Why No Katrina Stories From Iowa?
by Big Dog on Jun 13, 2008 at 14:06 Political
There is terrible flooding in Cedar Rapids Iowa and Des Moines is under a voluntary evacuation order as rivers swell and rise to the tops of levees. Cedar Rapids is under water and 15 people have died as a result of the flooding. Of course this story has been in the news but I can’t help but wondering where all the network trailers are. I can’t help wondering where FEMA is and where are all the protesters demonstrating against perceived government inaction on this one?
Also, where are all the dead bodies floating around while hoodlums roam the streets shooting at people and looting stores?
What is it about this storm that is at least as bad, if not worse, than Katrina that has left us without stories of devastation caused by the government’s failure to swoop in and help people? Why don’t we have music stars on TV holding a telethon to raise money while they proclaim that George Bush hates white people?
Why is it that teen aged boys, members of the Boy Scouts, were able to respond immediately to render first aid to the injured and dig out those trapped in the rubble when adults in New Orleans seemed incapable of helping themselves?
Perhaps this goes back to the thoughts I had about dependence on government. Those in New Orleans have ridden the back of government programs for so long they did not know how to care for themselves. The leadership they needed from state and local politicians was non existent with the governor crying and the mayor lying in the fetal position sucking his thumb on the upper floors of a hotel. The people were ill prepared because their leadership was ill prepared.
Certainly there was blame at the federal level and things could have run more smoothly but there is no battalion of federal employees traipsing around Iowa and they seem to be surviving.
It all comes down to people taking responsibility for one’s own life and helping others in need.
My prayers are with those folks in Iowa affected by this terrible storm. Thanks goodness they had the ability to fend for themselves or the death toll could have been much higher.
Tags: cedar rapids, fema, floods, iowa, katrina, new orleans
Valid point and I agree.
I was unaware that 32,000 square miles were devastated and 2+ million displaced by the floods in the midwest. Oh, they weren’t. Never mind.
Iowa? I lived in North Dakota, and there’s no more egregious dependent, government-tit-sucking welfare queens than subsidized row crow and sugar farmers.
Most people who were trapped in New Orleans owned no car, and couldn’t afford more than a few days of food at a time. Bottled water, are you kidding?
****mook.
Mark Folses last blog post..Daddy Would Be So Proud
So what you are saying Mark, is that you are about as bright as the people who left 500 buses to get flooded instead of loading them with the people who had no cars and getting them out of town.
When North Dakota has a disaster then we can discuss North Dakota.
Bottled water? There was a tractor trailer load of it that the governor would not let in because she did not want people to congregate at the Super Dome. America sent tons of food and water Mark, government did not distribute it.
I imagine it would have been better if criminals were not out looting and the police had stayed on the job.
Mark missed the point entirely….
Good points BD
Buffoons last blog post..FRED THOMPSON: THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY
[…] ****mook, FYYFF, Hagee, Iowa, Katrina, urban myth trackback No one should be surprised that this sort of ****mookery has crawled out from beneath the rocks where it lives? Cedar Rapids is under water and 15 people […]
[…] Big Dog points out here and I pointed out here, isn’t it "funny" how damn near the entire state of Iowa is […]
That’s a lot of generalizations you are making about my people. Is everybody the same where you live? Why you gotta hate us New Orleanians so much?
I bet you didn’t know 90% of New Orleanians evacuated before the storm or that federal levees breached without even being overtopped or that 120 square miles – urban square miles, in just Orleans Parish, flooded and sat in salt water for weeks.
Did 90% of residents in Cedar Rapids and Des Moines evacuate before breaches? Was flooding to the rooftops? Did levees breach without even being overtopped? Was the US Army Corps of Engineers solely responsible for the design and construction of those levees?
Ray,
Let’s get a few things straight for you. The MSM did not report that 90% of the people made it out. We saw the beleaguered 10% who were failed by local government and who refused to leave. That 10% is what Ray Nagin said would be abandoned when he exercised his disaster plan.
The Corps of Engineers recommended a levee that would withstand a Cat 5 hurricane and NO said only make it a Cat 3. You see, each levee has its own board and they regulate each levee separately. Instead of spending federal money on the levees that the COE recommended, NO spent it on floating casinos. The corruption in NO is why those levees did not stand, not the skill with which they were built. The COE built them the way NO wanted them.
The water in Cedar Rapids is not as high on the houses but in case you did not notice that city is ABOVE sea level. People in NO live below the level of the water so naturally it will be higher if there is a breach. This is why it is all the more important for the local government to issue evacuation orders and to assist people out. Instead, Nagin was in the fetal position sucking his thumb. The people in NO had advance warning that a hurricane was coming and ignored it. They breathed a sigh of relief when it missed them and went about partying until that levee broke in the middle of the night.
It would be helpful if you knew what you were talking about before posting. Also, you guys successfully blamed it all on President Bush (even though most of the fault is with the residents, Blanco and Nagin) so don’t come here and tell me that it was not that bad after crying for many years about how awful it was.
All one needs to do is look at how the money that taxpayers from EVERY OTHER STATE paid (and should not have) to NO is being wasted on things that were not affected by the flood. That is corruption.
Big Dog,
Just like where you live, the vast majority of New Orleanians are law abiding, hard working, church going, tax paying US citizens. 90% of us did not have to depend on government to rescue us – and that was a good thing because every level of government failed us miserably. You can claim our levee breaches were my fault, but if you read the levee failure investigation reports, you would learn our outfall canal levee failures were 100% engineering mistakes.
70% of us even had flood insurance. How many in Cedar Rapids or Des Moines have flood insurance?
You are not being fair to us. We’re doing the best we can.
I have no doubt that the majority of people in NO are good, law abiding citizens and just want to get on with their lives.
The media along with Blanco and Nagin made this about the federal government and this idea that NO is ignored because it has a large black population. Remember the statement, George Bush hates black people? That statement is wrong and it cut to the heart of people who worked hard to send money and clothes there. I was involved in collecting and sending tons of food and clothes.
