing to say. I can't even start to put into words how this had made me feel, and to see how people are being treated is just......not right...it's not right y'all....it just ain't right.

Our first group of evacuees arrived here in Philly yestereday afternnon. Yes I have made a sizable donation to the Red Cross, and yes all greek orgs in the city will be coming together chapter by chapter to take donations down to the school that will be the home of the evacuees for how ever long they will be here. I'm glad that we have some people that are here, because giving money just isn't enough for me, I want to give of my time and energy even if it's just to give someone a hug.....

Posted elsewhere...sorry

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To Obama, tragedy more about class than race

September 5, 2005

BY LYNN SWEET SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST




Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is scheduled to be in Houston today, meeting with victims of Hurricane Katrina, joining former Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton, who are heading an emergency fund-raising drive.



Obama is not going there specifically because the hurricane has exposed a raw truth about race, but his travel to Texas will underscore that it was poor blacks who were left behind in New Orleans. Obama is the only African American in the Senate, and race relations are now a factor in dealing with the emergency.

We talked on Sunday, a few hours before his flight for the day trip to Houston. He is offering nuanced, but tough, criticism of the federal response, but is not taking direct aim at President Bush.

Obama sees the deplorable situation of the impoverished marooned in the flooded city more in terms of class rather than race. The federal, state and local response did not fail because New Orleans is "disproportionally black," Obama said.

"I think there were a set of assumptions made by federal officials that people would hop in their SUVs, and top off with a $100 tank of gas and [get some] Poland Spring water," and flee the storm, Obama said.

The tragedy, said Obama, revealed "how little inner-city African Americans have to fall back on. But that has been true for decades."

What I've learned about covering Obama, a freshman senator, is that he is very measured.

On Friday night, rapper Kanye West, during a hurricane relief concert, said, "George Bush doesn't care about black people."

I asked Obama if he agreed.

"What I think is that we as a society and this administration in particular have not been willing to make sacrifices or shape an agenda to help low-income people," he said.

Obama also rejected the suggestion that local and state officials were to blame for the horrific response in Louisiana.

The breakdown occurred at all levels, but "I hold the federal government primarily responsible," he said.

Obama was heading to Houston on Sunday night as a result of an invitation from Clinton.

President Bush asked his father and Clinton to reprise the roles they took on to help tsunami victims, and they agreed to lead a Hurricane Katrina fund-raising drive aimed at the private sector.

Obama, who had been phoning some Illinois-based CEOs to solicit aid, called Clinton and the invitation came in the course of their conversation. Clinton, I am guessing, immediately understood that it would be valuable to include Obama in the Houston day trip. Former President Bush's office also had to approve adding Obama, and it's easy to see why they would agree. The Bush administration is being blistered as racially insensitive.

The hurricane may well prompt, as Obama said, "a more serious conversation about the plight of people in the inner city."

He warned against using a "false dichotomy" to analyze the situation -- an incorrect assumption that there are only two answers to a question -- whereby the answer to what went on in New Orleans gets boiled down to either a failure of personal responsibility or of mutual, or societal, responsibility.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other Cabinet secretaries were dispatched to the gulf region Sunday. The president and first lady make a return visit today, stopping in Mississippi.

Said Obama, "Clearly there is some damage control going on."




Lynn Sweet is the Washington bureau chief for the Chicago Sun-Times.

^^
Good read, and not surprising that Sen. Obama would do this. If the man has any higher office ambitions, he needs to maintain a moderate image and not come off like Al Sharpton Jr.

True Dat

this is reminiscent of Colin Powell's presidential political dance a few years back. Famous figures start out beloved by most, but as soon you stake policy positions--which you must eventually-- you lose a percentage of your previous support.

...yes, it will be interesting to watch Sen Obama do his dance.

Tyler Perry
 

Playwright and actor Tyler Perry had planned to start work this week on a new house for his parents in New Orleans. But that was before Hurricane Katrina hit.

The "Diary of a Mad Black Woman" star grew up in New Orleans, where his parents have a home in the Garden District. Their home was undamaged, and his family was safe at their second house in Greensburg, La., when the hurricane hit.

Though his mother had to wait 12 hours at a local hospital for dialysis, they were among the lucky ones, says Perry. "My mother has a lot of friends she hasn't been able to reach."


Police prepare to use force to clear New Orleans
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Neville laments destruction of New Orleans
Federer, Hewitt reach U.S. Open semis


Perry booked 40 rooms for 10 days in a Comfort Inn in Atlanta, where he lives, for people who have been displaced.

