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> Looters in New Orleans
TOO Z MAXX
post Sep 3 2005, 06:03 AM
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I feel the looters who are stealing guns, stereos, jewelry and Nikes should be shot. I like the sniper idea. This whole mess is making me think I should buy a few weapons of my own. I have never been a big fan of guns but I am a hell of a shot. Most of my buddies are hunters. I don't want to be stuck in a bad situation when the big one hits Calli.
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trackbird
post Sep 3 2005, 06:43 AM
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I spend about as much time and money on my firearms and range time and ammo as I do on my car. Actually, so far this year, I think I've spent more on guns/ammo/range time than I have on the car, probably by a wide margin. I really enjoy spending time at the range, I find it relaxing (oddly enough) and I am a reasonably decent shot with a handgun (though that may be the fault of my expensive taste in weapons more than my abilities....).
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93yellowfbody
post Sep 3 2005, 01:36 PM
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it's (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/bs.gif) on what's going on over there i live in san antonio,tx and there are a whole lot of people from other there to stay in the alamodome and here in town they have been collecting donations to give to the people from new orleans when they get here.i guess that's one way to make sure people get what they need just invite them over and make sure they get the donations.
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Teutonic Speedra...
post Sep 8 2005, 01:58 AM
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Hopefully this doesn't offend anyone. Another aspect from a reporter.....long, but I think worth the read:

An Unnatural Disaster: A Hurricane Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the
Welfare State


An Objectivist Review

by Robert Tracinski | The Intellectual Activist

September 2, 2005

It has taken four long days for state and federal officials to figure
out how to deal with the disaster in New Orleans. I can't blame them,
because it has also taken me four long days to figure out what is going on there.
The reason is that the events there make no sense if you think that we are
confronting a natural disaster.

If this is just a natural disaster, the response for public officials
is obvious: you bring in food, water, and doctors; you send transportation
to evacuate refugees to temporary shelters; you send engineers to stop
the flooding and rebuild the city's infrastructure. For journalists,
natural disasters also have a familiar pattern: the heroism of ordinary people
pulling together to survive; the hard work and dedication of doctors,
nurses and rescue workers; the steps being taken to clean up and rebuild.

Public officials did not expect that the first thing they would have to
do is to send thousands of armed troops in armored vehicle, as if they
are suppressing an enemy insurgency. And journalists--myself included--did
not expect that the story would not be about rain, wind, and flooding, but
about rape, murder, and looting.

But this is not a natural disaster. It is a man-made disaster.

The man-made disaster is not an inadequate or incompetent response by
federal relief agencies, and it was not directly caused by Hurricane
Katrina This is where just about every newspaper and television channel has
gotten the story wrong.

The man-made disaster we are now witnessing in New Orleans did not
happen over the past four days. It happened over the past four decades.
Hurricane Katrina merely exposed it to public view.

The man-made disaster is the welfare state.

For the past few days, I have found the news from New Orleans to be
confusing. People were not behaving as you would expect them to behave
in an emergency--indeed, they were not behaving as they have behaved in
other emergencies. That is what has shocked so many people: they have been
saying that this is not what we expect from America. In fact, it is not even
what we expect from a Third World country.

When confronted with a disaster, people usually rise to the occasion.
They work together to rescue people in danger, and they spontaneously
organize to keep order and solve problems. This is especially true in America. We
are an enterprising people, used to relying on our own initiative rather than
waiting around for the government to take care of us. I have seen this
a hundred times, in small examples (a small town whose main traffic light
had gone out, causing ordinary citizens to get out of their cars and serve
as impromptu traffic cops, directing cars through the intersection) and
large ones (the spontaneous response of New Yorkers to September 11).

So what explains the chaos in New Orleans?

To give you an idea of the magnitude of what is going on, here is a
description from a Washington Times story:

"Storm victims are raped and beaten; fights erupt with flying fists,
knives and guns; fires are breaking out; corpses litter the streets; and
police and rescue helicopters are repeatedly fired on.

"The plea from Mayor C. Ray Nagin came even as National Guardsmen
poured in to restore order and stop the looting, carjackings and gunfire....

"Last night, Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said 300 Iraq-hardened
Arkansas National Guard members were inside New Orleans with shoot-to-kill
orders.

