People died who did not believe the Government when told to evacuate

Originally posted by twitchy
If the steering wheel of your new car comes off in your hand and you smash into a guard rail at 60 mph, who's fault is it? Is it your fault because you were in a car on dangerous highway? Or is is the people who sold you the car, or is it the guy who cut funding from the steering wheel department of the auto factory?

Did I know for 40 years the steering wheel would come off under certain circumstances?

If so, then I'm to blame. I'm to blame because I knew the steering wheel would come off, and I'm to blame for taking the car to the limits that superceed the owner manuals automobile limits of safety.

This is the big ideological differences between the Liberals and Conservatives, liberals believe the government is responsible for every aspect of their life, Conservatives belief responsibility lies with the individual, who sounds more unrealistic to you?

Originally posted by Esoteric Teacher
I'm not saying leave anyone for dead.

I'm saying I'm tired of finger pointing and assigning blame to all others than those who where:

1) knowledgable about the possibility of levee breaks

2) knowledgalble about living adjacent to the ocean that was 30 feet higher than the city.

3) knowledgable about the hurricane coming.

4) knowledgable about the evacuation orders.

5) Had the means to evacuate.

It is this percantage of people who should be assigned some blame for their current disposition, and not only the officials who failed them days after the fact.

I understand your position or feeling on the said matter,what though would you like done with these people?die? let them fend for themselves your own fellow citizens,what?

We `re not talking about a drug addict for example they made their choice or a murder who would be put to death once caught,we talking about normal everyday people and families.

I believe that the blame for those that decided to stay in their homes, does rest with themselves, if they where capable of traveling and decided not to. At the point that they ignored the mandatory evacuation orders, they were in fact on their own. Living in a hurricane zone I can tell you for a FACT that is the meaning of a mandatory evacuation. It means that if you decide to stay put, you should not expect assistance for an extended period of time no matter what your situation since it is too risky to get rescue personnel to you if you stay in harms way.

I don’t think anyone is blaming the government for those people, HOWEVER; where the government is at fault is here:

1) Were evacuation teams sent through neighborhoods to evacuate people to shelters that did not have the means to get there?
2) Were the shelters staffed with personnel, medical personnel, medication, oxygen, food, water or back up generators?
3) Did the local police,rescue and shelter staff abandon their posts prior to and during the disaster?
4) Why even after realizing the first three of these fell through did the government not handle the situation by bringing in airmobile MASH centers, potable water, etc?


Again my living in a hurricane area, I KNOW for a FACT that shelters are suppose to be pre-set-up with certain supplies and they are to be manned usually with a percentage of people with some medical background. The government is supposed to evacuate disabled people, hospitals, and retirement communities BEFORE the disaster. While its true that hospital, police, firefighters and such have their own families to look out for, they are not supposed to walk off the job when the going gets tough. You take the time to take care of you family, then you get back to your post, anything less is criminal dereliction of duty IMHO…

As far as I am concerned those that left their post like this should at the least NEVER be allowed back in any such position again, if there is no way to prosecute them to begin with.

I know for a FACT from working in hospitals myself, and growing up with a family that has always worked in them, that we all signed papers that in an emergency we can be called in and HELD for an indefinite amount of time. I am sure that the police sign similar paper work when they hire in.


There are certain things that are supposed to happen before a hurricane hits, we know what they are and have used them time and again, yet it seems that none of them happened here. Hurricanes are the easiest thing on the planet to survive, since we know well in advance when they are going to strike, and roughly where, to have this kind of loss of life was highly preventable and someone needs to get their butt in a sling over botching it up…

ET, Let me try to explain. Last year, NO was evacuated for Ivan. the evacuation was a major cluster f***. A 40 min drive from Belle Chasse to the twin span took seven hours. There are only two ways out of NO, I-10 East or I-10 West. Either way, the traffic moves like molasses. You could take the causway or the 11 bridge, but most people don't know their way around the surrounding towns well enough to get back to the interstate.

Then again this year, they were evacuated for Dennis. I didn't get to witness this fiasco since I had already moved to Texas. These evacuations cost the people money for gas, and motel rooms. Some don't make it back in time for work and lose their jobs. Neither of these storms struck NO.