"I only did what I could do," he says. "I'm only mentioning it publicly because if one man can do that, then maybe the corporations can step up and help out."

Exactly. Because HRC can be HRC, but Sen. Obama will have to do a delicate balancing act re: civil rights if he does want to be a VP or (dare I think it?) a presidential candidate. As I've said for many years, compassion fatigue has become a permanent part of the wider national society, which (IMO) believes that the rise of feel-good, crossover folks like Michael Jordan, Shaq :D, Gen. Powell, Oprah and Eldrick Woods :p has blunted the need for civil rights activism.

Steeltrap, you need to be up in front of somebody political science class section :)

Perception right or wrong, HRC is still perceived as too liberal in a lot of places, and the U.S. is still in a center-right mode, politically. What demographic/s would he bring to HRC's 08 ticket that she won't already put in play? Right now, Obama would be better served to sit out Hillary's 08 Roadshow and prepare himself for '12 or '16.

I buy your "compassion fatigue" theory, but chuckle when people suggest Jordan/Tiger as crossover, moderating forces. I really question how much societal/cultural impact they have beyond the end of their 30-second TV spots.

Exactly. Sen. Obama is still only in his early 40s, and by 2012 or 2016, maybe he could be a viable figure. I completely agree that HRC is perceived as being too liberal, and even though I am a non-partisan, I think there are too many Clinton-haters still around and will come out of the woodwork.

And you make a good point with Jordan/Tiger. They deliberately stay away from political stances because I think it could affect their money-making potential. Remember that MJ wouldn't touch the Harvey Gantt-Jesse Helms :rolleyes: Senate race.

I would agree with you. If Obama does have any aspirations of sitting in the WH (either as VP or Pr) , even with his current mooderate cross over stance, he would be wise to disassociate himself with Hillary (meaning don't run in '08) as he builds his appeal up more (like he's doing now) or maybe even run with another liberal candidate in '12 or '16. He would lose A LOT of non-liberal support (and I'm not even talking about hardcore ring-wingers or anything of that nature) if he ran with Hillary in 2 years. Plus the fact that I believe his "voice" (shall we say) would be overshadowed from the attention (especially the negative attention) that she would receive.

But this is all my opinion.......

Brown relieved of hurricane responsibilities
Coast Guard admiral will direct efforts in the area

Friday, September 9, 2005; Posted: 2:58 p.m. EDT (18:58 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown is being relieved of his command of the Bush administration's Hurricane Katrina onsite relief efforts, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced Friday.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/....ap/index.html

ST, TonyB and HK...OMG....you all are right on all points...very good issues brought up in the HRC and Barack Obama cases!!!

Good. Because for real, I think my 5 year old nephew could have done a better job - or at least sounded more intelligent in interviews than he did (when explaining FEMA's delay).

...I just cheated off their papers. :p

THEY want their city "back"
 

Someone at the gas station told me the name Katrina means "purify". Here is an article (it's rather lengthy) that probably predicts the "new" New Orleans:

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

September 8, 2005

Old-Line Families
Escape Worst of Flood
And Plot the Future

Mr. O'Dwyer, at His Mansion,
Enjoys Highball With Ice;
Meeting With the Mayor

By CHRISTOPHER COOPER
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Page A1

NEW ORLEANS -- On a sultry morning earlier this week, Ashton O'Dwyer stepped out of his home on this city's grandest street and made a beeline for his neighbor's pool. Wearing nothing but a pair of blue swim trunks and carrying two milk jugs, he drew enough pool water to flush the toilet in his home.

The mostly African-American neighborhoods of New Orleans are largely underwater, and the people who lived there have scattered across the country. But in many of the predominantly white and more affluent areas, streets are dry and passable. Gracious homes are mostly intact and powered by generators. Yesterday, officials reiterated that all residents must leave New Orleans, but it's still unclear how far they will go to enforce the order.

The green expanse of Audubon Park, in the city's Uptown area, has doubled in recent days as a heliport for the city's rich -- and a terminus for the small armies of private security guards who have been dispatched to keep the homes there safe and habitable. Mr. O'Dwyer has cellphone service and ice cubes to cool off his highballs in the evening. By yesterday, the city water service even sprang to life, making the daily trips to his neighbor's pool unnecessary. A pair of oil-company engineers, dispatched by his son-in-law, delivered four cases of water, a box of delicacies including herring with mustard sauce and 15 gallons of generator gasoline.

