I'm Tired Of These Ungrateful Hurricane Victims

[me]

Yes, it appears many of the people who did not evacuate were the poor.
Or maybe people who couldn't get gas. I heard the lines at the gas
stations were terrible. Do you always keep your car with a full tank?

Since the city issued an evacuation order why didn't they fill up all
their buses and get people out of town? I saw a shot on TV showing
dozens of school buses in a parking lot under water. Why weren't they
put to good use?

I think the city needs a better evacuation plan. You can't expect
everyone to get out on their own when they are poor, elderly or disabled.

Yeah, I wondered that, too. Seems the school systems, churches, and all
those with buses sitting on their fat tires could have put them to use.
The same bus companies that are now providing buses to ship the
"refugees" could just as easily donated their services beforehand to
move people who had no other transportation out of the path of the
storm. Poor planning, or just uncaring.

 

[me]

The results of poverty are entirely predictable. Crime, laziness, drug
abuse, out of wedlock mating, looting,and the inability to take care of
oneself. Poverty is only an individual failure not a society's. If
some can succeed all can unless those who fail are poorly bred and
reared.

Yes, and what is even more interesting is that the forefathers of these
same people are those who were so saddened by the loss of their hero,
Martin Luther King, that they burned down their own communities in DC
and Los Angeles, and carried on the same looting and lawlessness that
their progeny are now doing. I know, I lived in DC and was visiting LA
at that very time.

 

[Dave Vandervies]

There's a certian percentage of people who *can't* leave town (for a
variety of reasons).

Can *you* drop your job - this very instant - and flee from where you
are?

If I had a good reason? Sure.

Not everyone can for all of the things I'd be able to get away with
calling a good reason, but if there's a cat5 hurricane on the way
(especially if you're below sea level), EVERYBODY should have been told
by their employers to lock things down and evacuate. The only ones
that shouldn't have added "as fast as can be done without stepping on
each others' toes" are government and public safety workers managing
the evacuation, but even there, they should be bringing up the rear,
not sticking around after everybody else is gone.


dave

 

[me]

There's a certian percentage of people who *can't* leave town (for a
variety of reasons).

Can *you* drop your job - this very instant - and flee from where you
are?

D.

Er, uh--you don't seem to understand. In a storm situation like this,
jobs don't exist afterward (at least, for a while). Aren't you watching
the boob tube?

 

[me]

I can think of several instances where one may not care to leave to points
unknown leaving their meager life behind. I was in Jamaica when Ivan hit and
no one on the whole island had anywhere to go including my wife and I.

Now THAT I can understand. Pretty hard to leave an island. My
sympathies to you. Hope all is going better for you now.

I can

 

[me]

Not having a car, is no reason why the city could not get people out,
they probably did not have sufficient disaster planning, and the people
who should have been in charge were the first to leave.

Here are some examples, transit buses, load them up and move them out,
even if it means stuffing people in, you can get over 100 people in a
city bus, especially if you limit what they can carry. Between city
transit buses school board buses, and commercial operators, they should
have had sufficient vehicles to clear everyone out.

Certainly makes more sense than letting them stay in their parking lots
where they would certainly be swamped, and useless. Even the cops
didn't have the intelligence to move their cars. Just pee-poor planning.

 

[Bill Sornson]

As if there would be a chance Halliburton wouldn't get the job!

As usual, Frank misses the point.

 

[Bill Sornson]

Very true. They just mentioned that today. In 2001, he cut the funding
for the Army Corps of Engineers work on protecting New Orleans.

Almost as ridiculous as saying he cut it "to fund Iraq".

http://www.taxpayer.net/corpswatch/LearnMore/corpsbudgetanalysis.pdf

 

[what does THIS button do?]

I'm not sure which cut is being discussed. However, ACoE
cuts have been ongoing . . . See, for example

<http://orig.clarionledger.com/news/0203/07/m05.html>

Levee pumping stations and canal construction require
ongoing maintenance, especially when the underlying lands
are sinking. Underfunding of this particular project
is well-known.

Would it have made a difference? No one knows. Certainly
the drying up of $$s was followed by a massive breach.

Yes, we do know. The system was completely insufficient to the needs
of a category 5 event. It was bambi vs. godzilla.

 

[MN]

If water is rising and merchandise or food will be destroyed, or spoiled,
do you still call it looting? Some of those people are thieves no doubt
but many are confused, desperate, not thinking what they are doing, or
not thinking straight. They are poor and in the midst of a great
destruction
of property, this alone is enough to confuse one's logic.

MN

 

[Tom Keats]

The only ones
that shouldn't have added "as fast as can be done without stepping on
each others' toes" are government and public safety workers managing
the evacuation, but even there, they should be bringing up the rear,
not sticking around after everybody else is gone.

I suspect they were among the first to leave.

Anyhow, if the Superdome is good enough to corral 10,000 abandoned
citizens in, it's good enough for some government and public safety
workers too, to maintain civic order.


cheers,
Tom

 

[Jerseyj]

Ya'know, when you are starving, have no food, water, diapers for your
baby, from my perspective, I have no issue with folks "looting" to get
those supplies for survival. In fact, if I were in charge, I'd have the
cops/national guardsman doing the breaking/entering and passing out
whatever supplies could be found to help people survive.

