Why didn't New Orleans plan for a hurricane that was moving toward them for a week?

Question

Why is everyone so sour about California getting aid that Louisiana didn't seem to get when California actually had less reaction time than Louisiana?

Answer 1

education is the only fix to the mess in New Orleans. the people of New Orleans must be educated in how our government works and if they do not like the way our government is set up they could always move to a country where the big communist government is in control of even the smallest things in their life. people need to get over this hole thing about wanting our federal government to fix every thing. we are the United States of America one nation under God not one nation under a dictator they must look first at their local government and if their local government cant help them, they have the power to vote in a local government that will
*as to tompink's answer I live in Arkansas and we offered to help. there are several church camps in my county and the surrounding counties we had food clothing and even entertainment for the displaced people of New Orleans but they didn't want to come here.they said no, I was shocked! the people here had worked hard to give them even more than some of our own residents have. I was even more shocked as to their reason why they said they didn't want to come here. their reason was, it was to far from town.
* there were buss to get the people out of New Orleans before the storm hit but the local government left the buss parked and left their people to die and when help was offered the people turned it down. Now I wish someone could tell me how any of that can be blamed on anyone but New Orleans

Answer 2

They didn't have a week, but yes the entire thing was bungled at the state and city levels. Why those people didn't go loot food, hiking gear etc and walk north instead of sitting around like idgits is beyond me. Most anywhere in Tornado ally gets hit the people there do for themselves, they don't beg for help. What about the rest of th affected areas? It didn't just hit New Orleans, but that's all anyone talks about.

In some areas the local authorities, and the drivers themselves for that matter, were too stupid to use both sides of the highway and instead slowed evacuation efforts to a crawl because they wanted to obey traffic laws, who would be driving towards a hurricane, really?
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And don't take jabs at the fed. They can't legally act until the state government asks for help. Otherwise a power hungry guy could send the army all over the country to "help" with local disasters during election time. Safe guards against tyranny, and slow action by the local authorities, delayed aid.

Answer 3

not true, they only had a day or two

even then bush and the others in charge refused to believe the levies would be breached

once it happened it was too late, you can do much when the power is out and there is 4 to 6 feet of water everywhere

the poor in those areas had no means (money) or cars to leave thier houses and thier never would have been enough school buses to even put a dent in the population (gee how many trips does youre school bus make to get just the kids in and out of school for the day, 3 or 4??)

try moving whole families, never would have happened

look at the traffic jams at houston, people stuck for days on the expressway, people dying on buses and for no reason, the storm never even hit them

anyways, southern california is very affluent, these fires while huge for fires are actaully pretty limited in actaul evacuation areas plus they are spread out all over the state

lets see how well they do the next big earthquake before you give them too many pats on the back

Answer 4

well you see the first responders of FEMA which only go to the absolutely worst effected areas- which with katrina - new orleans was not the worst hit - Outlying areas around Gulfport MS were. get to those areas within 48 hrs after being called up - the the rest of FEMA which is a slow moving body may take up to a week to be in full force.

New Orleans is the perfect example of people who always rely upon the government taking care of them.

Answer 5

People who had the means did prepare and get out of New Orleans, but there seriously were thousands of people in New Orleans that didn't have five or ten dollars to get themselves and their kids out of town. They'd have had to pay for transportation out of town, then have somewhere to go that was free to stay at. Do you think motels along the way would let them sleep there free out of the charity of their hearts? Some of you are really out of touch with the poor inner city folks, how low is low, and how many of them there really are in a number of US cities. If the Calif. fires were burning in a densely populated poor section in mid L.A., I wonder how many of them there would have somewhere to go and if the government would provide evacuation buses and shelters out of town. Who would want all those evacuees in their back yards? Maybe Nevada would volunteer to take them in. Or Arizona. U think so?

Answer 6

Evacuation warnings were given, but many chose to stay. There was no consideration to the levees breaking. The devastation was more than anyone had ever seen since the hurricane that hit Texas back in the 20's. You must also understand that CA is a much wealthier state than LA, and the ability to support, combat, and provide aid is much better than LA.

Answer 7

They re-elected everyone in 'Narlens cuase they was stupid as all get-out!

Tell me Why do the libs insist on politisizing the crap out of antything that goes on in the country, like blaming the Hurricane on Bush, or blame Bush for the wild fires, or blame the President for the bridge colapse?
Do they realize just how ignorant, biased, and idiotic this all sounds?
Probably not if they also like Michael Moron, Rosie, or joke bag Bill Mahr.

Answer 8

Wait where was the FEMA money when it happened? Talk about responsiblity of our government I guess California gives much more money in taxes so they can have some back---that's what it boils down to. But when it happened FEMA was broke for some odd reason! And it's still a mess-I went through one or two in the Florida Keys and I know how and what to do for clean up and it's pityful it's still a mess there.

Answer 9

The hurricane that hit New Orleans changed from a class 3 to a class 5 overnight. So there was actually very little time to prepare.

Answer 10

Hurricanes change course constantly. Evacuations aren't called until about 24 hrs. prior to projected landfall.