Katrina aftermath - what the fuck???

[Bill]

Well, I've been looking for news reports to confirm that there was murder, armed gangs, rampaging and rapes. So far nothing, but the day is young.

I did find this first hand report by two EMS folks who were trapped in a hotel by Katrina.

I think we all heard the story about how this group pooled money to hire a bus convoy to take them out of the city, but that the national guard stopped the busses and commandeered them for some unknown (to the news sources) use.

Well, this same group had a hard time, spending four days trapped inside the city.

http://www.emsnetwork.org/artman/pub...le_18337.shtml

Here's a bit from the article:

"From a woman with a battery powered radio we learned that the media was talking about us. Up in full view on the freeway, every relief and news organizations saw us on their way into the City. Officials were being asked what they were going to do about all those families living up on the freeway? The officials responded they were going to take care of us. Some of us got a sinking feeling. "Taking care of us" had an ominous tone to it.

Unfortunately, our sinking feeling (along with the sinking City) was correct. Just as dusk set in, a Gretna Sheriff showed up, jumped out of his patrol vehicle, aimed his gun at our faces, screaming, "Get off the fucking freeway". A helicopter arrived and used the wind from its blades to blow away our flimsy structures. As we retreated, the sheriff loaded up his truck with our food and water.

Once again, at gunpoint, we were forced off the freeway. All the law enforcement agencies appeared threatened when we congregated or congealed into groups of 20 or more. In every congregation of "victims" they saw "mob" or "riot". We felt safety in numbers. Our "we must stay together" was impossible because the agencies would force us into small atomized groups."

So - the authorities apparently _STOLE_ this groups food and water to force them out of the public eye.

[CaptainJSparrow]

On the local news, the New Orleans police chief just confirmed that his officers were shot at from the Superdome.

Also, the news confirmed that locals are throwing rocks at the National Guardsmen.

Gotta tell ya...the more I hear, I'm kinda embarrassed about our governor. I hear that the President gave her two options, and she told him she needed 24 hours to think about it. Apparently, she is having problems making decisions.

[Bill]

Originally Posted by CaptainJSparrow

Gotta tell ya...the more I hear, I'm kinda embarrassed about our governor. I hear that the President gave her two options, and she told him she needed 24 hours to think about it. Apparently, she is having problems making decisions.

You have heard her explantion, haven't you? She says that the president wanted her to hand over all authority for the area, possibly for the whole state. to the federal government, and I believe allow them to declare martial law.

She says she didn't believe it was in the best interests of the State of Louisiana to hand over the state to the federal government, and that she didn't want martial law to be declared.

There apparantly is a lot of backstory - about her thinking this was a CYA move by the pres, who could then ride in as a conquering hero and blame the state entirely for the delay.

There are two sides to every story.

[Linkster]

First off - lets get something straight as there has been a lot of misuse of terms here:
Martial Law isnt something a local government can request - it can be done by the president or recommended by his local area commander -
http://www.washingtonwatchdog.org/do...501.html#501.4

Secondly - the military cannot act as law enforcement by law in the US - unless congress specifically authorizes it under the Posse Comitatus Act:
http://www.nwc.navy.mil/library/3Pub...ibpossecom.htm

That said - A declaration of a "state of emergency" was made by the Governer prior to the hurricane coming ashore - that gave the President power to mobilize FEMA and the Coast Guard to assist locals

The real issue here is that the civilian population of this country thinks that the all mighty US government can just march in and do what it needs to do to help - by law it is specifically prohibited from doing just that - we fucking fought a civil war 150 years ago because of those laws - to prevent the government from telling states how to run their business - I know everybody thinks the issue was slavery - it wasnt - read the real history sometime.

I hate that sometimes we think that they should help out and they have even overstepped their bounds in many cases (like Fla hurricanes) - but those cases all used Natl Guard - which in this case took a few days to mobilize since there werent any available except for the soldiers in Miss - who were a little busy with their own problems

[Bill]

I'm not sure I'm understanding your point, Linkster.

Would you elaborate?

I'm willing to stipulate that the Governor and the Mayor were incompetent. It's fine with me if Louisianans want to string them up. A people gets the government it deserves.

But, this storyline of the Governor blocking the Presidents offer of help has been talked about quite a bit, and as I said, there is supposedly more to the story than the damning headlines rolling across the screen two to four days ago.

If you want to blame Lousianans, the Louisiana Democrats, and the local responders, that's fine with me.

If you think FEMA and the Bush administration did a fine job, well, I think you are bug fucking nuts, and I'm wondering what the fuck you saw in person that wasn't on my TV screen.

[Bill]

Here is the Washington Post article that was the original source to the blogosphere discussions:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...090301680.html

Note the source of my statement about "martial law". I knew that there was a concern about declaring martial law that was part of the debate, altho I didn't remember the particulars clearly:

"Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law."

