Real police don’t run
Officer Dumas Carter, NOPD, is an eight-year veteran who was one of just six NOPD officers at the Convention Center, on duty, for the storm and the hellish period following. This first-hand on-the-ground account covers a lot of ground, and Officer Carter pulls few punches. Great job, sir.
The day before, we all go in for roll call and we’re basically told that we’re reporting for work and we pretty much won’t be able to leave until this is over. Some of [the officers] were whining, but all week long we had been told, you’re a police officer, and once you go active we’re going to be on active duty for the remainder. Make sure that your families are out and your houses are taken care of, because we can’t have you worrying about your family, your house, your dog, and be a police officer. That made sense to me. But a lot of people were like, fuck this, I’ve got to go with my family. So they left. My district wasn’t like any other district. Ninety-eight percent of the people stayed. The Sixth District. The real district. Fort Apache. You’ve seen that on the news.
Related posts:
Thank God for police officers like Dumas Carter! When New Orleans became chaos, they stayed at their posts and did what had to be done to try and protect their city and it’s citizens. The ones that didn’t should be prosecuted for dereliction of duty. Thank you Dumas Carter for having the integrity and the courage to do the right thing in the face of impossible odds. The police officers of New Orleans who stayed and did their job will always be known as heroes in a city often accused of corruption in it’s government. God Bless the officers of NOPD who would not sell their city short!
For all of you who think Bush is doing a good job, and believe his “compassionate conservative” line, red on:
A Fatal Incuriosity
>> By MAUREEN DOWD
>>
>> I hate spending time in hospitals and nursing homes. I find them to
>> be some of the most
>> depressing places on earth.
>>
>> Maybe that’s why the stories of the sick and elderly who died, 45 in
>> a New Orleans hospital and
>> 34 in St. Rita’s nursing home in the devastated St. Bernard Parish
>> outside New Orleans, haunt me
>> so.
>>
>> You’re already vulnerable and alone when suddenly you’re beset by
>> nature and betrayed by your
>> government.
>>
>> At St. Rita’s, 34 seniors fought to live with what little strength
>> they had as the lights went
>> out and the water rose over their legs, over their shoulders, over
>> their mouths. As Gardiner
>> Harris wrote in The Times, the failed defenses included a table
>> nailed against a window and a
>> couch pushed against a door.
>>
>> Several electric wheelchairs were gathered near the front entrance,
>> maybe by patients who
>> dreamed of evacuating. Their drowned bodies were found swollen and
>> unrecognizable a week later,
>> as Mr. Harris reported, “draped over a wheelchair, wrapped in a
>> shower curtain, lying on a floor
>> in several inches of muck.”
>>
>> At Memorial Medical Center, victims also suffered in 100-degree heat
>> and died, some while
>> waiting to be rescued in the four days after Katrina hit.
>>
>> As Louisiana’s death toll spiked to 423 yesterday, the state charged
>> St. Rita’s owners with
>> multiple counts of negligent homicide, accusing them of not
>> responding to warnings about the
>> hurricane. “In effect,” State Attorney General Charles Foti Jr.
>> said, “I think that their
>> inactions resulted in the death of these people.”
>>
>> President Bush continued to try to spin his own inaction yesterday,
>> but he may finally have
>> reached a patch of reality beyond spin. Now he’s the one drowning,
>> unable to rescue himself by
>> patting small black children on the head during photo-ops and making
>> scripted attempts to appear
>> engaged. He can keep going back down there, as he will again on
>> Thursday when he gives a
>> televised speech to the nation, but he can never compensate for his
>> tragic inattention during
>> days when so many lives could have been saved.
>>
>> He made the ultimate sacrifice and admitted his administration had
>> messed up, something he’d
>> refused to do through all of the other screw-ups, from phantom
>> W.M.D. and the torture at Abu
>> Ghraib and Guant
Misinformation heard shortly after the storm:
Over 10,000 dead.
Three months to pump out the water.
French Quarter destroyed.
Totally unhabitable for “several months”.
Maureen Dowd? oh please.
BUSH IS A BAD PRESIDENT IF YOU VOTED FOR HIM YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED
Your right. Bush should have come down himself and rescued people. Shame on him. You kool aid people are amazing. Get over your irrational hatred for the President, that’s not the issue or story here. Look at the hero’s in this tragidy like Ofcr Dumas Carter and so many police, fire, ems, rescue people who worked in unbelevable conditions.
I doubt blame any of the cops for running. If I was a cop and the people I was protecting turned against me I too would have left. New Orleans was a lawless place because of lack of leadership from the mayor all the way up to the President, and the lack of morals of the people shooting at the rescue helicopters and raping children and women. I only feel sympathy for the innocent people involved and caught in the middle of politics and unmoral/unjust people.
I would not expect any cop to stay behind in that situation. The ones that stayed are heroes the ones that left…can’t really blame them. Doesn’t make them any less of a cop though.
Instead of blaming Bush - look a little closer to the issue. The mayor sat on his thumb, the Congressman did nothing, the senator is being investigated for misuse of government funds, and they were allocated federal funds to prepare for natural disasters, but didn’t spend the money to protect their constituents! Give me a break - blame the president - you are more feeble minded than you act if you believe the hoseshit you’re spreading!
Y’know I’m so sick of the media frenzy….thank god some policemen stayed but I was also there and tell me why every single shelter (legit or not?) turned into BlacK Market Time w/ drugs and guns? Why I was more afraid for my life AFTER the hurrican and flooding?????Why most every city employee ran when they were required to stay? Why Nagin did nothing when he KNEW what would happen if he called a mandatory evacuation (there were NO plans to get the people out)? Why Blanco turned into a doe caught in headlights when faced with a decision? and then everyone wonders why the federal gov’t didn’t react. WHY WOULD THEY???? NO ONE ELSE DID except the damn drug lords and gun runners.
