You obviously didn't RTFA. Nor did you put forth the effort to read the summary. But the first word in the fucking HEADLINE is "London" and yet you still blame this on George W. Bush. I must therefore assume that you:
A. Didn't even read the headline B. Don't know who George W. Bush is (he's President of the United States) or C. Don't know that London is in the United Kingdom, not the United States
So, did you fail reading class, civics class, or geography class?
It's from the United States. Urban Dictionary has many definitions of the term, but this (set of) definition(s) is perhaps the most complete and accurate:
1: A firecracker 2: A thin, crisp wafer 3: One whom cracks illegally into another's computer or network 4: A racist term used against Caucasians/Whites
Amen to that, brother! I voted for the shrub in 2000. I was sorely disappointed. I'm a moderate conservative with some slight libertarian leanings, and I thought I was voting for a moderate conservative.
A conservative doesn't run up a deficit. A conservative American doesn't send his nation to war, even if it's for a good cause, unless the target nation has actually attacked the US first, and certainly doesn't engage in the fundamentally flawed practice of "nation-building." A conservative doesn't pass the single largest entitlement expansion since FDR. A conservative doesn't run roughshod over the first, second, fourth, fifth, sixth, eighth, ninth, and tenth Amendments to the Constitution.
However, in this case, as much as he's been screwing up the response, I don't think the overall situation is primarily his fault. Apart from the near-universal bungling by people at all levels of government, there's the timing of the storm, the fact that the levees didn't burst until after it passed, the environmental aspects that have been building for 130 years, ad infinitum.
I voted for the shrub in 2000. I voted for Badnarik in 2004.
Hey, I was at the polls already, and couldn't in good conscience cast my ballot for either the oil-monkey frat-boy or the overprivileged two-faced Herman Munster lookalike, so what the hell, might as well vote for the only other option presented...
Unfortunately, doing a bad job is neither illegal nor grounds for impeachment. Voluntary resignation would be an option, but at least for the shrub, it would be even worse than what we have now. Can you imagine it? "President Dick Cheney" *shudder*
I didn't mean to imply that anyone should be allowed to shrug off his responsibilities and say "but that other guy screwed up too." Everyone involved in this debacle should be held accountable for their own actions. However, a burden shared is indeed a burden lightened. No one person can be called to account for everything that's gone wrong, and that's as it should be. When it's determined that someone failed in his duties in a specific way, that someone should face the consequences. Just please don't try to pile it all up on the head of the easiest target, that's all I'm saying.
There are 2 reasons a CDL is required for a school bus driver:
School buses are designed for more than 10 passengers.
School buses have a GVWR of greater than 10,000 pounds
A school bus requires no special skills to drive, though they can be a bitch to parallel park. A healthy dose of caution is all you need to successfully drive a school bus. Jabbar Gibson apparently did just fine all the way from New Orleans to Houston, and I doubt he has a CDL.
The buses are topped off from the depot's own diesel pumps when they're returned to the depot. Did you think school bus drivers pulled into the local Citgo station with their American Express cards at the ready?
The Blue Bird Vision model has a 100-gallon fuel tank. Both models of Blue Bird All-American buses come standard with a 60-gallon fuel tank (100-gallon tank optional). Both the Vision and the All-American models have automatic transmissions as standard equipment. Assuming 5 miles per gallon, that's a minimum 300 miles of range. For a point of reference, a Freightliner at 60,000 pounds gross vehicle weight (that's twice the maximum GVW of a Blue Bird Vision) gets 7mpg on level ground.
All the buses in that picture have more than enough fuel in them to get to Baton Rouge and back, and can be driven by anyone capable of driving a U-Haul.
The use of school buses to evacuate residents is explicitly called for in Part II, Section B, Paragraph 5 of the Louisiana Emergency Actions Plan Supplement 1A. But the plan wasn't followed. People died. People are still dying. Because somebody, somewhere in the city and/or state government, couldn't be bothered to read the instruction manual for emergencies and do what it says.
Such a claim presumes an availability of resources (e.g., experienced drivers, fuel)
Anybody who can drive a pickup truck can drive a school bus. Most of them don't even have manual transmissions nowadays. As for fuel, they're parked within 100 yards of a parish-owned diesel pump that they use normally to fill the buses. Standard school board policy is to refuel the buses when they're returned to the depot, so they are likely sitting there topped off with fuel and ready to go.
and workable logistics (e.g., sufficient means of notifying and getting residents to departure points, sufficiently clear roads for multiple trips out of town and back) that may or may not have been present.
Driving around with a bullhorn will work in a pinch, and the roads were indeed passable, though they did have some massive traffic jams. I doubt it could have been much worse than I-10 always is just before a Saints home game though.
(There's no guarantee that all the buses shown in this picture were even in working condition.)
To suggest that all 200 buses in that photo, or even a significant portion of them, are out of commission, is ludicrous. I seriously doubt that even the Orleans Parish School Board is lax enough to have 200 nonfunctional buses sitting on the lot. At most, there's 2 or 3 of them that aren't in a sufficient state of repair to make it to Baton Rouge.
