GreekChat.com Forums - Hurricane Katrina

GreekChat.com Forums (https://greekchat.com/gcforums/index.php)

- Chit Chat (https://greekchat.com/gcforums/forumdisplay.php?f=185)

- - Hurricane Katrina (https://greekchat.com/gcforums/showthread.php?t=69796)

Quote:

Originally posted by wrigley
How would it go over if President Bush and the rest of the cast involved for the breakdown in commmunication just say a group "I'm sorry"?

For the economists,bankers, etc... is it realistic to be able to start from scratch with just 2,000 dollars? How did FEMA come up with magic number?

I'm hoping (and assuming) that the $2000 is a start, to tide them over for immediate needs, not the whole payment they'll receive down the line.

I just read that my flood insurance will be skyrocketing <sigh>. I better start saving for next year's premium.

Dont Rebuild New Orleans..

An interesting article. A sad one tho.

From slate.com

http://slate.msn.com/?id=2125810&nav=tap1/

Don't Refloat- The case against rebuilding the sunken city of New Orleans.
By Jack Shafer
Posted Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2005, at 12:19 PM PT

What's to rebuild?

Nobody can deny New Orleans' cultural primacy or its historical importance. But before we refloat the sunken city, before we think of spending billions of dollars rebuilding levees that may not hold back the next storm, before we contemplate reconstructing the thousands of homes now disintegrating in the toxic tang of the flood, let's investigate what sort of place Katrina destroyed.

The city's romance is not the reality for most who live there. It's a poor place, with about 27 percent of the population of 484,000 living under the poverty line, and it's a black place, where 67 percent are African-American. In 65 percent of families living in poverty, no husband is present. When you overlap this New York Times map, which illustrates how the hurricane's floodwaters inundated 80 percent of the city, with this demographic map from the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center, which shows where the black population lives, and this one that shows where the poverty cases live, it's transparent whom Katrina hit the hardest.

New Orleans' public schools, which are 93 percent black, have failed their citizens. The state of Louisiana rates 47 percent of New Orleans schools as "Academically Unacceptable" and another 26 percent are under "Academic Warning." About 25 percent of adults have no high-school diploma.

The police inspire so little trust that witnesses often refuse to testify in court. University researchers enlisted the police in an experiment last year, having them fire 700 blank gun rounds in a New Orleans neighborhood one afternoon. Nobody picked up the phone to report the shootings. Little wonder the city's homicide rate stands at 10 times the national average.

This city counts 188,000 occupied dwellings, with about half occupied by renters and half by owners. The housing stock is much older than the national average, with 43 percent built in 1949 or earlier (compared with 22 percent for the United States) and only 11 percent of them built since 1980 (compared with 35 for the United States). As we've observed, many of the flooded homes are modest to Spartan to ramshackle and will have to be demolished if toxic mold or fire don't take them first.

New Orleans puts the "D" into dysfunctional. Only a sadist would insist on resurrecting this concentration of poverty, crime, and deplorable schools. Yet that's what New Orleans' cheerleaders—both natives and beignet-eating tourists—are advocating. They predict that once they drain the water and scrub the city clean, they'll restore New Orleans to its former "glory."

Only one politician, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, dared question the wisdom of rebuilding New Orleans as it was, where it was. On Wednesday, Aug. 31, while meeting with the editorial board of the Daily Herald of Arlington Heights, Ill., he cited the geographical insanity of rebuilding New Orleans. "That doesn't make sense to me. … And it's a question that certainly we should ask."

"It looks like a lot of that place could be bulldozed," Hastert added.

For his candor and wisdom, Hastert was shouted down. Sen. Mary L. Landrieu, D-La., and others interpreted his remarks as evidence of the Republican appetite for destruction when it comes to disaster victims. But if you read the entire interview—reproduced here courtesy of the Daily Herald—you might conclude that Hastert was speaking heresy, but he wasn't saying anything ugly or even Swiftian. Klaus Jacob seconded Hastert yesterday (Sept. 6) in a Washington Post op-ed. A geophysicist by training, he noted that Katrina wasn't even a worst-case scenario. Had the storm passed a little west of New Orleans rather than a little east, the "city would have flooded faster, and the loss of life would have been greater."