"'These troops are...under my orders to restore order in the streets,'
she said. 'They have M-16s, and they are locked and loaded. These troops
know how to shoot and kill and they are more than willing to do so if
necessary and I expect they will.' "

The reference to Iraq is eerie. The photo that accompanies this
article shows National Guard troops, with rifles and armored vests, riding on
an armored vehicle through trash-strewn streets lined by a rabble of
squalid, listless people, one of whom appears to be yelling at them. It looks
exactly like a scene from Sadr City in Baghdad.

What explains bands of thugs using a natural disaster as an excuse for
an orgy of looting, armed robbery, and rape? What causes unruly mobs to
storm the very buses that have arrived to evacuate them, causing the drivers
to drive away, frightened for their lives? What causes people to attack
the doctors trying to treat patients at the Super Dome?

Why are people responding to natural destruction by causing further
destruction? Why are they attacking the people who are trying to help
them?

My wife, Sherri, figured it out first, and she figured it out on a
sense-of-life level. While watching the coverage last night on Fox
News Channel, she told me that she was getting a familiar feeling. She
studied architecture at the Illinois Institute of Chicago, which is located in
the South Side of Chicago just blocks away from the Robert Taylor Homes,
one of the largest high-rise public housing projects in America. "The
projects," as they were known, were infamous for uncontrollable crime and
irremediable squalor. (They have since, mercifully, been demolished.)

What Sherri was getting from last night's television coverage was a
whiff of the sense of life of "the projects." Then the "crawl"--the
informational phrases flashed at the bottom of the screen on most news channels--gave some vital statistics to confirm this sense: 75% of the residents of New
Orleans had already evacuated before the hurricane, and of the 300,000 or so
who remained, a large number were from the city's public housing projects.
Jack Wakeland then gave me an additional, crucial fact: early reports from
CNN and Fox indicated that the city had no plan for evacuating all of the
prisoners in the city's jails--so they just let many of them loose.
There is no doubt a significant overlap between these two populations--that is,
a large number of people in the jails used to live in the housing
projects, and vice versa.

There were many decent, innocent people trapped in New Orleans when
the deluge hit--but they were trapped alongside large numbers of people
from two groups: criminals--and wards of the welfare state, people selected,
over decades, for their lack of initiative and self-induced helplessness.
The welfare wards were a mass of sheep--on whom the incompetent
administration of New Orleans unleashed a pack of wolves.

All of this is related, incidentally, to the apparent incompetence of
the city government, which failed to plan for a total evacuation of the
city, despite the knowledge that this might be necessary. But in a city
corrupted by the welfare state, the job of city officials is to ensure the flow
of handouts to welfare recipients and patronage to political
supporters--not to ensure a lawful, orderly evacuation in case of emergency.

No one has really reported this story, as far as I can tell. In fact,
some are already actively distorting it, blaming President Bush, for
example, for failing to personally ensure that the Mayor of New Orleans had drafted
an adequate evacuation plan. The worst example is an execrable piece from
the Toronto Globe and Mail, by a supercilious Canadian who blames the chaos
on American "individualism." But the truth is precisely the opposite: the
chaos was caused by a system that was the exact opposite of individualism.

What Hurricane Katrina exposed was the psychological consequences of
the welfare state. What we consider "normal" behavior in an emergency is
behavior that is normal for people who have values and take the
responsibility to pursue and protect them. People with values respond
to a disaster by fighting against it and doing whatever it takes to overcome
the difficulties they face. They don't sit around and complain that the
government hasn't taken care of them. They don't use the chaos of a
disaster as an opportunity to prey on their fellow men.

But what about criminals and welfare parasites? Do they worry about
saving their houses and property? They don't, because they don't own anything.
Do they worry about what is going to happen to their businesses or how
they are going to make a living? They never worried about those things before.
Do they worry about crime and looting? But living off of stolen wealth is
a way of life for them.

The welfare state--and the brutish, uncivilized mentality it sustains
and encourages--is the man-made disaster that explains the moral ugliness
that has swamped New Orleans. And that is the story that no one is
reporting.
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CMC #37
post Sep 8 2005, 03:42 AM
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I agree with the part that the amount of people on welfare is a problem. Apparently 30% of New Orleans was living at the poverty level before this all happened.
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Crazy Canuck
post Sep 8 2005, 06:29 AM
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QUOTE (sgarnett @ Sep 1 2005, 22:15)
BTW, Mathew Patterson (00 Trans AM) lives in New Orleans ....

