Mostly Cajun links to a blog entry talking about all the Monday-morning quarterbacking going on over the handling of the Katrina disaster:
Paw Paw gets it right...Very good point -- had they started to evacuate several days before the storm, a lot of people would simply refuse. Still, this was very badly handled and it will be interesting to see who actually worked and who played the blame-game...
Taking a break after helpng out at a shelter, Paw Paw talks about the Monday-morning quarterbacking going on, and pops up with this gem:However, we have to remember what the situation looked like on Friday, August 25th, 2005. It was a different world then. Mayor Nagin was enjoying the glow of being the mayor of the coolest city in the U.S. There was a storm in the Gulf, but Louisiana routinely weathers storms. If Nagin had gotten his act together Friday and ordered the evacuation of everyone in the city, if Governor Blanco had mobilized every bus in the state, and attempted to move the poorest, most impoverished residents out of the impact area, we have to ask ourselves how that would have proceeded?Being somewhat guilty of the hindsight thing myself, we have to know that Paw Paw does have a point. You know that a fine line is often walked when calling for evacuations. Too soon, the storm veers, and you�ve just knocked a hole in the local economy and disrupted thousands of lives. If that happens a couple of times, people will figure the next one is just another false alarm. There might have been some of that in New Orleans this time. Too late, and...
Imagine the howls of protest if hundreds of busses had arrived in the housing areas of New Orleans and announced: "We are evacuating everyone. Take one change of clothes and get on the bus. We don�t know where we are taking you, but you have to get out now. - - Everyone, right now - - Get on the bus." There would have been a riot, and rightfully so.
