Post-Katrina Images on Google Maps 448
breadiu writes " Satellite imagery of New Orleans taken on Wednesday, August 31st is now available on Google Maps. Enter 'New Orleans' in the search field at the top of the page, or drag and zoom the map to the area. A red 'Katrina' button will appear at the top right of the map, next to the existing map buttons. Older images for the area are still available too - click the "Satellite" button to switch to those."
However, (Score:5, Informative)
Re:However, (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:However, (Score:3, Informative)
Re:However, (Score:3, Informative)
Re:However, (Score:3, Funny)
-Bill
Feature request... (Score:3, Funny)
Google Maps is great... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:However, (Score:3, Informative)
Re:However, (Score:3, Interesting)
Cemeteries (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Cemeteries (Score:5, Informative)
minus the entire cemetary lost thing (Score:3, Interesting)
they just take the coffins and bury them again lol
Odd story about Katrina victims. (Score:5, Interesting)
The other night, I had a couple come in, claiming to be from New Orleans, showing me an ID as evidence. They looked pretty poor and in dirty clothes, and the ID was correct.
They kept barraging me with questions asking for handouts... wanted a $100 tent for free, et cetera et cetera. I gave them the number to the local red cross chapter.
Has anyone else experienced refugees from the gulf coast in their area? What in the WORLD were they doing here.. no idea heh.
Re:Odd story about Katrina victims. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Odd story about Katrina victims. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Odd story about Katrina victims. (Score:4, Interesting)
It's disheartening to entertain a pessimistic possibility like that but I'm pretty sure that kind of thing happens on a regular basis. I think you did the right thing by referring them to Red Cross. They are in a position to evaluate this couple's predicament more carefully and have much greater resources for truly assisting their legitimate hardship.
Re:Odd story about Katrina victims. (Score:2)
Re:Odd story about Katrina victims. (Score:3, Interesting)
Until when I went outside to have a smoke...
They had a very new van (rental looking) full of stuff, I mean full. A dog, cat, looked like everything they had...
Something tells me they weren't lying. But you can't go around asking for handouts.. have to go through the right channels.. people can't just give away company merchandise like that heh
Re:Odd story about Katrina victims. (Score:5, Insightful)
Dude, it's California. Do you know how many "van people" I have parked outside my house that match that exact description with out of state plates? Lots of people seem to live out of their vehicles in California, b/c the weather's so good.
They had the cash to pay for the gas to get all the way to California in a van, and they want a free $100 tent? I don't buy the story, but then again I'm pretty cynical and jaded.
Re:Odd story about Katrina victims. (Score:2)
I gather that some effort is being done to relocate people in scattered areas, so that one region does not have to bear the brunt...
Re:Odd story about Katrina victims. (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey, I agree they need housing, support, etc, and I've no opposition to everyone doing what they can. But it sounds to me that the current plan of action is based more on looking good than doing good. Large population migrations of this kind impact everything from culture through to the economy. You can't just throw tens of thousands of people around the country and hope for the best.
(Well, you can. Germany did, when it unified. Damn near destroyed West Germany, with zero benefit to East Germans. Virtually all the problems in the Middle East are due to mass population migrations. In fact, virtually all long-term problems in history have been because of mass population migrations.)
The day it became obvious that Katrina was going to hit Category 5, work should have started on getting ready for an inevitable refugee crisis. They didn't, ok, so they should be working on long-term impact assessments NOW, and working on making sure that further harm isn't done.
Of course, they aren't. Right about now, they've bugger all idea of what the long-term consequences are. What about health consequences? I doubt the refugees have been checked in case of contageous diseases. I am pretty certain that people who left under their own steam, after it became obvious that rescue wasn't on the way, haven't been checked. The risk probably isn't great, but it's certainly not zero.
There are other risks. More than a few of these people will be armed, all of them will be suffering from PTSD, none of them are likely to have the money needed to get adequate support. That's a very high-risk combination, particularly as grudges may well be carried for the lack of support and the perception of abandonment. To make things worse, there WILL be resentment towards the refugees by other Americans, especially in areas where the "ideal" of absolute self-support is a religion. Violence seems certain.