So many people who were tired of wasting time and money on unnecessary evacuations did not believe their government when they were told to evacuate. Unfortunately, the govt wasn't crying wolf this time.

You cannot forcibly remove Maw-Maw and Paw-Paw when they've made up their minds to stay. They survived Camille and they bet their lives that they would survive Katrina. Many lost that bet.

No one, from those who chose to stay up to POTUS were prepared for the results of Katrina. There is 90,000 square miles of destruction. NO was not the only place on the gulf to get hit. The storm hit on Monday. By the time that winds had died down enough for helicopters to do damage reports, it was nearly dark. Damage reports came in on Tuesday.

The governor of Louisiana ordered an evacution of the superdome and the rest of NO on Tuesday. The busses started arriving on Thursday. Did I mention that there was a total of 90,000 square miles that neede search and rescue?

Hindsight is 20-20. Everyone involved, from those who chose to stay up to POTUS, should have been more prepared.

Rikimaru: read this thread please. Seems like you still don't get it.


Anyways, I think its rather nausiating to blame it all on the people themselves.

FEMA was created to anticipate and prepare for any and all emergency's in the US. You say these people knew for 40 years or more that this was going to happen, so FEMA definatly did too, no?

The Administrations, local, state and federal knew this was a dangerzone right, if the people did so surely like you say, then they definatly should've known, no? Yet all 3 levels mucked up way before this even happend, funding for the waterworks and levee's has been cut down year after year. Response and emergency plans have been despicable. You say its all the people's fault, well, governing bodies aren't created to control peoples everyday lives, but they are created so that people don't have to fend for themselves at times like this, to make sure that if disaster or other bad things strike, the people have something to rely on.

In February 1953 the Netherlands faced disaster when the dikes protecting the southwest of the country were breached by the joint onslaught of a hurricane-force northwesterly wind and exceptionally high spring tides. The flood came in the night without warning, a fateful combination of freak high tides and gale-force winds that killed 1,835 people. Almost 200,000 hectares of land was swamped, 3,000 homes and 300 farms destroyed, and 47,000 heads of cattle drowned. It was The Netherlands' worst disaster for 300 years.
Flooding caused by storm surges were nothing new to the Netherlands, but this time the nation was stunned by the extent of a disaster unparalleled for centuries.

Emergency aid flowed in from all over the world to help soften the blow to a country only just recovering from war. Ironically enough, the Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management had published a policy document only a few days previously detailing plans to prevent precisely this sort of disaster. The document proposed that all the tidal inlets and estuaries in the provinces of Zeeland and South Holland should be dammed. In the light of the disaster, urgent action was taken to implement this plan, known as the 'Delta Project'.

Here you had a goverment activly planning and executing reclamation of land and protecting the rest of the nation from flooding for centuries.
The Netherlands have been reclaiming land from the sea for 100's of years and are well aware of the dangers of doing so, they know that freak accidents can mess up even the best engineered waterworks.

They have a goverment too and this goverment is aware of the dangers and knows its tasked with protecting the area's that are below sealevel, just like all 3 levels of the goverment concerning New Orleans did. And man do they put some work into it. I'm actualy confident that if the same happens that happend in 1953, that A: the dykes now are built to withstand the extreme conditions of 1953, B: evacuation plans and safetyzones are in place to help the people if a freak flooding would happen eventhough the Dykes should have held. C: the required interventionspeed will be a bit more impressive then 4 bloody days! and D: national disaster funds are in place and well stocked to help rebuilding and compensation after the events.

Yet, instead of doing all in their power to strengthen the waterworks around New Orleans, funding for the various projects has been cut down for years, responce time on all levels of goverment plainly sucked, the waterworks around new orleans failed in so many ways they shouldn't have its despicable, FEMA, which is there for disaster management, was late, badly organized and didn't have the slightest plan for NO, which was probably one of the top 5 populated locations in the US most prone to natural disaster.

Some of the people in NO are at fault indeed, but the vast majority of them, especialy the ones that died, was because of missmanagement and incompetent response by the goverments, local, state and federal.

Again, goverments are there to manage and organize and help the people when disaster strikes. Not to plan a 1000 ways to soup up the money they get from taxpayers on lining the pockets of the rich while doing nothing to plan for posible disasters then creating an organization like FEMA that soups up even more money doing nothing.

