"Brownie....You're Doin' A Helluva Job"

[Faun]

Imbecile... cities with evacuation plans help get their residents to shelters as a storm approaches. That's what Nagin did. Does that mean he didn't do anything else inappropriately? Of course not. You simply lack the wherewithal to keep up.

Except of course that isn't what he did. Too busy grandstanding to be bothered with relief efforts.

Seriously? You're under the delusion that Nagin didn't help residents get to shelters???

Exactly how insane are you?

 

[Oldstyle]

Did I say Nagin acted appropriately? Why no, I didn't. Unfortunately, your inability to comprehend what you read leads you astray once again.

Don't hurt yourself doing that 180 - you could get whiplash.

As a reminder, what you claimed was {the city did what cities do under these circumstances} which is false.

Imbecile... cities with evacuation plans help get their residents to shelters as a storm approaches. That's what Nagin did. Does that mean he didn't do anything else inappropriately? Of course not. You simply lack the wherewithal to keep up.

Simple logic would tell you that aren't even CLOSE to enough shelters in New Orleans (or any other large city) to take care of it's residents! The reason why a competent Mayor would evacuate early is so that they could get as many people out of the city as possible so they don't have them piling up in shelters. And nobody with half a brain sends residents to shelters that don't have enough food & water for them. Well, you don't do that unless you're Ray Nagin and then that's EXACTLY what you do which is why Ray Nagin is an incompetent idiot! Nagin sent people to the Superdome because he failed to provide a way for them to get out of the city after promising that he'd use school buses to just that.

 

[Oldstyle]

The excuse that Ray Nagin used for why he didn't use school buses to evacuate people was that he had concerns over insurance liability. Malarkey? Without question! It was total bullshit when Nagin said it!

Link?

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was also criticized for failing to implement his evacuation plan and for ordering residents to a shelter of last resort without any provisions for food, water, security, or sanitary conditions. Perhaps the most important criticism of Nagin is that he delayed his emergency evacuation order until less than a day before landfall, which led to hundreds of deaths of people who (by that time) could not find any way out of the city.[2] Adding to the criticism was the broadcast of school bus parking lots full of yellow school buses which Mayor Nagin refused to be used in evacuation. When asked why the buses were not used to assist evacuations instead of holing up in the Superdome, Nagin cited the lack of insurance liability and shortage of bus drivers.[3] Wiki

I already acknowledged his delaying mandatory evacuations was a mistake. As far as not providing shelters with enough supplies ... they had enough supplies for a few days. Had FEMA showed up in a reasonable time, their supplies would not have been exhausted. And the idiocy of the school buses has already caused you to abandon your idiocy that Nagin should have stuck to the plan, which was to drive residents north of the city to ride out the storm. Even you finally admitted it was a stupid plan. Yet here you are, criticizing Nagin again for not putting people on buses in the path of a cat 5 hurricane.

A few days? Do you not understand the concept when people are told to have a MINIMUM of five days food and water if they're not going to evacuate? Why would private citizens be told that REPEATEDLY on public service messages about hurricane preparedness but then public officials would only have enough food and water to last a few days?

When did anyone here other than yourself say that hurricane evacuation plans were to drive people north? Where people evacuate in the face of a hurricane is totally dependent on what the hurricane's path is predicted to be. Obviously if Katrina was predicted to go due north then the prudent evacuation route would be to the west if possible or to the east if that was all that was available. What I "admitted" was that YOUR plan to drive people due north was stupid...but it was far superior to Nagin's complete lack of a plan to get them out of the city!

A shelter is not a hotel. They don't provide everything suggested to people to stock up on at home. And in the case of Katrina, they knew they lacked sufficient resources before the storm even hit, which is why they asked the federal government for assistance. Still, they had a few days provisions and an expectation that the federal government they begged for help would actually show up in a reasonable amount of time. Instead, FEMA gave excuses why they were delaying help.

