Re: Hurricane Katrina
 

Yeah, I wanna see the images of N O after the water is finally drained just to see how bad the devastation truly is. Right now its mostly covered by water (obviously :p )

But another thing that concerns me is that it seems like they ordered the mandatory evacuations too late and people probably underestimated how devastating it could be.

If it was made widely public that this hurricane will put New Orleans underwater and was shouted throughout city to everyone, I suspect more would have left

Re: Hurricane Katrina
 

Here are Kanye West's thoughts on the whole matter, highlighted by the quote "George Bush doesn't care about Black people."

http://media.putfile.com/Kanye79

Re: Hurricane Katrina
 

+ Rep to Kanye

Re: Hurricane Katrina
 

- rep to Kanye in my book...

Seems like anytime black people are involved in any sort of negative situation, the subject of race always pops up... Which really I find more disturbing and (dare I say) racist than any possible (yet very unlikely) racial motivation that was supposidly there to begin with...

"George Bush doesn't care about black people"... I guess he doesn't care about the white, latino, or asian people down there either then...

Fun Fact: As of the 2000 census, African Americans accounted for 67.25% of the population of New Orleans... This would explain why a majority of the people shown on the news are black...

So did help arrive later than it should have? Probably... But I'd like for someone to try and show us one single drop of hard evidence that this lack of initial effort was due to a majority of the population being black... Or that Bush 'Doesn't care about black people'...

I don't even really like Bush, but I'm sorry, the whole race issue is just silly...

Re: Hurricane Katrina
 

Exactly what I'm thinking DH. Kanye is good to speak out but the choice of words could have been better

Re: Hurricane Katrina
 

Kanye West is such a Golddigger...

Re: Hurricane Katrina
 

In poor taste?

You decide.

Re: Hurricane Katrina
 

I like this video.

My props go to Kanye because he actually said something which he felt was right. His dad was a Black Panther, so I can see where his opinion could stem from, along with the lack of federal response to this event.

And here's the story that puts me on his side. This basically goes to say that a staged relief station was set up for a photo op and then torn down within 24 hours. So a more accurate thing for Kanye to say would have been "The government does not care about poor people."

Re: Hurricane Katrina
 

It was made widely public that this hurricane would destroy New Orleans. I knew it from here in Houston, and they definitely knew it there in Nola. The governer or mayor of some town in Mississippi said he was "scared to death" by Katrina a day or two before the storm. If that isn't enough to get someone out, there's not much else to do.

I think they did everything they could to tell people to leave Nola, barring going from street to street and house to house forcing people to leave which is a logistical impossibility with the day and a half they had. And it sounds good to say that they should have ordered the mandatory evacuation earlier, but it wasn't certain that it would hit Nola EVEN at the time of when they ordered the evacuation.

I've only lived in New Orleans about three years now, but I've already been through four or five hurricane scares. Every year I've been there New Orleans has ordered an evacuation (sometimes two evacuations), and it always turned out to be nothing. It becomes a joke, a fun time and a holiday. Now imagine living there thirty years and going through that every year--you stop caring. Obviously many people weren't so ignorant, but there are always gonna be some who ride it out.

About the race issue, I think it's not a race issue. I agree with DeathsHand. I however DO think it's a valid TOPIC to bring up, I mean you'd have to put your blinders on to not notice that the evacuees that were stuck were mostly black and mostly poor. But I completely disagree that it's a race issue. The mayor of New Orleans is black--what about him? Isn't he largely responsible for New Orleans? Or is he racist, too? And remember, this is one of THE worst disasters EVER to occur in the U.S. This was no one's fault but Katrina herself.

Re: Hurricane Katrina
 

That's all very well and nice except for a minor little detail: nobody is blaming anybody for Hurricane Katrina. Not even the angry black people crying racism in New Orleans are blaming Bush for the hurricane. They blame him for the response.

