Hurricane Katrina- 10 years later (1 Viewer)

[Nathan R. Jessep]

Have heard similar stories (good and bad) from other Nola friends. Cannot imagine. Thanks for sharing, tipsy.

 

[CGRdrJoe]

I do remember a thank you dinner at Dante's, man that was some amazing food gb.

 

[ragincajun]

And let's not forget that first home game the following year...when Gleason blocked the punt and crying during U2 /green day

GOOSEBUMPS BROTHER

 

[Nathan R. Jessep]

And let's not forget that first home game the following year...when Gleason blocked the punt and crying during U2 /green day

GOOSEBUMPS BROTHER

even watching from home

 

[ragincajun]

Literally craziest time of my life, best of times and worst of times as a coast guard responder

Damn you were? Tell us a story.

would rather not.

With all sincerity thank you. The CG pulled my wife's family to safety.

 

[ragincajun]

http://www.al.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2015/07/paratus_1450_trailer_released.html

 

[ragincajun]

And let's not forget that first home game the following year...when Gleason blocked the punt and crying during U2 /green day

GOOSEBUMPS BROTHER

even watching from home

I watched in BR. Couldn't even imagine watching it from home in NO.

 

[worrierking]

I had just started my job working as a public information officer for a parish in SWLA. Many of our emergency responders, who I work with closely, went to assist after Katrina. The biggest problems they had were all related to communications. Nothing worked. Radios, phones, cellphones, nothing allowed adequate communications in the response. Here's a classic example. LA Dept of Wildlife and Fisheries attempted to arrange a citizen's rescue operation using volunteers who had some experience and large enough boats. They staged in Lake Charles and went to LaPlace where they were to put in the waterways to get them into the city to pluck people out of homes and off rooftops. They had to wait to get in the water because there was a report of gunshots being fired at rescue boats. They could not get the go ahead to go into the flooded areas until it was deemed safe. Eventually they went back home hoping to regroup the next day. Next day the same group of boaters, led by DWF, drove from Lake Charles to LaPlace and got ready to go in. Same thing happened. There was a report of a rescue boat being the target of gunfire and they couldn't let them in. Same story, they went home. Later it turned out that the report of gunfire on the second day was the same report of gunfire the first day. Reports among law enforcement and emergency responders were moving so slowly that they did not realize that it was a day-old report and they had no way to check.

Blame Blanco, blame Bush, blame Nagin if you want, but nobody could work adequately under those conditions.

The media response was highly politicized. I remember watching Anderson Cooper interview a guy in a wheelchair on an overpass on I-10 where a bunch of people had gone to get out of the water. He asked the guy if he blamed the government for the poor response, promoting the already-rampant "it's Bush's fault" meme. The guy, having seen no television reports and not knowing he was supposed to blame Bush said that the city was run by idiots. He was not surprised that they were messing it up. Cooper rallied, asking if he blamed FEMA and the guy reiterated that the city was run by idiots. It was amusing to watch the guy spoil Anderson Cooper's great interview.

My government agency set-up some shelters and we helped the evacuees for three weeks. It was heart-wrenching trying to help them find out about relatives and if they were alive.

Then we had to make the decision to evacuate for Rita and they all left. Our work was just starting.

 

[tipsy mcstagger]

And let's not forget that first home game the following year...when Gleason blocked the punt and crying during U2 /green day

GOOSEBUMPS BROTHER

...every time... Still

 

[saintsfan]

And let's not forget that first home game the following year...when Gleason blocked the punt and crying during U2 /green day

GOOSEBUMPS BROTHER

...every time... Still

Absolutely. I've seen it probably 100 times on youtube. Still the same reaction...

 

[saintsfan]

The atmosphere at the game itself was unlike anything I have ever experienced. Even the NFC title game in '09 wasn't the same at that Monday Night game against Atlanta. I have never heard a stadium that loud. Period. I have no idea what the decibels were, but I could feel the stadium shaking like I have never felt it before. And it kept going on and on and on.

The camera shot of Mora Jr's face said it all. That look said, "we aren't beating the Saints on THIS night in THIS stadium."

Getting dusty in here just thinking about it...

 

[tipsy mcstagger]

Charmaine Neville freaking out on live TV...gators eating babies she said...

 

[CGRdrJoe]

I went looking through my old pictures trying to find as many Katrina/Rita pictures as I could find and sadly I had deleted all but maybe 20 pictures. I had some pretty amazing shots from both the air and the ground but around 2008 I decided that looking at them was just too painful and I was better off deleting them. It's crazy that I can't remember #### that happened to me last week and yet I can close my eyes and see everything from New Orleans to Venice.

 

[Chadstroma]

I read on Politco phone ap yesterday and article written by Michael Brown titled something along the lines of "Stop Blaming Me". It was very interesting and certainly a fresh perspective from the guy who gets the biggest share of blame (I always thought too much but after the article may have even assigned him too much blame too).

I went on Politico to copy/paste it here but for the life of me I can not find it right now.

 

[Smack Tripper]

I read on Politco phone ap yesterday and article written by Michael Brown titled something along the lines of "Stop Blaming Me". It was very interesting and certainly a fresh perspective from the guy who gets the biggest share of blame (I always thought too much but after the article may have even assigned him too much blame too).

I went on Politico to copy/paste it here but for the life of me I can not find it right now.

He took a patronage job in a department or agency whatever you call it, that was something that shouid have been beyond politics. It was clear that he as a head didn't know what he was doing so how can we have faith in the team he assembled. We can blame bush for the appointment too I suppose but he had the avarice to accept an executive role he was patently unqualified for. He gets what he gets.

 

[Chadstroma]

I read on Politco phone ap yesterday and article written by Michael Brown titled something along the lines of "Stop Blaming Me". It was very interesting and certainly a fresh perspective from the guy who gets the biggest share of blame (I always thought too much but after the article may have even assigned him too much blame too).

I went on Politico to copy/paste it here but for the life of me I can not find it right now.

He took a patronage job in a department or agency whatever you call it, that was something that shouid have been beyond politics. It was clear that he as a head didn't know what he was doing so how can we have faith in the team he assembled. We can blame bush for the appointment too I suppose but he had the avarice to accept an executive role he was patently unqualified for. He gets what he gets.

Did you find the article and read it?

 

[rail]

i had well-settled into my life in Colo at that point. All I could do was sit back, watch the horror unfold on TV, and try and keep in touch with my family. My sisters and parents decided to evacuate Mandeville and Thibodeaux and got off very easy in comparison to a lot of others (downed trees, some roof damage).

One of my brother-in-laws and his Dad started taking their boat in to the city to rescue people. They worked for two straight days helping get people off of their roofs. For some reason, they could not take any pets on to the boats. I guess the thought-process was to make room for human lives over pets. Several sad stories of them getting older people on to the boat, weeping, as they left their yelping dogs behind on the roofs. Some people, upon finding out they could not take their pets, elected to stay right where they were. They saw pets swimming in the water, just trying to survive, and they couldn't do anything about it. When they came across a tiny Chihuahua struggling in the surge my BIL made a decision to grab that one. They ended up keeping him as part of the family.

Admittedly, it is an emotional, perhaps irrational, and homer reaction - but my blood still boils as I remember watching all those people sitting outside the Superdome for, what, 5 days? No additional supplies - food, water, medicine. People, fellow American citizens, were dying and help wasn't coming. Our country has quicker responses to earthquakes in Turkey and typhoons in the Phillipines and as I think about this - I just get ******. Don't know who is to blame for that - just that it was an epic and shameful failure. The emotional cynic in me feels that this lack of response would never have happened in other cities in our country that had a lot more money. But that's an avenue I try not to go down.

If my life situation had been different (i.e., no kids), I probably would have moved back to the city I love and been a part of the rebuilding.