While I do agree with Teacher about people who could have exacuated on thier own, should have been outta there, period. But I don't think we can call them stupid. We have all seen Florida get hit time and time again by hurricanes and always there are people that brave the storm and live to tell their tale. The people that stayed were just doing what is seen in Florida all the time.

The finger pointing at the government I feel is just. Not just at the Federal level but the Governor and Mayor all are to blame. The Mayor did announce a Mandatory Evacuation but did not have a follow up plan on getting the sick, wounded, the poor and people who had no means to get out on their own, out of there. The transit buses in NO were just sitting there and could have been used to help in the evacuation. The Governor of LA should have asked the Federal Government for help in the evacuation as soon as the Mayor announced it. The Federal Gov. had FEMA move into position but FEMA was already spread too thin mopping up the last hurricane that hit Florida, they should have had the Reserves ready to move in to help rescue as well. All in all, the Government at all levels SNAFU'ed this catastrophy, they had lots of time before Katrina hit but sat on their thumbs and did very little in preparation. IMHO

There are some good logical posts coming through ET i hope some of these are food for thourght.

Even from your own stand point you as a tax payer are the employer of your Gov,staff,agencies whether you voted them in or not.You also pay for FEMA its employees your law inforcement military etc AND their resorces which whether you like it or not those resorces are going to find there way to these victims that you have already paid for in advance.

The question is why did it take 5 days to start getting it to them???
If your employee`s are`nt doing what you pay them for are you stupid enough to sit back and watch your business go down the drain?

Now you can moan and stomp about them getting help thats not what the uproar is about, your allowed your personal veiw mine is your being heartless because i know how easy it is to sit back in your comfy chair and be a Monday`s expert and not have to go through and look forward to a bleek future that all affected by that storm have to.

TextI'm sorry if my words offend those who do not believe people should be individually responsible for their own lives, but if people are not willing or capable to take responsibility and accountability for their own lives, their own actions and behaviors, then democracy will be a failed experiment.

dude, i feel i have to come to your rescue a little bit, your first post was correct in many ways, by which i mean i agree with you.

i also agree with what the first reply to your post aswell, of sorts.

I dont think its a question of peoples stupidity, rather more a case in point of the whole gravity of the situation being far too incomprehensible for the masses to get to grips with, as is usually the case, most things turn out worse than predicted or no where near as bad as predicted.

Hind sight is a great thing but infact it doesnt really exsist, should the residents of New Orleans have had any real idea of how bad things were going to turn out i think most would have put evacuation plans into practice immediatley, for both them and their familys and loved ones.

Ive never believed that people trust their goverments that much anyway, about 8 years ago in Portugal we were hit by the biggest storms we had had for over 100 years, warnings went out but myself like others didnt heed the warnings. That night (new years eve) all hell broke loose, my pal lost his yacht at anchor, the boat yard where i worked at the time had about 20 yachts blown off their stands in dry dock which in turn damaged more yachts as they fell over, the main streets around the coastal town flooded and damaged countless cars and un bolted shutters blew of houses and damaged more things.

If we'd listened to the local port authority and the news flashes we would have all moved our gear and lashed a few more yachts down, saving countless millions in damage across the coast but we didnt, it just didnt seem that it was going to be that bad, the general concenses was that the goverment has to issue the warnings "just in case".

I dont feel you have to apologise for causing any offence, i think your right with the way in which youve stated that we humans can be pretty stupid people, and its also fair to point out that even if the goverment had started the evacuation procedures earlier, most residents would have choosen to stay.

Regards and hearts out to the victims of Katrina.God bless.

Let's put things into persepctive here shall we. I pulled all these quotes from www.bushwatch.com.... Now, ask yourself why Bush is repeating the "Let's not play the Blame Game" over and over again as you read through this information. FEMA went in there, took over the situation and completely botched the job, how can you blame citizens who had no way to evacuate the city? As I said they expected a hurricane, not a freaking debacle. Don't take my word for it though, read some of these.
I think the whole damned Bush Administration should be dragged through Civil Litigations from the City and the citizens of New Orleans, better yet arrested and charged with involuntary Manslaughter. Sound drastic? Read on...

