stuck in the car today, listening to AM radio, I heard both Roger Hitchcock (filling in for Rush Limbaugh) and Sean Hannity place blame squarely on the "Democratic mayor and Govenor of LA" for the problems and poor response to the crisis, saying that "the federal goverment only does the job it is asked to do by those at the state and local level"

I listened for 30 seconds, looking for an update on the recovery and evacuation effort.  I had to turn it off, because, literally, I was getting sick to my stomach about it.

Haven't I heard the mayor begging for help the past 3 or 4 days?

This is their tact, don't blame the Federal government and Bush, blame the mayor and govenor.

Like I said, nauseating.

Every son of a bitch in government in LA (aside from Nagin), "Brownie" from FEMA, and the goddamn piece of shit PREZ, should either step down or be booted out.

This is a national disgrace.

Well, Bush flew down and hugged a few women for the cameras today, so clearly Karl Rove has everything under control.  You can all go back to sleep now.

Seriously though, this is a national disgrace that can not be spun.  It makes me sick to my stomach.  We can air drop pallats of food, water, and medicine on the other side of the globe but need days to get a National Guard convoy into New Orleans?  Give me a break.  

I can't help but wonder whether the response might have been entirely different had the disaster occurred after Labor Day.  Nothing happens in Washington in August, and Bush clearly couldn't be bothered to start kicking ass last weekend WHEN WE KNEW N.O. was going to be screwed with a cat 5 hurricane bearing down on it.  This scenario has been exercised...we knew the levies were unlikely to hold...we knew that not everyone would be able to get out...but yet the ships set sail from Norfolk and the troops mobilize DAYS after the hurricane.  

It's a disgrace.  

I agree very much with this. The DLC throttled his effort in 2004, but he's the only real man I see for 2008:

Floor Statement of Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich:
The Supplemental for Hurricane Katrina  

WASHINGTON - September 2 - Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH) gave the following speech today on the House floor during a special session to provide relief money for the victims of Hurricane Katrina:
"This amount of money is only a fraction of what is needed and everyone here knows it. Let it go forward quickly with heart-felt thanks to those who are helping to save lives with necessary food, water, shelter, medical care and security. Congress must also demand accountability with the appropriations. Because until there are basic changes in the direction of this government, this tragedy will multiply to apocalyptic proportions.

"The Administration yesterday said that no one anticipated the breach of the levees. Did the Administration not see or care about the 2001 FEMA warning about the risk of a devastating hurricane hitting the people of New Orleans? Did it not know or care that civil and army engineers were warning for years about the consequences of failure to strengthen the flood control system? Was it aware or did it care that the very same Administration which decries the plight of the people today, cut from the budget tens of millions needed for Gulf-area flood control projects?

"Countless lives have been lost throughout the South with a cost of hundreds of billions in ruined homes, businesses, and the destruction of an entire physical and social infrastructure.

"The President said an hour ago that the Gulf Coast looks like it has been obliterated by a weapon. It has. Indifference is a weapon of mass destruction.

"Our indifferent government is in a crisis of legitimacy. If it continues to ignore its basic responsibility for the health and welfare of the American people, will there ever be enough money to clean up after their indifference?

"As our government continues to squander human and monetary resources of this country on the war, people are beginning to ask, "Isn't it time we began to take care of our own people here at home? Isn't it time we rescued our own citizens? Isn't it time we fed our own people? Isn't it time we sheltered our own people? Isn't it time we provided physical and economic security for our own people?" And isn't it time we stopped the oil companies from profiting from this tragedy?

"We have plenty of work to do here at home. It is time for America to come home and take care of its own people who are drowning in the streets, suffocating in attics, dying from exposure to the elements, oppressed by poverty and illness, wracked with despair and hunger and thirst.

"The time is NOW to bring back to the United States the 78,000 National Guard troops currently deployed overseas into the Gulf Coast region.

"The time is NOW to bring back to the US the equipment which will be needed for search and rescue, for clean up and reclamation.

