Some other questions which will need to be answered before all this is over:
Where was the National Guard all week? There could be several answers to this, some good, some not-so-good. For one thing, New Orleans was not the only city hit. Mississippi was basically destroyed, and the hurricane spun off some 200 tornadoes as far away as Mobile, AL. A Gulfport resident phoned in to a syndicated radio show and said his beach house, a brick home with poured concrete walls behind it, was completely obliterated. Not one brick to be found. It's just... gone. The whole state is pretty much like that. Were they over there at first, and had to be reallocated after the levees broke? Are Mississippi residents now starving while we try to evacuate NO? Were the resources maybe in Mississippi while the New Orleans residents were breathing a sigh of relief that Katrina narrowly missed them on Monday?
Was there an
emergency plan in place in New Orleans for this? Was it followed?
If there was a shortage of Guard assistance, why has the full measure of the Louisiana Guard STILL not been activated? Can we miss the 1/3 in Iraq if the 2/3 at home are not fully mobilized?
If this was racially motivated, and 67% of the population is black, and 80% of the population was evacuated, some black people got out. Even if they deliberately evacuated all the whiteys first, 2/3 of the black population would still have gotten out before the storm.
The casinos seemed to evacuate okay, with all their liquid assets. Just sayin...
The New Orleans Public School bus depot is currently underwater. And it's full of school buses. Why were hundreds of available school buses not used to get citizens out, and left useless underwater?
The Bush-haters are loving the fact that they can lay all of this at the President's feet, but as I said before, once the full measure of this is known, I have a feeling there will be more than enough blame to go around. I'd be surprised if the NO mayer or LA governor can run for dogcatcher after this, and heads will almost certainly roll at FEMA unless someone can show that those trucks absolutely could not have gotten there one minute sooner. Some things to keep in mind though, many evacuation attempts, including over 100 volunteer longboats, were turned back by shooters and snipers. Evacuation of Charity Hospital was thwarted twice by shooters. MREs would help hurricane victims, but not if you drop them in the water. Further, there are reports of violence of every sort, even a man shooting his sister over a bag of ice. What would happen if a food drop was made but there wasn't enough food for everyone there? I'm reminded of the one working car in War of the Worlds. Interestingly, this sort of chaos doesn't appear to be happening in Mississippi, despite the utter devestation. At least in New Orleans parts of the city are still standing.
The Governor's Executive Order to evacuate by bus. Issued THURSDAY.
Replacement Executive Order. Issued FRIDAY.
Declaration of Public Health Emergency. Issued FRIDAY.
FEMA, by the way, is set up such that the local official (mayor) sets up a base of operations. Then the governor sets up a state command post. Then federal officials HELP. This is designed so that local authorities do not have to surrender their power to the Feds upon their arrival. This information and more is readily available on FEMA's website, which also has access to tons of training materials which the Feds require police to take as part of their emergency preparedness planning. Of course, that's of little use since 2/3 of the NO cops walked off the job.
Further, the National Guard is under
state (read: governor) control. The US Army is forbidden by law to conduct police operations. So where was the leadership this week?
Just random thoughts that came through my head as more info has come in today.
