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Mayor Orders Mandatory Evacuation of New Orleans
Pickens writes "City officials ordered everyone to leave New Orleans beginning Sunday morning — the first mandatory evacuation since Hurricane Katrina flooded the city three years ago — as Hurricane Gustav grew into what the city's mayor called 'the storm of the century' and moved toward the Louisiana coast. 'This is the real deal. This is not a test. For everyone thinking they can ride this storm out, I have news for you: that will be one of the biggest mistakes you can make in your life,' said New Orleans mayor, C. Ray Nagin. Already, hundreds of thousands of residents had begun streaming north from New Orleans and other Gulf Coast areas stretching from the Florida Panhandle to Houston. Bush administration officials took pains not to be caught as flatfooted as they were in Hurricane Katrina, announcing that President Bush had called governors in the region to assure them of assistance and that top federal emergency officials were in the region to guide the response. 'We could see flooding that is worse than what we saw with Katrina,' said Louisiana Governor Jindal."
The US Geological Survey will be running a real-time "Map of Hydrologic Impacts" to monitor flood levels, and the National Weather Service has charted direction and wind-speed probabilities. Reader technix4beos points out the need for IRC transcription of FEMA and NOAA feeds.
There must be an ulterior motive, because I heard President Bush didn't care about Black people.
"Thank you for using Stop-n-Drop, America's favorite suicide booth since 2008"
Hurricanes are caused by homosexuals, apparently.
Or Republicans.
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/08/28/hagee-ministries-no-comment-on-tropical-storm-gustav/
"Flamebait?" Seriously?
Only on Slashdot can I point out the hypocrisy of a bloated gasbag of a preacher and immediately get stomped by the modhammer. Meanwhile, the Michael Moore fart joke gets tagged as "insightful."
They're giving mod status to some reeeeally qualified people around here...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_Democratic_Party
You do realize that while the name stays the same over the decades (and centuries), their views change, right? That was more 40 years ago.
The South is still full of rabid racists and various crazies. They used to vote Democrat, now they vote Republican. You will be known by the company you keep...
With the first link, the chain is forged.
Ably assisted by Dubbyah making FEMA a sub-agency of DHS, which appears to be the most incompetent agency in existence - a title that takes some doing, I know.
As soon as you make emergency managers part of a body that's all about finding "t3h terrists", you change its focus and direction. Whether or not FEMA was a charlie foxtrot before 11/9 is a point for argument, I'm sure, but since being subsumed into DHS it's been an unstoppable toboggan ride into the abyss of bureaucratic hell.
If you want to see how emergency management should be run, look to the Coasties. They saved 33.5k people after Katrina, and they have fewer than 40k staff! They don't insist on kicking decisions about the colour of Post-It notes up to national command level, which means they're agile and can respond quickly. Local commanders have authority to make decisions, and that's that. The closure of NY Harbour after the planes crashed was ordered by the port captain, without having to check with his boss, or his boss' boss. Same with Baltimore/Washington. That is how an emergency organisation needs to think and function. Instead, DHS and all its subsidiary parts (with the exception of USCG, it seems) are all about buck-passing and central control.
It was telling that, in the wake of Katrina, one Louisiana sheriff said "I'd blow up FEMA and ask the Coastguard what it needs."
"God, root, what is difference?" - Pitr, userfriendly