People already knew that the estimated death toll if the levees failed would have eclipsed 9/11. So why did Bush wait an extra few days before getting back to D.C.? Why was Condoleeza Rice shopping on her New York vacation until somebody literally screamed "What the hell are you doing?" How did the head of FEMA somehow manage to tell reporters that he wasn't aware of refugees in the Superdome even though footage of people dying in there had been playing on TV the entire day? Why were reporters with TV cameras able to drive right into the disaster area days before any National Guard showed up?

I'm not saying that I necessarily blame anybody, but these are valid questions that will need to be answered when the disaster is over.

As for the racism issue, I don't know how much of a leg they have to stand on. However, it is valid to question whether the response would have been much faster if 90% of the people stuck behind had been white instead of black. You can't honestly tell me that your reaction to news footage would have been exactly the same if every miserable face you had seen had been white.

Re: Hurricane Katrina
 

mmmm yeah mine probably would have been the same... And you can't honestly say that it wouldn't have... honestly... :sneaky:

Re: Hurricane Katrina
 

You're absolutely right, these questions do need to be asked. Just like the racism question should be asked.

It's just that all I hear is people pointing fingers on the news now. While I think it's right to ask questions, I think it's also right to sit back for a moment and remember that this is a major disaster, and you cannot prepare for everything that will be needed in a disaster like you can with hindsight. It's a disaster, that's the nature of it.

Also remember that the day after Katrina hit, EVERYONE thought New Orleans had just barely avoided the disaster. "Big Easy Breathes Big Sigh of Relief" is only one actual headline of many on Tuesday the day after. On Tuesday Mississippi was by far the worst off. So you have to imagine the gov't thinking, hey, New Orleans is fine let's go help Mississippi. Then by the time they realize Nola needs help, they're moving towards Miss. and the streets in Nola are completely flooded making it difficult to get help in and power and water are down and the levee breaks and it becomes a big and now a surprise disaster. I've already made all these points, so I guess I'll leave it at that.

I think people dying on the streets like this is unacceptable. But the vast majority did make it out of New Orleans safe, and now Americans are being extremely generous to help them in any way possible. Let's hope Katrina is a lesson learned for the gov't, and I think asking questions about the response will help make sure of that.

And like DeathsHand, yeah, maybe you can't but I can honestly say it would be the same response for me. Thank you for not assuming others are racist.

Re: Hurricane Katrina
 

I'm not sure how true this is, because I didn't watch the news story on it, I just heard that it was IN the news...



But Vancouver resuce teams were sent down there, and then they were sent back because someone in New Orleans said they "werent needed".


If you have rioting, mass evacuations, dead people in the streets, shouldnt you accept all the help you can have? Why send people back?

**** that, bring more people in. Have an army of rescue people helping.

Re: Hurricane Katrina
 

I read that they saved like 30 people...

Re: Hurricane Katrina
 

I think the response had more to do with money than color. I really think we live in a nearly colorless society now, but not a classless society. We are more culturally bigotted than racially bigoted. (I have no idea how to spell biggotted so I'm trying several versions :D). If you were walking down the street at night and saw a group of young black males dressed in hip-hop (man, I feel white just saying that) clothing, would you get nervous? Now, put them in Armani suits. See my point?

I believe that the response was slow do to the fact that the destruction did not hit the national GDP very hard. I think in running a government, those who run it often have to work in abstractions, and that can lead to a large human cost if you don't catch yourself in times of need. The human and material cost of 9/11 had a dramatic effect on our countries economy, and the strength of any nation lies in its economy. I believe that is why the response was so quick and strong in that case. Add to that the "Pearl Harbor" effect, and you have a truly national crisis.

Meanwhile in New Orleans, those that ran the businesses and had control of the monies involved were the ones that escaped. Therefore the toll that the ecomy took was pretty much material alone and unavoidable. The ones that were keft behind are more the "replaceable" working masses, or even those dependent on the government and who take more than they give to the economy.

If saving as many of those left behind as possible would have pushed the stock market to new heights or would have kept gas prices down, the entire fleet of Greyhound busses would have been commadeered (yet anither word I can't spell) the next day. It's just a sad fact that because of America's previous fascination with racism, those that fall in the economically expendable category in major cities (not nationally, though) tend to be minorities. The white trash in tornado allet have to deal with the same thing.