Hurricane Katrina

So we're taking the alternative of a "wait and see" policy? I don't see any marines on the ground taking control of the city and surely we can't just let people starve.Furthermore, I'm not talking about landing. I'm talking about dropping. I'm talking about an African resource type of operation. This is a desperate measure but something needs to be done. Choppers can and do fly tight in situations that call for it.This is why we have a military that spends trillions of dollars on training. First and foremost it's protecting our citizens.

marines with amphibious vehiclesThere are a lots of options. It just looks to me like the Homeland Security stuff is load of crap. FEMA worked better before they were put under Homeland Security.What we needed down there was some strong leadership commandeering forces to evacuate all of the people, and to have 10,000 or more armed troops, 101st and Marines, and tell them to shoot anyone looting, except for grocery stores, which imo is not really looting since the food would go bad anyway and the people need supplies.

I'm with you. This is deplorable. We need some leadership bad, and when it doesn't happen, Bush should step in to make it happen.Declare martial law. What I wish the president had done and would do is put one man in charge of all of the resources, and give him a special cell-phone number direct to the president, and tell the guy the president is available personally night and day, and that anytime he needs back-up, call the president on the phone and let him talk to whoever needs to be corrected, and just get the job done.This has been heart-breaking to watch. It really seem negligent.Of course, the president should not have to be the one to make this happen. First off, the governor of Louisiana should be making it happen. Secondly, the FEMA guys should be doing something more, but really in a catastrophe this size, we should have had the military take-over entirely and told them to restore and maintain order, and immediately evacuate the people from the city.

I agree, especially when the mayor and the citizens are begging for it. As the mayor of New Orleans said, S.O.S!

You folk seem surprised?Were you really that clueless?What will your reaction be when something really big happens?Why are you worrying about what should have been done?When will you start planning for the future?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

My sister and her husband survived the storm in Ocean Springs, MS which is just north of Biloxi. They watched as homes on either side of their location were demolished. When they evacuated, they drove north on Hwy 49 up through Hattiesburg and on to Jackson where my other sister lives.All along the way, there was complete devastation. Every single power pole they passed was down. It didn't really start to get any better until they approached Jackson which is 150 miles away.All of the media coverage is focused on the coastal areas, but it is much worse than that.

Glad they were able to get out. I used to live in Pascagoula, and there was one tropical depression that came over while we were there - that was bad enough thanks.of course, then we moved to "tornado alley" ...

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

you mean like the food and medical supplies that were dropped in Afghanistan?

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

My thoughts exactly.

I certainly hope not. I’d really like to see something better done, I was just speculating on the problems that be have to be overcome. Yes, but that would appear to have it’s problems too. To drop supplies, there needs to be places to drop it. In Africa there are big open spaces of dry ground to drop things on. In a city, a flooded city no less, there are few good drop zones, and if food supplies were to be dropped into flood water full of corpses, waste and god only knows what else, could be more harmful than good. Then there is still the issue of the armed gangs. Which makes me wonder why so many of them are in Iraq.Anyway, I certainly don’t want to defend the inaction of the powers that be, I’m just trying to visualise what they have to work with. It’s really quite tragic that they have to work out how to deal with these issues now, after the fact, when some contingency planning before the fact may have dealt with at least some of them. Hundreds of lives may have been saved.

Yea, so did I. I traded hurricanes for tornados, ah well.

Agreed, but they have to get them into the area, and they are big and heavy and not real fast. I think the major marine bases with large numbers of amtracks are on the east & west coasts near the major naval bases (and then one wonders how many of them are being used in Iraq). But I guess it goes back to the planning issue. Having some amtrack units based near major population centres during hurricane season would have been a good piece of forward thinking. Maybe something to think about for future planning.

at least you have time to evacuate from hurricanes. we were hardly there a week and had to run from the (rented mobile home) to the shelter ... it knocked down trees in the neighboring town, not a long walk away.now on the east coast, all I have to worry about is nor'easters.Do you have any word of Pascagoula? I haven't heard any, and with Ingalls there ...This message has been edited by RAZD, 09*01*2005 11:26 PM

Yea, I mean what the heck is the department of Homeland Security for? Everyone has been talking about the Big One in New Orleans, and talking about nuke and other attacks on US cities as well.We should have some major military mobile emergency response nearby every major metropolitan city in the nation.Obviously they don't.It's pretty much just as we feared. The Homeland Security, a misguided political response to 911 imo, is harming us. http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050901/D8CBNMA88.htmlFEMA was still functioning well a year ago.What we need to do is eliminate the department of Homeland Security, get rid of the beaurocrats, and return federal agencies like FEMA to working order again.What happened here is atrocious, and the government has let these poor people down.

No, I haven't heard about that area, but its only about 25 miles east of Biloxi. That can't be good.