As far as the plan to drive people north on buses to wait out the storm .... for the 4th time, that was New Orleans' plan, not mine. I'm the one here posting it because I'm the one here showing you what the plan was that you keep criticizing Nagin for not following. How many more times do you imagine I'm going to have to explain that to you until you finally understand that busing folks 2 hours north of the city was not my plan? 8? 10? 20? How many times?

Why would they have expectations that FEMA would show up in a few days? That's almost never the case with a major storm because big storms like that do major damage to streets with downed trees and power lines that make it extremely dangerous when you do try and get relief efforts to the affected area. With the amount of flooding that came with Katrina there was no way in the world that FEMA was going to be on site and helping people in a matter of days! I'm sorry but that was NEVER going to happen despite Ray Nagin's wailing that his city needed help and needed it NOW!

And you don't drive people somewhere in buses...wait out the storm...and then drive them back again! You don't seem to grasp what it's like after a major storm, Faun. You wouldn't drive people BACK into conditions where they don't have power, don't have food, don't have water, don't have running water, don't have working toilets! You drive them AWAY from that area...to a place like Houston that is set up to handle refugees. What Ray Nagin should have been doing was convincing as many people as possible to leave New Orleans as early as possible and getting emergency transportation ready to go to evacuate those who didn't own cars.

 

[Pogo]

Driving north and leaving people on buses when a hurricane is coming is insanity. No wonder you choose that option. Had you, Darwin's theory would have taken care of your blunder.

Driving due north was YOUR idea, Sparky! All I've done is point out that as stupid an idea as that was...it was STILL better than stranding people in low lying areas as a killer storm approached.

Driving north and leaving people on buses was not my idea, dumbfuck. It's not my fault you can't read.

That was the plan you've been saying they should have gone with.

Only an idiot would drive due north when the storm was also heading due north...the logical plan would be to go west towards Houston, Texas. Obviously "logic" is not your strong point!

Obviiously it isn't yours, because the quickest way to get away from something is to drive directly away from it, which means directly away from the water, which is its fuel source.

What if you drive toward Houston -- kind of a disgusting idea all by itself-- and the storm turns toward you? What have you gained then, East Jipip Boy? A hurricane system can be several hundred miles wide.

Hurricanes move faster than everyday weather systems but they do NOT move as fast as a car can drive. I've outrun more storms by knowing where the weather is than you've made stupid posts here.

Well, almost that many.

I went about 120 miles north and 60 miles west. The north part was what got me clear. All I saw of Katrina where I was was enough wind to snap a few tree branches and some rain. That's it.

If you weren't totally clueless about hurricanes then you'd know that the dangerous side of a hurricane is the right side. That's where the heaviest rains and winds are normally found. If I were leaving New Orleans with hurricane Katrina headed my way with the path that they projected...I would have headed west...away from the storm's most dangerous side.

No fucking shit Sherlock. What did I just post Dumbass?

And a hurricane moves at variable speeds. It might stop completely and stay in one place for hours, dumping huge amounts of rain...or it might move through an area at a high rate of speed in which case there is less flooding damage and more wind damage.

Doesn't matter, stupid -- if you're traveling AWAY from it you're travelling away from it.

Go fuck yourself. You don't have the first clue what you're talking about here, not that that hasn't been obvious for fucking days.

 

[ninja007]

Wow, I can't believe you just counted hours instead of days because that gives you the appearance of one less day! You're one of the most dedicated apologists I've ever run across. You've now spent days defending Ray Nagin's handling of Katrina and that's the best you can come up with?

You're an idiot.

I counted days. That moron still thinks it took Katrina 7 days to hit New Orleans. I counted numbers. That moron still thinks it took Katrina 7 days to hit New Orleans. I counted hours. That moron still thinks it took Katrina 7 days to hit New Orleans.

And it's not to give the appearance of one less day -- it's to be factually accurate. How many days do you think transpired from the time Katrina formed to the time it made landfall in Louisiana?

Six days.