A really good read is Chris Rose's 1 Dead in Attic. http://www.amazon.com/1-Dead-Attic-After-Katrina/dp/1416552987/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1440782782&sr=1-1&keywords=1+dead+in+attic&pebp=1440782790102&perid=023EH1HHPA3ZT02HCS9G Highly recommended if you want to live through the aftermath of someone who was there.

 

[rail]

The atmosphere at the game itself was unlike anything I have ever experienced. Even the NFC title game in '09 wasn't the same at that Monday Night game against Atlanta. I have never heard a stadium that loud. Period. I have no idea what the decibels were, but I could feel the stadium shaking like I have never felt it before. And it kept going on and on and on.

The camera shot of Mora Jr's face said it all. That look said, "we aren't beating the Saints on THIS night in THIS stadium."

Getting dusty in here just thinking about it...

Tears for me too. Every time.

 

[Two Deep]

I remember Mayor Nagin complaining about the lack of Federal assistance after he failed to have the city properly evacuated. As far as I know, he is still in jail for corruption.

Governor Landrieu was an ineffective bump on a log.

Bush was slammed big time. The picture of him looking out the window of Air Force One while he flew over New Orleans was a massive gaffe.

The entire crisis was a complete cluster####.

Imagine the chaos that will ensue after the "Big One" hits the West coast.

Too bad they didn't have like a week to 10 day notice that a storm was heading their way. That may have helped.

 

[Doug B]

Too bad they didn't have like a week to 10 day notice that a storm was heading their way. That may have helped.

We actually didn't.

Hurricane Katrina came ashore roughly at the border of Louisiana and Mississippi a little after 6 a.m. on Monday, August 29th 2005.

On the previous Friday, August 26th, the National Hurricane Center's (NHC) track for Katrina was squarely aimed between Pensacola and Destin, FL. Had Katrina hit that far east, the New Orleans area and Mississippi Gulf Coast would have been essentially spared. The NHC kept to that track until about 4 p.m. CDT 8/26/2005.

My family was living in Baton Rouge at the time, and my wife and daughter were in suburban N.O. visiting my in-laws. They had left Thursday afternoon and were to return Sunday night. I remember looking at the Katrina tracking maps from work that Friday afternoon and thinking "I think we'll be OK".

At 4 p.m. CDT 8/26/2005, the NHC shifted the projected path far westward, now predicting landfall just east of Pascagoula, MS (near the AL border). For those that follow hurricanes, that's a pretty big jump from one storm track prediction to the next.

The word of this storm track change would have gotten to people who watched the 5:00 and 6:00 p.m. newscasts ... but it was a Friday night, the Saints were hosting a preseason game that night, etc. A LOT of people missed that news that evening, and if they skipped the 10 p.m. news, they didn't see the new storm track until the next morning of Saturday 8/27/2005. So less than 48 hours before the Katrina hit, a lot of people were just learning that the predicted storm track was getting closer and closer to SE Louisiana.

I, myself, had watched the Saints game on TV in B.R. the previous night, and went to bed without checking the news or any weather websites. I thought, due to what I had seen that afternoon at work, that Louisiana was going to be in the clear.

The next morning, I got up early, checked out the news and online weather ... and "Holy Kee-rap!!!". The first mandatory evacuations of low-lying fishing communities and such started on Saturday morning, and the first voluntary evacuations of some of New Orleans' suburban parishes were at about the same time (voluntary evacuations for New Orleans proper would not begin until about 4 p.m., about 38 hours before landfall).

I called my wife, let her know I was coming to get her and our daughter, and left the apartment by 7 a.m. I got wife and kid packed and ready to return to B.R. by 9 a.m. By 10:45 or so, we were all back home in B.R.

I turn the tube on at home, and see the reports of awful gridlock on the same interstate (I-10) I had just used to make the hurried trip to N.O. and back. Had I left the apartment an hour later, it would've taken us several hours to get back to B.R. instead of 90 minutes. I was literally driving minutes ahead of a wholesale evacuation.

...

But, no, the timing of the news reports and tracking changes were most unfortunate. I bet a lot were like me, checked Katrina's status while at work, felt it would be OK for N.O., and left work to do whatever, and not giving Katrina a second thought that Friday night. For the vast majority of the people in and around New Orleans ... everything pretty much went down all of a sudden starting sometime on Saturday 8/27/2005.

 

[Doug B]

Too bad they didn't have like a week to 10 day notice that a storm was heading their way. That may have helped.

It occurred to me you might have meant the federal response, and not N.O.-area residents.

In all seriousness ... I give them a pass on the advanced-preparation thing. You don't really get 7-10 days of lead time unless you aim to put an untenably sized area on emergency footing. And really, 10 days away from a SE USA landfall, a hurricane is at best in the mid-Atlantic with no real accurate track of where it will land.

 

[CGRdrJoe]

i had well-settled into my life in Colo at that point. All I could do was sit back, watch the horror unfold on TV, and try and keep in touch with my family. My sisters and parents decided to evacuate Mandeville and Thibodeaux and got off very easy in comparison to a lot of others (downed trees, some roof damage).

One of my brother-in-laws and his Dad started taking their boat in to the city to rescue people. They worked for two straight days helping get people off of their roofs. For some reason, they could not take any pets on to the boats. I guess the thought-process was to make room for human lives over pets. Several sad stories of them getting older people on to the boat, weeping, as they left their yelping dogs behind on the roofs. Some people, upon finding out they could not take their pets, elected to stay right where they were. They saw pets swimming in the water, just trying to survive, and they couldn't do anything about it. When they came across a tiny Chihuahua struggling in the surge my BIL made a decision to grab that one. They ended up keeping him as part of the family.

Admittedly, it is an emotional, perhaps irrational, and homer reaction - but my blood still boils as I remember watching all those people sitting outside the Superdome for, what, 5 days? No additional supplies - food, water, medicine. People, fellow American citizens, were dying and help wasn't coming. Our country has quicker responses to earthquakes in Turkey and typhoons in the Phillipines and as I think about this - I just get ******. Don't know who is to blame for that - just that it was an epic and shameful failure. The emotional cynic in me feels that this lack of response would never have happened in other cities in our country that had a lot more money. But that's an avenue I try not to go down.

If my life situation had been different (i.e., no kids), I probably would have moved back to the city I love and been a part of the rebuilding.

A really good read is Chris Rose's 1 Dead in Attic. http://www.amazon.com/1-Dead-Attic-After-Katrina/dp/1416552987/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1440782782&sr=1-1&keywords=1+dead+in+attic&pebp=1440782790102&perid=023EH1HHPA3ZT02HCS9G Highly recommended if you want to live through the aftermath of someone who was there.

help wasn't coming? We flew in every available helicopter sans 1 or 2 from each area and were pulling rescues off asap.

http://www.uscg.mil/history/katrina/katrinaindex.asp

keep in mind, the Coast Guard is just under 40k people total, and tallied 33,500 rescues immediately following the storm.

 

[fdas2]

Too bad they didn't have like a week to 10 day notice that a storm was heading their way. That may have helped.

We actually didn't.

Hurricane Katrina came ashore roughly at the border of Louisiana and Mississippi a little after 6 a.m. on Monday, August 29th 2005.

On the previous Friday, August 26th, the National Hurricane Center's (NHC) track for Katrina was squarely aimed between Pensacola and Destin, FL. Had Katrina hit that far east, the New Orleans area and Mississippi Gulf Coast would have been essentially spared. The NHC kept to that track until about 4 p.m. CDT 8/26/2005.

My family was living in Baton Rouge at the time, and my wife and daughter were in suburban N.O. visiting my in-laws. They had left Thursday afternoon and were to return Sunday night. I remember looking at the Katrina tracking maps from work that Friday afternoon and thinking "I think we'll be OK".