There is a saying that a house divided against itself cannot stand. That is what we as americans are a house divided against itself. In the last two weeks we have seen nature unleash itslef in unimaginable ways and in retrospect we have seen human nature unleashed in its own unimaginable ways. The days will come when we can play the he said she said games and point fingers about who was right and who was wrong but that is not today. We are a nation in the grip of a tragedy. Fighting and politcal backbiting will acomplish nothing. Will our finger pointing at the president feed those in the gulf coast who have no food. Will your cries for the resignation of top officals house those who sleep in the streets. When its all said and done what will be the legacy of huricane Katrina? Will it be said that once again our nation looked past the differences and pulled together to acheive a goal for the common man or will that legacy be that we as a nation are so self centered and caught up in our pedy bitterness that we cant even save ourselves in the event of a crisis. Wake up America! Look past whats in your best interest and look at what you can do to help. Words of hate and aggression will not get this job we face done. We must come together as a nation. Bury our dead, rebuild our homes, and after all that if you still want to fight then that will be the time. Always remember those who fail to learn from history are destin to repeat it.
So, apparently _the_ most powerful nation in the world today eh? The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
Get a grip America and get on with it - the rest of the world is watching you!
You can’t help people who don’t want to be helped. The media spin is horrible. We are sitting here finger pointing while rescue efforts are still being conducted. Get a grip. If all of you who write about the lack of response by local, state and federal agencies put that effort into helping we would have been much futher down the road. You have put politics above people and should be ashamed. There will be plenty of time to point fingers after we have saved all of those who want to be saved.
New Orleans,one great city,”it will be back” thanks to Federal $$$ Ms Dowd they should fire you ASAP you are a bleeding heart “LIB” and remenber what they say”Liberalism is a mental disorder” get with it Ms Dowd and support this Country,not tear it down, because you personnaly attack this Pres:George Bush so you can sell your news column,Oh yeah how much of that “cushey salary did you send to the Red Cross???
For all the NOPD officers that stayed the course you are to be commended for bravery, and valor just like we extend this honor to all the men and women in the military, you set the example for all of us, to ” protect and serve “, if the officers that abandoned you really understood those words they would understand why this can not be tolerated. You are held to a higher, much
higher standard. I’m on military assignment over seas,I watched the news here and was throughly digusted and ashamed to say I was from New Orleans, not just for the officers who were filmed looting in their uniforms, but the idea that some of them quit their jobs in the mist of the greatest catastrophes on record to one city. This has always been a blackeye for the city, it’s Police Department. The corruption,vise and bad image will always cast a shadow over “The Big Easy”, in my line of work if you desert your post in a time of crisis you either get a court martial
or better yet, ” the firing squard “. Case closed, these officers should not be allowed to return to the force and they should be ear marked from future employment with any other police force.
They are criminals for breaking the oath they swore to defend. The only thing worst then a “quiter” is “a liar” ,and “a thief” in which case they fit both catagories. The people of New Orleans have suffered a lot in the last few weeks, and that they can rebuild and start anew, but the city of New Orleans will always have this image the when the going got tuff, some of the cops just could not hack it. Dischared them back to the ordinary life of Joe Citizen. Whats so ironic about this is now the loyal officers that stayed the course have to protect them. Go figure!
Respectfully,
Ernie Cojoe/USAF
To those who said they didn’t blame the police for
running, well I do and I am the mother of a police
officer and the mother in law of a sheriffs dispatcher. When and if disaster hits, I know I
am responsible for myself, my grandkids and the dog. Why, because my son accepted his job knowing there would be difficult periods and extended time away from his family. He accepted it knowing that his family understood. She accepted her job knowing what lengths they would have to go to in a disaster. We talked it over
and the kids and I are comfortable with it. We
know their mom and dad are out there protecting them and the others in our town.
What makes any of you think everyone is truely created “equal”? What makes any of you think that everyone deserves to live through this? Is there some sort of gaurantee that natural disasters never happen, and people can’t ever die from said disasters?
Welcome to the real world. It’s not exactly a friendly place, and disasters like this one just highlight this fact ever so well. Chaos is all around us, you should recognize that fact.
It’s interesting, because most of us in the United States sit comfortably in our homes, enjoying our T.V. and air conditioning, and don’t ever give a moment’s though throughout the day that life is full of danger, chaos, and the unpredictable.
We prop up cities, setting a code of laws to “protect” us, and have all kinds of police forces to enforce those laws. Take it all away, and what do you have? Reality. One might say that life as we know it is a charade, a shadow puppet.
Real life is dog eat dog, dangerous, and brutal. Law and order gives us the false illusion that everything is civil, and assured. Welcome the reality kids.
For crying out loud,I do not understand why we have to blame Bush when the problem came from starting with The Mayor And going to the Gov.
When are they going to step up to bat and say that they screwed up by not reacting before the storm hit?? Civil Preparedness starts at home not at the goverment level THEY WERE NOT PREPARED…thats all there is to say.Just look at it Where did it start ???? Great Mayor,,YEA.
It made me sick to have seen all those hundreds of school buses in the yard covered in water. Sopposedly, those are the same busses that were to have been used to evacuate those citizens that had no transportation and the handicapped. Too bad that the Mayor sat on his ass until 20 hours before Katrina hit to come on tv and ask for the cities evacuation. He had been given hos orders days prior. He like everybody else thought that this disaster wasn’t going to be the catastrophe that it turned out to be so he didn’t listen to the warnings. It was his responsability to get those poor people out not only that, he didn’t even have the designated evavuation places equipped with water and food. Where is the money given to the city for that purpose?? because he was given money to pay for the temporary provisions for those designated places. He was resposible for a lot of deaths but it is easier to play the race card and blame the President. My heart goes out to all those innocent children and people caught in this horrible tragedy. May God help us all to mend this Nation that seems to be unraveling.
Why blame Bush? If it is not already abundantly obvious why the buck stops with him, consider this: The Army Corp. of Engineers knew the levees
couldn’t take a major storm. Specifically, they are 3 feet too short in places. When the former
head of ACOE dared to submit a proposal to study NO levees in preparation for a disaster, BUSH FIRED HIM.
Yeah, real cowboy-tough guy from Texas. The rest of the world is aghast. They know him for the phony he is.
