Beck blames "local officials" for Katrina tragedy: They "didn't get people out in time"
November 23, 2009 12:07 pm ET
From the November 23 edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Glenn Beck Program:
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A city wide evacuation order came from the local government on Aug 28th, after the Hurricane was upgraded to a Category 5... the Superdome was a "safe haven" for those who couldn't leave the city, which despite the damage to the Superdome, worked to save the lives of some 26,000 people.
The failure was FEMAs response to the recovery. After the storm hit, the local government was decimated and the urgency from the Bush administration was inadequate to say the least.
That's because New Orleans survived the hurricane. I believe it was a Category 2 or 3 when it made landfall. It was the FLOOD that literally swamped the local government.
Brownie's response? Send semis with ice to Maine and parking thousands of trailers in Arkansas.
And, proclaim himself a "fashion god" . . .
Let' all blame the Bush administration for the failures of local goverment. Let's not assume responsibility for anything, after all, that's the governments job to do my thinking for me
Somebody puked, all right -- but it wasn't "liberalese" . . .
Anyone with a shred of common sense would've left the area, anyone who beleives for a second that in a disaster that the government is going to save your butt is lacking common sense. The best person to save me is me, not some government official who has 50K others to help out.
The Police and Fire department tells everyone to evacuate, but there's always 30-50 people who stay with their home to try to fight it.
Also, you presume that everyone has the ability to leave town. Remember, it wasn't upgraded to a Category 5 and the evac announcement didn't happen until Sunday morning. Eldery, handicapped, impovershed, all would have a difficult time to evacuate in 24 hours time.
Sheesh, you just don't get it. The people who stayed were POOR. They had no car. They had no money. They had no vacation home. They'd ridden out hurricanes in the past. It was the unprecedented FLOOD that was the culprit.
Your butt is lacking common sense. And compassion.
All the buses sat in lots while the city flooded.
A little objectivity would be nice sometimes, you partisan hacks.
Yes, you're correct, the buses sat in the lot. They were probably gassed up and ready to go. But people are not going to leave when they don't know where they're going and don't have any money to survive on and don't know when they're going to return and they've ridden out hurricanes in the past.
So how would you have gone about filling those buses? With the National Guard? Nope, they were in Iraq. With the police? Nope, they were evacuating the city.
Pretend you were Nagin. How would you have filled those buses just sitting in that lot?
So you're saying it's the citizens' fault?
Most everyone survived the hurricane. It was the flood, that was UNEXPECTED, that caused the death and misery. If there was no flood, there would have been fewer problems.
But there was a flood - remember, it was UNEXPECTED - and the only entity that can provide assistance after an UNEXPECTED flood, is the federal government. You know, because local authorities are UNDER WATER due to the UNEXPECTED flood.
The blame is not on the citizens. It's on FEMA because the citizens have ridden out hurricanes before. However, they had to deal with the UNEXPECTED flood.
Got it?
Er... I mean, I seriously doubt it.
Dork doesn't seem to get much that's said here. Of course, it IS hard to get points that you're determined NOT to get.
There weren't DRIVERS for those buses.
The people who stayed in their homes were told to leave their homes by the city. No city can FORCE people to leave their homes.
The people who could have been saved, but weren't, were people left to wait for FEMA's help for too many days. The Federal Govt should have been prepared for a Cat 5 storm hitting New Orleans based upon the information they got on Saturday. It shouldn't have taken until the next Thursday and Friday to get enough help into the city!
No city can manage that kind of help. Only FEMA can. And FEMA eventually DID do it - but 3 days later than they should have.
It was FEMA's job, and they were slow.
They decided to stay with their worldly possessions. They'd ridden out hurricanes before. It was the FLOOD that caused the disaster, not the hurricane.
Still, I don't fault Beck for saying that the city is to blame, when they completely bungled the operation. Everyone is blaming someone, but somehow Beck is wrong for thinking that the city is the problem.
Republican say: don't talk about Bush - even though he was our last President and he caused a lot of mess.
Nagin told the people to leave. So when they didn't leave, it's his fault?
People aren't just going to get on a bus to nowhere with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Nagin didn't have the resources to set up "refugee" camps. FEMA did. And they failed.
The overall total of help for people following the hurricane's landfall could have been avoided. You do not wait until two days before landfall to issue a warning. Everyone is to blame for the problem about the response after the hurricane. From local all the way to the federal government. A mistake on everyones part, but with that over and the lack of help to fix the mess to this day following Katrina is very bad especially in highly poor communities.
Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin were totally unprepared, and they certainly could have handled things much better.
HOWEVER, the real cost of Katrina occurred after the storm, as people died by the thousands during FEMA's failed rescue efforts. I'll never forget seeing hundreds of people stranded at the convention center all over television, and then watching Brownie do an interview several days later saying he had no idea about it.