[quote name='E-Z-B']But Bush lied. And we impeach liars, right?[/QUOTE]
We impeach people that perjure themselves. Lying is not a crime, perjury is.
I think Bush said some dumb shit though, he could have and should have just said look: "The state and local government's dropped the ball on this" but nope, he went around buddy buddy with them like they weren't ass raping their constituents.
I live in Mobile, Al... we were on the bad side but just far enough out that we didn't get it as bad as our neighboring state. Lot of roof damage, no power for a week but that was mainly it. Like Ivan only a little worse.
Anyway, the point is I know how a hurricane works, I know how you are supposed to prepare and so on. This wasn't my first or second hurricane. I believe it was the third one I didn't evacuate for (I left for Ivan because it was supposed to hit dead-on). You begin to understand both how the storm works and how everything else works.
You know it is coming over a week in advance, by about 4 or 5 days you should have your mind made up on what to do. By that time they probably have narrowed down the area significantly and you should have a good idea what side of the storm you will get (most important factor) and so on. Around this time the Governor should be deciding what to do as well. Pretty soon you'll start to hear the evacuation orders, what areas to evacuate (if they say get out, you should get out) and the President will go ahead and declare your state a disaster area. That frees up federal dollars to come flowing in, to get things rolling.
Now, this is the tricky part. The part in which both preparation and watching the news comes in handy. I know the President was told the levees would break, but everyone with a damned TV knew that. I knew at least four days before Katrina hit that New Orleans would probably be flooded if they got hit. The idea that anyone didn't know this was a joke, you'd have to be stupid and not understanding the concept of living UNDERNEATH sea level to not grasp this. Hell, I told a friend years ago how vulnerable New Orleans was and declared it to be a stupid place to live. So, you know the threat is there. Believe me, Foxnews, CNN and all the outlets made it clear it could flood. Ray Nagin made it clear he wanted EVERYONE to leave.
So who screwed up? And how? Well, one reason they emphasize a mandatory evacuation is because EVERYONE is going to leave. EVERYONE! That includes police, medical personnel, military, etc... they're all leaving. Believe you me once they leave they might not be able to get back in soon. So you're told to friggin' leave or else your life is in danger. Now, it is important to remember that a lot of the people that stayed, stayed willingly. If you listened to people you still heard a lot of "oh well I didn't think it was going to be that bad". Well, make no doubt about it, for those people it was no fault but their own. Mississippi got hit worse, in truth... a few small cities destroyed completely. But, common sense seemed to prevail there and most people got out well in advance. They remembered Camille, and they knew you don't play around with a giant hurricane.
Well then, the first bit of blame clearly goes to the people who chose to stay despite the warnings. Let's make this clear, I was all the way over in Mobile, Al... a little bit inland and I was considering evacuating. The people in New Orleans that voluntarily stayed were idiots, plain and simple. Time and money and effort had to be spent saving their asses when it could have and should have been spent on the true victims of the storm. The second bit of blame goes to local government. Yes this was somewhat unique but Florida, Mississippi and Alabama have been through a lot of bad hurricanes. They tend to have handled them well. It should come as no surprise that Louisiana, the same state that elected David Duke, the same state that has some of the worst highways in the country and is also known as one of the most corrupt states couldn't handle this situation (I could go off on a tangent here and bitch about the "save the shellfish" morons that helped prevent a better levee for the lake. But, I can't blame them because it isn't clear how much good that would have done and I'm talking about the immediate preparation).
Obviously, the biggest thing was helping people that wanted to, to evacuate. If they had been able to get everyone that wanted out, in the least they could argue that people in danger put themselves in harms way. As it stands, we can't tell who wanted to be there and who couldn't get out (well ok, people in the Superdome wanted to get out). Rather than pack people into the building, they should have used every public bus and contracted the private buses to get everyone they could out. Considering the fact that they had days to plan this shouldn't have been that hard and I imagine that thousands of people could have been evacuated. I mean look, public school buses alone bus thousands of kids around. The single biggest governmental mistake was to not make a effort to evacuate those that could not leave on their own (although for the record with that kind of advanced warning you could have damn near walked out of harms way).
So, what was the next problem? Clearly the reaction was a bit slow. But, I've been through a few hurricanes and I went through Katrina and I can say that around 24 hours later we had people giving out food and water. Mind you, if we were well prepared we shouldn't need either. They have to pull out of harms way, but they move supplies in as soon as possible. This happened in Alabama for both hurricanes recently and I don't see how anyone can blame Bush for this not happening in Louisiana. If you can not pass on the roads, you have to wait for them to be cleared. This is simple. If the Governor is slow in allowing you to take action you have to wait. Let us be clear on this, the Governor has the final say. The GOVERNOR CONTROLS THE NATIONAL GUARD. The fact is that at best all the federal government can do is push funds into the area. From what I read and heard the Governor clearly postured herself and wanted to make it clear SHE WAS IN CHARGE. And my what a fine job she did.
Then again, I do have to say that the federal government still made asses of themselves. I think most of the problems came from the fact that the local and state governments made a bad problem even worse and that many people did not leave when the should have, but just with words alone the federal government showed they were clearly ill-prepared.
So, to sum it up here's my list of what I think went wrong (shortly before and after):
#1: The storm
Hey look folks, it is a act of nature and if you want to place blame start with the big ass hurricane. Shit happens.
#2: A lot of people wanted to stay.
We were told over and over and over to leave and if you didn't leave no one would be there to help you. Not taking this warning is no fault but your own.
#3: The city of New Orleans in particular should have acted to insure everyone what wanted to get out, could get out.
#3: The Governor should have done a lot less posturing and a she should have acted swiftly.
#5: The federal government should have made their role more clear and have prepared for swifter action.
I think the president has messed up a lot, and this time he messed up again. But, I don't like people who are to blame not being blamed. And the people who are to blame are the people who control the National Guard, the ones in control of the city and the state. The federal government in theory at least, is just there to write checks. The state and local people are the ones that are supposed to handle this situation and clearly they did not.
Anyway, I just wanted to get that off my chest. A lot of people who haven't been through hurricanes or haven't really considered who controls the National Guard of the state and so on just might not realize who is in charge and what the roles are. Which annoys me because I think the people who failed the most are not getting the brunt of the criticism.