After the draining, there'll be further stresses as refugees try to return home - or are pushed into doing so. Even after draining is complete, the entire region should be decontaminated and then checked for subsidance, prior to anyone trying to live there again. The reality is, that isn't going to happen. In turn, that means that there is a risk of death by disease or structural failure.
Re:Odd story about Katrina victims. (Score:5, Informative)
Under international law, refugees are individuals who:
- are outside their country of nationality or habitual residence;
- have a well-founded fear of persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion; and
- are unable or unwilling to avail themselves of the protection of that country, or to return there, for fear of persecution.
It bothers me a lot that people are casting a shadow over the true meaning of such a powerful word. While unfortunate, the people who left LA, MS, and AL are not refugees.Re:Odd story about Katrina victims. (Score:5, Informative)
At it's simplest a refugee is simply someone who has fled their home and is seeking refuge. There is - or should be - no stigma in being called a refugee.
Re:Odd story about Katrina victims. (Score:5, Insightful)
While I've seen some people with legitimate objections (even though I don't really buy the validity of a highly politically-motivated redefinition of a word which has been in use for a long time indeed), most of the complaints I've heard about the word really do boil down to that. It's not objection to the word; it's denial that it's being applied to us, something which feels like an insult when it really isn't anything more than a simple statement of fact.
-PS
Re:Odd story about Katrina victims. (Score:3, Informative)
-b
Accusations of racism are ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
Got any proof of that, or are you just parroting the anti-Bush talking points?
The Feds always take two or three days to show up, and five to seven days to reach full strength. Local authorities are ALWAYS responsible for the first 72-96 hours of a disaster, that's how all the plans are made, and it's primarily because of the dithering incompetence of the local Democratic pols [utools.com] and the collapse of the New Orleans police department that so many people could not be rescued this time.
The military won't put people and equipment directly into the path of a hurricane, lest they become victims themselves and lose their airlift capability. But shortly after the storm passes, they pour in.
Military air, sea, and land operations began on Aug. 30 [dod.gov], and in fact, there were more than twice as many soldiers on duty by day 5 of Katrina than on day 5 of Andrew [dod.gov] in 1992. And that's after moving them in over a much larger area than Andrew affected. You can't wave a magic wand and move people and machines in an instant, but that seems to be what some of the ignorant anti-Bush ranters are expecting.
Unless you have invented a Star trek transporter beam, just can the ill-informed bitching and do what you can to help, OK?
-ccm
Re:Accusations of racism are ridiculous (Score:3, Insightful)
Federal government responce time should be based on need alone (if you think anything greater than 24 hours in acceptable for a str
not quite... (Score:3, Informative)
then they should have been there on monday. bush declared a state of emergency several days before the hurricane hit, essentially putting the response under the responsibility of the executive branch (namely FEMA). even if the federal response takes a few days to ratchet up, then they still should have been there sunday or at the latest monday. the storm had passed by monday morning..
as for the local politicians
Re:Accusations of racism are ridiculous (Score:3, Informative)
Ever since the 50s??? Brother, this didn't start in the 50s. This has been going on since the dawn of man. There's nothing American about it. Chalk it up to being human.
Re:Depends on interpretation. (Score:4, Interesting)
I live in Southeast Texas. We have an evacuation center in Beaumont. Many black people showed up to the center pre-hurricane landfall. We have some white people who have showed up too and many more people have showed up post-hurricane landfall. New Orleans was 68% black, so seeing a lot of black people shouldn't be surprising. New Orleans is also 20% below the poverty level. The large number of people without cars had no way to get out. Fear didn't have much to do with it. Also there have been a number of hurricanes to miss New Orleans contributing to a sense of invincibility. People just get a bunch of non-parishable food and fill the bathtub with clean drinkable water before the storm hits like their fathers and father's fathers did before them and survived.
Like I said before I live in Southeast Texas and we've had our share of near hits over the past few years. I remember as a child we use to do the same thing, treat hurricanes as an occasion for a party and just ride the thing out. Until 1992 when Andrew grew in strength at the last minute and threatened to hit us. That was the first time I remember our region receiving evacuation orders. What followed was a complete and total debacle. As everyone tried to use the same road to get out all at once at the last minute the traffic came to a halt. We moved 15 mph and not continously either, it was all stop and go. If it had hit us, I wouldn't be making this post. A van on a road ain't the greatest place to be in the middle of a hurricane. That situation was scary as hell.
