VENT HERE - anger about Katrina Relief

[mousecrazy 2]

Yes, La Madam, that would definitely be one place that plans could be fine-tuned. The only worse scanario I can imagine is that the mayor and governor actually DID NOT know how many people lived in dire straits and couldn't leave. I know for sure that I never heard estimates as high as the actual reality is.

[DeLarla 22]

I started this thread as a place to vent, which is what we're doing.

My attitudes and opinions have changed many times over since the day the storm calmed. No matter who's to blame, the fact is those people were responsible for their own safety but they didn't evacuate. I agree with Vines, some were too poor, some too sick, some in denial, many plain ignorant. But in this country, the punishment is designed to fit the crime. If their crime was being too ignorant or poor to escape, should their sentence be death, starvation, living among putrid decaying bodies and five solid days of life in hell? Are they to blame? Who knows. Did they deserve to wait five days before getting their first glimmer of hope? Five days? FIVE days?

I can't accept the way the government - at any level - handled this disaster. Call it racial, call it stupidity, it doesn't matter. The United States of America had ways and means of air-dropping pallets of food and Water - at least to small pockets. Maybe they couldn't help everyone the first day, but they could have started somewhere.

Was Bush so slow to act because he needed a plan to address the entire problem before taking action? Let's see, the world is on fire. Let's let it continue to burn till we can figure out how to put the entire thing out at once. When the city of New Orleans hit riot proportions, help should have rushed there first. Other areas may have been hit worse, but they weren't rioting and raping. It's called prioritizing. Failure.

I still haven't a word of intelligence as to why it too FIVE days to start relief efforts. Why were barges and countries turned away when they got there before the US? Because of Red Tape? Who has time for red tape right now?

We can't blame anyone for what happened, but I personally didn't hear a SQEAK from Bush till Day 5. Not a peep. He could have at least sent a message that help is on the way.

I wanted to delete this thread and start a new one about the generosity of the world and the small people that are bringing LA back to life. But there are some really powerful words here so I'll let it ride.

[mousecrazy 2]

Hi Delarla...I am glad you posted again, because you started the thread to vent, and then boy, did people vent! Of course, we do not all think the same way, but I think that is okay, and hope other people do, too. I want you to feel better about things, and so want you to know that Bush declared the area a disaster area two days before the storm hit. That was so local/state officials would be able to request the assistance necessary in advance. We'll find out some day exactly what happened. Also, he flew over on his way home from Crawford the day after the storm was over, I think it was Tuesday. I saw a video of Air Force One flying low over the damage so he oculd view it from the air. I hope the info I give on this thread will not be seen as argumentative, but enlightening.

And, sorry to say but it's reality, the consequence for ignorance is, unfortunately, sometimes death. I still want to know why the mayor of New Orleans did not know that half a million people would need shelter and evacuation! What's that all about?

Thanks again Delarla for starting the thread and leaving it open...I've learned a lot from it, and I bet others have, too!

[alatina 1]

this whole situation is sad and my family and friends from childhood live outside mobile alabama..you know the area you are hearing very little about as far as help?It makes me mad and sick to see them pushed to the side-they are screwed like everyone else and I am heading down there myself with what relief I can offer-I got a company contact to bring a truck down there with clothes/food and stuff that I collected-I dont give a rats ass if they try to stop me going my usual route home to alabama-ill just go around-its too much to think of the stuff going on there right now and to have people tell me that they deserved it since they didnt leave-what the..?!?!?!?where the hell did you think some of these people were gonna go?they have no cars,money or place to go and some were in damn shelters that were ravaged by katrina-im a bit hot under the collar with alot of stuff right now but I am so glad to see the good in most people coming thru.I have a thread in chat asking for donations to this specific area that is home for my family-its fairhope alabama and any thing you can donate is appreciated-PM me for my addy if you like or I can get you directed to that area drop off if you prefer to go directly that way-I dont care how ya do it... all works for me.

[La_madam 20]

Just heard on the news that the governemnt has released all of the "knock off name brand" items they have seized by the counterfieters wh otry and sell them , clothes, toys, purses hat etc to give to the Hurrican Victims..I like that idea

[Alexandra 55]

That is a great idea, La_madam, indeed! I haven't heard that yet, but it's really great that good decisions are starting to be made. This is the first day I've really had a chance to catch up on all the news, and it's just horrifying, horrifying, horrifying from top to bottom. I've been in tears several times today.

[KarenB 0]

Just to add my 2 cents in, I personally do think the lack of response has a lot to do w/racism. If the majority of people stranded because they hadn't the means or ability had been white, I think Bush would have acted a lot sooner. And not stayed on vacation. And shame on the secretary of state for going shoe shopping. People keep saying "why didn't they leave" and the answer simply is in so many cases, they had no place to go, and no cars to get there. Michele, you're right, buses should have been sent in right away.

A man here in NY has offered to pay for transportation for 37 or 38 people to stay in his large home & give them a stipend for several months to get back on their feet. He first wanted to just give $100,000, but figured this would be more helpful. I really like that idea!