"The time is NOW for federal resources, including closed Army bases, to be used for temporary shelter for those who have been displaced by the hurricane.

"The time is NOW to plan massive public works, with jobs going to the people of the Gulf Coast states, to build new levees, new roads, bridges, libraries, schools, colleges and universities and to rebuild all public institutions, including hospitals. Medicare ought to be extended to everyone, so every person can get the physical and mental health care they might need as a result of the disaster.

"The time is NOW for the federal government to take seriously the research of scientists who have warned for years about the dangers of changes in the global climate, and to prepare other regions of the country for other possible weather disasters until we change our disastrous energy policies.

"The time is NOW for changes in our energy policy, to end the domination of oil and fossil fuel and to invest heavily in alternative energy, including wind and solar, geothermal and biofuels.

"As bad as this catastrophe will prove to be, it is in fact only a warning. Our government must change its direction, it must become involved in making America a better place to live, a place where all may survive and thrive. It must get off the path of war and seek the path of peace, peace with the natural environment, peace with other nations, peace with a just economic system."

this is disgusting.  thanks for posting this clip PG.  now we have sanctioned genocide on our own people.  on the poor and black.  fuck this shit.  incompetence is just a hollow excuse, like it was for 9/11 and Iraqi intelligence.  

Check out this link which shows before and after satellite photos of New Orleans.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9162119/

One look at this explains why Nagin is so upset and shows how bad the flooding is.

I don't know where the Convention Center is but you can see the water around the SuperDome.

Like everyone else, I have been affected deeply by the heartbreaking scenes of suffering on TV. The hurricane hit Monday morning, the flooding was apparent by Tuesday mid-day, and yet it seemed that there was not significant relief in place until today, or at best last night. Now we hear that most people are out of the Superdome area, and that food, water and medicine, plus troops to distribute them, have arrived at the Convention Center where there are several thousand people. Other large groups of people are also seeing their first significant help.

It took four days since the hurricane, three days since the flooding, three to four days of suffering for the victims. This seems like a long time; I'm sure it seemed like an eternity to those affected. It doesn't seem like it should have taken so long.

But how long should it have taken, really? Things take time, after all. How long does it take, or should it take, to get aid and transportation to people stranded in the middle of a flood, with communications down and difficult transport? How long do such things take?

It's hard for the layman to know. It's not like we have lots of other similar catastrophes to compare it with. If American cities were being flooded and destroyed constantly, and "boots on the ground" usually happened in two days but this time it took 3.5, then we might have good grounds to complain. But we don't have any such basis for comparison.

How valid are our uniformed layman's estimates of how long it "should" take? I doubt that they are particularly valid at all. How long "should" it take to fix a levee? How long "should" it take to fix a bridge? How long "should" it take to bring a mass of troops into a particular area with damaged infrastructure? For that matter, how long "should" it take to invade a country? Who would claim expertise on these matters?

The truth is, maybe it just takes three to four days to get significant aid into an area with the kind of instrastructure damage seen along the Gulf coast. How fast, after all, did significant tsunami aid arrive? I'll bet it took much longer than that.

The other thing about aid like this is that the flow has momentum. Today for the first time we see significant help coming to the city. Tomorrow, there will be more. The day after that, even more. In two weeks, the area will be crawling with aid workers and FEMA officials. Everyone who has survived these first few days on their own will be in much better shape by then.

Here is what a NewBie to this site sees,  
Human Crisis in New Orlands.
Energy Crisis, increasing in days to weeks.
Trade Crisis as Crops have nowhere to go on the Mississippi with no one to make the port work.
Transportation crisis with a Rail Yard out.
Financial Crisis on hold, and comming soon.
Political Crisis building up just like a Huricaine in the Atlantic, first small, and then much bigger.  

Anyone East of the Rockies is going to have a much tougher time with this.  Everyone West of the Rockies will be horrified by what takes place on T.V.   If we are lucky, everyone will have the shit scared out of them after this and have a lot more common sense about them.  

These things are in motion right now, and growing each day stronger.  

How is that Prof G for a first comment?  Do you think I am on the Mark?