And, given the particular geography of New Orleans, any such evacuation would have had to have begun well in advance of Hurricane Katrina to avoid exposing residents to the potential danger of being stuck in buses on traffic-clogged roads in the path of an approaching hurricane.
As opposed to all the people who evacuated in their cars on those same roads, who didn't make it as far as Lutcher before the storm hit? Oh, wait...they made it to where they were going long before the storm arrived. In any case, a bus 40 feet above sea level on I-10 is a far better place to be than a wooden shotgun-style house 10 feet below sea level when a hurricane hits.
Moreover, any type of evacuation effort would have incurred a substantial outlay of funds from local and/or state governments
The place had already been declared a disaster area before the storm hit. The local government would have only been responsible for 1/5 of the bill anyway, and if I were in government, I'd rather spend a few thousand dollars than lose a few thousand constituents.
The bottom line is that all the failures in government responses to this disaster, from the city level to the state level to the federal level, are at least partially, if not primarily, the result of bureaucratic inertia. There are tons of things that could have been done better before the storm hit, which would have mitigated the humanitarian crisis in its aftermath. The buses are just one example. If blame is to be assigned, let us assign it fairly and evenly, and not take the easy road of just blaming it all on the shrub.
And let's not forget that since the storm hit, the area is inaccessible by conventional means. Helicopters are the only way to get to some areas, and there's only so many helicopters and only so much a helicopter can carry.
I am a conservative with some slight libertarian leanings. I am not a republican. Modern republicans are neither conservative nor libertarian.
I don't know who Michelle Malkin is.
There's plenty of blame to go around for the fuckups both before and after the hurricane struck. Some of it lies with Bush. Some of it lies with Congress. Some of it lies with Governor Blanco. Some of it lies with Mayor Nagin. Generally speaking, the blame for the fuckups immediately before and immediately after the hurricane struck rightfully go to the city and state governments, while most of the blame for the long-term fuckups prior to the hurricane, and a lot of the blame for the medium-term (strike plus 3 days to present) fuckups after the strike, rightfully go to the federal government. Even Aaron Broussard, destined for world fame due to his emotional breakdown on national television, deserves his own little slice of the blame pie.
I'm just sick and tired of everybody heaping everything on Bush. To hear some of the fuckwits on TV tell it, Bush conjured up the hurricane, aimed it at SE LA, and withheld help on purpose, all in pursuit of some evil scheme to rid the area of poor urban minorities.
Agreed, Rudy Guiliani is an asshat.
There isn't a county line in the state of Louisiana. That's because the geopolitical entities below the state level aren't counties. They're called parishes. And they most definitely were allowing people past the parish line before the hurricane hit. A friend of mine who lives down there, whose first name is Tim (last name withheld of course), crossed several of them on his way out and again on his way back in to the town I used to live in down there.
Step 1: Grab a street map from any local convenience store and cut it into little sections.
Step 2: Give one map piece and a set of keys to each driver.
Step 3: Have each driver pick up as many people in his assigned area as possible and drive to Baton Rouge when the bus is full.
Step 4: Have the driver go back to New Orleans.
Step 5: Repeat Steps 3 and 4 until the storm is imminent.
I'm not talking about mobilizing the National Guard or anything requiring a risk analysis. I mean an ad hoc, fly by the seat of your pants, git-r-done approach. Jabbar Gibson did it and he's a hero. Multiply that by 200, have the mayor sign off on it, and you have what I'm talking about.
The traffic was only really bad as far as the I-55 interchange as late as 12 hours before the storm hit; after that point, that it was smooth sailing. An early start (say, when they first sounded mandatory evac) would have beaten the worst of the traffic, at least for the first trip.
In any case, they definitely had time for at least one trip. After all, 3/4 of a million people in their cars had time for one trip.
The City of New Orleans had its chance. They let 200 school buses sit idle while people died in their homes.
The State of Louisiana had its chance. They called up the National Guard after the fact, knowing it takes at least 48 hours to gather a unit together and issue equipment under the best of circumstances, and knowing that after the storm hit would be far from the best circumstances. For those who don't know, the states' National Guards, apart from those units called up to be federalized for foreign military action, are under the command of the Governors of the several States, not the President of the United States.
Sure, FEMA fucked up. Bush fucked up. But that's not the end of the story. The City of New Orleans fucked up. Orleans Parish fucked up. Jefferson Parish fucked up. The state of Louisiana fucked up. The level of ineptitude we've seen surrounding this disaster is astounding. No one body is capable of reaching that plateau of incompetence. It takes the federal, state, and local governments, working in dissonance. In short, it takes teamwork to fuck things up to this degree.
Local and state governments are pointing fingers at the federal government for failure to fund levee reinforcement and gutting of FEMA -- and the federal government will of course be pointing fingers at the local/state governments for having no clear plan for short-term evacuation, rescue, and aid. And they'll both be right. But the voting public will see only the most visible elements, like Aaron Broussard crying on Meet the Press and Geraldo Rivera crying on Fox News.
Type that in the search box. Note the parking lot with about 200 school buses parked in it.