After that warning shot across our bow, we got much more serious about planning evacuations. I don't know if we were the ones who came up with contraflow lane reversal [wikipedia.org], but after that we started using it. We set up evacution centers all across the state to handle massive evacuations. We have had a number of evacuations since then that have gone much better. We still try to make a party of it though. Go to some other city, get a hotel room, eat out at all these restaurants we don't have in our town. Treat it like a vacation. This makes evacuations somewhat expensive, but going and living in a highschool gym somewhere for a few days isn't anybodies idea of a good time.
Evacuating major metropolitan areas isn't exactly a cakewalk even when everybody has cars and a tank of gas. There is always some who think they can ride it out and a mandatory evacuation isn't actually mandatory. At least not in Texas, here it's just a declaration no one will help you if you stay. The mayor was lucky to be able to get 80% of his population out of the city pre-landfall. Maybe he could have done better pre-landfall, maybe not. Afterwards, well getting 100,000 people out of a city with one road out left and getting food, water, and medicine in to keep people alive while you do it, and conducting rescue operations, while the criminal portion of your city is in open insurrection just can't be easy. I'm sure a congressional commitee will thoroughly investigate and discover just what went wrong.
Like I said a lot of black people showed up pre-landfall so some of them had the resources to get out, but then a lot of them didn't too. Blacks aren't a homogeneous group of people you know. One should not make widespread generalizations about who has what resources. There are plenty of poor dead white people in Jefferson and St. Bernard parishes amongst others. The reason they aren't on tv is because the media has trouble imagining important things happening outside the city. As if no one lived in the parishes outside the city.
Re:Odd story about Katrina victims. (Score:5, Informative)
Portland, Oregon is apparently going to absorb 15,000 refugees in the near future. I've no idea what impact trying to cope with that sort of scale of influx is going to have.
They should send some of them to Utah. We're supposed to get around 2000 and so far we've gotten almost half of them. The state set up a 1-800 number people could call with offers of donations of money, food, clothing and housing. The hotline was running for just over 24 hours but has been shut down because they've been buried in offers. They've had to turn away nearly half of the volunteers who showed up at Camp Williams (Utah Army National Guard base where the evacuees are being house temporarily) because the volunteers outnumbered the evacuees and they had nothing for them to do.
Not only that, several hundred jobs have been offered, and over 1000 families have offered to provide 6-12 month "intermediate" housing, all in less than 24 hours since the request was announced. Utah only has 2.5 million people, but I think we can absorb far more than the 2000 that the US government has planned to send us.
I gave my alternative, but (Score:3, Insightful)
While that is taking place, physical and mental health experts need to do a thorough check on the displaced population and provide the absolute level-best treatment where treatment is required. This, to me, also falls into the category of saving lives.
ALSO while that is taking place, economists, soci
Re:Odd story about Katrina victims. (Score:4, Insightful)
No, I do not believe controlled migration is a good idea. What I do believe is a good idea is supported migration. If an area is going to suddenly face meeting the needs of N extra people, then it should be able to acquire the resources needed to support N extra people. Once integration is complete, everything should balance itself out. Until it does, however, you can't expect the newcomers to survive on hot air and vaporware.
My concern is that we're going to get a lot of mass migrations with absolutely zero backup. No support, no supplies, no resources of any kind. If that is indeed the case, it will be a disaster for those who have been displaced and a catastrophe for everyone else.
It is time the Federal Government woke up and smelled the coffee. There are no "Get Out Of Crisis Free" cards in real life. This is going to cost, and it is going to cost a lot. It is going to require considerably more planning than has been done, to get things to function smoothly, and is going to be a logistical nightmare without some damn good experts developing a way to do this effectively.
With the airlines on the edge of bankrupcy, Greyhound slashing services to and beyond the bone, Amtrak contemplating suicide and most of the military in Iraq, HOW are the people going to be moved around the country in anything like a meaningful timeframe?
The answer would seem obvious enough - all of these have the means to move the population, they just don't have the money. It would be trivial for the Government to pay Greyhound to move every single unused bus to an evacuation point and carry the people around the country. They could pay Amtrak to do it. The airlines aren't short of capacity, they're short of cash.