The rap song by someone named KO does not make it better. The idea that stuff was withheld is partially true. Blanco withheld it.
The levees were built to the standards of the levee boards. The COE has very capable people and maybe they did make mistakes but they followed what NO wanted them to do.
Tragedy is bad no matter where it happens. My point is that the media is not running through Iowa pointing out tragedy and fingering the president. They did that in NO because a small percentage of the population that is used to living off the government and having government take care of them could not fend for themselves.
You say it is unfair to point to all of NO for failings when 90% went OK.
How fair is it to blame the ENTIRE Bush administration for all the failures of Blanco and Nagin and for the 10% or so of the response that was screwed up? 90% of the FEMA response went well. There were some problems but they had to move a lot of resources from very distant places.
As long as people can blame the entire Bush administration then it is fair to blame all of NO for its own problems. If you want fairness try telling politicians that the federal response was 90% good. I bet that if they had done that to start with people would not be so hard on NO.
We people that were victims of levee failures feel very insulted that our losses became and still are a partisan issue. Republicans & Democrats are equally guilty for doing that and it is not fair to levee failure victims. As a matter of fact, very few of us could care less about placing blame! We just want to survive this ordeal and would appreciate a little empathy & understanding from our countrymen. Many of us feel very disenfranchised by the way people like you talk about us.
That is not true what you said about levees being built to the standards of the levee boards. The Corps never accepted input or oversight on their levee designs or construction. They were constrained by our levee board to an undersized footprint where they could build the levees, but that is not a valid excuse for their levee design errors. Read the levee failure investigation reports, even the one by the Corps – they were 100% responsible for the engineering mistakes that led to the callapse of the outfall canal levees – without even being overtopped. This is a clear fact. The Corps testified exactly that before Congress and a federal judge also ruled that that was the case. Yes, I believe the Corps has some good people, but the overall organization is incompetent and individuals within the Corps are quilty of engineering negligence.
What is everyone’s obsession with blaming political parties for New Orleans’ problems? The Corps has been short sheeting New Orleans for 50 years with the help of every political party.
I will certainly look into those things. My sources tell me that the levee boards have gotten more and more money and that it gets diverted to other interests.
Maybe they made mistakes but the Corps gains nothing by short sheeting NO. NO politicians do.
The people might not care one way or the other but you would not know that by the number interviewed who blamed, and to this day, blame the feds.
Little Dog,
why would you use the tragedy of so many to piss on the tragedy of so many others, especially with such a misinformed or just blatantly ignorant view of either?
You know nothing of how your unelected presidente continues to stick it to you and your ilk of neocoward, Machiavelli-wannabees. You remind me of the homoentropic Brown-shirts that Hitler had massacred after he solidified control in Germany.
Do you know the demographics of all those who lost their lives from that Federal Flood? Do you know the levels of Agriculture Dept Subsidies in the State of Iowa alone, not to mention the other ADM sharecropping states.
Why aren’t you covering this tragedy rather than using it to kick me, who survived your unelected presidente’s best efforts to leave me to die?
And btw, it was FEMA who kept the water out of New Orleans and your illegitimate administration in Washington that held back Federal Troops. Check your facts, Little Man. Isn’t that the least you can do before you try to run with Big Dogs?
Editilla
New Orleans News Ladders last blog post..Samedi
Ladder, it is easy to dismiss you because you only write to insult and not add to the discussion. I am well informed, probably more so than you. It is also easy to dismiss you with the Bush was not elected crap. Count after count after count shows he was elected but some people will never see it.
How do you feel knowing Obambi was selected and not elected? No crying about it I bet.
Bush did not leave you to die, Nagin and Blanco did. The real blame is on you for not having enough sense to leave.
FEMA did not keep the water out of NO. It was sent by the Red Cross and Blanco kept it out.
The demographics of those who died in Katrina? Sure, while larger numbers of blacks died (in raw numbers) a larger number of whites, as a percentage of population, died in the flood. I also know that 1) it was one tenth of what they predicted when they were screaming and 2) they would be alive if they had left on those buses before they got flooded.
Accept responsibility for your own acts. You did make my point though. By indicating that you feel Bush left you to die you are admitting you were waiting for (and expecting) government to save you.
Responsibility. You might try it.
Wrong Little Man,
do your homework on the Red Cross and FEMA. You do not even rate a footnote there. Poor baby feels insulted. Oh, you can’t stand the heat of real experience. You don’t like it when I, who was there, beg to differ with you, who were not there but feel like you have some moral authority to comment on the Federal Flood of New Orleans? Blancho and Nagin were there. You were not. Where were you?
I stayed because I had no idea that the Corps of Engineers had lied about building sound levees. I stayed to plug in after the storm. Why I stayed has nothing to do with the failure of those Corps-built levees. If those levees had not failed because of criminally negligent engineering, admitted to in Federal Court, I would not be here trying to contradict your Limabaudian McRhetorical Syllodomists Spin on your Administration’s failure to protect me the tax payer. I paid for those levees and they failed–not because Katrina missed the city a weakened Cat 2 storm, but because they were built substandard:
http://kerrn.org/pdf/IPETBEAreview.pdf
How in the world do you not know any of this?
Such self-inflicted ignorance serves only to highlight the biggest difference that I see between real Conservatives, like me, and neocon brown shirts like you. You haven’t even looked at the studies of those failed levees. You don’t know a damn thing of what you speak. Such grotesque stupidity doesn’t even rate footnotes either. You simply do not want to know what happened or you would know.
Do not even try to slag your government hand-out BS on me you coward. I was there and continue to deal with it–while you were obviously not and you continue to spread lies and vitriol about the survivors. I pay taxes. Is that all you’ve got? Just because I disagree with your baseless innuendo means that I must be waiting for a government handout? Is that all you neo’corksuckers ever have? Can’t you freaks ever deal with real information rather than just try to insult survivors of catastrophy. You started this not me. Why does it always have to be bellyfeel newspeak?