Nobody disputes the geographical and oceanographic odds against New Orleans: that the Gulf of Mexico is a perfect breeding ground for hurricanes; that re-engineering the Mississippi River to control flooding has made New Orleans more vulnerable by denying it the deposits of sediment it needs to keep its head above water; that the aggressive extraction of oil and gas from the area has undermined the stability of its land.

"New Orleans naturally wants to be a lake," St. Louis University professor of earth and atmospheric sciences Timothy Kusky told Time this week. "A city should never have been built there in the first place," he said to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Why was it? Settlers built the original city on a curve of high flood land that the Mississippi River had deposited over eons, hence the nickname "Crescent City." But starting in the late 1800s and continuing into the early 20th century, developers began clearing and draining swamps behind the crescent, even dumping landfill into Lake Pontchartrain to extend the city.

To chart the aggressive reclamation, compare this map from 1798 with this one from 1908. Many of New Orleans' lower-lying neighborhoods, such as Navarre, the Lower Ninth Ward, Lake Terrace, and Pontchartrain Park, were rescued from the low-lying muck. The Lower Ninth Ward, clobbered by Katrina, started out as a cypress swamp, and by 1950 it was only half developed, according to the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center. Even such "high" land as City Park suffered from flooding before the engineers intervened. By the historical standards of the 400-year-old city, many of the heavily flooded neighborhoods are fresh off the boat.

The call to rebuild New Orleans' levee system may be mooted if its evacuated residents decide not to return. The federal government, which runs the flood-insurance business, sold only 85,000 residential and commercial policies—this in a city of 188,000 occupied dwellings. Coverage is limited to $250,000 for building property and $100,000 for personal property. Because the insured can use the money elsewhere, there is no guarantee they'll choose to rebuild in New Orleans, which will remain extra-vulnerable until the levees are rebuilt.

Few uninsured landlords and poor home owners have the wherewithal to rebuild—or the desire. And how many of the city's well-off and wealthy workers—the folks who provide the city's tax base—will return? Will the doctors, lawyers, accountants, and professors have jobs to return to? According to the Wall Street Journal, many businesses are expected to relocate completely. Unless the federal government adopts New Orleans as its ward and pays all its bills for the next 20 years—an unlikely to absurd proposition—the place won't be rebuilt.

Barbara Bush will be denounced as being insensitive and condescending for saying yesterday that many of the evacuees she met in the Astrodome would prefer to stay in Texas. But she probably got it right. The destruction wrought by Katrina may turn out to be "creative destruction," to crib from Joseph Schumpeter, for many of New Orleans' displaced and dispossessed. Unless the government works mightily to reverse migration, a positive side-effect of the uprooting of thousands of lives will to be to deconcentrate one of the worst pockets of ghetto poverty in the United States.

Page One of today's New York Times illustrates better than I can how the economic calculations of individuals battered by Katrina may contribute to the city's ultimate doom:

In her 19 years, all spent living in downtown New Orleans, Chavon Allen had never ventured farther than her bus fare would allow, and that was one trip last year to Baton Rouge. But now that she has seen Houston, she is planning to stay.

"This is a whole new beginning, a whole new start. I mean, why pass up a good opportunity, to go back to something that you know has problems?" asked Ms. Allen, who had been earning $5.15 an hour serving chicken in a Popeyes restaurant.

New Orleans won't disappear overnight, of course. The French Quarter, the Garden District, West Riverside, Black Pearl, and other elevated parts of the city will survive until the ultimate storm takes them out—and maybe even thrive as tourist destinations and places to live the good life. But it would be a mistake to raise the American Atlantis. It's gone.

******

Apologies to Louis Armstrong, Fats Domino, Ernie K-Doe, Allen Toussaint, Tipitina's, Dr. John, Clarence "Frogman" Henry, Jelly Roll Morton, Jessie Hill, Lee Dorsey, the Meters, Robert Parker, Alvin Robinson, Joe "King" Oliver, Kid Stormy Weather, Huey "Piano" Smith, Aaron Neville and his brothers (falsetto is the highest expression of male emotion), Frankie Ford, Chris Kenner, Professor Longhair, Wynton Marsalis and family, Sidney Bechet, and Marshall Faulk. I await your hate mail at slate.pressbox@gmail.com.

