Consider me boggled.

[deathpixie]

Okay, watching the SBS international news, and the Katrina aftermath footage. Particularly the stuff about people dying of dehydration and heatstroke in the streets. Can I just say one thing?

What the fuck is the government doing in terms of disaster relief? Bloody hell, after the tsunamis in December there was relief on its way within 24 hours. It's been three bloody days!

And just why aren't they evacuating people from the place and getting them to places they can get help? Oh, there's buses going out, but when you have thousands of people to move, you need more than 70 Greyhounds, people.

You see this stuff in Third World countries. You certainly don't expect it in the jewel of developed nations.

Disclaimer: I'm not aiming this at the American people as a whole, or even the various aid relief organisations like the Red Cross, although I didn't see much in the way of footage there. It's pretty much aimed at thhe government, whose job it is to deal with this sort of thing. Ye gods, Bush doesn't have the slightest clue, does he?

Comments

[qodarkness.livejournal.com]

Yes - this is also my issue. We're rescuing people they say (which seems to be the only thing they're doing). Well - hello. Why not organise dropping some great big loads of drinking water and food in places where there are many people. If there's enough to go around, civilisation will hold. Medicines would also be good.

Goodness only knows what's happening in Biloxi - it got hit with the actual hurricane (not just the backwash like New Orleans) and it's disappeared from our news entirely.

I have a feeling Bush's popularity polls are going to worsen significantly during this. One can only hope that it cripples the next Republican candidate for President as well.

A

[trishalynn.livejournal.com]

All I know is I DIDN'T FUCKING VOTE FOR HIM!

Not that Kerry might have automatically done a better job. But I'm sure that he wouldn't have only been willing to cut short his vacation by three days instead of taking off of vacation sooner so he could help figure out what the national government was going to do to help.

As an aside, it's very sad to me that while I felt compelled to hop a plane after 9/11 to help shovel debris and take care of refugees, I don't feel as inclined to help this time around.

[nute.livejournal.com]

It's not the government's job. The government's job is to govern. Organizations like FEMA and the CDC are set up to deal with disaster relief. They're PART of the government, but not the whole.

Why aren't they evacuating everyone? They can't. Plain and simple. It is not physically possible to get to some parts of New Orleans just yet, and they're working on that. The military is literally chainsawing their way in from the coast because downed trees and debris make it impossible to get to the urban areas.

My first instinct is: Why aren't the people of New Orleans doing something about it besides sitting around and dying? If you can't walk, crawl. If you can't crawl, swim. If you can't swim, make a raft. If you don't know how to start a fire and boil water so it's safe to drink, if you don't know the importance of staying warm without electric power, if you don't know elementary first aid -- these are the things that keep you alive in this apocalyptic situation.

I agree that the important thing to do is get those people out who can't/won't evacuate themselves. Once as many living people are out of the disaster area as can be moved, THEN go to the secondary and far less important business of re-establishing the city.

[dexfarkin.livejournal.com]

There seems to be three major problems in New Orleans which are crippling aid.

The first is that the communication between agencies and elements directing relief is abyssmal. No one has the slightest clue who is supposed to be in charge, so instead of a directed straightfoward response, most of the efforts have been stopgap and piecemeal. In a situation like this, you need a clear set of priorities, and a focused allocation of resources in order to meet those goals. New Orleans can't be fixed in a few days, but the groups should be setting attainable hourly and daily goals. Unfortunately, in the absence of leadership, its become a question of 'what seems most important' at the time to the individual agents, and lacks an overall plan.

The second is the utter lack of preparedness amoungst agencies. They have known this was coming days. In fact, they knew and even assumed it was going to strike at a higher level and directly on the city itself. What should have been happening is an organized effort to respond as soon as the storm was passed, discussions with other governments for aid prior to the event, and the reallocation of facilities and resources so that disaster relief could start instantly. At the very least, specialized disaster relief like DART could have been moving and set up days ago to help with the efforts.

Last of course are the actual physical elements. With the range of damage, difficulty with terrain, and the ongoing evacutation issues, it is going to be more difficult to bring in relief rapidly. That will slow things, and there really isn't a way to counter that.

[maureenans.livejournal.com]

I'm partial to the people shooting at the cops and other people tryign to render aid.

um yeah? hi? THESE PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO HELP YOU!!

I vote we de-annex N'Awlins like they did to Gotham and be done with it.