Is this happening? So far, I've not heard of a single extra dime going towards paying for the mass exodus.
What happens when they get to where they're going? Who is going to pay for their shelter? For the uninsured or the elderly, where is the extra money for medicare going to come from? And for those insured by companies based in a flooded-out area, nobody is going to take an insurance card from a company that might never reopen so what are they going to do?
My gripe is that there is a great deal you need to do to get this kind of operation to work well, rather than to end in a disaster for all concerned, and that the Federal Government isn't doing any of it. If they're going to get bugger all support, they would probably be better off building a refugee camp and relying on aid from the Red Cross and other organizations that will, at least, come through for them.
As of the political situation right now, the choice is between being camped in dismal conditions but at least getting basic needs met, or being ferried to God-Knows-Where (assuming the Federal Government even bothered telling God), finding the social services simply don't have any extra cash, and ending up homeless on the street.
My personal preference would be for the Federal Government to fund social programs adequately (for a change) and for the evacuees to have living conditions worth the living.
My biggest concern is that right-wingers generally don't believe in social programs at all and may well prefer people homeless on the streets to being visible in a camp.
My next-biggest concern is that the right-wing may attempt to use the disaster to prove that social programs aren't needed. (If you don't need extra money for an extra ten or hundred thousand, then maybe you don't need any money at all.) With this Government in particular, but America in general, fearing the worst in politicians seems to be a generally good idea.
Re:Odd story about Katrina victims. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Odd story about Katrina victims. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Odd story about Katrina victims. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Odd story about Katrina victims. (Score:2)
Re:Odd story about Katrina victims. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Odd story about Katrina victims. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:WHY THE FUCK (Score:2)
They were speaking a different language I didn't recognize at ALL.
Anyone who's been to the area care to elaborate? (they knew english well, too)
Re:WHY THE FUCK (Score:2)
Uh, that would validate their story entirely. Some people from Louisiana speak French creole [lsu.edu]. It sounds like... sortof hillbilly French. French spoken with zero French accent. Dunno where you might find recordings. And no, I've never been to the area. Just saw that one James Bond movie...
Re:WHY THE FUCK (Score:2)
Re:WHY THE FUCK (Score:2)
Re:Odd story about Katrina victims. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Odd story about Katrina victims. (Score:3, Interesting)
It seems to me that a large part of the problem is that some people feel that being a 'refugee' is something shameful, or that it is somehow impossible for an 'American' to be a refugee. Such bigoted attitudes are inexcusa
Re:Odd story about Katrina victims. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Odd story about Katrina victims. (Score:3, Insightful)
My neighborhood is very prosperous with the average home size > 4000ft2 and price > $600k.
So, what you're saying is that you have room in your house and have invited some of them to come live with you until they can get back on their feet, right?
Wow that's creepy (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe such high resolution pictures of the disaster region will spur people into getting the authorities to do things like pay for the renovation of land features to reduce the effects of natural disasters, rather than divert the money to other projects, leaving victims high and dry (or in this case, low and wet).
Re:Wow that's creepy (Score:2)
Most of the NO damage was human-caused.
Re:Wow that's creepy (Score:2)
Re:Wow that's creepy (Score:3, Insightful)
I love New Orleans - but doesn't the whole idea of living on the gulf coast below sea level seem the slightest bit
Re:Wow that's creepy (Score:3, Insightful)
Next you'll spout that "no one anticipated that the levees would break".
You certainly won't be quoting the fact th
Re:Wow that's creepy (Score:3, Insightful)
- LA Governor Blanco, letter to President Bush and FEMA, August 28, 2005.
The hurricane struck on August 29, and the city flooded on August 30. A
Re:Wow that's creepy (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd like to point out with my powers of hindsight that one of the sources of this information is the Louisiana government.
If some of my sources or views do not agree with what mainstream "Republicans" are saying, than so be it. I am more comfortable drawing an opinion from a wide collection of sources and thought than from a single party
Re:Wow that's creepy (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's the simple take-home point:
Do you think your city, your family and loved ones, will be safe when it is your city that needs to be evacuated?