Despite the disaster that has overwhelmed New Orleans, the city's monied, mostly white elite is hanging on and maneuvering to play a role in the recovery when the floodwaters of Katrina are gone. "New Orleans is ready to be rebuilt. Let's start right here," says Mr. O'Dwyer, standing in his expansive kitchen, next to a counter covered with a jumble of weaponry and electric wires.

More than a few people in Uptown, the fashionable district surrounding St. Charles Ave., have ancestors who arrived here in the 1700s. High society is still dominated by these old-line families, represented today by prominent figures such as former New Orleans Board of Trade President Thomas Westfeldt; Richard Freeman, scion of the family that long owned the city's Coca-Cola bottling plant; and William Boatner Reily, owner of a Louisiana coffee company. Their social pecking order is dictated by the mysterious hierarchy of "krewes," groups with hereditary membership that participate in the annual carnival leading up to Mardi Gras. In recent years, the city's most powerful business circles have expanded to include some newcomers and non-whites, such as Mayor Ray Nagin, the former Cox Communications executive elected in 2002.






A few blocks from Mr. O'Dwyer, in an exclusive gated community known as Audubon Place, is the home of James Reiss, descendent of an old-line Uptown family. He fled Hurricane Katrina just before the storm and returned soon afterward by private helicopter. Mr. Reiss became wealthy as a supplier of electronic systems to shipbuilders, and he serves in Mayor Nagin's administration as chairman of the city's Regional Transit Authority. When New Orleans descended into a spiral of looting and anarchy, Mr. Reiss helicoptered in an Israeli security company to guard his Audubon Place house and those of his neighbors.

He says he has been in contact with about 40 other New Orleans business leaders since the storm. Tomorrow, he says, he and some of those leaders plan to be in Dallas, meeting with Mr. Nagin to begin mapping out a future for the city.

The power elite of New Orleans -- whether they are still in the city or have moved temporarily to enclaves such as Destin, Fla., and Vail, Colo. -- insist the remade city won't simply restore the old order. New Orleans before the flood was burdened by a teeming underclass, substandard schools and a high crime rate. The city has few corporate headquarters.

The new city must be something very different, Mr. Reiss says, with better services and fewer poor people. "Those who want to see this city rebuilt want to see it done in a completely different way: demographically, geographically and politically," he says. "I'm not just speaking for myself here. The way we've been living is not going to happen again, or we're out."

Not every white business leader or prominent family supports that view. Some black leaders and their allies in New Orleans fear that it boils down to preventing large numbers of blacks from returning to the city and eliminating the African-American voting majority. Rep. William Jefferson, a sharecropper's son who was educated at Harvard and is currently serving his eighth term in Congress, points out that the evacuees from New Orleans already have been spread out across many states far from their old home and won't be able to afford to return. "This is an example of poor people forced to make choices because they don't have the money to do otherwise," Mr. Jefferson says.

Calvin Fayard, a wealthy white plaintiffs' lawyer who lives near Mr. O'Dwyer, says the mass evacuation could turn a Democratic stronghold into a Republican one. Mr. Fayard, a prominent Democratic fund-raiser, says tampering with the city's demographics means tampering with its unique culture and shouldn't be done. "People can't survive a year temporarily -- they'll go somewhere, get a job and never come back," he says.

Mr. Reiss acknowledges that shrinking parts of the city occupied by hardscrabble neighborhoods would inevitably result in fewer poor and African-American residents. But he says the electoral balance of the city wouldn't change significantly and that the business elite isn't trying to reverse the last 30 years of black political control. "We understand that African Americans have had a great deal of influence on the history of New Orleans," he says.

A key question will be the position of Mr. Nagin, who was elected with the support of the city's business leadership. He couldn't be reached yesterday. Mr. Reiss says the mayor suggested the Dallas meeting and will likely attend when he goes there to visit his evacuated family

Black politicians have controlled City Hall here since the late 1970s, but the wealthy white families of New Orleans have never been fully eclipsed. Stuffing campaign coffers with donations, these families dominate the city's professional and executive classes, including the white-shoe law firms, engineering offices, and local shipping companies. White voters often act as a swing bloc, propelling blacks or Creoles into the city's top political jobs. That was the case with Mr. Nagin, who defeated another African American to win the mayoral election in 2002.

Creoles, as many mixed-race residents of New Orleans call themselves, dominate the city's white-collar and government ranks and tend to ally themselves with white voters on issues such as crime and education, while sharing many of the same social concerns as African-American voters. Though the flooding took a toll on many Creole neighborhoods, it's likely that Creoles will return to the city in fairly large numbers, since many of them have the means to do so.

