Preach on, sister! I'm with you, as are so many others. This goes way across party lines, it's a human issue, not a political one.

Katrina moved sooooooo slowly. Everyone in emergency management KNEW that it was going to cause mass devastation. IMO, the trucks of supplies should have been sitting somewhere loaded and ready to respond. We had plenty of time to do so.

I'm with Colin Farrell, who said that if a bunch of white people had been on roofs in the Hamptons, the helicopters would have been there that day. I'm so sick of the poor of this country being ignored or shoved aside when they are in need! We got help to Indonesia after the tsunami quicker than this!

And as for the press, let me say this about them. While the situation in N.O. was horrific, for sure, there were many other people in MS and AL waiting for help, and being ignored.

This is a national disgrace, and how many more of them can we endure? It's absurd that our own people have been treated like this in their most desperate hour.

Rant over. (Well, at least on this thread!) ;)

First off,
I don't think the color of one's skin had ANYTHING to do with it. Don't forget the N.O. mayor is black and it seems to me he is the one who FAILED initially to provide buses to get the people out.

Second, like it or not on this particular issue; the very basis of our Constitution is the Feds do NOT interfere with state issues. Bush declared the whole area a national disaster almost 48 hours BEFORE the storm hit. This gave the idiot LA governor the ability to ask for all the help she wanted, but apparently she decided she didn't need.

Aside from that, some things seem so simple and obvious that it is totally beyond belief how they could have been ignored. For instance, anyone ever heard of using a bullhorn and getting messages out to these people that way???? The sickest one to me is NO ONE knew the Coast Guard was dumping these people on the overpass????????? FEMA director Brown says he didn't know till Thurs. - EXCUSE ME????????? The Mayor, the Governor, NO ONE but the media knew these people were on the overpass????????

I'd like to know why these people's rights are suddenly non-existent. I saw one example of a bus driver and the passenger almost being arrested because the bus driver pulled over to let the guy out to go to his sister's house. The buses were not supposed to stop because Baton Rouge has no room left. Why does this guy have to justify wanting to go to Baton Rouge? He wants to go to Wyoming or wherever, it should be his right. Geez, all he needed was a friggin ride.

I do agree that the heavier devastation is in MS and they ARE being ignored totally. It's pathetic.

I'm hoping and praying that ignored by the media does not mean that they're being ignored by their state government, the Red Cross, FEMA, and other organizations that are supposed to be offering them aid.

Amen to Amber, especially on her point that it IS your responsibility if you're at the top of the power chain. That's why you get paid the big bucks and get put on tv and get calls from the president, etc. This "we didn't know about those people" and "we weren't expecting the flooding" is utter bullcrap.

I've heard that NO and LA's governments are shabby and corrupt. Let's hope that this gets the public riled up and determined to participate in voting more responsbile, less shifty folks into positions of power in the future.

...And let's hope that we can all be part of the solution, not just part of the boo-and-hiss brigade-- although I think we all have plenty to boo and hiss about right now.

I don't think it's racial, and I'm sorry that quote made it look like I feel that way, but the fact is, most of the poor in this country are not white, and the poor are largely ignored when a tragedy hits. I know, I'm poor, and believe me, if this area was flooded, they'd be rescuing the people in the country clubs before they ever got to us.

As for Mississippi and Alabama being ignored, they weren't ignored by relief agencies, just the press. The reason N.O. was so much on the news was because of the thousands of people that were killed, and that there was no way to get them out and to safety somewhere else, because one bridge was washed out, and the other was not accessible or passable for a few days, until the debris could be cleared from the road and the bridge. Plus, they had to make sure it was structurally sound (it is the old bridge, the new one washed away) for the large trucks and buses to use.

I just don't see how they COULDN'T have been expecting the flooding! I WAS and I've only been there 4 times in my life. My son was, and he only lived there 6 years when he was in school. His apartment was in the area that flooded, and he said it flooded every time there was any kind of storm. He had 6 inches of water in his house after a tropical storm (can't remember which one). The first thing I said was that the Superdome would not hold up, and the second thing was that the levees weren't going to hold.

The way I heard it, the governor and the mayor DID ask for help ahead of time, and were given the "let's wait and see" by FEMA. After the fact, rescuers were turned away by FEMA, told not to come to N.O. until things were "more settled". A truckload of water was turned away because there wasn't a way to distribute it and they were afraid it would cause a riot if it was allowed in.

