FEMA: "Americans don't live in tents".

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

echo0001

Acrobat
Joined
Dec 18, 2004
Messages
349
Location
WV-USA
Ivor Van Heerden, Chicago Tribune

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...relief-story,1,490120.story?coll=chi-news-hed

... the hurricane experts shook their heads in disgust and futility, much of it directed at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

"We told FEMA, and we told them long ago, and we told them more than once that they needed to purchase the land for tent cities with full facilities in anticipation of this," said Ivor van Heerden, deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, where experts warned since the late 1990s that New Orleans' levies couldn't withstand the storm surge of a major hurricane.

"They told me Americans don't live in tents," van Heerden said. "I guess that sums up their attitude."




Van Heerden was also on MSNBC this evening and recounted the incident and said a woman who worked at FEMA told him that "Americans don't live in tents," and when asked what he would do if he saw her again now, replied that "I'd wring her neck."
 
ha! there are alot of things Americans don't do. they don't live in football stadiums with no plumbing. they don't steal from their local grocery stores. they don't leave their dead on the streets to be eaten by rats. etc. etc. etc.

maybe things would have been better if these people starting things outside of the box. in fact, last time I checked DC was shaped alot like a box. what does that tell you?
 
Americans don't do a lot of things: like elect incompetent leaders who fail to properly prepare for disasters. Yeah, right.

This FEMA quote pissed me the ever living fuck off. And so do people (and there still are a few) who believe that nobody knew how bad it would be if a big one hit N.O. People knew. But the organizations that were supposed to be prepared, didn't.
 
This is insane. What do you get when you have a city below sea level with vulnerable levees? Those things busted up before I even lost my power. It's a denial game. It's time for the officials of our counrty, Democrats, Republicans and Independents, to face the music.
 
That's it.

Katrina is going down. I will hunt her down, where ever she is, and take her out. She knew the situation in New Orleans. "Ooh, I'll back off from a category 5, and then I won't hit the city directly, then no one can blame me." Sorry sister. I see the games you're playing. You can run, but you can hide.
Or...maybe you can....but when you're hiding, then I'll show up with a flashlight and I'll find you're hiding spot, and THEN! Then Katrina, you're gonna be in a world of hurt.

What worthless hurricane.
 
verte76 said:
This is insane. What do you get when you have a city below sea level with vulnerable levees? Those things busted up before I even lost my power. It's a denial game. It's time for the officials of our counrty, Democrats, Republicans and Independents, to face the music.

I think you are absolutely correct, and I also think going forward the best solution as regards New Orleans is 'downsizing', i.e. a major effort to rehouse people from the city in other districts or neighbouring cities. NO can have a future of sorts, but realistically, I can't see it sustaining a population of 1 million for the foreseeable future.
 
I hope they take the opportunity when rebuilding (which is probably a mistake in and of itself) to move the majority of residential districts to higher ground.

In fact, that may be the very most we can expect them to do about the basic NO flaw: most of the damn city being below sea level.

They couldn't be bothered to prepare for this one. I doubt they'll be overly bothered about preparing for the next one.
 
I agree, echo. The city of New Orleans wasn't prepared for a Category 5 hurricane. Hell, they weren't prepared for a hurricane, period. I am afraid the great city I knew and loved is a thing of the past. I've been running into refugees from the hurricans for the past couple of days, and I expect they will be stay8ing.
 
Too true, Verte. The city wasn't prepared. But I find it especially frustrating that FEMA and the Federal government weren't prepared either, even though the experts like Van Heerden had been telling them for years what would happen.

And that makes my heart break even more for all those refugees.

I'm so disgusted with the U.S. government right now. :(
 
echo0001 said:
Too true, Verte. The city wasn't prepared. But I find it especially frustrating that FEMA and the Federal government weren't prepared either, even though the experts like Van Heerden had been telling them for years what would happen.

And that makes my heart break even more for all those refugees.

I'm so disgusted with the U.S. government right now. :(

my respresentatives are going to be getting suitably irate e-mails within the next couple of days, trust me. We are not prepared for disaster. Period.
 
verte76 said:
I agree, echo. The city of New Orleans wasn't prepared for a Category 5 hurricane. Hell, they weren't prepared for a hurricane, period. I am afraid the great city I knew and loved is a thing of the past. I've been running into refugees from the hurricans for the past couple of days, and I expect they will be stay8ing.

New Orleans was prepared for a Category 3 Hurricane. They got more than they planned for. Simple.

This monday morning quarterbacking is out of hand. No matter what we plan for, we will experience the unexpected.

