SO, I was listening to Howard Stern the other day and he was talking about NOLA's Nagin.

He played a clip where Nagin was being asked, why after a year New Orleans hasn't rebuilt faster.

Nagin had the audacity to say {quote from memory, can't say it is 100% accurate word for word}

"...  hang on - it's been 5 years and New York can't fill a hole in their downtown...."

Is there really any comparison between the two?

I think he does have a point. The devestation in NYC was isolated to maybe an acre if that much. The devestion in N.O. was far greater. There were more people displaced by Katrina than by 9/11. I am not saying that 9/11 was any less of a catastrophy than Katrina, I'm saying that the distrustion was greater and it does take time to heal. However, another factor in N.O. is that fact that people are still fighting with insurance companies, the Government's lack of help, etc. etc.




Cat

I think he does have a point. The devestation in NYC was isolated to maybe an acre if that much. The devestion in N.O. was far greater. There were more people displaced by Katrina than by 9/11. I am not saying that 9/11 was any less of a catastrophy than Katrina, I'm saying that the distrustion was greater and it does take time to heal. However, another factor in N.O. is that fact that people are still fighting with insurance companies, the Government's lack of help, etc. etc.




Cat


I was just reading a story about the fighting with insurance. Apparently State Farm has being trying to weasel out of paying claims and two sisters blew the whistle on them.

I was just reading a story about the fighting with insurance. Apparently State Farm has being trying to weasel out of paying claims and two sisters blew the whistle on them.



It is not just State Farm but also Nationwide and Allstate and probably many others, too.

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2005/katrina_scruggs.html


It really makes me sick to think that these people paid insurance for all those years only to have their claim denied when they called it in. But, you can bet your @$$ that if Katrina hit in some place like a rich area of North Carolina, those houses would be rebuilt by now-complete with new additions.  >:( >:(



Cat

Poor Ray Nagin has gone insane-- that's what happens when a hurricane destroys your city and nobody gives a crap.

the repair job in new york is actually a lot more manageable than what happened in new orleans.

i'm likin' ray nagin. people like ann coulter can run around excoriating the 9/11 widows for daring to have husbands who died because of bush's incompetence and gets away with it, i like how nagin's handing at least some small bit of the republicans' nastiness back at them. go man! go!

i was listening to a debate on bbc this afternoon about katrina and there was this republican dude trotting out the same old discredited argumetns about school buses and how the mayor was to blame (even though he'd been flooded out of his office) and how mississippi did so much better than new orleans because they were republican and white and new orleans was democratic and black (never mind that mississippi had no comparable concentrated urban center and experienced no levee breaks)... and  nobody responded to him! the people on the other side kept making annoying concessions, oh, sure, there's plenty of blame to go around and blah blah blah.

bull! once the state was on its knees it became the feds' job to intervene and they didn't. either they were too stupid to know how or too corrupt to care, but i'm tired of people shrugging it off with, oh, there was plenty of blame to go around. nagin was one of the only people with the brass ones to get on the radio in the days after the flood and scream bloody murder! if he hadn't done that, i bet bush and his pals wouldn't have even done the pisspoor little bit they HAVE done. noticed they kinda hopped to after nagin, and after that one poor dude broke down crying on the radio?

the repair job in new york is actually a lot more manageable than what happened in new orleans.

i'm likin' ray nagin. people like ann coulter can run around excoriating the 9/11 widows for daring to have husbands who died because of bush's incompetence and gets away with it, i like how nagin's handing at least some small bit of the republicans' nastiness back at them. go man! go!

i was listening to a debate on bbc this afternoon about katrina and there was this republican dude trotting out the same old discredited argumetns about school buses and how the mayor was to blame (even though he'd been flooded out of his office) and how mississippi did so much better than new orleans because they were republican and white and new orleans was democratic and black (never mind that mississippi had no comparable concentrated urban center and experienced no levee breaks)... and  nobody responded to him! the people on the other side kept making annoying concessions, oh, sure, there's plenty of blame to go around and blah blah blah.

bull! once the state was on its knees it became the feds' job to intervene and they didn't. either they were too stupid to know how or too corrupt to care, but i'm tired of people shrugging it off with, oh, there was plenty of blame to go around. nagin was one of the only people with the brass ones to get on the radio in the days after the flood and scream bloody murder! if he hadn't done that, i bet bush and his pals wouldn't have even done the pisspoor little bit they HAVE done. noticed they kinda hopped to after nagin, and after that one poor dude broke down crying on the radio?