With Katrina we had several days' notice of a disaster -- and you use that to blame Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco.
But the next terrorist attack will give no warning. The attacked city will be relying entirely on FEMA -- there'll be no Nagin, no Blanco for apologists to blame.
Some four years after September 11th, both FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security have demonstrated that they can't protect Americans -- indeed, their leaders in abject and total failure can only blithely deny news footage we're seeing with our own eyes.
The fundamental purpose of any government -- as any conservative will tell you -- is the protection of its citizens.
In the last four years, our "leaders" have ignored crucial evidence preceding the September 11th attacks, have failed to get those responsible, have been willingly fooled by colossally bad intelligence about WMDs in Iraq, have fired those who correctly predicted we'd need far more troops to avoid a quagmire in Iraq, and have now let thousands of your fellow Americans die from their incompetence and lack of preparedness.
Our so-called "leaders" have repeatedly failed to uphold their end of the social contract. One "understandable" mistake after another -- and no one's been fired except whistle-blowers and those who were in retrospect proven right in their predictions.
How many more mistakes rewarded by Presidential Medals of Freedom will you tolerate? How many more Americans must die from sheer incompetent failure at the highest level of government before you find your anger?
How much longer will you trust your life, your children's lives, and your country's future, to the "protection" of these miserable failures?
How much longer?
How about finally acknowledging (Score:5, Interesting)
Move them.
While the mess in New Orleans is bad too many people are ignoring the devastation caused in Miss. and the surrounding areas.
The port area themselves are not affected as the city proper was. We can try to improve the wetlands. We can even hopefully undo the system underwhich the sediment of the Miss is forced into the sea instead of being used to rebuild the area naturally.
The real fact is, New Orleans has always been on borrowed time. I would prefer very much to spend the money to insure that the victims forever are high and dry.
Re:How about finally acknowledging (Score:3, Informative)
Frankly, there aren't many places that are immune to natural disasters. I may not have to worry about hurricans, earthquakes or tsunam
Only a few parts of the city are updated (Score:2, Informative)
Particularly... interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
Superdome - after [google.com]
Re:Particularly... interesting (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Particularly... interesting (Score:2)
Re:Particularly... interesting (Score:4, Informative)
just clear the search field and press enter.
too bad google doesn't make this clear, would be nice to have a button to do that.
Re:Particularly... interesting (Score:2)
I didn't know how badly it was damaged last week, but at the time I certainly wondered if it would have to come down simply for psychological reasons. The New Orleans residents who suffered so much inside it while their city died would probably never again be able to set foot inside or even look at it from the outside wi
Six Flags Under Water (Score:5, Interesting)
Six Flags:
http://www.ecsis.net/~gregday/park.jpg [ecsis.net]
Park Map:
http://www.ecsis.net/~gregday/map.pdf [ecsis.net]
The rest of the NOAA aerial images taken from a Cessna:
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/katrina/KATRINA0000.HTM [noaa.gov]
But I warn you, it's very creepy.
Re:Six Flags Under Water (Score:2)
http://www.ecsis.net.nyud.net:8090/~gregday/park.j pg [nyud.net]
Re:Six Flags Under Water (Score:3, Funny)
Hi-res superdome (Score:3, Interesting)
Much better pictures (Score:5, Interesting)
The pics were just taken off the plane and thrown on a server. North isn't always up, and the pictures aren't very well labeled. You pretty much have to know what you're looking for before you can make sense of the pictures. But they are much better quality than that of maps.google.com.
Re:Much better pictures (Score:3, Interesting)
An earlier post seems to wonder whether anyone from New Orleans would be in California. Remember that it's been more than a week since those of with cars and somewhere to go got out of the city. I've been to Fort Worth, TX, Richmond, VA, and am in Cleveland tonight. I'm putting a lot of my little remaining money into the oil business to
Helpful views (Score:5, Interesting)
Two interesting things (Score:4, Interesting)
2. The new imagery doesn't have any obvious copyright notices. Did they skip this step or is there a new invisible watermark?
Please no jokes about my word choice (Score:2)
Re:Two interesting things (Score:3, Informative)
2. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say most the images they had to pay for, so they own rights to and responsibility to protect. However, the flood images were probably pieced together from freely downloadable NOAA images, so they have no such rights or responsability.