The fact that FEMA cut the communications lines for the Jefferson parish Emergency Response Team, the fact the people in FEMA jackets turned away at least 4 Walmart trucks of bottled water, the fact that your unelected president appointed a horse show judge as head of the nation’s front-line emergency response matters to me but not to you. Why is that, Little Man?
And before you go there, I am a registered gun-toting independent conservative Eagle Scout who would love to face you down in any street any day.
You still have not answered my question though, why are you such a coward bully intent on using the tragedy of so many to piss on the tragedy of so many more?
New Orleans News Ladders last blog post..Samedi
Am I supposed to be afraid of a blow hard who makes threats on the internet. You might think you would want to face me but I can promise you it might not be what you think.
Those levees were constructed over decades and they were not put up during the Bush administration. Your contention that you were not protected BY THE LEVEES BUILT BY GOVERNMENT is valid. However, it is valid in hindsight since a Cat 5 storm was expected and you did not leave. You ended up being fortunate to have been left with a Cat 2-3 that missed the place.
The government in general (and had nothing to do with Bush specifically) failed you and it started long ago and ended with Blanco and Nagin.
Mu piece is not to hurt one group or another. It is to demonstrate that in the after math of tragedy some groups respond differently than others. Those who depend on government cannot fend for themselves. Those who loot stores, are criminals. Don’t tell me they were looking for food unless you people in NO eat TVs and clothes. My personal feeling is screw NO. I worked hard to collect and send and my soldiers deployed there to help. The thanks we get is more corruption. William Jefferson is a prime example of what comes out of there. I think the recovery plan should be to fill in NO with dirt and move the city limit back to above sea level. You live below the sea. The Indians sold the land because it flooded when it rained.
Are you familiar with the national incident command system? Under it, all supplies are placed in logistics and then sent in a coordinated manner. If trucks with water were not allowed to enter the city (where they would no doubt be looted) they were sent to the logistical storage area where the supplies could be counted and distributed.
You are easily dismissed because you have no ability to conduct a reasonable conversation without threats or name calling. Be more respectful or your posting here is done. In case you have any issues with that read the rules for this blog. Don’t mind a good debate but if you want to threaten or belittle do that in your parent’s basement.
This is from CBS news and it is about the report cited above. Notice how the COE is part of the problem as are LOCAL politicians.
New Orleans’ levee system was routinely underfunded and therefore inadequate to protect against hurricanes, according to an independent report released Monday.
The report also called for an overhaul of the agencies that oversee flood protection. It took aim at Congress for its piecemeal funding over the past 50 years, and at state and local levee authorities for failing to properly oversee maintenance of the levees.
“You tend to get what you pay for,” Dave Rogers, a member of the team of academics who extensively studied the system, said during a news conference on Monday.
The study was performed by the Independent Levee Investigation Team, led by the University of California, Berkeley. The group has been highly critical of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which was in charge of designing and building the complicated system.
The study released Monday said floods overwhelmed levees and flood walls, both on the fringes and inside the city. Breaches were caused by weak soil in the levees, poor engineering and breakdowns in sections where different types of flood protection meet. CBS News correspondent Byron Pitts reports that in several places along the 350-mile levee system, the Corps used cheap material — sand instead of clay. According to investigators, the foundation for the levee walls were in some places just 13 feet deep — they should have been 60.
Pitts reports the culture at the Corps of Engineers changed in the past 40 years. Budget cuts and infighting between local politicians led to deadly inefficiency.
“We took the engineering out of the Corps of Engineers, and that’s in an attempt to become better, faster, cheaper project managers,” said Bob Bea, a former engineer with the Corps who worked on the investigation team.
As CBS News’ Steve Futtermann reports, the findings dispute most of the corps’ preliminary findings about what caused the levee breaches, saying the investigators had made critical errors in their analysis, as the Los Angeles Times notes. All bold emphasis mine.
As I have stated in many posts, there is plenty of blame to go around. This post is about how different segments of our population handle tragedy. This is about effective governance (Iowa has Democrats and Republicans) and how good leadership works.
There were people in the Super Dome who acted like animals. They were poor, no doubt, but they were used to being cared for and did not know how to care for themselves.
People in the latest tragedy are somewhat different. They are used to taking care of themselves and their neighbors. They are not looting and they are not acting like criminals. I imagine their murder rate is historically much lower than that of NO.
People who live their lives dependent upon the government lose the ability to take care of themselves. So called conservatives can come here and call me names and make threats (BTW, I am not a neocon because it means NEW conservative. I am an old conservative who believes in traditional conservative values).
People stayed for many reasons. Some had no transportation and were abandoned by Mayor Nagin. Others stayed to help afterwards which means they stayed through a storm predicted to be in excess of the capacity of the levees. They knew the chance existed that the levees would break. Given the corruption there and the problems with the local COE outlined in the report, it is no wonder they were breached.
Someone still needs to tell us where the money went to maintain the levees. Casinos comes to mind. BTW, I read somewhere that Bush provided more money for the levees than the guy he replaced. The problem there has been going on for 50 years and Bush got all the blame.
So while those who lived there went through tragedy and obviously suffered mental trauma (as evidenced by the gun toting Ladder guy who rants about what he saw in his little piece of the world, the reality is that LOCAL government screwed the pooch during the tragedy, federal government screwed the pooch in the opening stages of the response and the government in general screwed the pooch with 50 years of ineptitude and corruption. I also wonder if the guy who worries about a so called horse show judge being appointed feels about the rodeo clown that the past president had running it?
Keep in mind the levees were not built during George Bush’s administration so it was someone else who failed to protect.
I have participated in quite a number of events with FEMA and I have written and evaluated evacuation plans. I have evaluated many disaster drills. I have just a bit of experience in emergencies and I have a whole lot of training in Incident Command (NIMS). So while I appreciate the view of a person who rode out the storm I am not some uninformed hack who decided to pick on NO.
NO has been a big waste of money.