At 4 p.m. CDT 8/26/2005, the NHC shifted the projected path far westward, now predicting landfall just east of Pascagoula, MS (near the AL border). For those that follow hurricanes, that's a pretty big jump from one storm track prediction to the next.

The word of this storm track change would have gotten to people who watched the 5:00 and 6:00 p.m. newscasts ... but it was a Friday night, the Saints were hosting a preseason game that night, etc. A LOT of people missed that news that evening, and if they skipped the 10 p.m. news, they didn't see the new storm track until the next morning of Saturday 8/27/2005. So less than 48 hours before the Katrina hit, a lot of people were just learning that the predicted storm track was getting closer and closer to SE Louisiana.

I, myself, had watched the Saints game on TV in B.R. the previous night, and went to bed without checking the news or any weather websites. I thought, due to what I had seen that afternoon at work, that Louisiana was going to be in the clear.

The next morning, I got up early, checked out the news and online weather ... and "Holy Kee-rap!!!". The first mandatory evacuations of low-lying fishing communities and such started on Saturday morning, and the first voluntary evacuations of some of New Orleans' suburban parishes were at about the same time (voluntary evacuations for New Orleans proper would not begin until about 4 p.m., about 38 hours before landfall).

I called my wife, let her know I was coming to get her and our daughter, and left the apartment by 7 a.m. I got wife and kid packed and ready to return to B.R. by 9 a.m. By 10:45 or so, we were all back home in B.R.

I turn the tube on at home, and see the reports of awful gridlock on the same interstate (I-10) I had just used to make the hurried trip to N.O. and back. Had I left the apartment an hour later, it would've taken us several hours to get back to B.R. instead of 90 minutes. I was literally driving minutes ahead of a wholesale evacuation.

...

But, no, the timing of the news reports and tracking changes were most unfortunate. I bet a lot were like me, checked Katrina's status while at work, felt it would be OK for N.O., and left work to do whatever, and not giving Katrina a second thought that Friday night. For the vast majority of the people in and around New Orleans ... everything pretty much went down all of a sudden starting sometime on Saturday 8/27/2005.

I was living in Mobile at the time, and what I remember more than anything was going to bed that Saturday night and it was a Cat 3, then waking up and it had blown up to a Cat 5 in the span of 8 hours.

 

[rail]

i had well-settled into my life in Colo at that point. All I could do was sit back, watch the horror unfold on TV, and try and keep in touch with my family. My sisters and parents decided to evacuate Mandeville and Thibodeaux and got off very easy in comparison to a lot of others (downed trees, some roof damage).

One of my brother-in-laws and his Dad started taking their boat in to the city to rescue people. They worked for two straight days helping get people off of their roofs. For some reason, they could not take any pets on to the boats. I guess the thought-process was to make room for human lives over pets. Several sad stories of them getting older people on to the boat, weeping, as they left their yelping dogs behind on the roofs. Some people, upon finding out they could not take their pets, elected to stay right where they were. They saw pets swimming in the water, just trying to survive, and they couldn't do anything about it. When they came across a tiny Chihuahua struggling in the surge my BIL made a decision to grab that one. They ended up keeping him as part of the family.

Admittedly, it is an emotional, perhaps irrational, and homer reaction - but my blood still boils as I remember watching all those people sitting outside the Superdome for, what, 5 days? No additional supplies - food, water, medicine. People, fellow American citizens, were dying and help wasn't coming. Our country has quicker responses to earthquakes in Turkey and typhoons in the Phillipines and as I think about this - I just get ******. Don't know who is to blame for that - just that it was an epic and shameful failure. The emotional cynic in me feels that this lack of response would never have happened in other cities in our country that had a lot more money. But that's an avenue I try not to go down.

If my life situation had been different (i.e., no kids), I probably would have moved back to the city I love and been a part of the rebuilding.

A really good read is Chris Rose's 1 Dead in Attic. http://www.amazon.com/1-Dead-Attic-After-Katrina/dp/1416552987/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1440782782&sr=1-1&keywords=1+dead+in+attic&pebp=1440782790102&perid=023EH1HHPA3ZT02HCS9G Highly recommended if you want to live through the aftermath of someone who was there.

help wasn't coming? We flew in every available helicopter sans 1 or 2 from each area and were pulling rescues off asap.

http://www.uscg.mil/history/katrina/katrinaindex.asp

keep in mind, the Coast Guard is just under 40k people total, and tallied 33,500 rescues immediately following the storm.

Wasn't my intent to criticize the efforts of the Coast Guard and getting people off roofs right after the storm. My ire is directed at how people were stuck at the Superdome and Convention Center in deplorable conditions for days after the storm had passed.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-09-03-katrina-superdome_x.htm

Sorry, gb. I'm very grateful for what you did.

 

[Chadstroma]

...

But, no, the timing of the news reports and tracking changes were most unfortunate. I bet a lot were like me, checked Katrina's status while at work, felt it would be OK for N.O., and left work to do whatever, and not giving Katrina a second thought that Friday night. For the vast majority of the people in and around New Orleans ... everything pretty much went down all of a sudden starting sometime on Saturday 8/27/2005.

All I remember was watching the news for a week before with them talking about it hitting New Orleans. I remember watching a news cast the night before the storm hit where they had a reporter checking in along the coast talking about people leaving etc. There were two idiots out there and the reporter even asked them about leaving and their response was something along the lines of "Oh, no, we don't need to leave. It is a hurricane not the end of the world." kind of stupid bravado. I remember turning the tv off and angrily telling my girlfriend (future wife) how dumb these people were and they were the exact types that will end up needing to be rescued and wondering why it takes so long to get help.

Now, you obviously were paying attention and trying to make a good decision on whether to leave or not. I think the biggest failure started there- not having good plans (state and local) to evac and not being quicker to encourage evacs. It is always something that I viewed and the article I mentioned earlier cast more light on that. It is actually one of the things I found the most interesting in the Politico article in Brown basically finding brick walls with Nagin and the Gov in getting people to evac out ahead.

In fact, here, I did a google search instead of a search on Politico and found it... let me post....

 

[Chadstroma]

Politico is making it very hard to copy/paste, even more so at work right now... so... here is a link:

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/katrina-ten-years-later-michael-brown-121782

 

[ffldrew]

I remember Mayor Nagin complaining about the lack of Federal assistance after he failed to have the city properly evacuated. As far as I know, he is still in jail for corruption.

Governor Landrieu was an ineffective bump on a log.

Bush was slammed big time. The picture of him looking out the window of Air Force One while he flew over New Orleans was a massive gaffe.

The entire crisis was a complete cluster####.

Imagine the chaos that will ensue after the "Big One" hits the West coast.

Too bad they didn't have like a week to 10 day notice that a storm was heading their way. That may have helped.

The city pretty much survived the hurricane itself as people woke up to clear streets- and even the levees were never topped with the storm surge. It was the collapse of the levees/ under pilings that caused the majority of the problems(and I recall seeing video of a gate opening that failed somewhere near 9th ward). Turns out the failure was in how they were built - hard to blame the residents in the final analysis.

 

[Chadstroma]

I remember Mayor Nagin complaining about the lack of Federal assistance after he failed to have the city properly evacuated. As far as I know, he is still in jail for corruption.

Governor Landrieu was an ineffective bump on a log.

Bush was slammed big time. The picture of him looking out the window of Air Force One while he flew over New Orleans was a massive gaffe.

The entire crisis was a complete cluster####.

Imagine the chaos that will ensue after the "Big One" hits the West coast.

Too bad they didn't have like a week to 10 day notice that a storm was heading their way. That may have helped.

The city pretty much survived the hurricane itself as people woke up to clear streets- and even the levees were never topped with the storm surge. It was the collapse of the levees/ under pilings that caused the majority of the problems(and I recall seeing video of a gate opening that failed somewhere near 9th ward). Turns out the failure was in how they were built - hard to blame the residents in the final analysis.

