This could be the big one. SE US, prepare for the worst.

    The levee system was under redesign and construction, but wasn´t scheduled to be completed for another ten or fifteen years as I recall. As nice is it would have been to have all the evacuations take place before the hurricane, have relief there instantly, etc, it simply isn´t possible. As Finalday pointed out, people that stayed chose to stay and or did not have the resources to get passage out of the city. Mandatory or not, you cannot force people to abandond their homes and everything they´ve worked for. The response from the nation and the world so far has been belated yes, but exemplary. This is a major crisis, and getting releif there takes time. The Superdome was not meant to be a primary shelter, it was there to be a last resort for people who could absolutely not make it out, and it served its purpose (for the duration of the storm anyway). Relief efforts are not helped when workers are being shot at and chaos is descending upon the city. Its going to take time and cool heads to get out of this one. Diesel fuel prices have hit $3.28/gal here in Washington, and are sure to rise. High-Res photos of the critically hit areas of Louisiana are available here from NOAA: (Note: You´ll need a high speed connection or anti-aging pills to view these) <A href=´http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/katrina/´ Target=_Blank>Hurricane Pictures</a>

    @Taw - sadly, the american public would not have wanted fortunes spent on that instead of other things - although now they will say they would/it should. They cannot win, the pres is going to take flak regardless. As for response - from what I hear, a

    In Virginia Beach before Hurricane Hugo, the authorities went door to door in buses and such telling people to evacuate, and giving them rides to shelters out of town if needed. The ones that told authorities they were going to stay were given permanent markers so they could write their names and date of birth on their arms so they could be identified easier. The ones that stay during a mandatory evacuation like this, pretty much just asked for it. Now, I can understand the elderly, as well as their families that stayed with them, but just how many cases like this are we really seeing in New Orleans? Most of these people were just too stupid to leave.

    &quot;Most of these people were just too stupid to leave&quot; rather heartless, don´t you think? I wouldn´t go down New Orleans way saying things like that, if I were you. By *stupid people* you mean people without cars, people without money, people without anywhere to stay, people in nursng home sand hospitals, housebound people, physically and mentally disabled, pregnant women, young mothers, small children and the elderly. usually the most vulnerable are the first to be evacuated, not left to their own devices (which they didn´t have btw - something that seems to have escaped you) try saying *stupid people* to the relatives of those people who died of dehydration or lack of medicine while waiting for relief to arrive. Could <i>you </i> go 5 days without water or food in 100deg temps surrounded by wreckage and sewage and human waste and dead bodies? somewhow I think not - but by your argument you´d have deserved it, being *too stupid to leave* - your words. try a bit of compassion. You may need it from somebody else at some time. addendum:- this sort of appalling attitude is exactly what I expected - there seems to be a school of thought, vociferous and growing in its unpleasantness, that´s trying to shift the blame for the humanitarian disaster onto the people themselves! I think Mayor Nagin answered this point in his radio statement the other day (and a hearty 3 cheers to him for saying the things he did!) Funny how after Sept 11th vast and far-reaching emergency powers could be given to the President almost immediately, yet after an even more devastating natural disaster no-one can do anything for nearly a week? And who refused to let the Red Cross into the city itself? and who´s refusing to let the UNHCR even advise. let alone take part? there´s something very odd going on, while people are dying (in their hundreds) and that´s a criminal disgrace. Edited by - Tawakalna (Reloaded) on 9/3/2005 2:25:41 AM Edited by - Tawakalna (Reloaded) on 9/3/2005 2:43:58 AM

    "for once, i`ll actually tell you what i was thinking; but maybe i won`t have anything to say.."

    I agree almost utterly with Tawakalna, numerous individuals lacked the means, the funds, or the appropriate condition to evacuate appropriately without direct governemnet transport or aid.

    Read in my local paper that they found one eldery man dead on the ground with several babies crying around him and a 5 year old saying &quot;Wake up grandpa&quot; with an eldery woman in a wheelchair dead with a blanket over her.They need more troops out their.Pull some battalions in their and Bush,get your mind of some friggin pointless war.

    [img=http://www.sloganizer.net/en/image,Stormtrooper111,black,red.png/img]

    i can´t even comment on it anymore, not in any civil tongue anyway. it´s so bl**dy awful I´ve almost been in tears over it. I´m baling from this convo. there´s really nothing else to say is there? and if there was, this isn´t the place.

    "for once, i`ll actually tell you what i was thinking; but maybe i won`t have anything to say.."