Applause, applause.




Cat

Come up to Boston, Ray, I'll show you another hole in the ground!
::)

Of course State Farm is trying to weasel out of paying claims.  The goal of insurance companies is this:
To get you to pay as high a monthly premium as the rigged market will bear...and then when disaster strikes, to pay you nothing...
n-o-t-h-i-n-g...nothing.
Now, if they do have to pay your claim they will either:
a. cancel your policy and refuse to reinsure you.
b. double your premium.

That's the private insurance industry.  That's why the private sector is incpapable of managing a catastrophe such as the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.  That's why we have FEMA--the Federal Emergency Management Agency.  At least that's what I thought.  Turns out FEMA is acting like a private insurance company! 

Here's what it is, dig---

What's going on down there is a class war.  The fascist government's paymasters don't want that Cajun culture to survive.  The American people cherished the Cajuns for their music and their cuisine.  It was a unique culture all of its own dating back to early colonial times.  The problem is, most of the Cajuns were poor.  The same goes for the Caribbean/African-American culture of the Gulf coast.  They were economically oppressed, whether they were farmers and fishermen, or whether they lived in the city in places such as the Ninth Ward.  They were poor people, but they shared for the most part a rich cultural heritage.  None of that counts.  Alll that matters to Republicans is big money, big capital, and crony favors for the millionaires. 

In the days after Katrina, the Bushies were scrambling not to rescue the people, but to protect the oil trade.  The fascist media got out there and condemned the families stranded on roofs and bridges.  The O'Reillys and the Limbaughs said it was their own damn fault because they didn't go to college, or some sh!t. 

The federal government knew the levees were cracking the day before the flood.  They ignored the warnings.  If they acknowledged the warnings, then the whole catastrophe would immediately shift to federal government responsibility.  (Remember, no responsibility except "personal responsibility" for poor people)

The Republicans want to rebuild New Orleans as a Disneyfied tourist town with none of the bona-fide culture (because that would mean poor people living there).  They want to strip away what remains of the old coastal culture (more poor people) and redesignate the coastline to  Santa Barbara and Malibu-level exclusivity. 

If you're a flood evacuee living in Houston, you know, one of those people, they don't want you to come back--you'd have an easier time going home if you were E.T.  They want a smaller, whiter Louisiana; a more Republican Louisiana.  If you're an Iraqi refugee living in Houston, you can vote in the Iraqi elections, so if you're a displace Louisianan, you must be able to vote in Louisiana elections.  Guess again.  Well, then you can vote in Texas, right?  Fat chance.

What about the squalid FEMA trailer camps where live tens of thousands p*ss out of luck?  Fuggem.  Let 'em rot away in those formaldehyde-tainted tin cans adjacent to the pollution-belching industrial parks.  Remember what O'Reilly said, it's their own damn fault because they didn't stay in school.  Right, Mr. Cosby? Sure thing.

I'm a Palast-inian, how about you?
http://www.gregpalast.com/section/articles
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=454

    On a personal note, my brother ("Bo") lived in New Orleans, near the French Quarter.  He is pretty much a die-hard when it comes to hurricanes.  He's spent a couple of them outdoors, sitting on a levee getting drunk and reveling in the storm.  The last time a Category 5 hurricane was headed towards New Orleans (it missed at the last moment), he stayed in town, and said that if the waters rose to his second-story flat he'd go up on the roof and tie himself to the chimney...

  He ended-up evacuating...

  Within days of the hurricane the lawsuits had started...

  What I've learned from him since...

  Quality companies like Chubb, Fireman's Fund, and AIG (private client group - not the "please call for cheap stuff") paid all the claims and set people up in similar living arrangements in other cities.  They waived billing and helped people out...

  Max is right, the cheapo's like State Farm, Allstate, Farmer's, Geico, and the mutuals started declining claims for one reason or another. "This is flood damage not hurricane.", "Your payment is late, I know your check washed away but you still owe", blah, blah.  This will go on for years until the government gets with the program and defines the cause of loss.  They also are sticking to the letter of their policy with regard to forced evacuation, so in a year these people ran out of loss-of-use coverage...

  Another problem here is that the government (FEMA) runs the flood protection policies.  Normal insurance does not cover flood.  You have to have a separate policy.  Many people in the NO area did not have it because it costs more than a standard HO policy; those people are pretty much screwed groove ;) on all...

SO, I was listening to Howard Stern the other day and he was talking about NOLA's Nagin.

He played a clip where Nagin was being asked, why after a year New Orleans hasn't rebuilt faster.

