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Riding Out Katrina


HSTEACH

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Major catastrophe that rivals the Boxing day Tsunami. The damage is unreal, 1000'2 feared dead. Shipping lanes and petroleum pipelines that supply the entire east coast are offline and may take weeks or even months to get up and running. Gas prices have soared on the news...People are rioting and panicking in New Orleans...It a complete mess...

 

My thoughts are with those who are traped down there...

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I hope I will not be flamed for this, but......

The tsunami took everyone by surprise and 300K+ people were killed.

However, Thailand started organising all from day one and had pretty much all under controll very quickly.

 

The US had 2 days and more to prepare before Katrina, but 2 days later it is stull utter chaos.......

Only 1 hour ago did the WhiteHouse admit to accept foreign aid if any was offered.

 

BB

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@BelgianBoy

 

I think this is mainly because amercian weather services made a major mistake in under estimating the impact of this hurricane.

(At least this is what we concluded from the meteorological warnings issued by the USA that we received these days)........

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no one was prepatred for a complete city to be underwater for days, looked it up on Google and the population of New Orleans is 400,000+

 

How do you move that many people out ?

how do you feed / cloth / house that many people

 

the city will be underwater for weeks / months

 

This is only going to get worse,

 

No comparision with the Tsunami , but if it the was not a Tsumami to compare with, this would seem much bigger .

 

 

Its much bigger than any weather related disaster I have seem before in The USA or Europe,

 

OC

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OCgringo said:

Its much bigger than any weather related disaster I have seem before in The USA or Europe,

Yes, you are probably right.

But we are talking here about a first world country, the biggest superpower in the world, the best and largest army.

The country had days to prepare, plus years to implament emercency procedures.

Just observations from my part, no criticism in view of all the pain and the losses of lives.

 

BB

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Another link from somebody on the spot...

 

"Looting: The police are looting. This has been confirmed by several independent sources. Some of the looting might be "legitimate" in as much as that word has any meaning in this context. They have broken into ATMs and safes: confirmed. We have eyewitnesses to this. They have taken dozens of SUVs from dealerships ostensibly for official use. They have also looted gun stores and pawn shops for all the small arms, supposedly to prevent "criminals" from doing so. But who knows their true intentions. We have an inside source in the NOPD who says that command and control is in chaos. He reports that command lapses more than 24 hours between check-ins, and that most of the force are "like deer in the headlights." NOPD already had a reputation for corruption, but I am telling you now that the people we've been talking to say they are not recognizing the NOPD as a legitimate authority anymore, since cops have been seen looting in Walmarts and forcing people out of stores so they could back up SUVs and loot them. Don't shoot the messenger...."

 

http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/

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The problem with hurricanes is that you can track them and predict a regional area it will hit 2-3 days ahead , that is alot of people your asking to evacuate. 24 hrs to pretty much pinpoint the direct hit area.

 

I beleive that 24 hrs is enough time to get going. Those who could , did. Those that couldn't or chose to stay , well we are seeing now what could and did happen.

 

That region of the southeast U.S. gets hit every year , i guess the only real " emergency precedure " is to get out when you are told to.

 

Bada :: Bing

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The US had 2 days and more to prepare before Katrina, but 2 days later it is stull utter chaos.......

----------------------------------------------

Sometimes, you are prepared, and it is still utter chaos, BB. How do you evacuate a large city in 2 days? I am sure they did not wait for the last minute, still, at some point, a huge disaster like this catches with the mere humans than we are.

 

Another thing is, the deepest pockets of poverty in the US, are in that region, New Orleans I am being told, as a metropolis, is one of poorest. I can see how some of these folks had no cars, not much money to flee on their own, especially older folks.

 

We can always do better, but is there such a blame to lay, and finger to point at this hour?

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I'm hearing the final death count will be in the 10s of thousands. I was shocked to hear it was gonna be that high.

 

I want to add my 2 cents to the preparedness issue. You can never prepare enough but I think any lack of preparedness may be due to a few factors.

 

One being that this region has been through numerous hurricanes in the past. Some fairly bad but none as bad as this. Which is why I think many people underestimated its impact. And may also explain why many people stayed behind. I went to uni in the deep south and experienced a tornado (and I wouldn't want to do that again!) and there were people in my college town that had lived through several.

 

Also, New Orleans isn't exactly the best run city. The city has always had 'issues' regarding its local governance. Also, the city and the state has never been a wealthy one. It has a higher percentage of poor than the average state.

 

Also, the city has close to half a million people and the metro area about a million. There is no easy way to evacuate that many people successfully. Richest nation on earth or not. That area would have needed months and billions of dollars to evacuate, house and feed that many people. Also, do you force people who want to stay to leave? If so, can you guarantee that their homes won't be looted?

 

The press is talking about looters and I have to say that they are overboard. If you're taking food to feed yourself and your family you are NOT looting. Taking TV sets, camcorders, etc. yes, that would be looting but taking diapers for your child and food when you have no other way of getting it is called survival not looting. I heard an interview of a lady who was on the road to Monroe, La. with her child and wa on the highway for a couple days, stuck and needed to feed her child and took food from a store. Was she looting? All their homes are flooded. There is NO food. The government can't and hasn't been able to feed everyone, so what should they do?

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