Yet here you are, criticizing me for saying it was 6 days as I tried to educate a moron idiotically claiming it was 7 days.

So tell me how long you think it should take for a city's Mayor to activate an emergency response plan that is already in place? Or in Ray Nagin's case TOTALLY FAIL TO ACTIVATE IT!

Less than an hour.

What difference does that make? Six days? Seven days? Five days? Still plenty of time to prepare to put an already existing emergency plan into effect yet Ray Nagin whiffed on it, Faun.

Again, they had 2 days to prepare. 3 at most if you include Friday when Katrina was expected to hit Alabama. Prior to then, the storm was expected hit Florida again.

And it matters because some moron is insisting 6 days is actually 7. And for the forum's entertainment, he's even showing conservative fuzzy math in a failed attempt to prove himself right.

libs didnt want to leave their homes because they were waiting on their welfare checks.

 

[IlarMeilyr]

In the face of a natural calamity, the PRIMARY responsibility for the security of a locality lies with:
(a) the STATE in which that locality is located or with
(b) the LOCALITY itself or with
(c) the FEDERAL Government?

In proper order, I say the answers are:
b, a then c.

So if Brownie didn't do a helluva job, does that get the STATE of LA and the City of NO off the hook?

 

[Coyote]

For all the talk over who is responsible etc - there is a role for the President to play in the wake of a disaster - particularly a disaster on the scale of 9/11, OKC, or Katrina. All one has to do is compare and contrast's Bush's performance with Lyndon B. Johnson's during Betsy. The President has the unique ability to cut through red tape, speed up the transfer of resources and, simply, Be There. Be there and listen to the people, and reassure them that he will do what ever is possible to get things right. Sure, it includes a healthy dose of politics - but it's also what people need in a disaster and it's what Bush bailed on and Johnson rose on.

The Flood That Sank George W. Bush

Hurricane Katrina, a Category 3 storm, had smashed into the Gulf South. People were drowning. And the president of the United States played guitar in San Diego, egged on by country singer Mark Wills.


Even George W. Bush’s most stalwart supporters cringed at his disconnect from reality. Bush, like Michael Jackson in his days at Neverland Ranch, was living in a bubble. By contrast, when Hurricane Betsy had struck the Louisiana coast in 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson had immediately flown to New Orleans to see the flood zone firsthand. The difference was glaring. Bush was, quite simply—as Coast Guard first-responder Jimmy Duckworth phrased it—“out of the game.”​

High Water
How Presidents and citizens react to disaster

In the Ninth Ward, Johnson visited the George Washington Elementary School, on St. Claude Avenue, which was being used as a shelter. “Most of the people inside and outside of the building were Negro,” the diary reads. “At first, they did not believe that it was actually the President.” Johnson entered the crowded shelter in near-total darkness; there were only a couple of flashlights to lead the way.....


“This is your President!” Johnson announced. “I’m here to help you!”


The diary describes the shelter as a “mass of human suffering,” with people calling out for help “in terribly emotional wails from voices of all ages. . . . It was a most pitiful sight of human and material destruction.” According to an article by the historian Edward F. Haas, published fifteen years ago in the Gulf Coast Historical Review, Johnson was deeply moved as people approached and asked him for food and water; one woman asked Johnson for a boat so that she could look for her two sons, who had been lost in the flood.


“Little Mayor, this is horrible,” Johnson said to Schiro. “I’ve never seen anything like this in my life.” Johnson assured Schiro that the resources of the federal government were at his disposal and that “all red tape [will] be cut.”


The President flew back to Washington and the next day sent Schiro a sixteen-page telegram outlining plans for aid and the revival of New Orleans. “Please know,” Johnson wrote, “that my thoughts and prayers are with you and the thousands of Louisiana citizens who have suffered so heavily.”...