--Gary Fields and Ann Carrns contributed to this article

Re: THEY want their city "back"
 

...good to see you posting. when you get a moment, holla. :)

Soror AKA2D91'

It's good to see you hanging out. Same to yah, holla!


Anyhow, interesting article from the WSJ...

It does seem that NO will not be as "coloured" as it once was in the past 30 years... But what will happen with its rich legacy of jazz and the fun it use to be? I guess that all will be filtered over time.

Also, what I found interesting about this article is that the folks there will rebuild it. It will become like a "Disney-fied fortified capitalism at its best" NO, but the flavor will be blanded--no sense of real spice... Like they'd make red beans and rice and forget the okra or something... Like no filé in the gumbo... It will be mudbug éttouffe, but the rice is too sticky... Like something out of the Zatarain's box... Something will really be wrong with spice there when they rebuild it...

And the jazz will sound filtered. Not the real downhome jazz with a lil' blues mixed in it...

That will be the saddest thing about a rebuilt NOLA... It would be soooo gentrified that once "they" build the Park Place Hotels on them to withstand a category 10 hurricane with tsunami warnings :rolleyes: , then no one can work or live there... And forget the cake walk from NOLA...

Same with Mississippi near the gulf...

The relationships have already changed a long time ago. I do think folks of African descent will lose there footing in most of the south and probably most of the country being cast aside like this...

Amazing that the folks refuse to leave even in the worst of conditions. I pretty much do not blame them. However, it might be better elsewhere... But is it worth it?

^^^^^^^
Sad, sad, sad. America is going to hell in a handbasket.

In some language Katrina might mean that. Here's the greek origin: a 3-syllable girl's name of Greek/Norse origin, means: One of purity; beloved.

Scapegoat. And they should've checked his resume for "padding" beforehand. This is the federal govt - not Kiddie Care.:rolleyes:

Reading that story reminded me of what Charleston went through after Hugo and now. Before Hugo came, the tourist area of Downtown was looking rough, especially the Battery. After $$$ came in from the damage, Downtown started to look a whole lot better and more rich *cough y--t* people started to come in.

Downtown has always had a big African-American population but it may be shrinking very soon. Some people can't afford to live downtown anymore and investors are buying up their houses. Also, a person would buy a house for about $100,000, fix it up and sell it for $300,000. Not many African Americans in Charleston can afford that.

After the dust has settled, NO is going to be the same way because they have displaced the people who have made NO what it is today.
:(

In regards to the rebuilding of NO, I kind of figured that would happen now that they have been able to "get rid of" the undesirable element -- the poor. :( It's sad but it is the state of our world.

However I just read this article about Shaq and my hat is off to him: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050910/..._shaq_s_assist

I know LeBron James did similar to Shaq -- loading trucks with items to help the victims. LeBron article: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...katrina_rdp_11

They did this in Charlotte w/o a natural disaster. Downtown Charlotte used to look verrrry different than it does today. It started years ago with plans of building a new Coliseum. First, they started to semi clean up the Biddleville area (near JCSU), then they built a new transportation center so that there would be one main place dwntwn to catch & xfer buses (stopping a certain "element" from being strewn all over the city), then they systematically started closing some of the surrounding projects and forced them to move elsewhere. Then up came a new parking deck, condominiums, a Johnson & Wales University, a YMCA, a Harris Teeter, etc. Instead of the "element" you see a different element jogging, walking dogs, walking to restaurants... Now I cannot lie and say that it definately doesn't look better downtown and there used to be alot of crime there, but at what cost? The poor was forced out of their homes, they certainly couldn't afford the condos, and those committing crimes were just forced into different areas - like East Charlotte, which was actually nice when I first moved here, but is now crime infested.

ET correct: there to their

Thanks for this history lesson on our city. I always marvel at how nice uptown Charlotte is.

I left Charlotte in October 1994. I remember that they were just beginning "downtown renovation," as it were. I haven't been back since. Thanks for the update.
I'm of mixed mind about these types of things. Yes, it's nice to have amenities, restaurants, shops (and I'm glad that I have a job and some disposable income to take advantage). But people should have housing and not be homeless. It's a catch-22.

Nagin's perspective "If we tell it, let's tell it all"
 

Nagin: Mistakes were made at all levels
His biggest frustration was slow pace of relief

By Gordon Russell
Staff writer

In a stark reminder of how drastically Hurricane Katrina has affected the lives of New Orleanians, Mayor Ray Nagin has purchased a home in Dallas and enrolled his young daughter in school there.

Nagin, who spoke with The Times-Picayune by telephone from Dallas, where he has been since Wednesday, said he plans to return to New Orleans on Saturday. He said he will remain in the Crescent City while his family lives for the next six months in Dallas, making occasional visits to his family when possible.

