New Orleans Mayor: "Thousands Likely Dead"

[|darc|]

You're asking for the impossible. We don't have the resources. We got the shaft, and I don't care what you think.

[Hawq]

You got rats eating corpses in the streets as well now along with the people in the superdome being terrorised by armed gangs (though from reports they mainly seem to care about shooting each other) & threatened with severe violence &/or rape. If America can get halfway round the world to give relief & aid in a day or two why when its needed in their own backyard does it take more than a week? someone shoulda planned for this kind of thing & the guys that should of planned for it should now be fired for the lack of aforementioned planning.
Hell the mayor of NO was on the radio having a go at the gov for the lack of aciton & demanding that they send every bus available from just about everywhere to get people out, with amounts of swearing thrown in due to anger, understandable really.

[IiLuSiv]

No, most Americans don't want to say that. Just the bigots,

Super Megatron/Roofus, where do you live? Like what part of the country?

2) Yes I do expect everybody to move away. Its called intelligence. You can talk about culture and importance all you want, but now New Orleans is nothing but a giant putrid soup of water, debris and corpses. And you knew it was going to happen. People seem to have been living there under the false hope that it wouldnt happen.

I think you're full of it, with your logic noone should live Northern Ireland as they ran the risk of being terrorized by car bombs, the orange order, the IRA whatever it might be, and thus when their nephew is blown to bits it is their fault for living in the place they were born. That is basically what you are saying to us. With your logic, noone should live in California as 'The Big One' earthquake when it comes is said to be felt all the way over in the midwest and literally destroy the whole state, I guess everyone should just pack up and leave.

Honesty while all these people sit here and laugh while America hurts, what would we be doing if it was you? Helping out, sending money, sending relief efforts, peacekeeping forces whatever, I was always against how we were the global police force and charity force a lot of times, but now it seems there was really no point for it. Where are the other countries people landing on the ground to help us out? Mexico, the UK, hell why not offer a UN Peace Keeping Force to stop the looters?

[SuperMegatron]

No, most Americans don't want to say that. Just the bigots,

Super Megatron/Roofus, where do you live? Like what part of the country?

Roofus is in Cali and I am a from Richmond, VA but I am living in WV for college right now.

[butters]

This whole affair really hit home for me yesterday as some 1000 hurricane survivors entered town. Houston didn't have enough resources to take care of all of the survivors, and the state of Texas bussed the remainer to different cities in the state. 6 people so far have emergency enrolled at Texas Tech from different New Orleans colleges.

[Wagh]

500 moved into a church near by. more probably coming. It's crazy stuff.

[AuroEdge]

In response to what Darc said (I cant be bothered seperating everything into quotes:

1) Here in the Uk it was reported that it will most likely hit New Orleans, and that was a few days before it hit. While it wasnt a certainty most people suggested there was a very good chance that it would hit. When it eventually did hit a lot of people seem to of completely underestimated it. I know you get these warnings a lot, but it was already known that this one would be different, yet most people didnt seem to treat it as such.

2) Yes I do expect everybody to move away. Its called intelligence. You can talk about culture and importance all you want, but now New Orleans is nothing but a giant putrid soup of water, debris and corpses. And you knew it was going to happen. People seem to have been living there under the false hope that it wouldnt happen.

3) Transport arrangements shouldnt need to be made, and nothing should need to be coordinated. If youre living in an area that is at risk from things like this, a plan shouldve been made years ago, and transport should always be readily available.

Come on scykon, that would make too much sense. Having a way out of a city that's below sea level and surrounded by water... where do you come up with this crap?

[toastman]

Because each and every one of those people had the means necessary to evacuate.

Oh wait. They didn't. They are poor. No car, no money, nothing. Would cities in Texas, Georgia, and other states have put up these people for free for a 'maybe'?
No.
Would adequate transportation been provided for these people for a 'maybe'?
No.