"When Wal-Mart sent three trailer trucks loaded with water, FEMA officials turned them away, he said. Agency workers prevented the Coast Guard from delivering 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel, and on Saturday they cut the parish's emergency communications line, leading the sheriff to restore it and post armed guards to protect it from FEMA, Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish, south of New Orleans, said." --NYT

The Chicago Tribune reported that a huge assault ship, the USS Bataan, had been deployed in the Gulf of Mexico when the hurricane struck. Despite the fact it had six operating rooms and 600 hospital beds, and was willing to help, Fema did not use it all week.

The US Navy asked Halliburton to repair naval facilities damaged by Hurricane Katrina, the Houston Chronicle reported today. The work was assigned to Halliburton's KBR subsidiary....In March, the former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which is tasked with responding to hurricane disasters, became a lobbyist for KBR. Joe Allbaugh was director of FEMA during the first two years of the Bush administration." --Haliburton Watch

He told NPR that he had "not heard a report of thousands of people in the convention center who don't have food and water" - even though every television viewer in the country had been hearing of those 25,000 stranded refugees for at least a day.

Let me give you just three quick examples. We had Wal-Mart deliver three trucks of water, trailer trucks of water. FEMA turned them back. They said we didn't need them. This was a week ago. FEMA--we had 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel on a Coast Guard vessel docked in my parish. The Coast Guard said, "Come get the fuel right away." When we got there with our trucks, they got a word. "FEMA says don't give you the fuel." Yesterday--yesterday--FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency communication lines. They cut them without notice. Our sheriff, Harry Lee, goes back in, he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards on our line and says, "No one is getting near these lines." Sheriff Harry Lee said that if America--American government would have responded like Wal-Mart has responded, we wouldn't be in this crisis.
But I want to thank Governor Blanco for all she's done and all her leadership. She sent in the National Guard. I just repaired a breach on my side of the 17th Street canal that the secretary didn't foresee, a 300-foot breach. I just completed it yesterday with convoys of National Guard and local parish workers and levee board people. It took us two and a half days working 24/7. I just closed it.

Nagin on Air American tells Laura Flanders that FEMA will not allow the Red Cross (or any other non-U.S. Government aid organization) into any part of New Orleans, including West New Orleans, where there isn't any flooding. FEMA wants to close down the entire city and send everyone elsewhere. Nagin says that's not necessary. The people in safe West New Orleans don't want to leave the city. It appears as though Bush and FEMA have other plans for the entire city of New Orleans on both sides of the Mississippi, and it doesn't include the city's citizens.

“Around 200 frightened Japanese, European, and American tourists, who had been thrown out of their hotel on Thursday morning, told how police fired over their heads as they attempted to get to buses to take them to safety.”

"I'm satisfied with the response." --George W. Bush at NO Airport..."The results are not acceptable." --G.W. Bush earlier in the day... "We're going to help these communities rebuild....Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch." (Laughter.)

Instead of helping people left desperate in the wake of Katrina's wrath, [the inactive U.S. Custom's three] Blackhawks actually were slated to transport a CNN news crew to take video shots of those people."

An Act of God destroyed a wicked city." --Christianist Repent America director Michael Marcavage

"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."

Ah but not only did he cut funding, once again, Bush Knew...

And as Andrew C. Revkin and Christopher Drew write in today's New York Times: "The 17th Street levee that gave way and led to the flooding of New Orleans was part of an intricate, aging system of barriers and pumps that was so chronically underfinanced that senior regional officials of the Army Corps of Engineers complained about it publicly for years.

At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.

In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness.
On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; told the Times-Picayune: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."
Also that June, with the 2004 hurricane season starting, the Corps' project manager Al Naomi went before a local agency, the East Jefferson Levee Authority, and essentially begged for $2 million for urgent work that Washington was now unable to pay for. From the June 18, 2004 Times-Picayune:
"The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don't get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can't stay ahead of the settlement," he said. "The problem that we have isn't that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can't raise them."

Wow if that does`nt say it all i dont know what will.Very disturbing read Twitchy.

I just saw Bush on the news where he`s talking about he`s personally going to lead an investigation, that you stated in your thread Twitchy.

With that list of quotes you just provided i find it a complete joke when he said "i`m going to find out what went right and what went wrong"

Well we all know what went wrong so what in the world went right???
oh wait its the peoples uproar to what went wrong!