last post was Aug 26 (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)
hope he is fine.
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rmackintosh
post Sep 8 2005, 03:56 PM
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Personally, I think all the finger pointing ON BOTH "SIDES" is getting a little old... (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/mad.gif)

I am NO BUSH FAN, but all the crap he is taking for this is S.T.U.P.I.D.......on the other hand, he hasn't really rose to the occaision in my oppinion either.... (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)

The actions of the Mayor and Govenor are MUCH WORSE than anything Bush did.....they seem to be incompetent....for all those in the media, hopping mad at the response, they need to take a closer look a little CLOSER to the problem....local governments FAILED MISSERABLY here....the fact that the Federal Government is acting slowly should be a secondary issue...
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mitchntx
post Sep 8 2005, 05:11 PM
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The Feds act upon recommendations by the locals, don't they?

If the Mayor called the Gov asking for help on Tuesday, the Gov waited to make the call till Wednesday, the troops started roling in on Thursday ...

I'm really not sure what the expectation is.

The breaking levys were unforseen ... a known problem, yes, but is it feasible to have thousands of Red Cross, FEMA and military staged in Baton Rouge just in case?

This is definitely a hind sight is 20/20 kind of ordeal.
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rmackintosh
post Sep 8 2005, 06:27 PM
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...this kinda stuff is why I (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/rotf.gif) EVERY time someone from the "other" side of the country speaks of how they could NEVER live with the fear of earthquakes...

...lemme see....

We get earthquakes once every COUPLE of years...a "serious" one every few decades.....

Hurricanes happen 2 to 3 times EVERY YEAR...typically enough to cause some type of damage every time...

Tornadoes happen for an entire "season" each and every year and tear stuff up all the time...

....I'll take my chances with earthquakes EVERY time... (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/ph34r.gif)
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ESPCamaro
post Sep 9 2005, 09:56 AM
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Huh fox news huh.

Funny that they concentrate on the looting more than anyone. I was talking to a truck driver yesterday who was near NO a couple days ago, watching LOCAL news. And while the reporter for the local news was interveiwing someone he was told that a fox new reporter had reported hearing gun shots. The local, reporter and the guys he interviewed was standing just a few yards away and they both heard nothing.


OBVIOUSLY there was chaos going on. I also think that it was blown out of proportion as an excuse to drag feet.


I really won't respond to this thread anymore because it's turning into a political discussion. There isn't anything I can discuss and feel more strongly about, and I'm sure I will only make people mad and I damn well sure know the same will happen to me.


But in closing, I would like to point out that no matter what anyone says, those people were NOT helped because they were poor, and because the majority were black.

You better beleive that if hollywood has a major earthquake those people will get help when they need it.


One other thing. It didn't expose the welfare state. It exposed US as americans. Not only are we an un-ruly bunch of war mongrels by going into other countries for phony reasons, we also act like hooligans on our soil. And on top of that it showed just how ready we are for a disaster.
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rmackintosh
post Sep 9 2005, 06:54 PM
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QUOTE (ESPCamaro @ Sep 9 2005, 03:56)
But in closing, I would like to point out that no matter what anyone says, those people were NOT helped because they were poor, and because the majority were black.

You better beleive that if hollywood has a major earthquake those people will get help when they need it.

I REALLY think the whole "...we didn't help these folks BECAUSE they are poor/black..." is JUST ABOUT THE BIGGEST LOAD OF CRAP I have heard lately...this from a bleeding heart LIBERAL who went to UC Berkeley... (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/ph34r.gif)

The response was/is poor because the mechanisms/infrastructure to respond to the problem where NOT IN PLACE...despite EVERYONE ON THE PLANET KNOWING New Orleans was in deep doodoo someday because of their levy system....now was this fact INFLUENCED by the lack of money/resources they had due to being a "poor black community"...sure....but this is from YEARS of neglect.....not GWB's fault....just his mess to deal with...and to be clear...I think his response has been LACKLUSTER at best....but not "criminal" as some would say...

Hollywood WOULD respond better, because they have the money/resources/infrastructure in place to respond to such a disaster...at least better than NO did.....is THAT GWB's fault???? Is THAT the federal governments fault??? No, they spent the time/money/effort to be better prepared....would the fed step in...yes...would they do it better/faster/more because LA is full of rich white men.....PLEASE! The actions/plans of the local governments are AT LEAST as responsible for the problems there...

