Im continuing to read and listen to the radio for more info on who really messed up where.

I heard tapes of the Mayor being interviewed, he actually laughed at times when talking about the evacuation, he made public statements to the effect of "those who wish to remain behind...do this, do that"

In contrast, read what another area of the country does to prepare for hurricanes, its called the "magic marker approach"

Op-Ed Columnist
Magic Marker Strategy

By JOHN TIERNEY
Published: September 6, 2005

It was the climax of George W. Bush's video introduction at the Republican convention: the moment at Yankee Stadium during the 2001 World Series when he threw a pitch all the way to home plate. The video ended, and the conventioneers cheered as Mr. Bush strode onto a stage shaped like a pitcher's mound.
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Well, live by the pitch, die by the pitch. When you campaign as the man on the mound, the great leader whose arm rescues Americans in their moment of need, they expect you to deal with a hurricane, too.

Mr. Bush made a lot of mistakes last week, but most of his critics are making an even bigger one now by obsessing about what he said and did. We can learn more by listening to men like Jim Judkins, particularly when he explains the Magic Marker method of disaster preparedness.

Mr. Judkins is one of the officials in charge of evacuating the Hampton Roads region around Newport News, Va. These coastal communities, unlike New Orleans, are not below sea level, but they're much better prepared for a hurricane. Officials have plans to run school buses and borrow other buses to evacuate those without cars, and they keep registries of the people who need special help.

Instead of relying on a "Good Samaritan" policy - the fantasy in New Orleans that everyone would take care of the neighbors - the Virginia rescue workers go door to door. If people resist the plea to leave, Mr. Judkins told The Daily Press in Newport News, rescue workers give them Magic Markers and ask them to write their Social Security numbers on their body parts so they can be identified.

"It's cold, but it's effective," Mr. Judkins explained.

That simple strategy could have persuaded hundreds of people to save their own lives in New Orleans. What the city needed most was coldly effective local leaders, not a president in Washington who could feel their pain. It's the same lesson we should have learned from Sept. 11 and other disasters, yet both liberals and conservatives keep ignoring it.

The liberals bewailing the insensitivity and racism of Republicans in Washington sound like a bad rerun of the 1960's, when urban riots were blamed on everyone but the rioters and the police. Yes, the White House did a terrible job of responding to Katrina, but Democratic leaders in New Orleans and Louisiana didn't even fulfill their basic duties.

In coastal Virginia - which, by the way, has a large black population and plenty of Republican politicians - Mr. Judkins and his colleagues assume that it's their job to evacuate people, maintain order and stockpile supplies to last for 72 hours, until federal help arrives. In New Orleans, the mayor seemed to assume all that was beyond his control, just like the mayors in the 1960's who let the riots occur.

They said their cities couldn't survive without help from Washington, which proceeded to shower inner cities with money and programs that did more damage than the riots. Cities didn't recover until some mayors, especially Republicans like Rudy Giuliani, tried self-reliance.

Mr. Giuliani was called heartless and racist for cutting the welfare rolls and focusing on crime reduction, but black neighborhoods were the greatest beneficiaries of his policies. He was criticized for ignoring social services as he concentrated on reorganizing the Police and Fire Departments, but his cold effectiveness made the city a more livable place and kept it calm after Sept. 11.

Yet Mr. Bush, with approval from conservatives who should have known better, reacted to Sept. 11 by centralizing disaster planning in Washington. He created the byzantine Homeland Security Department, with predictable results last week.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, often criticized for ineptitude, became even less efficient after it was swallowed by a bureaucracy consumed with terrorism. The department has spent billions on new federal airport screeners - with no discernible public benefit - while giving short shrift to natural disasters.

The federal officials who had been laboring on a one-size-fits-all strategy were unprepared for the peculiarities of New Orleans, like the high percentage of people without cars. The local officials who knew about that problem didn't do anything about it - and then were furious when Mr. Bush didn't solve it for them. Why didn't the man on the mound come through for them?

It's a fair question as they go door to door looking for bodies. But so is this: Why didn't they go door to door last week with Magic Markers?

look out matilda, here comes the big one!

Luvrgrl, you're going to chase all the libbies away by shining lights like that in thier cool dark hideout otherwise known as open discussion

this doesnt change shrubs inadequate response does it?

we may cry and bemoan the lack of preparation from the part of the NO crew, but trying to shift blame to them for the govts woeful response to our biggest natural disaster sounds just like saying "well the iraqi people needed liberating anyway" after the invasion. it doesnt change the lack of a sufficient, massive response from a federal level.

__________________
'O=00=O'
bmw 2002.
long live the legend

When would you have preferred that "shrub" responded?

DAmn, its funny how they always manage to bring Iraq into this.

I heard the mayor and he said, "we ask for help and it takes days, they asked for help in Iraq and they got it lickity spl...quick..."

what the hell is he talking about??????

I cant asses at this point in time what happened at the federal level. I only know what i have heard from the mayor and his bombastic attack from PHILADELPHIA while "his people" were dieing in NO.

The only thing I can say about the gov at this point is, its my understanding she didnt ask for help right away. IF thats true, she blew it too, other than that I dont know about the state level inadeqacies.

But I do have enough info about the mayor to know that he BLEW IT MAJOR BIG TIME ON THIS ONE, then tried to shift the blame.

I understand "shrub" waited so long for the call from the governor, that he actually called her himself and inquired as to the state's need. It is ILLEGAL for the fed to do anything relative to state matters until it is specifically invited. That invite was delayed, so the relief was delayed.

The minute the levee broke. He even had federal jurisdiction at that moment. That, BTW, is when the Red Cross began to respond. To me the saddest news was hearing that calm was restored to New Orleans "within a few hours" after the 82nd Airborne was deployed. That meant those people were subjected to five days of rape and murder for nothing. The only word for this is "disgrace".

Hmm. May be. Does anyone know when the fed gov. is lawfully allowed to engage in state affairs uninvited?

#

A few facts are in order:

# President Bush declared Louisiana a disaster area two days before the hurricane struck the New Orleans area.
# President Bush urged New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco to order the mandatory evacuation that was issued on Sunday, August 28.
# First responders to a disaster are always state and local emergency agencies. FEMA is there to supplement the state and local activities.
# The hurricane threatened an area as large as 90,000 square miles covering three states. Immediate relief could not possibly have been delivered to all the places that required attention.
# An AP photo showed a large fleet of New Orleans buses soaking in six feet of water. The mayor apparently had the means to evacuate many of the folks who ended up stranded at the Superdome and the convention center.
# FEMA began its activities immediately, not expecting the magnitude of the flooding, the non-response at the city and state level, and the anarchy that resulted.
# The local and state governments had rehearsed for a different scenario. Disaster drills in New Orleans had taken place, but with a false assumption that the levees would hold.
# Both the law and protocol prohibit the president from ordering military troops into a state without a formal request to do so from the governor of the affected state.