Raw: July 2005 article reveals New Orleans told poor: 'You're on your own'

[RamboLiberal]

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/July_2005_article_reveals_Red_Cross_told_poor_Youre_on_your_o_0902.html

A July 24, 2005 article in the New Orleans Times Picayune (not available online) reveals just how unprepared officials were for a hurricane, especially as it affected the city's poor, RAW STORY has learned. The first sentence alone reveals how little support the city expected to have for the poor in the event of a disaster, saying, "City, state and federal emergency officials are preparing to give the poorest of New Orleans' poor a historically blunt message: In the event of a major hurricane, you're on your own."

The article was first discovered in a detailed piece by the Philadelphia Daily News' Will Bunch.

The local Red Cross executive director was quoted as saying, "You're responsible for your safety, and you should be responsible for the person next to you. If you have some room to get that person out of town, the Red Cross will have a space for that person outside the area. We can help you. But we don't have the transportation."

In scripted appearances being recorded now, officials such as Mayor Ray Nagin, local Red Cross Executive Director Kay Wilkins and City Council President Oliver Thomas drive home the word that the city does not have the resources to move out of harm's way an estimated 134,000 people without transportation...

According to story this was put on DVD's and was to be distributed to pastors and community leaders before hurricane season in September - whoops.

[iamjoy]

1. What About School Buses

why couldn't they have used those to evacuate people?

[applegrove]

4. The mayor assumed there would be help coming from away. Like

everyone did. On Sunday night the reports were that people would be evacuated from the Dome. When they told the mayor they would send in school buses from everywhere after the hurricane - he said - "fuck that - send in real busses".

I guess the real busses couldn't be diverted. They were busy making somebody money.

They will hang the mayor for that.

Be that as it may... how come the army didn't show up to get control of the city on day one? The President had an hour long meeting on Monday where he decided not to send the military in. Bush's choice. Not as if his pentagon adviser didn't have any info on the cycle of escalating lawlessness.

So that is a decision too. Just like the mayor requesting busses with say "A TOILET" on them for the many hour ed trip to Houston for the traumatized who were told - they were aloud to go to the Dome as a last resort.

[iamjoy]

5. This Is Hindsight, But

Better they have been on school buses with no bathrooms for several hour evacuation than to be in the Superdome with no working bathrooms for several days.

I'm just saying.

[kster]

11. They should have found out how China did it

http://smh.com.au/news/world/china-evacuates-790000-as-typhoon-slams-into-coast/2005/09/01/1125302689224.html

[WiseButAngrySara]

14. Thanks! I've been looking for this article. It was discussed on DU

recently...do you have the link to the DU thread perchance?

[Usrename]

12. 134,000 people is a lot of school busses

by my ciphers 60 or 70 on a bus you need 2000 of them. I guess if you got 2000 busses sitting around that would make a good plan.

[aikoaiko]

17. it could have been done as a statewide effort.

It was the responsibbility of the mayor and governor to get that done.

[HereSince1628]

18. Well,the bus can do more than one trip, and that makes it doable

I looked at the numbers too. Guessed 50 people per bus (they would be carrying some stuff with them) and got 2700 trips. And those trips didn't have to be to Memphis or Houson. They just needed to get people to a shelter on higher ground.

If you have 100 buses that's 27 trips per bus. THAT seems like a doable number if the evacuation starts 24 hours in advance, even given traffic issues in a town undergoing evacuation.

[Spazito]

20. Do you honestly think there were buses enough for hundreds of

thousands of people. School buses hold around 60 seats and that is 60 seats for children who's size is smaller so reduce that by around 10 persons.

It amazes me that Drudge can post his drivel without the corresponding facts and his readers don't even QUESTION his report.

[Endangered Specie]

2. Didnt they do the same thing to 3rd class folks on the Titanic...

shows you how much progress weve made in 90 years eh.

[Eloriel]

3. O.M.G. O.M.G. This is unbelievable. But it answers a number of

questions for me. And sends chills down my spine.

If they think I pay taxes for this kind of shit, they're flat out wrong. And speaking of taxes, just how many rich people's tax breaks would have made a difference?

I'm beyond livid.