...A few days after the storm, WWL joined in a consortium of rival stations to form United Broadcasters of New Orleans, and they were now reaching thirty-eight states and thirteen countries. The moment that brought WWL the most attention was Robinette’s interview with Mayor Ray Nagin while people were still trapped in the Superdome and in the Convention Center, and Washington, particularly the White House, seemed to be on extended summer vacation. Unlike Lyndon Johnson, President Bush was slow to respond to the emergency—so slow, in fact, that his staff felt compelled to prepare a DVD of network newscasts to impress upon him the scale of the floods, the chaos, and the suffering. “God is looking down on all this,” Nagin said, “and if they are not doing everything in their power to save people they are going to pay the price. Because every day that we delay, people are dying and they’re dying by the hundreds, I’m willing to bet you . . . Don’t tell me forty thousand people are coming here. They’re not here. It’s too doggone late. Now get off your asses and do something, and let’s fix the biggest goddam crisis in the history of this country.”...


​

 

[IlarMeilyr]

The scale of the Katrina disaster caught lots of folks utterly unaware. There wasn't a whole lot that could be done initially once the damn levees broke.

It was overly easy -- and still is -- to point a finger at President Bush, but the finger pointing is a denial of reality. And before the levees broke and as the impending magnitude of that storm was becoming clear, it wasn't the Federal government that should have been acting in the first place.

 

[Coyote]

The scale of the Katrina disaster caught lots of folks utterly unaware. There wasn't a whole lot that could be done initially once the damn levees broke.

It was overly easy -- and still is -- to point a finger at President Bush, but the finger pointing is a denial of reality. And before the levees broke and as the impending magnitude of that storm was becoming clear, it wasn't the Federal government that should have been acting in the first place.

I agree - the scale was huge. But Bush had a role to play that could have made a difference in outlook - in letting those people know they mattered and he cared. Johnson (consumate politician) did that. Also the President has the unique ability to cut through red tape in a crisis. Bush badly mismanaged all of that leaving the impression of uncaring and too little too late.

I think the Federal Government should have been on standby because of the severity of the impending storm, and the densly populated areas affected. Local and state authorities were poorly prepared to deal with it.

 

[Faun]

Did I say Nagin acted appropriately? Why no, I didn't. Unfortunately, your inability to comprehend what you read leads you astray once again.

Don't hurt yourself doing that 180 - you could get whiplash.

As a reminder, what you claimed was {the city did what cities do under these circumstances} which is false.

Imbecile... cities with evacuation plans help get their residents to shelters as a storm approaches. That's what Nagin did. Does that mean he didn't do anything else inappropriately? Of course not. You simply lack the wherewithal to keep up.

Simple logic would tell you that aren't even CLOSE to enough shelters in New Orleans (or any other large city) to take care of it's residents! The reason why a competent Mayor would evacuate early is so that they could get as many people out of the city as possible so they don't have them piling up in shelters. And nobody with half a brain sends residents to shelters that don't have enough food & water for them. Well, you don't do that unless you're Ray Nagin and then that's EXACTLY what you do which is why Ray Nagin is an incompetent idiot! Nagin sent people to the Superdome because he failed to provide a way for them to get out of the city after promising that he'd use school buses to just that.

I would say, don't be so stupid, but you can't seem to help yourself. The city began evacuations not long after the storm's projected path put New Orleans in its cross hairs. Evacuation was not the problem for most. Those who had transportation and wanted to leave, got out. The problem was for those without transportation. For them, the only place to go was shelters or stay at home, which many folks chose to do. And they did have enough food and water for several days, which was enough had more arrived. Not sure how much food you think can be stocked up. And the problems grew worse when thousands more people showed up after the storm passed. Also not sure how your brain expects that could have been anticipated.

 

[Faun]

Link?

