"The hurricane wasn't the problem; had it been merely a hurricane, FEMA could have been there the next day."
Well, progress has been made. To contradict your thesis, however, is that in Rita, FEMA wasn't there the next day. Or even the next week. Their response, if anything, was even worse that with Katrina.
"This was a flood. One which blocked all incoming and outgoing routes to the affected area. "
Geeze. You have drunk deep of the Koolaid. Use your brain. It is a major pro football stadium. It is at the nexus of two elevated Interstates. So, while there were challenges, they could have been overcome. The Superdome wasn't just randomly chosen, you know.
"The ONLY workable response was to have gotten people out before it happened"
You know, you continually show your ignorance of how the real world operates. Getting a significant percentage of a population to evacuate ahead of a hurricane is a tough chore. In fact, New Orleans evacuated a larger percentage than any I had heard of prior to that storm. Now, granted, ahead of Rita they evacuated an even larger percentage. But you don't usually get two cat 5 storms so close together temporally and spatially.
"or to have provided for adequate emergency facilities before the fact."
They had emergency facilities. The Superdome had been used before. Unfortunately, there are limits to how much New Orleans could have prepared for the flooding.
"I do believe that many, like you, have assumed this crisis was in some way similar to that encountered with hurricanes. "
No hurricane is simple. They all provide challenges.
"but no hurricane I can remember has literally blocked ALL ACCESS to a major metropolitan area. "
If the response to Rita had been like the response to Carla, which was another cat 5 that hit about the same area, you might have a point. But, FEMA responded, if anything, worse than they did with Katrina. FEMA didn't exist during Carla, we responded with a bunch of uncoordinated agencies. The response during Carla was better. Granted, the population was smaller. But we didn't have all of the emergency response infrastructure in place.
"Once again, you conflate two totally unrelated, incomparable events. "
It is this way. The tsunami was half a world away. Yet we were airlifting supplies there within 24 hours. New Orleans was a heck of a lot closer. It took closer to 3 days. There was even a naval ship, complete with several surgical suites and helicopters that followed Katrina in. But, they were not authorized to render aid until Smirk made his visit.
"And just looking at the painted X's on the front of the homes, and the dates marked in them, I am always amazed at just how quickly they were able to get through these areas and deal with this problem."
David, I realize that reality is not your strong point, but it is going on 3 years since the storm. Over 1 thousand days. And it still hasn't been cleaned up.
"Rita? it was a minor blip compared with Katrina"
Rita was a cat 5 storm, nit wit. Through a fairly densely populated part of Texas and Louisiana. The number of people affected was actually larger than affected by Katrina. No cat 5 is a minor blip. It takes someone with out the slightest clue to make such a claim.
I've seen plenty of stupid statements on this board, but yours ranks up there at the top.
"Rita was nothing by comparison."
By your lights, Rita should have been an easy case. Not only was the flooding less severe, a greater percentage of the population had evacuated and they had an objective case of what can happen staring them in the face. And some things were different. Smirk didn't go on vacation and didn't spend several days on fund raisers during the emergency. And, you know, the military did a great job in assisting with the evacuation. Which sort of makes their claims they didn't have the authority to do that New Orleans sort of suspect.
Yet FEMA bellyflopped again. |
