Heartbroken

also, there's this, wasn't the whole point of coming up with some organization supposed to address these types of situations after what happened four years ago? this, at least to me, points to the fact that we, as a country, are no better off than we were when a man-made disaster happened to this country. it doesn't matter how the catastrophe happened, it's how we deal with the aftermath that counts. are we still prepared? will we ever be? i really don't think so.

all to often political pundits get up on their various soapboxes and spout off their venomous vitriol, while at the same time, people are still suffering. this gets back to the point several others have mentioned about what we can do. as for myself, i try and help in some small way that i can, for instance, there are two families re-locating to Great Falls and the community has been nothing short of miraculous in getting these people up here when they don't have nothing but the clothes on their backs, literally.

 

damn them politicians.. i told them to give me my soap box back!!!!!!! at least i keep i in the closet where it belongs most of the time!

warchilde i am glad to hear that your community is pulling together.

 

I tell you who I'm now extremely disappointed in - Kanye West.
Just the mere mention of his name pisses me off now. I used to have a great amount of respect for him with the work he's done in the rap community (clean lyrics for the most part, positive messages, producing, etc) but to make the whole "Shoot on sight" matter a race-card issue is just pure bs.

 

it totally amazes me, lets start investigations and blame someone. its the democrats fault, its the republicans fault, its everyone elses fault. i wonder how much better everyones energy would be spent instead of blaming, investigating and doing everything else, but getting out the waders and helping out!!!!!

Its done, its over, it does not matter who is to blame, lets just pull together and clean this disaster up and help these people out OMG!


Sorry *puts away the soap box*

 

Inded.
That has been the #1 request all along.
Money.
And to send it NOW, especially in the event if (when) another situation occurs later on, the funds are already allocated.

~PM~

 

its not that we are looking for someone to blame..."blame game" is how them put it. Its holding someone accountable for the extra several hundred that are dead now because of the lack of response at best. We need to hold someone accountable for the things that keep happening to this country otherwise we will never be able to stop it. When our major organization created solely for handling these things is a day late and a dollar short and doesn't even know whats going on down there its time to find out why and "fix" it. We can just let this one "slide". I mean, what do we tell these people:

"I'm sorry your family died. We knew about this, we responded poorly but, meh, its over now so deal with it."

The first question that comes here is oh really...why did we respond poorly? Why did the FEMA director send away hundreds of poeple responding to help? There was several bus' from wisconson that were sent to respond to this and made it 3/4's way before FEMA turned them away because they didn't have "official word" of them coming. FEMA also either denied several other means of help and turned away or simply ignored several countries that tried to send us aid. Now why did we respond poorly? FEMA and the government said they had 1500 National Guard troups in new orleans and 1500 adding to the pile daily and we where amply covered down there security wise and everything was fine. The mayor reported 1500 New Orleans Police and 200+ national guard troups all fearing for their lives in full armor w/ semi-auto assault rifles.

I'm with the media on this one, sadly enough. When we say "why" we get we don't need to point fingers now, we need to fix it, we will deal with that later. Then later we get "Its done and over with, we should let bygones be bygones." When do we get to look at what caused the problem? I'd like to find out this misterious date that is perfect for asking why FEMA and the Fed. government showed up late and short and didn't even have a clue what was going on down there.

Bottom line. There are hundreds of extra people dead down there. If I kill 100 people, I'm a murderer and I'm held responsible for it. If the government does it through this means isn't it considered the same? and if not, why? Someones judgement call costed human lives in both situations, I just don't have a government program to hide behind.

 

Well said FireZ, we need to know what events lead to this disaster in order to find a way to prevent it from happening again.

 

exactly....when...If we don't do it now, we get the Its over and done with now, we don't need to blame anybody.

We got help down there by demanding what was going on. If you start pointing fingers, you get fast responses of people going, "who me? see I'm doing my job!"

 

ya that is what i was trying to say is do it later i am pissed they are trying to do it right this minute. i dont wanna hear about it now, i wanna know what they are doing to actively correct the situation right this minute and make things right and respond now.

they definitally need to go down and see where communcation and what not broke along the chain of command, but not now.

