Can't believe what's happening in America!!!!!

[Forgetmenot]

Have just watched the news and I'm so upset seeing all those people who just seemed to have been abandoned by the authorities, their government and the rest of their country!!!
They have no food or water and the police are only concerned with looters!!
Why isn't the whole country rallying round to help for gods sake!!!

[expatinscotland]

This is NOT the failing of the US federal government. This is the failing of that state of Louisiana's government, which has been corrupt and a mess from Day 1. We have states! States are supposed to do 90% of all governing, including stuff like evacuation plans. If you go to Louisiana and kill someone, you're tried in a STATE court and go to a STATE prison. George Bush has no business in it unless he grants you a pardon after the STATE governor has refused to do so. This is why being a governor like Arnie is seen as such a powerful position.

The federal government has veto power over an individual state, but for the most part governing is left to states.

[alux]

huh, cod. i know not to what you refer.

[cod]

Message withdrawn

[alux]

expat, and on day 2 when it was declared a national, not state disaster, why has it taken 3 days for the nation to respond? Mayor Nagin & Gov. Blanco has been crying for assistance within 24 hrs. Just because they screwed up means everyone keeps screwing up. It is not meant to sound personal. It is just anger to know that once the national guard got rolling - besides in armoured vehicles to keep the 'looters' at bay - the aid was coming in a flood.

People in the city would never had behaved so desperately if the Federal system did not act sooo slllooooowwwwlllly.

On the radio this am an angry american was pointing out that the funds to repair the levees had recently been cut. It costs something like $35m per yr to keep them in shape. Bush's Homeland Security has responsiblity for the levees in NO. Not the city of NO.

[alux]

so, what is your point then.

[cod]

Message withdrawn

[ruty]

have to agree with alux

[expatinscotland]

Well, alux, it isn't exactly like they can just drive in on a convoy of lorries given the place is under water. There's also a rather large land mass affected by the storm. A mass bigger than the UK. And the media is only focusing on New Orleans. There are actually many millions affected just now b/c of this. Mississippi, for example is even poor than Louisiana and has now lost one of its big sources of revenue: gambling casinos floating in the Gulf of Mexico.

'Bush's Homeland Security (it's actually not his personal entity, but a part of the US federal government approved by Congress) does NOT have direct responbility for the levee system there in fact. It is the STATE'S first and foremost responsibility to maintain it, just as it is the STATE'S responsibility to maintain all the interstate motorways in their area. If their budget is cut for say, road funding, they have to cut back in other areas OR raise taxes. Yes, a state has the power to raise tax via sales tax, what you call VAT, and/or state income tax. In fact, at one point, the federal government threatened to yank Louisiana's state highway funding if they did not change their drinking age from 18 to 21. And the state of Louisiana held them off for a year b/c the revenues they bring in in alcohol sales were actually greater than what the federal government granted them in highway funding.

I'm not a Bush supporter. A lot of people aren't.

But believe it or not the man cannot operate like Hitler or any other dictator. He actually has to work through the United States Congress in many, many ways.

[expatinscotland]

Louisiana always had staggering cheap taxes. Even cheaper than Texas. Texans used to joke that that was the only reason people went to live there - apologies to all those from 'Looziana'. But their services were always in a terrible state.

[alux]

no cod, wrong is wrong, who ever is in power. you know that.

[alux]

when the STATE asks for the money from the FED GOV'T to maintain a barrier of vital national interest - then they need to cough up the money. Likewise the STATE requests money to keep highways in good repair because it comes under things to do with interstate commerce. The levee system as with dredging the channels in the mississippi gets national as well as state funding.

[alux]

when the STATE asks for the money from the FED GOV'T to maintain a barrier of vital national interest - then they need to cough up the money. Likewise the STATE requests money to keep highways in good repair because it comes under things to do with interstate commerce. The levee system as with dredging the channels in the mississippi gets national as well as state funding.

expat: what was wrong with airlifting food in with huey helicopters. they did that to bring in the armoured cars days before. Had people been given food and water BEFORE the armoured cars arrived, they would not have resorted to 'by any means necessary' to survive.

America, even with 30% of its National Guard and a higher % of is Army in Iraq, still had the wherewithal to alleviate the suffering long before today. You have heard of the Military Industrial Complex. It is a behemoth. Iraq IMO is no excuse. America has the logistics as today is proving to have done a lot more. Can't say the same for the British.

Yes, I know the Army cannot move till instructed by their Commander in Chief. But they were only instructed to shoot to kill 'looters' first. Not to divert a human catastrophe.

[alux]

ps cod, i read the telegraph avidly too. right or left wing, you know that we got to read beyond the 'news', yes?

[expatinscotland]

They do? They need to cough it up? Excuse me, but, as a former US taxpayer and Texas native, I don't necessarily see that as the case. Especially when they always seemed to have a hard time accounting for the monies given to them anyhow. Where'd the money go? B/c when I said the city of New Orleans felt magical, I wasn't just talking about a feeling in the air.

And what was wrong with the state of Louisiana using those monies freed up to it by disaster relief before the hurricane struck to lay on some extra supplies? They had days to do it.

It didn't take the state of Texas half as long to equip the Astrodome for the slate of refugees, who are now being tranported as far away as San Antonio and Dallas b/c Houston cannot cope. Hmmm. Wonder if the state of Louisiana is going to reimburse the state of Texas from the federal disaster relief monies . . .

As for the looting, I wasn't aware that a TV or Levi's jeans or class A narcotics were essential to survival. The state also supposedly had its own guard. All states do. Where are they? Where were they before the feds showed up?