I really commend the policemen that stayed to help out the victims of this great tragedy. However, I feel that it is very selfish of those who make comments regarding those who left. Yes, they took an oath to protect and serve but they are also human don’t forget. I don’t know about you, but family is all you have. Imagine your wife/husband and children struggling, losing your home and all you have worked for. I feel they should stick by their fellow officiers. They are no more man/woman than those that had to take care of family first. The Police Cheif seemed to show no compassion for those that had to make this choice. As a leader, he should have supported his officiers despite his personal feelings and moved on. To go on national TV and only praise the officiers that stayed says alot about his character.
I was in the reserves for 6 years in Ohio. A tornado was predicted one (1) day in advance and we were placed on alert. Within 2 hours of the tornado, we had already reported to the armory and transported to the damaged area to look for potential victims. Fortunately, after searching the remains of the damaged homes we discovered there were no deaths and only a few minor injuries but we were stationed at each intersection for several days to assist the displaced residents and avoid looting.
Oh, thats right, that didn’t get screwed up because thats the time Bush was AWOL from the the National Guard and wasn’t there to screw it up.
IDIOT BUSH wouldn’t approve 465 mil. to improve the levees but provided virtually the same amount of money to build a bridge to an UNOCCUPIED island in Alaska. Why ??? Because he absolutely, positively doesn’t give a damn about anyone except his rich counterparts. If he cared about anyone he wouldn’t have “volunteered” our military personnel to die in a country that doesn’t have WMD. He couldn’t gut it out enough to stay in the National Guard stationed in his home state. It’s obvious he only signed up for the National Guard to dodge the draft. What a low life !!
Hello;
Its funny how fickle people are some times.
They re-elect probably the worst President of the 21st Century,& then scream & moan about how he does`nt live up to his own promises,You have now seen the REAL George Bush,a liar,a idiot,& number 1 reason Americans have lost the respect of every other country in the world.Not to mention all the other screw-ups his adminstration will be leaving the next President,that I don`t have the room to list them all,here…….
I don’t know how anyone can look at this situation and not blame the people in authority. Everyone knew a large hurricane was probably going to hit New Orleans. The 80% who got out obviously thought something bad was going to happen and the 20% who were left were the poor and the weak. 100,000 people to get out of a medium size city in three days, 33,333 a day. The airport itself handles that much traffic a day. That’s less than 700 buses trips, 70 train trips. In a country that has 28,000 humvees in Iraq why weren’t these people evacuated I could have organised it myself. A major sporting event can handle 100,000 yet people were left at a convention centre for days without resources and then vilified when they turn on each other and break into stores to try and find food because they were starving.
Personally I would call this a deliberate act of gross negligence at best up to a premeditated attempt to rid the city of the poor, the weak and the infirm. Blame who you want to blame but every single person in authority should share some responsibility from the village idiot president, the mayor, the governor or the clown who sat in charge of an amphibous assault ship off the coast for 4 days with a 1500 bed hospital, the capacity to generate 100,000 gallons of fresh water a day, helicopters, landing craft, hovercraft, marines and did NOTHING!!!
Build a big fire I say get all the clowns who were in charge and pile them up one on top of the other and let some little old lady who sat in the same soiled clothing starving and dehydrated for 4 days put a match to them. The world would be a better place without them
How can MAUREEN DOWD blame the President for folks that could not get out of the nursing home?
The blame lies with the Nursing home or the local Govt. who did not help them. Was the President supposed take the State and city under Federal control. There are laws that say the States have authority over their land. The Feds have always been there as a backup to the states in all natural disasters. Yes the feds did not do a great job when they came in afterwards in this event
To Maureen Dowd’s Comments:
Bush’s administration appears to follow an organization pattern that epitomizes what C. Northcote Parkinson (of Parkinson
Yea, Yea, everything is Bush’s fault. I suppose its Bush’s fault that half of you are ignorant of the true facts, blind to media bias, and devoid of individual thinking and analysis. No one is free from blame. One thing is for sure, there will be fools on both sides of the Bush Bonanza who will blindly follow the parade of thier choice. March on fools, we need more news fodder.
Point 1: If Louisiana had not been a “red state”, then Bush would not be in office.
Point 2: Nagin is mayor of New Orleans. As such, he can evacuate people to other parts of NEW ORLEANS. What the hell kind of good would that have done? Should they have evacuated to tents to ride out a hurricane? Use some common sense! This was a category 4-5 hurricane devastating three states (not counting what it did to Florida). FEMA was supposed to take charge!
Point 3: Police are supposed to be heroes — the best of the best. God bless ‘em when they actually are. God curse ‘em when they’re just bullying the citizens.
“This was a category 4-5 hurricane devastating three states (not counting what it did to Florida).”
Heh, no one counts Florida because the STATE was actually prepared for the hurricane. As a matter of fact, each county in Florida has their own volunteer disaster response squad.
Talk to anyone in Florida and they will tell you Jeb Bush knows how to coordinate disaster response. The whole program is set up with the expectation that federal relief won’t come for 4-5 days after the initial hit. They focus on mobilizing first responders starting at city, then county, then state level. They also educate their citizens on how to properly board up homes, pack a weeks worth of cheap rations, escape flood water, etc..
Disaster prone states like LA and California should take some lessons from this.
So many people are so quick to blame the President and U.S. Government. Here is what I have learned by all of this: The people that scream the loudest do not know the laws of the govenment. The Federal Government can not go into a state and take over unless asked to. FEMA is not a rescue unit. It is a planning unit. The people to blame is 1. the Mayor for not reacting to the danger coming. 2. the Governor if the Mayor doesn’t respond or needs help. 3. the State Congressman if needed or asked for. THEN the Federal Government when asked by the STATE! So, People of Louisanna, look to you own state leaders if you want to place blame. Also to the people that refused to leave, then cry and scream at the president when their ignorance put them in this situation.
Also, to the bus drivers that left, well I bet there were plenty of people trying to leave, that knew how to drive, and would have driven those buses and got people and drove them to high ground.
