I though the French Quarter - which is what most people think of as NO - wasn't flooded as it was built before people started putting in levees.

It sounds as if the areas worst affected were housing that was built in later years when population growth meant they used the areas that would flood

The government failed to prevent the predictable: looters and lunatics with guns running around and doing as they please.

The government response to this disaster appears to have been less effective than that occassionally witnessed in far less developed countries than our own -- i.e., fewer looters and fewer lunatics running around with guns scaring off rescuers, police, etc. in some such places than in New Orleans and vicinity.

Any guesses on whether or not DHS and its blind-supporters are going to be using this as an excuse for why the military should be under their control and be allowed to run operations in "the Homeland" too?

Hiltonhead,

I have posted several replied with exerts and links to articles. If you read the posts and articles, you will know how they failed. How do you expect bed-ridden people to leave? like the people report at http://www.nola.com/weblogs/nola/ind...09.html#076032
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Nursing home residents may be trapped

Subject: My Hurricane Story -- Apparent Recent Emergencies - Orleans

9428 LaFon Nursing home appears desparate on 2nd Floor of Chef Menteur
Hwy, says owners took off for Covington leaving 130 elderly or infirm

9467 Family apparently trapped next to canal at E Bullard needing a
boat.

PLEASE CONTACT POLICE OR WHOEVER

Thank you

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Here's one more -

By RON FOURNIER, AP Political Writer Thu Sep 1, 9:18 PM ET

WASHINGTON - At every turn, political leaders failed Katrina's victims. They didn't strengthen the levees. They ceded the streets to marauding looters. They left dead bodies to rot or bloat. Thousands suffered or died for lack of water, food and hope... http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/failure_of_leadership

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You bet. Have to put things into cost-benefit. We're talking about billions of dollars spent over as many as the next 10 years before New Orleans can be rebuilt. The optimistic outlook is that perhaps it will be five years before it can even begin to resemble the city that it was before the hurricane. All of this translates into tax increases for you and me. And the same problem will still exist: city built below sea level in danger of flooding any time there's a major storm.

As for government failing, I don't see how. Warnings were made well in advance; evacuations were made as much as possible; and you have people in that city shooting at government workers attempting to rescue the stranded and homeless. Unless you think that government can prevent hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes, I don't see how it failed.

I agree. ^

Here's the failure: most of the National Guard is off fighting a foreign war. That's not what the National Guard is for. The National Guard should be here helping the citizenry. This administration has raided our domestic security cookie jar.

We have to ask how many people are dying over here because of our adventurism over there in Iraq.

My response is a military one. The US military exists to fight and win the nation's wars. It is not a hand-holding, kumbaya-singing, nurturing charity organization. The National Guard and the Reserves are a part of that fighting team.

This is the mission creep I feared the most while I was on active duty: a distortion of our primary mission to the point where we are criticized for doing it. This "other than war" approach damn near got me killed during our Balkan adventure, so I'm pretty goddamn adamant about this one particular thing.

Not meant as a personal attack. This is a mentality I developed over 20 years serving as an Army officer, and, I admit, a very inflexible, stubborn view. I will always see the US military as a force that kills people and breaks things before it cleans up natural disaster areas or gives food to refugees. Not saying that the military shouldn't do these things, but I am saying that it is first and foremost the nation's warriors.

But the role of the National Guard is different. They are except from posse comitatus and they have traditionally been used for disaster relief and preservation of domestic order, not just recently either. The tradition goes back hundreds of years.

Unfortunately, they are the cookie jar that Presidents dip into when it would be "politically inexpedient" to raise troop levels, and what we are seeing now in New Orleans is the effect. Where's all the help? Well, it's in Iraq.

He's on TV now 9am EDT/Fri, standing next to Bush, this am who gave a short speech on the south lawn of the whitehouse. They then walked to Marine One together. Looks like Chertoff needs an ariel view too.

SDF_Traveler

I don't know about shining, but the DHS needs to get their crap together.