No, I differ on that.

A big natural disaster is heading your way. You can either stay or leave. The obvious answer is to leave and get out of the way. Why? Because bad things happen when you have hurricanes or other natural disasters. How does the bad thing happen? Who knows- but bad things are likely to happen. You don't have to be Stephen Hawking to figure that out.

I have a very hard time having sympathy for people who make a conscious decision to stay in harms way.

 

[dparker713]

I remember Mayor Nagin complaining about the lack of Federal assistance after he failed to have the city properly evacuated. As far as I know, he is still in jail for corruption.

Governor Landrieu was an ineffective bump on a log.

Bush was slammed big time. The picture of him looking out the window of Air Force One while he flew over New Orleans was a massive gaffe.

The entire crisis was a complete cluster####.

Imagine the chaos that will ensue after the "Big One" hits the West coast.

Too bad they didn't have like a week to 10 day notice that a storm was heading their way. That may have helped.

The city pretty much survived the hurricane itself as people woke up to clear streets- and even the levees were never topped with the storm surge. It was the collapse of the levees/ under pilings that caused the majority of the problems(and I recall seeing video of a gate opening that failed somewhere near 9th ward). Turns out the failure was in how they were built - hard to blame the residents in the final analysis.

Turns out? Problems with the levees were known for decades.

 

[Doug B]

I was living in Mobile at the time, and what I remember more than anything was going to bed that Saturday night and it was a Cat 3, then waking up and it had blown up to a Cat 5 in the span of 8 hours.

Yep, things were changing quickly. After it got to Cat 5, it quickly weakened back to a Cat 3 before landfall.

That is one of the misconceptions about Katrina specifically and hurricanes in general: (a) that Katrina was an especially powerful hurricane and (b) that higher category number, in and of itself, equals higher levels of damage. Counterintuitively, neither is true.

 

[Todd Andrews]

i had well-settled into my life in Colo at that point. All I could do was sit back, watch the horror unfold on TV, and try and keep in touch with my family. My sisters and parents decided to evacuate Mandeville and Thibodeaux and got off very easy in comparison to a lot of others (downed trees, some roof damage).

One of my brother-in-laws and his Dad started taking their boat in to the city to rescue people. They worked for two straight days helping get people off of their roofs. For some reason, they could not take any pets on to the boats. I guess the thought-process was to make room for human lives over pets. Several sad stories of them getting older people on to the boat, weeping, as they left their yelping dogs behind on the roofs. Some people, upon finding out they could not take their pets, elected to stay right where they were. They saw pets swimming in the water, just trying to survive, and they couldn't do anything about it. When they came across a tiny Chihuahua struggling in the surge my BIL made a decision to grab that one. They ended up keeping him as part of the family.

Admittedly, it is an emotional, perhaps irrational, and homer reaction - but my blood still boils as I remember watching all those people sitting outside the Superdome for, what, 5 days? No additional supplies - food, water, medicine. People, fellow American citizens, were dying and help wasn't coming. Our country has quicker responses to earthquakes in Turkey and typhoons in the Phillipines and as I think about this - I just get ******. Don't know who is to blame for that - just that it was an epic and shameful failure. The emotional cynic in me feels that this lack of response would never have happened in other cities in our country that had a lot more money. But that's an avenue I try not to go down.

If my life situation had been different (i.e., no kids), I probably would have moved back to the city I love and been a part of the rebuilding.

A really good read is Chris Rose's 1 Dead in Attic. http://www.amazon.com/1-Dead-Attic-After-Katrina/dp/1416552987/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1440782782&sr=1-1&keywords=1+dead+in+attic&pebp=1440782790102&perid=023EH1HHPA3ZT02HCS9G Highly recommended if you want to live through the aftermath of someone who was there.

Chris Rose is a friend of mine and that is a great read. I felt much the way you did and do. We have inlaws who were able to evacuate early with us and I almost punched through my TV screen many times over that first week.

 

[Todd Andrews]

I remember Mayor Nagin complaining about the lack of Federal assistance after he failed to have the city properly evacuated. As far as I know, he is still in jail for corruption.

Governor Landrieu was an ineffective bump on a log.

Bush was slammed big time. The picture of him looking out the window of Air Force One while he flew over New Orleans was a massive gaffe.

The entire crisis was a complete cluster####.

Imagine the chaos that will ensue after the "Big One" hits the West coast.

Too bad they didn't have like a week to 10 day notice that a storm was heading their way. That may have helped.

New Orleans actually evacuated more people than it ever had for Katrina, and as many as every evacuation plan had ever estimated could be evacuated. You dont know what you are talking about.

 

[Doug B]

I have a very hard time having sympathy for people who make a conscious decision to stay in harms way.

I give the people who stayed something of a pass on this, because hindsight is 20/20. I recall the history of hurricane evacuations between Betsy in 1965 and Katrina (wasn't alive for Betsy, but was school age for hurricanes like Bob (1979), Danny and Elena (both 1985)).

The fact is, before Georges in 1998, locals were encouraged to shelter in place. Staying and "toughing it out" might sound stupid in hindsight, but that strategy had worked just fine for decades -- heck, people didn't evacuate for Betsy as it was. Georges was the first time in my life that local officials called for a voluntary evacuation of areas not lying directly on the Gulf or mouth of the Mississippi river. My wife and I did leave town in advance of Georges, but most people we knew stayed behind. George ended up veering east, and not being all that strong in the end. People talked about hurricane parties, barbecuing in the streets after Georges' belts of bad weather passed, and it became something of a comedic meme on local radio**

So, going into the weekend watch of Katrina on 8/26-8/28/2005, a lot of that same ethic was still pervasive. A lot of people did leave voluntarily ... more than I had ever seen by a mile. But the people that stayed behind could point to years of successful sheltering in place, and the false alarm of Georges (and who wanted to sit up in the Dome for 48 hours if they didn't need to?). Some people also worried about property and belongings (remember, don't use hindsight) in a nearly-empty city.

By the time Ray Nagin got on the air and got serious about evacuating New Orleans (recall, late Saturday afternoon on 8/27/2005), evacuees from other parishes had filled the roads. People leaving New Orleans that late were getting word that they'd be driving 6-10 hours just to get places like Baton Rouge or McComb, MS. Waiting until the middle of the night for it all to die down a little seemed like a good idea. That led to people cutting their evacuations very close, and generally scrambling to make it happen at all.

For the many New Orleanians that didn't own cars, or have family that could transport them, the situation was fairly hopeless. There was no plan at all for people who could not evacuate themselves. People may recall the famous photos of schools buses parked in Katrina floodwaters at various sites in Orleans Parish. There was no thought in advance of mobilizing those buses and drivers ... the call to leave was felt to be enough (this was rectified for the better in advance of Hurricane Gustav three years later).

** People sheltered in the Superdome for Georges, too, and there were many complaints made on the local news about the food and conditions. Some of the complaints were delivered in an overemotional manner that, at the time, we could afford to laugh at when local DJs played them for yucks.

 

[Doug B]

Turns out? Problems with the levees were known for decades.

Problems with the inspections of levees were certainly known and shrugged off for decades. But the levees and floodwalls had been tested many times since Betsy (1965), and the flooding of Betsy had never repeated due to a hurricane (localized flooding of canals, etc. after heavy rains cropped up every few years or so).

Since the early 1960s, the Army Corps of Engineers and private oil and gas exploration companies had cut ship channels and barge channels of various depths and lengths throughout the wetlands southeast of the city -- the most notorious being the Corps of Engineers' Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MRGO). The negative effects of all this rutting of the wetlands was twofold: (a) it led to erosion and deterioration of marshland that had historically served to weaken incoming hurricanes, and (b) the channels allowed storm surge to much more easily get at the city, demonstrated most dramatically at the breaches of the Industrial Canal floodwall on western edge of New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward.