Why didn't Mayor Ray Nagin mobilize those buses and get people out?
They had well over a day's worth of warning. Each bus can hold 70 people normally (more like 100 if you pack em in like they normally do in less-developed nations.) That means each trip evacuates at least 14,000 people. Figure about 2 trips to Baton Rouge, accounting for 5 hours worth of driving in the evacuation traffic to Baton Rouge (normally a 2-hour drive), and of course almost zero traffic going back IN, plus loading/unloading time. There's at least 28,000 people saved using just the buses from that one depot, way more if you pack the buses tight.
Problems finding drivers? Yell out "Who here has a driver's license? You! Get in the driver's seat, and we'll meet you in Baton Rouge."
They could have at least gotten out the people who weren't capable of walking to St. John or St. Charles Parish (see my posting history for a LONG thread about that...)
Calvin Diamond could walk 6 miles, pushing a shopping cart loaded down with 2 suitcases and "cases" of diapers, and a 5-year old (and just when are they planning to potty-train that 5 year old anyway?), on flooded streets but can't walk 25 miles on flat dry paved roads with a change of clothes and a few bottles of water?
25 miles in 12 hours is a leisurely stroll. If the 99.5% of the population who can make that walk without even getting winded had done so, the remaining 0.5% would have been evacuated by helicopter or bus within 24 hours after the storm passed, if not before the storm arrived.
For that matter, since they were given 36 hours' notice, give 'em 24 hours to make the walk, and they'd still have time to sleep, shower, and be nice and fresh for the hurricane party at the high school gymnasium in St. John Parish. Any couch potato capable of getting from couch to fridge and back in the span of one commercial break during an episode of Chappelle's Show can cover 25 miles in 24 hours. That's 1.5 feet per second. My uncle, who's had 2 heart attacks and has had both legs amputated, can do better than that in his wheelchair.
Unfortunately, it looks like at least a few of those who chose to stay did so in anticipation of rich pickings in the Loot-A-Rama. If they can't keep up with an old man with no legs in a wheelchair, how is it they can outrun cops while carrying 15 pairs of Nikes and a gun?
I just talked on the phone with a friend of mine in La Place. As I expected, the damage in St. Charles and St. John parishes is minimal. His house is unscathed, but there's a lot of tree limbs in his yard that'll take a day or two to clean up. According to him, the worst those parishes got is a few trees that were uprooted by wind and fell on houses, damaging the roofs.
So La Place and Hahnville were valid destinations after all for people evacuating Orleans and Jefferson parishes on foot.
I didn't know what the weather was like before the hurricane hit, so I assumed it was sunny, with 95-degree-plus temperatures, high humidity, and no rain. In short, I assumed the worst case scenario for long-distance walking. And I still came up short trying to find some factor that would prevent an able-bodied person from evacuating on foot.
When police killed 4 looters and wounded a fifth in New Orleans after the looters opened fire on them and on engineers working to repair the levee, my friend in La Place had this to say:
Good riddance. They should have shot the fifth one again to kill his ass so he wouldn't be taking up a hospital bed that could've been given to a fucking human being instead of some goddamned animal.
Hey, I didn't say it would be ridiculously easy - I just said it could be done. Okay, I may have said something about it being nothing on flat ground. That was a bit of an exaggeration, but not much of one.
Take an hour-long break every few hours like I did the time I walked from the French Quarter to La Place. Hell, take a 3-hour break after every 3 hours of walking - you'd still get to the shelters I described 12 hours before the hurricane hit. Carry a couple of bottles of water - a gallon of water only weighs 8 pounds. You'd be surprised how far you can walk when your life may depend on it. And as I said elsewhere in this thread, getting tired beats the hell out of getting dead, which is what has happened to far too many people.
Walking all the way is a worst case scenario anyway. I don't think I've ever met anyone who wouldn't stop and pick up a family on foot trying to flee a category 5 hurricane - I'd definitely stop for a family with kids, and even if it was one shady-looking guy, he could hop in the back of my pickup truck for as far as I was going. My fiancee works as a security guard at a hotel up in Chattanooga, and has spoken with some of the hurricane evacuees staying there. Every one of them is shocked at the number of people who stayed behind, and almost all of them say they would have gladly given a ride to people who had no other way out.
The point I was trying to make is that just about anyone who really wanted out could have gotten out before the storm hit. Sitting around waiting for somebody else to do something for you isn't going to get you very far. To use a worn-out proverb, God helps those who help themselves. Remember, when it's your ass, the buck stops with you.
Even if someone couldn't make it all the way before the storm hit, they could get some distance between themselves and the below-seawater parts of Orleans and Jefferson parishes and find some sort of shelter before the storm hit. To paraphrase senator Zell Miller (D-GA), whom I respect and admire and even voted for despite his being a Democrat - "You can eat half a loaf; with no loaf at all, everybody goes hungry"
I didn't forget where they'd stay during the hurricane. See number 5 for 2 public hurricane shelter locations, both of which are within a 12-13 hour walk from New Orleans, assuming a leisurely pace of 2 miles per hour. They're on opposite sides of the river, so it doesn't matter if you're in New Orleans proper or Marrero when the evacuation is sounded - you can still reach one of them without crossing the river.