Well your both right, they are stupid, people now a days should take threats more to heart, After the sunami hit indo and killed all those people i would take any weather threat ,and run for the hills. Now after the storm hit i do blame some goverment agency's for there lack of readiness. With saying that life will go on

Originally posted by Rikimaru
This is the big ideological differences between the Liberals and Conservatives, liberals believe the government is responsible for every aspect of their life, Conservatives belief responsibility lies with the individual, who sounds more unrealistic to you?

I think there is middle ground to be both your own keeper and your brothers keeper.

To blame entirely government agencies alone will not soley fix the problem.

Originally posted by gps777


I understand your position or feeling on the said matter,what though would you like done with these people?die? let them fend for themselves your own fellow citizens,what?

We `re not talking about a drug addict for example they made their choice or a murder who would be put to death once caught,we talking about normal everyday people and families.

Neither let them die or fend for themselves after the fact. Attack the system that permitted and created the circumstances after the natural dissaster that made them unable to fend for themselves and put them in their current state of dispare.

But, that system is the same system that makes people believe that they are individually not responsible for themselves.

We permitted them to have a sense of complacency. We may be as much to blame for having created the people who can not think or consider the "what ifs" of tomorrow, or if they do consider them, believe their distress is the problems of everyone else to fix, but them individually.

A lot of good post. A lot of good arguements. So little time right now. Be back soon to read them in their entirety and learn and rebuttal, and agree and dis-agree.

I get the point that people in government did not react quick enough, but in all sincerity:

Do you believe if Helicopters and planes were evacuating the coastline 3 days or 4 days beforehand, and people had the means to leave, and were advised by the same entities that are being blamed today, that they would have left?

From all reports that I have read, by Saturdaya, people without access to a car were SOL.

The flights were all booked solid, and no extra buses or trains were available.

(Why didn’t Amtrak run a few more trains?)

Originally posted by Rikimaru
This is the big ideological differences between the Liberals and Conservatives, liberals believe the government is responsible for every aspect of their life, Conservatives belief responsibility lies with the individual, who sounds more unrealistic to you?

What about the ideology of DEMOCRACY?

Democracy = People Rule

So the people who rule are not responsible for the choices the people make on their behalf?

At some point people must be instilled with a knowledge and understanding of being responsible for their own affairs, instead of only integrating information into their heads concerning what is most self-serving for themselves.

If you want the top officials to be responsible and accountible then a social standard should be set that instills in the minds of the individuals of that society that they have a responsibility for their actions and behaviors.

If people are inept or not capable of being responsible and accountable for thier own personal decisions at the lowest individual level, how do you expect this culture to create souls that are conditioned to have the empathy and understanding to care for the emergency needs of millions of other souls?

Truth is we had people on the gulf coast with IQs of 140+ and physically capable to do what was necessary for their survival that are dead.

Where were the vocal activists then? Why are the people not responsible? Did their vote count? Did they vote? Did they vote for Bush and his administration out of fear from the terrorists?

People talk about the past errors with hurricane evacuations.

If we can not accept the responsibility for our actions and behaviors or lack their of on a collective level, then we are to blame.

To blame FEMA alone, to blame the White House alone, To blame the local government alone, is to sidestep the root and base of the problem:

The people who empowered them, but were to stupid to see them for what they were: incapable of meeting the needs of the people's basic safety.

Good Read TWITCHY!!

So, why did the PEOPLE give these people power for 4 more years?

A sign of the stupidity I was elluding to in the first post I made.

By the way Twitchy ....... got a vote from me

Originally posted by gps777
If all those people that were caught in NO was simply because they are all stupid.

Nice, What part of old POOR black women died, dont you understand? !/4 of the population wsa over 55. so out 500,000 people about 110,000 where old, 69% of the city Is minority out of that 25% or in poverty. !8 years or older, something like 35% men 40% women.

Stupid? All kinds of folks refuse to leave at times...Look at the Florida keys...Not exactly a haven for idiots, and yet MOST of them do not leave and refuse to leave during a hurricane.
Now these extremely poor people in NO some's only mode of transportation is a shopping cart, thats right. No money, i can plainly see why they didnt go anyplace.
Stop blaming them for being fat idiots, as other "fat" threads indicate.
You cant judge people until you've been in their shoes.