Therefore, going into 2005, the levees and floodwalls were vulnerable to taking on loads greater than they were originally designed for. And yes, the inspections by local agencies were lax (inspections were normally excuses to get together for lavish lunches after a quick levee drive-by). I would still say, though, that the inability of the levee system to stand up to a Cat 3 hurricane's storm surge at the time of Katrina was still an unknown. I can't argue with anyone saying it should have been known, though -- and there were locals banging that drum. But the fixes were too expensive and politically complicated, and without a Katrina fresh in people's minds, consensus and urgency were both hard to come by.

 

[Xavier L. Steele]

The Bush Administration was blamed for Katrina?

Bush is blamed for everything, including things like the Civil War, Hindenburg disaster, the second Star Wars trilogy.

I liked the second Star Wars trilogy.. I didnt even think Jar Jar was that bad.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

I remember Mayor Nagin complaining about the lack of Federal assistance after he failed to have the city properly evacuated. As far as I know, he is still in jail for corruption.

Governor Landrieu was an ineffective bump on a log.

Bush was slammed big time. The picture of him looking out the window of Air Force One while he flew over New Orleans was a massive gaffe.

The entire crisis was a complete cluster####.

Imagine the chaos that will ensue after the "Big One" hits the West coast.

Too bad they didn't have like a week to 10 day notice that a storm was heading their way. That may have helped.

The city pretty much survived the hurricane itself as people woke up to clear streets- and even the levees were never topped with the storm surge. It was the collapse of the levees/ under pilings that caused the majority of the problems(and I recall seeing video of a gate opening that failed somewhere near 9th ward). Turns out the failure was in how they were built - hard to blame the residents in the final analysis.

Turns out? Problems with the levees were known for decades.

No they were not. The levees were underdesigned and underbuilt, that fact came out after the storm. There are federal ACOE engineers who should be in jail.

 

[Henry Ford]

I remember Mayor Nagin complaining about the lack of Federal assistance after he failed to have the city properly evacuated. As far as I know, he is still in jail for corruption.

Governor Landrieu was an ineffective bump on a log.

Bush was slammed big time. The picture of him looking out the window of Air Force One while he flew over New Orleans was a massive gaffe.

The entire crisis was a complete cluster####.

Imagine the chaos that will ensue after the "Big One" hits the West coast.

Too bad they didn't have like a week to 10 day notice that a storm was heading their way. That may have helped.

The city pretty much survived the hurricane itself as people woke up to clear streets- and even the levees were never topped with the storm surge. It was the collapse of the levees/ under pilings that caused the majority of the problems(and I recall seeing video of a gate opening that failed somewhere near 9th ward). Turns out the failure was in how they were built - hard to blame the residents in the final analysis.

Turns out? Problems with the levees were known for decades.

No they were not. The levees were underdesigned and underbuilt, that fact came out after the storm. There are federal ACOE engineers who should be in jail.

The problems were known by people whose job it was to fix stuff like that for decades. The general public just didn't know.

 

[eoMMan]

I didn't know the city was under sea level until after Katrina.

 

[The Big Guy]

I read on Politco phone ap yesterday and article written by Michael Brown titled something along the lines of "Stop Blaming Me". It was very interesting and certainly a fresh perspective from the guy who gets the biggest share of blame (I always thought too much but after the article may have even assigned him too much blame too).

I went on Politico to copy/paste it here but for the life of me I can not find it right now.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/katrina-ten-years-later-michael-brown-121782

4 pqges, so no wall of text paste job here

 

[ragincajun]

10 years today, my wife's entire family lost everything. Let me say that again. EVERYTHING. The immediate family lost 3 houses that were paid for. No loss of life which is the most important thing, but they had to start over from scratch. Luckily my in laws had hurricane insurance and the Grandfather was fairly well off. If not for those two things life would have been much rockier.

I haven't brought myself to watch this documentary yet but figured I would post for those interested.

http://video.aptv.org/video/2365552604/

 

[Smack Tripper]

I read on Politco phone ap yesterday and article written by Michael Brown titled something along the lines of "Stop Blaming Me". It was very interesting and certainly a fresh perspective from the guy who gets the biggest share of blame (I always thought too much but after the article may have even assigned him too much blame too).

I went on Politico to copy/paste it here but for the life of me I can not find it right now.

He took a patronage job in a department or agency whatever you call it, that was something that shouid have been beyond politics. It was clear that he as a head didn't know what he was doing so how can we have faith in the team he assembled. We can blame bush for the appointment too I suppose but he had the avarice to accept an executive role he was patently unqualified for. He gets what he gets.

Did you find the article and read it?

I just did and while I have greater sympathy for him on a personal level, I stand by my comments and I submit that his lack of experience. That is a job, that in my opinions some sort of operational and logistical leadership, not a lawyer who ran the horse committee for a decade. To cite 30 year old experience where he might have made calls for a small town is laughable. He was a political appointee.

So he does get brownie points for the response to the prior year disasters but as he says in the article, the government is slow to act and react so can I give HIM credit for the response structure in his years on the job?

He lacked the gravitas to get things done, probably because people percieved him differently than they would have a military, law enforcement or other emergency responder who might seem better equipped to map out a game plan. I would be personally embarrassed to abdicate that much responsibility as he is in this article.

Because the fact remains, the issue I take is not the hurricane nor the levees, one of which is in gods hands and one of which is in the realm of the CoE. The response and mobilization after the fact left much to be desired IMO.

However, the telling element, being not versed with FEMA, and being an organization who I had conceived as being an apolitical entity with a sterling reputation prior to Katrina (and I'm CERTAIN I'm WRONG about that at least on a micro level, nothing or no one is flawless). But for the most part, they were responsive and politics weren't part of it so hearing the Lott stuff is just disgusting to me based on a population impact level.

But I thought it was good information and insight that the "war on terror" warped FEMA protocols and left them unprepared for the frankly, more likely disasters we are to experience. That was good stuff and should be corrected if it hasn't been.

 

[timschochet]

Good info here from Doug B and others.

 

[Chadstroma]

I read on Politco phone ap yesterday and article written by Michael Brown titled something along the lines of "Stop Blaming Me". It was very interesting and certainly a fresh perspective from the guy who gets the biggest share of blame (I always thought too much but after the article may have even assigned him too much blame too).

I went on Politico to copy/paste it here but for the life of me I can not find it right now.

He took a patronage job in a department or agency whatever you call it, that was something that shouid have been beyond politics. It was clear that he as a head didn't know what he was doing so how can we have faith in the team he assembled. We can blame bush for the appointment too I suppose but he had the avarice to accept an executive role he was patently unqualified for. He gets what he gets.

Did you find the article and read it?

I just did and while I have greater sympathy for him on a personal level, I stand by my comments and I submit that his lack of experience. That is a job, that in my opinions some sort of operational and logistical leadership, not a lawyer who ran the horse committee for a decade. To cite 30 year old experience where he might have made calls for a small town is laughable. He was a political appointee.

So he does get brownie points for the response to the prior year disasters but as he says in the article, the government is slow to act and react so can I give HIM credit for the response structure in his years on the job?

He lacked the gravitas to get things done, probably because people percieved him differently than they would have a military, law enforcement or other emergency responder who might seem better equipped to map out a game plan. I would be personally embarrassed to abdicate that much responsibility as he is in this article.

Because the fact remains, the issue I take is not the hurricane nor the levees, one of which is in gods hands and one of which is in the realm of the CoE. The response and mobilization after the fact left much to be desired IMO.

However, the telling element, being not versed with FEMA, and being an organization who I had conceived as being an apolitical entity with a sterling reputation prior to Katrina (and I'm CERTAIN I'm WRONG about that at least on a micro level, nothing or no one is flawless). But for the most part, they were responsive and politics weren't part of it so hearing the Lott stuff is just disgusting to me based on a population impact level.