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was also criticized for failing to implement his evacuation plan and for ordering residents to a shelter of last resort without any provisions for food, water, security, or sanitary conditions. Perhaps the most important criticism of Nagin is that he delayed his emergency evacuation order until less than a day before landfall, which led to hundreds of deaths of people who (by that time) could not find any way out of the city.[2] Adding to the criticism was the broadcast of school bus parking lots full of yellow school buses which Mayor Nagin refused to be used in evacuation. When asked why the buses were not used to assist evacuations instead of holing up in the Superdome, Nagin cited the lack of insurance liability and shortage of bus drivers.[3] Wiki

I already acknowledged his delaying mandatory evacuations was a mistake. As far as not providing shelters with enough supplies ... they had enough supplies for a few days. Had FEMA showed up in a reasonable time, their supplies would not have been exhausted. And the idiocy of the school buses has already caused you to abandon your idiocy that Nagin should have stuck to the plan, which was to drive residents north of the city to ride out the storm. Even you finally admitted it was a stupid plan. Yet here you are, criticizing Nagin again for not putting people on buses in the path of a cat 5 hurricane.

A few days? Do you not understand the concept when people are told to have a MINIMUM of five days food and water if they're not going to evacuate? Why would private citizens be told that REPEATEDLY on public service messages about hurricane preparedness but then public officials would only have enough food and water to last a few days?

When did anyone here other than yourself say that hurricane evacuation plans were to drive people north? Where people evacuate in the face of a hurricane is totally dependent on what the hurricane's path is predicted to be. Obviously if Katrina was predicted to go due north then the prudent evacuation route would be to the west if possible or to the east if that was all that was available. What I "admitted" was that YOUR plan to drive people due north was stupid...but it was far superior to Nagin's complete lack of a plan to get them out of the city!

A shelter is not a hotel. They don't provide everything suggested to people to stock up on at home. And in the case of Katrina, they knew they lacked sufficient resources before the storm even hit, which is why they asked the federal government for assistance. Still, they had a few days provisions and an expectation that the federal government they begged for help would actually show up in a reasonable amount of time. Instead, FEMA gave excuses why they were delaying help.

As far as the plan to drive people north on buses to wait out the storm .... for the 4th time, that was New Orleans' plan, not mine. I'm the one here posting it because I'm the one here showing you what the plan was that you keep criticizing Nagin for not following. How many more times do you imagine I'm going to have to explain that to you until you finally understand that busing folks 2 hours north of the city was not my plan? 8? 10? 20? How many times?

Why would they have expectations that FEMA would show up in a few days? That's almost never the case with a major storm because big storms like that do major damage to streets with downed trees and power lines that make it extremely dangerous when you do try and get relief efforts to the affected area. With the amount of flooding that came with Katrina there was no way in the world that FEMA was going to be on site and helping people in a matter of days! I'm sorry but that was NEVER going to happen despite Ray Nagin's wailing that his city needed help and needed it NOW!

And you don't drive people somewhere in buses...wait out the storm...and then drive them back again! You don't seem to grasp what it's like after a major storm, Faun. You wouldn't drive people BACK into conditions where they don't have power, don't have food, don't have water, don't have running water, don't have working toilets! You drive them AWAY from that area...to a place like Houston that is set up to handle refugees. What Ray Nagin should have been doing was convincing as many people as possible to leave New Orleans as early as possible and getting emergency transportation ready to go to evacuate those who didn't own cars.

Because FEMA's not the incompetent department you make it out to be because it annoys you that it left a blemish on the Bush administration. In response to Hurricane Charley, they responsed the very day after the storm passed. There was no reason not to expect the same level of help following Katrina. That's why Brown got fired.

FEMA learned from Hurricane Andrew in 1992

Charlotte County emergency director Wayne Sallade has not been able to contain his boasting about the response to Charley. He said the first day of response after Charley accomplished more than the first three days after Andrew. On day four, he challenged anyone in Miami-Dade County to tell him that they were delivering ice, food and water door-to-door after the same period in 1992.

"From the courthouse to the White House, it's been a remarkable response on all levels," Sallade said this week, adding that other counties and agencies were immediately sending help. "They were in the county before the tropical storm force winds left Charlotte County."