Yes, they knew how to care for themselves. When the food and water for three days they had been told to bring was exhausted, and the federal government failed to arrive on the scene with additional supplies as clearly specified in the local and state emergency plans, they went out and took what they could find.
You suggest the people of Iowa would behave differently under the same circumstances, but they have never been tested. It was on the Wednesday after the Federal levees failed due to the well documented shortcomings in the Corps’ engineering and construction that someone first suggested this idea to me: “we would never behave that way”. After I rejected my first impulse, which was to toss this former chief of staff for a United States senator over the railing of the rooftop bar where we were attending a cocktail party, I gave him the only answer I could think of: then your people would die, and mine would live.
The gene pool would be improved.
As to the buses, per the well documented and well executed local and state evacuation plans (reviewed, exercised and approved by FEMA) the request to access the state school buses had to go through FEMA and it never happened.
The city buses were too busy ferrying people to the shelter of last resort.
And if every single bus had been pressed into service, which 50,000 people would you have left behind? I have the numbers and that is what would have happened under the most idyllic of circumstances.
I recall watching the scene in War of the Worlds in which the crowd is rioting trying to get over the ferry, and my then 11-year old asked me, “Daddy, is that what New Orleans was like”. I told him, yes, it was.
If you think the people of the midwest would behave differently under these circumstances, please feel free to visit http://www.toulousestreet.net and let me know when you are willing to submit yourself to the test.
I will be happy as time presents over the rest of the weekend to rebut the rest of the Fox Sunday Morning nonsense you are parroting re: what happened in New Orleans, but for now I have to go stir a pot before dinner scorches.
Mark Folses last blog post..Boy Scouts Save Iowa
I definitely agree that the failings of FEMA should be getting some coverage.
But the two events are much different. Hurricane Katrina affected a large number of states and areas, even those that were not in the path of the actual hurricane; and it killed many hundreds of Americans, thousands even, I don’t recall the death count.
And I don’t know why you guys are arguing over New Orleans, or why New Orleans was put as the biggest issue both during and after Katrina; Katrina hurt a whole lot of people, not just those in New Orleans.
Charles Lumias last blog post..Leni Riefenstahl – A Great Artist – Part 2
Mr. Big Dog:
You’re an idiot & I am so sick of this sort of crap.
coldH2Owis last blog post..Cool Find
Mr. Big Dog,
Please educate yourself about what happened in New Orleans after the storm. Listen to Ray and Mark Folse. They have been on the front lines from the beginning. Don’t ever think the media is unbiased. They all have an agenda. Listen to us. We are the eye witnesses. We have seen our government on all levels fail us completely. The only way New Orleans exists today is through individual bravery and sacrifice. I am a conservative that has lost all faith in America. I DO believe in New Orleanians though. A tougher breed was never known. I only wish the people of the mid west the best. We know better than anyone the tough road ahead of them. I only hope they also don’t lose the sense of being American as we have. I hope they only feel support from their own countrymen. That is something we never had the joy of experiencing.
LMAO
Dude, your totally getting flamed!
Sorry, I’m laughing with you, not at you.
You may want to save your breath… they clearly don’t get it. Let them keep counting on the gub’ment to get them by,,, they’ll be gone soon enough.
Just sayin….
“There were people in the Super Dome who acted like animals. They were poor, no doubt, but they were used to being cared for and did not know how to care for themselves.”
Whatever you say, Einstein.
Total gub’mint subsidies 1995-2006 for the all the lazy white lice who live in Iowa: $15,990,898,128.00
Yeah, they sure do pick themselves up by their bootstraps out there in Iowa. It’s that American work ethic.
Let’s not forget those subsidy bootstraps in Indiana:$6.60 billion in subsidies 1995-2006. $20,800,000.00 in just 2 counties alone–and that to people who don’t even farm!
http://indianalawblog.com/archives/2006/07/law_farm_progra.html
Or Illinois (3rd in the nation): $13.4 billion in subsidies 1995-2006
Hey Baboon, Big Dog. do you see Louisiana in this list of the top twenty recipients of direct subsidy payments? You neo’guys, like your faux’presidente, just have real problems with facts, eh? Lay off New Orleans or pay even more to your Saudi Lords of the Bush.
1 Riceland Foods Inc Stuttgart, AR 72160 $554,343,039
2 Producers Rice Mill Inc ∗ Stuttgart, AR 72160 $314,028,012
3 Farmers Rice Coop Sacramento, CA 95851 $146,174,314
4 Harvest States Cooperatives Saint Paul, MN 55164 $49,470,473
5 Dnrc Trust Land Management – Exem Helena, MT 59620 $38,396,957
6 Tyler Farms ∗ Helena, AR 72342 $37,009,744
7 Sd Building Authority Sioux Falls, SD 57117 $29,843,276
8 Ducks Unlimited ∗ Memphis, TN 38120 $29,387,612
NOTE: Over 80 percent of the payments listed for Ducks Unlimited are ‘cost share’ reimbursements for technical assistance to restore wetlands at many locations on private lands not owned by D.U. The technical assistance is provided to private landowners under contractual arrangement through USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service.
9 Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation ∗ Broadway, VA 22815 $26,461,206
10 Missouri Delta Farms ∗ Sikeston, MO 63801 $25,280,578
11 Montana Board Of Investments – Se Saint Paul, MN 55170 $21,974,620
12 Bureau Of Indian Affairs ∗ Prescott, AZ 86304 $20,127,881
13 Dublin Farms ∗ Corcoran, CA 93212 $17,806,035
14 Cargill Turkey Products Harrisonburg, VA 22801 $17,593,150
15 Due West ∗ Glendora, MS 38928 $17,201,166
16 Morgan Farms ∗ Cleveland, MS 38732 $15,975,282
17 Walker Place ∗ Danville, IL 61832 $15,652,517
18 Napi ∗ Farmington, NM 87499 $15,349,739
19 Colorado River Indian Tribes Farm ∗ Parker, AZ 85344 $14,703,244
20 Perthshire Farms ∗ Gunnison, MS 38746 $14,084,694
Wisconsin: 4.31 billion in subsidies 1995-2006
Louisiana: 3.71 billion in subsidies 1995-2006
http://farm.ewg.org/farm/region.php?fips=17000
New Orleans News Ladders last blog post..Samedi
So farm subsidies for people who work hard are the same as welfare checks to those who do not work.