What I am seeing on the news with respect to Human Suffering, law and disorder in New Orleans, and the massive disorganization including massive mis-communications is not acceptable.

What we're faced with is a human tragedy, and quite frankly at this point I don't want to debate over who has performed poorly so far -- I want this to change and an acceptable level of assistance put in place. I also feel not enough national guard troops were deployed and the politicians in Louisiana keep dodging the question each time it is asked by the press. Why not admit you mis calculated the # of national guard troops you needed to keep the city in order. It's sad to see goons wanting to hijack ambulances full of supplies which are attempting to deliver meds, water, needed items to the hospitals. The goons would rather take the ambulance and drive out of New Orleans than allow deliveries to be made safely. Thankfully the hospitals are evacuating their patients by air to other hospitals around the nation. It's sad that many patients died because of no electricity for breathing machines and the generators at the hospital ran out of fuel. Not even an emergency fuel supply for hospital generators.

We have US citizens living on interstates - the conditions in the New Orleans Shelters including the Superdome are 3rd world. There have been gun shots fired and violence in the Superdome which is supposed to be a shelter. The MRE's and clean water are not getting to all folks in a timely manner, these people are not being transported out of New Orleans fast enough.

As MSY gets limited usage now and can only be used at day, why doesn't the govt lease some of ATAs high density L1011's if they're still around or borrow a few widebodies, 777s, 747s, DC-10s, any MD-11s, or Airbus widebodies from various carriers. They would need less busses, as during the day they would only shuttle people to/from the airport, other busses at night when planes cannot operate out of MSY can take citizens to other shelters in TX or FL. The planes can fly futher in a shorter amount of time, allowing refugees to get to some cities in the North as only so many people can fit in the Astrodome and around the Houston area.

The TSA staff at MSY could actually do a lot of good if they evacuate people on aircraft. The people would get full screenings for weapons, including knives by TSA pat-down and bag searches, unless some generator power can be fired up for the WTMD and some x-ray equipment. This is needed to prevent violence outbreaks with weapons at their next shelter. I don't think we need to worry about explosives screening.

Fly them out to nearby large cities at secondary airports as staging areas, AFW for the Dallas Ft Worth area, perhaps EFD for Houston - send some to other states. Detroit/MI said they would take and support some refugees - fly a few groups to DTW (unless Detroit has a large, viable, cargo or military airport for use), send some to ILN if greater Cincinnati, Ohio / Columbus, OH, can accept some. These planes can arrive into MSY with full emergency cargo loads likewise, bottled water, food, medicine, etc., to provide those still waiting with necessities.

We need real plans in place and to act immediately on them. Let's not wait until all the politicians take their ride via aur over affected areas to make decisions; besides you can only see so much from the air, you don't know what the suffering is like unless you spend a full day on I-10 with little water, little to no food, in hot temps; We need to get them OUT of New Orleans NOW, not two days from now after plans are drafted, denied, re-drafted and eventually approved -- even if it's a staging area at a military airfield somewhere where they can get hot showers, hot food, medical help, etc., until a new place can be found for them.

We have lots of resources that are going to waste. In this day in age, there is no reason for the human suffering on I-10 and in the Superdome. Most importantly, use the resources to get them out -- fly them if possible, don't screw around bussing them for hours on end. You can fit 300+ in an aircraft, but only 50/60 in a a yellow school bus at 55 mph without air conditioning.

My thoughts and prayers are with the people of New Orleans and the affected gulf communities. They have suffered through a tragedy and are now dealing with another tragedy all together because they are not getting basic needs met living on I-10 -- plus the dry parts of the city like the French Quarter just are not safe, rioting, looting, violence -- this must be squashed and should have been from day one.

New Orleans needs to have the water drained, be cleaned up, and then folks could either work on relocating to a new home/job with time and FEMA assistance -- or return to New Orleans to assist with the re-building of the city after it is safe.

SDF_Traveler

P.S. - FWIW, look at the National Weather Service Statement issued before the hurricane, in my next post. They had time to prepare.

