The aftermath of this disaster was well-known

[newfant]

Stop saying the federal government didn't know what would happen if a hurricane were to hit New Orleans. It's all right here in this National Geographic article:

http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature5/

[cardcounter0]

Bush doesn't read. And his aides only read parts of the newspaper they feel is appropriate for him to hear.

But if the federal government responded to every "article" it would have to relocate Los Angeles 100 miles east asay from fault lines... make every building in N.Y. 10 stories or shorter, and move all Texas oil rigging several thousand miles off the coast.

I'm not trying to be a jerk... but this type of stuff has to be handled... or miss-handled at a local level.

[newfant]

[ QUOTE ]
But if the federal government responded to every "article" it would have to relocate Los Angeles 100 miles east asay from fault lines... make every building in N.Y. 10 stories or shorter, and move all Texas oil rigging several thousand miles off the coast.


[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with you that prevention of this disaster would have been difficult if not impossible. If terrorists had snuck a bomb across the U.S.-Mexican border and blown up half of Texas then we would be bitching about lack of border funding.

However, the feds had plenty of notice that this hurricane was going to hit New Orleans and they knew how many people were going to be left in New Orleans. People that would need food and water and medical care. They had plenty of time to get troops and supplies down there and they failed. That is my point.

[JackWhite]

[ QUOTE ]
Stop saying the federal government didn't know what would happen if a hurricane were to hit New Orleans. It's all right here in this National Geographic article:

[/ QUOTE ]

It was known for a long time that this could happen, including during the 90's. If this hit in '97, would it have been Clinton's fault?

[cadillac1234]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Stop saying the federal government didn't know what would happen if a hurricane were to hit New Orleans. It's all right here in this National Geographic article:

[/ QUOTE ]

It was known for a long time that this could happen, including during the 90's. If this hit in '97, would it have been Clinton's fault?

[/ QUOTE ]

If Clinton's Admin responded as poorly as this then it would've certainly been Clinton's fault

[BCPVP]

Have you done any research as to the proposed solutions? They're not very comforting and would often take years to construct.

What seems more important would be the plan of what to do if such an event happened. And in this respect, all levels have done abysmally. What I take issue with is clearly partisan people using this tragedy as a launching pad for more anti-Bush criticism when it's clear that many other levels of gov't are also clearly at fault. Liberals here who care whatsoever about how their opinion is seen would do well to temper their anger at Bush and begin looking at what should be (or should have been) done at all levels. But this nitpicking Bush for every little failure of the gov't is making liberals look opportunistic and partisan, imo.

[cadillac1234]

The reason the finger is beening pointed at Bush is because his Admin completely re-vamped FEMA under The Homeland Security act at an enormous cost to the tax payers and it is worse now than it has ever been.

If you are watching the news this AM you can see waht happens when you have the components in place. The lack of action over 5 days is inexcusable. You won't see a single person on the ground disagreeing with it. Even Bush said so himself.

Do you really feel that the revamp of FEMA was money well spent after seeing this clusterf_ck?

[newfant]

[ QUOTE ]
What I take issue with is clearly partisan people using this tragedy as a launching pad for more anti-Bush criticism when it's clear that many other levels of gov't are also clearly at fault.

[/ QUOTE ]

If Bush had cut his vacation short and at least given the appearance of acting with a sense of urgency then you wouldn't see as much criticism. He brought this on himself.

[BCPVP]

No doubt FEMA is partially to blame, but I seem to recall reading (sorry don't remember where. been reading a lot these last couple days) that FEMA was going to be more focused on terrorism responding and it's role in natural disasters would be mitigated to the state level and private sector. If this is the case, then it's hard to blame FEMA for everything when their role is being dramatically changed.

An interesting article from the WSJ.