First you have Max and Bush calling and demanding a mandatory evacuation, events that didn't happen.
They did happen. The question is when. Nobody denies that Bush and Max both called and both expressed in no uncertain terms that a mandatory evacuation should be called for, in both instances after the locals had failed to act in a reasonable manner. You can argue that from now on but the facts as I've stated them are undisputed and inarguable. Whether Bush raised hell 10 minutes before the press conference or 12 hours is immaterial -- the press conference was being held a day too late, anyway you look at it. We'll never know what Bush said in that phone call, but one can reasonably expect that Blanco softened it a bit.
>>> > For one, there aren't nearly enough buses.
Bull. We know there were hundreds of busses available.
>>> But that assumes you have drivers for those buses.
This is absurd. But assuming it to be factual (absurd though it is), whos job was it to be damned sure there were drivers? It sure as hell wasn't FEMAs.
You are working overtime to lay this on the federal government which is not where the responsibility belongs.
The entire problem is that there was no (zero, none) planning by the local officials to deal with a crisis. That a reasonable evacuation for these people couldn't have been managed had they reacted a day earlier, as they should have, is not believable to me.
They knew precisely which areas posed a problem. They knew precisely which areas would not flood. At the very least, they could have bussed 30K or more of these people who suffered out of downtown and into Baton Rouge. Had the federal government not been confronted with the need to rescue tens of thousands from rooftops, it is reasonable to expect that more could have been done for the others (in NOLA as well as MS) much sooner.
Following your logic, why do we require sprinkler systems and evacuation plans in large buildings? Let's just deal with it as the fire unfolds.
Why plan at all? Let FEMA clean up the mess, whatever it is? Why bother with the concept of a "first responder"?
As usual, there is a lot of blathering around here that is devoid of reason. |