I am actually quite happy these folks dropped by. They are affirming that everything was fine in NO, the people did well, and that they exercised their FEMA approved plans. The report they sent clearly indicates that local politicians were to blame for the failures of the levees.
The buses that could have made round trip evacuation runs (shuttled people out) were left on a lot supposedly because they needed FEMA permission to use them. This of course cannot be true because the federal government cannot tell a state how to use its assets. Even so, who would request the use of their own buses? It is a lame excuse for incompetence.
Someone put out a call for moonbats to come by and leave a comment. Good, it shows how many people are unable to comprehend the written word. The post has not been refuted, Iowans are not sitting around waiting for help or looting the stores. That was the norm in NO.
Some have asked why so tough on NO or why bring it up? As much as the idiots in the MSM and as much as the people of NO complained about everything and tried to blame everyone but themselves and their local politicians.
As for these subsidies, perhaps you can show the welfare numbers instead. How do you subsidize working a place where most folks are not working.
Or you could list the 250 BILLION dollars wasted to rebuild the place.
The people at the Superdome generally behave pretty well under the circumstances according to people who were there, or are you relying exclusively on the ravings of our former police chief who pretty much broke down during the entire event? Same at the convention center. None of the reports of rape or violence etc. were later confirmed. As for looting, I was living away when this occured and pretty much monitored the media 20 hours a day that first week. Most of the looting of crap video were the same few people, looped over and over again. Most of the people were taking food, water, diapers, baby formula. Again, you suggest Iowans who were trapped by flood water (as opposed to simply driven out of their homes to the other side of town) for days without relief would simply sit there and die rather than act? If your elderly mother or baby were dying of dehydration you would not smash your way into a store if that were your only option?
Did you miss the fact that the vast majority of the rescues of people trapped in their homes in New Orleans were not conducted by the Coasties, who got their own TV miniseries out of it, but by the Wildlife and Fisheries Service and the “Cajun Navy” of volunteers?
Sorry to have kicked off a sh*t storm over welfare but if you’re going to characterize an entire people over the empty talking points from the Reagan Administration over a welfare program that no longer exists, well, you deserve it. And I don’t think anyone from an agricultural state should criticize recipients of routine or disaster assistance. But let’s not lose sight of the real facts.
This is about Iowan versus New Orleans. (I brought in North Dakota because this same sort of “were not like them” crap came up there two years ago).
In brief, if you want to compare the two situations you need to concentrate all of the evacuated Iowans on the edge of the flood zone with no food, water or shelter. Any who attempt to leave should be met with armed force. For helpful comparison, try to make sure there is a locked but available source of food or water available. The only assistance will be armed, uniformed troops who have no spare food or water to give them. And we will see how long it takes them to
“behave like animals” and start looting that store, or if most of them are willing to just sit there in 95 degree heat and watch the elderly and infirm and the infants die.
Mark Folses last blog post..Boy Scouts Save Iowa
Two final thoughts: The more I think about it, this is an easy experiment to conduct, and Iowa provides us a place to do it. We can debunk this nonsense once and for all. Go to the largest shelter in Iowa today. Nail all the doors and windows shut. Turn off the power and running water. No aid or assistance can be rendered to those who manage to break out. It will be helpful if there is a well stocked and locked grocery across the street. Come back in five days and check on them and see how they’re doing.
Second: if you want an example of self-reliance you need only look at the 200,000 early returnees who came home to New Orleans and have rebuilt the city with virtually no government assistance, out of their meager insurance settlements (given that the current business model of the insurance industry is to fight every claim to the death). Almost all of the $115 Billion in aid people like to throw around went to 1) flood insurance payments the federal government was contractually and by law required to make 2) immediate aftermath work by large, outside contractors on no-bid contracts (the Iraq model, and many of the same companies) awarded at rates that shocked emergency preparedness officials in Florida and 3) are tied up in a monumental bureaucracy created by the Bush-controlled HUD and a large private contractor (not the government)
We are rebuilding an entire city largely on our own, supplemented primarily by the volunteer assistance of many fine Americans (many no doubt from Iowa) who have come at their own expense to help.
There is no finer place to be an American today than in New Orleans. It is the last flashing hope of the sort of self-reliance and community spirit that built the country still actually playing out.
One last thought: in the information above, we did not take the engineering out of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Army and Congress did that, and as a result thousands died and hundreds of thousands suffered when the levees failed due to the well-documented engineering and construction shortfalls. The local levee boards basically mow the grass on the levees. You point out the levee that failed because they grass was not mowed and we’ll cheerfully own that one. Also, Congress never authorized Category 5 hurricane protection. Funny that the Netherlands and England can manage 10,000 year storm protection while the Corps and Congress struggle to manage 100 year storm protection. It must be nice to live in country still capable of great things.
Mark Folses last blog post..Boy Scouts Save Iowa
I have no doubt there are many fine people living in NO. I have no doubt it is those people who are doing a great job to rebuild the place. As someone earlier stated, 90% are good people.
WHat happened to NO is a shame but it happened all across the Gulf Coast and NO got all the attention. It happens all the time in Florida and we never hear these kinds of stories.
A small group of people did bad things during a crisis, however, a not so small group of people blamed it on George Bush and the federal government. Emergency response is a local responsibility and the local government completely melted down.
Certainly there were problems with the federal response but listening to the news and to Congress viewers get the impression that there was no blame locally, it was all at the federal level.
My post points to what I have written a number of times, places with effective leaders do well in emergencies (Mississippi during Katrina, Iowa now, Colorado in the back to back blizzards). NO and LA had terrible leadership. The city has a majority poor population that is used to living off the government, just plain simple facts. Without leadership from their government, they were doomed to failure.