Nagin had the audacity to say {quote from memory, can't say it is 100% accurate word for word}

"...  hang on - it's been 5 years and New York can't fill a hole in their downtown...."

Is there really any comparison between the two?


kudos for nagin. way to speak up. do you really think it possible to rebuild an entire city in less time than you can rebuild two towers?

Remember the Gulf Coast is one of the poorest areas of the whole country.  There were hundreds of thousands who had no insurance for anything.  That's the way it was after Hurricane Andrew in 1992.   The glades region is po'azz.  Then there were folks who had a few assets and were barely hanging on.  Now you've got people living in the remnants of their houses. 

Bank: Where is our mortgage payment?
Home owner: The storm wrecked my house, my car, and my place of empolyment. My insurance won't pay. I can barely find fresh water.
Bank: We asked you a question, bee-atch, where the f**k is our mudderfuggin' mortgage payment!?!

And that's that!
:P

The fascist government's paymasters don't want that Cajun culture to survive.  The American people cherished the Cajuns for their music and their cuisine.  It was a unique culture all of its own dating back to early colonial times.  The problem is, most of the Cajuns were poor. 

If that's the case, it wouldn't be the first time the Cajuns were displaced. Ever hear of Nova Scotia? Ask the British.

  Another problem here is that the government (FEMA) runs the flood protection policies.  Normal insurance does not cover flood.  You have to have a separate policy.  Many people in the NO area did not have it because it costs more than a standard HO policy; those people are pretty much screwed groove ;) on all...


Its their own fault for not being a success in life.  Every person in America has a perfectly good chance at being well off. Do you expect ME to shell out my hard-earned money because these people couldn't cut the mustard in life?

:-X

[quote author=Keyser S

  Certain aspects of that are inherent in a cooperative society...

  Welcome to it...


I think it was pretty obvious I was being sarcastic...

[quote author=Keyser S

[quote author=Keyser S

[quote author=Keyser S

However, another factor in N.O. is that fact that people are still fighting with insurance companies, the Government's lack of help, etc. etc.


You are also forgetting corruption, graft, fraud, and the fact that a lot of people simply do not want to return to New Orleans.

There was a survey last month in one of our local newspapers.  They poled over 5,000 NO residents that relocated to the area after Katrina hit.  More then 85% said they have no plans to ever move back to NO, and are happier where they are living now.  And I am sure that is the case among many other people who have had to leave.

And as for clean-up, I simply can't blame anybody else other then local officials.  When LA got trashed in the 1994 Northridge Quake, we did not rely on Government to come in and clean things up for us, we did it ourselves.  The same thing in NY, Idaho, Alaska, and most other places where large disasters hit.  Even Florida tends to pick itself up quickly after a hurricane.  And they normally get struck by several every year.  A year after Andrew (Hugo, Katrina, etc etc etc), and you can hardly tell they were devistated just a year before.

Biloxi Mississippi was just as devistated as NO was.  Every waterfront casino was destroyed, and large areas of the town were trashed.  But after 1 year, things are quickly getting back to normal.  Casinos are reopening, and there are thousands of new jobs in the area.

Myself, I think that Nagin simply enjoys having his little "Pity Party".  After all, before August of last year I would be surprised if more then 5% of the people in this country even knew who he was.

^making a drown-government-in-your-bathtub republican president is like hiring a scientologist to run a pharmacy. you're just going to get ineptitude like new orleans and the my-pet-goat reaction to 9/11 -- because the republicans are pretending to run an institution they feel should be eliminated!

^making a drown-government-in-your-bathtub republican president is like hiring a scientologist to run a pharmacy. you're just going to get ineptitude like new orleans and the my-pet-goat reaction to 9/11 -- because the republicans are pretending to run an institution they feel should be eliminated!


Not at all true.  I simply do not rely on Government to run my life.  And I have a brain, and am able to make comparisons.

If every area devistated by Katrina was still messed up, then there might be something to the arguement "It is the Government's Fault".  But I simply do not see that.  Biloxi was hit even harder then NO was.  The devistation covers an even larger area.  Mobile was also trashed pretty good.

However, both are up and running today, with things largely like they were before Katrina hit.  Now look at NO.  It is a total fustercluck.  They are still rotating Alabama National Guard units there to assist clean-up.  While these units can use their own equipment to remove debris, it all has to be carried to dump sights by companies owned by NO politcal cronies.  And they are forced to slow down, because the NG is able to clear streets faster then the civilian contractors can haul it away.