But the fact is, you can order mandatory evacuations, but short of loading them into busses at gunpoint, you can't force people to leave. We had the same thing happen down here during the hurricanes last year. People refused to leave, people died. My son says that the people in those areas are so afraid of losing what little they have to looters, that they will steadfastly refuse to leave the few possessions they have behind, and I can see why. The day after, a lady in the bayou who had had her single wide trailer destroyed said that someone had already stolen her t.v. and computer, the only two things of value she owned.

And now, after all is said and done, people ARE being forced to leave at gunpoint, and others are complaining about it! It's a cesspool down there, and if people are allowed to stay, they will contract some illness that will kill them anyway.

The blame lays squarely on FEMA, who when asked for help, refused to even start to plan to give it until it was too little, too late, and there was no way to get it there. I just don't see why they couldn't have at least made drops of water for these people in the days following.

I saw Jesse Jackson on the one of the a.m. news shows and I actually agreed with what he said - he was asked if he thought it was a racial thing and he said it wasn't, it was more economic and just plain poor planning.

How embarrassing it is to see the stories on CNN that were printed in papers around the world saying how bad the response was in the richest and most powerful country in the world. We got to the tsunami victims faster!!! That is just wrong. Can you imagine holding your baby while it dies of dehydration and malnutrition? And the old people, to live so long and die like that!

On Monday, CNN was showing the poor pets that are left behind. The doggies were up on roofs and you know they're drinking that water. I know a lot of the animal groups are in there trying to rescue them.

I, too, think it was an economic thing. I remember how expensive it was last year just to buy plywood and batteries and canned food. We are on a tight budget and that hurt. What happens if you have to run to a motel? That's an expense these people just couldn't afford and most of them didn't have cars. But we keep building luxury condos and townhouses and never worry about the poor. We are moving to a society with 2 classes, low and upper.

Thanks Amber, I think we all needed to rant.
Julie

Here is a bit I cut from the Blog of Dr Jeff Masters, co-founder of Weather Underground. Dr Masters was telling people 48 hours before the disaster, "I know your Gov. has said evacuation can wait, but get out. The levies are not rated above Cat 3. There is a reason that the New Orleans coroner has 10,000 body bags.

After, he posted this.
=========================================================

In comments on Thursday, Sep. 1, in an interview with Diane Sawyer of ABC News, President George W. Bush said, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did anticipate a serious storm. But these levees got breached."

In comments to the press on Sep. 3, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff remarked, "That 'perfect storm' of a combination of catastrophes exceeded the foresight of the planners, and maybe anybody's foresight", and called the disaster "breathtaking in its surprise."

It's not our fault," said Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, in charge of the deployment of National Guard troops in New Orleans. "The storm came and flooded the city."

In other words, Katrina was an Act of God no one could have foreseen, and the politicians we elected to protect us from disaster are not responsible for the unimaginable horror we have witnessed this week.

A horror unimagined by anyone, except by every hurricane scientist and government emergency management official for the past forty years and more. It was a certainty that New Orleans would suffer a catastrophe like this. Every 70 years, on average, the central Gulf Coast has a Category 4 or 5 hurricane pass within 80 miles of a given point. Sometimes you get lucky--for a while. New Orleans had gone over 150 years without a strike by a hurricane capable of overwhelming the levees. Sometimes you get unlucky. There's no guarantee that New Orleans won't get hit by another major hurricane this year. We are in the midst of an extraordinary period of hurricane activity, the likes of which has not been seen in recorded history. Hurricanes Ivan and Dennis, which both had storm surges capable of breaching the levees in New Orleans, smashed into Pensacola in the past year. Either of these storms could have destroyed New Orleans, had they taken a slight wobble westward earlier in their track.

Hurricanes are an inescapable part of nature's way on the Gulf Coast. Nature doesn't care about tax cuts and fiscal years and budget crunches. Nature doesn't care that a city of 500,000 people situated below sea level lies in its path. It was certain that New Orleans would sooner or later get hit by a hurricane that would breach the levees. How could the director of Homeland Security not be familiar with this huge threat to the security of this nation? How could the President not know? How could all the presidents and politicians we elected, from Eisenhower to Clinton, not know?

The answer is that they all knew. But the politicians we elect don't care about the poor people in New Orleans, because poor people don't have a lobbyist in Washington. The poor people don't make big campaign contributions, and those big campaign contributions are vital to getting elected. In all of the Congressional and Presidential races held over the past ten years, over 90% were won by the candidate that raised the most money.