I'm out too....I just can't STAND all this big brother isn't helping enough crap...they can only do so much....they are not doing it well right now, but enough with the conspiracy crap... :leaving:
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pknowles
post Sep 9 2005, 07:22 PM
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I agree with Randy as far as don't blame Bush for this and I'm not a Bush supporter BTW. I think it is the responcability of the state government to have supplies in place to aid in the situation. Something of this scale is obvously too much for the state to handle all alone, but they should at least be able to get food and water to enough places for a few days. At least long enough for the Feds to react. I also don't want the President being concerned about each levy, bridge, tunnel, railroad, ect around the US that could be a problem. I would much rather leave those matters up to local Government and have the President focus on more national and global problems.
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sgarnett
post Sep 10 2005, 01:01 AM
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Trying to help refugees that are shooting back adds a whole new twist that I don't want particularly want local governments to be too prepared for.

This post has been edited by sgarnett: Sep 10 2005, 01:15 AM
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rpoz-29
post Sep 10 2005, 01:02 AM
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QUOTE
It exposed US as americans. Not only are we an un-ruly bunch of war mongrels by going into other countries for phony reasons, we also act like hooligans on our soil. And on top of that it showed just how ready we are for a disaster.


You mean the out pouring of aid from blue-collar grunts like myself? You mean the good people down there who did everything they could to help one another out of chaos? You mean the charitable organizations tht beat the Feds to the disaster area? You mean the Cops, the Firefighters that stayed on the job not knowing the welfare of their own families???? IS THAT WHAT YOU MEAN? If so, you're damn right it exposed us as Americans. And we're looking pretty damn good right now. BTW, the "A" in American is ALWAYS upper case.
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trackbird
post Sep 10 2005, 01:14 AM
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QUOTE (rpoz-29 @ Sep 9 2005, 20:02)
QUOTE
It exposed US as americans. Not only are we an un-ruly bunch of war mongrels by going into other countries for phony reasons, we also act like hooligans on our soil. And on top of that it showed just how ready we are for a disaster.


You mean the out pouring of aid from blue-collar grunts like myself? You mean the good people down there who did everything they could to help one another out of chaos?

Actually, I think he was talking about the morons looting, the idiots shooting at the rescuers. The goofball that was firing on the hospital evacuation teams.

Yes, there have been many of my fellow countrymen who have fought the good fight and done the right thing, even when they didn't have to. But it's hard to evacuate people when idiots are shooting at you and generally acting like a group of well armed children.

Some of the stuff going on down there was possibly a new low for our country. The rest of the stuff is a great high point (the help).

In the face of 9/11, New Yorkers were kind, freindly and really pulled together. This is New York city, not a place known for being terribly friendly at times. But, they were smart enough to not tear the city apart. This was the polar opposite.

But, maybe that's just what the news wants us to see.

We usually don't do political discussions here. All I'll ask is that everyone keep it civil.

(IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/beerchug.gif)
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rpoz-29
post Sep 10 2005, 01:45 PM
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You're probably right. I read that the jails in the area released their inmates because they had no way of evacuating them. That can explain some of the lunacy that went on. Of course, the media concentrates on the "Big Story", which was the looting, shootings, etc, and ignores the people helping each other, wanting nothing in return. Sorry to get on my soap box.
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sgarnett
post Sep 10 2005, 03:34 PM
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Yes, my heart goes out to both the public employees and private citizens who were/are doing what they could to help others with no way to check on or help their own families.
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Teutonic Speedra...
post Sep 10 2005, 08:33 PM
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QUOTE (rpoz-29 @ Sep 10 2005, 08:45)
Of course, the media concentrates on the "Big Story", which was the looting, shootings, etc, and ignores the people helping each other, wanting nothing in return. Sorry to get on my soap box.

Yeah....the same in Iraq. Working for the Army, I hear all the good going on, but the media shows all the bad.
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Rob Hood
post Sep 11 2005, 05:51 AM
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Well, I've read this thread and have decided to post to it. Here's my view on the whole sad affair from the storm to the looting to the poor response by the government (all levels).

1. The state KNEW the storm was coming. By that I mean public officials and private citizens. The Mayor and Governor were not only slow to react, but required prompting from the President to take action. Many private citizens purposely ignored the warnings and stayed behind.

2. The city and state did not have a disaster preparedness plan in place, or if they did, did not implement it. As a result, hundreds of school and public buses sat idly by instead of being used to relocate personnel to higher ground or out of harm's way, and hundreds of criminals were simply released vice transported to another jail. Released criminals = looting, rape, murder....

