UGH! This just turns my stomach! Look at those cute little underprivileged. They're going to get a little extra treat this time. Good little puppies. How darling they are!

Nothing local government could have done about that without the Federal government preparing the guard days ahead of time. The national guard was mobilized immediately...but it's made up mostly of people with full time jobs, not units sitting on a base. It takes 3 days minimum to mobilize the national guard, especially in its thinned out state with so many of them in Iraq. Martial Law or not, had the guard been mobilized 4 days BEFORE the hurricane, they would have been ready to get into the city and start rescuing people and handing out aid immediately, even if they weren't allowed to take police action (though I'd bet their mere presence would have severely reduced the amount of need for police action even without martial law...if I see a dude with an AK, I'm not going to go check the news paper to find out if he's been granted the power to shoot me or not).

There is absolutely no excuse for news crews being able to get those stupid vans to the Convention Center days before the guard, and that's not something local government has control over.

When I'm overwhelmed, I have a tendency to hyperfocus on smaller elements that I feel more able to control -- sometimes at the expense of the more important issues. I can easily picture myself trying to restore some type of mental order and running into someone I perceive as able to facilitate my home rebuilding and immediately asking them when they could get started with that.

What I find striking about this disaster is how it seems to be going wrong on all levels. Preventing this scale of disaster was delayed. Planning to handle this scale of disaster was delayed or repackaged for the war on terror. Response by local officials was delayed. Response by federal officials was delayed. And now, comments on the refuge situation are misguided (and that's the polite version.) Every time one thinks "well, at least they can't mess* this up any further" someone does or says something that defies all logic and civility.

I wonder if some of the folkd recently quoted quite simply don't get it. There have been any number of newstories highlighting the poorer than average demographic affected by this storm and the subsequent flooding. I wonder if some picture the more typical Floridian experience of throwing the tarp on the roof, replacing those items that weren't moved to the upper floors, and filing a homeowner's claim to cover the damages? I wonder if some people can't comprehend that some people, who we might previously described as "having nothing," now literally have nothing?

______
*Replace with expletive of your choosing.

Another important point is that many of the thousands of guardsmen who are in Iraq were local police and firemen. Their knowledge of the area could have helped much more than sending in guards from other states.

I still don't understand why we have National guardsmen in Iraq. That isn't what they signed up to do and they were needed HERE.

An open letter to the President from the New Orleans Times-Picayune
 

OUR OPINIONS: An open letter to the President
Dear Mr. President:

We heard you loud and clear Friday when you visited our devastated city and the Gulf Coast and said, "What is not working, we’re going to make it right."

Please forgive us if we wait to see proof of your promise before believing you. But we have good reason for our skepticism.

Bienville built New Orleans where he built it for one main reason: It’s accessible. The city between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain was easy to reach in 1718.

How much easier it is to access in 2005 now that there are interstates and bridges, airports and helipads, cruise ships, barges, buses and diesel-powered trucks.

Despite the city’s multiple points of entry, our nation’s bureaucrats spent days after last week’s hurricane wringing their hands, lamenting the fact that they could neither rescue the city’s stranded victims nor bring them food, water and medical supplies.

Meanwhile there were journalists, including some who work for The Times-Picayune, going in and out of the city via the Crescent City Connection. On Thursday morning, that crew saw a caravan of 13 Wal-Mart tractor trailers headed into town to bring food, water and supplies to a dying city.

Television reporters were doing live reports from downtown New Orleans streets. Harry Connick Jr. brought in some aid Thursday, and his efforts were the focus of a "Today" show story Friday morning.

Yet, the people trained to protect our nation, the people whose job it is to quickly bring in aid were absent. Those who should have been deploying troops were singing a sad song about how our city was impossible to reach.

We’re angry, Mr. President, and we’ll be angry long after our beloved city and surrounding parishes have been pumped dry. Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been were not. That’s to the government’s shame.

Mayor Ray Nagin did the right thing Sunday when he allowed those with no other alternative to seek shelter from the storm inside the Louisiana Superdome. We still don’t know what the death toll is, but one thing is certain: Had the Superdome not been opened, the city’s death toll would have been higher. The toll may even have been exponentially higher.

It was clear to us by late morning Monday that many people inside the Superdome would not be returning home. It should have been clear to our government, Mr. President. So why weren’t they evacuated out of the city immediately? We learned seven years ago, when Hurricane Georges threatened, that the Dome isn’t suitable as a long-term shelter. So what did state and national officials think would happen to tens of thousands of people trapped inside with no air conditioning, overflowing toilets and dwindling amounts of food, water and other essentials?

State Rep. Karen Carter was right Friday when she said the city didn’t have but two urgent needs: "Buses! And gas!" Every official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be fired, Director Michael Brown especially.

In a nationally televised interview Thursday night, he said his agency hadn’t known until that day that thousands of storm victims were stranded at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. He gave another nationally televised interview the next morning and said, "We’ve provided food to the people at the Convention Center so that they’ve gotten at least one, if not two meals, every single day."

Lies don’t get more bald-faced than that, Mr. President.

Yet, when you met with Mr. Brown Friday morning, you told him, "You’re doing a heck of a job."

That’s unbelievable.

There were thousands of people at the Convention Center because the riverfront is high ground. The fact that so many people had reached there on foot is proof that rescue vehicles could have gotten there, too.

We, who are from New Orleans, are no less American than those who live on the Great Plains or along the Atlantic Seaboard. We’re no less important than those from the Pacific Northwest or Appalachia. Our people deserved to be rescued.

No expense should have been spared. No excuses should have been voiced. Especially not one as preposterous as the claim that New Orleans couldn’t be reached.

Mr. President, we sincerely hope you fulfill your promise to make our beloved communities work right once again.

When you do, we will be the first to applaud.

This is an excellent source for local info from New Orleans:
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporlea...09.html#076771

Who Needs a Humvee When You've Got A Hyundai!
 

Matt, I hope you don't mind that I reposted your link in this thread.

Here's the quote that gets me:

While the debate is certainly valid about national guardsmen being in Iraq, Louisiana has 11,700 National guardsmen, and 8,000 are still there. It isn't an issue of all of the guardsmen not knowing the area at all.

I'm not too worried about the NOLA situation anymore, because I know once its all over with, there will be a multi-million dollar investigation and commission hearings to find out what went wrong.

Too bad that money couldn't have been spent up front to prevent this stuff from happening in the first place though.

Here's a fine example of the well thought-out recover process by FEMA:

http://katrinablog.msnbc.com/2005/09...tml#below-fold

[emphasis mine]