So there was little effort given to formulate a plan to evacuate the 100,000 poor residents of New Orleans with no transportation of their own for a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. To do so would have cost tens of millions of dollars, money that neither the city, nor the state, nor the federal government was willing to spend. Why spend money that would be wasted on a bunch of poor people? The money was better spent on projects to please the politicians' wealthy campaign contributors. So the plan was to let them die. And they died, as we experts all knew they would. Huge numbers of them. And they keep dying, still. We don't know how many. Since the plan was to let them die, the city of New Orleans made sure they had a good supply of body bags on hand. Only 10,000 body bags, but since Katrina didn't hit New Orleans head-on, 10,000 will probably be enough.

Admittedly, it is very difficult to safely evacuate 100,000 people with a Category 4 or 5 hurricane bearing down on you. There are only a few routes out of the city, and a full 72 hours of warning are needed to get everyone out. That's asking a lot, as hurricanes are very difficult to predict that far in advance. The National Hurricane Center did pretty well, giving New Orleans a full 60 hours to evacuate. The Hurricane Center forecasted on Friday afternoon that Katrina would hit New Orleans as a major hurricane on Monday, which is what happened. New Orleans had time to implement its plan to bus the city's poor out. However, this plan had two very serious problems--it wasn't enacted in time, and it could only get out 20% of the people in a best case scenario.

The mandatory evacuation order was not given until Sunday, just 20 hours before the hurricane. I have not been able to ascertain from press accounts when the busses actually started picking up people. The mayor says 50,000 made it to the Superdome and other "shelters of last resort", leaving another 50,000 to face the flood waters in their homes. Although 80% of the city was evacuated, it is unclear whether any of the city's poor made it out by bus. And it is very fortunate that Katrina did not hit the city head-on, or else most of those in the Superdome and other "shelters of last resort" would have perished. The death toll from Katrina would have easily surpassed 50,000.

Even if the evacuation plan had been launched 72 hours in advance, it almost certainly would have failed. A local New Orleans news station, nola.com, reported in 2002 on the evacuation plan thusly:

In an evacuation, buses would be dispatched along their regular routes throughout the city to pick up people and go to the Superdome, which would be used as a staging area. From there, people would be taken out of the city to shelters to the north.

Some experts familiar with the plans say they won't work.

"That's never going to happen because there's not enough buses in the city," said Charley Ireland, who retired as deputy director of the New Orleans Office of Emergency Preparedness in 2000. "Between the RTA and the school buses, you've got maybe 500 buses, and they hold maybe 40 people
each. It ain't going to happen."

The plan has other potential pitfalls.

No signs are in place to notify the public that the regular bus stops are also the stops for emergency evacuation. In Miami Beach, Fla., every other bus stop sports a huge sign identifying it as a hurricane evacuation stop.

It's also unclear whether the city's entire staff of bus drivers will remain. A union spokesman said that while drivers are aware of the plan, the union contract lacks a provision requiring them to stay.

So, if one does the math, 500 busses times 40 people per bus yields 20,000 people that could have been evacuated in a best-case scenario. Only 20,000 out of 100,000. That isn't a half-hearted effort, it's a one-fifth hearted, criminal effort. We're talking about the lives of 80,000 people or more sacrificed, from a disaster that was certain to happen. By not having a plan to get New Orleans' poor out, our government caused the unbelievable suffering and the needless deaths of thousands of Americans. This was not a natural disaster caused by an act of God, it was an unnatural disaster. In his excellent 2001 book, Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in America, Ted Steinberg writes: "Calling such events acts of God has long been a way to evade moral responsibility for death and destruction." He shows in the book how countless politicians over the past one hundred years have done their best to evade this moral responsibility when preventable disasters struck. Our current leaders are no different.

The most prosperous and technologically advanced nation in history surely could have done better. Was it really too expensive to have the vehicles, people, and workable plan in place needed to evacuate New Orleans? Yes, the local and state goverments had primary responsibility for the New Orleans evacuation plan, but in an exceptional case like New Orleans, shouldn't the federal government have stepped in with the additional resources needed? "A society is measured by how it treats the weak and vulnerable", said George W. Bush in his State of the Union of Feb 2, 2005. By that measure, the people of this country have responded magnificently. The outpouring of aid, sympathy and prayers for those affected has been tremendous. But by that same standard, our government has failed. Its not just the current administration--every elected government since the days of Eisenhower has failed us. As I've outlined above, the problem is not likely to go away until the amount of money a candidate raises is no longer the primary factor determining who gets elected. Our elected officials won't care for the poor, as long as it is the rich who determine who get elected.