I slept in one of them during the hurricane warning/evacuation for Elana when I lived in Luling, LA (Elana took a sharp right hand turn and missed us, but my family still "GOT THE FUCK OUT" and went to a shelter when the evacuation was sounded). The other is the high school I attended from 1987 to 1991 when I lived in La Place, LA.
Both shelters are above sea level. Both are protected from Lake Pontchartrain by buffer zones of swampland. Both are well outside the bowl of New Orleans and further protected by the Bonnet Carre Spillway. Both are cinder-block and steel-frame structures with very narrow windows whose glass has that crosshatched wire reinforcement that's supposed to deter burglars.
Hurricane warning is issued 36 hours before the hurricane hits, giving you 36 hours to make a 12 hour walk. At the end of that 12 hour walk is a high school that's used as a hurricane shelter every time a hurricane warning is issued. Said place is above sea level. Put your meds in your pockets and start hoofing it. There is food, water, and shelter at the end of that walk, which should have been reached a full day before the hurricane struck. Re-read my post, and you'll see I described at least 2 official shelters - which are most likely being used right now as distribution centers for food and water. I slept in one of them back in 1985 for Hurricane Elana - it's not too bad, really. Much better than sweating it out in the Superdome with no water, hoping the hoodrats don't knife you for your Nikes.
Who do you think is better off? The people who stayed in New Orleans and haven't had clean water to drink in 2 days or the people who walked to Saint John Parish and are sitting in a gymnasium eating MRE's and drinking bottled water brought in by the National Guard? They are able to bring water there but not to New Orleans because Saint John Parish is not under water.
Anyone who's able-bodied enough to not be on total disability can walk 25 miles on flat ground and barely be winded at the end. I know a grandmother with two artificial hips who walks 10 miles 3 times a week for normal exercise. What kind of shape do you think the "average person" is in? We're not talking about a week-long trek through the Rockies here - 25 miles is nothing on the flat ground of Southeastern Louisiana.
You're the one who's dreaming here. Or you're being purposely obtuse. Or are you on a mental level with the 30-somethings who crowded into the Superdome after ignoring the warnings? Or are you a European who's convinced that all adult Americans are 450-pound whales who can't walk a flight of stairs without a rest break in the middle?
Okay, you got me on the first one - I've never known where Jefferson ends and Orleans begins. Never bothered to, since when you hit Kenner on I-10 from La Place, it's one solid metropolitan area all the way to the 510/Chalmette exit. Hell, the New Orleans International Airport is in Kenner, and it's block after block of city all the way from there to Chalmette. IMHO, the NO metro area includes Kenner, Metairie, Harahan, New Orleans, Chalmette, and Gentilly on the east (really north at that point) bank, and Waggaman, Bridge City, Westwego, Marrero, Harvey, and Gretna on the west (really south at that point) bank.
I also figure that the really bright ones would start walking sometime well *before* the storm hit and the floods began. A good time would be when the evacuation was announced. Airline highway has a shoulder all the way from La Place to David Drive/Hickory Avenue in Harahan, or did last time I was down there, making it (relatively) safe to walk on. From Harahan on in, there's sidewalks.
Sorry, I haven't been down there since they put 310 in from I-10 to Airline Highway, and didn't know they'd screwed it up too. I assume it goes all the way across to the Luling-Destrehan bridge and thus on to Highway 90 now? Did they ever fix the problem with holes developing in the roadway on that bridge? Did it even survive the storm?
La Place, at least the west end near ESJ HS, is further from the lake than New Orleans, and it's on higher ground. Plus, there's the Bonnet Carre Spillway between La Place and Norco to catch floodwater and a strip of swampy land between La Place and Lake Pontchartrain to act as a buffer (look to your left next time you go west on I-10 from Kenner - that's the swamp I'm talking about).
Looks like the phones are down in La Place, though - still can't get through to a friend of mine down there, assuming he's returned home from Jackson. "The number you have reached, 652-xxxx, is being checked for trouble."
Right now, New Orleans is probably the worst place to be, meaning that just about anywhere else is better - even La Place (yeah, hard to wrap your brain around that statement if you know the area, isn't it?)
Thibodeaux took his skiff across the lake to Covington before the storm hit and is now staying with his cousin Marcel Ledbetter in Liberty, MS:-P
Would you rather drown in toxic sludge? I've walked the route I described in my parent post, in the middle of the summer, wearing jeans and a black t-shirt. Yeah, I was tired, but again, getting tired beats the shit out of getting dead.
Slight correction to number 5. East Saint John High School is in Reserve, Louisiana, though it's only a few hundred yards west of the La Place city limits. Add another hour or 2 of walking time once you get to La Place, to reach ESJ HS. The upside to that is, it's further from Lake Pontchartrain than if it were on Airline Highway in La Place proper. There's also Destrehan High School, over in Saint Charles Parish, which is a few hours' walking time closer to New Orleans than East Saint John. However, it's also right next to the Mississippi River.