[alux]

I'll answer your last Q first,
The LA National Guard is in Iraq right now.

The other piece of BAD NEWS: the hurricane season's worst month, historically, is September.

It would take me too long to answer the bit about coughing up the money at the moment. Part of the problem is the American attitude to being taxed. I don't like it either but it gotta be done. But that is another discussion thread.

I can guarantee you that LA officials are corrupt. Huey Long did not start the corruption there either. The corruption is no excuse for cutting federal funding to repair the levees LAST YEAR.

As for the other questions you pose, I am and neither are you in the position to speculate. I don't think that TX ought to worry about whether LA will reimburse it, though. Next year, nay, next weeek TX may depend on the good will of AK.
Does whether TX ought to be reimbursed play a part in helping other Americans no matter which state they are from?

[expatinscotland]

Historically September. Yeah, so that means no storms in August? We seemed to have a lot. I remember being excited when Alicia hit in August, b/c going back to school was delayed. The fun wore off after three days with no water after the Category 3 storm. It took three days to restore our water supply. It was a week before our power was back. And it was just as hot - mosquitos everywhere, fire ants in the flood water, schools of water moccasins visible in the dirty water. Amazingly, though, the feds didn't have to come out and martial law declared b/c of looting. Haven't heard any reports about widespread looting in Mississippi.

Louisiana had its funding cut. SO DID JUST ABOUT EVERYONE ELSE! In a LOT of things. There are A LOT of vital engineering systems in place that had funding cut. People elected Bush and a Republican Congress into office, what'd they expect? Socialised healthcare?

Maybe people might actually turn up to vote in higher numbers this time round after a tragedy like this. Louisiana voters helped put Bush in office. Bush/Cheney won the state. Now it's all his fault this happened?

And believe you me, I didn't vote for Bush. Things like this are the reason why.

But he didn't conjure up this storm. And the state officials failed horribly in their duty to their own people. Now everyone else has to clean it up.

[Ameriscot2005]

The only thing the Feds have done wrong is in being slow to realise how incompetent the state officials were.

[alux]

do you mean it took them FIVE days to figure out how incompetent the state officials were? blimey!!!

[alux]

Yes, historically, september. I am talking about the formation of hurricanes in the Caribbean and the Western Atlantic going back to the thirties. Not just a blip from my the memory of my lifetime.

[Ameriscot2005]

FFS, Alux, stop being so melodramatic. There's enough of that in the media.

The storm came through on Monday. New Orleans thought they had been spared, and everything looked pretty normal for a major hurricane. It took some time for the levee to fail, and that was the turning point for New Orleans. Very soon after that, Bush returned from his holiday and convened Congress to enable funds to be released.

It's up to the state governments to decide what help is required and to communicate their needs to whoever can fill them. That obviously took a long time to happen.

[alux]

it was satirical surprise, not melodrama - good thing I'm not paid to act.

the levee when they were built, were designed to hold back a category 2 to 3 hurricane. This is the first time from you i am hearing that NO thought it would be spared. A lot of false hope were invested and possibly fostered in minds of local people (not just poor people!) about these levees. I know! I saw the attitude of my American friends when Hurricane Andrew grazed NO in the 90's I was there and scared sh*tless.

The thing was 400 miles in diameter. OF course NO was going to be hit and bad. It was a cat 5. It couldn't make an about turn in the Gulf and strike Veracruz, Mexico!
It does not answer questions of less than appropriate building codes for this region. Not just LA. All the houses all along the gulf coast washed into matchsticks. When Charleston was hit by Hugo, the homes that survived were the old colonial homes because they built them to withstand hurricanes. The throw them up cheap and fast has not benefited anyone but realtors in the long run.

The fed gov't can release the funds but the LA state could not call out its National Guard who happens to be in Iraq. The manpower had to come from somewhere else? Fed Gov't, I suppose?

[bakedalaska]

There are so many things in this disaster to me disgusted by. I appreciate that Geo Bush personally does not simply order up money, troops and food aid. But surely once the flooding started the chaos and health problems would have been forseeable to anyone in charge at any level.

I am so disgusted by Houston, saying they could take in 23,000 or more refugees at the Astrodome and then realising that 11,000 put them at capacity. What an outrageous overestimate. Valuable time was wasted in finding other shelter sites.

[monkeytrousers]

Is the assertion that the majority of 'looters' are after tv's and levi's and class a drugs? (which in that particular case I can imagine many people needing)

[bakedalaska]

That is the assertion. I agree with the drugs part. So does NO's mayor. NO has had a huge drug problem for years. I lived there in the 1980's crack wave and it was a very dangerous place. That is another problem that could have been anticipated. Does anyone know how long it actually takes to break a hardcore drug addiction if he goes cold turkey?

[fqueenzebra]

There were several many-hours-long power outages in New York City in the late 1970s/1980s. Every time the place descended into chaos, with lots of looting and violence. This kind of thing happened to a lesser extent after one of the big earthquakes in Southern California a few years ago; it seems like the natural response of low-life Americans (and yes, we are talking about theft of tvs and levis, not food and blankets which would be understandable). Violence & Looting certainly should have been anticipated.

I was reading this guys' blog the other day, he tried to leave; he had a car. But after 4 hours he had only travelled 15 miles so he decided to go back and "ride it out" just like he had done previous storms. Even if the school buses had been used to ferry people, they might not have gotten them to safety, anyway.

I think the inequity of the situation is more about poverty than race, it was poor and disabled people who got left behind.