If the MSM and the Democrats in Congress and across the country had reported this fairly and stopped pointing fingers to DC, if Kanye West and other idiots had not invoked race (George Bush hates black people) and if the politicians in LA had not played games with their financial aid requests then maybe people like me would not have a bitter attitude toward what happened there.
It was a disaster played up for liberal politicians and their political purposes. It involved a population that is heavily dependent upon government, all facts. It was heart wrenching but to blame it on the feds. Food, water, shelter are all local responsibilities.
Don’t forget, when you state who did the work, it was a lot of National Guardsmen and Coast Guard who did those helicopter rescues. The reports of gunshots (which turned out to be untrue) hampered efforts and delayed supplies. Nagin was (and still is) an ineffective leader and he has a lot of the blame.
As for the levees, that problem has been ongoing for 50 years. We can say they are responsible for everything levee but evidently no one there, including the COE, knew that. The Corps was blocked from getting to the site and people had to have meetings to decide who was responsible. It was a mess culminating from years of corruption (from all parties), years of neglect, years of denial and years of good ole boy politics. The people paid the price.
Just as all the bad stuff was aimed at DC and the current administration, all the bad stuff involving the NO people gets reflected to the greater population. If a few dozen people use gvt. debit cards at liquor stores and strip clubs, it reflects on everyone (in the greater light). People who loot non essential items are highlighted as indicative of all people.
As I stated earlier, I am sure that 90% of the people were good and it was overshadowed by the 10% that was not. I am also sure that 90% of the federal response (response not some long standing problem with levees) was good and 10% bad.
Just as the people of NO get a bad wrap for the actions of a small minority, so goes it with the federal government, an entity that has no jurisdiction until called upon by the governor. She should have made the call earlier.
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4414
Dr. J said
I hope they only feel support from their own countrymen. That is something we never had the joy of experiencing.
My heart went out to those in NO and I worked hard to get them things they needed. My heart goes out to those in Iowa and other states.
The comment made though is beyond belief. How many people in this country opened their communities and their homes to refugees of NO? How many billions of taxpayer dollars went to NO? How many people went to NO as volunteers to help out? How much did people donate in money and supplies and how many stores gave items away to help?
If you did not experience support then you were not looking…
[…] not with his children today in his mind. I kept it looping in the backround as, after battling with right wing golem Big Dog and his stupid Iowa versus New Orleans nonsense, I found myself this morning finally assembling a lot of Federal Flood pictures I had collected […]
Little Man,
Most on that list are Agriculture Corporations, particularly the ones who got subsidies who do not even farm, are Bush donors.
Can’t you do better than this?
What happened in New Orleans has did not and has never happened on the Coast or anywhere else in America. No one, Iowa included, has had so much standing water for so long.
Do you know how much water sat on the ground for over a month of hot Sundays? Nearly 500,000,000,000 metric tons. Why? Because your Corps of Engineers cold not pump it out fast enough. Why? Because your Corps of Engineers kept buying faulty pumps from Bush Donors.
Hell most Americans that you ask blame Bush for leaving me to die. They saw him absolutely screw the American Tax Payer.
They witnessed your unelected presidente eating birthday cake with your next unelectable presidente, they witnessed him at a Golf Club, they witnessed him come up with the nickname “Brownie” on the spot because your ignorant frat boy couldn’t remember Michael Brown’s name because he had never spent more than 5 minutes around him on only a few occasions.
Your arguements, like your levees, are falling down around you. Falling Down. The only trouble is it is falling all around us too.
Thanks alot for handing our country over to a Family of Nazi Sympathizers and Royal Saudis.
Thank you for giving away our freedoms like a well-behaved jail house punk.
Your word is broken.
You really have mental issues, such an angry person and so full of conspiracy. You live below seal level that is why there was so much water and for so long. Your Congress, members of both parties, give out those subsidies all the time. They have before this president and they will after. Look at who benefits and you will see it is not the president but some Congressman from the state.
Keep up your conspiracy theories. You are mental and you need help.
I felt sorry for the people of NO when it happened but then after they started whining and acting like fools I washed my hands of them. I decided I would never give another dollar or donate any items to them especially after they reelected Nagin.
Your meme about Bush being unelected is stupid. He won, get over it. Hurricanes happen, get over it. You live below the water, you get wet. Too bad, man up.
Big Dog,
When you use the word “them” it makes it seem as we have giant meetings here in New Orleans and decide en masse what to do.
We don’t,believe me.
When your entire City is evacuated every person who evacuates has a story.
The decisions you make and the choices are ones not made with any surety that you are doing the right or wrong thing but you are doing the thing you can do.
The Year before Katrina I drove 12 hours to Florida to deliver supplies to my sister and brother in law, and our parents after Hurricane Charlie destroyed their homes.
When they put out the call to evacuate here, my husband I and I had to decide if we wanted to stay or go. Knowing that going for us meant 15 hours in the car with me laying on the floor and barfing from the effects of chemotherapy along with a frightened 14 year old and 2 dogs who don’t travel well.
My neighbors knew that evacuating with their great grandmother would be impossible so they stayed and she died about 4 days after the storm. When they swam out they had to leave her corpse behind.
My backyard Neighbors decided to stay along with about 4 other families. They had a week of provisions and the knowledge that we live in a part of the City that has never even seen street flooding.
They made rafts and floated out after 4 days knowing that the water was not going to subside and that they may be subjected to disease in the toxic waters.
There are a lot more nuances to the story than the “good” people who live somewhere and the “bad” people who live somewhere else.
Good and bad exist in each community, it is the way of the world.
Having said that, I wish no community the grief and anguish of destruction, we all live at the mercy of mother nature.
Big Dog said: “WHat happened to NO is a shame but it happened all across the Gulf Coast and NO got all the attention. It happens all the time in Florida and we never hear these kinds of stories.”
