Sadly, as I predicted here, New Orleans is being ripped to shreds. Looters, armed gangs, snipers, all on the loose while authorities are still trying to rescue trapped people!
Hospitals containing thousands of patients are being evacuated. I hate to break the news to that lickspittle Jack Cafferty at CNN as well as other idiots in the MSM, but THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH HELICOPTERS IN THE ENTIRE UNITED STATES ARMY THAT COULD AIRLIFT 10,000 SICK PEOPLE TO THE AIRPORT AND DO IT ALL AT ONCE! Such an evacuation would take days under the best of circumstances. And this is far from that.
Get real people!
There are 90,000 square miles of disaster area. That’s a larger area than some countries. To believe that government can do anything meaningful in such circumstances demonstrates a towering ignorance and childish immaturity.
Part of the problem is that most in the MSM are basing their opinions on past disasters. There is no precedent in the history of industrialized civilization for this type of disaster. None. The only comparable event would be the detonation of a nuclear bomb in the middle of a major American city. And anyone who knows anything about that scenario knows full well that government actions wouldn’t be nearly adequate to deal with the disaster. Government has had more than 50 years to plan for such an eventuality and every mock disaster exercise they’ve ever carried out has ended up very much like what we’re seeing in New Orleans.
The food and water problem is incredible. I just heard Cafferty wondering in his towering ignorance why couldn’t they drop food from airplanes and helicopters.
Drop it where? In the water? It’s idiotic to think that some massive airlift a la Berlin in 1949 would be helpful when the people who need the supplies most are almost underwater themselves!
Think, people!
I believe that in fact the MSM is panicking while government remains calm. It’s not anti-Bush as much as it’s pro-people. They see the videos and want to do something but all they’re capable of doing is yelling at politicians who are doing the best they can under unprecedented circumstances. The media is going off the deep end.
The National Guard and the Army are doing the best they can. They’re coming as fast as they can. Does anyone have any idea what it takes to move 50,000 troops? Their equipment? Their infrastructure?
That would be like moving twice the number of people who live in my town. Every man. Every woman. Every child. All the food they would need. All the shelter they require. Every car and truck they own.
Everything.
The hysteria being shown by the MSM may prove that their hearts are in the right place. But it’s not helping.
9:00 pm
American Red Cross
Today’s dose of NIF - News, Interesting & Funny … It’s Stop the ACLU Thursday, and Katrina Relief Day!
12:12 pm
“There is no precedent in the history of industrialized civilization for this type of disaster”
Well that’s just a crock. In Kobe 1995 an earthquake left 102,000 buildings collapsed and fire burned 7500 homes, killed 5250 people and left 400,000 homeless. Japan is certainly an industrialized civilization.
There other disasters of this magnitude in Iran, Turkey, Italy, Mexico, and elsewhere. Contingency plans are based on assumptions that almost always prove inaccurate. That is no excuse for not having a plan. Planners in the city , state and federal governments could look to the Kobe disaster and countless others to anticapate these problems and have a plan developed and ready to be implemented.
12:28 pm
Sorry, I disagree.
We’re talking about 90,000 square miles of devastation. And what’s happening in New Orleans could not have been prevented with any amount of planning. We may be taling about 3 times the number of buildings underwater (perhaps as many as half a million) not to mention there is nothing that government can do – any government – when so many need so much in so short a time.
Access to people in an earthquake is relatively easy compared to gaining access to needy people with 10 feet of water in the streets.
If every disaster worker who will be in New Orleans by Sunday was there on Monday afternoon after the hurricane went through there would have been a chance – just a chance – that things wouldn’t have been as bad as they are. But the fact that it’s taking 6 days to get these people in position should tell you that we would have needed a psychic to divine mother nature’s intentions to have a chance to head off the humanitarian disaster.
3:51 pm
Couldn’t have been prevented?
I take it the fact that local news papers have penned nine different articles about the fact that tens of millions were stripped from levee development for the war effort is easy to ignore. Man you’re unbelievable.
3:54 pm
Hey idiot:
Guess it doesn’t matter that those “funds” have been earmarked since 1965 and that not one Congress – Dem or Rep – bothered to appropriate it.
As usual, you twist the facts to suit your ridiculous worldview.
10:57 pm
Some Other Voices on the Katrina Mess
If this was San Francisco after an 8.5 magnitude earthquake and the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay Bridge were in ruins, if airport runways, waterlines, and gaslines were ruptured, there would likely be similar conditions. And similar complaints.
11:31 pm
One Comment Wonder;
Could you please read “The Creeping Storm”, an article written in Civil Engineering Magazine, http://www.pubs.asce.org/ceonline/ceonline03/0603feat.html
In it, Al Naomi, the Corps of Engineers levee manager for SE Louisiana pointed out that in order to bring the levees up to Cat 4 or 5 standards could take 30 years. The preparatory study would take six years and cost $8 million.
8:39 am
Rick you nailed it as an unprecedented disaster and devastation. By my simple figures, 90,000 square miles of disaster area covered by 8 feet of water results in a flood surge of 1.25 QUADRILLION POUNDS of water covering the area.That’s 627 BILLION TONS of water. Those kinds of numbers are completely unpredictable.