Walking is free, and there are plenty of places that can be reached on foot in 12 hours or so that are above sea level. I know this because I've walked from Storyville Jazz Hall (which is now called "Margaritaville Cafe" and probably underwater) to La Place.
The ones who couldn't physically walk, couldn't find a ride, and didn't have a car to drive are the ones I feel sorry for...the ONLY ones I feel sorry for. I mean, I feel bad for everybody who lost their homes, but that's something that nothing could be done about. There are few shelters that can stand up to 20 feet of floodwater and 150mph winds, and those few are too expensive for most people to buy and live in. I'm talking about people actually still in the city - if they're able-bodied and still in the city, they have no one to blame for their current life-threatening predicament but themselves.
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You obviously didn't RTFA. Nor did you put forth the effort to read the summary. But the first word in the fucking HEADLINE is "London" and yet you still blame this on George W. Bush. I must therefore assume that you:
A. Didn't even read the headline
B. Don't know who George W. Bush is (he's President of the United States)
or
C. Don't know that London is in the United Kingdom, not the United States
So, did you fail reading class, civics class, or geography class?
It's from the United States. Urban Dictionary has many definitions of the term, but this (set of) definition(s) is perhaps the most complete and accurate:
1: A firecracker
2: A thin, crisp wafer
3: One whom cracks illegally into another's computer or network
4: A racist term used against Caucasians/Whites
s/rightwing/political/g
Everyone in politics, by definition, seeks power.
Everyone in politics (or near enough that the exceptions are statistically insignificant) will use whatever means available to gain that power.
When someone asks for votes, they should be, and usually are, automatically distrusted.
While the second pic is indeed of the school buses, the first pic is a fleet of cargo vehicles, most likely Ryder trucks.
Amen to that, brother! I voted for the shrub in 2000. I was sorely disappointed. I'm a moderate conservative with some slight libertarian leanings, and I thought I was voting for a moderate conservative.
A conservative doesn't run up a deficit. A conservative American doesn't send his nation to war, even if it's for a good cause, unless the target nation has actually attacked the US first, and certainly doesn't engage in the fundamentally flawed practice of "nation-building." A conservative doesn't pass the single largest entitlement expansion since FDR. A conservative doesn't run roughshod over the first, second, fourth, fifth, sixth, eighth, ninth, and tenth Amendments to the Constitution.
However, in this case, as much as he's been screwing up the response, I don't think the overall situation is primarily his fault. Apart from the near-universal bungling by people at all levels of government, there's the timing of the storm, the fact that the levees didn't burst until after it passed, the environmental aspects that have been building for 130 years, ad infinitum.
I voted for the shrub in 2000. I voted for Badnarik in 2004.
Hey, I was at the polls already, and couldn't in good conscience cast my ballot for either the oil-monkey frat-boy or the overprivileged two-faced Herman Munster lookalike, so what the hell, might as well vote for the only other option presented...
It's a long-established and well-known fact that the biggest gang of armed criminals in the New Orleans area wears badges. This story is no surprise.
Unfortunately, doing a bad job is neither illegal nor grounds for impeachment. Voluntary resignation would be an option, but at least for the shrub, it would be even worse than what we have now. Can you imagine it? "President Dick Cheney" *shudder*
I didn't mean to imply that anyone should be allowed to shrug off his responsibilities and say "but that other guy screwed up too." Everyone involved in this debacle should be held accountable for their own actions. However, a burden shared is indeed a burden lightened. No one person can be called to account for everything that's gone wrong, and that's as it should be. When it's determined that someone failed in his duties in a specific way, that someone should face the consequences. Just please don't try to pile it all up on the head of the easiest target, that's all I'm saying.
- School buses are designed for more than 10 passengers.
- School buses have a GVWR of greater than 10,000 pounds
A school bus requires no special skills to drive, though they can be a bitch to parallel park. A healthy dose of caution is all you need to successfully drive a school bus. Jabbar Gibson apparently did just fine all the way from New Orleans to Houston, and I doubt he has a CDL.The buses are topped off from the depot's own diesel pumps when they're returned to the depot. Did you think school bus drivers pulled into the local Citgo station with their American Express cards at the ready?
The Blue Bird Vision model has a 100-gallon fuel tank. Both models of Blue Bird All-American buses come standard with a 60-gallon fuel tank (100-gallon tank optional). Both the Vision and the All-American models have automatic transmissions as standard equipment. Assuming 5 miles per gallon, that's a minimum 300 miles of range. For a point of reference, a Freightliner at 60,000 pounds gross vehicle weight (that's twice the maximum GVW of a Blue Bird Vision) gets 7mpg on level ground.
All the buses in that picture have more than enough fuel in them to get to Baton Rouge and back, and can be driven by anyone capable of driving a U-Haul.
The use of school buses to evacuate residents is explicitly called for in Part II, Section B, Paragraph 5 of the Louisiana Emergency Actions Plan Supplement 1A. But the plan wasn't followed. People died. People are still dying. Because somebody, somewhere in the city and/or state government, couldn't be bothered to read the instruction manual for emergencies and do what it says.
