who do you hold responsible?

[Biggy]

Originally Posted by Carrie

Instead, look at what we can do to keep it from happening again.

It's going to be hard to do that, without looking at what happened this time around...?

you cannot look at the situation and say "hey, the people in charge did everything right." If its true about 50-60% of the NOPD walking off the job, you have to question the higher-ups at the NOPD and their abilities, no? Not to mention some of the NOPD was looting?! Without the police, it makes it hard to control those "armed gangs" and the "looters," even though that is the last thing they should have to deal with (i think we all agree on that). Thats just one example I am thinking of...

A lot of talk about lack of food, water, medicine.. poor planning? I know roads are inaccessible due to hurricane damage, but there can still be air drops, etc. And yes I know the air vehicles are being used for rescue. I know its one big clusterfuck. I know there is a lot going on, but can someone really be satisfied with the way this situation was handled by those in charge? Much of the aftermath was preventable IMO. Not the hurricane damage, not the people who drowned, but the people who are starving for days afterwards? I would never ever want to see anything like this happen again, which is why you need accountability.

This is also not meant to take away from people who are doing what they are supposed to be doing, nor is it meant to take away from the people who braved it out all the way thru, like DirectNIC. For those people, it just shows their true colors how they can stick it out, even in the roughest of times.


On a side note, it also could be the media is brainwashing my mind you really don't know what you see unless you're there, but the blog posts seem to line up with what I'm saying about lack of coordination, which IMO is preventable with the right people in place.

[Carrie]

Biggy, I don't think the folks in charge did everything right. I think they did what they *could*... you can only plan so far ahead and when a hundred thousand people ignore your order to get out, what do you do? Ya know?

The NOPD thing is mind-boggling. But in my mind, this can't be attributed to one person or to higher-ups. This is a set of people each individually choosing to act in this manner. You can't control that kind of thing. If folks that are still there can get pictures of this stuff happening, I think every police officer caught in a photo should be fired immediately with no pension and a no-rehire notice on his record that gets sent to every police dept in the country.

As for this being preventable, I think the only way to universally plan for that is to *force* people out of their homes and onto buses and evacuate them whether they want to go or not. If the city were empty of people right now, this would be a much better situation.

The folks who are starving right now, dying right now, they wouldn't be if they had left when they were told to. And I'm sorry, I don't think the people who stayed or "stuck it out" are brave or noble whatsoever. That's not bravery, it's not nobility, it's stupidity and pride. They are all *contributing* to what's happening right now, even if they're trying to help in some small way. Each of them is still a person that the gov't needs to be concerned with, their safety, their physical needs. When they piss and shit they're contributing to polluting the water.
The city officials, the Guardsmen, etc all could be focusing right now on clearing the streets, draining the water, getting the power back on... instead, because of the folks who stayed, they have to divert all of that attention to stopping looting, raping, starving, pollution...

The only way to prevent this would have been to use guns and force the people to leave.

[sarettah]

Originally Posted by Carrie

As for this being preventable, I think the only way to universally plan for that is to *force* people out of their homes and onto buses and evacuate them whether they want to go or not. If the city were empty of people right now, this would be a much better situation.

That is what a "MANDATORY" evacuation is. You don't just say "you have to get out", you make sure they are out.

The only evacuation plan I saw in action throughout this was to tell people to go. Some of those people spent 9 or 10 hours and only managed to get 90 miles down the road. Airlines, that could have been flying all the way into Sunday evening had canceled flights Sunday morning leaving travelers stranded.

That is piss poor planning on the part of whoever came up with the evacuation plan.

The "plan" also did not take into account those without transportation. If you are in an urban area, you have a good many folks that do not have cars. If you do a mandatory evacuation, you have to take into account that you might be busing a whole lot of people out. The plan did not include "ordering" the airlines to keep flying folks out of there. If you are a tourist area, then you know that you need to take into account the fact that many folks will be relying on air flight.

Then the putting folks in the superdome thing. Dammit. That was obviously a last minute call as evidenced by the lack of food, etc.

The Feds labeled it a federal disaster BEFORE the storm hit.
The media were calling for a worst case scenario from the word go.

Since they knew they had a disaster going into it, they should have had stuff staged and ready to go. They didn't !

It is obvious that there was no real plan. The only plan was "ok, evacuate, everyone will leave..."