[quote name='RBM']Yes, this would appear to be the case. A quote from the
Red Cross website (a flagrant typo on the Red Cross website! D'oh! ...well, they're under a lot of pressure right now, I guess):
- Acess to New Orleans is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities and while we are in constant contact with them, we simply cannot enter New Orleans against their orders.
- The state Homeland Security Department had requested--and continues to request--that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans following the hurricane. Our presence would keep people from evacuating and encourage others to come into the city.
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Therefore, the situation has been clarified, to some extent: Louisiana state authorities could not evacuate everyone. Their primary concern was to get those who could leave to do so before the storm struck, and then to evacuate the remaining population as soon as possible, thereafter.
The problem, then, is that resources to support the second evacuation were not available. Providing food, water, and shelter/clothing might seem intuitive to the general public, but local authorities saw this as simply fueling a subsequent epidemic (as flooded conditions gave rise to disease, toxic exposure, etc.) Try to avoid falling for superficial details: giving a flood victim a cup of hot soup makes for a great photo op, but the big picture is simple: how to save lives in peril after the storm passed. Not save them for a day. Save them for real. Of course, it would have been good to save folks stranded in the astrodome (is it astrodome or superdome?) from dehydration and starvation, but this is a difficult call to make when you're dealing with thousands of people. If you think about the local authorities' position for a second, their concerns had some legitimacy.
They saw evacuation as the only real solution, and feared that setting up a huge relief shelter in the astrodome would seriously undermine more effective efforts. Would it have been better to send in the Red Cross with short-term supplies until the national guard arrived? Tough call. The wrong one could well land thousands of additional deaths onto your shoulders. What would have been ideal? The national guard and Red Cross having BOTH stood ready to march in and maintain order during a well-supplied and well-enforced "second" evacuation. But only 1 of the 2 were there, and so the options were sharply limited.
[edit: ...Lowgear, the topic you've selected for this thread is melodramatic, but misleading. Saying that Louisiana "refused Red Cross assistance" would be technically true, and somewhat less misleading (while maintaining some shock value.)][/QUOTE]
Thanks for the intelligent post. It's not an easy situation. Request help and risk reliance on the Red Cross and unwillingness to leave, or avoid help to encourage evacuations? It's a real ethical problem, not what some people (i.e., Rush Limbaugh) are billing as "look, we offered help but that dumbass state doesn't want it."
EDIT: Here's the exact language from Rush's site:
So if the word spread that there's plenty of water and food, they knew it would be a magnet, so they chose instead to starve and dehydrate a bunch of people.
This is what he specializes in: taking a complex issue, simplifying it and putting it out of context, making it so it proves his biased point, and feeding it to listeners that don't feel like evaluating it critically.
if people want to think that....just sharing the info...if you dont believe it then la-de-friggin-da have a nice day.