OTOH, no matter the missery, there's no reason to be looting computers,
televisions, etc...they have nothing to do with your survival and in
that case I heartily approve the "you loot I shoot" motto...

====

BTW, WHAT IN HECK DOES THIS ENTIRE THREAD HAVE TO DO WITH
SUBARU!!!!!!!!!

 

[nothermark]

unmaintainable lifestyle.

Dumbass, that describes all of America.

No, that describes the politicans who are running the country into the
ground and th escum that lives off them. There are a lot of folks who
understand it and don't like it.

 

[ccsuwxman]

All those losers whining about "where's the government?", "We got
nothing" "they leaving us here to die" and such are starting to really
piss me off. Our society has created a whole population of people who
rely on the government for all needs- housing, food, medical care.
That are unable to fend for themselves in any way hurricane or not.
Now they must really be suffering, almost like a domestic pet that
suddenly finds itself living in the wild.
First of all you live in an area BELOW sea level-not smart. Then its an
area that is subject to hurricanes and storms. Then word of an
impending hurricane comes out and you do not stock up and prepare. Why?
Because you have no responsibility for your own life. The gov't has
always taken care of you even when you refused to stay in school and
get a job. They support you after popping out numerous out-of-wedlock
babies. They take care of you in prison when you refuse to follow
society's rules. Adversity is when the American Spirit rises to the
top. Unfortunately you still choose to take by looting and causing
further damage to your countrymen. I just had to rant.

And a truly unsympathetic and bigoted rant it was! Maybe you'd like to
go down there and spend a week without food, water, sanitary facilities,
electricity, cell phones, computers, and most importantly, money.

You are the poster boy for our selfish, "me first" society.

 

[ccsuwxman]

What is well known is that you have a city, that is between a lake and
the ocean, and is in a potential hurricane zone, and is below both the
ocean and lake water levels. This may be a dumb question, but didn't
anybody think that at some point this might cause a problem?

Since the 1980s, each Director of the National Hurricane Center has been
saying that New Orleans was a disaster waiting to happen. Building a city
below sea level surrounded by water on all sides made no sense. I'm not
sure that rebuilding it the same way makes any more sense.

 

[ccsuwxman]

Talk to the dutch, they've figured it out.

They've never had to deal with a Category 5 hurricane.
There is NO comparison.

 

[ccsuwxman]

The biggest thing I don't understand is why people would stay in town
when a hurricane is coming. Most people have no idea how dangerous
these things can be.

I cleaned up my sister's house in Navarre, FL after Hurricane Ivan and
a huge tree had been ripped out of her back yard and fell over. She
stayed at home and it could very well have landed on her house and
killed her and her daughter. I just don't understand why people
wouldn't leave. Some people may be poor, of course, and don't have a
car or can't get their family out, but a lot more people stayed in the
area than should have.

As for the looters - well, some of them are stealing food and diapers
and whatnot from the grocery stores to survive. Hopefully, most of the
businesses have insurance to cover their losses, and aren't going to
the inventory.

And yes, some looters are robbing jewelry stores, but since I'm not
there I can't say what percentage of looting is "justified". If I were
stuck there and starving, yeah, I'd break into a store for food and
water and so would anyone, I bet.

Apparently, so I've been told, Lousiana law allows looting for "necessities"
in life-threatening situations.

However, I wonder what kind of satisfaction these jewelry store looters are
getting from being able to tell their starving buddies what time it is using
those fancy Rolex watches now on their wrists. I guess if you're going to
die, you might as well go with as much bling as you can carry.

And I do not mean this as a racist remark. It is directed SOLELY to those
who stole out of greed, no matter they be Black, White, or Purple, for
that matter.

 

[CompUser]

@typhoon.sonic.net>, (e-mail address removed)
says...

Very true. They just mentioned that today. In 2001, he cut the funding
for the Army Corps of Engineers work on protecting New Orleans. You reap
what you sow.

As if ANY amount of funding/work/whatever manmade
thing you can think of---would have made even the
_slightest_ difference in the outcome.

 

[appkiller]

Compuser authoritatively asserted, being omniscient:

As if ANY amount of funding/work/whatever manmade
thing you can think of---would have made even the
_slightest_ difference in the outcome.

You, sir, seriously misunderestimate the power of human ingenuity.
Hell, we could build the Great Wall of China and the pyramids of Egypt
on the backs of humans alone.

Have you seen the extent of the Big Dig?

App

 

[di]

If water is rising and merchandise or food will be destroyed, or spoiled,
do you still call it looting? Some of those people are thieves no doubt
but many are confused, desperate, not thinking what they are doing, or
not thinking straight. They are poor and in the midst of a great
destruction
of property, this alone is enough to confuse one's logic.

MN

there's no way you can justify what's going on with these looters and
lawless thugs who are hampering the rescue efforts. Innocent people are
dying because of their actions, shooting to kill is really to good for them.