We just got an update this morning about our locations in NOLA and MS. We still have several hundred employees missing and unaccounted for. :(

Now, I'm not all into the Dem vs Rep debates, but I did think this pic was funny. :D

http://images.dailykos.com/images/us...isaster9kr.jpg

I wonder did they realize what they wrote?

Quote:

Originally posted by Honeykiss1974

I wonder did they realize what they wrote?

I would almost bet that they DID know what they wrote. :p

Quote:

It is if you had nothing to begin with, didn't own your home, were poor, and probably had no job or a very low paying job.

So for a lot of people it's probably just fine...

-Rudey

Re: Dont Rebuild New Orleans..

It's true but it's how you look at it. If Barbra Bush says it, certain people freak out. This guy wants the city to just not be rebuilt. David Brooks of the NYTimes said the exact same problems exist but that the government should use this as a chance to rebuild something better (better homes, better schools, better lives).

-Rudey

Quote:

Originally posted by lifesaver
An interesting article. A sad one tho.

From slate.com

http://slate.msn.com/?id=2125810&nav=tap1/

Don't Refloat- The case against rebuilding the sunken city of New Orleans.
By Jack Shafer
Posted Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2005, at 12:19 PM PT

What's to rebuild?

Nobody can deny New Orleans' cultural primacy or its historical importance. But before we refloat the sunken city, before we think of spending billions of dollars rebuilding levees that may not hold back the next storm, before we contemplate reconstructing the thousands of homes now disintegrating in the toxic tang of the flood, let's investigate what sort of place Katrina destroyed.

The city's romance is not the reality for most who live there. It's a poor place, with about 27 percent of the population of 484,000 living under the poverty line, and it's a black place, where 67 percent are African-American. In 65 percent of families living in poverty, no husband is present. When you overlap this New York Times map, which illustrates how the hurricane's floodwaters inundated 80 percent of the city, with this demographic map from the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center, which shows where the black population lives, and this one that shows where the poverty cases live, it's transparent whom Katrina hit the hardest.

New Orleans' public schools, which are 93 percent black, have failed their citizens. The state of Louisiana rates 47 percent of New Orleans schools as "Academically Unacceptable" and another 26 percent are under "Academic Warning." About 25 percent of adults have no high-school diploma.

The police inspire so little trust that witnesses often refuse to testify in court. University researchers enlisted the police in an experiment last year, having them fire 700 blank gun rounds in a New Orleans neighborhood one afternoon. Nobody picked up the phone to report the shootings. Little wonder the city's homicide rate stands at 10 times the national average.

This city counts 188,000 occupied dwellings, with about half occupied by renters and half by owners. The housing stock is much older than the national average, with 43 percent built in 1949 or earlier (compared with 22 percent for the United States) and only 11 percent of them built since 1980 (compared with 35 for the United States). As we've observed, many of the flooded homes are modest to Spartan to ramshackle and will have to be demolished if toxic mold or fire don't take them first.

New Orleans puts the "D" into dysfunctional. Only a sadist would insist on resurrecting this concentration of poverty, crime, and deplorable schools. Yet that's what New Orleans' cheerleaders—both natives and beignet-eating tourists—are advocating. They predict that once they drain the water and scrub the city clean, they'll restore New Orleans to its former "glory."

Only one politician, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, dared question the wisdom of rebuilding New Orleans as it was, where it was. On Wednesday, Aug. 31, while meeting with the editorial board of the Daily Herald of Arlington Heights, Ill., he cited the geographical insanity of rebuilding New Orleans. "That doesn't make sense to me. … And it's a question that certainly we should ask."

"It looks like a lot of that place could be bulldozed," Hastert added.

For his candor and wisdom, Hastert was shouted down. Sen. Mary L. Landrieu, D-La., and others interpreted his remarks as evidence of the Republican appetite for destruction when it comes to disaster victims. But if you read the entire interview—reproduced here courtesy of the Daily Herald—you might conclude that Hastert was speaking heresy, but he wasn't saying anything ugly or even Swiftian. Klaus Jacob seconded Hastert yesterday (Sept. 6) in a Washington Post op-ed. A geophysicist by training, he noted that Katrina wasn't even a worst-case scenario. Had the storm passed a little west of New Orleans rather than a little east, the "city would have flooded faster, and the loss of life would have been greater."

