Do You think There Where Any Discrimation or Rasism When It Came to Hurricane Katrina..Plz Read?

Question

Ive Seen a Commercial about GOarmy and its talks about how in thailand it took them 12 hours or less just to bring food and start to rescuing ppl.....BUT on the other hand in new orleans hundreds of thousands of (mostly) african americans died and it took them about five days to rescue those ppl and its a shame!...it took them lest then 12 hrs to get to the other half of the world but it takes them 5 days to go to another state where thousands of mostly black ppl are dieing?..and im not saying anything bad about goarmy but still..

Answer 1

I was one of the people who responded to Hurricane Katrina in the first few days.

When we arrived:
The only open highway was jammed with refugee traffic.

The only usable airfield was damaged, had no working radios or navigation aids, no cargo handling equipment, and rainwater had contaminated all of the fuel tanks.

In order to set up our command post we had to unload everything off the airplanes - one box at a time and by hand.

The Louisiana National Guard was 'mission ineffective' for the first several days because they had just suffered the same hurricane and flooding effects as the everybody else. Over 50% of the National Guardsmen deployed before the hurricane were missing and needed rescue themselves. The rest of the National Guardsmen had been evacuated - and unable to return to thier units.

The local emergency services were in a similar situation before they could help anybody else they had to find out what people, equipment and supplies they had left, then conduct what reconstitution and reorginization they could.

Tens of thousands of people were working under near impossible conditions to help those people - and you accuse them of 'racism' because they were unable to do the impossible.

I hope you are ashamed of yourself.

Answer 2

If the Huricane Katriana response was left up to the Army, it probably would have been better, but response to domestic problems is not the Army's Mission. It can be used only after the local, state and appropiate Federal systems need help.

Hundreds of Thousands died? Thats news to me. Got a source on that? That would be like 1 out of 4 people in N.O.

So there is no comparison. It wasnt the Army's job. If you had a proactive governor, the LA National Guard should have been in place. The problems in NO were that the local government failed and expected the Federal systems to do everything. Federal systems were not designed to do that, they augment local systems. When those local systems are not in place, then the Federal systems are sluggish.

Answer 3

This is like comparing apples and oranges.
Everyone knew the hurricane was coming for New Orleans and knew the devastation it was capable of. Everyone was warned to leave and the city grossly mismanaged the evacuation. Less than two thousand died vice your hundreds of thousand claim. And the military responded along with all the other rescuers.
Now the tsunami was unexpected and unpredictable that caused massive devastation to a geographic area. There were hundreds of thousands people died. And yes the military responded there too.
The Mayor of New Orleans claimed the Govt delayed assistance based on racism. I believe he did this to take heat of himself for the way his city was ill-prepared and the way they mishandled the evacuation. Of course, the media blew this up to make a better story...like they do with everything else. Everything that seems to happen in this country is racial in one way or another. I seem to remember the people of Indonesia being not exactly white.
So, to answer your question...No, there was no actual (only claimed) discrimination or racism involved with Katrina.

Answer 4

I personally believe that poor planning on many group's parts contributed to the chaos that ensued after Hurricane Katrina. First, the city of New Orleans apparantly had no evacuation plan or if they had one noone followed it. I saw photographs of school buses sitting in a parking lot - these buses could have been used to evacuate people from their homes. Second, after the hurricane struck, there was a power struggle between local, state and national authorities that wasn't sorted out for days. Third, very foolish people refused to evacuate and then didn't have the recommended supplies of water and food in waterproof containers to make it for 2 weeks.

I am not sure what the actual death toll from Katrina was but I believe to be closer to one hundred rather than tens of thousands. I blame the city of New Orleans itself for much of this debacle. They should have had a plan in place that their citizens were informed of to get their people out in case of a disaster. They should have utilized the school buses, asked for volunteer drivers, asked for ambulances to help evacuate from other areas. Next, much of the blame rests with the people of New Orleans - there was some warning and they should have listened to it. Some people just refused to leave and if you don't leave in these circumstances then you need to be prepared to fend for yourself for a period of time. Another problem is that many folks in New Orleans didn't have automobiles and that made it doubly difficult for them to be able to leave on their own with their pets and their valuables - plus where were they going to stay when they left? Many people just presume that because they have enough money to afford a car and a hotel room in an emergency that every one else can to.