One more point, look into the past moneys given to the state of Louisanna and you will see that there were funds given and set aside for the repairs and rebuilding of the leavy, but your mayor, governor, senator, and congressmen failed to see to it that those things got done. I would say it was those people that was doing to little to late. The Federal Government expected the elected officials of that state to take care of the situation until it needed Federal help and then call for them. Not sit on their duffs and wait until disaster hit and cry because they didn’t come within the first hour they were hit.
As for those that think it is the president and the party he belongs to, I think that most of the elected officials of Louisanna are democrates and they did nothing to help you. Only when it was already a total disaster and it was obvious the state govenment did nothing to prepare for a disaster, did you first place blame, and then demand the Federals to come in. I think all who are pointing fingers at Federal Government and FEMA should be ashamed of themselves. You created your own problem by not being prepared, not keeping your leavy in good repair, and then refusing to leave. Now the entire U.S. and even around the world have all pitched in to help you regardless of who’s fault it is. Show your gratitude by saying thank you instead of whining about who did what, and making it a racial or political thing.
And to all that is making this a racial or political issue, how about using that energy to either volunteer or help organize the rebuilding of not only New Orleans, but Mississippi and Alabama!!!!There are 3 states out there that need help to rebuild, bury their dead, and heal the sick and injured.
**The Federal Government can not go into a state and take over unless asked to. FEMA is not a rescue unit. It is a planning unit.**
Then they need to change the “Management” part of their name to “Monitoring”
**The people to blame is 1. the Mayor for not reacting to the danger coming.**
They mayor can only act within the city. Obviously, he needed power OUTSIDE the city to get people OUTSIDE the city.
**2. the Governor if the Mayor doesn’t respond or needs help.**
She called Bush on his vacation and told him she would need the Feds.
**3. the State Congressman if needed or asked for.**
That’s baloney. Congressmen can only vote on bills.
**THEN the Federal Government when asked by the STATE!**
They were asked. The Governor asked the President. The President told FEMA. FEMA twiddled thumbs.
FEMA is tasked with responding to a disaster within 72-96 hours. It has hit that target consistently during the Katrina crisis. Yes, its made some bungles, but of an exponentially smaller scope and consequence than the failures of both New Orleans and Lousiana. For that matter, New Orleans didn’t even catch the bad side of the storm (the east/northeast side) but had the hardest time responding.
Also, unless the situation has been federalized - either at the request of the governor or an obvious total failure of state government - it is still up to the governor to request specific assistance in an emergency situation when the state and local governments are still essentially functioning. To this day Blanco has refused to hand over that oversight. Yes, she said she needed help, the problem is that she was consitently a couple of *days* slow on asking for the type of help she *needed*, even when the feds invited her to make specific requests so they could respond…
—
Timeline:
—
July 24:
Times-Picayane staff writer Bruce Nolan reported some 7 weeks before Katrina: “In scripted appearances being recorded now, officials such as Mayor Ray Nagin, local Red Cross Executive Director Kay Wilkins and City Council President Oliver Thomas drive home the word that the city does not have the resources to move out of harm’s way an estimated 134,000 people without transportation.”
drudgereport com/flash3kt.htm
(Note how that contradicts the emergency plan the city had on file with the state, which in turn was what FEMA was expecting the city to be carrying out until they arrived.)
—
Friday Aug 26:
Bush calls Gov. Blanco personally and asks her to declare a state of emergency.
She then does:
www gov state la us/Press_Release_detail.asp?id=973
This transcript
www dod gov/transcripts/2005/tr20050901-3843.html indicates the DoD began to establish defense coordinating offices in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, which was done in those states over Friday and Saturday.
—
Saturday Aug 27:
Here is the Aug 27 request by Gov Blanco, see if you can find a request for thousands, of troops and the like, because I don’t see it. I do see that the assets requested here were in place by the 29th…
www gov state la us/Press_Release_detail.asp?id=976
And here is the FEMA authorization to react to the emergency. Note that FEMA is to supplement the state and local responses, and that it mirrors the types of assistance actually requested by Gov. Blanco.
www whitehouse gov/news/releases/2005/08/20050827-1.html
Also, late in the day, Max Mayfield, the director of the National Hurricane center called Mayor Naglin personally to urge him to order an evacuation.
www boston com/news/weather/articles/2005/09/11/chronology_of_errors_how_a_disaster_spread/
—
Sunday, Aug 28
The morning papers carry stories from forecasters made on the 27th that the storm is likely to overcome the levees.
9:30 AM CDT Mayor Naglin finally issues an evacuation order, about a day later than any other city in the path of the storm. At this point he officially begins to deviate from the evacuation plan by not transporting people out of town but to the Superdome, and only providing limited transportation there.
The DOD transcript above indicates that additional search and rescue capability started to be requested Sunday, and helicopters were arriving by Monday, Aug 29
And the the TImes-Picuane reveals that the 26K people at the dome only have enough MRE for 2 meals a day for 15K for 3 days, as reported by the state government - so the state also knew that folks were going to get hungry if the storm hit… www nola com/newslogs/breakingtp/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_Times-Picayune/archives/2005_08.html#074657
The outer bands of the storm start making landfall.
—
Monday Aug 29:
7 am - Katrina makes landfall,
8 am - water starts coming over levees
11 AM - FEMA dispatches 1000 employees, gives a two day (48 hour) timeframe to be in place. At this time, it appears NO has been spared.
Late morning - The Canal St Levee fails, impact not realized until later in the day.
There is a sense of relief at the Baton Rouge command post, Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu told NEWSWEEK “Nobody was saying it wasn’t a catastrophe. We were saying, ‘Thank you, God,’ because the experts were telling the governor it could have been even worse.”
Around dusk - First FEMA official on scene meets with top city officials after flying over the town by helicopter coming in. By this point, cell communications were out and the batteries in the city’s old sattelite phones had mostly run out, and the city’s emergency generators failed as natural gas service ceased.
8 PM - Gov. Blanco calls Pres. Bush to declare a need for help, but fails to relay that a massive intervention by active duty military was required and apparently does not know the levee failures are massive to be able to relay that information to Bush.
—
Tuesday Aug 29
Overnight / dawn - most now realize the levees have failed. Bush is notified at 5 am Pacific and immediately decides to cut his vacation short, but his advisors take the rest of the day to arrange that.
