Good job Mayor!
As I look at this picture, by my count, I see at least 230 busses.Assuming that each bus has a capacity to safely carry 50 to 60 people, let's go with the LOWER of the two figures.
50 x 230 = 11,500 people.
This would be the amount of people that could be evacuated on just ONE run, from this ONE bus yard.
Why are these buses sitting here, flooded?
C. Ray Nagin, Mayor of New Orleans has been quite vocal about the lack of speed at which rescue efforts have taken place...and he has a point. It's tough to get into a city that's underwater. It's even tougher to get OUT of one...especially when there's hundreds of busses that COULD have been used, sitting flooded in now useless yards.
But perhaps methinks thou protesteth too much Mr. Nagan.
Mayor, maybe you were never in the military. So maybe you were never versed in the "6 P-Program" - Prior Planning Prevent Piss-Poor Performance. Wasn't it you that announced a MANDATORY evacuation of the city? Did ya think that the poor people would just magically fly out? Were you, or were you not elected to serve and PROTECT the citizens of New Orleans? ALL OF THEM? Did you NOT see the NOAA bulletins regarding the severity of Katrina and the possibility of TOTAL disaster? I did, and I live in Connecticut!
I look at the school busses above. I read the weather report PRIOR to the storm hitting. I hear your outrage, and somehow it seems shallow at best. Why weren't these busses sent into poor neighborhoods to get the people to safety? And somehow it's hard to believe that the city of New Orleans didn't have rescue boats at it's disposal...does BELOW SEA LEVEL ring a bell? If not the city, then citizen volunteers who DO have boats should have been activated to save some people. There was a story of a courageous man, who "stole" a bus and loaded it with strangers and got the hell out of the city. Those people were saved by someone who never knew them, (or asked for their votes). Perhaps you should have considered an equally courageous act. Maybe YOU are the person who doesn't give a rat's butt about the poor in your community...after all, it IS your community isn't it? It is your city. Somehow after the storm hits, and it's virtually impossible to get into New Orleans IMMEDIATELY, it's Washington's fault that people are stuck there? What the hell where these poor people still doing there in the first place? Was there no evacuation plan for the poor? You did know there were poor people in New Orleans...right? Did you not know where they were? I'll bet you knew at election time. In a city that's located BELOW SEA LEVEL I find it hard to believe that there was NO prior large scale evacuation plan in place to deal with the thousands of poor people who would NOT be able to jump into their SUV's and scidadle! Now you come out with...it's WASHINGTON'S FAULT??? You arrogant toad! YOU are the Mayor!
What the hell were you thinking?
I see that you were able to find a bus to pack with TOURISTS that were trapped in a hotel and get them safely to the front of the line and out of town. I'm sure that the people of New Orleans will appreciate your doing your best for the tourist industry in town, and they'll be sure to remember your thoughtfulness...as they bury their dead...and the next time they vote.
Good job Ray, you're right on the ball.
Maybe playing the race card will get you great kudos from the media elite, but the people of New Orleans, your constituents, (even the POOR ones), are smarter than that...and may just have longer memories than you'd like.
posted by PRK at 3:15 PM
6 Comments:
I hope this article, or author can get into a national stage to present this to the people of N.O. and the US. What was the mayor/GOV doing for HIS/HER people before and after the hurricane? ABSOULUTELY NOTHING, except blaming everyone else but themselves. But, what can you expect from liars, cheats, or better known as politicians.
08 September, 2005 13:40
How would you identify who would go and who wouldn’t? I think that would be a riot waiting to happen. They did use buses to ferry people to the 10 last-resort shelters and the superdome. I also wonder if there was any place to house people at the time outside NO. Baton Rouge was also considered to be in the path of the hurricane at that point. Then how many times would they have needed to bus all those people out over the last few years? Quite a few. No way that works out over the long term as a sustainable plan. They would just stop leaving.
They got as many as they could to the Superdome and they survived the storm there didn’t they.The aftermath is a different story. Who was to help after the storm? I think that’s FEMA. But FEMA was training fire fighters AFTER the storm hit to hand out fliers and project a good government image. There was no FEMA help after the storm hit.
Someone said that 60% of the LA National Guard was in Irag.They say that had no impact but....
2/3 not even in the state.
They might as well be called the LA Iraqi National Guard.
A post from a blog.
Hi, everyone. Checking in.
I got to my parent's house at about 7 tonight. I walked in the doors and my brother grabbed my arms and said, "Let's go." The local nursing home was taking elderly refugees from New Orleans and they needed help unloading them when they got there. We had no idea what we were in for.
Five large tourbuses from New Orleans showed up with at least fifty patients on each. For the next four hours we carried these old folks off the buses, put them into wheelchairs and brought them inside.
When we first got there, there were only about fifteen men there. Then, about two dozen volunteers from the police and fire department showed up.
And then came two vans carrying most of the local high school football team. Though it was raining when we got there, it completely quit as we were unloading them.
Wearing gloves and using sheets to wrap them up as we moved them, we physically had to carry these people down the aisle of the bus, to waiting wheelchairs and then into the building, where we would lay them down on one of the 400 inflatable mattresses they brought with them. Picture the soldier scene from "Gone With the Wind" and you have some kind of idea what it looked like in there.
Most of them had soiled themselves on the four hour ride from New Orleans, so we had to be careful moving them. We filled the cafeteria with mattresses and then lined them in the hallways. Many of them had Alzheimer's, and were angry and confused, so it was hard to move them. A few refused to get off the bus and we had to physically bind them in sheets to move them.
It was awful. But we got them all inside. And a few of them who had an idea of what was going on were very thankful and tearful and…it was hard knowing that most of them would never return home. Two people died on the bus ride up there, so we'll be taking care of them later this evening. From the looks of some of the others, death won't be far away. I don't know. It's too much to think about right now.
The rain held off until the last people were unloaded, and as soon as we got them inside, it started pouring down raining.
By the sound of the wind and the rain outside, I don't think our powerlines will be intact for long, so I'll post this while I still can.
08 September, 2005 14:45
This writer ROCKS!
08 September, 2005 16:38
But perhaps methinks thou protesteth too much Mr. Nagan.
Mayor, maybe you were never in the military. So maybe you were never versed in the "6 P-Program" - Prior Planning Prevent Piss-Poor Performance.
You are so funny... XD
08 September, 2005 18:38
Soooo ... what's the problem?
The Mayor was just doing his JOB - and he had all his boats lined up in their slips just very orderly.
I really don't think he can help it if it rained on his marina ... Besides, its racist to call him stupid and incompetent. Only HE can call names because as I heard on the radio, Bush had a 12 foot hole blown in the dike to flood the black part of town.
22 September, 2005 19:56
Did you know, N.O. really DID have a plan of attack (retreat)! It is in their rules for Emergency Disaster Response. One noteable item is the use of ALL of the city's busses. Not just tour busses, but school busses, too. It's designed to help ALL of the people of N.O. to get out in case of a disaster! My guess is, they forgot to tell ANY of the bus drivers to stay and help drive to safety other New Orlineans. Really, after all, Nagin did tell everyone to leave before the storm came! Great disaster planning! It's W's fault! He didn't get here fast enough! Just pittyful.
01 February, 2006 07:29
Post a Comment
<< Home