Redstate

They're the ones who have an anti-Bush agenda. They're going to promote a hateful anti-Bush agenda that is going to cause a lot of unneeded anger.

Not for the flooding of course, but for the incredibly slow response to get federal help down there.  As soon as that hurricane cleared out troops should have been entering the city to keep order and get food/water in.  There is no excuse that chaos reigned at the convention center and superdome.  It does not take very long to fly (by helicopter) troops into NO from anywhere in the country and even a few thousand would have prevented the chaos from erupting.  We knew on Saturday that NOLA was staring down the big one and should have had everything ready to go then.  I blame the City/State for not having a better more comprehensive evacuation plan.  But I balme the president for the slow response that has made my country look like a third world dung heap.

The city of New Orleans and the Louisiana Legislature and the federal government have had, what, thirty or forty years to figure out a solution to this problem, yet did nothing?  They have known for some time that the levees could not withstand damage from anything above a type 2 or 3 hurricane.  The horror we are now witnessing was a spectre that hovered in their consciousnesses for some time, hence bracing for the "big one" mentality.

For Democrats to blame President Bush for the catastrophic conditions that exist in New Orleans right now is truly pathetic, desperate, and disgusting.  And to lay the blame of the lack of funding at the feet of the Iraq War and tax cuts is simply attempting to score political points.  There are plenty of other programs the federal government funds whose money could have been diverted to increase funding for natural disaster preparation.  To argue it is the fault of a specific government initiative is completely dubious.    

We didn't know that New Orleans was going to face a big hurricane until Sunday Morning.

The levee, which was recently repaired, did not breach until Tuesday.

The Feds were in New Orleans by Wednesday.

But if you're a griping person in New Orleans, you can get into any newspaper, no matter how false your gripes are.

Hi all, I'm a visitor from the other side of the aisle, but I think we all need to talk.  I believe in constructive discussion between people with differing views, so I'm going to start out with a constructive idea. The congress (frankly, I've given up on this president's ability to lead) needs to enact a new WPA (I know you all hate the New Deal--but it did its job).  If the reconstruction of N.O. is done by contractors then we'll end up with a million refugees and a city reminiscent of New York from that Kurt Russell movie.   I don't want Americans to be "refugees".  This is not the Third World, yet.  Instead, the government should set up clean, safe housing for the displaced and employ them to clean and rebuild their city.

New Orleans will be always vulnerable to big hurricanes. Billions will probably get spent to make "new ways out of town". Next time a hurricane hits, expect the Mayor to make a real effort to get the poor residents out.

Of the 2/3rds of people with an opinion, 82% approve of Bush's handling of Katrina.

The Democrat Party is a party of complaining, not of ideas.

The first WPA wasn't really that much of a success.

As well, the people in New Orleans will get their houses rebuilt. There's no need to do a  Pruitt-Igoe on their city or anything.

You're obviously a bit delusional if you think that contractors are evil people who are against refugees.

You say you'd like to have a constructive discussion between the two sides of the aisle, then you preface your remarks with: "I've given up on this president's ability to lead."

Go back and try again.

According to the national weather service we knew Friday night and definitely by Saturday night the situation looked real bad.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/dis/al122005.discus.019.shtml?

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/dis/al122005.discus.015.shtml?

This is the kind of response that's needed, and just in time for the Sunday shout shows.  Now, Bush needs to get on the ground in New Orleans.  In many respect, presence is leadership.*

(As I've written elsewhere, this has a potential to be a massive problem for Bush; he needs to up his game.)

von

*One reason why I'm not a fan of the so-called "western White House"; never underestimate the power of being there.

Basically they didn't have too much info on it, only that they felt it was going to Mississippi. At the time, it was category three.

I think far too many sensible people are believing the media's Anti-Bush tirades. They make the news to bash Bush, they don't report how the situation in New Orleans is getting better.

then that the Saturday night one was pretty darn accurate.  The evacuation and planning should have started then and it did not.  Our federal government needs to respond to situations like these as if we are the greatest country on Earth.  And right now it does not look that way at all.

You are correct.  I realized that aside was a little counter-productive as soon as I hit post, but I am frustrated with the direction of the country (different topic right now).  Also, I am not claiming that contractors are "evil".  But why should a huge, unemployed group of people sit around and wait for others to do the work for profit?  Put the people to work rebuilding their own city.  We will need huge amounts of labor to do this.  And we certainly don't want hundreds of thousands of people (many armed) wandering America as displaced persons or going on welfare.  I make my living working with systems integrators, so I don't think they are evil.  