Only 82 of 120 police offices show up for morning roll call at one of the NO turnouts. Within a day on 28 to 30 were left on duty.
The military is already moving supplies to the coast, but the scale of the relief slows it as preparations have to be made in advance of the arrival of the main force.
Confusion reigns at the state command post.
—
Wednesday Aug 30
Gov Blanco finally makes a specific request for troops of 40,000
Talk begins of using active duty troops to push aside local law enforcement in order to restore order, but an but under an 1868 law, federal troops are not allowed to get involved in local law enforcement, and NG troops trained as MPs were on the way.
—
Friday, Sept 2:
www msnbc msn com/id/9287434/page/5
—
Monday, Sept. 5
According to the NYT, Gov. Blanco has still not singed full coordinating authority over to FEMA. (However, she keeps blaming the feds for the coordination failures)
The problem with what I’ve read, is that you all seem to be intent on targetting ONE person or agency for blame; there is enough blame to go around !
The Mayor, for dickering around and being more concerned with politics thatn the welfare of his citizens.
The Governor, for being too scared to ask for help when it was really needed.
The President for allowing funding earmarked for the levees to be diverted to his “pork-barrel” political cash cow funders AND for using this whole disaster as nothing more than a political photo op at the expense of the misery of the citizens of NO who went through this entire ordeal.
The media, who, rather than attempting to get an entire picture of where the failures were and who was responsible, instead focussed only on the failures of those in the political party that is diametrically opposite the political views the media outlet itself espouses.
The State of Louisianna; If California, the land of earthquakes, can have a more effective emergency prepardeness plan for it’s citizens, and if Nebraska, a state of agriculture, can have in place appropriately funded and correctly administered Emergency Management programs for EVERY city and EVERY county in the event of a tornado (NE is, after all, right in the middle of “Tornado Alley”), then the State of LA, KNOWING that NO was susceptible to such flooding catastrophe from previous experience obviously failed to learn from that experience, and instead of protecting the citizens that elected them, instead chose to fund their own pork barrel projects, go on tax payer paid junkets etc, rather than live upto the moral fulfillment of their elected positions.
What I find ironic about all this, is that, here we are, years after 9/11 and the city of NY STILL doesn’t have the capability of inter agency radio communications, so I hold little hope that either NO or the state of LA will ever learn from this experience; in other words, it will again be “politics as usual”……..And if that in of itself is not a sufficient dammning of the politcal system here in this country and the mentality of those we continually elect to public office, then I don’t know what is.
Hello,
Dumbasses of New Orleans Now listen!!! How Completely and utterly STUPID FUCKS Do yall have to be!!!! I have read Blog after Blog on this Site and there is 1 Constant tone through out it all A Good Majority of People that live in New Orleans are Completely Stupid and Have not 1 Fucking Clue what anyone is Talking about, New Orleanians Pay Real Close Attention NOW This may pass yall by so you may have to read it 6 or 7 times to get it!!! This is your fault that the response was as slow as it was!!!!! (What???) That is right Your Fault, Yall elected that Dumbass for Mayor! That Stupid Woman for Governor, You See this what you get when you let a Bunch of Liberal Pukes like the most of yall are, Try to run something the only thing that Anybody in that state is good at running Is thier own Fucking Stupid Mouth, Got a Fucking Mayor who is trying to let people back in that City God Only knows for what reason besides his own self-Preservation, when thier is still no Power to speak of, No Pottable water, No Drinking water, The smell of Death still in the air, Etc, MY GOD HOW FUCKING STUPID DO YOU HAVE TO BE!!!, WHAT IS IT THAT YOUR FUCKING MAYOR DOES NOT GET????? My God No wonder your City is so fucked up, and it was way fucked up before katrina ever reared her ugly face, NEW ORLEANS Wake the fuck up!!! , You have a 30% poverty rate! 30% that is just Disgusting! Bunch of Lazy fucks, Get A FUCKING JOB, Guess what to all of you that were oon welfare in New orleans , and your Broke, Lazy ass is living in Texas, Texas will make your lazy ass go to work!, In this State Welfare is not Forever, So if that is what you are looking for then you better hit your knees and start praying that they rebuild N.O. Really Fast, Otherwise God forbid you may actually find a self worth That is it For Now
I say great job to those officers who stuck it out…..good cops are one in a million……as to those officers who made a difficult choice of family……..my hat is off to you as well….many cops work amongst crooked partners and superiors…..if as a cop u are in such a position ………..not hard to leave something thats been a bit of a joke as an officer with the corruptness……..and other extras,,,maybe even racial prejdudice….naw ,,,,that wouldn’t happen in the home state of david duke would it???? be serious….when a captains ship is going down….its every man for himself as far as a captain is concerned…….some of u people commenting don’t know jack about an officers life who may have choose family over duty as an officer…u have no clue….so on that note….spare those ignorant comments about those officers who took there route and not yours……i m not a cop….tried twice,,,i m colored blind…..very little of me now wishing that i had become one,,,tuff job,,,,tougher depending on where u post………..as a matter of fact….i don’t really care for cops because of the corruptness ……but i know they have a job to do those who r honest……..so i respect that…
Don’t know where to start.I personally am very disappointed in the response of ALL the different agencies involved.Someone on here said that the looters were hungry and needed food and water.If my family needed food and water,and was in the same prediciment as the folks in NO,I would probably find a place to get some.Where I would differ,though,is I would leave all the guns,tv’s,microwaves,boomboxes,prescription painkillers,and the like alone….there were a bunch of thugs running around NO,and each and every one of them should be prosecuted under the Patriot Act.The police officers that abandoned their posts….I am mixed on that.I was a member of an all volunteer fire department for 12 years in Texas.When Alicia came through,and in no way was it even close to Katrina,think our strongest gusts in Houston were 70-80 mph,we were out cutting trees off of houses,and performing search and rescue efforts in the middle of the wind,rain,and street flooding.Again,I had already stabilized my family,so I really cannot make a judgement.This was,and still is, a terrible tragedy.I live in Jones County,Ms,one of the disaster areas declared by Pres.Bush.My wifes grandmother lives in Gulfport,about 11 miles off the beach.She is a heart patient,and needs oxygen 24/7.The hospitals,and medical supply places there ran out of oxygen,and were only able to give her enough for 6-24 hrs.My sis in law lives in Savannah,Ga.She went to a med supply place there,wish I knew the name.They GAVE her 6 tanks,and all the valves and pumps needed.All they asked is to get the empty bottles in return.We were without food,and gas here also.The few looters we had,were after….cigarettes and soda.Went in through a drive through window at a Dominos/FastTrak combo store….bypassed all the food,took cigs and sodas….To all you folks that have donated time,food,money,material,and especially all who offered up prayer for the victims of this disaster,God will smile on you..and you have the heartfelt thanks of everyone involved.To all of you that have sat back and done nothing but criticize everyone because of the slowness of the relief effort,when you have done nothing on your own,shame on you.