Big Dog, We New Orleanians sincerely empathize with our countrymen suffering life altering losses to floods upriver and with our fellow citizens in other hurricane states that have suffered many a bad storm. We truly do. We hope you do too. It seems you are only interested in using our losses to promote some childish political position.
This is where you just don’t get it. You apparently cannot comprehend the scope and extent of death & damage in New Orleans and the effect of that much widespread damage on the survivors trying to recover and just how ridiculous it was/is for outsiders to expect anything at all in the way of self help of the effected, including local government. Then, as if things ain’t rough enough, millions of misinformed morons keep pontificating about our character & our right to rebuild our home. Add to that an outright blatant conspiracy by state and federal government and utilities, insurance companies and MF’n carpetbagger major corporations to divert our recovery money elsewhere and claim we got funds we didn’t and constantly blame us victims.
It is as if the Army accidentally set off a few high yield nuclear weapons in our city (sans radiation) while 90% of us weren’t home – not foreign terrorists – our US Army. Then the Army says ‘Oops, well we learned a lot. I hope y’all had insurance to cover your losses, because the federal government is not going to be responsible for the federal government’s actions.’ Now, New Orleanians, and our rebuilding investments, in what is left of our destroyed city, are at the mercy of the same US Army for storm surge protection and they are performing as if they learned nothing from their previous catastrophic mistakes.
Meanwhile, we also have to put up with fellow countrymen saying it was our own fault, we deserved what we got, it was a ‘natural’ disaster, we’re wusses for not handling it better, it wasn’t really as bad as we claim and we shouldn’t be allowed to rebuild, we are bad people, we’re lazy, stupid, ugly, smell bad, we should vacate our region – it has no value and insurance companies deny claims and quit writing wind policies even though it was flooding that caused our losses.
People like you should stop beating around the bush and lobby for South Louisiana to be forced to secede from the nation. Respect us, or let us go.
The next time I hear one of you hostile unsympathizing jerks bring up those stupid school board busses, I’m going to explode. Yes, it was a very ironic picture, but a totally trivial issue. Never mind the bus drivers had the keys and evacuated with their families Saturday and their is no relationship between the school board and city government. But, never let us forget the buses. Yep, what great fun to pick on us fellow citizens for something outside of our control, and even totally outside the control of our admittedly unprepared mayor. …buses, while levee overtopping was a major concern, NO ONE KNEW LEVEES (ENGINEERING STRUCTURES) WOULD FALL DOWN LIKE CHEAP MOVIE PROPS WITHOUT EVEN COMING CLOSE TO BEING OVERTOPED!! who thought we would need buses
Geez, I reckon you are perfect and expect the same of everyone else. I challenge you to post your household emergency evacuation plan, right this second. Also, starting right now, you have 30 hours to implement your plan (do what you gotta do and get your loved ones a few hundred miles away) to perfection, secure your home, business and whatever other property. Don’t evacuate into the path of the storm. Don’t forget to help your neighbors and elderly and those that cannot travel due to illness. Good luck scoring your prescription refills and some gas before you go. It is Saturday, so forgetabout emptying your safety deposit box and all of the ATMs are already empty. And, when you get on the road, your destination, a six hour drive, is going to take 20 hours. Did you make hotel reservations? Do they take pets? Remember you are competing with about 800,000 other people for about 200,000 hotel rooms. Did you board up? Even if your home survives, what is going to happen to that stuff you left in the refrigerator and freezer – the electricity will be out for at least a week? Your alarm system isn’t going to work. Maybe you feel you need to stay and protect your property. If you leave, they will not let you return to check on or defend your property What? Your elderly mom refuses to leave, no one can find Uncle Joe, but his car is parked at his house? Your spouse’s job requires her to stay at the hospital? Darn, cell phones quit working. If you make a single mistake, I’ll never let you live it down. AAMOF, I’ll use your mistakes to blame you for your losses and crucify you. Thank goodness I’m educated and have a car we can use to evacuate. … buses?
As a New Orleanian, you cannot imagine how good my entire family is at evacuating – we have had a lot of experience – at great expense. None of us died in the flood, but we’ve lost three family members (and many friends and neighbors) to stress and hopelessness since the storm.
Bigdog, I normally wouldn’t wish our recent circumstance on anyone, but just so you could learn something about our reality, I almost wish you, all of your family and extended family and about a half million of your nearest neighbors and all of their homes, businesses, schools, churches and governments would suddenly suffer our fate and that the damage was caused by the US Army Corps of
Engineers. Of course, a lot of your loved ones would die and absolutely all of you would lose absolutely everything you ever owned except for whatever you took when you evacuated. Then, I want every level of government and utilities and insurance companies to all tell you ‘tough luck’ and fellow citizens to assassinate your character and deny your extent of damage, your difficulties, the true reason behind the damage. Morons would turn your losses into a political issue. Then, I hope your mother is one of the tens of thousands that wastes her homebuilding money on a crooked contractor.
Then, I’ll be interested in hearing your opinion on New Orleanians.
I never said that anyone deserved this or that it was punishment or anything else. I am saying that a hurricane cannot be stopped and the blame for what happened was placed on President Bush and his administration. Instead of people just thanking for whatever help they got they nuanced about him being in a plane or eating cake as if he could swoop in and personally fix things.
There are plenty of good folks in NO and there are slugs. The lack of preparedness is a local government issue. I wish you all well and hope that things go OK for you.
You are assuming I have never been in a disaster. You also wish my family ill. All I can say is that if something bad happened some of my family could die but if they do it won’t be because they sat around waiting for the government to help them. And if they do I won’t go around blaming government for our misfortunes.
‘if something bad happened some of my family’
not ‘some’, all. + a half million neighbors – all gone. No one owns a single rust free hammer or saw. Instant 95% unemployment. No utilities. No building materials. All local gubernment employees laid off. Insurance Companies are denying all claims, banks are demanding mortgage payments, you cannot even get a permit to rebuild and assholes from all the country are constantly accusing you of being irresponsible, lazy and being a life long government dependent.