Nobody disputes the geographical and oceanographic odds against New Orleans: that the Gulf of Mexico is a perfect breeding ground for hurricanes; that re-engineering the Mississippi River to control flooding has made New Orleans more vulnerable by denying it the deposits of sediment it needs to keep its head above water; that the aggressive extraction of oil and gas from the area has undermined the stability of its land.

"New Orleans naturally wants to be a lake," St. Louis University professor of earth and atmospheric sciences Timothy Kusky told Time this week. "A city should never have been built there in the first place," he said to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Why was it? Settlers built the original city on a curve of high flood land that the Mississippi River had deposited over eons, hence the nickname "Crescent City." But starting in the late 1800s and continuing into the early 20th century, developers began clearing and draining swamps behind the crescent, even dumping landfill into Lake Pontchartrain to extend the city.

To chart the aggressive reclamation, compare this map from 1798 with this one from 1908. Many of New Orleans' lower-lying neighborhoods, such as Navarre, the Lower Ninth Ward, Lake Terrace, and Pontchartrain Park, were rescued from the low-lying muck. The Lower Ninth Ward, clobbered by Katrina, started out as a cypress swamp, and by 1950 it was only half developed, according to the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center. Even such "high" land as City Park suffered from flooding before the engineers intervened. By the historical standards of the 400-year-old city, many of the heavily flooded neighborhoods are fresh off the boat.

The call to rebuild New Orleans' levee system may be mooted if its evacuated residents decide not to return. The federal government, which runs the flood-insurance business, sold only 85,000 residential and commercial policies—this in a city of 188,000 occupied dwellings. Coverage is limited to $250,000 for building property and $100,000 for personal property. Because the insured can use the money elsewhere, there is no guarantee they'll choose to rebuild in New Orleans, which will remain extra-vulnerable until the levees are rebuilt.

Few uninsured landlords and poor home owners have the wherewithal to rebuild—or the desire. And how many of the city's well-off and wealthy workers—the folks who provide the city's tax base—will return? Will the doctors, lawyers, accountants, and professors have jobs to return to? According to the Wall Street Journal, many businesses are expected to relocate completely. Unless the federal government adopts New Orleans as its ward and pays all its bills for the next 20 years—an unlikely to absurd proposition—the place won't be rebuilt.

Barbara Bush will be denounced as being insensitive and condescending for saying yesterday that many of the evacuees she met in the Astrodome would prefer to stay in Texas. But she probably got it right. The destruction wrought by Katrina may turn out to be "creative destruction," to crib from Joseph Schumpeter, for many of New Orleans' displaced and dispossessed. Unless the government works mightily to reverse migration, a positive side-effect of the uprooting of thousands of lives will to be to deconcentrate one of the worst pockets of ghetto poverty in the United States.

Page One of today's New York Times illustrates better than I can how the economic calculations of individuals battered by Katrina may contribute to the city's ultimate doom:

In her 19 years, all spent living in downtown New Orleans, Chavon Allen had never ventured farther than her bus fare would allow, and that was one trip last year to Baton Rouge. But now that she has seen Houston, she is planning to stay.

"This is a whole new beginning, a whole new start. I mean, why pass up a good opportunity, to go back to something that you know has problems?" asked Ms. Allen, who had been earning $5.15 an hour serving chicken in a Popeyes restaurant.

New Orleans won't disappear overnight, of course. The French Quarter, the Garden District, West Riverside, Black Pearl, and other elevated parts of the city will survive until the ultimate storm takes them out—and maybe even thrive as tourist destinations and places to live the good life. But it would be a mistake to raise the American Atlantis. It's gone.

******

Apologies to Louis Armstrong, Fats Domino, Ernie K-Doe, Allen Toussaint, Tipitina's, Dr. John, Clarence "Frogman" Henry, Jelly Roll Morton, Jessie Hill, Lee Dorsey, the Meters, Robert Parker, Alvin Robinson, Joe "King" Oliver, Kid Stormy Weather, Huey "Piano" Smith, Aaron Neville and his brothers (falsetto is the highest expression of male emotion), Frankie Ford, Chris Kenner, Professor Longhair, Wynton Marsalis and family, Sidney Bechet, and Marshall Faulk. I await your hate mail at slate.pressbox@gmail.com.

Re: Re: Dont Rebuild New Orleans..