The bottom line is that all the failures in government responses to this disaster, from the city level to the state level to the federal level, are at least partially, if not primarily, the result of bureaucratic inertia. There are tons of things that could have been done better before the storm hit, which would have mitigated the humanitarian crisis in its aftermath. The buses are just one example. If blame is to be assigned, let us assign it fairly and evenly, and not take the easy road of just blaming it all on the shrub.
And let's not forget that since the storm hit, the area is inaccessible by conventional means. Helicopters are the only way to get to some areas, and there's only so many helicopters and only so much a helicopter can carry.
I am a conservative with some slight libertarian leanings. I am not a republican. Modern republicans are neither conservative nor libertarian.
I don't know who Michelle Malkin is.
There's plenty of blame to go around for the fuckups both before and after the hurricane struck. Some of it lies with Bush. Some of it lies with Congress. Some of it lies with Governor Blanco. Some of it lies with Mayor Nagin. Generally speaking, the blame for the fuckups immediately before and immediately after the hurricane struck rightfully go to the city and state governments, while most of the blame for the long-term fuckups prior to the hurricane, and a lot of the blame for the medium-term (strike plus 3 days to present) fuckups after the strike, rightfully go to the federal government. Even Aaron Broussard, destined for world fame due to his emotional breakdown on national television, deserves his own little slice of the blame pie.
I'm just sick and tired of everybody heaping everything on Bush. To hear some of the fuckwits on TV tell it, Bush conjured up the hurricane, aimed it at SE LA, and withheld help on purpose, all in pursuit of some evil scheme to rid the area of poor urban minorities.
Agreed, Rudy Guiliani is an asshat.
There isn't a county line in the state of Louisiana. That's because the geopolitical entities below the state level aren't counties. They're called parishes. And they most definitely were allowing people past the parish line before the hurricane hit. A friend of mine who lives down there, whose first name is Tim (last name withheld of course), crossed several of them on his way out and again on his way back in to the town I used to live in down there.
What organization was necessary?
Step 1: Grab a street map from any local convenience store and cut it into little sections.
Step 2: Give one map piece and a set of keys to each driver.
Step 3: Have each driver pick up as many people in his assigned area as possible and drive to Baton Rouge when the bus is full.
Step 4: Have the driver go back to New Orleans.
Step 5: Repeat Steps 3 and 4 until the storm is imminent.
I'm not talking about mobilizing the National Guard or anything requiring a risk analysis. I mean an ad hoc, fly by the seat of your pants, git-r-done approach. Jabbar Gibson did it and he's a hero. Multiply that by 200, have the mayor sign off on it, and you have what I'm talking about.
The traffic was only really bad as far as the I-55 interchange as late as 12 hours before the storm hit; after that point, that it was smooth sailing. An early start (say, when they first sounded mandatory evac) would have beaten the worst of the traffic, at least for the first trip.
In any case, they definitely had time for at least one trip. After all, 3/4 of a million people in their cars had time for one trip.
The City of New Orleans had its chance. They let 200 school buses sit idle while people died in their homes.
The State of Louisiana had its chance. They called up the National Guard after the fact, knowing it takes at least 48 hours to gather a unit together and issue equipment under the best of circumstances, and knowing that after the storm hit would be far from the best circumstances. For those who don't know, the states' National Guards, apart from those units called up to be federalized for foreign military action, are under the command of the Governors of the several States, not the President of the United States.
Sure, FEMA fucked up. Bush fucked up. But that's not the end of the story. The City of New Orleans fucked up. Orleans Parish fucked up. Jefferson Parish fucked up. The state of Louisiana fucked up. The level of ineptitude we've seen surrounding this disaster is astounding. No one body is capable of reaching that plateau of incompetence. It takes the federal, state, and local governments, working in dissonance. In short, it takes teamwork to fuck things up to this degree.
Local and state governments are pointing fingers at the federal government for failure to fund levee reinforcement and gutting of FEMA -- and the federal government will of course be pointing fingers at the local/state governments for having no clear plan for short-term evacuation, rescue, and aid. And they'll both be right. But the voting public will see only the most visible elements, like Aaron Broussard crying on Meet the Press and Geraldo Rivera crying on Fox News.
Type that in the search box. Note the parking lot with about 200 school buses parked in it.
Why didn't Mayor Ray Nagin mobilize those buses and get people out?
They had well over a day's worth of warning. Each bus can hold 70 people normally (more like 100 if you pack em in like they normally do in less-developed nations.) That means each trip evacuates at least 14,000 people. Figure about 2 trips to Baton Rouge, accounting for 5 hours worth of driving in the evacuation traffic to Baton Rouge (normally a 2-hour drive), and of course almost zero traffic going back IN, plus loading/unloading time. There's at least 28,000 people saved using just the buses from that one depot, way more if you pack the buses tight.
Problems finding drivers? Yell out "Who here has a driver's license? You! Get in the driver's seat, and we'll meet you in Baton Rouge."
They could have at least gotten out the people who weren't capable of walking to St. John or St. Charles Parish (see my posting history for a LONG thread about that...)