I'm sure irate emails will rectify the situation. :|
 
nbcrusader said:


New Orleans was prepared for a Category 3 Hurricane. They got more than they planned for. Simple.

This monday morning quarterbacking is out of hand. No matter what we plan for, we will experience the unexpected.

I'm sure irate emails will rectify the situation. :|



Ted Koppel speaking with the FEMA director :Here we are, essentially five days after the storm hit and you're talking about what's going to happen in the next couple of days. You guys do war games. You guys have gamed out what was going to happen in recent months after a force 3 or force 4 or force 5 hurricane... Of course you couldn't have known the levies would break. But you could have assumed it.

Yeah, e-mails won't work either. All the proper officials knew what was going on down there. Oh wait . . .

Koppel: I've heard you say during the course of a number of interviews that you found out about the convention center today. Don't you guys watch television? Don't you guys listen to the radio? Our reporters have been reporting on it for more than just today.

Brown of FEMA: We learned about (the convention center) FACTUALLY today that that's what existed.

(Brown responds to another question by saying troops are going to be moving in soon.)

Koppel: Here we are essentially FIVE DAYS after the storm hit and you're talking about what's going to happen in the next couple of days.... You didn't make preparations for what was going to happen in the event that [a category four storm hit]. Why didn't you?

Like echo0001 said, there have been warnings for years that a thing like this could happen. It's their job to prepare for things like this. Saying "they got more than they planned for" is no excuse. They should have planned more.


Wow, this has really struck a nerve with me. I never posted this much in FYM before :reject:.
 
Last edited:
kellyahern said:
Like echo0001 said, there have been warnings for years that a thing like this could happen. It's their job to prepare for things like this. Saying "they got more than they planned for" is no excuse. They should have planned more.

:confused: No one has argued that they should have planned less!?!

You will never have every contingency covered, and while this was always a possibility, to my knowledge, no one (Democrat or Republican, federal or state) has ever made protecting New Orleans from a Catagory 5 hurricane an issue.

kellyahern said:
Wow, this has really struck a nerve with me. I never posted this much in FYM before :reject:.

No :reject: at all. I hope you join more discussions in the future.
 
nbcrusader said:


New Orleans was prepared for a Category 3 Hurricane. They got more than they planned for. Simple.

This monday morning quarterbacking is out of hand. No matter what we plan for, we will experience the unexpected.

I'm sure irate emails will rectify the situation. :|
Bullshit,..since 1970 people were warning about the levees and the disapearing swamps ( that helps to take power of the winds and adsorb rain ) but the responsables did not fucking care and laughed it away.
 
Last edited:
Rono said:
Bullshit,..since 1970 people were warning about the levees and the disapearing swamps ( that helps to take power of the winds and adsorb rain ) but the responsables did not fucking car and laughed it away.

We (as a nation) have a long history of ignoring those who tell us things which although true, we would rather not hear. This is a perfect example of that mentality. Sadly I really don't expect that to change in the long run.
 
echo0001 said:
Ivor Van Heerden, Chicago Tribune

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...relief-story,1,490120.story?coll=chi-news-hed

... the hurricane experts shook their heads in disgust and futility, much of it directed at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

"We told FEMA, and we told them long ago, and we told them more than once that they needed to purchase the land for tent cities with full facilities in anticipation of this," said Ivor van Heerden, deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, where experts warned since the late 1990s that New Orleans' levies couldn't withstand the storm surge of a major hurricane.

"They told me Americans don't live in tents," van Heerden said. "I guess that sums up their attitude."




Van Heerden was also on MSNBC this evening and recounted the incident and said a woman who worked at FEMA told him that "Americans don't live in tents," and when asked what he would do if he saw her again now, replied that "I'd wring her neck."


I saw that interview as well, and have seen him speak all weak long. :tsk:

echo0001 said:


Too true, Verte. The city wasn't prepared. But I find it especially frustrating that FEMA and the Federal government weren't prepared either, even though the experts like Van Heerden had been telling them for years what would happen.

And that makes my heart break even more for all those refugees.

I'm so disgusted with the U.S. government right now.


As someone said Saturday on CNN (or some coverage I was watching) 'refugees' was not a term they liked hearing, they preferred to have them referred to as 'survivors'.

And I agree with everything echo has said... indra too.
Just think if something happens where you live... will the government be able to respond? :shrug: :(
 
[Q]It's time for the officials of our counrty, Democrats, Republicans and Independents, to face the music. [/Q]

I agree....

And I think this hurricane is symptomatic about how we operate here in the USA.

Our leadership, be it in education or public safety (Insert your own area here) does not make decisions based on what the experts tell them. Politics and other factors always creep in and bingo, we do not have the best choices in place for the job.