[Usrename]

15. This could have been prevented.

[cal04]

6. John McQuaid was on this morning saying he wrote articles about this

and no one listened


Take a look back at the coverage of the threat of flooding to New Orleans by the city's major paper, The Times-Picayune: A five-part series, published in June 2002, clearly set out the likelihood that New Orleans would ultimately be flooded by even a relatively mild hurricane once levees were breached. The series made the case for significant expenditures and a shift in policies affecting development and the environment. Given the past days' television coverage with extensive aerial footage of the flooded communities along the Gulf Coast, the warnings now seem particularly acute.

The Times-Picayune series by John McQuaid and Mark Schleifstein detailed how building patterns, the levee system and development generally left the area ever more vulnerable to disaster. (The series spelled out the mechanics of that disaster with an eerie prescience.)
As the two reporters wrote:

Today, billions of dollars worth of levees, sea walls, pumping systems and satellite hurricane tracking provide a comforting safety margin that has saved thousands of lives. But modern technology and engineering mask an alarming fact: In the generations since those storms... south Louisiana has been growing more vulnerable to hurricanes, not less.And astonishingly, they documented how the efforts to protect the area from floods sharply increased the risks. Sinking land and chronic coastal erosion — in part the unintended byproducts of flood-protection efforts — have opened dangerous new avenues for even relatively weak hurricanes and tropical storms to assault areas well inland.

Here's another excerpt on an aspect of the disaster that, unfortunately, we may be reading more about in the coming months: In Jefferson Parish, most of the buildings and other property owned by the government are not currently insured at all. The parish could not find an insurance company to cover more than a third of the value of the $300 million worth of property, and the cost of doing that was a budget-busting $6 million in a total budget of $318.5 million...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4827395

[12345]

7. unbelievable

[enough]

8. Nominating this.

Thanks.

[yodermon]

9. HELLO!! This is huge!!

Get it on the front page!
*2 more votes*
:kick:

[moondust]

10. Did FEMA and Homeland Security know this?

Bet they did. Did they do anything to remedy the situation--even when they knew Katrina was coming? Obviously not.

[Sugarbleus]

13. Not providing transport for whomever, BEFORE THE FACT

is EXACTLY what I was bitching about for days!! It is unconscionable that the state or fema or whomever the hell didn't foresee this and DO SOMETHING.

We know there were a few folk who decided to stay of their own accord.......but still there HAD to be buses and trains and semis and whatever that could accomodate those who wanted to leave but had no car or no money!!

Jesus! Even Hollywood disaster films show more organization than what we are seeing FOR REAL today.

[jbnow]

16. Hollywood disaster films

have a director.

I didn't understand the lack of evacuation plans before Katrina hit either and especially now that we know the levees were only expected to hold up to a cat 3.

I don't know if evacuation plans were part of the mitigation plans that were defunded...but having nothing is a crime at very level.

For what happened after the levee broke, I blame the feds. But evacuation plans I blame everyone, right down to the mayor. I loved his angry reaction to the stall, he cares about the people in the city. But what did he or past mayors do from the start to form a plan? Was it lack of money or burying head in the sand?

[Sugarbleus]

21. I understand........it's a hideous puzzlement isn't it....

I think it's safe to say that NO disater relief effort goes perfectly nor can it be determined exactly what the aftermath will be FOR CERTAIN. I was reminded of one other rather screwed up effort after hurrican Andrew(?)..the one that FLATTENED a small burb in florida some years ago? Relief was also slow to come. Roads were impassable, airforce base was obliterated, people wrote on their roofs asking for help etc. Price gouging..all the rest.

So, the efforts that this mayor (not sure about the gov yet) made in SCREAMING IT OUT, over the airwaves, to get help on the ground RIGHT NOW is something to be respected. Afterall, he COULD have just cut and run.

I wonder if we'll ever get the whole truth on this screwup...I had my doubts about the Govenors actions; on the other hand, I want to tread lightly because what I'm seeing in the media is the RIGHT wing trying to put ALL THE BLAME on the governor (Blanco) and the state while they try to distance THEM SELVES from their OWN CULPABILITY...

So I reserve judgement for state govs. until more is known.

Peace~~SB

[bloom]

19. ...

:argh:

[LSK]

22. thats republican ideology right there

Everyone is responsible for their own well being. Republicans spew that crap all the time.

[demo dutch]

24. You need to read the post! "City said you're on yr own because Govt can't

help you, because of lack of funding

[demo dutch]

23. Hurricane season starts in June and ends Nov 30- height starts in August!