Well, I have to agree with Stuart. On Sunday when I saw the weather forecast for New Orleans I walked downstairs and told my wife the city would be destroyed. It was common knowledge in New Orleans -- and not exactly secret elsewhere, that the city could not withstand a hurricane stronger than Category 3.

Before the fact, tt was criminal to have not fortified the levee system the way the Netherlands fortifies its dikes. It was insane to downgrade FEMA and starve it of funding. It was criminal not to have contingency plan in place with prepositioned personnel and equipment.

It was derelict for Bush not to have flown to the Gulf Coast as soon as the Weather Service knew what was coming to New Orleans last weekend to begin directing a 24/7 rescue effort with everything we had, imperfect though it may have been. And I have no words for the way the Administration seems to be trying to blame the mayor and the governor. Navigation and flood control have traditionally been Federal responsibilities and that is that.

After Andrew in 92 Bush senior's response was even slower than Junior's. Two month's later he lost a close one with Clinton. What I hope happens is next year enough GOP congressmen and senators will get fired and this rubber stamp Congress is no more. But then people tell me I often have irrational expectations.

I just finally heard now the statements of Mayor Nagin about the situation in New Orleans. We are going to hear a lot of spin in the next few days about the heroic rescue effort. I notice that spinmeisters are not much in evidence in this thread. Halfin gave it a shot and I would hope that if he re-reads what he said, he is now embarrassed by telling us that these things take time.

I remember last Saturday and Sunday, looking at that astonishing picture of Katrina over the Gulf. You could hardly see the water. Category 5. And it was headed right for New Orleans. I remember reading the NHC bulletins that weekend. They were accurate on every count. The emergency relief should have begun Saturday before the storm hit!.

How smart do you have to be to see something like that storm approaching NOLA and Gulf Coast and not anticipate that relief would be needed? I'll ask this again, how smart to you have to be to see that there would be major problems down there -- even if the levees held?

I'm not a lawyer but I'll tell you that I know Criminal Negligence when I see it. And worse. Poor, black people... who cares about them?

There are only a few national leaders who are notorious for letting their own people die because that's more convenient than keeping them alive. Stalin comes to mind.

There was once a great empire that ruled the known world, and it fell into decadence, and its leaders eventually stopped caring about even the worst disasters. Will George Bush's guitar be legendary two thousand years from now, as Nero's fiddle is remembered today?

This isn't about politics. This is about a national "leader" who goes golfing while thousands of people are dying. This is personal now. Indict and prosecute Bush, and the clueless ineffective head of FEMA, and whoever else has earned it, for criminal negligence, reckless endangerment, malfeasance of duty, and possibly mass homicide. Do not let anyone have immunity in exchange for testimony. Throw the book at them, lock them up, and let them rot.

A hundred thousand people have spent five unnecessary days in hell. That's about thirteen hundred years of hell. Let's make the prison terms of those responsible add up to that number.

Leave it to so many of you to pimp the poor souls in N.O.

Like it or not, this is all happening because of an inefficient and poor leadership structure of FEMA and the Homeland Security department. Does responsibility inevitably end up at the top of the chain? Yes. But in reality the President needs to depend on those beneath him.

I don't think the President has done a very good job in reacting. Truth is, Presidents can inspire and motivate, but when it comes to recovering from this disaster, it is those at the top of emergency organizations that run the show. I don't care if it's Clinton or Bush or Carter or Reagan.

I've heard Jesse Jackson pimp the poor souls insinuating all of this is racism - I've heard Democrat after Democrat use it as a way to attack the President on the levee issue (I don't care if CLINTON had gotten it signed, it wouldn't even have been enough most likely by now - levees take years to build). I've heard Democrat after Democrat use it as a reason to attack the war on Iraq.

I was listening to the Patriot, as I'm a conservative, a couple days ago, and Hugh Hewitt was encouraging people to send money to this particular aid organization. Every caller was encouraging this line of thought.

I turned on Air America... I don't even have to say what I heard but I will - I heard attack after attack on the President.