It's not clear where Nagin will be living: His home on Bayou St. John suffered massive flooding, the mayor said, although he has not inspected it.

In a brief but wide-ranging interview, the mayor reflected on the tragedies of the past two weeks. Acknowledging that he may have made some mistakes, he said he hopes others in positions of authority - including President Bush and Gov. Kathleen Blanco -- are scrutinized as closely as he and his staff have been.

"I'm not pointing any fingers at anyone," Nagin said. "But I was in the fire. I was down there. Where were they? I'm confident the truth is going to come out. But I want everybody's record analyzed just as hard as mine.

"Listen, this was unprecedented. Nothing has ever happened like this. For people to sit back and say, 'You should have done this, you should have done that' it's Monday morning quarterbacking. They can shoot if they want, but I was there, and I will have the facts."

Nagin's biggest frustration, and his biggest source of puzzlement, is the slow pace of the relief efforts. He said state and federal officials made repeated promises that weren't kept.

"This is ridiculous," he said. "I mean, this is America. How can we have a state with an $18 billion budget and a federal government with an I-don't-know-how-many trillion dollar budget, and they can't get a few thousand people onto buses? I don't get that.

"All I saw was a huge two-step, if you will, between the federal government and the state as far as who had the final authority. Promises made that weren't really kept. It was frustrating. We'd analyze things, double-check them, and then, later in the afternoon, we'd find out that someone was changing the plan, moving resources around."

Where were the resources?

Some officials at the state and federal level have suggested that part of the reason for the slow response was a lack of awareness about the level of devastation the city had suffered. They have faulted city officials for not sending out a stronger SOS.

While Nagin has said he didn't think the slow response was related to the demographic of the overwhelmingly poor, African-American residents that needed rescuing, his thinking has evolved.

"Definitely class and, the more I think about it, definitely race played into this," he said. "How do you treat people that just want to walk across the bridge and get out, and they're turned away, because you can't come to a certain parish?

How do resources get stacked up outside the city of New Orleans and they don't make their way in? How do you not bring one piece of ice?

"If it's race, fine, let's call a spade a spade, a diamond a diamond. We can never let this happen again. Even if you hate black people and you are in a leadership position, this did not help anybody."

As hearings on the Katrina response start to crank up in Washington, Nagin said, those questions, among others, need to be asked.

"I think the government ought to be asking itself, 'What happened to the resources?'

"Why were people promised resources and they didn't show up? Where were the military resources? Where was the National Guard? Why were we left with a city on the verge of collapse, fighting for the soul of the city, with 200 National Guardsmen and 1,200 police?

"It was a serious breakdown," the mayor continued. "Make sure that whether it's Ray Nagin or the governor or the president, we take a serious look at this and make the changes that need to be made. I'm afraid some of this was a tug-of-war about who gets to spend the money at the end of the day. And I don't appreciate that.

"I saw too many people die, and a lot of people didn't see any of that. They had a press conference and left. I'm looking up, fighting this incredible battle, and they're doing press conferences and lying to the people. They're telling them 40,000 troops are in New Orleans. It was all bull."

Communications shut down

"Analyze my ass, analyze everyone's ass, man. Let's put the facts on the table and talk turkey. Why was there a breakdown at the federal and state level only in Louisiana? This didn't happen in Mississippi. That's the question. That's the question of the day."

Nagin said the city's communications essentially shut down, but said that state and federal officials were likewise at a loss. Within a few days, city officials, including Chief Technology Officer Greg Meffert aided by a crew from Unisys and other outside volunteers, were able to patch together a rough network.

"All communications broke down," Nagin said. "I got cell phones from as high up as the White House that didn't work. My Blackberry pin-to-pin was the only thing that worked. I saw the military struggle with this, too. No one had communications worth a damn."

Even if communications were challenging, Nagin noted that FEMA officials were up in helicopters inspecting the damage from the storm within about 24 hours after it passed. So the message should have been clear, he said: Send in the cavalry.

"I think they realized the magnitude of what was happening," he said.

The best-laid plans

Federal officials have faulted Nagin's administration for not marshaling its Regional Transit Authority buses and those of the School Board to start ferrying the tens of thousands of evacuees stranded at the Superdome and the Convention Center out of town.

Nagin said perhaps some of the criticism is fair. But he said there were various logistical hurdles that made it hard to use that equipment, and the buses would have hardly created a dent in the size of the crowds anyway.

