Gavin Allan
Well-Known Member
We Failed You?
Anne Rice blames America, not local officials.
"To my country I want to say this: During this crisis you failed us. You looked down on us; you dismissed our victims; you dismissed us. You want our Jazz Fest, you want our Mardi Gras, you want our cooking and our music.
Then when you saw us in real trouble, when you saw a tiny minority preying on the weak among us, you called us "Sin City," and turned your backs."
Novelist and New Orleans resident, Anne Rice.
The answer...
Let me get this straight
Ms. Rice, you live in (what was) a very attractive city which lies below sea level. On one side you have a giant lake; on the other side you have the Gulf of Mexico. Running through the middle is the Mississippi River. All of which are above you.
Preventing those giant bodies of water from flooding and drowning you are levees. These levees are described as "century-old." People have been warning about the devastating effects of a direct hit from a hurricane for decades.
I've heard a great deal of complaint in recent days that the federal government may not have allocated enough money to speed up the upgrades to those levees. This does, however, raise the question of why city and state residents were waiting around for the federal government to send enough money to upgrade this, instead of paying for it themselves. I mean, it was only your homes, businesses, and lives at stake. Perhaps these upgrades would have been expensive. If only this city had some sort of events to attract tourists, from which to collect taxes.
Anyway, your state and local officials decided to spend your tax dollars on something else that they (and presumably you) found more important, and then they waited for the rest of the country to pay for these life-preserving necessities.
Your beloved city and region has a colorful political history, in which there is, oh, a wee bit of corruption. I'm from New Jersey, so I can't throw stones at that glass house. But you guys have managed to pick leaders who give you the worst of both worlds - they're scandal ridden and incompetent in a crisis. Look, Rudy Giuliani might have run around with Judith Nathan before his divorce, but he was a hell of a leader in our darkest hours.
You know the National Review crowd isn't a fan of Pataki, but the man was a rock after 9/11 compared to Governor Weepy I'll-Evacuate-Eventually and Mayor It's-Everybody's-Fault-Except-Mine. Nobody's throwing around the adjective "Churchillian" about any of your officials these days. We didn't pick your local officials; you guys did.
Rice asks, "how many times did Gov. Kathleen Blanco have to say that the situation was desperate? How many times did Mayor Ray Nagin have to call for aid?"
Ahem... What about those buses left unused, less than a mile from the Superdome? JunkYardBlog notes that it's written in the Southeast Louisiana Evacuation Plan that buses are supposed to be used for evacuation of those who don't have personal vehicles.
As JYB observes, "there is something very peculiar about a city and a state that have a plan on the books for years that outlines what to do when a hurricane is about to strike, yet when a hurricane comes roaring in, the responsible officials just chuck the plan and try winging it. Delaying and then winging it in the face of a monstrous Cat 4/5 hurricane is never, ever a good idea, especially for New Orleans."
Ironically, Nagin told CNN, "I need buses, man," when he had plenty sitting around unused before the storm hit. Now they're flooded and useless.
But it's not like state and local officials could have seen this coming (tongue in cheek). They have never had a hurricane bearing down on them before and... oh, wait, there was Hurricane Ivan just last year. And after that dodged bullet, Blanco and Nagin both acknowledged they needed a better evacuat
Anne Rice blames America, not local officials.
"To my country I want to say this: During this crisis you failed us. You looked down on us; you dismissed our victims; you dismissed us. You want our Jazz Fest, you want our Mardi Gras, you want our cooking and our music.
Then when you saw us in real trouble, when you saw a tiny minority preying on the weak among us, you called us "Sin City," and turned your backs."
Novelist and New Orleans resident, Anne Rice.
The answer...
Let me get this straight
Ms. Rice, you live in (what was) a very attractive city which lies below sea level. On one side you have a giant lake; on the other side you have the Gulf of Mexico. Running through the middle is the Mississippi River. All of which are above you.
Preventing those giant bodies of water from flooding and drowning you are levees. These levees are described as "century-old." People have been warning about the devastating effects of a direct hit from a hurricane for decades.
I've heard a great deal of complaint in recent days that the federal government may not have allocated enough money to speed up the upgrades to those levees. This does, however, raise the question of why city and state residents were waiting around for the federal government to send enough money to upgrade this, instead of paying for it themselves. I mean, it was only your homes, businesses, and lives at stake. Perhaps these upgrades would have been expensive. If only this city had some sort of events to attract tourists, from which to collect taxes.
Anyway, your state and local officials decided to spend your tax dollars on something else that they (and presumably you) found more important, and then they waited for the rest of the country to pay for these life-preserving necessities.
Your beloved city and region has a colorful political history, in which there is, oh, a wee bit of corruption. I'm from New Jersey, so I can't throw stones at that glass house. But you guys have managed to pick leaders who give you the worst of both worlds - they're scandal ridden and incompetent in a crisis. Look, Rudy Giuliani might have run around with Judith Nathan before his divorce, but he was a hell of a leader in our darkest hours.
You know the National Review crowd isn't a fan of Pataki, but the man was a rock after 9/11 compared to Governor Weepy I'll-Evacuate-Eventually and Mayor It's-Everybody's-Fault-Except-Mine. Nobody's throwing around the adjective "Churchillian" about any of your officials these days. We didn't pick your local officials; you guys did.
Rice asks, "how many times did Gov. Kathleen Blanco have to say that the situation was desperate? How many times did Mayor Ray Nagin have to call for aid?"
Ahem... What about those buses left unused, less than a mile from the Superdome? JunkYardBlog notes that it's written in the Southeast Louisiana Evacuation Plan that buses are supposed to be used for evacuation of those who don't have personal vehicles.
As JYB observes, "there is something very peculiar about a city and a state that have a plan on the books for years that outlines what to do when a hurricane is about to strike, yet when a hurricane comes roaring in, the responsible officials just chuck the plan and try winging it. Delaying and then winging it in the face of a monstrous Cat 4/5 hurricane is never, ever a good idea, especially for New Orleans."
Ironically, Nagin told CNN, "I need buses, man," when he had plenty sitting around unused before the storm hit. Now they're flooded and useless.
But it's not like state and local officials could have seen this coming (tongue in cheek). They have never had a hurricane bearing down on them before and... oh, wait, there was Hurricane Ivan just last year. And after that dodged bullet, Blanco and Nagin both acknowledged they needed a better evacuat