Also, I'm not talking about public housing projects and believe the WPA accomplished much.  But we can disagree on this.  What I want to discuss is a new public project to rebuild NOLA.  It was truly a great American city.    

the report came in at 10pm CST. Basically nothing major could have happened to evacuate people until Sunday morning. And that did happen.

The evacuation was mainly a local-level failure, in my point of view. I don't think the federal government really had the capability to do much to help in that effort.

And the main reason why we look bad is the media coverage. The city is 80% underwater. There's only one ground route into the city. There is no running water. Of course things will be bad. But to act as if we can get all those people out of the city quickly, or that we can clean it up quickly, is delusional.

Of course, the people in the city had as much opportunity to act on the threat as the governments did.

If people thought the problem wasn't being addressed, they could have voted with their feet and ran.

I think to argue that there's any blame at all is silly, and is totally inappropriate right now.

Later, later, much later, we can learn for the future, but cut out the finger-pointing.

The weather reports were not very accurate.  My parents live in Mobile and chose to stay in their home based on reports Saturday night and Sunday morning that it would not be as bad as it was.  Regardless, this is an instance in which you are looking at the trees instead of the forest.  The damage from the winds and the rain the hurricane caused could not be prevented, but the flooding in New Orleans possibly could have with better long-term planning over the last thirty years.  

The Corner seems to want to use this as an excuse to junk the pork-laden Highway Bill that was just passed.  There are opportuntists all around.

It's the government's responsibility (local, state, and federal) to find a solution to the levee problem that is unique to New Orleans.  The people, as it were, do not possess the means to solve it.  

I am not assigning blame other than pointing out that there was a lack of long-term planning by governmental authorities that should have been there.  As a result, many people are suffering for it.  

Yes, we should learn and incoporate the lessons that have been learned from this natural and human catastrophe.  And it doesn't hurt to start learning now.  

of using contractors with skilled labor, tools, supply chains, and the training to quickly assess, estimate and complete a construction project, you are advocating creating a new bureaucracy from scratch, hiring unskilled labor, training them, buying a massive amount of tools, arranging supply and material pipelines, and relying on this group to rebuild the city.

While thousands upon thousands wait, homeless.

Do I have that right?

my point was that with the reports showing a cat4/5 bearing down on NOLA/MS the feds should have begun assembling troops and supplies immediately.  It does take a day or so to get supplies and troops together and since the government waited the city descended into chaos and thousands may have died due to the slow response.

Here is the Sunday evening warning from the National Weather Service, as posted contemporaneously by Eric Lindholm at Viking Pundit:

POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BEDOWN AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

At the time, it seemed almost hysterical; in hindsight, it was understatement.

You'd be much better asking where were Nagin and Blanco with the contingency plans, but I won't.

Why isn't Chimpy McBushitlerCo. prepared for the BIG QUAKE that's gonna hit Missouri along the New Madrid any day now?

These things work your way only in an alternate reality.

should have done?

Are you suggesting that we should have had tens of thousands of NG troops, thousands of buses and support vehicles, standing by in a gargantuan Wal-Mart parking lot in northern Arkansas, waiting to see if they might have been needed?  If that's your solution, then I have a few questions?

1. How were we to protect those relief forces from the storm itself.  The mega-Wal-Mart parking lot to which I refer has no overhead cover.  Should the soldiers have stood in formation, singing the "Army Song" while the winds and rain lashed them.
   
   
2. Once the storm subsided, and the relief forces dried off and started for New Orleans, how were they supposed to get past the roads that were broken, flooded and covered with trees and downed power lines?  Clicked the heels of their army boots three times, said "There's no place like my tactical assembly area in New Orleans", and simply moved to the disaster site?  (Come to think of it, YOU'RE RIGHT!!! Why DIDN'T President Bush think of that?)

That's enough for now.  Over to you

It doesn't seem unreasonable (in fact, it would be essential) to have some private sector involvement.  But it would mainly be on the engineering side.  There isn't enough skilled labor in the country to do all the heavy lifting.  I'm sure you've seen the photos.  Much of the city is completely gone.  The benefit of involving the citizens of NO is great:  put people to work instead of waiting on the sidelines.  

Why not train people?  Many of the folks who have been displaced are at the lowest rungs of society. Let's give them skills they might be able to use for the rest of their lives.  I'm not talking about making them architects, but teach them how to pour concrete, frame houses, paint, restore ironwork, etc--I know this isn't easy, but it would be worth the investment.   This is a great opportunity to raise people up and give them a purpose as well as accomplishing the task at hand.

