Government at it's worst

[Downdraft]

Pardon me people but I'm in emergency management and I've watched this storm all day long. I'm listening to the Governor of Louisana and frankly I think she's an idiot. What happens tonight and tomorrow is on HER head and the mayor of New Orleans. The state government hasn't got a clue that's obvious. To little to late and not effective things haven't changed in Louisana since Huey Long.

[Mello1]

Pardon me people but I'm in emergency management and I've watched this storm all day long. I'm listening to the Governor of Louisana and frankly I think she's an idiot. What happens tonight and tomorrow is on HER head and the mayor of New Orleans. The state government hasn't got a clue that's obvious. To little to late and not effective things haven't changed in Louisana since Huey Long.

You want to be specific? You think she is an idiot because....

[KBBOCA]

I'm listening to the same interview. I don't really have any grounds to judge her competence...

BUT, it seems that now is not the time or place to get into a long discussion of coastal restoration. They need to keep focused on the essential information for people's survival!

YIKES

[Downdraft]

Because they stopped contraflow. Because they shut down a major highway out of New Orleans, because all day long one side of I-10 has been gridlocked while the other side (4 lanes) was virtually abandoned. Because there are thousands of people that don't have transportation to leave when national guard trucks are sitting in motor pools idle. Because in my humble opinion government has no greater obligation than the protection of it's citizens and I think government failed that obligation is this regard. This scenario is not without planning FEMA and NOAA have modeled it for years. The slosh models alone are long established. You cannot evacuate an entire city in 24 hours and in this case they paid more attention to the city attorney than the Director of the National Hurricane Center.

[Anonymous]

First, there are reasons for stopping contra flow. Maybe they needed to get supplies and other things INTO NO, which you can't do when both sides of the highway are blocked. Not all of I-10 was gridlocked, and the highways around NO appear to be clear at this point.

There is no way the NG could evacuate 100,000 people, even if they wanted to. At 25 people per deuce and a half, it would take 4,000 trucks to do it, and even if they had the trucks, they don't have the time. Sometimes, the best thing to do is to "evacuate in place". Fire departments do it in burning buildings all the time.

As far as the SLOSH models, you can only do so much. After all, they are limited by funds. NO is a poor area and they are limited by funding.

The city attorney's opinion does matter more than the NHC. Whether you like it or not, the law must still be followed. We do not live in a dictatorship.

I don't think it is fair to criticize when you don't know what the situation is.

[gulfcoastdave]

the mayor reported that he was interupted at dinner last night by the gov to call NHC.......... that in itself should tell you whats wrong with the whole pic

[Anonymous]

I am in emergency management as well. I get people all the time telling me how to do my job, that I should be doing whatever it was they saw on Baywatch, ER, Rescue me, or whatever. Everyone is an expert but me.

Same thing here. There are often many considerations which those who don't do things for a living understand.

So the man got interrupted at dinner. He isn't allowed to eat?

[RichG]

City attorney over the NHC. That is classic. I will have to archive that post. It will be something I can tell my Grandchildren when I tell them one of the reasons so many people died in Katrina in 05. Downdraft I agree 100%. So many years to plan and the best they could come up with was housing those people in the superdome. I would have reccomended busses, school busses trains planes helicopters what ever it takes to get them out. Also the Mayor should be tried for criminal incompetence.

[Anonymous]

Why do you think that the Mayor can violate the law? Emergency or not, the law is the law. It is the job of the NHC directo to track the storm and ADVISE leaders on the storm, not to run the country.

It is not the NHC's job to do anything but track and forecast.

[jopatura]

What I found appalling is that the major transportation units, i.e. Amtraks and the airlines stopped service because they had to pull their trains and airplanes out of danger's way. My question is why didn't they fill those with as many people as they could as they evacuated the equipment. So you lose money, but isn't that better then losing thousands of lives?

[KBBOCA]

re: the mayor's quote about being interrupted at dinner, the full context was very close to something like: "I was having dinner with my wife and expecting a quiet evening when the governor called and told me I needed to talk to the NHC"

That's not an exact quote, but very close. He definitely talked about a quiet evening with his wife and it *sounded* like he hadn't been in close contact with NHC.

I hope he misspoke and thus created a false impression, because his words certainly left me with a strong sense of a city that did not take this storm seriously soon enough.