Quote:

Originally posted by Rudey
It's true but it's how you look at it. If Barbra Bush says it, certain people freak out. This guy wants the city to just not be rebuilt. David Brooks of the NYTimes said the exact same problems exist but that the government should use this as a chance to rebuild something better (better homes, better schools, better lives).

I agree. I didn't find Shafer's article very pursuasive at all.

But, I did love this quote:

"New Orleans naturally wants to be a lake," St. Louis University professor of earth and atmospheric sciences Timothy Kusky told Time this week. "A city should never have been built there in the first place," he said to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

I'm holding my breath for him to say that Amsterdam should never have been built either, or a good portion of The Netherlands, for that matter. Then there's Venice.

And while we're asking the questions, why did we allow Los Angeles and San Francisco to become major urban areas? I mean, they're right there on major fault lines.

The reality is that major cities all around the world are built where they are sitting ducks for natural disaster of one kind or another. We live with it and carry on -- and we rebuild when necessary.

Part of me can understand one of the points he made.... Why spend billions and billions of dollars to restore a city that could easily be wiped out again in a year, or 5 years, or whenever.

I would hate to see people's homes not rebuilt...... But I do think that some good points are made. :(

The statistics that he gave (if accurate) are staggering. I would not blame anyone for not wanting to go back to that.

The possibly controversial question- If these people who have lived in poverty choose not to go back, but stay in places like Houston... Will they have a negative effect on the poverty rates and the education systems and the housing statistics in those cities?

I mean, he talked about the lady who was working for minimum wage at Popeye's in NO and is now planning on staying in Houston. Who is to say that she will automatically find a better job there? She may end up working for minimum wage at Popeye's in Houston. Won't make a bit of difference unless the cost of living in Houston is much lower than in NO. I honestly don't know if it is or not.

I am not trying to make political statements. I am not trying to pretend that I am an expert on anything that is going on with this situation. I am not sure what my opinion is in this particular matter.

I just thought I would like to see what everyone else thinks.

http://news.yahoo.com/fc/world/hurri...ropical_storms

FEMA Chief Relieved of Katrina Command
AP - 20 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown, the principal target of harsh criticism of the Bush administration's response to Hurricane Katrina, was relieved of his onsite relief command Friday. He will be replaced by Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad W. Allen, who was overseeing New Orleans relief, recovery and rescue efforts, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced.

WTF are they doing????

FEMA to Halt Debit Cards for Direct Deposit

And if I didn't have a beforehand ???? (those check cashing places aren't all over the place for nothing)

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

Quote:

Originally posted by Lindz928

The statistics that he gave (if accurate) are staggering. I would not blame anyone for not wanting to go back to that.

The possibly controversial question- If these people who have lived in poverty choose not to go back, but stay in places like Houston... Will they have a negative effect on the poverty rates and the education systems and the housing statistics in those cities?

I mean, he talked about the lady who was working for minimum wage at Popeye's in NO and is now planning on staying in Houston. Who is to say that she will automatically find a better job there? She may end up working for minimum wage at Popeye's in Houston. Won't make a bit of difference unless the cost of living in Houston is much lower than in NO. I honestly don't know if it is or not.

I agree with you. My brother in law (Ken) is a Houston Cop who has been assigned this week to the Astrodome & George Brown Convention Center. He has taken many refugees to jail for using Crack. he also took a lady to jail this afternoon after she collected her 5th RedCross Debit card. She was getting in line, getting a card after she filled out the info and getting a card, then getting in another line, using a different name. The cards are being given out, without the requirement of an ID or anything. (I'd think they'd at least use some system of identification that they use in mexico during elections. You dip your thumb into permanant ink that stains yous skin for up to a week after you vote. It prevents people from voting multiple times. So why couldnt they do the same here?)

At any rate, a lot of these people are good folx, but a lot arent. it will be interesting to see how the crime stats change in the next year and to see if any can be correlated to where the refugees have moved.

Back on the crackhead Ken arrested. He was complaining the whole way to jail saying "but I'm a Katrina refugee! I've been through too much. You shouldnt arrest me. I was in New Orleans!" Ken told him, "yeah, but you're in MY backyard now. This isnt Louisania. We actually care about the law here. You're welcome to start over here, but YOU WILL follow our laws, or you will go to jail."

I couldnt agree more. They are all welcome here. But they will adjust to our way of doing things, not the other way around. I dont care what you have been through.