What can we do to help prevent such a disaster from recurring? Well, I encourage all of you to support election reform initiatives such as public campaign financing and Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) over the coming years. Maybe then I can check a box to vote for a candidate who will actually care for the needs of the poor in New Orleans and elsewhere in this county, instead of the usual "lesser of two evils" from the miserable two-party system that let thousands die and tens of thousands more suffer so unbearably.

Dr. Jeff Masters

Came across this interesting article in National Geographic last year. I could rant for years, but won't here.

Here is a link that might be useful: National Geograplic 10/04

We need to end this thread. Some people on the Louisiana and Mississippi forums got "friendly reminders" about threads like this there that were deleted. Evidently, we aren't allowed to discuss this on GW.

My thoughts exactly, minibim!

(Sorry, bruggirl and everyone else... I had to sneak it in before we end the thread...)

Blessings, healing, hope and strength to those suffering from this.

No sort of warning has been issued here. Perhaps because there are no arguments involved, perhaps because this is a conversation forum not the gardening forum, and perhaps because they have not noticed the thread, though it's name makes it clear what it is.
For what ever reason, it has not recieved cencure and until it does, I'm quite comfortable continuing.

It doesn't matter what forum it's on, Amber. Politics is strictly forbidden to be discussed on GW. I don't personally care if they ban me, there are plenty of other places to go to discuss plants and gardening, but I don't want everyone to get in trouble because of it.

If you're comfortable carrying on with the discussion, please feel free. As for me, I've said my piece, so I'll end here.

This is an incredible story. Does anyone think if I sent a package of toys in care of the boy, his family and DSS, that it would get forwarded to this family? I'm just dumbfounded at this boy's maturity.
-----------
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-97tinylives,0,2902522.story?page=2&track=mostemailedlink&coll=sfla-news-sfla He held their lives in his tiny hands

By Ellen Barry
Los Angeles Times

September 7, 2005, 10:07 AM EDT

BATON ROUGE, La. -- In the chaos that was Causeway Boulevard, this group of refugees stood out: a 6-year-old boy walking down the road, holding a 5-month-old, surrounded by five toddlers who followed him around as if he were their leader.

They were holding hands. Three of the children were about 2 years old, and one was wearing only diapers. A 3-year-old girl, who wore colorful barrettes on the ends of her braids, had her 14-month-old brother in tow. The 6-year-old spoke for all of them, and he told rescuers his name was Deamonte Love.

Thousands of human stories have flown past relief workers in the last week, but few have touched them as much as the seven children who were found wandering together Thursday at an evacuation point in downtown New Orleans. In the Baton Rouge headquarters of the rescue operation, paramedics tried to coax their names out of them; nurses who examined them stayed up that night, brooding.

Transporting the children alone was "the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, knowing that their parents are either dead" or that they had been abandoned, said Pat Coveney, a Houston emergency medical technician who put them into the back of his ambulance and drove them out of New Orleans.

"It goes back to the same thing," he said. "How did a 6-year-old end up being in charge of six babies?"

So far, parents displaced by flooding have reported 220 children missing, but that number is expected to rise, said Mike Kenner of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which will help reunite families. With crowds churning at evacuation points, many children were parted from their parents accidentally; one woman handed her baby up onto a bus, turned around to pick up her suitcase and turned back to find that the bus had left.

"When my kids were little I used to lose them in Target, so it's not hard for me to believe," said Nanette White, press secretary for Louisiana's Department of Social Services. "Sometimes little kids just wander off. They're there one second and you blink and they're gone."

At the rescue headquarters, a cool tile-floored building swarming with firefighters and paramedics, the children ate cafeteria food and fell into a deep sleep. Deamonte volunteered his vital statistics. He said his father was tall and his mother was short. He gave his address, his phone number and the name of his elementary school.

He said that the 5-month-old was his brother, Darynael, and that two others were his cousins, Tyreek and Zoria. The other three lived in his apartment building.

The children were clean and healthy -- downright plump in the case of the infant, said Joyce Miller, a nurse who examined them. It was clear, she said, that "time had been taken with those kids." The baby was "fat and happy."