But I thought it was good information and insight that the "war on terror" warped FEMA protocols and left them unprepared for the frankly, more likely disasters we are to experience. That was good stuff and should be corrected if it hasn't been.

"brownie points" I see what you did there.

For me, it is not so much as having personal sympathy for him. For me, it is about a perspective that was completely blacked out. A lot of the narrative that we heard then and is carried on now is about how Katrina was basically Bush and Brown's fault. This was crafted in political and news considerations and really misses the whole picture. That is not saying there were out right failures and further not saying that Brown was the man for the job- though the politics, bureacracy and laws involved I really don't think anyone from a military, first responder etc background would have faired much better.

As I have said before, the real main problem is the disaster itself. The nature of a hurricane followed by flooding is that it is widespread. It knocks out your logistics. You then have to make decisions and prioritize how you react. You can not cause more harm or end up having rescuers in a situation where they must be rescued. You can't just send trucks in to help people- you have to make sure that they are properly equipped to sustain the rescuers and to get back. So, how do you instantly get supplies to the Superdome? Fly in helicopters? What kind of chaos would happen if you fly in a helicopter that is carrying water (limited to what it can carry which would not be all that much)? People would be fighting over that water and likely people would also rush the helicopter to get on- how do you manage that?

The Lott thing pissed me off too. One thing that I think gave credence to Brown in writing the article is that it did not seem to be partisan. Now, obviously, his whole argument is to stop blaming him so it is not like he does not have a biased agenda here but it surely did not seem political and everything he brought up in my mind seems believable and credible. Nothing stuck out as 'yea, that seems far fetched' or that he is playing loose with the truth for him to be in a better light.

There are a whole lot of points brought up that honestly never were in the aftermath. Mostly because they did not serve the political and media agendas of those pushing the narrative that was about tearing Bush down. Bush approval rating was around 50ish before Katrina and Katrina was a narrative (along with continued disapproval over Iraq) that dragged his approval numbers down and never really recovered. Democrats had a real reason for this and the media has investment in giving a story of 'government failure' over detailed and rational review of what worked and did not work, could have been done better and lessons learned.

In the end, I think too many people don't have a realistic understanding of the capabilities of government to 'save' them in a crisis like this and coupled with the political and media agendas painting one part of a picture there is massive misunderstanding of what reality is.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

I remember Mayor Nagin complaining about the lack of Federal assistance after he failed to have the city properly evacuated. As far as I know, he is still in jail for corruption.

Governor Landrieu was an ineffective bump on a log.

Bush was slammed big time. The picture of him looking out the window of Air Force One while he flew over New Orleans was a massive gaffe.

The entire crisis was a complete cluster####.

Imagine the chaos that will ensue after the "Big One" hits the West coast.

Too bad they didn't have like a week to 10 day notice that a storm was heading their way. That may have helped.

The city pretty much survived the hurricane itself as people woke up to clear streets- and even the levees were never topped with the storm surge. It was the collapse of the levees/ under pilings that caused the majority of the problems(and I recall seeing video of a gate opening that failed somewhere near 9th ward). Turns out the failure was in how they were built - hard to blame the residents in the final analysis.

Turns out? Problems with the levees were known for decades.

No they were not. The levees were underdesigned and underbuilt, that fact came out after the storm. There are federal ACOE engineers who should be in jail.

The problems were known by people whose job it was to fix stuff like that for decades. The general public just didn't know.

Amen to that.

 

[Henry Ford]

I read on Politco phone ap yesterday and article written by Michael Brown titled something along the lines of "Stop Blaming Me". It was very interesting and certainly a fresh perspective from the guy who gets the biggest share of blame (I always thought too much but after the article may have even assigned him too much blame too).

I went on Politico to copy/paste it here but for the life of me I can not find it right now.

He took a patronage job in a department or agency whatever you call it, that was something that shouid have been beyond politics. It was clear that he as a head didn't know what he was doing so how can we have faith in the team he assembled. We can blame bush for the appointment too I suppose but he had the avarice to accept an executive role he was patently unqualified for. He gets what he gets.

Did you find the article and read it?

I just did and while I have greater sympathy for him on a personal level, I stand by my comments and I submit that his lack of experience. That is a job, that in my opinions some sort of operational and logistical leadership, not a lawyer who ran the horse committee for a decade. To cite 30 year old experience where he might have made calls for a small town is laughable. He was a political appointee.So he does get brownie points for the response to the prior year disasters but as he says in the article, the government is slow to act and react so can I give HIM credit for the response structure in his years on the job?

He lacked the gravitas to get things done, probably because people percieved him differently than they would have a military, law enforcement or other emergency responder who might seem better equipped to map out a game plan. I would be personally embarrassed to abdicate that much responsibility as he is in this article.

Because the fact remains, the issue I take is not the hurricane nor the levees, one of which is in gods hands and one of which is in the realm of the CoE. The response and mobilization after the fact left much to be desired IMO.

However, the telling element, being not versed with FEMA, and being an organization who I had conceived as being an apolitical entity with a sterling reputation prior to Katrina (and I'm CERTAIN I'm WRONG about that at least on a micro level, nothing or no one is flawless). But for the most part, they were responsive and politics weren't part of it so hearing the Lott stuff is just disgusting to me based on a population impact level.

But I thought it was good information and insight that the "war on terror" warped FEMA protocols and left them unprepared for the frankly, more likely disasters we are to experience. That was good stuff and should be corrected if it hasn't been.

"brownie points" I see what you did there.For me, it is not so much as having personal sympathy for him. For me, it is about a perspective that was completely blacked out. A lot of the narrative that we heard then and is carried on now is about how Katrina was basically Bush and Brown's fault. This was crafted in political and news considerations and really misses the whole picture. That is not saying there were out right failures and further not saying that Brown was the man for the job- though the politics, bureacracy and laws involved I really don't think anyone from a military, first responder etc background would have faired much better.

As I have said before, the real main problem is the disaster itself. The nature of a hurricane followed by flooding is that it is widespread. It knocks out your logistics. You then have to make decisions and prioritize how you react. You can not cause more harm or end up having rescuers in a situation where they must be rescued. You can't just send trucks in to help people- you have to make sure that they are properly equipped to sustain the rescuers and to get back. So, how do you instantly get supplies to the Superdome? Fly in helicopters? What kind of chaos would happen if you fly in a helicopter that is carrying water (limited to what it can carry which would not be all that much)? People would be fighting over that water and likely people would also rush the helicopter to get on- how do you manage that?

The Lott thing pissed me off too. One thing that I think gave credence to Brown in writing the article is that it did not seem to be partisan. Now, obviously, his whole argument is to stop blaming him so it is not like he does not have a biased agenda here but it surely did not seem political and everything he brought up in my mind seems believable and credible. Nothing stuck out as 'yea, that seems far fetched' or that he is playing loose with the truth for him to be in a better light.

There are a whole lot of points brought up that honestly never were in the aftermath. Mostly because they did not serve the political and media agendas of those pushing the narrative that was about tearing Bush down. Bush approval rating was around 50ish before Katrina and Katrina was a narrative (along with continued disapproval over Iraq) that dragged his approval numbers down and never really recovered. Democrats had a real reason for this and the media has investment in giving a story of 'government failure' over detailed and rational review of what worked and did not work, could have been done better and lessons learned.

In the end, I think too many people don't have a realistic understanding of the capabilities of government to 'save' them in a crisis like this and coupled with the political and media agendas painting one part of a picture there is massive misunderstanding of what reality is.

Sorry, is your suggestion that we can target a compact car from a satellite in space and drop a missile on it from a drone with precision, but that getting a case of dasani to the Superdome without losing a helicopter is beyond the ability of the U.S. Government?