And of course, they are in no hurry to finish the job.  The longer clean-up takes, the more money they make.  These are long-term open-ended contracts.  There are no timelines, no deadlines.

And it is the same mess with the infamous "FEMA Trailers".  NO laws forbid the placement of trailors in housing areas.  If they really wanted their city back to life, they could bulldoze large sections of the city, then turn them into trailor parks until replacement housing is built.  But NO refuses to remove (even temporarily) the ban on trailers.  So the citizens still live in far away locations.  The trailers still sit in open fields, waiting to be used.  And every contractor in NO gets filthy rich and at the same times is able to blame somebody else.

I think that Government has a job to step in and help during and after a disaster.  However, the first and last responsibility needs to be with local officials.  When the locals screw things up, it is simply easier to pass the buck.  Show me a mess like NO, and I can show you 20 communities that recovered quickly and with ten times less drama then we see here.  Compare Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Mount St. Helens, Teton Dam, Hurricane Andrew, Hurricane Floys, Hurricane Hugo, 1993 & 1996 Mississippi River Floods, and the Katrina damage in Florida, Alabama and Mississippi.

What do all of these things have in common?  Well, they all got their act together and recovered, quickly.  NO was on the West side of the Hurricane, the weakest side.  Biloxi got hit head-on.  Mobile got hit by the Eastern side, the strongest part of the Hurricane.  They are all up and running again.  NO was a mess before Katrina hit, and nothing has changed in the aftermath.

yeah, we've had this conversation before and the right cya argument is no more convincing now than it was then. refer to the response i posted to this argument the last time you made it.

Did anyone hear the ridiculous remarks by one transplant in Houston who had to pay their upcoming rent and they asked when the 'Govmnt.' will be sending them more money to help them?

Uh..try working like the rest of the Texans!

Isn't it funny Mr. Mushroom just did the same thing Right Cubed did on a different thread.  He's a guy who doesn't listen to Limbaugh who nonetheless is repeating El Rushbo's talking points.  Sure, Dan Rather was the bad influence around here!

http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/entertainers/pundits/rush-limbaugh/limbaugh.jpg

I will give Mushroom credit...he didn't say George Bush can't be held responsible because Bush doesn't live in New Orleans!

All these guys who go around saying, "I don't like the government," and "I don't need the government," and "the government doesn't do anything for me," and on and on and on, remind me of the time when I decided I hated my parents, so I packed my belongings in my GI Joe carry-all bag, took my favorite stuffed animal and a peanut butter sandwich, and hit the open road!
;D
(well, it was the beginning of summer, and I was thinking of taking the next semester off anyway, so....)

Right Cubed

Okay, hippie, let's dance.



I will give Mushroom credit...he didn't say George Bush can't be held responsible because Bush doesn't live in New Orleans!


No, but see, Bush believes in God, and prayed to God to flood New Orleans because Bush is evil.  Or maybe evil Bush is just so evil that he has super powers and controls the weather, like Storm from the X-Men, but he's a guy and not nearly as fly.

http://inthemist.org/images/TeamAmerica.jpg

MATT DAMON!!!!

Anyway, I was just telling Tam that while I can see Nagin's point, that doesn't excuse him from making such an inappropriate statement.  Thank you.

Okay, hippie, let's dance.

No, but see, Bush believes in God, and prayed to God to flood New Orleans because Bush is evil.  Or maybe evil Bush is just so evil that he has super powers and controls the weather, like Storm from the X-Men, but he's a guy and not nearly as fly.

http://inthemist.org/images/TeamAmerica.jpg

MATT DAMON!!!!

Matt Damon, now he's the ball player, right?

I like you, Right, you gott a great sense of humor!

But it is true.  Bush's stooges knew years before the levees around the Gulf and Lake Pontchartrain were insufficient for protecting the city even for a category 1 hurricane.  Clinton hired a guy to work on the problem, but when the Bushies seized power, they fired the dude and canceled the program!  As Sidney Blumenthal pointed out, " In 2004, the Bush administration cut funding requested by the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for holding back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain by more than 80 percent."
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=22574&mode=nested&order=0
What's the Army Corps of Engineers anyway, one of those environmental whacko vegan tree hugging outfits from Seattle?
::)
I mean Jesus Christ, cutting the funding for levee upgrades around New Orleans is like...is like...um...is like cutting the funding for levee upgrades around New Orleans.
:-\\

Isn't it funny Mr. Mushroom just did the same thing Right Cubed did on a different thread.  He's a guy who doesn't listen to Limbaugh who nonetheless is repeating El Rushbo's talking points.  Sure, Dan Rather was the bad influence around here!

http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/entertainers/pundits/rush-limbaugh/limbaugh.jpg
fox news is hitting on a lot of the same points. some think tank/ad firm somewhere comes up with this stuff and then fox news spreads it around the country like poison gas. the whole "new orleans is to blame for being poor" talking points comes up on fox once a minute.

fox news is hitting on a lot of the same points. some think tank/ad firm somewhere comes up with this stuff and then fox news spreads it around the country like poison gas. the whole "new orleans is to blame for being poor" talking points comes up on fox once a minute.