3. The levys were designed to only hold under a Category 3 storm, not a Category 4 or higher. This has been a known fact for decades. Blaming the current President (whoever he is) for poor levy design/maintenance is incorrect.

4. The city was built in a below-sea level area roughly 200 years ago. Looks like the law of averages finally caught up, unfortunately.

5. Looters should be shot, period. One's integrity should not change just because a natural disaster occurred.

6. Give to reputable charities. And I do mean GIVE. Not just money, but clothes, blood (thanks Julie!) and furniture. Many people lost everything. Whether they were "good people" or "bad people" should be immaterial at this point.

7. Take notice of what didn't happen at the local, state, and federal level, and develop an emergency plan for yourself and your family. Design the plan around the following factors:

a. Develop an escape route (and alternates). Figure out the best roads to use. Sometimes they won't be the interstates, as they may be clogged.

b. Using the escape route, establish a meeting point/place. If need be, establish an alternative method of signaling as a backup in case cell towers/land lines are down.

c. At home, keep containers of essential supplies at the ready for easy loading into your vehicle. Wouldn't hurt to keep a couple of water bottles and breakfast bars in the trunk or spare tire void as well.

d. Keep your important papers (wills, deeds, ET slips, suspension setups, inventory of personal effects) in a lockable strongbox that you can carry.

e. Also keep cash in the strongbox. Decide on an amount and leave it in there.

f. Get a generator that will support your household's electrical load (most on this board have a generator already, IIRC).


Frankly, if the city and state governments had reacted in a more proactive manner, a great majority of the problems post-storm would have been eliminated or significantly reduced. And there was no slow-down in providing assistance just because of a person's race. That is just untrue, and the statement itself wreaks of racial bias on its own. It's sad enough that there are poor people in New Orleans, or anywhere, but it is downright ignorant to use race in this case. The reason the majority of the people shown on TV (on any channel) were black is because a higher percentage of blacks lived in downtown NO than whites. That ain't MY fault. And the media could do a better job of reporting both good and bad news. Right now, the big three (CBS, NBC, ABC) predominantly report from a negative viewpoint, and also report from a predominantly anti-Republican, anti-Christian, anti-White Male viewpoint. We would all be better served if race was ignored and not used as a crutch standpoint just because it is a convenient perspective to hide behind.

I sincerely hope that everyone is able to recover and move forward from this tragedy, and that improvements will be implemented to reduce the potential impact of future storms.
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bruecksteve
post Sep 11 2005, 02:51 PM
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The Wall Street Journal
September 6, 2005
COMMENTARY


DOW JONES REPRINTS
This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order
presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or
customers, use the Order Reprints tool at the bottom of any article or
visit:
www.djreprints.com.

See a sample reprint in PDF format.
Order a reprint of this article now.

Blame Amid the Tragedy
By BOB WILLIAMS
September 6, 2005; Page A28

As the devastation of Hurricane Katrina continues to shock and sadden the nation, the question on many lips is, Who is to blame for the inadequate response?

As a former state legislator who represented the legislative district most
impacted by the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980, I can fully understand and empathize with the people and public officials over the loss of life and property.

Many in the media are turning their eyes toward the federal government,
rather than considering the culpability of city and state officials. I am
fully aware of the challenges of having a quick and responsive emergency
response to a major disaster. And there is definitely a time for
accountability; but what isn't fair is to dump on the federal officials and
avoid those most responsible -- local and state officials who failed to do
their job as the first responders. The plain fact is, lives were needlessly
lost in New Orleans due to the failure of Louisiana's governor, Kathleen
Blanco, and the city's mayor, Ray Nagin.

The primary responsibility for dealing with emergencies does not belong to
the federal government. It belongs to local and state officials who are
charged by law with the management of the crucial first response to
disasters. First response should be carried out by local and state emergency personnel under the supervision of the state governor and his/her emergency operations center.

The actions and inactions of Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin are a national
disgrace due to their failure to implement the previously established
evacuation plans of the state and city. Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin cannot claim that they were surprised by the extent of the damage and the need to evacuate so many people. Detailed written plans were already in place to evacuate more than a million people. The plans projected that 300,000 people would need transportation in the event of a hurricane like Katrina. If the plans had been implemented, thousands of lives would likely have been saved.