All evening Thursday as strike teams came and went to the flooded city, volunteer Ron Haynes carried one of the 2-year-old girls back and forth, playing with her until she was calm enough to eat dinner.

"This baby child was terrified," he said. "After she relaxed, it was gobble, gobble, gobble."

As grim dispatches came in from the field, one woman in the office burst into tears at the thought that the children had been abandoned in New Orleans, said Sharon Howard, assistant secretary of the office of public health.

Late the same night, they got an encouraging report: A woman in a shelter in Thibodeaux was searching for seven children. People in the building started clapping at the news. But when they got the mother on the phone, it became clear that she was looking for a different group of seven children, Howard said.

"What that made me understand was that this was happening across the state," she said. "That kind of frightened me."

The children were transferred to a shelter operated by the Department of Social Services, rooms full of toys and cribs where mentors from the Big Buddy Program were on hand day and night. For the next two days, the staff did detective work.

One of the 2-year-olds steadfastly refused to say her name until a worker took her picture with a digital camera and showed it to her. The little girl pointed at it and cried out, "Gabby!" One of the boys -- with a halo of curly hair -- had a G printed on his T-shirt when he arrived; when volunteers started calling him G, they noticed that he responded.

Deamonte began to give more details to Derrick Robertson, a 27-year-old Big Buddy mentor: How he saw his mother cry when he was loaded onto the helicopter. How he promised her he'd take care of his little brother.

Late Saturday night, they found Deamonte's mother, who was in a shelter in San Antonio along with the four mothers of the other five children. Catrina Williams, 26, saw her children's pictures on a website set up over the weekend by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. By Sunday, a private plane from Angel Flight was waiting to take the children to Texas.

In a phone interview, Williams said she is the kind of mother who doesn't let her children out of her sight. What happened the Thursday after the hurricane, she said, was that her family, trapped in an apartment building on the 3200 block of Third Street in New Orleans, began to feel desperate.

The water wasn't going down and they had been living without light, food or air conditioning for four days. The baby needed milk and the milk was gone. So she decided they would evacuate by helicopter. When a helicopter arrived to pick them up, they were told to send the children first and that the helicopter would be back in 25 minutes. She and her neighbors had to make a quick decision.

It was a wrenching moment. Williams' father, Adrian Love, told her to send the children ahead.

"I told them to go ahead and give them up, because me, I would give my life for my kids. They should feel the same way," said Love, 48. "They were shedding tears. I said, 'Let the babies go.' "

His daughter and her friends followed his advice.

"We did what we had to do for our kids, because we love them," Williams said.

The helicopter didn't come back. While the children were transported to Baton Rouge, their parents wound up in Texas, and although Williams was reassured that they would be reunited, days passed without any contact. On Sunday, she was elated.

"All I know is I just want to see my kids," she said. "Everything else will just fall into place."

At 3 p.m. Sunday, DSS workers said goodbye to seven children who now had names: Deamonte Love; Darynael Love; Zoria Love and her brother Tyreek. The girl who cried "Gabby!" was Gabrielle Janae Alexander. The girl they called Peanut was Degahney Carter. And the boy whom they called G was actually Lee -- Leewood Moore Jr.

The children were strapped into car seats and driven to an airport, where they were flown to San Antonio to rejoin their parents. As they were loaded into the van, the shelter workers looked in the windows.

The baby gaped with delight in the front seat. Deamonte was hanging onto Robertson's neck so desperately that Robertson decided, at the last minute, to ride with him as far as Lafayette.

Shelter worker Kori Thomas held Zoria, 3, who reached out to smooth her eyebrows. Tyreek put a single fat finger on the van window by way of goodbye.

Robertson said he doubted the children would remember much of the helicopter evacuation, the Causeway, the sweltering heat or the smell of the flooded city.

"I think what's going to stick with them is that they survived Hurricane Katrina," he said. "And that they were loved."

Copyright 2005, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

My goodness. My nephew is six. I don't know if he could do that. Remarkable children. That boy is born leader.

I'm all teary eyed...

Oh my! What a wonderful story. There are so many stories like this. I hope someone writes a book, but it will have to be a huge, thick one, or a series.