This is the part of the article that is relevant to this issue:

"Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state's emergency operations center said Saturday.

The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. "Quite frankly, if they'd been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals," said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.

A senior administration official said that Bush has clear legal authority to federalize National Guard units to quell civil disturbances under the Insurrection Act and will continue to try to unify the chains of command that are split among the president, the Louisiana governor and the New Orleans mayor.

Louisiana did not reach out to a multi-state mutual aid compact for assistance until Wednesday, three state and federal officials said. As of Saturday, Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency, the senior Bush official said.

"The federal government stands ready to work with state and local officials to secure New Orleans and the state of Louisiana," White House spokesman Dan Bartlett said. "The president will not let any form of bureaucracy get in the way of protecting the citizens of Louisiana."

Blanco made two moves Saturday that protected her independence from the federal government: She created a philanthropic fund for the state's victims and hired James Lee Witt, Federal Emergency Management Agency director in the Clinton administration, to advise her on the relief effort."

[Linkster]

First off Bill - that article has quite a few false statements in it - I guess the one that stands out is that the state of emergency wasnt declared "as of Saturday" - this is misinformation being promulgated through the Bush press aides - she did declare a state of emergency at 5 pm on Friday - the rest can also be disproven with actual statements that were put out on publicly broadcast tv statements in New Orleans.
This writer BTW is rewriting an article that came out on a blog written by a guy in Florida who made the whole thing up.

As far as the state not wanting aid - that is from what Im seeing not a correct statement either - according to news reports before the storm hit when asked, the governor stated she had not been in contact with the white house

Overall - I am trying to avoid most of the blame stuff because there is so much BS being put out (some even by reknowned journalists that arent checking their stories) and the spin machine is in full force int he white house obviously - since Bush is the one dropping in the polls by a long shot.
As far as local politics - the mayor issued a mandatory evacuation on Sunday morning - whether any large city could really evacuate all of its people in 24 hours is debatable - I tend to think its impossible - and anyone that thinks that it really could have been done any better with that timeframe should be in that position instead - but even if you had 1000 busses waiting, airplanes ready, troop transports standing by in the roads of New Orleans, the same people that didnt leave before still wouldnt have left - they DIDNT WANT TO! and still dont!


As far as your statement about FEMA and their response - that is a normal response from FEMA under the homeland security umbrella - that is why every former director of FEMA has said that the setup now is stupid - secondly - a lot of people are hammering the director for ineptness - which may be true - but its not his job to do immediate response - that responsibility is with the 6th district of FEMA located in Texas - and they did respond per their plan - as did numerous other governmental agencies (ie FBI, ATF etc who were in the city as soon as the storm was over) - but they were doing what they are supposed to do per their plans - which is to protect government interests in the city ONLY! That is the fault associated with the new Homeland security department - it places all of the initial "disaster recovery" on local fire depts, police and sheriff depts - the amount of money they were given to prepare for response was incredible - of course most departments just bought new command busses, coffee dispensers etc. FEMA also provided locals with money to train for these type of disasters, as FEMA was transferring the "job"

I hope you understand that I dont like what I see - but being my age and having been through riots, bombings and other amazing things I saw as a teen (like seeing Washington DC on fire) - and watching the transfer of power under the homeland security department and knowing what would happen with an additional layer of red tape - I fully expected this to happen - just didnt think it would happen so close to home

[Bill]

Well, here is a reference to a "shoot out".

The only shoot out that I've seen clearly mentioned on the TV news was an incident where supposedly armed men "on a briedge" fired at rescue workers, and the police fired back. The first report was the 5 locals had been killed, that was later revised to 2 killed, two wounded, and others missing.

One version of this I heard in a blog was that the men who were killed were not firing _at_ rescue workers, they were firing in the air to attract the attention of rescue workers. The police then fired on them. Not sure if this is true, but it does match some television reports I've seen, in which Nawliners were complaining that they were shot at after firing guns to attract help.

I'm not sure if this is the same incident:

From Reporters Sans Frontiers

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=14894

Police violence against journalists in New Orleans in Katrina aftermath

"A second incident involved Gordon Russell of the New Orleans-based Times-Picayune daily as he was covering a shoot-out between police and local residents near the convention centre where hurricane victims were awaiting evacuation. The police detained Russell and smashed all of his equipment on the ground. Russell was forced to flee to avoid further violence and reportedly left the city the same day."

[Bill]

Does the local channel you are watching have a website Jeff?

As far as I'm concerned, Louisiana can shoot or imprision anybody they want to. It's not my state, and not my city. I don't live in the city. I assumed all cities have a hard core of poor and lower class people who commit most of the casual crime.

I'm just interested in the facts.

[Linkster]

Bill - nola.com has about the best news that seems to be accurate - they are the website of the Times-Picuyane (the NO newspaper) - there is also a small blog being run by the guys at DirecNic downtown at mgno.com - kinda isolated but they do have a birds eye view of the business district