In addition to the plans, local, state and federal officials held a simulated hurricane drill 13 months ago, in which widespread flooding supposedly trapped 300,000 people inside New Orleans. The exercise simulated the evacuation of more than a million residents. The problems identified in
the simulation apparently were not solved.

A year ago, as Hurricane Ivan approached, New Orleans ordered an
evacuation but did not use city or school buses to help people evacuate. As a result many of the poorest citizens were unable to evacuate. Fortunately, the hurricane changed course and did not hit New Orleans, but both Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin acknowledged the need for a better evacuation plan.
Again, they did not take corrective actions. In 1998, during a threat by
Hurricane George, 14,000 people were sent to the Superdome and theft and vandalism were rampant due to inadequate security. Again, these problems were not corrected.

The New Orleans contingency plan is still, as of this writing, on the city's Web site, and states: "The safe evacuation of threatened populations
is one of the principle [sic] reasons for developing a Comprehensive
Emergency Management Plan." But the plan was apparently ignored.

Mayor Nagin was responsible for giving the order for mandatory evacuation and supervising the actual evacuation: His office of Emergency Preparedness (not the federal government) must coordinate with the state on elements of evacuation and assist in directing the transportation of evacuees to staging areas. Mayor Nagin had to be encouraged by the governor to contact the National Hurricane Center before he finally, belatedly, issued the order for mandatory evacuation. And sadly, it apparently took a personal call from the president to urge the governor to order the mandatory evacuation.

The city's evacuation plan states: "The city of New Orleans will utilize
all available resources to quickly and safely evacuate threatened areas."
But even though the city has enough school and transit buses to evacuate 12,000 citizens per fleet run, the mayor did not use them. To compound the problem, the buses were not moved to high ground and were flooded. The plan also states that "special arrangements will be made to evacuate persons unable to transport themselves or who require specific lifesaving assistance. Additional personnel will be recruited to assist in evacuation procedures as needed." This was not done.

The evacuation plan warned that "if an evacuation order is issued without
the mechanisms needed to disseminate the information to the affected
persons, then we face the possibility of having large numbers of people
either stranded and left to the mercy of a storm, or left in an area
impacted by toxic materials." That is precisely what happened because of the mayor's failure.

Instead of evacuating the people, the mayor ordered the refugees to the
Superdome and Convention Center without adequate security and no provisions for food, water and sanitary conditions. As a result people died, and there was even rape committed, in these facilities. Mayor Nagin failed in his responsibility to provide public safety and to manage the orderly evacuation of the citizens of New Orleans. Now he wants to blame Gov. Blanco and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In an emergency the first requirement is for the city's emergency center to be linked to the state emergency operations center. This was not done.

The federal government does not have the authority to intervene in a state emergency without the request of a governor. President Bush declared an emergency prior to Katrina hitting New Orleans, so the only action needed for federal assistance was for Gov. Blanco to request the specific type of assistance she needed. She failed to send a timely request for specific aid.

In addition, unlike the governors of New York, Oklahoma and California in
past disasters, Gov. Blanco failed to take charge of the situation and
ensure that the state emergency operation facility was in constant contact
with Mayor Nagin and FEMA. It is likely that thousands of people died
because of the failure of Gov. Blanco to implement the state plan, which
mentions the possible need to evacuate up to one million people. The plan
clearly gives the governor the authority for declaring an emergency, sending in state resources to the disaster area and requesting necessary federal assistance.

State legislators and governors nationwide need to update their contingency plans and the operation procedures for state emergency centers. Hurricane Katrina had been forecast for days, but that will not always be the case with a disaster (think of terrorist attacks). It must be made clear that the governor and locally elected officials are in charge of the "first response."

I am not attempting to excuse some of the delays in FEMA's response.
Congress and the president need to take corrective action there, also.
However, if citizens expect FEMA to be a first responder to terrorist
attacks or other local emergencies (earthquakes, forest fires, volcanoes),
they will be disappointed. The federal government's role is to offer aid
upon request.

The Louisiana Legislature should conduct an immediate investigation into
the failures of state and local officials to implement the written emergency
plans. The tragedy is not over, and real leadership in the state and local
government are essential in the months to come. More importantly, the
hurricane season is still upon us, and local and state officials must stay
focused on the jobs for which they were elected -- and not on the deadly
game of passing the emergency buck.

Mr. Williams is president of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, a free
market public policy research organization in Olympia, Wash.
URL for this article: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1125966...8332256,00.html
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