It is a far cry from what Kate Hale saw 12 years ago. Hale, who was the Dade County emergency management director when Andrew hit, asked in exasperation in the storm's aftermath: "Where in the hell is the cavalry?"

This time, "they've had food, water, people, equipment and communications in almost immediately. We were waiting days for that and sometimes longer," said Hale, now president and chief executive of the South Florida Mental Health Association. "This one's gone off the way you would want to see things happen."

[...]

It took four days for FEMA to get its first people into South Florida after Andrew. In the same time after Charley, disaster workers had finished search-and-rescue operations and were focused on getting residents necessities like food and water.​

You really have no fucking clue what you're talking about.

 

[Oldstyle]

For all the talk over who is responsible etc - there is a role for the President to play in the wake of a disaster - particularly a disaster on the scale of 9/11, OKC, or Katrina. All one has to do is compare and contrast's Bush's performance with Lyndon B. Johnson's during Betsy. The President has the unique ability to cut through red tape, speed up the transfer of resources and, simply, Be There. Be there and listen to the people, and reassure them that he will do what ever is possible to get things right. Sure, it includes a healthy dose of politics - but it's also what people need in a disaster and it's what Bush bailed on and Johnson rose on.

The Flood That Sank George W. Bush

Hurricane Katrina, a Category 3 storm, had smashed into the Gulf South. People were drowning. And the president of the United States played guitar in San Diego, egged on by country singer Mark Wills.


Even George W. Bush’s most stalwart supporters cringed at his disconnect from reality. Bush, like Michael Jackson in his days at Neverland Ranch, was living in a bubble. By contrast, when Hurricane Betsy had struck the Louisiana coast in 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson had immediately flown to New Orleans to see the flood zone firsthand. The difference was glaring. Bush was, quite simply—as Coast Guard first-responder Jimmy Duckworth phrased it—“out of the game.”​

High Water
How Presidents and citizens react to disaster

In the Ninth Ward, Johnson visited the George Washington Elementary School, on St. Claude Avenue, which was being used as a shelter. “Most of the people inside and outside of the building were Negro,” the diary reads. “At first, they did not believe that it was actually the President.” Johnson entered the crowded shelter in near-total darkness; there were only a couple of flashlights to lead the way.....


“This is your President!” Johnson announced. “I’m here to help you!”


The diary describes the shelter as a “mass of human suffering,” with people calling out for help “in terribly emotional wails from voices of all ages. . . . It was a most pitiful sight of human and material destruction.” According to an article by the historian Edward F. Haas, published fifteen years ago in the Gulf Coast Historical Review, Johnson was deeply moved as people approached and asked him for food and water; one woman asked Johnson for a boat so that she could look for her two sons, who had been lost in the flood.


“Little Mayor, this is horrible,” Johnson said to Schiro. “I’ve never seen anything like this in my life.” Johnson assured Schiro that the resources of the federal government were at his disposal and that “all red tape [will] be cut.”


The President flew back to Washington and the next day sent Schiro a sixteen-page telegram outlining plans for aid and the revival of New Orleans. “Please know,” Johnson wrote, “that my thoughts and prayers are with you and the thousands of Louisiana citizens who have suffered so heavily.”...

...A few days after the storm, WWL joined in a consortium of rival stations to form United Broadcasters of New Orleans, and they were now reaching thirty-eight states and thirteen countries. The moment that brought WWL the most attention was Robinette’s interview with Mayor Ray Nagin while people were still trapped in the Superdome and in the Convention Center, and Washington, particularly the White House, seemed to be on extended summer vacation. Unlike Lyndon Johnson, President Bush was slow to respond to the emergency—so slow, in fact, that his staff felt compelled to prepare a DVD of network newscasts to impress upon him the scale of the floods, the chaos, and the suffering. “God is looking down on all this,” Nagin said, “and if they are not doing everything in their power to save people they are going to pay the price. Because every day that we delay, people are dying and they’re dying by the hundreds, I’m willing to bet you . . . Don’t tell me forty thousand people are coming here. They’re not here. It’s too doggone late. Now get off your asses and do something, and let’s fix the biggest goddam crisis in the history of this country.”...