One group points at the president and another group at state and local officials and in the interest of sanity, it can safely be said that “ALL” should share in the blame. For republicans to blame state and local officials in not a viable defense and the same holds true (vise versa) for the democrats.
As I see it, the much bigger issue is what would the response had been if it had been an earthquake or terrorist event that gave no warning and thats the really scary part. That would mean that no blame could be put on local officials and that fema wouldn’t have had a chance to pre-position emergency supplies. In addition to that the president wouldn’t have had a chance to declare a state of emergency in advance. Where does that leave us ????????????
This idiot Nagin…what can be said? He compares right up there with government issued intellectual Gods like Marion Barry, Ed Mechum, Daryl Gates, Cweo Fields and Edwin Edwards. Geesh!!
It’s sad what happened. And now that a 2nd hurricane approaches, the mayor still wants to reopen the city and shows immaturity and anger to the federal govn’t when they have pleaded him to evacuate, just like befor Katrina hit. His reason… to get the tourists back. Oh no, it’s not grocery stores and banks and gas stations that are trying to be reopened, but the strip clubs and bars and the slums of the city. I’m saddened by the elderly and sick who couldn’t thave gotten out… but that is a very small number compared to all of the others who refused. Who still refuse to leave. Now they get $2000… that’s more than their unemployment checks! Many of these victims are victims because of their own laziness. And now we honest living people in neighboring states are giving up housing and needed grant opportunities because hurricane refugees (oops, can’t say that word, they don’t like it!)have first come first serve. We all keep donating and praying, and there are a lot of good people out there trying to survive. Then the others who whine about the President… there is something called State’s Rights, people, the feds can’t come in without offical request. The govenor can’t request while crying all the time, I suppose. Your city failed because it failed itself. Just look at all the other cities of disaster in the history of the world. People looting for food… what does starvation have to do with raping and shooting women and children?
kflynn@aol.com To my brother, officer Dumas and my other brothers and sisters in law enforcement who stayed and fulfilled their “sworn duty” I commend you. You are in the thoughts and prayers of your brothers and sisters at the Worcester County Sheriff’s Office in Massachusetts. Godspeed in the recovery of your communities, cities and state.
God bless the officers who stayed to perform the duty that they swore to perform. You are all in our thoughts and prayers.
My brother is a New York City police officer, and my family understood his obligations during the September 11, 2001 tragedy and the after-math. It is our civic duty to be able to fend for ourselves, and my mother, disabled father, and elderly grandmother and all of our pets were prepared to do whatever was necessary in the situation.
Those who left should be charged with dereliction of duty, as well as severely punishing officers that were looting. Do not agree to perform a job and then desert when the job gets too tough,or if you or your family were unprepared. We depend on our police, fire fighters, and EMS.
Love,
Jo Ann in NYC
To Jeff Devenny: In a “no warning” terrorist attack (remember 9/11/01?)or an earthquake, it is still the local officials who are responsible for the response! (Remember Rudy Guliani and the heroic NYPD and FDNY and other city services after the unexpected terrorist attack on their city?)
What a difference 4 years makes! To see heroes in NYC after 9/11 and deserting cowards in New Orleans after Katrina…disgusting!
Our TV station reports we are going to spend something like a hundred billion dollars to put another man on the moon.. And we have American people in New Orleans that have nothing, and many people here on welfare are scraping together a few bucks to send down to the homeless and Red Cross to help take care of them.
And the war in the other country’s are draining the bucks from us that our Grand kids are supposed to get.
Am I missing something or is this just good Federal business.. ??
Buck Willhite
Who is to blame?
The mayor? The governor? The president? Perhaps each one? But you know who I blame and hold accountable? THE HURRICANE! This is a tragedy and we are stuck in the blame game; lets move on and help these poor people then have our blame game later, grow up.
For the love of god…instead of worrying about who is to blame for this disaster, why don’t we worry about how the residents of New Orleans are going to get off their lazy behinds to help rebuild their state…
Come on people, who is ultimately responsible for this? Could it possibly be mother nature? Ya think? Or are we so intent on playing a blame game that we can’t see that we are ALL human beings and mistakes are going to be made. I’m sure there is enough blame to go around regarding the reaction time, but come on….was the President able to give mother nature a call and ask her to hold off for awhile so everyone could get ready? I’m tired of hearing the BS about the government, maybe the people of New Orleans need to take a good hard look at themselves and what THEY are doing to help themselves and each other.
Get over it people…SHIT HAPPENS.
Bush is to blame
-for not going down and personally inspecting the levies as soon as he got elected in 2000.
-for not making sure Louisiana has a Governor that knows how to handle disasters.
-for not invading Louisiana with the national guard so evacuation could be done, when the locals were lost.
-for not sending busdrivers down to drive the New Orleans school buses after the city employees ran away.
-for not checking that there was food, water, A/C, toilets, beds and Cable in the Superdome.
-for not flying out to the Keys as soon as Katrina gathered strenght so he could predict the strikezone.
-for not sending Honore 1 week earlier and evacuating everybody at gunpoint.
-for not having repaired the city already.
BUSH IS TO BLAME:
(everybody else did othing wrong).