    George W. Bush recently critisced and denounced the Federal Government´s handling of the situation. He IS the Federal government (i.e. he directs their efforts and investments), he just denounced himself!

    <font size=1 face="trebuchet ms"><BLOCKQUOTE><hr size=1 noshade>you cannot force people to abandond their homes and everything they´ve worked for <hr size=1 noshade></BLOCKQUOTE></font><font face=´trebuchet ms, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica´ size=2> Recent events in the Gaza strip rend that argument mercilessly in half. It is tragic what´s happened in New Orleans...and unfortunately, it doesn´t look like this is the worst that´s going to happen. I read a report that claimed this cycle of increasingly devastating hurricanes would continue for the next decade or so before decreasing again. Cities like New Orleans that are below sea level in the South will probably be drowned entirely.

    <A href=´http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007219´ Target=_Blank>Blame?</a> Interesting article - would love to see if it were Clinton in this position, whether he would have reaped the same criticism (okay, most likely they wouldn´t be - but hypothetically speaking......I still think people are blaming the shrub and missing out those two simply because they <i>want </i> to blame the shrub - they want him out of government. Whether its correct/fair/accurate or not seems irrespective in their POV´s).

    My friend was in the hurricane, not even in the super dome. I haven´t heard from him since, but there´s also no power there now anyway, so he could be fine. Knowing him he´s probably looting too. Edited by - DemonSlayer on 9/8/2005 4:54:36 PM

    How would you know how a differing president would´ve handled it. You could presume and speculate, but that leads nowhere. But out current president ontrols the federal response and he waited an entire week to mobilize any form of legitimate response, and that´s only due to extensive media focus and criticism.

    Well, prority is the local and state, before the Fed jumps in. If they can´t handle it, then they call in the fed. It´s called protocol. Beside NO was not the only area hit hard, they just got flooded. Other areas also got hit just as hard, turning sections of towns into match sticks, but you hear little of this, thanks to the media. Those people also lost everything and many died there as well. It is all tragic, let the blaming stop, and fix the situation. You never know how a situation will turn out, till you go through it. Many years ago, My Aunt´s town, Forest park, was hit by a bad tornadoe, yet even in the destruction, a few houses were destroyed, while others survived. Beyond rain, a huricane is unpridictable in what it will do. Edited by - Bear on 9/8/2005 5:53:25 PM

    AndKat - read what I actually wrote. I am not speculating how Clinton would have handled this remotely - and not even implying it in the slightest (he would have done a better job, and had better suited people in charge!). I was simply wondering if the sheer volume of criticism on Fed Government only is down to the fact people hate the shrub, and if it were a more popular president - would they have also have criticised the local government as well as the federal? Then again, if you pry somewhat - you can find some interesting things that you may not be aware of, which would indicate that certainly he is indeed responsible for how badly the Federal Government handled this: <A href=´http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/katrina.htm´ Target=_Blank>Government response</a> - kind of shows what they are trying to coordinate at the moment (should let the military do it, they are far more successful at coordinating large operations - its their job afterall!). On the other hand, is the Shrub so much more culpable than you first think? <A href=´http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=globalNews&amp;storyID=2005-09-09T080824Z_01_FOR927615_RTRUKOC_0_US-BROWN.xml´ Target=_Blank>Reuters</a> However, this doesn´t mean local/regional government weren´t incompetant at all - far from it, they were. They just haven´t been duly criticised yet.

    Bear, there´s a thing called priority. New Orleans was a city of millions built (smart creatures, aren´t we?) below sea level, and its bloody levees crumbled. It´s an economic and cultural centre of the United States. Of course the media is going to pay attention to it. Furthermore, it is the Federal government´s job to step in <i>as soon as </i> municipal and state governments are rendered unable to respond. Not a week afterwards. Edited by - Wilde on 9/9/2005 4:02:52 PM

    I´ve been comparing the consequences of Hurrican Katrina with that of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and find remarkable parallels between the handling of both disasters by the Federal Govt. Those Americans posting here who´ve taken us Yoo-Row-Peons to task for *not understanding* how your country is governed might be interested to read some of Pres. Calvin Coolidge´s remarks and actions towards disaster relief, Federal responsibilities, fiscal policy and the duty of government, are strikingly similar to many of the things we´ve been seeing and hearing over the last couple of weeks.

    "for once, i`ll actually tell you what i was thinking; but maybe i won`t have anything to say.."