 

[Henry Ford]

I mean, I know FEMA was awful at figuring out its capabilities at the time, but isn't that the point of the criticism? Capability means more than "what you are already ready to do." The capabilities of the government and its agencies go far beyond the already-created contingency plans and best-case scenarios.

 

[Chadstroma]

I read on Politco phone ap yesterday and article written by Michael Brown titled something along the lines of "Stop Blaming Me". It was very interesting and certainly a fresh perspective from the guy who gets the biggest share of blame (I always thought too much but after the article may have even assigned him too much blame too).

I went on Politico to copy/paste it here but for the life of me I can not find it right now.

He took a patronage job in a department or agency whatever you call it, that was something that shouid have been beyond politics. It was clear that he as a head didn't know what he was doing so how can we have faith in the team he assembled. We can blame bush for the appointment too I suppose but he had the avarice to accept an executive role he was patently unqualified for. He gets what he gets.

Did you find the article and read it?

I just did and while I have greater sympathy for him on a personal level, I stand by my comments and I submit that his lack of experience. That is a job, that in my opinions some sort of operational and logistical leadership, not a lawyer who ran the horse committee for a decade. To cite 30 year old experience where he might have made calls for a small town is laughable. He was a political appointee.So he does get brownie points for the response to the prior year disasters but as he says in the article, the government is slow to act and react so can I give HIM credit for the response structure in his years on the job?

He lacked the gravitas to get things done, probably because people percieved him differently than they would have a military, law enforcement or other emergency responder who might seem better equipped to map out a game plan. I would be personally embarrassed to abdicate that much responsibility as he is in this article.

Because the fact remains, the issue I take is not the hurricane nor the levees, one of which is in gods hands and one of which is in the realm of the CoE. The response and mobilization after the fact left much to be desired IMO.

However, the telling element, being not versed with FEMA, and being an organization who I had conceived as being an apolitical entity with a sterling reputation prior to Katrina (and I'm CERTAIN I'm WRONG about that at least on a micro level, nothing or no one is flawless). But for the most part, they were responsive and politics weren't part of it so hearing the Lott stuff is just disgusting to me based on a population impact level.

But I thought it was good information and insight that the "war on terror" warped FEMA protocols and left them unprepared for the frankly, more likely disasters we are to experience. That was good stuff and should be corrected if it hasn't been.

"brownie points" I see what you did there.For me, it is not so much as having personal sympathy for him. For me, it is about a perspective that was completely blacked out. A lot of the narrative that we heard then and is carried on now is about how Katrina was basically Bush and Brown's fault. This was crafted in political and news considerations and really misses the whole picture. That is not saying there were out right failures and further not saying that Brown was the man for the job- though the politics, bureacracy and laws involved I really don't think anyone from a military, first responder etc background would have faired much better.

As I have said before, the real main problem is the disaster itself. The nature of a hurricane followed by flooding is that it is widespread. It knocks out your logistics. You then have to make decisions and prioritize how you react. You can not cause more harm or end up having rescuers in a situation where they must be rescued. You can't just send trucks in to help people- you have to make sure that they are properly equipped to sustain the rescuers and to get back. So, how do you instantly get supplies to the Superdome? Fly in helicopters? What kind of chaos would happen if you fly in a helicopter that is carrying water (limited to what it can carry which would not be all that much)? People would be fighting over that water and likely people would also rush the helicopter to get on- how do you manage that?

The Lott thing pissed me off too. One thing that I think gave credence to Brown in writing the article is that it did not seem to be partisan. Now, obviously, his whole argument is to stop blaming him so it is not like he does not have a biased agenda here but it surely did not seem political and everything he brought up in my mind seems believable and credible. Nothing stuck out as 'yea, that seems far fetched' or that he is playing loose with the truth for him to be in a better light.

There are a whole lot of points brought up that honestly never were in the aftermath. Mostly because they did not serve the political and media agendas of those pushing the narrative that was about tearing Bush down. Bush approval rating was around 50ish before Katrina and Katrina was a narrative (along with continued disapproval over Iraq) that dragged his approval numbers down and never really recovered. Democrats had a real reason for this and the media has investment in giving a story of 'government failure' over detailed and rational review of what worked and did not work, could have been done better and lessons learned.

In the end, I think too many people don't have a realistic understanding of the capabilities of government to 'save' them in a crisis like this and coupled with the political and media agendas painting one part of a picture there is massive misunderstanding of what reality is.

Sorry, is your suggestion that we can target a compact car from a satellite in space and drop a missile on it from a drone with precision, but that getting a case of dasani to the Superdome without losing a helicopter is beyond the ability of the U.S. Government?

It is not the helicopter to the Superdome. It is essentialy crowd control once you do.

You had how many people there? A limited amount of delivery of a scarce resource like drinkable water to a lot of thirsty people... you think they are going to get in line and patiently wait their turn? Or do you think people will fight for it? Likewise, you don't think people would rush the helicopter to get on to get out of the mess? What do you do then? Shoot them?

 

[Smack Tripper]

I read on Politco phone ap yesterday and article written by Michael Brown titled something along the lines of "Stop Blaming Me". It was very interesting and certainly a fresh perspective from the guy who gets the biggest share of blame (I always thought too much but after the article may have even assigned him too much blame too).

I went on Politico to copy/paste it here but for the life of me I can not find it right now.

He took a patronage job in a department or agency whatever you call it, that was something that shouid have been beyond politics. It was clear that he as a head didn't know what he was doing so how can we have faith in the team he assembled. We can blame bush for the appointment too I suppose but he had the avarice to accept an executive role he was patently unqualified for. He gets what he gets.

Did you find the article and read it?

I just did and while I have greater sympathy for him on a personal level, I stand by my comments and I submit that his lack of experience. That is a job, that in my opinions some sort of operational and logistical leadership, not a lawyer who ran the horse committee for a decade. To cite 30 year old experience where he might have made calls for a small town is laughable. He was a political appointee.So he does get brownie points for the response to the prior year disasters but as he says in the article, the government is slow to act and react so can I give HIM credit for the response structure in his years on the job?

He lacked the gravitas to get things done, probably because people percieved him differently than they would have a military, law enforcement or other emergency responder who might seem better equipped to map out a game plan. I would be personally embarrassed to abdicate that much responsibility as he is in this article.

Because the fact remains, the issue I take is not the hurricane nor the levees, one of which is in gods hands and one of which is in the realm of the CoE. The response and mobilization after the fact left much to be desired IMO.

However, the telling element, being not versed with FEMA, and being an organization who I had conceived as being an apolitical entity with a sterling reputation prior to Katrina (and I'm CERTAIN I'm WRONG about that at least on a micro level, nothing or no one is flawless). But for the most part, they were responsive and politics weren't part of it so hearing the Lott stuff is just disgusting to me based on a population impact level.

But I thought it was good information and insight that the "war on terror" warped FEMA protocols and left them unprepared for the frankly, more likely disasters we are to experience. That was good stuff and should be corrected if it hasn't been.

"brownie points" I see what you did there.For me, it is not so much as having personal sympathy for him. For me, it is about a perspective that was completely blacked out. A lot of the narrative that we heard then and is carried on now is about how Katrina was basically Bush and Brown's fault. This was crafted in political and news considerations and really misses the whole picture. That is not saying there were out right failures and further not saying that Brown was the man for the job- though the politics, bureacracy and laws involved I really don't think anyone from a military, first responder etc background would have faired much better.

As I have said before, the real main problem is the disaster itself. The nature of a hurricane followed by flooding is that it is widespread. It knocks out your logistics. You then have to make decisions and prioritize how you react. You can not cause more harm or end up having rescuers in a situation where they must be rescued. You can't just send trucks in to help people- you have to make sure that they are properly equipped to sustain the rescuers and to get back. So, how do you instantly get supplies to the Superdome? Fly in helicopters? What kind of chaos would happen if you fly in a helicopter that is carrying water (limited to what it can carry which would not be all that much)? People would be fighting over that water and likely people would also rush the helicopter to get on- how do you manage that?