Like minded people tend to aggregate with each other, which is obviously why I don't plan to visit this site any more, but I just wanted to write this message w/ respect to my disgust at all of this. When one looks around the landscape of the country (and there are many exceptions) I see a bunch of people thinking that the recovery process isn't going well and wants to help out any way they can, and I see a bunch of people thinking that the recovery process isn't going well and wants to see who they can blame or who they can take down.

Disgusting. For those whom I'm not describing, please don't consider this directed to you.

Feel free to delete this post, I won't be back to notice.

The Bush administration has their priorities. Disaster relief and the welfare of Americans other than the wealthy and politically connected obviously are not among them.

If there had been no foreknowledge of the disaster a response such as we have witnessed by the federal government would be more understandable.  This was instead a hurricane that was forecasted to hit New Orleans with great intensity days before the event.

The Bush administration's response to this catastrophe has been incredibly weak and pathetic. It is unfortunate for this country and indeed for the world that Mr. Bush does not have an occupation more in line with his qualifications such as Village administrator.

It fills me with a deep sense of foreboding that as the world enters the Peak Oil era which will be marked by a period of recurring crises the government of this country is found again and again to be incompetent and unable to surmount it's self imposed ideological blinders.

http://www.pastpeak.com/
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/02/opinion/02krugman.html

Arbusto the prez, the failed oil man and hapless politician extraordinaire goes to LA and hugs a woman. Wow! And the national tee vee network cameras are right there, giving the guy and his PR handlers the exact thing they hoped for: free advertising; a chance to suckup to a few folks would fall over any celebrity. This president, this administration, this Congress are absolute screwups. They all ought to be thrown out as just another gang of thugs who will do anything to get elected, then re-elected.

did you all see Ruppert's piece over at FTW?  wow.  he's pissed off today.  good stuff, and it demonstrates that the LOOP/Fourchon may be f---ed.

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/090205_bet_life.shtml

I don't which is funnier, the people who don't face the truth or those who imagine that placing blame is easier than dealing with reality.

All the comments on this thread show a complete lack of reality for dealing with the logistics of moving thousands of people and tons of supplies to an area. As I read it I thought someone must watch a lot of science fiction or play a lot of fantasy football. The whole idea of the Oil Drum is to deal with the reality of peak oil. You should try to apply the same logic when dealing with natural disasters. The flood occurred on tuesday. This is Friday, 48 hours later. All ships which could have provided help had been moved out of the area to avoid the storm, New Orleans was cut off from the outside by the flooding. I-10 was under water. The helicopters were being used to rescue people. The airport was unsafe for landing planes. The only option which was not exercise would have been to comandeer tugs and barges and haul supplies down the Mississippi. The national guard, under the command of the Louisana governor who btw did nothing but wring her hands, was not mobilized. The mayor who had 48 hours notice of a major problem ordered an evac but did nothing on his own to evac the poor whom he talks so much about caring for. Now the crisis has come. None of the parties reponsible want to step up to the plate so they blame the people they are asking for help for not acting faster. A good thing would be for those of you who hate or dislike the President priot to your post to say so because agendas spoil honest discussion. Did FEMA drop the ball, yes and no. They had stuff in place but the logistics of the situation stumped them and as a bureauracy, they were loathe to take authority and do something thus losing their cushy government jobs. Bush is to blame because why, I am guessing because he is President and those of you posting don't like him to begin with. Having said all this, the question comes up, what are you doing to allieviate the situation other than ushering critcism.

This is turning into a plutonium thread, so I'll just cautiously ask a question in an area I know something about at least technically - electronics and communications. Over and over on TV reports I heard that there was a huge communication problem because "the cell phones are down."

Well, duh.

Commercial infrastructure sometimes goes down on rather little provocation, and certainly may not withstand a hurricane or flood. Cell phone infrastructure is notorious for becoming overloaded and useless in any situation that generates lots of calls.

