wrote in message
...
On Sun, 22 Aug 2010 11:23:46 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:

People with resources are always shocked by those without them.

People who think ahead have the resources. If you can't have a week's
worth of food, basic rations, not gourmet meals, you don't think much
of your life. This is food you can still eat in November if you don't
have a storm so you are not wasting any money.

Basically, you're blaming the working poor who have kids, parents, and
relatives they're taking care of and have minimal disposable income.
You're
also blaming all the people in the hospitals who were bedridden, those
without cars, and those living from day to day.

The ones below sea level should have been evacuated well before the
storm but they wouldn't go.

BS. Most of them tried to leave, but were unable to. Many ended up in
the
stadium because that's where they were taken or told to go.

They did not try to leave until AFTER the storm. There were school
busses lined up to take them out of the area but they refused to go,
assuming things would be OK as they had been for the last 40 years.
If you don't evacuate you better have the plan in place of how you
will survive the worst case scenario.

Completely false. Most did want to go and tried. They ended up in the
stadium.


That was AFTER the storm started. You evacuate before the storm,
preferably a day before the storm. They the whole school bus fleet
staged to take people inland and few people came.
Once high winds closed that bridge out to the north across lake
Ponchartrain they were not going anywhere.

Most people in states in the area don't evacuate, esp. given that they've
been through storms like these before. You're just blaming the victims.


In this case, a flood was the LIKELY scenario. We were hearing about
that probability for New Orleans 1000 miles away. I am sure they were
told there.

That's also not true. They had the walls that were protecting the city.
Those walls failed.


Levees not walls and saying the were "protected" is simply wishful
thinking.

And, for all those with college educations, perhaps that would be obvious
(perhaps not), but claiming that people understand this is not looking at
the facts on the ground.

That place was and is still a death trap. Nobody should be allowed to
live there until they get it above sea level.

Feel free to try and change that.

Don't give me **** about Holland. When was the last Category 3
hurricane there? They also do not live, sandwiched, between a huge
salt water lake and the sea.

?? You brought it up. The technology exists and environmental processes can
exist to make it a safer place.

This gets back to my original statement. we have generations of people
who have never had anything bad happen to them so they assume things
will turn out OK.

So, being poor, with lousy if any health care coverage, with barely enough
to eat equates in your mind to people who've never had anything bad happen
to them? Good grief!


You are talking like Bob now.
I am talking about 3 generations of Americans in all social strata.

Really? Most of the people who were trapped were poor not rich. Some were in
the middle somewhere.

We assume no matter what happens, the government will swoop in and
save us. That is just a post WWII feeling in the US. Most of the world
and anyone alive in the 30s, still knows bad things happen and the
government is not always going to save them.

Firstly, very few people believe that NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS, the gov't will
"swoop in." What people do believe is that gov't is supposed to help! Why do
we have a gov't? It seems to me that effective gov't is what we need. We
sure didn't get that then. Using words like no matter what and always is a
quick indication of lack of substance in an argument. Things are rarely
always.

We have more of this coming in the future, not less.

And, your fix?



Of course you also have the criminal negligence of FEMA for even
letting them live there and particularly letting them build it back
below sea level.

? FEMA was certainly at fault for not getting their act together, but
that's
got nothing to do with post-Katrina.

We have been told for years that you CAN NOT expect any help for days,
up to a week.
FEMA can not move enough supplies to keep a half a million people
alive overnight, particularly when roads and bridges are out.
The real FEMA problem was allowing the situation to exist in the first
place. We are in no better shape today than we were in 2005 in that
regard.
I guarantee you that if a CAT 3 hits New Orleans this month, the
result will be largely the same, particularly if it also hit several
other areas like Katrina did.

Who is "we"? Those who watch TV and the news on a regular basis, but not
those who are living hand to mouth. You're continuing to blame the poor
for
a failure of government. If another storm hits, it's likely the pumps will
fail, so I suppose you're going to blame the poor again and not the people
who put in the flawed pumping equipment.

"WE" in this case is anyone who lives in the southeast near the coast.
We get lots of information about what to expect during and after a
hurricane and they always say you need 3 days to a week of supplies if
you don't get out and if you go to a shelter you better bring those
supplies with you. They may not have them there either.
Other than the reported violence, the Superdome was a typical storm
shelter. Around here it will be a school gym as a general rule and we
are warned not to expect anything to be there except, hopefully, a
building that will not blow over. During Wilma, they didn't even get
that in Arcadia. They lost the roof on shelter.

You watch the news. You're informed. Many people are just trying to get by.

Other that the minor amount of violence, the Superdome was a disgrace. No
one came to help. People were shipped there and abandoned.

I am 9 feet above sea level, 5 miles from the coast and if my house
was 50% damaged, I could not build it back without raising it 5 feet.
They should have scraped the flooded parts of New Orleans clean,
barged in 10-15 feet of dirt and then built all the new houses on
pilings above the FEMA elevation that the rest of the country has to
abide by.

And, this rant has what to do with people who are poor before Katrina?

They would have been living ABOVE sea level; and they would not have
flooded. Storm surge comes in and goes out within hours. It is not a
flood that lasts months like they had in that fetid bowl. There really
was not that much surge in New Orleans, it was totally a failure of
the levees.

So, what is your point? You're blaming the poor for living in New Orleans?
Perhaps they should have moved to Chicago?


Perhaps, or at least Baton Rouge but surviving hurricanes is for
people who can and will prepare not people who do nothing and assume
someone will be there to help right away.

More bs. Lots of people are unable to do much for themselves. They have
family members who they support and who can't leave easily. I'm not going to
list all the reasons why some couldn't leave. Look it up.

If you are the government and you put the poorest people in the most
vulnerable spot, the crime is not the speed of the response, it is
putting them there in the first place. That is why I said we should
have bulldozed that place, barged in 20 feet of dirt and built it back
on high ground. I know in 100 years it might sink back down a couple
of feet but it will still be above sea level.
It would have been a bargain compared to what we will spend next time
... and there will be a next time.

What?? The gov't put poor people in NOLA? Who is "we" in we should have
bulldozed the place? Sounds like a lot of gov't intervention to me!