"It's up for analysis," he said. "But we didn't have enough buses. I don't control the school buses, and the RTA buses as far as I know were positioned high and dry. But 80 percent of the city was not high and dry. Where would we have staged them? And who was going to drive them even if we commandeered them? If I'd have marshaled 50 RTA buses, and a few school buses, it still wouldn't have been nearly enough. We didn't get food, water and ice in this place, and that's way above the local level.

"Our plan was always to use the buses to evacuate to the Dome as a shelter of last resort, and from there, rely on state and federal resources."

Those resources took way too long to arrive, Nagin said - in fact, much of the help didn't arrive until after the mass evacuations from the Dome and the Convention Center had occurred. As a result, people suffered and died needlessly, a truth that has been weighing heavily on his mind.

"I saw stuff that I never thought I would see in my lifetime," he said. "People wanting to die. People trying to give me babies and things. It was a helpless, helpless feeling.

"There was a lady waiting in line for bus who had a miscarriage. She was cleaning herself off so she wouldn't lose her place in line. There were old people saying, 'Just let me lie down and die.' It's bulls---, absolutely bulls---. It's unbelievable that this would happen in America."

Answering criticism

While a number of people in the sea of refugees that packed the Dome and Convention Center complained that Nagin had not come to address them, Nagin said he did visit both facilities and speak with people.

"I went there," he said. "I went through the crowds and talked to people, and they were not happy. They were panicked. After the shootings and the looting got out of control, I did not go back in there. My security people advised me not to go back" after Wednesday, he said.

By Thursday, crowds had gotten increasingly restless. At one point, a crowd surged dangerously around Police Superintendent Eddie Compass, and a knot of police officers had to help him to safety.

Part of the discomfort in the Dome and Convention Center was due to the lack of toilet facilities after the city's water system went down late Wednesday. The city's hurricane plan calls for portable toilets at shelters, but none ever arrived. Nagin said his understanding was that the National Guard was in charge of providing them.

Also, he added, "Our plan never assumed people being in the Dome more than two or three days."

Nagin said he saw a few bright spots amid the rubble of the city. He said the New Orleans Police Department - at least, the majority of it, given that there were a number of desertions - should be hailed for fighting an almost impossible fight, handling search-and-rescue missions while trying to keep an increasingly lawless city in check.

"They were absolutely heroic," he said. "The stuff they were dealing with, man. They spent the first two or three days pulling people out of the water. When the looting started to get to the point that it was a real concern, they had to get involved in serious firefights. I mean, we had radio chatter where police were pinned down in firefights and ran out of ammunition. That's never happened."

'A better city'

Nagin also expressed cautious optimism about the city's future.

"I think we'll be a better city," he said. "I think we're going to see an unprecedented construction boom, and some better-paying jobs. Small businesses will start thriving, and I think the tourist industry will bounce back stronger than ever."


Many people who were stranded for days at the Dome and Convention Center told reporters they were never coming back to their devastated city. The mayor acknowledged that some of them probably meant it, including some of the displaced New Orleanians he's met since arriving in Dallas.

"I think some people will probably not come back," he said. "You know, Texas is treating people very well, probably much better than we treated people.

"But I think once people start to see the rebuilding, and that the culture of the city will not be materially affected, they'll be back."

How things progress will depend largely on the level of federal aid, the mayor said. And it's still unclear whether entire neighborhoods will have to be razed - and whether some areas should be abandoned because of their propensity to flood.

"The longer those neighborhoods stay under water, the harder it's going to be to rebuild them," he said.

Meanwhile, there are going to have to be serious conversations about changes to the housing codes and improvements to the levee system, whose inadequacies were laid bare by Katrina.

"I've been talking to some people in Texas, and I think maybe some better designs for housing that can handle some of this," Nagin said. "And the levee system is designed only to withstand a Category 3 storm. Obviously, we have to do better than that."

http://www.nola.com/newslog/tporlean...11.html#078807

Mike Brown Resigns!
 

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...atrina_brown_8

Embattled FEMA Director Mike Brown Resigns

WASHINGTON - Federal Emergency Management Agency director Mike Brown said Monday he has resigned "in the best interest of the agency and best interest of the president," three days after losing his onsite command of the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.

Brown, under fire for FEMA's performance in the Gulf Coast, said he feared he had become a distraction.

"The focus has got to be on FEMA, what the people are trying to do down there," Brown told The Associated Press.

His decision was not a surprise. Brown was abruptly recalled to Washington on Friday, a clear vote of no confidence from his superiors at the White House and the Homeland Security Department. Brown had been roundly criticized for FEMA's sluggish response to the hurricane, which has caused political problems for Bush and fellow Republicans. He also was accused of padding his resume, which Brown denied Friday.