What would the alternative be:  have CACI, GD, or Lockheed run the project and hire cheap immigrant labor to keep costs down? (I'm not being combative here, I work with these organizations everyday, and they are bottom line institutions).  

We have already built an enormous new bureaucracy, the DHS.  Why not utilize that bureaucracy to manage the project?  This is a great opportunity for the public and private sectors to work together for the common good.

First, they could have begun staging Sunday in Texas (you know because it was not hit).  Second is they could have helicoptered in troops and tons of water/mre's into the superdome and convention center on Tuesday.  Third, it would not have been that difficult to chopper in additional security forces and boats into the city beginning tuesday to maintain order.  Finally, can anyone here give me any excuse as to why troops/medicine/food are still not available on the bridge that people are gathering on?  Once again, I do put alot of blame onto the backs of the City of NO and State of LA, as they should have had better evacuiation plans in place and should have been able to get more of the poor out of the city before hand.  But immediately after the storm left it became a problem on the scale that only the federal government could solve and it has done a very poor job.

. . . aren't these the sorts of things for which we have army bases and armories scattered about our country?  And helicopters?  

materiel and manpower were assembed in staging areas outside of the expected impact area. NG troops were mobilized before the hurricane strike.

It make no sense to bring those resources into the impact zone so that they now become part of the problem instead of the solution. Once the storm passed those resources were dispatched only to be met with a hurrinane wall failure the day after the storm passed. Add to the extensive flooding in New Orleans are the inevitable bridges out, roads flooded, blocked by debris and power lines and you have a logistical nightmare.

Could it have been cleaner, quicker, smoother? Certainly, it could always be better. But having lived through Hurricane Andrew and subsequent storms I can tell you from personal experience that people in a storm zone need to understand that they may well be on their own for 48 hours or more. And the people of New Orleans and indeed the entire Gulf coast have been hit before and are at threat every year.

I have been critical of whet I see as very poor planning on the part of the city of New Orleans for not having a plan to get the poor out of the city. But even that needs to be tempered with some appreciation. At a press conference yesterday (Thursday) Governor Blanco tried to explain that the day the evacuation order was issued the city sent police and buses throughout the city begging people that could not leave on their own to get on the buses and leave. Clearly we can see how unsuccessful that was.

But that aside listening to people from other parts of the Gulf coast many, if not all, of the people who rode out this storm said that they had ridden out previous storms and didn't think this one would be this bad. I can tell you that although I have been through a number of storms and near misses every one is different.

We live in Miami and in spite of my experience with storms we were almost caught off guard when Katrina changed course at the last minute and passed directly over my house 40 miles south of where it was supposed to go. I won't make that mistake again. At the end of the day every man is responsible for himself and the conduct of his life --- in good times and bad.

Other than it being a psychological trick for morale purposes, the presence of the President in Louisiana or even in DC for that matter does nothing to alleviate the suffering of the people.

I find it suprising that in the age of the digital media and the Internet, even bloggers like us can fall prey to the notion that Bush's being in Texas means he is out of contact and unable to fully exercise his presidential duties.

Whe the President goes on vacation, he brings with him his entire staff. The reason Crawford is the "Western White House" is because it does in fact have all the amenitites of the official state residence. Bush is briefed daily on all the day's major issues, he holds teleconferences with advisors and government leaders, and while he does take time out to relax and recharge his batteries, Bush is very much on a working vacation.

GWB can just as easily direct relief efforts from the comfort of his ranch or the WH as he can from NO, if not more so. We didn't ask him to lead a cavalry charge into Baghdad, or give the St. Crispen's Day speech to the Marines in Fallujah. The days of the victorious leader at the head of his forces is long gone. Today's leaders direct their troops from conference rooms with laptops and satellite phones, and that is what Bush should do, not stoop to meaningless Clintonesqe gestures of empathy that distract from the real task at hand. Since when did we start taking advice from the Democrats?

If Bush really wanted to help, he'd open up the grounds of his ranch and convert it for the time being into a refugee camp, and stay in Crawford to assist the people who have been left with nothing. That would be real leadership.

Seems I remember it took a couple of days for relief to start flowing into Florida last year, also.  I don't recall Jeb whining "Dubya hasn't done anything, yet".

Well, it wasn't Dubya's responsibility to micro- manage the relief effort.  It was Jeb's responsibility to get out front and lead the effort, which he did extremely well.  Had Gov Blanco and the NOLA mayor done the same, things might have been different.  Instead, they hightailed it to Baton Rouge and left the people of NOLA in the dark, literally and figuratively.  No one knew where to go after the hurricane struck  Surely, they knew NOLA was in a communications blackout.  How the Hell did they expect to communicate any kind of leadership from 60 miles away?

