Koppel ripped him a new body part for not having that knowledge ahead of time. He lambasted the guy for not realizing that at least 100,000 people in New Orleans did not have any means of transportation for getting themselves out of town.
Ted wanted to know why FEMA hadn't sent trucks in before Katrina got there -- if not trucks, then flatbed trailers, buses, whatever it would have taken to get those people out before the storm hit.
What took FEMA so long to get in there, Koppel wanted to know. In his defense, the head of FEMA said that they haven't been able to get into the city before now because the hurricane problems didn't end when it passed through. They had only begun. The levees continued the flooding long after Katrina was on her way. So instead of showing up with help the next day, like they usually do, FEMA had to wait.
People have been told to go to the convention center and they would be safe. Except there's no water, food, electricity, medicine or anything for the 20,000 people who have showed up.
Brown said that his agency hadn't made any promises like that. Well, someone did.
The government agencies are looking like a bunch of losers right now. Only the coast guard and the average Joes who are using their own boats to get people out of their flooded neighborhoods and houses deserve any credit for their quick response at this point.
Dead bodies lying on the streets, rapes in the convention centers, shooting at the rescue copters, cops turning in their badges so they don't have to deal with the lawlessness -- behavior is being reduced to it's primal levels.
Meanwhile, the news programs up here here are sending out requests for housing for people who have been airlifted out of there, fed their first meals in days on the planes and now need a place to stay.
I wonder how magnanimous we'll be when the refugees are our fellow Americans, instead of the usual victims we see from a third world country. How will we react when the people whose lives we're saving are people who have a sense of entitlement. People that we can't treat with patronizing condescension and expect to have them be ever so grateful for our offer of old clothes and a bag of flour.
This is a test. If this were a real show of concern, Bono would be doing a concert.
Some disk jockey here in Chicago has come up with a drink called the Floating Body Cocktail.
This just gets better and better.
8 comments:
Well, we can thank Dubyah for some of this, he cut funding for the Army Corps of Engineers to fix the levees, and gave the wetlands over to his buddy developers. Otherwise, I'm not sure. Katrina turned into a Mean Old Bitch on a dime, and I understand they have been predicting "The Big One" since the 1920's. This all sucks.
I wonder where Bobo, Clooney, Sarandon and the other loud mouths are tonight?
<sigh>
That's funny. I didn't realize Ted-Head was so astute on matters of disaster management. Hindsight is 20-20, unless you have you head up your ass. If FEMA had been able to predict the levy collapse, the looting, the loss of power, and told everyone to get out ahead of time, there would still be morons who refused to leave.
Can't we just join hands and sing, "We Are the World" and make it all go away? It is easier to help victims of disaster in other countries because we don't have to shoulder so much blame for letting it happen in the first place. These are the huddled masses. Look how well we've done with our tired, our hungry and our poor. Wasn't it easier when they were German immigrants?
I agree with Remo. I hate saying that all the time, sigh.
xoxo
"This is a test. If this were a real show of concern, Bono would be doing a concert."
lol when does he NOT try and get in a charity? lol
"Some disk jockey here in Chicago has come up with a drink called the Floating Body Cocktail."
::stare:: Oh hell no... That's just sick...
~Lily
In 1968 I was an 18 year old living in Chicago, and I remember being outraged, and expressing that outrage to a friend, when the Yippies were denied a permit to stay in Lincoln Park for the convention. (Of course, they stayed anyway)...but I remember expressing my teenage outrage to a friend, who coincidentally worked in the office of the Corporation Counsel of the City of Chicago. He said, "Judi, it's a health issue...among other things, we can't get in enough port-a-potties for that many people..." If the City of Chicago could have that as a consideration almost 40 years ago (and I don't for a minute believe it was the only consideration), why the hell didn't FEMA realize they were going to have to provide facilities as well as water and food for these people? I saw Michael Brown on CNN last night saying he had no idea until yesterday that people were staying in the Convention Center...so much for Homeland Security having a safe evacuation plan for every major city in America...yeah, things are REALLY better since 9/11, under this administration...and this is evidence of it. If any terrorist group had the wherewithall to hit us now, what in the world would we do?
Judi
Hindsight? Bullshit. The water in the Gulf was 91 degress when the storm crossed the southern tip of Florida. Both the Weatherchannel and the NWS were calling for a Cat 4 or 5 hit within 100 miles of the actual gound zero three days before it occurred. . The President didn't leave Crawford until Wednesday...neither FEMA nor the NSA did more than squat to mobilize in advance. When the facts are sorted out, this will go down as the biggest failure of leadership by an adminstration in U.S. history.
Everyone at the federal, state and local level deserves to be pounded about this. I do not understand how, especially after last year, everyone along the Gulf Coast and the South Atlantic could not have at least some semblance of preparation. Do you think Houston might be ready for "their turn?"
"Some disk jockey here in Chicago has come up with a drink called the Floating Body Cocktail."
Yeah, I heard about that. He said yesterday that the reference to "floating bodies" pertained to the fact that cemeteries down there bury the dead above ground, and that he wasn't referring to victims of the flooding.
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