Heard this on the radio today and had two feelings about it:
"We are like little birds with our mouths open, and you don't have to be very smart to know where to drop the worm," he said. "It's criminal within the confines of the United States that within one hour of the hurricane they weren't force-feeding us. It's like FEMA has never been to a hurricane."
I overheard this out of context -- just an angry voice of someone whom I thought was one of the people who chose not to evacuate. My immediate thought was: "What an ungrateful leech on society -- this is a textbook case of entitlement. Didn't this person ever hear of and practice self-reliance? (Or heed the warning to evac issued three days before landfall.)" When I got home, I Googled it and found it was from someone else. The Minneapolis, MN Star Tribune (Lilek's paper) has the story:
Desperation boils into unrest in New Orleans
Despair, privation and violent lawlessness grew so extreme in New Orleans on Thursday that the flooded city's mayor issued a "desperate SOS" and other local officials, describing the security situation as horrific, lambasted the federal government for responding too slowly to the disaster.
"I'm not sure I'm going to get out of here alive," said Canadian tourist Larry Mitzel, who handed a reporter his business card in case he goes missing. "I'm scared of riots. I'm scared of the locals. We might get caught in the crossfire."
Four days after Hurricane Katrina roared in with a devastating blow that inflicted potentially thousands of deaths, the frustration, fear and anger deepened despite the promise of National Guard troops to stop the looting, a $10 billion recovery bill in Congress and a government relief effort that President Bush called the biggest in U.S. history.
About 15,000 to 20,000 people who had taken shelter at New Orleans Convention Center grew increasingly hostile, clamoring for food, water and attention while around them dead bodies, slumped in wheelchairs or wrapped in sheets, lay in their midst.
Police Chief Eddie Compass said 88 officers sent there were chased away by an angry mob.
"We have individuals who are getting raped, we have individuals who are getting beaten," Compass said. "Tourists are walking in that direction and they are getting preyed upon."
A military helicopter tried to land at the convention center several times to drop off food and water. But the rushing crowd forced the choppers to back off. Troopers then tossed the supplies to the crowd from 10 feet off the ground and flew away.
There are problems with both sides of this -- the relief could have been better coordinated on every level. The Municipal government knew that a storm above Cat 3 would pose a grave danger to the levees. The first serious engineering studies were done about thirty years ago and they have had all of this time to beef up the infrastructure. Instead, the monies were spent cultivating the tourist business. (New Orleans is a very poor town, there are only two revenue streams: tourism and shipyard operations, other businesses have left as everything else has degraded.)
The State Government could have done something too. The name of our nation: "The United States of America" says it all -- State's Rights trumps Federal on most things. The idea was to have a as small a Federal government as possible and to have the State shoulder the burden of its maintenance. The Federal government could have started moving as soon as the warnings were sounded. The people were in the USA, the claim that all the resources were over in Iraq is bunk. They just were not deployed soon enough. No roads? No airports? The Army has lots of Helicopters. Relief could have been brought in to critical areas.
And now, the other side. What kind of idiot would ignore an evacuation warning. There have been enough stories from people currently staying in distant hotels saying that people who wanted to leave, even if they didn't have a vehicle, were able to hitch or get rides on busses. The roads were backed up but people managed to get out. Sure, if I knew that my home was going to flood, part of me would want to stay behind and try to be with my belongings to try to save as many as possible.
What about self reliance -- you are living in an area that is below sea water and is protected by a series of electrical pumps. Where are these people's "Grab and Go" packs. Even if you cannot get a ride, it is possible to pack 12 days of food into a 60 pound pack. This includes a propane stove and bacteriological water filter. The people who were in the dome -- this was a horrible situation. The people who were in the houses and were hanging out and looting basketball hoops, beer and wide screen TV's, these people should not be the ones to push into first place when the aid lines are set up. Oh yeah, the quote I Googled was in this article -- here it is in context:
Col. Terry Ebbert, director of homeland security for New Orleans, concurred with particularly pungent criticism. "We are like little birds with our mouths open, and you don't have to be very smart to know where to drop the worm," he said. "It's criminal within the confines of the United States that within one hour of the hurricane they weren't force-feeding us. It's like FEMA has never been to a hurricane."
Louisiana state officials also questioned what they saw as the federal emergency agency's absence from the scene. "They say they are coming, they are coming and they are coming," a senior member of Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco's staff said. "They are not here yet." (The aide asked not to be identified as the state still hoped that assistance would arrive.)
Looks like Fox Mulder was right...