The president ducked questions about Brown's resignation. "Maybe you know something I don't know. I've been working," the president said to reporters on an inspection tour of damage in Gulfport, Miss. Bush said he planned to talk with Brown's boss, Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff, from Air Force One on the flight back to Washington.

"There will be plenty of time to figure out what went right and what went wrong," Bush said.

Polls show most Americans believe Bush could have done more to help Katrina's victims, though they also blame leaders of Louisiana and New Orleans. Bush's overall job approval rating is at the lowest point of his presidency.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi called Brown's departure long overdue.

"His resignation is the right thing for the country and for the people of the Gulf Coast states," she said in a statement.

Brown, who said he last talked to Bush five or six days ago, said the resignation was his idea. He spoke Saturday to White House chief of staff Andy Card, who did not request his departure, according to Brown.

"I'm turning in my resignation today," Brown said. "I think it's in the best interest of the agency and the best interest of the president to do that and get the media focused on the good things that are going on, instead of me."

Shortly after Brown was recalled to Washington last week, officials close to the FEMA director said he would probably resign. They said that even before Katrina, Brown had been planning on leaving the administration late this fall to go into the private sector.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Better to quit before they check out his resume......

:o

Well, he's finally done something right and in a timely fashion. :p

Well alrighty, then... :eek:

September 12th, 2005 12:38 pm
We had to kill our patients
By Caroline Graham and Jo Knowsley / Daily Mail

Doctors working in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans killed critically ill patients rather than leaving them to die in agony as they evacuated hospitals, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

With gangs of rapists and looters rampaging through wards in the flooded city, senior doctors took the harrowing decision to give massive overdoses of morphine to those they believed could not make it out alive.

In an extraordinary interview with The Mail on Sunday, one New Orleans doctor told how she 'prayed for God to have mercy on her soul' after she ignored every tenet of medical ethics and ended the lives of patients she had earlier fought to save.

Her heart-rending account has been corroborated by a hospital orderly and by local government officials. One emergency official, William 'Forest' McQueen, said: "Those who had no chance of making it were given a lot of morphine and lain down in a dark place to die."

Euthanasia is illegal in Louisiana, and The Mail on Sunday is protecting the identities of the medical staff concerned to prevent them being made scapegoats for the events of last week.

Their families believe their confessions are an indictment of the appalling failure of American authorities to help those in desperate need after Hurricane Katrina flooded the city, claiming thousands of lives and making 500,000 homeless.

'These people were going to die anyway'
The doctor said: "I didn't know if I was doing the right thing. But I did not have time. I had to make snap decisions, under the most appalling circumstances, and I did what I thought was right.

"I injected morphine into those patients who were dying and in agony. If the first dose was not enough, I gave a double dose. And at night I prayed to God to have mercy on my soul."

The doctor, who finally fled her hospital late last week in fear of being murdered by the armed looters, said: "This was not murder, this was compassion. They would have been dead within hours, if not days. We did not put people down. What we did was give comfort to the end.

"I had cancer patients who were in agony. In some cases the drugs may have speeded up the death process.
"We divided patients into three categories: those who were traumatised but medically fit enough to survive, those who needed urgent care, and the dying.

"People would find it impossible to understand the situation. I had to make life-or-death decisions in a split second.
"It came down to giving people the basic human right to die with dignity.
"There were patients with Do Not Resuscitate signs. Under normal circumstances, some could have lasted several days. But when the power went out, we had nothing.

"Some of the very sick became distressed. We tried to make them as comfortable as possible.
"The pharmacy was under lockdown because gangs of armed looters were roaming around looking for their fix. You have to understand these people were going to die anyway."

Mr McQueen, a utility manager for the town of Abita Springs, half an hour north of New Orleans, told relatives that patients had been 'put down', saying: "They injected them, but nurses stayed with them until they died."

Mr McQueen has been working closely with emergency teams and added: "They had to make unbearable decisions."

BUSH ADMITS FAULT
 

Bush takes responsibility for blunders


WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush said Tuesday that "I take responsibility" for failures in dealing with Hurricane Katrina and said the disaster raised broader questions about the government's ability to respond to natural disasters as well as terror attacks.

"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government," Bush said at joint White House news conference with the president of Iraq.

"To the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility," Bush said.

The president was asked whether people should be worried about the government's ability to handle another terrorist attack given failures in responding to Katrina.