And I don't know what kind of psychic weathermen you have in the UK that could predict with 100% accuracy where a hurricane will strike, but living down here you realize something.
All the hurricane tracking, predictions, warnings, watches, and expert opinions boils down to one thing: Guessing.
You cannot tell where a hurricane will land with anything approaching accuracy until the day before. I've seen storms they said were sure to strike us, turn away. I've seen storms that they were sure weren't going to hit us take us dead on. If you followed the NHC's tracking system, right after it spanked Florida, they expected it to turn northward sharply and miss Louisiana completely. Over the next few days, it turned more and more westward, until it came right by New Orleans.

You people want to know what it is like to live with this threat for half a year, every year, move down here. Otherwise shut up.

Fucking trolls.

[mikozero]

Where are the other countries people landing on the ground to help us out? Mexico, the UK, hell why not offer a UN Peace Keeping Force to stop the looters?

i just like to say that 44 countries and the UN have offered help but the US has said no to most of it, Bush was asked early on (sometime in the 1st 2 days i think) if the US wanted outside help and seemed to think country manage without it.

heres a report detailing some of the offers,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4210264.stm

the Gaurdian newspaper says

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said it had a taskforce on standby.

and i've seen the UN folk on the news saying similar things.

i suppose there are reasons for saying no which are hugely political and about a countrys strength and prestige (i could imagine that if there were UN troops over NO and in the streets it could be seen by some as a national embarrassment) but i guess that's for Americans to discuss more than i, if it happened here i'd be glad to see them although even i thought America shouldn't need that kind of outside help to deal with this at the start (except maybe for certain key manpower).



i don't agree a lot of whats been said (in the BoneyCork vein)

except that maybe someone should have thought to lay on some transport at the point the evacuation order was given (for the hospitals in particular)

i get the fact that hurricanes happen all the time but they're not all cat 5 and the mayor did tell everybody to leave the city, at that point if not just before someone somewhere should have realised that a lot of folks wouldn't have the means, and maybe rounded up every bus, truck and piece of rolling stock in the city and got them rolling but then there's the added complication that you can't make people leave (unlike the 600,000 moved out of the path of Typhoon Talim in China i suspect). there would still be people needing to be rescued just maybe not as many.

in otherwords every city should have an evacuation plan that involves more than saying get in your car a flee for you lives at the last minuite because that's not really a plan imho and you would think that they would have at least a few ideas kicking around about these things given the 'war on terror'.

of course everyone's a fucking genius with 20/20 hindsight.

[Hawq]

Apparantly there was a plan made for evacuation & a drill carried out a while back, the plan was just never used for some reason. & in fuel for the anti war brigade money that was meant to go on sea defenses for the NO area went instead into funding homeland security & the war in Iraq, prepare to see Bush hammered over that one guys

[az_bont]

The whole situation is being handled dreadfully. There are tens of thousands in desparate need of help, and thousands dying daily. And what really makes it seem all the more pointless is that there are plenty of people willing to help.

There are national task forces that can deal with this sort of emergency, but it seems the governor of New Orleans won't ask for the help. There are 44 individual countries and UN troops ready to step in if needed (and they are), but the US Government is saying no.

It seems to me that there are far too many people that are too proud to ask for anyone's help, and they don't care how many innocents die as a result.

[IiLuSiv]

The whole situation is being handled dreadfully. There are tens of thousands in desparate need of help, and thousands dying daily. And what really makes it seem all the more pointless is that there are plenty of people willing to help.

There are national task forces that can deal with this sort of emergency, but it seems the governor of New Orleans won't ask for the help. There are 44 individual countries and UN troops ready to step in if needed (and they are), but the US Government is saying no.

It seems to me that there are far too many people that are too proud to ask for anyone's help, and they don't care how many innocents die as a result.

Wow.

This is RIDICULOUS!

I guess Bush and the government wants to look we are the biggest baddest country in the world and always capable of holding our own.

But obviously we need help, if I were leadered, I'd have taken all I could get.

[mikozero]

they have asked now,
NATO and the EU offered help a while ago (a kinda open ended 'just tell us what you want' offer) they've now got back to them, at least that's whats reported on the news here tonight.

[|darc|]

Thank you, toastman. You speak what I feel.

The whole situation is being handled dreadfully. There are tens of thousands in desparate need of help, and thousands dying daily. And what really makes it seem all the more pointless is that there are plenty of people willing to help.

