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Member (Idle past 1405 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
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Author | Topic: Department Of Homeland Security Inaction At the Top | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Nighttrain Member (Idle past 3994 days) Posts: 1512 From: brisbane,australia Joined: |
Hi, Sylas, fascinating when we get two opposing schools of thought in the scientific world, isn`t it?
2001-proposed model Cumbre Vieja-Ward and Day2002-refutation of W+D`s model-Pararas-Carayannis 2003-confirmation of W+D`s model Page Not Found | The Guardian Who knows what 2006 may bring?
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1405 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
The best way to start planning how to make sure we will be ready next time, is to make sure that the people that were responsible for this debacle are not anywhere near involved next time
we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1344 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
Let's not waste time worrying about who did what wrong, let's start thinking about how to do it right next time. no, let's.
quote: this guy deserves some blame. i am personally well acquainted with fema's incompetance and non-presence in hurricane disasters. to sit around and place blame on the VICTIMS of a disaster that your own agency is supposed to help prepare for, prevent, and clean up when it is plainly obvious to everyone that it is not serving that purpose is hypocricy at the highest level. hurricanes are predictable disasters. fema knew the dangers, and it should have been working to reinforce levees months in advance. fema should have been there coordinating the evacuation days in advance, and providing transportation for those that had none. fema should be there now in full force. there are a lot of "shoulds" with this organisation. a lot. they are not doing their job. they didn't do their job here, in frances either. we were flabbergasted that all they did was give people money if they applied for aid after the fact. michael brown is not the person to point fingers, especially not at the people he should be saving.
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
hurricanes are predictable disasters They are predictable in the sense that we know ahead of time if one is coming, but they are very unpredictable in regards to the damage they do. There have been hurricanes that did much less damage than we thought they would, and then there are other storms that did much more. Here's an example. A few years ago a little tropical storm called Allison moved into Houston. It was nothing--a little rain and wind. It moved through and headed North and then stopped. By now it was not even a tropical storm any more--just a "remnant." Then it came back, over night. Nobody paid much attention. 20 inches of rain, 50,000 homes and businesses flooded, 25 dead. Over a billion dollars of damage. I've had people tell me--who don't live in places where there are tropical storms--that hurricanes were "overrated." I guess they won't be saying that anymore.
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nator Member (Idle past 2170 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
What on earth are you talking about?
Nobody is blaming Bush for the existence of the hurricane. That's the kind of thing Pat Robertson does, and since he likes Bush he won't do that. It's the sluggish, seemingly incompetent and disorganized federal response to the hurricane that people are complaining about. Tell me, who created the Department of Homeland Security? What is the mission and parameters of that department, and who appointed the person to lead that department? Wouldn't the person or persons who gave somebody a job be responsible if that appointed person didn't do his job adequately? This message has been edited by schrafinator, 09-05-2005 01:47 PM
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nator Member (Idle past 2170 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
People were told to go to the Astrodome by the authorities, and many of them did.
But there were no emergency services there. No water, no toilets, no food, no security.
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nator Member (Idle past 2170 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: How many of those poor people do you think owned computers, let alone had web access?
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Chiroptera Inactive Member |
quote: Not to mention that in this country an "evacuation plan" is simply to scream, "Okay everyone, get into your cars and leave."
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Monk Member (Idle past 3925 days) Posts: 782 From: Kansas, USA Joined: |
hurricanes are predictable disasters. fema knew the dangers, and it should have been working to reinforce levees months in advance. Wrong. FEMA is not responsible for reinforcing the levees. It is the responsibility of the Orleans district levee board working in concert with the Corps of Engineers.
fema should have been there coordinating the evacuation days in advance, and providing transportation for those that had none.
Wrong. It is not FEMA’s responsibility to coordinate the evacuation of cities days in advance. It is the state's responsibility and in particular the local authorities, city officials, parish or county officials who have jurisdiction in these affairs. It is the same scenario all over the country in every major metropolitan area.
Here is the 364 buses operated by the New Orleans Regional Transportation Authority (NORTA) that Nagin should have used to evacuate the poor. Why weren't NORTA's 364 buses used to ferry poor people out of New Orleans before Katrina hit? Nagin said the city could and would commandeer any property or vehicle it deemed necessary to provide safe shelter or transport for those in need. He didn’t exercise his authority.
He {Nagin} also opened the Louisiana Superdome as a shelter of last resort that would begin accepting people around Noon. He said the Dome would have few supplies and that people were expected to bring food and other necessary items. RTA buses were going to be sent to pick up those going to shelters at designated pickup points. RTA buses never left the RTA lots. There was no water or food provisions brought to the Superdome before Katrina hit. There were no emergency generators brought to either the Superdome or the convention center before the storm hit. These are not the responsibility of FEMA these are local responsibilities.
Source fema should be there now in full force. there are a lot of "shoulds" with this organisation. a lot. they are not doing their job. FEMA did not do their job. They were too slow to respond when it became blindingly obvious that state and local officials were helpless.
michael brown is not the person to point fingers, especially not at the people he should be saving. Michael Brown is indeed responsible in part for the loss of lives and he should be fired. Some will continue to argue that FEMA should have been involved earlier and that they should have taken over local control of the situation before the storm hit. But that's not how the system works. Federal, State and Local authorities operate under a system whereby powers and jurisdictions are understood. Not just in New Orleans, but everywhere in this country. THE SYSTEM: Either live with it or change it. This message has been edited by Monk, Mon, 09-05-2005 01:28 PM
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Monk Member (Idle past 3925 days) Posts: 782 From: Kansas, USA Joined: |
Not to mention that in this country an "evacuation plan" is simply to scream, "Okay everyone, get into your cars and leave." Not true. Google any major city in the US and use key words "evacuation plan" and you will find that every city has them. Should these evacuation plans, developed by local authorities who know the city the best and understand the most efficient means to accomplish wholesale evacuation, be subjugated to some form of generic FEMA plan?
