i'm not sure when residence were given warnings, but obviously early enough that people could leave. why is there such a huge problem now? it's because the people giving help have to go and save all the people that didn't bother to take notice of the warnings.

whether or not people thought they were over-reacting when they said they had to evacuate the city, they still should have left. better safe than sorry, right?

also...anyone heard of 'katrina and the waves', they were a band that did 'walking on sunshine'. anyways, i know the bassist and he told me someone had emailed them after seeing their site and thought the name was made up in light of the events of hurricane katrina

25 % on NO was in poverty, poverty mean NO way to leave.

Whats 25% of 2 million? 500 thousand?

[edit on 3-9-2005 by SpittinCobra]

Technically speaking, spittin', having no money doesn't mean you have no way to leave the city.

Don't get me wrong, I understand your point. Most people said the same thing about themselves as you're saying, "I'm poor, what the hell am I gonna do, where the hell am I gonna' go?"

Truth is, of course, mankind is what he is today because a long time ago the rift opened in Africa, and the Jungle started to disappear, and man had two choices, walk across the plains, or starve to death.

Man walked.

Many of these folks could not walk, either because of age, or medical conditions, there's that to consider as well.

If I was told to evacuate tommorow, I wouldn't go. I also wouldn't rely on the state to come and rescue my stubborn behind. That's the difference I guess.

The buck stops at individual responsibility. Everybody is responsible for their own decisions in the end.

I can't believe more people didn't leave. At the same time, I can't believe the city/state didn't do more to help people leave.

The city should have done more. All of those school busses rusting away in the salt water could have been used to take the poor, elderly, and sick out of NOLA to somewhere higher, like BR, and then staged there to be used for getting more people out and the aid workers in.

The indifference of the people and the government in NOLA is going to cost thousands of people their lives.

What part of Federal Emergency Management Agency did FEMA not understand??

Isn't there an ATSer that didn't leave? I can't remember his name, does anyone remember? Is he okay?

[edit on 3-9-2005 by Nventual]

Unfortunately there were probably a lot that didn't leave.

Fark has started a thread for people to post updates about Farkers from NOLA and the latest people have heard from them. Maybe we should do the same here.

Mizar was the ATS'er. He was okay but then we lost contact with him.

worldwatcher keeps trying but she's getting busy signals on the cell phone.

Many of them just didnt have any way to leave. I know it's easy to say that you can get out but it's not. They banked on the ability of those levee's just as they counted on the abilities of their Government to rescue them if something did happen.

Personally I don't think I would leave either.

Evacuations are ordered often along the US coastal areas and usually nothing much happens. The storm comes, there is some destruction and a Walmart might have it's roof blown off and someones vacation house might fall off it's stilts, and trees get shaken a bit. I don't think many people in the US or living in New Orleans realized how bad this storm would be. Who thought one of the older and larger cities in the US would be so destroyed. Who thought an area the size of England would be flooded. This kind of thing just hasn't happened, so I'm not surprised people stayed put. Poverty played a part for some, not having anyplace to go and not wanting to spend the cash for a hotel room states away played a part, people who didn't want to leave so they could go to work the next day stayed for convenience. Whatever the reason - people stayed.

I probably wouldn't have left either thinking if 4 feet of water came I could just go upstairs and ride it out then start cleaning up. Many of the houses were 100+ years old and have held up storm after storm. If people had a real idea of what they were facing, more would have left. It's no ones fault this storm hit and it's too bad people can't stop finger pointing and blaming and just do what they can to clean up and start getting on with what needs to happen to begin to rebuild.

Originally posted by Nerdling
Personally I don't think I would leave either.

A rare point of agreement. I do not know If I would leave myself. However in California earthquakes do not come with warnings so its not a decision I would have ahead of time.

