I must mention Katrina
I nearly forgot to post my impressions of the situation in New Orleans and on the Gulf Coast.
Quite simply, this is an incompetetent response to one of the greatest natural disasters the United States has ever faced. Discovery and History channel documentaries have let me know that a hurricane hitting New Orleans would be catastrophic. I knew these things just from watching television, and I hadn't been tasked with the job of responding to the eventuality of a flooded and devastated Big Easy.
One of the images that drives the incompetence home most for me is a picture from inside the Superdome. It shows a crowd filling the seats bordering the playing field. From watching the cable news networks, I knew that the water was expected to rise to a point that would put it above the playing field of the Superdome. I knew this, but the leadership at the Superdome did not. As expected, reports came out of a stampede up the seats in the Superdome when the flood waters started to flow in over the field. Elderly and disabled were left behind and had to wait for the good Samaritans in the house to rescue them.
Why the incompetence? It's the leadership. The President appointed one of his friends, who had no experience with disasters, as the director of FEMA. The mayor of New Orleans and the governor of Louisiana never took the threat of a hurricane strike seriously enough to push for storm surge barriers such as those that exist in the Netherlands.
Though I don't know anyone in New Orleans, even I've been hit personally by the storm. Something Awful went a couple days after the storm struck.
Quite simply, this is an incompetetent response to one of the greatest natural disasters the United States has ever faced. Discovery and History channel documentaries have let me know that a hurricane hitting New Orleans would be catastrophic. I knew these things just from watching television, and I hadn't been tasked with the job of responding to the eventuality of a flooded and devastated Big Easy.
One of the images that drives the incompetence home most for me is a picture from inside the Superdome. It shows a crowd filling the seats bordering the playing field. From watching the cable news networks, I knew that the water was expected to rise to a point that would put it above the playing field of the Superdome. I knew this, but the leadership at the Superdome did not. As expected, reports came out of a stampede up the seats in the Superdome when the flood waters started to flow in over the field. Elderly and disabled were left behind and had to wait for the good Samaritans in the house to rescue them.
Why the incompetence? It's the leadership. The President appointed one of his friends, who had no experience with disasters, as the director of FEMA. The mayor of New Orleans and the governor of Louisiana never took the threat of a hurricane strike seriously enough to push for storm surge barriers such as those that exist in the Netherlands.
Though I don't know anyone in New Orleans, even I've been hit personally by the storm. Something Awful went a couple days after the storm struck.
posted by Brandon Adams at
12:08 PM
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