How much grander life is, when we all stick together, and help each other in time of need.
Without question, a lot of people failed to conduct themselves as they should have, but each time we hear a story like the above, it makes it easier to go on.
When all is said and done, instead of killing each other- with guns or words, it would be smart to learn from the experience, and be better prepared for the next time.
In Florida we seem to have a better sense of what to do, where to go, and how to get there in cases of emergency.
People seem also to better listen,
and to prepare as well as they can.
Listening to the horror stories,
i cant help but wonder,
where personal responsibility comes in to play during such emergencies.
As a grown up,
if I am warned that a major hurricane is heading my way,
I will think of preperation of getting out of the way.
If I am asked to evacuate,
i will seriously take it under consideration,
or prepare for a siege.
If i am ordered to evacuate, i shall do so, and make sure my neighbors have the means of getting out.
If i failed to do any of the above,
and i changed my mind when it was -too late-
do i have a right to demand,
that you,
your father/husband/son etc risk your lifes in order to resque me?
Especially when the possibility of being shot for your trouble is very real.
We want less goverment in our lives,
who decides, and when,
who can come into my house and forcibly rescue me-
if i dont want to leave my house??
There will be lots of hard questions to answer, both on the side of those in charge- especially on the local level- just how they have spent the funds they have received for emergency preparation, and the individuals who were partying in the streets instead of thinking of their safety, as well as the people still in the flooded areas, who are still refusing to leave.
One thing for sure, the death toll will unfortunately be greater. then would be, if we could avoid some of the situations that have come to be.
I wish everyone well,
and strenght especially for the ederly, infirm and all those innocent children,
remembering all those unsung heroes,
who's full contributions is easily lost amongst the slinging of mud.
May there be reason for you to smile very soon,
Irene

Irene, I couldn't have put it better. Well said.

I'm glad those kids were ok. What a horror story - waiting for the helicopter to come back and it never does.

I am friends with someone on another forum and she lived near one of the levee breaches. She is currently staying at her inlaws in Morgan City. However, she does not blame the mayor at all. She said the majority of the people in NO do not blame the mayor and say that the local news is giving a much better picture of what the mayor has been doing than the national media. She, however, does have bad things to say about the governor and the president. So far it looks as if she may lose her house entirely as it was completely flooded. They did get to go back this week and look at her parents and brothers homes, which will be liveable after removing them mold and floors and doing a lot of repairs.

It is entirely hard to get the real picture unless you are living there. It's easy for us to sit here and say "such and such did this wrong" or "I heard such and such about this", but a lot of it could be taken with a grain of salt. There are many truths to that there was mismanagement. Michael Brown was relieved of his duties. That was obviously a good thing to be done.

They have a very well defined Constitutional chain of command set up to handle these situations.It starts with the mayor's office-state -federal.Since every level is possessive of their rights and know funding depends on their visablity they're not about to concede their authority to the next level.
The fact that the locals don't blame the first level[mayor or city manager] just means they aren't aware of how our system works.

Perhaps, Pete, but you can only do as much as you are dealt with monetary wise. Maybe one day we'll find out the real story on those buses sitting in the parking lot. I just can't stand all the speculation. I'd rather hear it form the horses mouth than from 40 odd million news reporters putting in their own spin.

I got in huge trouble on another forum for asking if a sizable chunk of the citizenary could hot-wire why didn't they load them with family and head ``em'' on out,instead of stealing the electronics? Duh. Not only wouldn't they have not been accused of stealing they may have gotten a reward from the insurance co..Oh,well-nothing like hindsight.

The pictures of 100's of buses floating in water, speaks for itself. A true leader solves the problem and worries about the consequences later. If you can't find people authorized to drive those buses then find people who will volunteer to drive those buses. Once your residents are safe and sound then you can explain why you didn't have operators with chauffeur licenses. When a disaster can take away basic American rights, well then it can certainly take away a law requiring the proper license.

I think it is pathetic to use a tragedy as a political, who can blame who, free for all. There are 1000's of small bad decisions and indecisiveness on every level, that just kept rolling into a giant mess. It would truly be refreshing if the finger pointing would stop and everyone would stand up and admit they failed. I have a lot more respect for anyone who can admit they were wrong, then someone who keeps giving excuses.

Won't this be an interesting time in upcoming elections ?
Florida re-elects a Governor in 2006 .
State elections for several positons this year also .
I am a poll worker and look forward to an increased turn out for a change .

Put your vote where your opinion is and make it count by actually going to the polls .

Actually, I have NOT missed voting in an election since the day I turned 18. That even includes 2 weeks ago for some rinky dink "special election" we had to have because of a councilperson resigning.

I have to admit though, it's getting tiring, choosing the "lesser of the evils" instead of someone who actually impresses you.