We seem to have had a massive failure at all levels. Are emergency responders at any level no longer provided with police/fire radios or something similar? (This is reminding me of reports that U.S. Navy officers are no longer taught actual navigation, so that if for some bizarre reason - and it will be bizarre - pushing buttons on the GPS doesn't work, they're done for.)

You  may want to read Sidney Blumenthal's article in the Guardian.

Katrina comes home to roost

Re: Peak Oil and A Lesson Learned This Week

Back to Peak Oil. Well, we all just learned a big lesson about the ability of the US government to anticipate "peak oil" supply problems over the next few years, didn't we? Thus:

• A situation like a hurricane hitting NOLA, which has been anticipated for decades, was adequately prepared for -- Not!
• Our leaders are keeping a sharp eye on the oil supply situation -- Not!
• We have plans (outside the SPR) for mitigating long-term supply disruptions -- Not!
• Processing (refinery, pipelines) infrastructure has secondary backup -- Not!

We're all on our own, people, buy a Prius, live close to work, try to get your food close to where you live, etc.

I heard that piece on Air America Radio 3 times today in the span of a few hours. AAR is giving kudos to CNN and to a few people at Fox, Shepard Smith in particular.  Hannity and O'Reilly got the smackdown from Smith. For once some broadcast journalists are showing the gumption of DemocracyNow!

National disgrace? HELL YES! the govt of Louisiana has never had nor will ever have a disaster contingency plan. New Orleans source of revenue is Tourism and Casinos. They make lots of money each year. mardi gras draws in how much? The saints football team draws in how much? various other events like Poker, conventions etc bring in how much money?

  There was no money set aside for any upgrade to infra-structure. This city has been here over 200 years, designed and built by the French. with lots of history. pirates and all,  but besides that, how old are the water pumps designed to extract water from the city? 30 years? no plans to replace them? where is the money? probably in some ones back pocket! You mean to tell me the money that came into the city was never appropiated towards protecting it or repairing it?
Louisiana State Government never intended on creating a plan. It's all about the money. Even though hurricanes (have the potential to)come around there for about 6 months of every year? for the past how many thousand years?
Hmmm.... elect me, i'll fix our state and city problems. (i don't really care to fix our problems, that would be politically incorrect and cost money, and more money means i can't keep my job), but we'll do the best we can. Tourism and casinos give New Orleans lots of money, but since we are also on the "take" we will look the other way.
Hurricane? what hurricane? we ain't been hit yet. what makes you think we are gonna be hit by a hurricane? Besides, I ain't here to be no saviour, i just wanna get paid for doing absolutely nothing.

American Government is nothing more than a PAPER TIGER!

You can't tell me the terrorist are not "High Fiving each other?"
they only wish they had thought of "blowing the levee".

Now they truly know that America is so weak that it's really a PAPER TIGER!
So where is the money? in some ones pocket!

Now that is better. We are dealing with the reality of a natural disaster on a national scale. There have been failures at the local and national level. Forget blame and go forward to correct the situation. Next question is Do we rebuild New Orleans on the same site and if we do should we fill in the area below sea level or simply make the dams or levees stronger(seems a a little stupid to me)

On a more positive note, I think that the Texas and Houston administrations have just been excellent. Truly awe-inspiring. I really hope the other states don't leave them holding the bag (I've already written to my governor letting him know my view that we aren't doing enough in CA yet)

I've never been so ashamed of America. WE CAN DO BETTER THAN THIS. I'd be mad even if a Democrat were in office, but Bush's track record isn't the best. I don't lump all the blame on him, though I do blame him to the extent that he has put unqualified people in cabinet positions and given them orders to replace "non-believers" with "true believers and supporters". I also blame him and his pals in both houses who are CHEAP ABOUT ALL THE WRONG THINGS.

Even the people that live there share some responsibility, but as I've researched the issue more... it seems that a lot of the people who were most affected lacked education, economic status, transportation, and other resources that would've allowed them to flee with everyone else. Yet it's not the smartest thing to live up to 18 feet below sea level, but if you are born and raised there... and aren't that smart or educated in the first place, what are your options?

New Orleans Poor Told They Are On Their Own....