Klarinet Archive - Posting 000045.txt from 2005/09

From: Tim Roberts <timr@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Assistance for hurricane/flooding victims
Date: Tue, 06 Sep 2005 17:44:00 -0400

On Mon, 5 Sep 2005 22:58:18 -0400, "Dionysus" <dionysus252@-----.net>
wrote:

>>> Walter Grabner
>>>
>>> Shame on our Federal Government for their agonizingly slow response to
>>> human disaster!
>>
>>
>
>.... If the Governor of
>Louisiana did her job, she could have had help there immediately. Only she
>has the authority to call in the National Guard. If she had turned over
>control to the Government right away, things would have been much different.
>Despite what people believe, the Government does have policies it has to
>follow. It's just unfortunate that people only hear one side to the story
>in the main stream media and assume that it's always right. Do I think the
>Government could have done things better? Yes. Do I think the Governor
>could have done things better? Yes. On Sept 11 in New York was the
>Governments response slow? No. Why is was that? Because the Governor and
>Mayor turned over authority to the Government when they offered to help.
>
>

I've heard many people cry that the "government" should have "gone in"
and taken care of these people. Let us please remember that this storm
destroyed the roads, the port, the power, the communications systems,
the water supply, the major buildings, and the airport. 80% of the city
was under water, some of it as much as ten or twelve feet deep. There
were darned few places to land a helicopter in the flooded areas, much
less a fleet of them. You aren't going to just drive 3,000 busses into
8 feet of water to haul people out. It's true that CNN was able to get
their cameras and reporters in there, but it's much easier to get a team
of 5 in and out than to get a population of 200,000.

I don't argue that there were mistakes made in the first days, but this
was a logistical problem of nightmarish proportions, and I think some of
this 20/20 hindsight is ignoring the facts.

--
Tim Roberts, timr@-----.com
Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.

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