Bart, Fema is asking for TSA people to help in the Katrina aftermath. Has your airport been asked? Several from my airport have said they would go to help out. That is one thing about DHS, coast guard, tsa, all fall under the same branch so can call any and all to help in a disaster. I have no ideal what they will be doing but the ones that said yes do want to help anyway they can. It could be giving out supplies, cleaning up, whatever, sure know they are going to need a lot of help.

The amazing thing to me is that all these DC officials run to the microphones and pat themselves on the back (Chertoff actually used the word "magnificent" to describe the response) and assure the refuges that "we feel your frustration but please be patient."

After 5 days without water, watching people die and getting no information or complete misinformation, I think these people are way beyond frustrated.

I have yet to see any one of the 10s of 1000s of refuges gathered around a TV watching these media events. I think the whole sniper thing is way overblown and has become an excuse (one on a long and growing list) and when Chertoff said communication was complicated when "the cell towers went out" well duh...this possibility never occurred to anyone?...it was a hurricane for heaven's sake.

It is mind-blowingingly overwhelming and depressing to think we as a nation have put our security into a DHS that responds like spastic jello to an event that they said they were ready for (prestaged food, water, workeres). God forbid this had been a dirty bomb.

If I hear one more DC official assure the refuges (who, as I said, are completely out of the broadcast grid) that help is "surging" into the area (Bush's words this morning) I may puke...We are talking about NO, not a distant planet...there should be thousands there helping bringing order and helping get people out of there.

Well San Francisco and Los Angeles have very strict building codes in recognition of the earthquake issue. When the big one happens they will not be in nearly as bad a shape.

New Orleans could have been much better prepared. They needed better levees. (How do the Dutch handle this? They are below sea level also). Why were the pumps with out backup? Why did they not have generators to use when the inevitable power failure occurred during the hurricane?

All of this could have been expected and plans prepared. As for the folks who stayed if you saw them on BBC news it was obvious that they did not own cars. Why was there not a better evacuation plan to get the less mobile citizens out? This was not the first hurricane they have ever had.

For a moment I though you were talking about Baghdad in April 2003. We didn't plan for looters then, and we haven't learned from that lesson.

Now we have a situation where the most powerful military in the history of the world can't protect an American city and its population of citizens from a handful of disorganized people running around with guns.

You have got to be kidding. One of the first orders of business for this new administration was the decimation of the budget for the US Army Corp of Engineers - and guess which area suffered some of the biggest budget hits? Southern Louisiana

The City of New Orleans has been begging for money for years to fix the levees and strengthen them. The Government's response? "Sorry, no money for that. Oh, and by the way, thanks for reminding us...we need to cut even more from your allocation."

Warned everyone in plenty of time? Most of those people have no means to evacuate the city. They needed to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people who had no means to move themselves - yet the Government did nothing. The Government assumed the levees would hold...even with their years of budget cuts and inattention.

Responded with everything they had?? Oh please...if this is everything 'they have', then we are in deep, deep trouble as a country. They responded with next to nothing. What they DID respond with was plenty of confusion, mismanagement, disorganization, and dare I say it: apathy. I watched Primetime last night and saw thousands of people stranded in hospitals, parking garages, the convention center, the Superdome, etc - with no plan or process in place to move any of them. These people feel abandoned - and they ARE abandoned. It is utterly disgusting.

I believe that if this crisis continues to spiral out of control, combined with astronmical gas pricing and supply problems, calls will begin to go out for the resignation of the President. 1 billion dollars a day for Iraq, where they pay 3cents a gallon for gas - and New Orleans lays in waste while I pay over $3 a gallon to fill my tank. I clearly see where his priorities are....strumming his new guitar while New Orleans burns.

Chertoff is an a$$hole and wholly incompetent. Take this statement he made yesterday for example:

...! What color is the sky in his world?!?! And we can thank Bush for putting this idiot in charge and dismantling FEMA:

Bush team's dismantling of FEMA is a disaster