It starts with leadership. Everything is about doing what you can, just enough, so that you can say you did something, but your hands were tied.
'
The public does not want more taxes. Money determines what gets done, and every politician is making decisions not for the people, but on how to spend the money in just the right way to keep the appearance up of doing something. It is a fucking joke and a game. I see it in education ALL the time. I saw it in the Army all the time. I saw it in the corporate world ALL the time.
 
nbcrusader said:


New Orleans was prepared for a Category 3 Hurricane. They got more than they planned for. Simple.

This monday morning quarterbacking is out of hand. No matter what we plan for, we will experience the unexpected.

I'm sure irate emails will rectify the situation. :|

OK, I'm way behind on my facts. I get most of my news from the Internet and we lost our cable until last night, which meant we also couldn't watch television news. I'm so shocked by the scenes I have seen of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast destruction in general. I feel like a character in a horror movie. New Orleans had a mandatory clearance and 80% of the people left and they are used to hurricanes. They couldn't help it that their city is below sea level, but there have been comments and accusations that they weren't vigilant enough with their levees. New Orleans is often called the Big Easy because it's a laid-back place where, it is sometimes alleged, they really don't do anything.
 
indra said:


We (as a nation) have a long history of ignoring those who tell us things which although true, we would rather not hear. This is a perfect example of that mentality. Sadly I really don't expect that to change in the long run.

I'd replace "as a nation" with "as a species."
 
reply

Lessons to be learned.....

Learn from the past, do not dwell on them.

Perhaps it will NOW become the time to examine/revise the entire nation's emergency response system because NOW becomes the future......
this country has been playing "The Gambler" for a long time...if only they would have listened to the words before..........



:|
 
Spiral_Staircase said:


I'd replace "as a nation" with "as a species."

This is a succinct version of what I wrote and deleted before. I agree.

See: Rain forests, Reefs, Bushfires, Whaling, Logging, pollution, earthquakes, waste disposal...and so on and so on.

:sigh:
 
nbcrusader said:


:confused: No one has argued that they should have planned less!?!

You will never have every contingency covered, and while this was always a possibility, to my knowledge, no one (Democrat or Republican, federal or state) has ever made protecting New Orleans from a Catagory 5 hurricane an issue.



No :reject: at all. I hope you join more discussions in the future.

Maybe not a Cat 5, but they did run a simulation last year:

http://news.com.com/Experts+New+Orleans+disaster+was+predicted/2100-1008_3-5846233.html

and thanks :)
 
indra said:


We (as a nation) have a long history of ignoring those who tell us things which although true, we would rather not hear. This is a perfect example of that mentality. Sadly I really don't expect that to change in the long run.

Unfortunately true, our leaders (and I use the term loosely) have always been reactionary. I've decided to replenish our disaster supplies because when we do have the big earthquake we are overdue for, we'll be on our own.
 
nbcrusader said:


:confused: No one has argued that they should have planned less!?!

You will never have every contingency covered, and while this was always a possibility, to my knowledge, no one (Democrat or Republican, federal or state) has ever made protecting New Orleans from a Catagory 5 hurricane an issue.

No, they sure haven't. But the City of New Orleans really needs to fix its levees. Hindsight is 20/20, they did not know that this was going to be a Cat 5 storm before it made landfall.
 

I agree....

And I think this hurricane is symptomatic about how we operate here in the USA.

Our leadership, be it in education or public safety (Insert your own area here) does not make decisions based on what the experts tell them. Politics and other factors always creep in and bingo, we do not have the best choices in place for the job.

It starts with leadership. Everything is about doing what you can, just enough, so that you can say you did something, but your hands were tied.
'
The public does not want more taxes. Money determines what gets done, and every politician is making decisions not for the people, but on how to spend the money in just the right way to keep the appearance up of doing something. It is a fucking joke and a game. I see it in education ALL the time. I saw it in the Army all the time. I saw it in the corporate world ALL the time.

Dread -- ya know, you and I disagree politically many many many times, but I would say I've agreed with 75% of what you've said this week, this post included.

That, if anything, is really telling of just how universal this frustration with our government is. Let's hope Congress gets their ass in gear on Tuesday and takes that $231 million for Alaska to build a bridge to nowhere and give it to NO to build stronger levees. Just because it won't happen doesn't mean I should give up hope that these idiots will get their heads out of their asses.
 
sharky said:


Dread -- ya know, you and I disagree politically many many many times, but I would say I've agreed with 75% of what you've said this week, this post included.

:wink:

I'll take that 75%!!!!!
 
Back
Top Bottom