This was a horrible tragedy that was mostly preventable and I hope (but still doubt) that we've all learned a valuable lesson.

Answer 5

Last I heard, it was about 1800 people who died during Katrina, not hundreds of thousands. And part of the reason for that was that the army was not the one handling it - FEMA was. If FEMA was handling the situation in Thailand, it wouldn't have gone so well either.
If anyone screwed over the New Orleans residents (regardless of their race) it was Ray "Chocolate City" Nagin, the most blatant racist in politics today. And the people there re-elected him. Some people never learn from their mistakes.

Answer 6

Huh? Hundreds of thousands died? Please find a source that actually proves that hundreds of thousands died in those 5 days after the hurricane. Some died, no doubt, but not hundreds of thousands. No, I dont think racism played any part at all. You're talking about a devastated, flooded area. Those are hard to reach. And you are talking about people that were told to leave, and did not in the face of a hurricane- what makes you think that they were all suddenly running out to the boats to leave afterwards? I do think that the efforts were mismanaged, but that it didnt have anything to do with racism. Just a guy that is in over his head at FEMA.

Answer 7

Don't believe all the hype you see in military commercials. One thing you need to remember is, that in addition to being a fighting force, the military is a business. Like any other business they will spin information to get you to but their product, or in this case join the military.

Chances are in Thailand there was already military forces in the region and I guarantee you they used aircraft to rescue those individuals.

Katrina on the other hand was a different scenario. New Orleans had a three days advance warning that a hurricane was coming, and the African American mayor of that city failed to take steps necessary to evacuate people in advance.

Secondly, about 80% of the city was flooded and roads and other infastructure were deystroyed, so going into the city would be difficult if not impossible. Additionally, any help that did get sent to New Orleans would have to wait until the storm passed.

Another problem was that many of Louisiana's national gaurd troops were deployed to Iraq, so it would take time to find troops to restore law and order.

Katrina was handled poorly, but that's because the head of FEMA wasn't qualified to do his job, and also the failure onthe part of state and local governments, not because of racism. To think otherwise is foolish, I'm sure plenty of White people died as a result of Katrina too.

Answer 8

I'm offended by this nonsense and it does do not any good for me to try to enlighten you as to the depths of your tragic ignorance, the official total death toll of Hurricane Katrina is 1,723 which breaks down to 3 in Alabama, 14 in Florida, 2 in Georgia, 1 in Kentucky, 1,464 in Louisiana and 238 in Mississippi.

The death toll was so high in Louisana because the Governor of Louisana failed to any effective action prior to the Hurricane and for nearly 12 hours following the Hurricane. This is what delayed the deployment of Federal Troops to assist the recovery efforts, the Governor of Louisiana did not pick up her telephone to call the President and say these three magic words "I need help!".

Ultimately, Ray Nagin, Mayor of New Orleans told the citizens of that city to stay put when there were city owned public and school buses available to evaluate the city. The blame belongs to the elected officials, not to the rescuers! My troops are taught that they feed others before feeding themselves, feed everybody regardless of race, creed, color or stupidity.

No "hundreds of thousands of (mostly) african americans died", unless you're regarding to the number of brain cells you destroy every time you take a hit off of the crack pipe.

Answer 9

Poor planning and a lack of interangecy cooperation, not racism was the cause of so much delay. There were many opportunities to bring aid in, evn before Katrina hit, but these were sabotaged by the mayor of New Orleans and the Governor of Louisiana.
I don't hink it was racism so much as just plain incompetence at too many levels.

Answer 10

1,500 in all of Louisianna is not hundreds of thousands. The Army , Navy and Coast Guard were all on site the day after Katrina went through New Orleans.