I watched tonight's star-studded musical benefit for the hurricane survivors. Does Chris Rock know when he said "George Bush hates midgets" before his turn at the teleprompter that it was broadcast to the masses?

FYI - My cousin, Monica, who is a nurse, just left today for New Orleans. The whole story is under the Prayer Request thread in the ADPi Forum.

As for rebuilding, I'm sure they will - but that doesn't make it prudent. If Lake Ponchatrain is a natural extension of the Mississippi Gulf/Delta/River; since it's in a natural hurricane area; and since the amount of disease will be rampant for a long time to come - well, maybe nature should be better respected!

some anoimal organizations to help:

If you would like to make a donation toward the relief work, please check out these groups:

LSU School Of Veterinary Medicine
Mississippi State University School Of Veterinary Medicine
LSU Veterinary Student Support Fund
Louisiana Veterinary Medical Association
American Veterinary Medical Foundation
ASPCA Hurricane Relief

I say go ahead and rebuild but do not expect taxpayers to continue to bail you out. I am not sure how Texas is going to handle the situation, our school system has not been up to par for years so it will be interesting.

I feel sorry for the people going to California and making minimum wage-how are they going to be able to live out there with such a high cost of living?

Everytime they say the name of the guy that took over in NOLA for Michael Brown, I hear something else. His name is Thad Allen. But when said real fast, I hear them say Fat Albert.

Animals are Animals, but People too!

They do a lot to help people feel better dont they?

lifesaver, I can agree with You! I have been there and seen Animals not of 4 Legs but 2!

It is not or ever will be an easy job to put People out when they are in need.:(

Remmber, This Country is ding things that NO Other Country Can.

Good or Bad, It is getting done! It isnt easy!

It takes time. Political BS aside, there were Scew Ups upon all levels from City, State, and Federal Level!:confused:

"Vice President Dick Cheney visited an emergency management center in Austin, Texas, and said the government was finally gaining control of the situation. "I think we are in fact on our way to getting on top of the whole Katrina exercise. We've got a lot of work ahead of us," he said."

Exercise?

Exercise?

I'm sorry folks, but to me this shows the real lack of understand and compassion this entire administration has shown during the whole unfortunate situation.

It means nothing to these elite politicians. As long as Trent Lott is able to rebuild his home so they can sit on the back patio and drink mint juleps.

What a nightmare.

I think "exercise" was a really poor choice of a word. It sounds like he thinks we're having a fire drill or something.

LOL @ Fat Albert.

Quote:

Originally posted by DeltAlum
"Vice President Dick Cheney visited an emergency management center in Austin, Texas, and said the government was finally gaining control of the situation. "I think we are in fact on our way to getting on top of the whole Katrina exercise. We've got a lot of work ahead of us," he said."

Exercise?

Exercise?

I'm sorry folks, but to me this shows the real lack of understand and compassion this entire administration has shown during the whole unfortunate situation.

It means nothing to these elite politicians. As long as Trent Lott is able to rebuild his home so they can sit on the back patio and drink mint juleps.

What a nightmare.

I think it shows nothing more than the mis-use of a word. Do you REALLY think he meant it the way you are taking it? I hope not.

Quote:

Originally posted by Lindz928
I think it shows nothing more than the mis-use of a word. Do you REALLY think he meant it the way you are taking it? I hope not.

This guy makes a living speaking in public. So does the President. I don't think either of them really understand the way we common folks think. The President's statements the first two or three days of this disaster certainly weren't compassionate, but rather defensive about National Guard troops not being available -- and about Trent Lott's house being destroyed.

But then I've never been comfortable that he (Bush) really cares about anything but his wealthy conservative friends.

Sorry, but that's the way he strikes me.

On another note:

"Bush Accepts Blame For Poor Katrina Response
Admission Comes Just Days After Accusing News Media, Critics
Louisiana Death Toll Climbs To 423

(CBS) WASHINGTON President Bush Tuesday took responsibility for government 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," Mr. Bush said at joint White House news conference with the president of Iraq. "And to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility."

The admission comes just days after accusing the news media and critics of the administration storm response of "playing the blame game," reports CBS News White House Correspondent Peter Maer.

"I want to know what went right and what went wrong," the president said. "I want to know how to better cooperate with state and local government, to be able to answer that very question that you asked, 'Are we capable of dealing with a severe attack or another severe storm?'"