Calvin Diamond could walk 6 miles, pushing a shopping cart loaded down with 2 suitcases and "cases" of diapers, and a 5-year old (and just when are they planning to potty-train that 5 year old anyway?), on flooded streets but can't walk 25 miles on flat dry paved roads with a change of clothes and a few bottles of water?
25 miles in 12 hours is a leisurely stroll. If the 99.5% of the population who can make that walk without even getting winded had done so, the remaining 0.5% would have been evacuated by helicopter or bus within 24 hours after the storm passed, if not before the storm arrived.
For that matter, since they were given 36 hours' notice, give 'em 24 hours to make the walk, and they'd still have time to sleep, shower, and be nice and fresh for the hurricane party at the high school gymnasium in St. John Parish. Any couch potato capable of getting from couch to fridge and back in the span of one commercial break during an episode of Chappelle's Show can cover 25 miles in 24 hours. That's 1.5 feet per second. My uncle, who's had 2 heart attacks and has had both legs amputated, can do better than that in his wheelchair.
Unfortunately, it looks like at least a few of those who chose to stay did so in anticipation of rich pickings in the Loot-A-Rama. If they can't keep up with an old man with no legs in a wheelchair, how is it they can outrun cops while carrying 15 pairs of Nikes and a gun?
I just talked on the phone with a friend of mine in La Place. As I expected, the damage in St. Charles and St. John parishes is minimal. His house is unscathed, but there's a lot of tree limbs in his yard that'll take a day or two to clean up. According to him, the worst those parishes got is a few trees that were uprooted by wind and fell on houses, damaging the roofs.
So La Place and Hahnville were valid destinations after all for people evacuating Orleans and Jefferson parishes on foot.
I didn't know what the weather was like before the hurricane hit, so I assumed it was sunny, with 95-degree-plus temperatures, high humidity, and no rain. In short, I assumed the worst case scenario for long-distance walking. And I still came up short trying to find some factor that would prevent an able-bodied person from evacuating on foot.
When police killed 4 looters and wounded a fifth in New Orleans after the looters opened fire on them and on engineers working to repair the levee, my friend in La Place had this to say:
Good riddance. They should have shot the fifth one again to kill his ass so he wouldn't be taking up a hospital bed that could've been given to a fucking human being instead of some goddamned animal.
Hey, I didn't say it would be ridiculously easy - I just said it could be done. Okay, I may have said something about it being nothing on flat ground. That was a bit of an exaggeration, but not much of one.
Take an hour-long break every few hours like I did the time I walked from the French Quarter to La Place. Hell, take a 3-hour break after every 3 hours of walking - you'd still get to the shelters I described 12 hours before the hurricane hit. Carry a couple of bottles of water - a gallon of water only weighs 8 pounds. You'd be surprised how far you can walk when your life may depend on it. And as I said elsewhere in this thread, getting tired beats the hell out of getting dead, which is what has happened to far too many people.
Walking all the way is a worst case scenario anyway. I don't think I've ever met anyone who wouldn't stop and pick up a family on foot trying to flee a category 5 hurricane - I'd definitely stop for a family with kids, and even if it was one shady-looking guy, he could hop in the back of my pickup truck for as far as I was going. My fiancee works as a security guard at a hotel up in Chattanooga, and has spoken with some of the hurricane evacuees staying there. Every one of them is shocked at the number of people who stayed behind, and almost all of them say they would have gladly given a ride to people who had no other way out.
The point I was trying to make is that just about anyone who really wanted out could have gotten out before the storm hit. Sitting around waiting for somebody else to do something for you isn't going to get you very far. To use a worn-out proverb, God helps those who help themselves. Remember, when it's your ass, the buck stops with you.
Even if someone couldn't make it all the way before the storm hit, they could get some distance between themselves and the below-seawater parts of Orleans and Jefferson parishes and find some sort of shelter before the storm hit. To paraphrase senator Zell Miller (D-GA), whom I respect and admire and even voted for despite his being a Democrat - "You can eat half a loaf; with no loaf at all, everybody goes hungry"
I didn't forget where they'd stay during the hurricane. See number 5 for 2 public hurricane shelter locations, both of which are within a 12-13 hour walk from New Orleans, assuming a leisurely pace of 2 miles per hour. They're on opposite sides of the river, so it doesn't matter if you're in New Orleans proper or Marrero when the evacuation is sounded - you can still reach one of them without crossing the river.
I slept in one of them during the hurricane warning/evacuation for Elana when I lived in Luling, LA (Elana took a sharp right hand turn and missed us, but my family still "GOT THE FUCK OUT" and went to a shelter when the evacuation was sounded). The other is the high school I attended from 1987 to 1991 when I lived in La Place, LA.
Both shelters are above sea level. Both are protected from Lake Pontchartrain by buffer zones of swampland. Both are well outside the bowl of New Orleans and further protected by the Bonnet Carre Spillway. Both are cinder-block and steel-frame structures with very narrow windows whose glass has that crosshatched wire reinforcement that's supposed to deter burglars.