I'm surprisied they haven't had Pat Robertson on there talking about how N.O. got nailed because of that pagan voodoo cult stuff, and because they've given their city over to sin! 

Sin?  Well, why didn't God destroy Las Vegas, Reverend?

William Bennett might be there.


PR usually stands for Public Relations, but on FOX it stands for Pat Robertson!

But it is true.  Bush's stooges knew years before the levees around the Gulf and Lake Pontchartrain were insufficient for protecting the city even for a category 1 hurricane. 


And 6 months before Katrina, FEMA did a drill and discovered that the disaster plans that the City of New Orlenas had were not even sufficient for a Category 2 Hurricane.  3 months prior to Katrina, they submitted a critique of the drill.

Among those critiques was the relocation of public transit to higher groun, and organizing an evacuation system utilizing public transit.  Also among the recommendations was increased food, water, and security for the "Shelter of Last Resort", the SuperDome.

They also recommended the location of a new shelter, since the SuperDome was only strengthened against a Category 3 Hurricane.

They also recommended emergency retrofits on the current pumping system.  Out of all the pumps in NO, only one station had ever been retrofitted with pumps that could operate when submerged.  All of the others were open screw pumps, which had to be shut down if the water got to high.  Even a year later, there are no plans to retrofit the remaining pumps.

Then l;ets throw in the discoveries of recent months: that NO is sinking faster then it was ever recognized.  They have found areas of the city that are 6 feet lower then previously believed.  And most of the city is between 6 inches and 2 feet lower then records indicate (the last surveys were done in the 1960-1970's).  That even if the levees had not ruptured because of the hurricane, the city would still have been a flooded mess.  City busses would still have been underwater.  And people still would have been sitting in their homes, because the city officials simply waited to long to issue a mandatory evacuation.

And that still does not explain why Biloxi is well on the road to recovery, and NO is still a godawfull mess.

And sorry, but it also does not explain why it is the fault or responsibilty of the Federal Government.  If they are expected to take 100% of the responsibility and blame for anything that happens, then why in the hell do we have state and local Governments?

And I have never said that I do not trust the Government.  I have never stated that I do not like the Government.  What I have stated many times is that I refuse to let the Government do my thinking for me.  If I am standing on the railroad tracks and see a train comming at me, I do not wait for a cop to tell me to move.  And if it hits me, I do not blame the cop for not telling me to move.

When you live in a bathtub in Hurricane country, you gotta expect to be devistated from time to time.  In the same way that Texans get used to killer heat waves, Californians get used to Earthquakes, and North-Easterners get used to kilelr ice storms.  It is simply part of the price of living where you live.  And when these things happen, they happen.  The smart person gets out of the way if something is comming.

As I said before, I simply refuse to be a sheep.

And 6 months before Katrina, FEMA did a drill and discovered that the disaster plans that the City of New Orlenas had were not even sufficient for a Category 2 Hurricane.  3 months prior to Katrina, they submitted a critique of the drill.

Among those critiques was the relocation of public transit to higher groun, and organizing an evacuation system utilizing public transit.  Also among the recommendations was increased food, water, and security for the "Shelter of Last Resort", the SuperDome.

They also recommended the location of a new shelter, since the SuperDome was only strengthened against a Category 3 Hurricane.

They also recommended emergency retrofits on the current pumping system.  Out of all the pumps in NO, only one station had ever been retrofitted with pumps that could operate when submerged.  All of the others were open screw pumps, which had to be shut down if the water got to high.  Even a year later, there are no plans to retrofit the remaining pumps.

Then l;ets throw in the discoveries of recent months: that NO is sinking faster then it was ever recognized.  They have found areas of the city that are 6 feet lower then previously believed.  And most of the city is between 6 inches and 2 feet lower then records indicate (the last surveys were done in the 1960-1970's).  That even if the levees had not ruptured because of the hurricane, the city would still have been a flooded mess.  City busses would still have been underwater.  And people still would have been sitting in their homes, because the city officials simply waited to long to issue a mandatory evacuation.

