New Orleans

[ysengrin]

Yelling at the President now will not speed up the recovery efforts, so I'm putting this behind an LJ cut. It's allegations that will need to be addressed later, though.

Senator Mary Landrieu (Louisiana), in a press release dated 03 Sept:

But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment.

And, something that needs to be verified:

There was a striking dicrepancy between the CNN International report on the Bush visit to the New Orleans disaster zone, yesterday, and reports of the same event by German TV.

ZDF News reported that the president's visit was a completely staged event. Their crew witnessed how the open air food distribution point Bush visited in front of the cameras was torn down immediately after the president and the herd of 'news people' had left and that others which were allegedly being set up were abandoned at the same time.

The people in the area were once again left to fend for themselves, said ZDF.

EDIT: The ZDF story was apparently a combination of two stories, mixed in translation. The first was President Bush visiting a food distribution point in New Orleans, the second report reported (in translation) "But what has happened in Biloxi all day long is truly unbelievable. Suddenly recovery units appeared, suddenly bulldozers were there, those hadn't been seen here all the days before, and this in an area, in which it really wouldn't be necessary to do a big clean up, because far and wide nobody lives here anymore, the people are more inland in the city. The President travels with a press baggage [big crew]. This press baggage got very beautiful pictures which are supposed to say, that the President was here and help is on the way, too." Details can be read at respectful of otters and War and Peace.

Comments

speaking up

[jugularjaguar.livejournal.com]

I don't normally post to stuff like this but this is Huricane Andrew all over again but worse. When Andrew past Bush Sr. ask then Fl Gov if Federal assistance was needed. Gov. Chiles said no that it could be handled in state. Well time passed down there and they realized Florida needed more help than was expected. Chiles later blasted the federal government for not assisting fast enough. Bush lost South Florida big that year and it really was not his fault.
Now I see this sort of happening again the Governor of the state and the polititians of the state not doing their job and passing the blame buck to the federal Government. Heck it is Cat 5 Hurricane there is no reason why you cannot mobilize forces to come in before the hurricane not waiting till afterwards. Simply it is that we still have not learned from Hurricane Andrew.

Re: speaking up

[ysengrin.livejournal.com]

Oh, I think the governor will get roasted this time - she hasn't come across well at all the few times I've seen her in interviews.

And much I as don't like President Bush, I don't think the screw ups on the relief efforts are his fault.

Re: speaking up

[ysengrin.livejournal.com]

... But I do see problems with DHS. Homeland Security's response time and actions *have* been horrible, considering this is the sort of thing (major disaster, manmade or natural) that they were created to handle more efficently.

Re: speaking up

[smashwolf.livejournal.com]

Umm, The National Guard is controlled by the state, and the governor. THAT is thegovernor's single biggest resource for events lik this. The federal government activated 50% or so of the NG to federal work in Iraq. So, Ya, the governor really didn;t have the ways to respond, and with FEMA being under DHS now, FEMA's essentially got it's nuts cut off, because all the money is going to DHS war on terror crap, and not on FEMA...