What do we know? We know:
1.) Governor Kathleen Blanco (D) and her Department of Homeland Security refused to allow the Red Cross into New Orleans to provide food and water for those housed in the Superdome, even though that was where Mayor C. Ray Nagin(D) told his people to go.
2.) Blanco’s reasoning for this lack of supportive services was she wanted these people evacuated and didn’t want them to remain. Now, there’s a plan: starve them out!
3.) A tug-of-war power play rages between Nagin and Blanco. Blanco doesn’t want forced evacuations; and, Nagin does. Since Nagin controls the police and Blanco controls the National Guard, this should prove to really jam things up once again in the Big Uneasy.
4.) Virtually all of the city of New Orleans school buses now sit in their traditional parking spaces — which happens to currently be a toxic soup of backwater. They may not be salvageable.
5.) These buses could have/should have been used to transport the poor, infirm, stranded and elderly to safe harbor. This would have saved the buses also.
6.) At least 30 elderly residents died in a coastal nursing facility simply because no one bothered to evacuate them.
7.) Prison doors were opened and dangerous prisoners released because there was no workable evacuation plan for them.
8.) All the major Dems aren’t waiting for anyone to determine what really went wrong. Most notably, the woman: Hillary Clinton (D-NY); Barbara Boxer (D-CA); Nancy Pelosi (D-CA); and Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), have all taken the soapbox with accusations and outright inflammatory and defamatory remarks. (Well, next year is an election year. Guess they want to milk this disaster for all the political clout they can get.)
9.) We can all rely on DNC Chairman Howard Dean to say nasty and totally inappropriate things whenever he finds a cause. He’s playing the race card again, even after the disasters of his past brush with race.
10.) All the governors are shaking in their proverbial boots and checking their disaster plans twice to make sure their state doesn’t, at some future date, reveal the total incompetence exhibited in the wake of Katrina.
11.) Celebrities will simply not keep their mouths shut, even when they have no idea about governmental protocols or any concept of federal, state and local responsibilities.
12.) New Orleans’ Mayor C. Ray Nagin was relatively unconcerned about the evacuation of his city . . . at least until before the levy broke. Considering the entire city government and state government knew the levies were only rated up to a Category 3 hurricane and Katrina was a Category 5 hours before she hit land, this should have come as no surprise. Proper precautions and evacuation transportation should have been the Mayor’s first priority.
Now, does anyone see a pattern in the above? It seems that all those griping, pointing fingers and throwing around wild and nasty accusations are Democrats. It’s amazing considering that both Blanco and Nagin failed their people miserably prior to the storm and shortly afterwards. The Democratic Party learned well from offensives launched by the Clintons during their many scandals. Attack first, accuse before being accused and deal with the truth later . . . if anyone even remembers by then.
(While investigating this post, I was reminded that Nagin was a recent convert to the Democratic Party. He changed party affiliations just prior to running for mayor in heavily-Democratic New Orleans. I thought it only fair to add this information. Treat it with the weight you believe it deserves.)
UPDATE: N Mallory commented that many prisoners were relocated to other facilities. She was correct in that almost 8,000 in the affected areas were transported to facilities outside the danger zone (and the number could well be larger). The report of prisoners being released from jail came from a FNC broadcast and concerned New Orleans. Since I can find no supporting link, I would like to inform our readers that it may have been an erroneous report. However, I did find a link that may corroborate — or actually be worse — than my original contention. The time frame is about right and could have been the truth behind the report. You can read the horrific story here.