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Author Topic:   Hurricane Katrina
randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4898 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 179 of 315 (239834)
09-01-2005 11:27 PM
Reply to: Message 177 by Thor
09-01-2005 11:19 PM


Re: Louisiana without clout
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.
The hurricane was the first major test of FEMA since it became part of the Homeland Security Department, a massive new bureaucracy that many feared would make the well-respected FEMA another sluggish federal agency.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050901/D8CBNMA88.html
FEMA 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.

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Replies to this message:
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randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4898 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 181 of 315 (239839)
09-01-2005 11:41 PM


normally don't listen to Krugman, but...
Second question: Why wasn't more preventive action taken? After 2003 the Army Corps of Engineers sharply slowed its flood-control work, including work on sinking levees. "The corps," an Editor and Publisher article says, citing a series of articles in The Times-Picayune in New Orleans, "never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security - coming at the same time as federal tax cuts - was the reason for the strain."
In 2002 the corps' chief resigned, reportedly under threat of being fired, after he criticized the administration's proposed cuts in the corps' budget, including flood-control spending.
Third question: Did the Bush administration destroy FEMA's effectiveness? The administration has, by all accounts, treated the emergency management agency like an unwanted stepchild, leading to a mass exodus of experienced professionals.
Last year James Lee Witt, who won bipartisan praise for his leadership of the agency during the Clinton years, said at a Congressional hearing: "I am extremely concerned that the ability of our nation to prepare for and respond to disasters has been sharply eroded. I hear from emergency managers, local and state leaders, and first responders nearly every day that the FEMA they knew and worked well with has now disappeared."
Opinion | A Can't-Do Government - The New York Times
I've probably gotten too negative and may need to stop posting on this thread, but this is just heart-breaking. It looks like we have destroyed rather than enhanced our ability to deal with disasters. If we do face WMD attacks on our cities, it seems obvious to me we cannot rely on the authorities at the federal level.

randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4898 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 198 of 315 (239957)
09-02-2005 1:03 PM
Reply to: Message 196 by Silent H
09-02-2005 12:54 PM


Re: Mayor Lashes out at Feds
Actually, I think Bush responded to 911 fine, but he Guiliani and Pataki to take care of the immediate responses.
Bush is not a fast mover. He and his adminstration tend to respond slowly to things, even if the campaign. That can be good at times, but is not good at times like this.
One thing that should come out of this is that we need to rehaul FEMA. Remove it from the Homeland Security folks. Beg the former managers that left to come back.
Id even suggest making it more like the Fed, and quasi-independent agency with it's heads appointed by the president. That way, if FEMA messes up again, the heads can all be fired, and the public will demand action, but if they go back to doing the great jobs they did in the past, they will be lauded, and can become a respected institution.
Merging it with Homeland Security beaurocracy has been terrible.

This message is a reply to:
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randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4898 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 199 of 315 (239958)
09-02-2005 1:06 PM
Reply to: Message 197 by jsmall
09-02-2005 12:59 PM


Re: Where's god now?
Actually, people tend to believe in God more when life is tough. You got it backwards, and you are wrong as well.
You can't depend on the government as this crisis shows. You can depend on God, but God is not going to exempt you or this world from tragedy.
Keep in mind a big reason for this mess is putting FEMA under Homeland Security, which is something the democrats wanted. It's not small government advocates creating the mess, but the Big Gov types, and remember Bush is not right wing. He is Big Gov as well and greatly expanded the beaurocracy, as liberals and dems wanted, after 911 to respond to emergencies.
That's the problem though. We have plenty of resources, but the institutions handling this stuff are so bloated, so beaurocratic, that they cannot be as effective.
This message has been edited by randman, 09-02-2005 01:08 PM

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randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4898 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 208 of 315 (240024)
09-02-2005 3:28 PM
Reply to: Message 206 by Lizard Breath
09-02-2005 3:01 PM


Re: Louisiana without clout
Sure. Since we knew it was a Cat 5, we should have looked to see what forces were closer, and had them on standby to deploy to the city via trucks (after being flown to Lousiana after the storm), and through boats and landing craft if available. But first we should have airlifted troops in there, and had them deploy throughout the city to keep order and deliver instructions.
On the same vehicles, whether trucks, boats, or helicopters that we brought troops in, we should have filled them back up with people and of course, some troops remaining and brought those people to relief centers, military bases, and naval ships, with instructions on where to deliver people well enough to travel to different air-conditioned relief centers throughout the nation.
We should also have been bringing in tons of ice, food and water, and set up concension stands to serve hot food outside of the coliseum in New Orleans at least, and elsewhere if possible. There should be several generators delivered with fuel to the same place to air-condition it.
This stuff is not rocket science. It's not that we have not trained, nor have the forces to do this. We have a lack of leadership within the civilian command structure to accomplish this.
By the way, "we" stands for us, the people of America. The government works for us, not the other way around, or it's suppossed to be that way.

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randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4898 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 242 of 315 (240163)
09-03-2005 1:03 AM
Reply to: Message 241 by Phat
09-03-2005 12:55 AM


Re: Coming Depression?
If the dollar falls a whole lot, Americans won't be buying so much from China and other nations, and their economies will fall too. Moreover, they may well start buying stuff from us and the trade deficit turns around.
Now, at some point, India and China may prosper enough not to need our buying power, and then we could be in trouble, but the solution is really to balance the budget so that we don't have to borrow money. In that case, we can pay off the national debt as debt instruments expire, and I am not an expert on this, but I think we can pay in dollars.
But the federal government needs to quit overspending.
The economy is not a problem right now. Government spending and borrowing could become a problem though, but if we eliminate that, we should be OK, or probably OK.

This message is a reply to:
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