The Lott thing pissed me off too. One thing that I think gave credence to Brown in writing the article is that it did not seem to be partisan. Now, obviously, his whole argument is to stop blaming him so it is not like he does not have a biased agenda here but it surely did not seem political and everything he brought up in my mind seems believable and credible. Nothing stuck out as 'yea, that seems far fetched' or that he is playing loose with the truth for him to be in a better light.

There are a whole lot of points brought up that honestly never were in the aftermath. Mostly because they did not serve the political and media agendas of those pushing the narrative that was about tearing Bush down. Bush approval rating was around 50ish before Katrina and Katrina was a narrative (along with continued disapproval over Iraq) that dragged his approval numbers down and never really recovered. Democrats had a real reason for this and the media has investment in giving a story of 'government failure' over detailed and rational review of what worked and did not work, could have been done better and lessons learned.

In the end, I think too many people don't have a realistic understanding of the capabilities of government to 'save' them in a crisis like this and coupled with the political and media agendas painting one part of a picture there is massive misunderstanding of what reality is.

Sorry, is your suggestion that we can target a compact car from a satellite in space and drop a missile on it from a drone with precision, but that getting a case of dasani to the Superdome without losing a helicopter is beyond the ability of the U.S. Government?

It is not the helicopter to the Superdome. It is essentialy crowd control once you do.You had how many people there? A limited amount of delivery of a scarce resource like drinkable water to a lot of thirsty people... you think they are going to get in line and patiently wait their turn? Or do you think people will fight for it? Likewise, you don't think people would rush the helicopter to get on to get out of the mess? What do you do then? Shoot them?

I've been to Nola once so pardon my ignorance but doesn't the lake ponchatrain causeway lead straight into the super dome? Or was the access on the main land flooded

 

[cstu]

I think you raise some excellent points here.

Frankly I don't like the notion that ten years later nothing has been done to stop the next one from doing so much damage. Is that really true? Is New Orleans a ticking time bomb?

. So much has been done, but we won't ever be completely safe. No coastal city is BTW....see also hurricane Sandy.

New York wasn't protected the way NO is now. Still, you're right that the city will never be 100% safe.

The West Closure Complex is part of the $14.5 billion the Corps is spending on fortifications to protect some 900,000 people living in the toe-tip of Louisiana. That's almost as much as the cost of a new nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.

The ring of protection around New Orleans is a vast improvement over the old system of federal levees and flood walls that failed catastrophically during Katrina. In the past decade, the Corps has paid to strengthen 350 miles of hurricane barriers and built massive new flood gates using better construction materials and more advanced computer storm modeling. They've also updated pumping stations that are essential to de-water a flooded city.

 

[Henry Ford]

I read on Politco phone ap yesterday and article written by Michael Brown titled something along the lines of "Stop Blaming Me". It was very interesting and certainly a fresh perspective from the guy who gets the biggest share of blame (I always thought too much but after the article may have even assigned him too much blame too).

I went on Politico to copy/paste it here but for the life of me I can not find it right now.

He took a patronage job in a department or agency whatever you call it, that was something that shouid have been beyond politics. It was clear that he as a head didn't know what he was doing so how can we have faith in the team he assembled. We can blame bush for the appointment too I suppose but he had the avarice to accept an executive role he was patently unqualified for. He gets what he gets.

Did you find the article and read it?

I just did and while I have greater sympathy for him on a personal level, I stand by my comments and I submit that his lack of experience. That is a job, that in my opinions some sort of operational and logistical leadership, not a lawyer who ran the horse committee for a decade. To cite 30 year old experience where he might have made calls for a small town is laughable. He was a political appointee.So he does get brownie points for the response to the prior year disasters but as he says in the article, the government is slow to act and react so can I give HIM credit for the response structure in his years on the job?

He lacked the gravitas to get things done, probably because people percieved him differently than they would have a military, law enforcement or other emergency responder who might seem better equipped to map out a game plan. I would be personally embarrassed to abdicate that much responsibility as he is in this article.

Because the fact remains, the issue I take is not the hurricane nor the levees, one of which is in gods hands and one of which is in the realm of the CoE. The response and mobilization after the fact left much to be desired IMO.

However, the telling element, being not versed with FEMA, and being an organization who I had conceived as being an apolitical entity with a sterling reputation prior to Katrina (and I'm CERTAIN I'm WRONG about that at least on a micro level, nothing or no one is flawless). But for the most part, they were responsive and politics weren't part of it so hearing the Lott stuff is just disgusting to me based on a population impact level.

But I thought it was good information and insight that the "war on terror" warped FEMA protocols and left them unprepared for the frankly, more likely disasters we are to experience. That was good stuff and should be corrected if it hasn't been.

"brownie points" I see what you did there.For me, it is not so much as having personal sympathy for him. For me, it is about a perspective that was completely blacked out. A lot of the narrative that we heard then and is carried on now is about how Katrina was basically Bush and Brown's fault. This was crafted in political and news considerations and really misses the whole picture. That is not saying there were out right failures and further not saying that Brown was the man for the job- though the politics, bureacracy and laws involved I really don't think anyone from a military, first responder etc background would have faired much better.

As I have said before, the real main problem is the disaster itself. The nature of a hurricane followed by flooding is that it is widespread. It knocks out your logistics. You then have to make decisions and prioritize how you react. You can not cause more harm or end up having rescuers in a situation where they must be rescued. You can't just send trucks in to help people- you have to make sure that they are properly equipped to sustain the rescuers and to get back. So, how do you instantly get supplies to the Superdome? Fly in helicopters? What kind of chaos would happen if you fly in a helicopter that is carrying water (limited to what it can carry which would not be all that much)? People would be fighting over that water and likely people would also rush the helicopter to get on- how do you manage that?

The Lott thing pissed me off too. One thing that I think gave credence to Brown in writing the article is that it did not seem to be partisan. Now, obviously, his whole argument is to stop blaming him so it is not like he does not have a biased agenda here but it surely did not seem political and everything he brought up in my mind seems believable and credible. Nothing stuck out as 'yea, that seems far fetched' or that he is playing loose with the truth for him to be in a better light.

There are a whole lot of points brought up that honestly never were in the aftermath. Mostly because they did not serve the political and media agendas of those pushing the narrative that was about tearing Bush down. Bush approval rating was around 50ish before Katrina and Katrina was a narrative (along with continued disapproval over Iraq) that dragged his approval numbers down and never really recovered. Democrats had a real reason for this and the media has investment in giving a story of 'government failure' over detailed and rational review of what worked and did not work, could have been done better and lessons learned.

In the end, I think too many people don't have a realistic understanding of the capabilities of government to 'save' them in a crisis like this and coupled with the political and media agendas painting one part of a picture there is massive misunderstanding of what reality is.

Sorry, is your suggestion that we can target a compact car from a satellite in space and drop a missile on it from a drone with precision, but that getting a case of dasani to the Superdome without losing a helicopter is beyond the ability of the U.S. Government?

It is not the helicopter to the Superdome. It is essentialy crowd control once you do.You had how many people there? A limited amount of delivery of a scarce resource like drinkable water to a lot of thirsty people... you think they are going to get in line and patiently wait their turn? Or do you think people will fight for it? Likewise, you don't think people would rush the helicopter to get on to get out of the mess? What do you do then? Shoot them?

I wonder if air drops existed ten years ago. It's not like we've been doing them in foreign countries for decades, right?My point is not that they could have landed a helicopter with no problem. It's that you don't have to land a helicopter to get water to people.