Mayor Nagin claims he was "all over" the town talking to people.  Strangely, no one sighted him.  But right now, he's playing the CYA game with the media.

Yes it is just a moral booster, BUT, when you are working on something long and hard at work, if your boss is there with you , sleeves rolled up, you work harder right ?  You command more respect for them right ??  The same with this.  Bush should be there with his sleeves rolled up,  It means a everything to these people.  An Air force one "fly by" is a joke.

There is absolutely nothing that President Bush could have done that would have resulted in a different tone from the Democat Leadership and the MSM. Absolutely nothing.

The left - including its institutional leadership and its cheerleading section in the MSM - has made a conscious decision to regain power through the prolonged application of negative energy.  

Everything the president does is wrong. Period. By battering the prez and the right in general, the left hopes to drag down the public's perception and lay the groundwork for electoral success.

Nothing could be more indicative of the left's general strategies: achieve equality by tearing down the successful, not by creating something positive.  

It's pathetic, inevitable, and - in the end - the strategy of losers.

then that the Saturday night one was pretty darn accurate.  The evacuation and planning should have started then and it did not.  Our federal government needs to respond to situations like these as if we are the greatest country on Earth.  And right now it does not look that way at all.

Actually, the Federal response started Saturday afternoon, the moment President Bush declared the areas to be a disaster area (a couple of hours after the forecast got firm enough for a real prediction).  Meanwhile, the people who do call for evacuations - the Mayor of New Orleans and the Governor of Louisiana - didn't call for a mandatory evacuation until Sunday, about a day after the Federal response was already in gear.

After that, it was "wait until it hits."  They were prepositioning gear and supplies, getting people organized, lining up transport, and waiting to find out where it would hit.  After the storm hit land, they had to wait for it to clear out, and for the weather to clear.  Then, they had to send in crews to figure out what sort of damage had been done, and where.  Then they had to clear and inspect the roads and bridges.

After all of that, it was Wednesday.  At that point, the big responders had to start  moving in and setting up supply dumps, and getting some intel on where to send people.

After that stage, it was yesterday.  That's when you started to see some serious results, in the edge areas (in something like this, you start from the edge - it's the only rational response, or you waste a lot of time and resources).

Today?  Look at the video out of New Orleans.

. . . aren't these the sorts of things for which we have army bases and armories scattered about our country?  And helicopters?

The reason we have the military, and have it spread around the country, is to fight in wars.

Disaster response is a secondary job.

You're plain wrong.  The difference between an in-person meeting, a teleconference, and a video conference is immeasurable.  To be able to walk across the street and talk to the folks actually doing the work; to be able to "pop in" on folks (rather than schedule a call); to be able to look folks in the eye when you're talking to them; to be there, to sense the mood, to smell the smells, to hear the complaints .... these things can only be done when you're on the ground.  

There's really no dispute on this one.  

Do you own a business?  If there was a crisis at your manufacturing plant, would you be satisfied phoning your suggestions in?  Put yourself in the shoes of a leader:  what would you do?

Actually, I'd do precisely that if I thought the people in charge were capable of handling it. That's why I hired them.

What am I missing?

Actually, I'd do precisely that if I thought the people in charge were capable of handling it. That's why I hired them.

Well, that's you.  I'd be there.  Not because I distrust those who are "in charge"; after all, in my hypothetical, I'm the one in charge.  

Put it in a more concrete situation, with which both of us are familiar:  taking an important deposition by teleconference -- wise?  Arguing an appeal by videoconference -- smart?  Telecommuting to work every day -- a good career move?

taking an important deposition by teleconference -- wise?

Sometimes. You forget that I work for insurance companies. They hate paying me.

Arguing an appeal by videoconference -- smart?

Can you even do this?

Telecommuting to work every day -- a good career move?

I wish.

I understand your analogy. But this strikes me as apples and oranges. One set of things is not designed to work in my absence. The other set is.

Sometimes. You forget that I work for insurance companies. They hate paying me.

All clients hate paying lawyers.  

Can you even do this?

You can in the Patent Office; I don't know of any court that allows it, though.

I understand your analogy. But this strikes me as apples and oranges. One set of things is not designed to work in my absence. The other set is.

Well, no.  At issue is what kinds of information you gather from just being in a room with someone.  It's tough to lead when you're not there.  

Why didn't people leave? Members of my family sure did. Why didn't the mayor order a mandatory evacuation long before?

Try different straws to grasp at.

...with the left's inablity to propose a single solution to anything. A monkey in a zoo can gripe, as we are seeing right now.