Just seems to show a Big Lack of Sympathy, Understanding and Caring from Those Who Have and Those Who Dont!:(

No wonder a Dr. told Him "Fuck You".

Oh, But He was Black and the SS jumped His ass as He was leaving!:mad:

His tape is on ebay for sale!:eek:

I was thinking about starting a new thread, but I figured this would fit in here.

In the last few days, Pres. Bush and Gov. Blanco have said, "I take full responsibility" for what went wrong. What does that mean? "I take full responsibility" just seems like a meaningless statement made by whomever is in charge when there is a public relations disaster. It's not even an apology.

Any thoughts?

Quote:

Originally posted by Peaches-n-Cream
I was thinking about starting a new thread, but I figured this would fit in here.

In the last few days, Pres. Bush and Gov. Blanco have said, "I take full responsibility" for what went wrong. What does that mean? "I take full responsibility" just seems like a meaningless statement made by whomever is in charge when there is a public relations disaster. It's not even an apology.

Any thoughts?

I think so, too. He didn't say "I'm so sorry we took so long..." or "I'm so sorry I didn't do xyz". It didn't sound sincere - it just sounded like rhetoric. Someone should ask him exactly what he feels his part in this failure was, since he's feeling responsible and all.

I think he sounded sincere. I commend him for taking responsibility. /End of opinion.

Quote:

Originally posted by Tickled Pink 2
I think so, too. He didn't say "I'm so sorry we took so long..." or "I'm so sorry I didn't do xyz". It didn't sound sincere - it just sounded like rhetoric. Someone should ask him exactly what he feels his part in this failure was, since he's feeling responsible and all.

I think that, in part, the point was that, since he wasn't involved in many of the specific decisions that went awry, and instead was responsible for oversight/installing morons into office/general cohesion, he's saying that he's taking responsibility for the failure of those things, even though he wasn't the 'trigger man' for much of the poor decision making (and was never meant to be).

In that way, I think it's more important than a by-rote apology (which could be just as insincere), as instead it's at least tacitly admitting that errors were made and that he is ultimately at the top of the blame ladder.

It also could have been rhetoric.

I nominate this thread as one of the most "Historical Threads" on GC. Especially the personal reflections of GC'ers pre-NOLA-Katrina...

Interesting facts and recollections.

beyond the fingerpointing

What has me dumbfound is how badly the alleged rebuilding effort has gone in the whole region.
Both my brothers were history majors and say the "how to do it" is there in the history books.
The TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority, I think) brought dams, flood control and power to rural towns.

Work programs in the depression resulted in major construction projects, and jobs. Two I can think of were the high school in the town I lived for awhile growing up and I believe one of the San Francisco Bay bridges.

After WW2, the U.S. basically led the effort and helped rebuild war ravaged Europe.

Many of the people who worked on these projects, coordinated them, are still alive. Sure, they are old. But that doesn't mean their minds are dead. I have several relatives in their 80s, and they put us young-ins in the family to shame when it comes to book smarts. Mobilize these people, get them out of retirement, away from seniors communities and put their know how to work, before it dies with them. If we can lead the rebuilding of Europe, there is no excuse as to why were can't rebuild New Orleans (one of my favorite cities, although haven't been there since prior to Katrina.)

Many of the prior projects most certainally were political. Time to put politics in a box and get it done. As far as money, if we can fund an apparently endless ongoing war, we can rebuild the Big Easy.

My younger brother's suggestion was for New Orleans to become its own nation, be deemed hostile, get invaded by the U.S. and then have its rebuilding funded by the occuping nation. (He is a tad more political).

A personal aside: One of the grad schools I was seriously considering was the University of New Orleans, and was at the school the summer before Katrina. A family emergency caused me to return home, thus causing me to rethink being that far from California.

I wanted to volunteer to help after Katrina but a charitable agency was not exactly organized as far as getting potential volunteers there, at least in the area of Oregon where I was visiting friends, at the time.

Instead, a friend and I hit Wal Mart and bought up all the crayons (yay, at 10 cents a box), paint in paint boxes, kids paint brushes, paper, chalk, etc. we could afford and fit into my Neon and made individual art kits so kids could paint and draw. We dropped them off at a distribution point for Katrina victims. I think we did about 75. Wished we could have done more.