Poor or not, since the mayor has been critical of the responce and rightfully so, why did not he and his administration make every effort to evacuate the city especially the poor. I mean this guy has to know the demograpics of his own city right?

i guess what it also comes down to is not enough was done in the way of outside help to get these people out. like those school buses now rusting away...could have been used to get a lot more people out. my grandma's sister lives out there, and i know for sure on her own she wouldn't be able to get out. it was definatly possible to get more people out, but i guess for bush (on his holiday) wasn't one of his top priorities.

A lot of mothers, a lot of mothers holding very young babies - sometimes more than one. Very hard to get out like that.

Really the only thing you have is panic and fear and a sense to protect your family. They were told the Superdome was safe.

Originally posted by CyberianHusky
What part of Federal Emergency Management Agency did FEMA not understand??

FEMA planning starts at the local then state level. Any plan for NO and LA was doomed to fail.

How can a DC beurocrat evacuate YOU from YOUR home. People who actually know your area MUST do the planning..........and in New Oleans they FAILED..............

There may not have been people to drive the school buses out of the city. Remember school bus drivers are people too. They have families of their own to get prepared and out of the city. The same with city transportation people. If you worked for city tranportation and you have a wife and 3 kids you will be with them before you would transfer 30 people you don't know. FEMA agents should have been driving the buses.

The mayor did give people options if they couldn't leave the city all together. He said go to the Superdome or the Convention Center. Many did and our government said that they didn't know about the people at the Convention Center until Thursday. They didn't get there until Friday. CNN was talking about them on Tuesday. Does our government not watch the news? Quite a few people died there due to inaction.

Try walking 3 miles or more with 3 kids under 8 years old.

Originally posted by GTWill
There may not have been people to drive the school buses out of the city. Remember school bus drivers are people too. They have families of their own to get prepared and out of the city. The same with city transportation people. If you worked for city tranportation and you have a wife and 3 kids you will be with them before you would transfer 30 people you don't know. FEMA agents should have been driving the buses.

just because they are school buses doesn't mean only the school bus drivers can drive them

i was more thinking along the lines of 'outside help' for perhaps the military to come in a evacuate people.

From a UK perspective I have been appalled at the various insinuations regarding those people that remained in N.O. and the surrounding areas.

Chief amongst this was O'Reilly on Fox a couple of days ago basically claiming that many of those that remained were deliberately staying behind to rob and commit crime.
Disgusting.

It seems to me that a sad truth some have chosen to ignore about many of America's urban citizens has been exposed.
There is a level of poverty that rendered escape impossible.
There is now a public infrastructure so threadbare that those without private means were never going to escape.

Warning were given (as recently as this year) that sooner or later this 'catagory' of storm would make a direct hit and yet funding to the defences was (according to the last report I saw) half what was requested.

It's a dreadfully sorry situation and I have nothing but the deepest sympathy for those caught up in this tragedy.
I cannot imagine what it must be like to have lost all (possibly including several relatives).

FEMA did its own study that concluded at least 1/3 of the population would not or could not leave if so ordered. That being the case they knew well in advance that they would have a large population in the city. They already knew that much of their population did not have the means to leave. With those two pieces of information in-hand they should have started a major evacuation using public and private buses and called out the national guard before the storm hit. Sure it's easy to cry 'Monday-Morning-Quaterback' but they KNEW these things going in. They had the information. Plain and simple the gov't screwed this one up.

I'm sure many stayed behind to protect what little they owned, or stayed behind rather than abandoning their pets, or stayed behind because they were simply unable to leave.

And honestly many may have stayed behind trusting that help would come if things got really bad.


People are funny that way.

We can judge and say that material things are not important, but when you are poor and have no money and no insurance, leaving what little you have behind for looters is not an easy decision.

Don't you realize that the majority of hurricane victims stranded in New Orleans are completely without means? Without money, credit cards or even a car, what would you do?

Originally posted by dollmonster
Don't you realize that the majority of hurricane victims stranded in New Orleans are completely without means? Without money, credit cards or even a car, what would you do?

I don't think anybody is being critical of the people who went to get food and water. Its the guys taking the TV's or shooting and raping that has people's ire up. Not the folks trying to simply survive, but the ones taking advantage of the situation