It is
BUSH BUSH BUSH BUSH BUSH BUSH BUSH BUSH BUSH BUSH BUSH BUSH BUSH BUSH BSH BUSH ,…
CAvH
cavh your an idiot whith no knowledge of whats going on. The leeves are over 100 years old so you would have to play every presendent for that. get real. the leeves are the responablity of the local and state. And they recived millions of dollars to repair or and upgrade them but the local and state spent the money on other things like casnos and new houses for state and local goverment. spent the millions of dollars for disaster plains on other things. the hole local and state are currupt. they are the people you voted in to office and those are the people who left you there to die.
i think you all need to wait it out. if your local and state have planed for this none of this would have happiend. And if over the past years spent the money to repair and or upgrade the levees instead of spending the millions of dollars they recived to fix the levee problem on other things like casnos and new houses for local and state goverment and a lot in there pockets none of this would have happiend. You guys voted Mayor Nagin in and he left you there to die. what kind of leader is that? And Govenor Blanco would not let the feds and redcross in to help people. And one thing is really wier on this hole thing. Is why did the levees break a day later and resendents living next to them hearing several explosings before the levees broke? Sounds like a setup to me cause the mayor and Govenor got the hell out of there and half the police force split. sounds like this hole thing was planed and aimed at the poor people. Sounds like they wanted to wipe out poverty. And they did. now when they rebuild people wont be able to aford the houses. Think about it real hard. And why wont the locals let people in to do an investagation on the levees. Police shot 4 people by there. so whats realy going on. if i was you guys i would demand answer now before the shit get covered up and swept under the carpet.
Boy BickDickDaddy, you’re the dumbass. You don’t know sarcasm when you see it do you? If you did, you would have realized that CAVH’s post was sarcastic…
i get it now i was drunk when i wrote that post SORRY there cavh. my friends had a birthday surprize party last night pretty cool. my daughters and my wife helped put it together. i dont know how they did it with out me knowing. iam very gratful to have a family like that.
No probbie, I thought my sarcasm was clear-cut, but everybody can squint to much after a few too many ;)
Yeach, I’ve been in this stuff since day one and I am still nauseated from all the doom and gloom of the moronic Bush-haters that seem to be salivating over the whole thing.
I was quiet for the first days, but simply couldn’t take it anymore. Surely I think everybody messed up here, but the way the moonbat-league of leftist fascists keep ranting over this, I wonder if we will ever be able to return to civility again oce this mess is over.
Surely soon enough it will be Bush’s fault that the current position of the sun is closer than ever before as well.
CAvH
Makes you wonder what the Bush-haters will complain about after they lose the next election, because the Dems have totally gone off the deep end. Howard Dean? Puleeze, the guy is nuts, and if he thinks the Dems have anything to say to me, he’s totally wrong. I have more in common with the Bushies than I do with Howard Dean and his ilk.
I’m sick and tired of the extremes of BOTH parties. Politicians are liars from jumpstreet. They have to lie to SOMEBODY just to get elected in the first place, and our political system is a disgrace. It’s gotten to the point that folks can’t agree to disagree anymore and still remain civil. They’ve got to call you names now if you don’t agree with them, left or right. What ever happened to the middle? Am I wrong, or doesn’t the middle pretty much make up MOST of voting America? Do people like Howard Dean realize that? Do they even care?
I don’t like the extreme Democrat who tells me that he’s gonna take more out of MY pocket, to fund social programs for welfare whores who need nothing more than a boot to the backside, and MOTIVATION to get off the dole. As it is, there is no motivation to get off. I’ve read pretty much all the blogs here over the last month, and I’m surprised that with all the race baiters here, nobody has ever done the math involved….
It goes a little like this:
A woman with 3 or more children gets approximately $700 per month in food stamps which equals $8,400 per year. Average monthly rent, even conservatively, is $600 per month, which comes out to $7,200 annually. Medicaid pays for well child care and other medical problems, so even if you have a healthy family, the state pays out approximately 2-3000 per year, for medical expenses, more if they’re sick. Utilities (phone, power), another, say….$2,000 per annum and then there’s the TANF or AFDC stipend to take care of expenses that aren’t covered by food stamps, to the tune of $6-7,000 per year in benefits, which, conservatively, adds up to $26,000 or more per year to live on welfare. You know what? That’s more than I make going to work every day and paying taxes!
Of course, the secret to living off the government is to have lots and lots of children. It’s all “for the children,” you know, and that’s why we all fall for it, because none of us want those children to suffer…trouble is, they grow up to become the same drain on society as their mothers, and in some cases, their grandmothers and great-grandmothers!
The government should not be, and is not your daddy. People need to wake up and start taking care of themselves, because when push comes to shove, and another Katrina comes down the pike, this whole horrible situation is going to happen again, because the bottom line is that if you wait for the government to take care of you in an emergency, you may well wait until you die. Become a self sufficient, constructive member of society and you will be able to do for yourself in the next Katrina.
Anybody who thinks the Democrats could have done anything better in the face of Katrina, just need to look at that Ray Nagin and Kathleen Blanco did for their own consitituents….nada.
I agree, Hatesdumbasses!! I agree! I think the milk should be intentionally sour. Otherwise there is no incentive. Also apply this to Native American Indians. They have it easier. You should live by the words of JFK: “Let us not ask what our country can do for us, but what we can do for our country.” Rise up people and do something besides complain. Elect competent people, question your politician’s actions, and hold them accountable. It will not get better until you do!!
PS: Goto school and learn grammar!
Jon, who are the other people it applies to (besides the Native Americans). It sounds like you are racist. Is that so?
As far as planning an evacuation from the city, all who lay blame to Mayor Nagin, and Gov. Blanco, are both right and incorrect. Under the rules of our new “Homeland Security” Blanco and Nagin both had the right to call for a mandatory evacuation. However there is NO legal presidence in ANY state to organize buses in any manner to evacuate citizens before Katrina hit. The problem isn’t money, busses, or fuel, it’s about drivers. If you were a New Orleans bus driver would you want to drive a bus of poor evacuees? There is no legal presidence to compel these drivers to do so either.