Engineering, Environmental Approach (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/013
Not intended as flamebait (I contributed $100 to the Red Cross), but people just refuse to learn to move away from flood-prone areas, even after they are destroyed.
The author survived the 1972 Rapid City flood in which 237 people were killed and adopted the philosophy of never rebuilding homes in the flood plain. Rapid City learned its lesson, and only commercial and industrial buildings are allowed in the flood plain. There are also a lot of parks and public use areas on the flood plain.
Yet, the monetary amount of damage done by floods increases with time as people continue to develop flood plains and barrier islands. Folks, flood control structures fail too often to justify their cost to the country's taxpayers. It is a shame thousands died in New Orleans and we will again fail to learn our lesson.
Living in dangerous places (Score:3, Insightful)
Or would you consider that living in space may be worth it both for the economic opportunities and the beauty? New Orleans was built where it was because of the economic opportunities of being near the mouth of a river that's major transportation for a large chunk of America. You don't choose to build major port cities where it's safest; you by definition have to build them by the ocean. When a river'
Re:Engineering, Environmental Approach (Score:3, Insightful)
In the real world - it's just not that simple. Even if the move the entire population of New Orleans - within a few years, a decade at most, Newer Orleans will spring up in it's place. We still need a port at the mouth of the Missisippi and the people who work at the port will need housing, grocery stores, etc... In the real world factors ot
Here are two levee breaches (Score:5, Interesting)
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=new+orleans&ll=30.0
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=new+orleans&ll=29.9
Once more into the... never mind!
Re:Here are two levee breaches (Score:3, Informative)
Wow, the houses are deeply submerged here -- right to the edges of the roof.
Scathing Editorial from Keith Olbermann on MSNBC (Score:5, Insightful)
http://media.putfile.com/OlbermannSwings [putfile.com]
From the opinion piece:
Re:google earth for Mac? (Score:2)
Re:google earth for Mac? (Score:2)
"Apple Macintosh computers are not supported at this time (but we are working on it)."
So, I'd say the answer is currently no.
If you have access to a Wintel box, I'd really suggest you try it. It's extremely cool.
Re:google earth for Mac? (Score:2)
And, knowing Google, they're sure to have a port in works.
Re:google earth for Mac? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:google earth (Score:5, Informative)
Also, Katrina images have been available on Google Maps since at least Saturday, as I was browsing it Sat afternoon. Kudos to Google - with that kind of speed, they should be running FEMA, too.
Re:google earth (Score:2, Informative)
Convienently ignoring one major fact (Score:5, Insightful)
Also in the US disaster preparedness and recovery are normally the venue of the States and localities. By tradition they are supposed to ask for aid. Supposedly, I cannot find the story right now, the LA Govenor asked Bush for some time before calling out the Guard. It is the State that "by tradition" orders the Guard, Bush respected that but sometimes I think traditions stink. There are 330,000 Guard members in the US currently. I would think more than a small percent could be moved provided the States will act.
Re:Convienently ignoring one major fact (Score:2)
Re:Convienently ignoring one major fact (Score:3, Interesting)
After 1992 (and largely because of the lackluster response to Hurricaine Andrew) FEMA was raised to a cabinet level position to facilitate a better response. And FEMA was created in the first place to make this the job of the Federal Government, not State or Local, because the Feds have access to more resources.
FEMA is now part of the Department of Homela
Re:Convienently ignoring one major fact (Score:3, Insightful)
Given that there was a few days notice of Katrina, there seems to be no excuse for the way in which it has been dealt with by the richest nation on the planet.
Had it been an unforseen terrorist attack, Dubwa would be blaming it all on terrorists... this just goes to show that the USA is too arrogant to defend itself against anything, and that Dubya isn't capable of dealing with his pretzels, let alone a nation.
Re:Convienently ignoring one major fact (Score:5, Insightful)
So, let's see. If this were something that happened to a less wealthy nation, what would have happened? In matter of some weeks, there would be some pale shadow of the amount of support that was moving into the Gulf Coast area within hours. There has been significant destruction over 90,000 square miles, with people cut off from utilities and communication throughout that area.