And that still does not explain why Biloxi is well on the road to recovery, and NO is still a godawfull mess.

And sorry, but it also does not explain why it is the fault or responsibilty of the Federal Government.  If they are expected to take 100% of the responsibility and blame for anything that happens, then why in the hell do we have state and local Governments?

And I have never said that I do not trust the Government.  I have never stated that I do not like the Government.  What I have stated many times is that I refuse to let the Government do my thinking for me.  If I am standing on the railroad tracks and see a train comming at me, I do not wait for a cop to tell me to move.  And if it hits me, I do not blame the cop for not telling me to move.

When you live in a bathtub in Hurricane country, you gotta expect to be devistated from time to time.  In the same way that Texans get used to killer heat waves, Californians get used to Earthquakes, and North-Easterners get used to kilelr ice storms.  It is simply part of the price of living where you live.  And when these things happen, they happen.  The smart person gets out of the way if something is comming.

As I said before, I simply refuse to be a sheep.

Well, that's good, because there are a lot of shepherds out there, if ya know what a I mean!

At over 1500 people died because of Katrina.  I'm guessin the true number of direct causalties is well over 2000 and additional indirect casualties will at least double the number.  There is mass homelessness, disease, financial ruin, depression, violence, and suicidality in that devestated Gulf Coast region.  Relief workers returning from Mississippi have told me in person the devastation on much of the MS gulf region is just as bad. 

I find your casual explanation "you gotta expect to be devastated at some point" has a realistic ring, but there is no excuse for failing to prepare for the worst while working for the best.  State and local governments should not be absolved for their failures.  However, their failures should also be placed in context of their relationship to the federal government.  As you know, Mushroom, LA an MS are two of the poorest states in the union.  The governments and the people alike were barely making basic necessities.  Not that the couldn't have done a better job, but they had far fewer resources at there disposal than the feds.   

Three years before Katrina I was talking about the potential destruction of New Orleans and the "ragged sole" of the Louisiana boot if a category 5 hurricane nailed it.  I thought the distruction would be even worse than what Katrina wrought, and I'm just a Yankee boy who read some popular magazine articles!

I don't object to people pointing out state government incompetence.  I only object to it when it is in the context of absolving the Bushies for their failures.  We know, after all, that if Kerry was president (and he should have been, he won in the election), and the N.O. mayar was a white evangelical Republican, there would be Starr-chamber investigations into every nook and cranny of federal incompetence and nightly FOX howling for Kerry's impeachment!  The defense of the feds and the excoriation of the state government is nakedly partisan.

The point is not about blame.  It is not about politics.  It is about saving lives.  Federal etities on several leveral had intelligence that N.O. could be destroyed, and they chose to do nothing.  In fact, they chose to snuff the meager efforts Clinton was making.  The feds could have saved thousands of lives.  The feds could have prevented untold human suffering and property loss, and the Bushies chose wanton denial. 

The way the media sold local preparation failures through image propaganda was obscene.  The pictures of the scores of school buses under water made me see red!  All the right-wing bubbleheads declared, "See they could've evacuated them people!"  None of them bothered to ask the questions even the most rudimentary journalism used to require....such as "how do you find 100 drivers for 100 schoolbuses in 12 hours time force 30,000 citizens to board them?  Would you do it before the hurricane even struck?  Would you force them at gunpoint to leave their worldy possessions behind?  Would you wait until the storm had struck and navigate flimsy schoolbuses through mother nature's spine-and-wrince cycle via flooded and debris strewn streets?  I mean WTF?  The media wasn't even inquiring on an elementary level.  They were just pointing, and grunting, "look at this picture!"
http://atangledweb.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/neworleans_schoolbuses.jpg

I've lived my life in a relatively safe pocket of the American northeast.  Few natural disasters up this way...but the do happen.  Not often.  The worst one I personally remember was when I was a child, it was the Blizzard of '78.  Had my father not decided to leave work early at 1:00 p.m., instead of 5:00, he might have died in his car on Route 128!  Sometimes the state can't save your asses, sometimes you've got to save your own asses!
:o
http://www.massmoments.org/moment.cfm?mid=45
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blizzard_of_1978

(Xavier Onassis, Aristotle's little brother)

Of course, you have other people that also blame a lot of this on local officials.

Harry Anderson is selling his business and pulling out of New Orleans.  In his own words: