(Click the title for a link on Katrina facts)
I am being criticized for being insensitive about the situation in New Orleans. I’m sorry; I have very little sympathy for people who were told many times that this was a possibility and then told on Sunday morning to leave and didn’t. Crying wolf for the past however many years is not a valid excuse. If someone tells you it is dangerous to stay, you pack up quickly and quietly and leave. If nothing happens, well, you’ve wasted some time and money, sure, but if this happens, you’ve saved your family’s lives as well as your own. I realize many of them do not have the means to leave and that their government, your government, my government, should have had a better plan in place to take care of this potential situation and didn’t. However, your common sense should tell you that in this situation, a major catastrophe could occur and that you need to use almost any means necessary to get your ass moving. I say “almost any means”, because I would hope that people wouldn’t resort to carjacking other people who are also trying to leave. It’s ironic how before the storm, some people are selfish and want to get out of dodge ASAP with only their families, but after the storm, in the wake of tragedy, ‘we are all here to help each other.’
People in other parts of the country should be outraged at the (lack of) government response to this disaster. They should be wondering what would happen if something occurred in their region. What would happen if an F5 tornado tore through a major city such as Washington, DC? That was a very real possibility after Hurricane Ivan ran up the Atlantic coast last fall. Tornadoes touched down within 50 miles of that city. What is going to happen when the “big one” rips apart California? They will have no warning at all. At least with this hurricane, we had time to plan and take action, which we did, but we had neither a solid plan nor did we take appropriate action for the possibility of what could, and did, occur. Now think about a Cat 5 hurricane barreling through Miami, pushing a 30-foot storm surge up onto South Beach and over all those ridiculous fancy-schmancy homes that bizzilionaires build.
Speaking of wealthy people, where are they right now? Why hasn’t Bill Gates donated $1 Billion of his own dollars for aid? Is it because he thinks he’ll never get it back because the people that are in need will never be able to purchase his Microsoft products? It all makes sense then that Wal-Mart has donated $17 million in aid. They’ll make that ten-fold as people get their lives back together. Where is Steve Forbes? Where is Donald Trump? He should be chomping at the bit to send one or more of his construction companies to the Gulf Coast to help clean up and rebuild! You would think he’d be salivating all over himself to be able to tell people he helped clean up and rebuild lives! The musicians well, of course they’ll be a concert/telethon! There is no way this country could let this go by without doing one. After all, we held one for the Tsunami victims, how could we not do one for our own country? I watched Wynton Marsalis last night say that he wished he had other skills to help those in need, but he is a musician and he’ll play music to help people to feel better. What? Your two hands can’t help any other way than by holding a musical instrument? How does he expect them to see this concert with the electricity being out? I also thoroughly enjoyed reading some of the people’s statements on craigslist to help those in need.
In particular, I like this one: willing to phone friends & family. It reads like this:
If you need to get a message out to relatives or friends, I will be happy to assist. I live in Delaware, but location doesn't matter. Please send mail with YOUR name, YOUR message, THEIR name, THEIR number.
Hope I can help. God bless you,
Marion
Ok, I have to give it to this woman for wanting to help, but HELLO, if they can get in touch with you, most likely they can get in touch with other family members!
Wait, because there are more like this!
Try this one from an anonymous person who posted in New Hampshire:
Please email me the name, relationship, and number of all family members outside of the disaster zone. I will contact them on your behalf. Please also provide some type of information if possible, that I can give to your family so they know that the call is not a prank. I will call each person, read your email to them, and email you back with whom I was able to contact.
Our Prayers Our (ed note: nice use of the wrong word – are) With You All........
An American who wants to help.......
This person has really lost their marbles. You email them; they’ll call your family or friends and then email you back to let you know they have been in contact. Assuming the family/friends don’t have email, this is a good idea; otherwise, it goes along with the first woman.
Then, there is this one from Kansas City, Mo:
If you would like us to care for your child while you get back on your feet we can. We will enroll them in school (if old enough). We will make sure that they are fed and well clothed. We are a loving couple. All of our children are grown and gone. We can take one child from age 2-12 until you are back on your feet. We will return a happy, clean, and educated child to you.
I like the idea behind this one, but who is going to give their child to complete strangers to raise for a few months?
What is wrong with people in this country? People have gone absolutely stupid! The poor can’t get out in time. The rich don’t help with appropriate action. The politicians, while some are genuine in their words, are always thinking about how this will play out in the press. The middle class wants to donate money, some will, but most can’t, so they donate their time instead, like me, except I’m doing something rational like volunteering at the food bank and donating my less-used clothes.
Our government has critically failed us in our most desperate time of need. Sure, it was there after 9/11, depending to whom you talk. I think some of the victims families might disagree. During 9/11, at least the area of need was concentrated. However, with this hurricane, it is extremely widespread and long lasting, as is evident in New Orleans. Money won’t fix everything along the Gulf Coast. These are people’s homes, dreams, memories, families and lives. Money can’t bring all that back. In addition, while I’m on the money issue, this position has been brought up a number of times in the press. A circumstance arose where people who live paycheck to paycheck, or government check to government check, could not buy gas for the cars and that is why they did not leave because they wouldn’t have received their money until yesterday. Had the hurricane occurred a few days later, it is possible more people would’ve left. For me, there are two issues here; 1) again, our government agencies have failed us because in dire circumstances, such as this one, gasoline should be given away so people can evacuate and the bill should be footed by the government. 2) I’m wondering where all the money that normally would be going to these people this week is headed? Obviously, no mail will be going to their homes since a) the mail can’t get through the roads and b) they probably don’t have mailboxes anymore! All the local, state and federal paychecks, welfare, social security and any other government checks that should have been sent out this week have question marks attached to them; were they sent? If so, where did they go? How does someone who has lost everything go about receiving his or her check? Our government has failed the people of New Orleans terribly. Lack of planning for an event of this nature is inexcusable and even with as many people that have already lost everything, our “leaders” should be relieved of their duties so real leaders can step forward and begin the process of planning for the next catastrophe. We create computer models for what might happen if this event occurs, but can’t create a computer model on how to evacuate over a million people in about 30 hours. In addition, you have to remember we aren’t out of hurricane season yet. What happens if another storm comes through that area, like the four that rolled through Florida last year? I suppose it could be just a tropical storm or Cat 1 hurricane and this area might be completely submerged. How can our government let people ride out a devastating storm of this nature, with the possibility of events becoming what they are today? On Saturday night, when they realized this might be “the one”, our government should have an emergency task force and a plan in place to get people out of the city, beginning immediately. Paul Revere rode all night by horse to alert people the British were coming, surely, we should’ve declared martial law and could’ve sent police and firefighters into neighborhoods with sirens blaring to wake people and start evacuating them. How do you evacuate a few hundred thousand people who have no transportation? Follow the police and firefighters into the neighborhoods with school buses, city buses, taxis, airport shuttles, hotel shuttles, limousines, cars from used car lots (in this case, they are now unusable, so why not use them for evacuating people?) and numerous other vehicles. Send them into the city, force the people to leave. They won’t want to go at first, but they need to be forced and will thank their lucky stars afterwards when they are alive, dry, fed and out of the heat/humidity. They only need to be sent less than one hundred miles to the west of N.O. to be safe. If we do the math with a fair amount of guesstimating, a school bus could hold approximately 100 people and I would imagine there are a couple thousand of those in the N.O. area. If they drive 4 hours round trip for each vehicle, loading and unloading time included, an hour to reload and head back out of the city, they could’ve made 4 trips from late Saturday night through early Sunday evening and we probably could’ve forced the evacuation of at least a half million people. Hell, 100 buses, holding 100 people is 10,000 people evacuated. 1,000 buses are 100,000 people. 1,000 buses by four trips each, then add in all the city buses, other vehicles and so on. Do the math. See the mistakes.
Now getting the people who lack transportation out of the city should have been a priority of course, but the number one priority people to evacuate should be all hospital patients! People are dying in hospitals because the hospital didn’t have the means to keep them alive. They are a side effect of the damage caused by the hurricane. Subsequently, after they die, they are just left to sit in the halls, heat & humidity to rot, because the morgue, in the basement, is flooded. This is just a disgrace and disrespectful of life itself. These people could’ve been moved all day on Sunday, all the hospitals could’ve been cleared out and lives saved. Not to mention, there would be doctors and nurses available to tend to anyone that may not have made it out of the path of this destruction for some reason. They would’ve been well rested and ready to take on the battles of saving lives with better resources than manually ventilating people because they don’t have a generator. It’s just disgusting to think about what they must be going through.
If people had been evacuated properly, the looting and danger that currently awaits people would have been eliminated. The guns might still be in the Wal-Mart cases (why Wal-Mart needs to sell guns is beyond me, but that’s for a different rant) along with the ammunition. Police wouldn’t be turning in their badges. Rescue operations wouldn’t have to be suspended because of safety and security reasons. One well-executed plan could’ve prevented all of these problems if our “leaders” had the foresight for the worst-case scenario they claim they had feared.
On numerous occasions, I’ve mentioned the government, but I have been careful not to criticize one group or the other because they are both to blame for the numerous problems that have occurred this week. One group may claim that if the poverty level weren’t so high in N.O. much of this wouldn’t have happened. The other group will claim that they wanted to do something, but the other side kept preventing them from action. All of it is just bullshit. We’re talking about human lives, not theoretical situations. What-if’s and what might-be’s can’t be debated on the floor of the House or Senate. Practicality and common sense need to rule when you’re talking about how to keep your people safe. The ACLU can kiss my ass on this issue too. I’m all for civil liberties and freedom of choice, but when it comes to my life, my family’s lives and my friends lives, I want my government to tell me what to do, where to go and how to be as safe as I possible can. I’m pretty sure that’s why I pay my taxes. I hope that people don’t trust their government after this. They should question what their representatives are doing for them. It can’t be all about which lobby spends the most money to get their officials elected. It has to be about what they are doing to protect us as well. Maybe this will get people out to vote and interested in their local elections. They’ll see who is working for them and elect the people they feel will do what is right for their local communities, their region and ultimately their state and nation. Why is it that everyone knows the name of the President, but hardly anyone, including myself, can name their city councilperson, which is where the majority of governing is done? In this case, it could’ve saved lives. Government has to be about practicality and common sense. It can’t be based on anyone’s personal values.
I have to say that while I feel a large sense of disgrace for how our government has acted in the face of adversity, I do feel genuine sadness for all of the deceased and now homeless people, whose dreams and lives have been shattered in less than 24 hours. Hundreds of thousands of people will need years to rebuild only portions of their lives if only to sustain themselves for the near future, retirement not withstanding. Then I think about the elderly people who lived on a tight budget and have lost everything. I can only hope they have positive relationships with younger family members who can take care of them during this transition time or for the rest of their lives. I cannot begin to imagine how the lower class citizens without viable job-skills will survive. I hope that construction companies will be willing to have the patience to train these people and they can contribute to helping rebuild the region they once called home. If the construction companies come, it will mean that they will have to rebuild the grocery stores and restaurants so there are places to feed these people. Those businesses will also need employees and I hope they find patient people to train and manage them. This is how their economy will need to be built. Just like the region, it will have to start from the ground up.
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