Hurricane warning is issued 36 hours before the hurricane hits, giving you 36 hours to make a 12 hour walk. At the end of that 12 hour walk is a high school that's used as a hurricane shelter every time a hurricane warning is issued. Said place is above sea level. Put your meds in your pockets and start hoofing it. There is food, water, and shelter at the end of that walk, which should have been reached a full day before the hurricane struck. Re-read my post, and you'll see I described at least 2 official shelters - which are most likely being used right now as distribution centers for food and water. I slept in one of them back in 1985 for Hurricane Elana - it's not too bad, really. Much better than sweating it out in the Superdome with no water, hoping the hoodrats don't knife you for your Nikes.
Who do you think is better off? The people who stayed in New Orleans and haven't had clean water to drink in 2 days or the people who walked to Saint John Parish and are sitting in a gymnasium eating MRE's and drinking bottled water brought in by the National Guard? They are able to bring water there but not to New Orleans because Saint John Parish is not under water.
Anyone who's able-bodied enough to not be on total disability can walk 25 miles on flat ground and barely be winded at the end. I know a grandmother with two artificial hips who walks 10 miles 3 times a week for normal exercise. What kind of shape do you think the "average person" is in? We're not talking about a week-long trek through the Rockies here - 25 miles is nothing on the flat ground of Southeastern Louisiana.
You're the one who's dreaming here. Or you're being purposely obtuse. Or are you on a mental level with the 30-somethings who crowded into the Superdome after ignoring the warnings? Or are you a European who's convinced that all adult Americans are 450-pound whales who can't walk a flight of stairs without a rest break in the middle?
Okay, you got me on the first one - I've never known where Jefferson ends and Orleans begins. Never bothered to, since when you hit Kenner on I-10 from La Place, it's one solid metropolitan area all the way to the 510/Chalmette exit. Hell, the New Orleans International Airport is in Kenner, and it's block after block of city all the way from there to Chalmette. IMHO, the NO metro area includes Kenner, Metairie, Harahan, New Orleans, Chalmette, and Gentilly on the east (really north at that point) bank, and Waggaman, Bridge City, Westwego, Marrero, Harvey, and Gretna on the west (really south at that point) bank.
:-P
I also figure that the really bright ones would start walking sometime well *before* the storm hit and the floods began. A good time would be when the evacuation was announced. Airline highway has a shoulder all the way from La Place to David Drive/Hickory Avenue in Harahan, or did last time I was down there, making it (relatively) safe to walk on. From Harahan on in, there's sidewalks.
Sorry, I haven't been down there since they put 310 in from I-10 to Airline Highway, and didn't know they'd screwed it up too. I assume it goes all the way across to the Luling-Destrehan bridge and thus on to Highway 90 now? Did they ever fix the problem with holes developing in the roadway on that bridge? Did it even survive the storm?
La Place, at least the west end near ESJ HS, is further from the lake than New Orleans, and it's on higher ground. Plus, there's the Bonnet Carre Spillway between La Place and Norco to catch floodwater and a strip of swampy land between La Place and Lake Pontchartrain to act as a buffer (look to your left next time you go west on I-10 from Kenner - that's the swamp I'm talking about).
Looks like the phones are down in La Place, though - still can't get through to a friend of mine down there, assuming he's returned home from Jackson. "The number you have reached, 652-xxxx, is being checked for trouble."
Right now, New Orleans is probably the worst place to be, meaning that just about anywhere else is better - even La Place (yeah, hard to wrap your brain around that statement if you know the area, isn't it?)
Thibodeaux took his skiff across the lake to Covington before the storm hit and is now staying with his cousin Marcel Ledbetter in Liberty, MS
Would you rather drown in toxic sludge? I've walked the route I described in my parent post, in the middle of the summer, wearing jeans and a black t-shirt. Yeah, I was tired, but again, getting tired beats the shit out of getting dead.
Slight correction to number 5. East Saint John High School is in Reserve, Louisiana, though it's only a few hundred yards west of the La Place city limits. Add another hour or 2 of walking time once you get to La Place, to reach ESJ HS. The upside to that is, it's further from Lake Pontchartrain than if it were on Airline Highway in La Place proper. There's also Destrehan High School, over in Saint Charles Parish, which is a few hours' walking time closer to New Orleans than East Saint John. However, it's also right next to the Mississippi River.
Again, see the other replies I have posted in this thread...
See my other replies in this thread.
See my reply to ggreeneva.
Reader's Digest Condensed Version:
Walking is free, and there are plenty of places that can be reached on foot in 12 hours or so that are above sea level. I know this because I've walked from Storyville Jazz Hall (which is now called "Margaritaville Cafe" and probably underwater) to La Place.
The ones who couldn't physically walk, couldn't find a ride, and didn't have a car to drive are the ones I feel sorry for...the ONLY ones I feel sorry for. I mean, I feel bad for everybody who lost their homes, but that's something that nothing could be done about. There are few shelters that can stand up to 20 feet of floodwater and 150mph winds, and those few are too expensive for most people to buy and live in. I'm talking about people actually still in the city - if they're able-bodied and still in the city, they have no one to blame for their current life-threatening predicament but themselves.