"Are we capable of dealing with a severe attack? That's a very important question and it's in the national interest that we find out what went on so we can better respond," Bush replied.

He said he wanted to know both what went wrong and what went right.

As for blunders in the federal response, "I'm not going to defend the process going in," Bush said. "I am going to defend the people saving lives."

He praised relief workers at all levels. "I want people in America to understand how hard people worked to save lives down there," he said.

Bush says the government will have to review what it did after Katrina.

Bush Takes Responsiblity for Katrina Blunders


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Bush spoke after R. David Paulison, the new acting director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, pledged to intensify efforts to find more permanent housing for the tens of thousands of Hurricane Katrina survivors now in shelters.

It was the closest Bush has come to publicly finding fault with any federal officials involved in the hurricane response, which has been widely criticized as disjointed and slow. Some federal officials have sought to fault state and local officials for being unprepared to cope with the disaster.

Bush planned to address the nation Thursday evening from Louisiana, where he will be monitoring recovery efforts, the White House announced earlier Tuesday.

Paulison, in his first public comments since taking the job on Monday, told reporters: "We're going to get those people out of the shelters, and we're going to move and get them the help they need."

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff introduced Paulison as the Bush administration tried to deflect criticism for the sluggish initial federal response to the hurricane and its disastrous aftermath.

Chertoff said that while cleanup, relief and reconstruction from Katrina is now the government's top priority, the administration would not let down its guard on other potential dangers.

"The world is not going to stop moving because we are very focused on Katrina," Chertoff said.

Paulison, named to the post on Monday, said he was busy "getting brought up to speed."

He replaced Michael Brown, who resigned on Monday, three days after being removed from being the top onsite federal official in charge of the government's response.

Paulison said Bush called him Monday night and "thanked me for coming on board."

Bush promised that he would have "the full support of the federal government," Paulison said.

Chertoff said the relief operation had entered a new phase.

Initially, he said, the most important priority was evacuating people, getting them to safety, providing food, water and medical care.

" And then ultimately at the end of the day, we have to reconstitute the communities that have been devastated," Chertoff added.

He said the federal government would look increasingly to state and local officials for guidance on rebuilding the devastated communities along the Gulf Coast.

"The federal government can't drive permanent solutions down the throats of state and local officials," Chertoff said. "I don't think anyone should envision a situation in which they're going to take a back seat. They're going to take a front seat," he said.

Chertoff said that teams of federal auditors were being dispatched to the stricken areas to make sure that billions of dollars worth of government contracts were being properly spent. "We want to get aid to people who need it quickly, but we also don't want to lose sight of the importance of preserving the integrity of the process and our responsibility as stewards of the public money," Chertoff said.

"We're going to cut through red tape," he said, "but we're not going to cut through laws and rules that govern ethics."

Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said that some military aircraft and other equipment may be able to move out of the Gulf Coast soon.

"We've got to the point where most if not all of the search and rescue is completed," said Rumsfeld, who is attending a NATO meeting in Berlin. "Some helicopters can undoubtedly be moved out over the period ahead."

He also said there is a very large surplus of hospital beds in the region, so those could also be decreased. The USS Comfort hospital ship arrived near the Mississippi coast late last week. Rumsfeld added that nothing will be moved out of the area without the authorization of the two states' governors, the military leaders there and the president.

Elsewhere, workers with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention aren't finding many sick people, even though the specter of diseases has alarmed relief and rescue figures. Instead, between 40 and 50 percent of patients seeking emergency care have injuries. The CDC has counted 148 injuries in just the last two days, Carol Rubin, an agency hurricane relief specialist, said by telephone from the government's new public health headquarters in New Orleans' Kindred Hospital.

While she couldn't provide a breakdown, Rubin said chain saw injuries and carbon monoxide exposure from generators are among them. Those are particularly worrisome because they're likely to become more common as additional hurricane survivors re-enter the city in coming days, she said.

The message: Those injuries are preventable, if people take proper precautions, Rubin stressed

^^^^^
He ought to. You know - the problem is, when he saw that nothing was being done after the 1st day - he should've hopped on a plane, phone, something and acted like General Honoree. Could it be that he was misinformed by those who were afraid to interrupt his vacation, or did he simply refuse to listen? I bet somewhere there's an official that hasn't spoken up & won't (i.e. Ms. Rice) thinking "I told you this was happening!"

ETA: he's on world news tonight. Why go public and ask "is the country prepared for a severe terrorist attack. The answer is probably no... but why not just put up a bulletin board asking to be attacked????

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/n...ationworld-hed

Who is really responsible? The owners? The family members?