‘blaming government for our misfortunes.’
You might blame government if in fact government was responsible for your misfortunes, right? Engineering negligence by federal government engineers caused our damages! Who would you blame? Not the responsible party???
You would just bend over and take it, right? You wouldn’t defend your character or the very hard work you did to help your family and community recover? You wouldn’t try to correct the widespread mis-perceptions? Well, as long as my fellow Americans spread lies and hate about my people and my region, I’m going to try to defend our spot in this world. Get used to it. We’re not going down without a fight.
My family came here from Nova Scotia in 1765, we like it here, and if need be, we would rather live on boats than live anywhere else.
You New Orleans haters are bad citizens.
If all of my family was affected I would ensure their safety. They would not have died there because we would have left.
The levee issue has been going on for 50 years. People who live in earthquake prone regions get hurt by earthquakes, those who live in hurricane regions, the same. Those who live in hurricane regions below the level of the sea are inviting trouble.
I would work very hard. Americans GAVE you (unconstitutionally) billions of dollars to fix the place up.
Like I said earlier, the local government is corrupt. Your comment about the county dealing with you improperly is proof.
No one accused yu personally, the fact is there were many who were/are dependent on government. They are now living in other states doing the same thing. The real workers, the worthwhile people, returned to rebuild.
Big Dog,
Go back under your rock and watch some more BS on Fox Propoganda. You obviously have no clue as to what you are talking about.
Just remember this, once the full accounting has been made, and it is clear – EVEN TO MORONS LIKE YOU – how bad we’ve been screwed by the Bush administration, know that you are a co-conspirator, an accessory after the fact – you and all the other apologists for the Republican Crime Family.
Big dog, you are bat crap crazy…
Really, it seems the issue here for Big Dog is that he doesn’t like people blaming George W. Bush.
No, it is certainly appropriate to blame George Bush for those things he is responsible. Immigration debacle, poor post invasion planning, cooperating with Democrats.
It is improper to blame him for things that he cannot control or is not responsible for. He did not make the hurricane come. State and local government is responsible. The federal government has no jurisdiction in state matters and assistance needs to be requested. Blanco did that a bit too late.
There are many thing I blame Bush for, Katrina is not one of them. The federal government could have done things better but it is ALL a state responsibility.
“I would work very hard. Americans GAVE you (unconstitutionally) billions of dollars to fix the place up.”
Everyone in Iowa would be starving if it wasn’t farm subsidies, AKA gov’t handouts.
He, you all knew it would rain, you knew that river could flood and the levee could break but you chose to stay there.
Here’s the problem. Bush didn’t build the levees. Bush didn’t set up FEMA. Bush didn’t set up the maintenance of the levees.
You can say that the government–at all levels– screwed up royally–they did. But the failure of the levees cannot be laid at the feet of the Bush administration.
But that’s how it got reported. Anger was directed–by the media–at the current administration. Why?
And those loops of looters. Not the people seeking food or water–the people with sneakers or televisions. Those were seized on and replayed endlessly. Why?
Again, to direct ire. To make people angry at the right people–while the actual culprits got off the hook.
New Orleans is very Democrat–and very corrupt in it’s politics. And yet where was the anger directed? Nagin screwed up, so did Blanco. Say that. Admit it. And get him and his political bedfellows out of control of New Orleans.
Big Dog, those subsidies are WORSE than welfare. Those people are being paid to not grow crops to keep the price of various agricultural products artificially higher. So they get our tax dollars to NOT farm, and they get our after tax dollars from artificially higher prices.
At least the people on welfare are only single-dipping.
Like it or not, the situations are comparable–but be clear as to how. They are comparable in their ability to be used as fodder to pit us against each other.
It’s sad that people take 2 completely different disasters and try to compare them, especially when they seem to know so little of the facts. I have found that details fall on ‘deaf’ ears but sometimes, as they say ‘a picture speaks a thousand words’. So, I usually point my friends to my favorite site http://www.katrinadestruction.com/images/v/ and let them make up their own minds. Another helpful site for the order of what happened http://thinkprogress.org/katrina-timeline/
Think Progress has this nifty time line and they a t like some of the normal things are terrible. Troops arrived 2 days after they were requested. Federal troops not authorized, National Guard from other states came. In two days? That is pretty good. FEMA standard is 72 hours. They made it in 48.
Most people say well, they requested help before the storm. OK, so how many things will be getting into NO within a day or 2 of the storm and who would arrive just before a CAT 5 to ride it out?
Evacuate your city and help will come when it is safe for help to arrive. The world did not stop when Katrina hit.
You see, I had great compassion for the people in NO but their jackass mayor and the state governor along with Mary Landreau and all the people whining and pointing fingers telling the rest of the country we did not do enough just turned me off to it all. The more the bitter people there attack, the deafer my ears become.
I sent quite a bit of stuff to NO but then after the whining and the lies about not getting help because they were mostly black, no more help from me. I am tired of the victim mentality.
Boo Hoo, we had a hurricane and floods. Well life sucks, and people all across this country suffer one kind of disaster or another. At least you all had a warning whether you decided to heed it or not. Many disasters pop up with little or no warning.
“If all of my family was affected I would ensure their safety. They would not have died there because we would have left. ”
Until the police from the neighboring counties point an M-16 at the heads of your family and tell you that you cannot cross the bridge to safety, unless you wish to die on the spot.
What do you do then? Hmm?
Stop comparing disasters. How come you aren’t posting about the tragedies in Malaysia and China?
Mostly because I don’t care about Malaysia and China.
I did not compare disaster. I compared the way people responded to disasters. This is a big difference that none of the NO apologists flamers here seem to understand.
Perhaps if people in NO were this fired up during Katrina there would have been more progress and more people could have been evacuated.
Also, no one stopped people from leaving before the storm. I also would not be leaving unarmed. The tyranny of the police only exists for people who let it.
But, since none of that happened BEFORE the floods, I would have been out of there.