But I am praying for him and all other officials for wisdom and protection and the ability to help keep as many people as possible safe. And I do pray God will spare N.O. from the worst that so many of us fear.

[beenthru6]

City attorney over the NHC. That is classic. I will have to archive that post. It will be something I can tell my Grandchildren when I tell them one of the reasons so many people died in Katrina in 05. Downdraft I agree 100%. So many years to plan and the best they could come up with was housing those people in the superdome. I would have reccomended busses, school busses trains planes helicopters what ever it takes to get them out. Also the Mayor should be tried for criminal incompetence.

I think you are not factoring in the likely probability that many (if not most) of the poor who are utilizing the superdome would probably refuse to leave on buses etc. if they had started to try and ship people out a few days ago. Seems like the attitude for most has been to wait until the last minute because they have continued to hope the storm will turn. Poor people are even more likely to want to remain among familiar surroundings for a variety of reasons. If you tried to tell people two or three days out to get on a bus, you wouldn't get much of a positive response.

[RichG]

My friend, President Lincoln violated the law/ constitution during the civil war. President Bush gave the US air force permission to shoot down a airliner during 911. I don't think that would have been legal. But no one would ever blame him if they would have had to do so. We live the real world. Laws are not suicide pacts. Some times you have to break the law in order to save lives. If it were against the law to swim in a cities water cathment area however someone where drowning would you just watch as they drowned and claim "my lawyer won't let me jump in to save him"!

[Downdraft]

I'm sure this debate will go on weeks if not months after this is over. For now probably time to call a halt to it while we all take a deep breath and wait out what happens. All good opinions and I respect all of you that replied.

[jopatura]

I think you are not factoring in the likely probability that many (if not most) of the poor who are utilizing the superdome would probably refuse to leave on buses etc. if they had started to try and ship people out a few days ago. Seems like the attitude for most has been to wait until the last minute because they have continued to hope the storm will turn. Poor people are even more likely to want to remain among familiar surroundings for a variety of reasons. If you tried to tell people two or three days out to get on a bus, you wouldn't get much of a positive response.

Still, the buses could have left this morning, when the mandatory evacuation was put into place and most poor people would have tried to leave if it was free. Yes, there are people who wouldn't leave in any case, but I've seen countless interviews where people wanted to leave but knew noone that was leaving.

Furthermore, the evacuation should have been mandatory to begin with, or at least volunteerary-mandatory, where if you put up a big enough fight, you write down your contact info and are ordered to sew photographic identification in your back pocket. That would get people's attention.

[Anonymous]

I'm sure you know that a mandatory evacuation isn't really mandatory. It isn't as if they can force you to leave. They don't have the time or manpower to do so, even if they tried.

All it means is that the emergency workers no longer have a duty to act when you get into trouble.

I have family who won't leave NO. It is my home town. I still don't think the govt is doing a bad job. I am not going to argue the law here, except to point out that if the damage isn't as severe as the NHC is predicting, the mayor will catch flack for overreacting. It is a fine tightrope he is walking.

[RichG]

sharpenu I hope your family is ok. Lets hope and pray the storm weakens drastically and hurts no one. I will leave my opions offline.

[MBismyPlayground]

Regardless, what is done is done. No sense in any of us arguing over it now. Decisions were made, bad or good. Now is the time for us all to band together and support the folks that this Hurricane impacts. In the next few days we all need to DIG DEEP into our pockets to aid those who have been devastated.
So please, stop this

[dekeoy]

I doubt out of the 400,000 plus people in NO, the majority of them have some common sense. It wouldn't take a mayor telling me that he's ordered a mandatory evac., so then I have to decide if I want to stay or want to leave. Most, if not all of the people who had some sort of transportation should have left when this storm started becoming a reality, not when a mandatory evac. was ordered.

As for the numbers of people who don't have transportation out of the city, I agree that asking them to load a bus 3 or 4 days ago would've been met with little, if no response. And had the city provided transportation today, how in the world could you get every single person picked up and I can only image what sort of resources would have been needed. Not to mention the gridlock of buses and National Guard trucks entangled in the midst of everyone else who waited till the last minute to leave the city The city opened at least ten areas for people to stay, who needed it and I hope every single one of them fares well. As far as those who chose to stay, I wish them well too, but like I said, common sense is something that every human has, although some might not have as much as others. Again, it wouldn't take someone telling me to leave in order to do it, I would have already been gone!