Are you fucking kidding me?
From Michael Silence, we learn that FEMA is useless and has no control in New Orleans; anarchy reigns; people are dying; people are being lied to about help being on the way; they can’t find provisions the federal government sent; looting; death; and all manner of bedlam.
So, what’s the .gov doing? Well, two former presidents are asking people to give money (got that one covered, guys, people are doing it on their own without your involvement) and congress is weighing an emergency session on hurricane aid. Just fucking weighing? Jumpin’ Jesus on a pogo stick. Weighing is what you idiots should have been doing four fucking days ago. Don’t we have money set aside for large scale emergencies, like say a fucking terrorist attack.
And didn’t this government create the largest federal bureaucracy ever in the history of the country to combat terror? Wouldn’t part of the plan for coordinating these agencies to combat terror (and using my tax dollars to do so) involve the capability to deal with, say, a large scale tragedy in which many people are hurt? And wouldn’t this coordination involve getting FEMA access to those resources? I mean, I figure since they were planning on what to do in the event a nuke went off, they might have some sort of reasonably organized plan to get to people who are hard to get to and help them. And wouldn’t that plan have adequate funding already assigned to it.
Even if what the .gov does is a pointless, symbolic gesture (which they’re famous for), it says something. People, who are currently concerned and saddened, are soon going to be enraged by the colossal incompetence in the face of this widespread disaster. Think about it. They knew days in advance this was coming and the response has been inadequate. So, how do you think they’d react to a sudden, no-warning, unexpected massive act of terror?
Are you fucking kidding me?
I want my money back.
Update: Hey, congress has gone from weighing to rushing.
Update 2: Back on my meds. Apologies for the profanity.
September 1st, 2005 at 9:04 pm
Let’s just say my at-work (in San Francisco) is going to include a week, rather than two days, worth of food.
September 1st, 2005 at 9:32 pm
Great post. Spot on.
September 2nd, 2005 at 7:24 am
They seem to be doing a fine job over the rest of the storm stricken area – and I notice there are no riots in Mississippi which sufferred much more significant loss of infrastructure and life but in which Republican Governor Haley Barbour was clear from the start that looters would be shot. In Louisiana, instead, the pathetic Democrat Governor and Mayor of New Orlean failed to announce evacuation untill too late, failed to muster state resources to assist with evacuation or respond in immediate aftermath of the hurricane, and failed to maintain order and discipline and communication amongst it police force and national guard units, instead trying to push the Democrats new call to embrace religion. It took them over 5 days to give police the right to shoot to kill looters and marauders, by which time large numbers of police had joined those gangs.
Your right, Are you fucking kidding me?
September 2nd, 2005 at 8:10 am
I concur, there is blame at the local and state level too. But where is all this disaster preparedess the feds are supposed to have created since 9/11?
September 2nd, 2005 at 9:58 am
Uncle, I think the disaster preparedness is in place and working quite well assisting the 5+ other million people who are refugees from this storm. Remember, New Orlean fared rather well in the immediate aftermath and resources need to be spend in Mississippi, Alabama, as well as the rest of Louisiana (and caring for all the people who are displaced). Those other 5+ million people seem to be getting along reasonably well considering. Its just the animals in New Orleans who aren’t (and seem to be causing trouble as they are evacuated elsewhere if the rumors are to be believed – which I don’t).
For a very good analysis of the scope of the problem evacuating the remaining peopel in New Orleans, read the comment from Buzzmachine that I posted on my site.
September 2nd, 2005 at 10:02 am
Sorry, dude, but it should have been assumed that not everyone would make it out. Sure, the looter and others in NO bear some responsibility in this. But we supposedly had all this contingencies and plans and layers of bureaucracy to deal with this and it’s not getting dealt with.
September 2nd, 2005 at 10:04 am
Just to stick up for my little federal agency, the Coast Guard has been doing good work from day 1 – over 2800 people rescued so far (http://www.uscgstormwatch.com/external/?cid=1008&fuseaction=external.viewDocument&documentID=82283). About $1.3 for LA and MS (each) has been made availible through pollution response funds – not a lot, but enough to keep the CG moving forward and supplied. I’d be willing to bet that all the other agencies are doing a lot more than you’re hearing about, but haven’t had the time to really talk to the MSM. Wish I knew more, but I’m in AK, and we’re pretty far from the hub of activity.
September 2nd, 2005 at 10:07 am
That is good news, nick.