The National Guard has been been running non-stop relief flights and convoys into that entire area - and this is important, because those remote rural areas are the least able to connect to support. The people living in urban areas are easier to support, given their density, once you've got transportation lined up. That it only took from Tuesday until early Thursday for that to work, despite the huge problems, is actually pretty amazing. That doesn't sound so nice to the people that didn't get out of town, but it's worth mentioning that the town's mayor - who knows exactly where emergency support starts (locally) - explicitly told his local citizens that if they were to gather in the central stadium area, they were to bring their own food and water because there would be none immediately available.
the richest nation on the planet
Being the richest nation on the planet doesn't allow us to change the laws of physics (in terms of moving supplies, equipment, and people). But it's also worth talking about one of the key foundational aspects of US culture - and part of what allows the US economy to maintain its level of productivity and high employment. Specifically, the country has a long tradition of self sufficiency and localized culture. This extends all the way through how emergency services are planned (or not).
Had it been an unforseen terrorist attack, Dubwa would be blaming it all on terrorists
And, who would you blame for a terrorist attack, other than the terrorists that commit the attack? If you're in the "victims deserve the attacks they get" camp, then there's really no point continuing a discussion. Otherwise, that sort of leaves the attackers culpable. But since you're trying to draw some sort of connection between the aftermath of a colossal storm that impacted an area the size of many entire other countries, and think that somehow the president is in a position to stop it, or to tell the governer of Louisiana when and how to ask for help... well, you're missing the point. Come to think of it, why did the governor of Louisiana wait until Wednesday to authorize her state's guards to use private sector transportation to actually provide relief for her people? She'll have to answer to the local people that elected her. But I guarantee that if the federal government, in non-crisis circumstances, told the state governors that they were going to permanently muscle in and run the local preparation for things like storms, then there would be a huge mess, politically at the very least.
this just goes to show that the USA is too arrogant to defend itself against anything
Not quite sure how that follows - but I don't think, being a Brit, you're quite understanding the nature of a federal republic, or the strong powers (and responsibilities) that are given to the 50 states that make up the union. That has its strengths and weaknesses - and a state, like Louisiana, that is notorious for its local government corruption and weakness, is (quite literally, now, alas) stewing in its own juices. There are mechanisms in place for the federal government to displace the local governor's authority, but the constitution actually calls for findings of "insurrection" at the local level before we bypass the important responsibilities and powers that are reserved by the states.
You may or may not have noticed the substantial response that New York's
Incident of National Significance (Score:3, Informative)
They did, days before Katrina hit, Bush declared it a disaster, invoking the Stafford Act. At that point, the *National* Response Plan took effect and disaster management became federal responsibility, a "Incident of national Significance". That was 3 days *before* Katrina hit. A state of emergency was declared *before* Katrina hit. Martial law was declared sho
Re:Convienently ignoring one major fact (Score:2)
Re:Amazing america (Score:2)
PS - the only bombs we can get anywhere in the world in a couple minutes are the ones we most hope t
Re:It's had this for days (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Repeat! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Repeat! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:FEMA criminals (Score:3, Interesting)
The State of Louisiana had its chance. They called up the National Guard after the fact, knowing it takes at least 48 hours to gather a unit together and issue equipment under the best of circumstances, and knowing that after the storm hit would be far from the best circumstances. For those who don't know, the states' National Guards, apart from those units called up to be federalized for foreign m
Re:3901 Metropolitan Street, New Orleans, LA (Score:5, Informative)
Snopes [snopes.com] to the rescue again!
In particular:
Re:3901 Metropolitan Street, New Orleans, LA (Score:3, Informative)
Such a claim presumes an availability of resources (e.g., experienced drivers, fuel)
Louisana had 25% of the nations fuel refinery capacity and driving a bus is a skill but most people that can drive shift can do in a pinch.
And, given the particular geography of New Orleans, any such evacuation would have had to have begun well in advance of Hurricane Katrina
When are you supposed to evacuate ? After, during, when people are coming back to the city
Re:3901 Metropolitan Street, New Orleans, LA (Score:3, Informative)
On that same note marshall law could have been implemented after the city descended into chaos to restore order. My point is that the parasitism of the legal class is something that can and is set aside in times of crisis.