​

I read that article by Professor Brinkley and what first came to my mind is that I can't believe a "historian" wrote such a slanted piece. I mean seriously...that might very well be the worst description of what happened in New Orleans before, during and after Katrina that I've ever seen! There is absolutely no mention of the failures of New Orleans leaders at all.

According to Professor Brinkley...the disaster that Katrina became was all the fault of Michael Chertoff, Michael Brown and President Bush because they simply didn't "care" about the people in New Orleans! You include that hysterical speech by Nagin demanding instantaneous help to somehow magically appear in New Orleans once it's become quite clear that thousands of the people that he failed to get out of the city prior to the storm hitting are at that point either dead or in dire straights!

Did that asshole REALLY demand that someone else get off their asses and do something after his complete failure to follow the emergency evacuation plan that New Orleans had in place? Did the national media REALLY let that incompetent buffoon get away with saying that?

 

[Oldstyle]

Ray Nagin is sitting in prison because he lined his own pockets rather than doing what was best for the people of New Orleans.

While he's there...he should think long and hard about the thousands who lost their lives because he was so incompetent.

 

[Faun]

Ray Nagin is sitting in prison because he lined his own pockets rather than doing what was best for the people of New Orleans.

While he's there...he should think long and hard about the thousands who lost their lives because he was so incompetent.

Nagin is a corrupt [former] politician, but which charges against him were specifically related to Katrina?

 

[Oldstyle]

Ray Nagin is sitting in prison because he lined his own pockets rather than doing what was best for the people of New Orleans.

While he's there...he should think long and hard about the thousands who lost their lives because he was so incompetent.

Nagin is a corrupt [former] politician, but which charges against him were specifically related to Katrina?

He's not in prison for his ineptitude during Katrina, Faun...he's in prison because he took bribes. If you wanted to do business with the city of New Orleans...including taking part in the rebuilding of the city following Katrina...then you paid Ray. It's something he did from the moment he got into office until the moment he left office.

 

[Oldstyle]

That's the difference between Ray Nagin and Michael Brown...Brown was trying to help the citizens of New Orleans...Nagin was helping himself!

 

[Faun]

Ray Nagin is sitting in prison because he lined his own pockets rather than doing what was best for the people of New Orleans.

While he's there...he should think long and hard about the thousands who lost their lives because he was so incompetent.

Nagin is a corrupt [former] politician, but which charges against him were specifically related to Katrina?

He's not in prison for his ineptitude during Katrina, Faun...he's in prison because he took bribes. If you wanted to do business with the city of New Orleans...including taking part in the rebuilding of the city following Katrina...then you paid Ray. It's something he did from the moment he got into office until the moment he left office.

If his conviction has nothing to do with Katrina then why are you even bring it up in a debate about Katrina? You must feel like you're losing the argument if you have to resort to character assassination over event not even related to the topic.

Now more relavent to the discussion...what about FEMA refusing to show up for a week? Why is that OK with you?

 

[Uncensored2008]

For all the talk over who is responsible etc - there is a role for the President to play in the wake of a disaster - particularly a disaster on the scale of 9/11, OKC, or Katrina. All one has to do is compare and contrast's Bush's performance with Lyndon B. Johnson's during Betsy. The President has the unique ability to cut through red tape, speed up the transfer of resources and, simply, Be There. Be there and listen to the people, and reassure them that he will do what ever is possible to get things right. Sure, it includes a healthy dose of politics - but it's also what people need in a disaster and it's what Bush bailed on and Johnson rose on.

The Flood That Sank George W. Bush

Hurricane Katrina, a Category 3 storm, had smashed into the Gulf South. People were drowning. And the president of the United States played guitar in San Diego, egged on by country singer Mark Wills.