September 2nd, 2005 at 10:11 am
Man, countertop, you sound like a vile, disgusting homo sapien, but not necessarily a member of humankind. If you have any reading or visual comprehension you would understand why the people of the NO area are having more problems and are quite a bit more anxious than the people of MS and AL. Excuse me, I think you have made me sick.
September 2nd, 2005 at 11:04 am
Yeah, because everyone knows the flooding in New Orleans is exclusively the fault of the “pathetic Democratic Governor and Mayor”; and that the fact that the rest of the gulf coast isn’t flooded has nothing to do with the relative ease with which relief is reaching that area; and the fact that New Orleans is both more populous and (on the whole) much poorer than the rest of the gulf coast has no impact whatsoever on evacuation; and the fact that the homeland security director, who’s supposed to be coordinating all of the federal assistance, can’t tell his own ass from a hole in the ground (he had to be told Thursday evening that there were thousands of refugees needing assistance at the NO convention center, and initially reacted with angry dismissals of these reports) has nothing to do with it either.
You’re right, countertop, it’s exclusively the fault of the Democrats, damn them.
Idiot.
September 2nd, 2005 at 11:14 am
Seriously, guys, there’s enough blame to go around that transcends party lines. The partisan sniping won’t help.
September 2nd, 2005 at 11:19 am
Uncle:
That was my point, actually. I didn’t mean to imply that the Democrats are blameless — they certainly are not, and there’s plenty of blame to go around. I just took exception to countertop’s “it’s-all-the-Dems-fault” line, as well as his “the gulf coast is paradise while NO is hell” line. It reveals a simplistic view.
Let’s get everyone out of there, then worry about what went wrong, whom to blame, and how to fix it.
September 2nd, 2005 at 12:32 pm
I think they’re playin’ games with you, Uncle
Say Uncle is quite confident someone is yanking his chain and he’s not sparing the lower forms of the English language to express his disappointment:And didn?t this government create the
September 2nd, 2005 at 4:31 pm
Hey Countertop,
Kathleen Blanco is a Republican. Just FYI.
September 2nd, 2005 at 4:36 pm
Haha, actually I was wrong.
I thought her opponent last year, Bobby Jindal was a Repuplican. Oops.
September 2nd, 2005 at 4:37 pm
Good Post, Uncle. The wingnuts are spinning the NO Mayor’s Radio Interview like Dean’s Scream. Typical impotence: In the Rear With the Gear.
September 2nd, 2005 at 6:44 pm
Hey Uncle,
I agree with you 100%. Not to point blame in any direction I think Uncle feels the same as I do. If any non .gov agency was to take responsability for items such as FEMA and the situtation was the same you can bet your ass someone would be paying a price. The feeling I get is that since it is the .gov they have even more of a responsability to make it right. This is a microscope on how our .gov handles emergencies after 9/11, and makes me want to go to Washington to support personally the Patriot act II. Please take more and more of my freedoms to give me emergency management such as this.
By the way Uncle, you beat me to the punch on this one, my thoughts were the same in context to a nuclear device. Wait till its not just tens of thousands of people but 1-3 million effected from a nuclear device in a major city and all the while We the People are allowing illegal searches in subways in NewYork while our boarders are open and our .gov is trying to gain more and more powers over the people. Absolutely disgraceful!! I would also like to say this is not an attack on any one emergency response team. I do support the coast guard and all emergency medical personel. My issue is the fact that the .gov does not have these entities more prepared to handle mass chaos. my .02…
BT
September 3rd, 2005 at 12:37 am
The flooding, of course, made things impossibly harder to deal with — but it proves again that you need to be self-sufficient for no less than 72 hours — preferably a week. So stock up.
September 5th, 2005 at 10:29 am
[…] In this post, I rather ineloquently expressed my anger regarding how the .gov reacted to Katrina. I leveled plenty of blame, specifically at the feds for spending our money and not dealing with this mess efficiently or even competently. I rescind that, at least in part. The reason is that this weekend I had a chance to talk to a terrorism and disaster recovery expert. He explained that the function of FEMA and DHS was to provide long term aftercare in the event of such an incident. The early response to such events rests squarely at the state and local level. A lot of our federal DHS dollars go to cities and states to fund what are essentially first responders. The state/local response teams’ responsibility is to be in first and ready to deal with massive loss of life and provide for folks in need for the first twenty-four to seventy-two hours. In New Orleans, this system broke down and, perhaps, the money was squandered. The mayor did not run buses out and was invisible for the first three days. The governor waited to long to take control. […]