The next thing to think about is liability, not if but when an accident occurs who is liable? Texas is going to find out real soon. The bus that exploded in route to Dallas wasn’t even authorized to carry passengers under normal circumstances, let alone under strenuous use. The state of Texas gave special dispensation under the circumstances to that company. Let us compare the “Houston Evacuation” (read Houston parking lot) to the New Orleans evacuation. There is no comparison! The Louisiana evacuation was a resounding success, we’ve had years of practice. Everyone who could leave the city left. Houston failed miserably in its performance, only 1/4th of the population attempted to leave. Most never made it to their destination, there was a gas shortage, not a car shortage.
All this talk of wasting space in vehicles is unfounded. Every evacuation I’ve had has been in a vehicle packed to the brim with animals, family, and just tiny scraps of your possessions. All this talk of “giving your car to strangers, instead of leaving them to flood” is a joke. Do a little soul searching, are you going to give your SUV to some person simply because they are poor? I doubt it.
They had also been calling for a Voluntary Evacuation as early as 4 days prior to the storm. I’m not sure any non-New Orleanians realize this, but work doesn’t simply let you leave your job during a voluntary evacuation. Some don’t even let you leave during a mandatory evacuation. I can attest to the fact. It’s a simple economic fact. The next part of the story is where do you go? If you had a car you can’t goto a shelter, you must be transported there. Would you leave your animals? You can’t fault the people of New Orleans for not leaving, most had good reasons for staying. Many stayed simply because they knew there would be many in need.
The next major point is they didnt have to leave. The damage sustained was from a man-made catastrophe. Does it make sense that only one side of a levee was damaged, and not the the other? The fact is the construction company damaged that levee by allowing heavy machinery to rest on it during recent construction of the Hammond bridge over the 17th street canal. Which by the way was only completed a week or so before Katrina struck, and within feet of where the breach occured. All this information will come out soon. Trust me. Further more, both President Bush and the levee board are at fault for the levees’ condition. Bush by cutting funding, and the levee board for squandering it. The administration in 2003 promised to match the parish dollar for dollar with grants from FEMA for any improvements to the levee, or water pumping capabilities. The parish dutifully followed trusting the govt to its word, and when we had spent our half, and were half-way done Bush cut the funding. The levee board would rather spend money on riverboat casinos and the Mardi Gras fountain than levees.
In many areas of disaster avoidance and recovery the State is incredible, and other ways we are woefully inadequate. All of you who are blaming the citizens and leadership of Louisiana, and calling us Bush bashers, please take this oppurtunity to review emergancy preparedness in your city. We are no worse than your city I assure you. This Homeland Security monstrosity has weakened us incalcuably, and it is affecting you whether you believe or not. The focus and efforts of this govt have been on terrorism, I dare you to say we are safer from outside threats! Take this as an oppurtunity to realize the strength of America rests in its people not its govt. Please learn from our mistakes, don’t expect help it won’t come. Do what you need to protect your family, and understand this could very well be you, show some compassion to your fellow man. If you think its inexcusable to rebuild NoLa because of the price tag, we’re spending at least that much to rebuild Iraq, and Afghanistan. Not to mention the wasteful porkbarrel spending within the govt. We had a surplus, before Bush started cutting taxes, it was there for a reason. We were saving it for a rainy day. Then Bush pissed on ours legs and told us it’s raining. Guess who’s here for the reconstruction effort many of the same companies in Iraq, and without competitve bidding. That doesn’t piss you off?
What next, is he going to declare a war on natural disasters? What we need is war on ineptitude and beauracracy! Can I get an amen?
PS People are on welfare because having a job pays significantly less than doing nothing. Are you gonna struggle and starve just to work so some middle class blow joe won’t complain? Many do. Before you complain about subsidizing welfare, look into corporate welfare, bridges to nowhere, training for foreign militants, and declaring war in multiple countries at once. They spend ridiculously more than social welfare programs do. I think we need to pay for job education, and give SBA loans instead of welfare, let them make their own jobs. At least give the money to schools, or vouchers for children’s necessities. We all failed you, me, and our elected officials. No hands are clean.
Hi Tasha,
Thank you for your concern but I am not a racist. I am a patriot. I’ve volunteered to support my country as a Nat’l Guardsman. But I am tired of working too much and 20% of my income going to taxes. There is a disparity. I’m about to fly down to help in the Katrina aftermath. Me, my crew, and helicopter will do a lot of good delivering supplies to Americans…black, white, brown, rainbow, or whatever!
Donate your after-tax money to the Red Cross. Lend your arm so you can donate blood! Donate your old clothing and sundries to battered Women’s shelters. Elect competent officials and hold them accountable!
Again, thank you for your concern.
Jon
When Katrina hit New Orleans, Mississippi, and Alabama, I prayed and gave. I felt so much compassion for all those that had lost everything. However, just days “after” I questioned my concern for New Orleans. Never Mississippi and Alabama. New Orlean’s leaders and authorities have made me feel like they don’t deserve the outpouring of support and aid that this country has given them. Those of good concious and character (the majority)left, and those that stayed behind give me question. I see corruption and downright “evil” there today. And I don’t think they are deserving of America’s sympathy and compassion. Additionally, the criminals thatleft that city now have taken other cities their “victims”. No longer does the City of New Orleans deserve the concern of the good people of this nation and the support that will only contribute to their immoral actions. I never felt this way before, but I believe so diffrently now. So sad, but I believe, so true. I’m now just ANGRY!
I don’t think it’s fair to judge the entire city based on the actions of a few. When you say the City of N.O., you are INCLUDING “Those of good concious and character (the majority).” When the NYPD put what 13 shots?, into the BACK of an unarmed man, no one said NYC as a whole, much less the victims of 9/11, weren’t deserving of compassion and support.
I think there is a double-standard being applied to N.O., and not simply viz-a-viz the P.D. Because the city is less than 1/3 of it’s previous size and under intense scrutiny, every incident is plastered across the screens and newspapers, being hyper-analyzed.
Give N.O. and her citizens “of good concious and character (the majority)” soem breathing room, please.
A.