Even George W. Bush’s most stalwart supporters cringed at his disconnect from reality. Bush, like Michael Jackson in his days at Neverland Ranch, was living in a bubble. By contrast, when Hurricane Betsy had struck the Louisiana coast in 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson had immediately flown to New Orleans to see the flood zone firsthand. The difference was glaring. Bush was, quite simply—as Coast Guard first-responder Jimmy Duckworth phrased it—“out of the game.”​

High Water
How Presidents and citizens react to disaster

In the Ninth Ward, Johnson visited the George Washington Elementary School, on St. Claude Avenue, which was being used as a shelter. “Most of the people inside and outside of the building were Negro,” the diary reads. “At first, they did not believe that it was actually the President.” Johnson entered the crowded shelter in near-total darkness; there were only a couple of flashlights to lead the way.....


“This is your President!” Johnson announced. “I’m here to help you!”


The diary describes the shelter as a “mass of human suffering,” with people calling out for help “in terribly emotional wails from voices of all ages. . . . It was a most pitiful sight of human and material destruction.” According to an article by the historian Edward F. Haas, published fifteen years ago in the Gulf Coast Historical Review, Johnson was deeply moved as people approached and asked him for food and water; one woman asked Johnson for a boat so that she could look for her two sons, who had been lost in the flood.


“Little Mayor, this is horrible,” Johnson said to Schiro. “I’ve never seen anything like this in my life.” Johnson assured Schiro that the resources of the federal government were at his disposal and that “all red tape [will] be cut.”


The President flew back to Washington and the next day sent Schiro a sixteen-page telegram outlining plans for aid and the revival of New Orleans. “Please know,” Johnson wrote, “that my thoughts and prayers are with you and the thousands of Louisiana citizens who have suffered so heavily.”...

...A few days after the storm, WWL joined in a consortium of rival stations to form United Broadcasters of New Orleans, and they were now reaching thirty-eight states and thirteen countries. The moment that brought WWL the most attention was Robinette’s interview with Mayor Ray Nagin while people were still trapped in the Superdome and in the Convention Center, and Washington, particularly the White House, seemed to be on extended summer vacation. Unlike Lyndon Johnson, President Bush was slow to respond to the emergency—so slow, in fact, that his staff felt compelled to prepare a DVD of network newscasts to impress upon him the scale of the floods, the chaos, and the suffering. “God is looking down on all this,” Nagin said, “and if they are not doing everything in their power to save people they are going to pay the price. Because every day that we delay, people are dying and they’re dying by the hundreds, I’m willing to bet you . . . Don’t tell me forty thousand people are coming here. They’re not here. It’s too doggone late. Now get off your asses and do something, and let’s fix the biggest goddam crisis in the history of this country.”...


​

So Nagin was a hero because, um well..

And Bush was to blame because he didn't drive to NO and carry people out on his back?

Seriously, given that you of the left don't deal with reality or facts, wantonly fabricating fictions to promote your political agenda, with utter and complete disregard for reality - who can anyone communicate with you?

 

[Pogo]

Ray Nagin is sitting in prison because he lined his own pockets rather than doing what was best for the people of New Orleans.

While he's there...he should think long and hard about the thousands who lost their lives because he was so incompetent.

Nagin is a corrupt [former] politician, but which charges against him were specifically related to Katrina?

He's not in prison for his ineptitude during Katrina, Faun...he's in prison because he took bribes. If you wanted to do business with the city of New Orleans...including taking part in the rebuilding of the city following Katrina...then you paid Ray. It's something he did from the moment he got into office until the moment he left office.

Correct. And what the fuck does that have to do with anything done or not done in the hurricane?

 

[Uncensored2008]

Correct. And what the fuck does that have to do with anything done or not done in the hurricane?

Bush was a democrat...

Every bit as much as Nagin was a Republican..

In partisan hack Pogo world, up is down and blue is sideways...