Dave Siciliano said:
I have a friend in Baton Rouge that said that occurred last night. That the police now have that under control. Unbelieveable!!
Dave
No, not unbelievable. People are the same everywhere. Despite our training such that we normally line up in queues and tolerate long waits, when it becomes apparent that you're gonna die if you don't do something, you start behaving in various nonstandard ways. Yeah there are thugs, and they oughta be shot if caught on tape and they don't heed warning...particularly the ones interfereing with the evacuation of New Orleans Charity hospital. Shot? Bleeding? Lets see if you survive.
The part that really got me was the New Orleans Seafood merchant stuck at the superdome who broke into the Superdome kitchen and tried to prepare food. The National Guard threatened to shoot him....but they weren't evacuating anyone.
Not enough buses. Yeah, anyone whose lived through this for 96 hours is gonna realize that. How dumb do they think people are?
Mike A is right to cite Chicago's experience with the wintertime subway crisis that unseated mayor Michael Bilandic. Everyone right up to the Pres watch out, you all will be taking some heat soon. Our bureaucracy didn't do much; guns do not substitute for too little butter/water too late.
Reminds me of the accounts of the anachary that broke out with the rape of Nanching China. Women abandoned their children to simply themselves perish at the roadside shortly later. It's HOT HOT HOT. Dehydration and heat stroke. Bodies floating in the water (read River Yangtze). Soon to have tuberculosis, plague, cholera.
About all the volunteer organizations can do is fly docs willing to go to Baton Rouge there- there isn't anybody with skills who's going into New Orleans without armament and a flak jacket and evac resources. The only people who can do that are Marines. The National Guard General who says his troops can't get to the superdome oughta be relieved. The last time I heard that excuse, it was a South Vietnamese general who couldn't get 25 miles up the road to An Loc (took him 9 days). And you can bet the Marine regiment at An Loc was on the radio squawking.
What is needed is leadership a tremendous show of force, and the C130s to start dumping PLENTIFUL supplies off the pallets. Heck we kept many firebases supplied in the face of MORTARS with that technique. If you create plenty then the show of force works.
I think the FEMA chief is history. He ain't done squat.