 

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b96/progprog/Ws_Katrina_Thought_Process.png
for your reading pleasure

 

But what happens if we have another disaster happens while we fix this. There is another hurricane in the Atlantic right now and we still have Brown in controll. What happens if this slams into Florida or some other state and causes havic and we have the same sort of response? Will it get looked at then, or shall we wait for the "next disaster" before we get this done? There are people that can handle this that have to stay behind and "not" have the opertunity to help in New Orleans because we still have a government to run.

The main question is how many have to die? How many do we need killed to make it necissary to remove and replace the incompetant people that are leading this stuff. We are in the thousands now, Thousands! We need to remove these people before we have to deal with this again. I have family in New Orleans that I thank God every day I watch the news that they came back to Michigan the friday before.

 

He's not anymore...

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/09/katrina.impact/index.html

~PM~

 

Hes just not in control of this relief effort anymore. He's still head of FEMA.

 

Correct, and it *is* a start.

...and I just watched DATELINE. I had been following this rather closely and I knew most of what was covered. However, it still sickened me.

~PM~

 

well Firez since you seem to be looking at some one to blame bud , why dont we start with the local goverment how long has the hurricane hit and the dumb F#$kin govenor of Lousianna still hasnt signed the papers to allow the Feds to take full control? I know that i am not talking out of my arse about this because this is what we have been talking about all week in Pol Science. I mean dont look to the Feds on this one it isnt there job to take care of it until the states says that they can no longer handle the issue at hand and ask's the feds to step in. That in the constitution you can look it up or i can look up the reference for ya. Also why not also bring out the fact that she told them not to evac almsot a day before it hit because she wanted to ride it out and see what happened? UHHH DUH its a FREAKING HURRICANE , it doesnt take a rocket scientist to say evac. I mean good lord instead of looking at the feds and blaming thier programs why dont we take a look at the state level where the majority of the problem is at. Demicrats and Republican's not working together and yet they are there to serve the people? WoW she served them really good eh?

 

I believe this is a moot point, but I could be wrong. You see, once the President of the United States declares an area a “State of Emergency” FEMA (A department of HOMELAN Security) is given the green light to ‘go’. If that is incorrect, please let me know (quantifiably please) Yes, government protects itself from the top down; thus State government is reluctant to get involved in Local, etc...

If memory serves, you are partially correct. It was the MAYOR who at first advised people to evacuate. He (the mayor) was then informed (the day prior) by the Head of the National Hurricane Center (in Miami) that this Hurricane was headed towards New Orleans. Thus, the mandatory evacuation was announced.

Here is the deal regarding Human Nature. Anger is a grievance to be filed, and my advice to anyone would be to take care in the manner of the filing. The failures that led to this catastrophe were in many areas and on many levels. Local, State and Federal. Why? Well, we can speculate all day and come up with several near-misses, a wide shot (or two) and perhaps a few dead-on answers~! Hindsight with many (but not all) is 20/20. Not enough was done to avert the majority of this situation.
Risk-assessment was done, and there was ample notice, yet why not enough was done in the time allowed is unknown to myself and many other people. Much of what I have read, watched and listened to boils down to the fact that our government may have gotten in its own way.

Call it what you will. In fact, throw this out in Poli-Sci -->
Why have other countries, (less rich and less technology advanced) have shown superior results under disastrous conditions? We know there are good people in our government. Yet when the Governor of Louisiana asked FEMA for more troops and helicopters, FEMA responded to HER by requesting an organizational chart. I would call this an example of a sprawling, bureaucracy-choked morass, lead by public servants who refuse to think out of the box, making their position their career, eventually shifting their focus from public service to self service in order to retain their jobs. From jumping onto any "hot" media – band wagon to serve their purposes, to pointing fingers and ---....Ahem.
Excuse me (ends tirade)

I do not mean to talk down to you or anyone, and I’m sure your high-school Poli-Sci teacher is FAR more knowledgeable than I regarding government, but one belief I do have is that the government protects itself. Starting at the top. And the only way we can make a difference, (or change how the system works) is for us to get involved with our local government.

Bottom line here?
The failures that led to this catastrophe were in many areas and on many levels. Local, State *and* Federal. We have all been emotionally touched/involved by this and we’ve all contributed what we can to those ravaged by Katrina...as a nation we're about to do more. I’d like to see us come together on this, but I fear the DFL & GOP will refuse.
(shrugs) Who knows...?

~PM~

The comments in this message belong to PumpMonkey and do not represent our beloved -CDL- family . So Nyah...

 

Sterls in da Houz