[DeLarla 22]

My views and opinions are still fluctuating. I sit in front of the news every opportunity I can get, and we seem to be at the "question and answer" investigatory phase. So far Bush's people are respoding with, "uh, I don't know." Nobody has stated an intelligent reason why even a tiny bit of relief wasn't rushed in. Five day? Five?

I'm not there so all I know is what I hear on the news, and still no answers from Bush. Mouse, I personally appreciate all you've said because I learn from reading both sides. I'm a Libra still weighing and balancing everything I hear and read. No arguments here, just trying to piece it together.

At this point, I'm not sure how I feel. The only thing I'm sure about is that five days is totally unacceptable, and since Bush is the top banana, he's got to take responsiblity. Even if Bush warned people to get out, the punishment simply doesn't fit the crime. We are warned against dangers every day but we make mistakes. People take their boats out in bad weather and get trapped in storms, but the US Coast Guard rushes out to save them. People get stuck on Mount Everest because they're stupid enough to climb the thing and fall off cliffs, yet our government sends rescue units. We make stupid mistakes but we, as Americans, have always been able to rely on our goverment - united we stand, divided we fall. Not any more. I certainly hope I never hear that statement again. I'm looking at my paystub right now and see an enormous chunk was withheld by the federal goverment. They didn't wait five days to take my money, so why did they take five days to spend it? Again, no anger here at LBT, it's just good venting.

[Penni60 45]

I have deliberately NOT watched too much of this because I was selfish and wanted a nice happy holiday / birthday weekend with my family.

OK I am home now and the devastation that hit you all has slammed into me with both fists. I am completely outraged, disheartened, disillusioned, and all manor of euphemisms and adjectives. It is unconscionable let me say this again unconscionable that our "for lack of a printable word here" President delayed the support needed to these poor suffering people. I don't use the word Poor meaning without money I mean poor as in showing empathy for them. How dare Mr. Bush (NOT PRESIDENT BUSH BUT MR.), show such a cavilier attitude toward all this mahem and destruction. He should pray every night for forgiveness from all the families that lost loved ones due to his negligent response for whatever reasons he was told to say by his speech writers.

I am just destroyed about all the needless pain and suffering. When I first heard about this I was in shock and ignored it. I was selfish and wanted some time to myself to enjoy my family. Now I feel guilty for doing that. Then I know that is not right either. Every day in the world there is pain and suffering so we have to live our lives along with the pain and suffering in the world.

YEAH IT SUCKS that we live in a rather plentiful country that won't even take care of it's own much less accept aid from certain foreign countries when offered. Mr. Bush needs to get off his pedestal that Cheney and Rice have him on and come down and smell the rotting bodies he contributed to. I am not too proud to accept help when needed. The countries are not even asking anything in return for the aid. Cuba could really ask for the sanctions to be lifted from their country but they didn't. SIGH!! I don't get it.

Thank god I didn't give him either of my votes.

Too many stories are being floated around now about how aid was within reach and it was turned away because of alot of posturing from one organization to another. Fema turned away truck loads of Water donated by Walmart because it wasn't from FEMA. I broke down in tears from that one. Buses were not allowed in to take out the people at the dome for whatever reasons. Chinook helicopters were not scrambled into service to drop supplies.

The stupid f$%^&ng levies weren't fixed to begin with. There were reports dating back to 2000 from Corp of Engineers stating that the levies would not withstand anything above a category 3 hurricane. DUH!!!! Fix the damn thing then.

I am outraged by it all. I wanna do something, say something, organize something to open up America's eyes. Wake up people! We are not untouchable! We are only one more disaster away from being like Bosnia, Serbia, Afghanistan, etc. Drought can touch us too. See how we reacted when we thought the oil reserves were affected by the hurricane?

WAKE UP PEOPLE!!! (I am including myself in this dictum) We can get too comfortable in our lives and can get complacent.

OK Now I am going to call my children and tell them all how much I love and appreciate them. Then I am gonna go donate some money to Red Cross. If I had any plus size clothes to send I would send them but I don't now.

ONE STEP AT A TIME!!

May God Bless Each and everyone of you and yours on this glorious day he has made for us.

[DeLarla 22]

I keep watching the news waiting for an ounce of intelligence. All I want is one honest reason why helicopters and boats weren't on the scene the second the rain and wind stopped. I'm not asking about 100 helicopters. I'm asking about a couple. How about one? What about one barge, one military ship, a row boat or even a raft? A single plastic jug of Water dropped from the sky?

One of anything - anyone?

[babsintx3 0]

Hi Everyone,

I want to vent!!! I say to everyone stop looking for scapegoats and lets get on with the business of helping people.

I am really sick and tired of people blaming Bush. Anyone with any inteliigence knows that the response time was sluggish and resulted in unnecessary deaths. Funds were allocated by Bush two days before this horrific disaster though. We have never had a situation in US history (other than 9/11, which wasnt a natural disaster) where 500,000 people were displaced without homes, clothing and food. The infrastructure in NO is terrible. THere were buses to help folks evacuate and many did not take advantage of this. If you want to blame someone then lots of fault lies with local, state agenicies, the governors of MS and LA to get folks out. And you cant force people to leave if they dont want to go. And how many people can be airlifted in one day to safety and how quickly did folks expect that to happen? And you cant expect the media to accurately report what happened. THere werent too many of them on the ground the day after, footage was sketchy and information flow garbled. And anyone who believes all they see in the media is really living in a cocoon. I have been in print, television, radio for 14 years prior to being a recruiter and most of what is printed and what you see on the news is crap and slanted to achieve bigger ratings. TV and print are whorish businesses that thrive on disasters, atrocities, chaos and political and ethical controversy.

