?New Orleans?

[Rhode Island Red]

do yall know what Brown did before he became the director of FEMA?

he was president of the Arabian Horse Association............

you're joking I hope

[Dave M]

If you pick up a copy of this week's issue of Newsweek, or check it out online, they have a very in depth article on the chronology of events, as well as analysis of how and why it happened, from the geography to the weather patterns to the lasck of planning before hand and lack of results afterward. They also have some amazing pictures of the devastation.

The article essentially lays blame to everybody at some point.

In fact, here's the article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9179587/site/newsweek/

There are a few more articles in the magazine that look at other aspects of Katrina like the economic impact and what impact it will have on Bush. You can probably find them on their site too.

[Barry 94Formula]

Well as a member of this board who lived in N.O. I will offer my .02 cents.

There is plenty of blame to go around. You can plan for a disaster all you want but untill it happens you have no way to be sure if your plan will work.

We all new the big one would come one day and we all new what we would do, but when it actually happened everyone had to improvise.

No Mayor in the history of N. O. has ordered a mandatory evac, and this was due to ECONOMIC reasons. If the storm did not hit then business would lose a ton of money. The other reason was there was no way to get everyone out in 72 hours, due to the lack of transportation.

They used the Superdome as a Evac shelter and we knew this would not work, but when Katrina started to come at us they had no choice. I knew that by the 2nd day things would be bad, but I never imagined the horrors that would take place inside the dome.

Was the Federal Govt slow to respond? Yes! It should never have taken a week to bring food and water to the people stuck in that building. Hell they could have dropped water and MRE's if they could not drive them through.

My Father, Stepmother and little sister were there for nearly a week with little or no food and water. There was also NO security in the dome. If we can keep fans from bringing guns into a football game why can't we keep them out of a evac shelter.

If reporters could drive from the state capitol to downtown N. O. why couldn't the military do it. I do not want to sound like I am criticising our military personel especially the ones who were and are there, cause they are victims to.

I can only begin to imagine the frustration they must have felt because they know what they are capable of doing and could not due their jobs due to red tape. I saw a Army Col who had a dozen Blackhawks ready to go and could not get the clearance he needed to get the choppers in the air to start rescuing people.

Sorry for such a rambling post but as a DISPLACED PERSON I feel alot of the frustration that people are talking about. I can only hope that from this disaster we will learn from our mistakes and not allow this to ever be repeated in this country again.

I would like to add one other thing. There is a raging debate as to whether the city should be rebuilt. My answer is yes. Katrina did not destroy this city. It was the break in the 17th street levy that did us in. If it were not for this I would still have a home today. Will I go back? Probably not. It will take years to rebuild the city and it will never be the same. It will look just like any other suburban town, and that is not New Orleans.

[TODD 2000 V6 CAMARO]

Well, again ... 'from what I've been reading'

Is that the federal level didnt act quick enough...

Journalists on the New Orleans Times were able to get in and out, and werent actors like Harry Connick Jr in their before Bush and his people? They were televised doing so... so was Walmart, when they were delivering supplie's to the people... It took bush a some 3 odd days????.

He is a war-time president with many other things going on in his job. Harry Connick Jr. is an entertainer....a millionair with plenty of time on his hands. Give the guy a break...do you have any idea the plans that have to be made and put in place before a president goes out in a public place like that? Oh, and "supplie's" doesn't need the apostrophe.

Now, I have read the comments of Hilary Bush going on to say ... "And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working out very well for them."

... thats an exact quote.

Hillary who? See this is evidence of why outside countries should mind their own business when it comes to this sort of thing. Apparently the information they get is a little incomplete. Oh, and "thats" does need an apostrophe.

Although congress did pass a $52 billion dollar bill and $2,000 aid to every household, and long term assistance ... but is it too little too late?

But what about the levee's? Bush says no one anticipated this? Or what about this Micheal Brown of FEMA saying he didnt know there was people trapped in the dome, when they had been their for days... and what about Bush coming back and commending his efforts and work?.

Michael Brown was unfit for the job, I believe. I think they made a much better choice for his replacement by picking the Officer from the Coast Guard, someone trained to handle emergency situations. I think other countries, like Canada and Germany, are using this event as a "bash-Bush" excuse. The hurricane is an act of God, an unavoidable natural event. The city thought they were prepared for this to happen. The state obviously thought the levees would hold up....what they didn't expect was a hurricane of the magnitude of Katrina. When you really take a step back and look at this from the tip-top of the federal level, i.e. the president, a levee on the edge of a small city like N.O. is not going to be a glaring priority when you are in the middle of fighting the war on terror. It is one of those unfortunate, overlooked details that it takes something like this to bring to light for the rest of the country and, unfortunately, the world. Yes, the ball was dropped afterward, but it was on the state level, not federal.