Hurricane Katrina

[manasecret]

Mayor Ray Nagin is pissed. He feels the same way as you Strangler, here's what he said:

Nagin:

But we authorized $8 billion to go to Iraq lickety-quick. After 9/11, we gave the president unprecedented powers lickety-quick to take care of New York and other places.

Now, you mean to tell me that a place where most of your oil is coming through, a place that is so unique when you mention New Orleans anywhere around the world, everybody's eyes light up -- you mean to tell me that a place where you probably have thousands of people that have died and thousands more that are dying every day, that we can't figure out a way to authorize the resources that we need? Come on, man.

You know, I'm not one of those drug addicts. I am thinking very clearly.

And I don't know whose problem it is. I don't know whether it's the governor's problem. I don't know whether it's the president's problem, but somebody needs to get their ass on a plane and sit down, the two of them, and figure this out right now.

The rest of the interview is here.

He's angry, and I think he has every right to be. I can understand the frustation, and can only guess how horribly dire it must be to be waiting in the bleeding heat waiting for rescue.

But I think it's the hurricane's fault, and we need to remember that. Things could certainly have been done better, but it's a disaster situation that people didn't know how to deal with. The hurricane is what killed and is killing people, not people who made mistakes.