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Chiroptera Inactive Member |
Hi, Monk.
I did a quick Google search, and I couldn't find where New Orleans, Louisiana, or the federal government had plans to commandeer trains or buses for transportation, set up assembly points, or provided for refugee camps outside the danger zone. The impression I got was that if people didn't have a means of transportation, a place to go, or a way of providing for themselves they were stuck. Of course, this was a very quick search and I may have missed it.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1344 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
They are predictable in the sense that we know ahead of time if one is coming, but they are very unpredictable in regards to the damage they do. There have been hurricanes that did much less damage than we thought they would, and then there are other storms that did much more. sure. but the damage from this one was pretty much predicted. we knew what would happen if a big enough hurricane hit nola.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1344 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
let's go over this for a second. FEMA is the Federal Emergency Management Agency. their sole function is manage emergencies on a federal level. wikipedia puts it like this:
quote: quote: alright, now, let's review with this in mind.
Wrong. FEMA is not responsible for reinforcing the levees. It is the responsibility of the Orleans district levee board working in concert with the Corps of Engineers. yes. fema is responsible for reinforcing levees. they are supposed to coordinate efforts with levee boards and the army corp of engineers. they are responsible for managing that sort of thing on a federal level. thus their name. you see, that falls under the first two categories of their duties. they are supposed to reduce the likelihood or severity of possible disasters, and help prepare for the ones that are foreseeable.
Wrong. It is not FEMA’s responsibility to coordinate the evacuation of cities days in advance. It is the state's responsibility and in particular the local authorities, city officials, parish or county officials who have jurisdiction in these affairs. It is the same scenario all over the country in every major metropolitan area. actually, it is. that's part of number 2.
Here is the 364 buses operated by the New Orleans Regional Transportation Authority (NORTA) that Nagin should have used to evacuate the poor. Why weren't NORTA's 364 buses used to ferry poor people out of New Orleans before Katrina hit? good question. why weren't they?
RTA buses never left the RTA lots. There was no water or food provisions brought to the Superdome before Katrina hit. There were no emergency generators brought to either the Superdome or the convention center before the storm hit. These are not the responsibility of FEMA these are local responsibilities. see that bit above about coordinating federal, state, and local efforts?
FEMA did not do their job. They were too slow to respond when it became blindingly obvious that state and local officials were helpless. from personal experience here, fema is pretty helpless too. this is not the first disaster they've botched. i happened to be in the other one. fema did a LITTLE of the funding part of the job, until money ran out. then they high-tailed it out of the state, only to return and investigate who bought what with it. nearest i can tell, they didn't do anything else. in other words, they're about an 1/8th of their job. maybe they're drastically underfunded. but if they're going to essentially do nothing, blame the victims, and then pat themselves on the back for a job well done, why bother having them? yes, state and local officials are helpless. that's the idea behind having fema. they're supposed to take charge. i don't expect you to understand this, really. you live in kansas. not that there's anything wrong with kansas, but it's not florida. you have no reference for understanding the madhouse an entire state can become when a category 4 or 5 hurricane is beaing down on your coast. that calm before a storm? it's a myth. the sky might be dead, but the people on the ground are maddly doing everything they can to prepare. grocery stores are a nightmare. no bread, no water, no batteries, no charcoal -- the shelves are empty and the aisles full. home depot sells out of plywood for the next 6 months. people are running around relocating. many try to leave, and clog the highways. the VIDEO STORE is even jumping with activity. you have no way to understand activity, panic and mass hysteria on a state level. these things don't happen in kansas. but we're pretty familiar with it down here. there are not enough police officers, army reserve, fire fighters, paramedics or whatever in the entire state to deal with even the craziness BEFORE the storm, let alone after. the trick is to prepare as early as possible. make sure you have all the things you need before you even know there's a hurricane coming. we have a very helpful resource here, the national hurricane center. every june or july they issue a guide before the hurricane season. the people who have to evacuate know when and where they have to evacuate to. we're not as prepared as cuba, but we're not in the dark either. if we can prepare for forseeable disasters, so should fema. that's their job. they might not have been able to prevent this disaster, but they certainly could have planned for it better, and i dunno, actually done SOMETHING. anything at all.
Some will continue to argue that FEMA should have been involved earlier and that they should have taken over local control of the situation before the storm hit. But that's not how the system works. Federal, State and Local authorities operate under a system whereby powers and jurisdictions are understood. Not just in New Orleans, but everywhere in this country. THE SYSTEM: Either live with it or change it. actually, the whole point of fema is that they have the jurisdiction to suspend local, county, and state jurisdiction. actually, if i recall correctly, they have the authority to suspend FEDERAL jurisdiction too. the system is that they come in, say "we're running the show now. do this, this, this, this, and that. here's money, here's manpower from other states." that's why they exist. if they're just an extra layer of red tape, sitting around with their thumbs up their asses, shifting blame and spinning propaganda, and not even doing a damned thing then we don't need them, and they should shuttup and go away. basically they should at least TRY to do their jobs, or get lost.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1344 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
where is the dhs? and what have they been doing for the last 3-4 years if they haven't even thought of creating evacuation plans for major cities. it seems to me that we have two agencies that are simply utterly failing to serve their purposes.
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nwr Member Posts: 6408 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
Chiroptera writes: The impression I got was that if people didn't have a means of transportation, a place to go, or a way of providing for themselves they were stuck.But this is conservative america, where the government is the problem. If the government would just get out of the way, we wouldn't have these problems.
Or at least that's what the conservatives keep telling us.
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