Unfortunately, the only way to know if government agencies like FEMA, MEMA etc function properly or have too much red tape is to have a situation like this of a significant magnitude which shows everyone where all the weaknesses are in the system. No one including the president, the governors of the respective states, the agencies that were sluggish to provide help could have known how bad we were equipped to handle such situations until something like this happened.

I know people want to be angry. How could something happen in the US like this? How can we be so poorly equipped. Its an outrage. We knew the levies couldnt withstand anything above a category 3. Its easy to judge decisions in retrospect. Maybe the money to fix the levies was used to help a LA kid go to college. Or maybe it was used for some other purpose which at the time seemed more significant. Especially since if I were playing the lottery, the chances of NO being directly hit by a category 5 storm were slim to none since nothing of this magnitude has hit the US in at least 12 years. SO I say stop blaming the PREZ. Beleive it or not, he does not have as much pull as you give him credit for. Wait, I thought we are the voters and thens theres congress, the senate, house of reps etc. So what am I missing here? Isnt this a collective failure. Hell, I think I am going to walk over and blame my neighbor across the street cause she voted Republican.....

Babs in TX

[La_madam 20]

Especially since if I were playing the lottery, the chances of NO being directly hit by a category 5 storm were slim to none since nothing of this magnitude has hit the US in at least 12 years.

Not true, it was stated that they were warned that something like this was going to happen within the next 3-5 years. By the patterns they have been monitoring. A September 1 AP article notes that scientists had predicted the worst: "experts repeatedly cautioned that the protective system was unlikely to prevail if a Category 4 or Category 5 hurricane like Katrina hit the city." Despite the 2004 hurricane season being the worst in decades, however, the federal government made the biggest cuts in hurricane and flood-control funding for New Orleans in history, preventing millions of dollars’ worth of necessary work from being completed, according to a September 2 Editor & Publisher article:

here are other articles saying they were warned of a CAT 5 being possible

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/la-na-levee4sep04,1,989132.story?coll=la-news-politics-national

http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001054510

. I do agree with you that the blame if any should go on the local and state government. The buses should of been there before the storm not after the fact, if they are going to make it mandatory evacuation like they did then they should of had means of transportation available for those who did not have any.

[DeLarla 22]

I'm finally getting intelligent answers! Right on, Babs. I started this post as a place to vent because I am guilty of living in a media cocoon. I just finish posting in another thread that the media had me fooled. I asked for intelligent answers, and now I'm getting them.

Babs, you answered everything. Everything you said about the media should have been posted at the top of this venting thread. All I've known all week is what's being portrayed on TV. The reporters, interviewers, victims - everyone only talked about Bush being absent and not caring. They made it seem like Bush was on vacation and even Condoliza Rice stayed on vaction during this. The media made me believe the government was allowing people to suffer while turning away Water, help and food from private organizations and even other countries.

On the 3rd of 4th day I saw a couple helicopter rescues, but I didn't see any food, Water or shelter for an entire week. And that's exactly why I started this thread - to vent and get answers. Everything is starting to make sense now.

I never expected everybody to be rescued the first day, but from my end nobody was being helped anywhere. Nope, just rage, riots, rape and looting. And the rapper on that MTV show just fed us with more. Nobody ever came and rebutted what he said, which is that Bush doesn't care about black people. So I sat and flipped through channels and obsessed with the news waiting for Bush/Feds/State/Charity organizations to respond. They probably did respond, but if all the news channels clarified our answers, then we'd stop obsessing about watching TV, and that could hurt their ratings.

Here's my sign.

[the best me 6]

I also "heard" that the Governor was begged by President Bush to request Federal Disaster Aid, on Monday, I think it said, and she waited 24 hours to think about it. Then the levees broke. Not sure of the details...that's just a shake-down of basically what happened. I'm questioning anything the media has to say, particularly after Bab's post. The "whoring" descriptive goes a long way to describe things. For now, I'll stick with Fox and CNN. Okay, maybe a little bit of Rush Limbaugh, just when I'm driving during his show...

[Penni60 45]

You know we all have our opinions of our present government infrastructure. Some like it and others don't.

The bottom line is the powers that be knew of the dangers of the levee not holding. They did nothing to fix the problems.

And to address the point that was made about what if that money was directed to send a Louisiana kid for college. What if it was then we find out he was one of those stranded in the college when it flooded. Or worse he was home visiting and lost his life in the flood.

The point is the money should have been put to shoring up the levee knowing it could give way. IT WASN'T! They were warned years ago it could happen. They chose to ignore it for whatever reasons. Now we are facing cleaning up the aftermath of this horrible disaster.