There are national task forces that can deal with this sort of emergency, but it seems the governor of New Orleans won't ask for the help. There are 44 individual countries and UN troops ready to step in if needed (and they are), but the US Government is saying no.

It seems to me that there are far too many people that are too proud to ask for anyone's help, and they don't care how many innocents die as a result.

It's definately not the mayor of New Orleans who is refusing.

[az_bont]

Thank you, toastman. You speak what I feel.

The whole situation is being handled dreadfully. There are tens of thousands in desparate need of help, and thousands dying daily. And what really makes it seem all the more pointless is that there are plenty of people willing to help.

There are national task forces that can deal with this sort of emergency, but it seems the governor of New Orleans won't ask for the help. There are 44 individual countries and UN troops ready to step in if needed (and they are), but the US Government is saying no.

It seems to me that there are far too many people that are too proud to ask for anyone's help, and they don't care how many innocents die as a result.

It's definately not the mayor of New Orleans who is refusing.

Oops, I meant senator. Or is it governor?

EDIT: It must be the governor, because each state has two senators, right?

[|darc|]

Thank you, toastman. You speak what I feel.

The whole situation is being handled dreadfully. There are tens of thousands in desparate need of help, and thousands dying daily. And what really makes it seem all the more pointless is that there are plenty of people willing to help.

There are national task forces that can deal with this sort of emergency, but it seems the governor of New Orleans won't ask for the help. There are 44 individual countries and UN troops ready to step in if needed (and they are), but the US Government is saying no.

It seems to me that there are far too many people that are too proud to ask for anyone's help, and they don't care how many innocents die as a result.

It's definately not the mayor of New Orleans who is refusing.

Oops, I meant senator. Or is it governor?

EDIT: It must be the governor, because each state has two senators, right?

Yes.

The governor here is a douchebag. Her name is Kathleen Blanco.

[IiLuSiv]

Thank you, toastman. You speak what I feel.

The whole situation is being handled dreadfully. There are tens of thousands in desparate need of help, and thousands dying daily. And what really makes it seem all the more pointless is that there are plenty of people willing to help.

There are national task forces that can deal with this sort of emergency, but it seems the governor of New Orleans won't ask for the help. There are 44 individual countries and UN troops ready to step in if needed (and they are), but the US Government is saying no.

It seems to me that there are far too many people that are too proud to ask for anyone's help, and they don't care how many innocents die as a result.

It's definately not the mayor of New Orleans who is refusing.

Oops, I meant senator. Or is it governor?

EDIT: It must be the governor, because each state has two senators, right?

It would be the President and Congress, altho mostly the President as during emergencies the President can push the envelope on his powers, like sending soldiers to nations in military nations without congress' approval of war declaration. States cannot individually barter with foriegn nations or entities without the say of the Federal Government.

[az_bont]

Thank you, toastman. You speak what I feel.

The whole situation is being handled dreadfully. There are tens of thousands in desparate need of help, and thousands dying daily. And what really makes it seem all the more pointless is that there are plenty of people willing to help.

There are national task forces that can deal with this sort of emergency, but it seems the governor of New Orleans won't ask for the help. There are 44 individual countries and UN troops ready to step in if needed (and they are), but the US Government is saying no.

It seems to me that there are far too many people that are too proud to ask for anyone's help, and they don't care how many innocents die as a result.

It's definately not the mayor of New Orleans who is refusing.

Oops, I meant senator. Or is it governor?

EDIT: It must be the governor, because each state has two senators, right?

It would be the President and Congress, altho mostly the President as during emergencies the President can push the envelope on his powers, like sending soldiers to nations in military nations without congress' approval of war declaration. States cannot individually barter with foriegn nations or entities without the say of the Federal Government.

Ah, I actually meant for the two to be separate. The governor is refusing national aid, and the US Government is refusing international aid.

[Prophet][]

according to our government, we wanted to help, mainly to get Australians out of their but then to help out in general but were refused. We even flew out 2 of our experts for this situation once it hit without asking you and they were not allowed to help once they got their. Seems kind of stupid if its true.

[butters]

Prophet][, they weren't letting anyone in the area, not even the Red Cross. There was too much of a risk of disease and there are idiots with guns...