I just read yesterday on the Red Cross website about how they were turned away by FEMA, not allowed to enter the city to bring water and food. The I-10 bridge was blocked off, and no one, rescuers or anyone else, was allowed in. There is absolutely no excuse for that! FEMA had to know that these people needed help!!

There we go again-the federal Fema was not in charge and had no right to allow or disallow. This was an authority the State[governor] refused to give up.It was the State of La. Emergency rescue response authority that refused to Allow the Red Cross in.Their reasoning was they wanted to evacuate people,not draw more.
As set up now,Fema is only a deep pockets organization that is supposed to assist the state.They are to kick in ,in 72hrs..The whole thing of blaming Fema is politics.Fema's job is to co'ordinate and fund efforts between different levels of government,it is NOT to govern.

I would not believe any comments from the red cross, unless confirmed by other sources.
The Red Cross lost all credibility with many of us, a long time ago.
The Salvation Army seems to be less political and more helpful, therefore more worthy of financial assistance.
Let us all do what we can, and help those who really needed.
Irene

I agree with Irene. It also bothers me that the
Red Cross' work will be done shortly,
but they still have their hand out.

The Red Cross' goal is to provide temporary emergency
shelter, so as soon as all of these people are
out of shelters, the Red Cross is done.

You still have 1000's of people who never had home
insurance and are going to have to rely on
private sources to get their houses re-built.
Why hasn't an organization such as Habitat for
Humanity stepped up? Why isn't the Red Cross
suggesting people should make donations to
Habitat instead of them? The Red Cross is
going to be sitting with fat coffers when the
money should be donated to an organization
that will help get houses re-built.

I third the comments about the Red Cross, which is why my work hours go to The Salvation Army.

The Red Cross may not physically be there in 6 months, but they will still be funding relief efforts. There is more to the Red Cross than just providing temporary shelter and food. Obviously, some of you have had bad experiences with them, but I would like to know what all those people would have done after Charley last year if the Red Cross hadn't stepped in and written checks to them when FEMA was standing around with its hands in its pockets. The Red Cross is still working behind the scenes down here in Charlotte County, because there are STILL people who aren't in permanent housing situations yet.

It will take many months for the truly poor of N.O. and Biloxi to get permanent housing and be set up somewhere else. Many agencies and charities will help with that.

I'm going there to help after I move, because I will be able to do so. If the Red Cross isn't there anymore, I'll know at that time, if they are, I'll let you know.

Honestly it doesn't take the Red Cross OR FEMA to help out people in an emergency, as far as FEMA is concerned I think it should be a discontinued program.

It's amazing how many individuals are willing to give money, goods or time on the drop of a hat to help others out; it's unfortunate that so much red tape from the Red Cross and FEMA keeps it from happening.

A program that can squander millions of dollars on some things, yet grow moths in the wallet on others - makes no sense. A program that basically rewards people for NOT having house insurance, yet screws people who had insurance, but too big a deductible - makes no sense. A taxpayer funded program needs strict guidelines that are applied equally to everyone.

If you are un-insured, you should be relying on the private sector NOT the government.

On another forum I frequent someone suggested that if every church and community center in America would take responsibility for sheltering one family and helping them find employment and housing (or just housing if they had disabilities, etc that prevented working) until they were on their feet, that there'd be very little for the government to spend money on other than rebuilding.

It may be a starry-eyed idea, but it's one that I really wish I had the power to enact.

There are several corporate headquarters relocating to Orlando from New Orleans already, and many of the evacuees may not return if they feel welcomed in their new cities. I wonder what will be left of New Orleans in the long run-- I don't think I'd move back, based on the way the cleanup's being handled thus far.

It seems like nobody's even asking if the city SHOULD be rebuilt as it was before-- does anyone else wonder why that's not an issue??

I work for Habitat For Humanity .
Money generated from donations , grants and the thrift stores is being pooled from across the country to fund a massive building project in the Gulf States .
A project on this scale will take time but the result will be permanent homes that anyone would be proud to call home .
I hope that in one year or less many people will find themselves in a better place than they were - that in 2006 they have better jobs and a nice new house in a new community brought closer together through adversity .

Gatormox2
Sounds like you are familiar with the working of the HFH.I was not aware of their thrift store, but having undergone some major projects here, we have some nice-12'sliding glass doors,double pella windows and kohler tubs.
Do you think they could use it? and how do i get it to them?
Thanks,
Irene