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Times-Picayune Open Letter to the President
Posted: Sep 4 2005, 08:33 PM
The Associated Press described this letter as "blistering." I'd happen to agree. This letter was published in the Times-Picayune newspaper in LA on Sunday.
The link to the actual article is:
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/ind..._09.html#076771
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Dear Mr. President:
We heard you loud and clear Friday when you visited our devastated city and the Gulf Coast and said, "What is not working, we’re going to make it right."
Please forgive us if we wait to see proof of your promise before believing you. But we have good reason for our skepticism.
Bienville built New Orleans where he built it for one main reason: It’s accessible. The city between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain was easy to reach in 1718.
How much easier it is to access in 2005 now that there are interstates and bridges, airports and helipads, cruise ships, barges, buses and diesel-powered trucks.
Despite the city’s multiple points of entry, our nation’s bureaucrats spent days after last week’s hurricane wringing their hands, lamenting the fact that they could neither rescue the city’s stranded victims nor bring them food, water and medical supplies.
Meanwhile there were journalists, including some who work for The Times-Picayune, going in and out of the city via the Crescent City Connection. On Thursday morning, that crew saw a caravan of 13 Wal-Mart tractor trailers headed into town to bring food, water and supplies to a dying city.
Television reporters were doing live reports from downtown New Orleans streets. Harry Connick Jr. brought in some aid Thursday, and his efforts were the focus of a "Today" show story Friday morning.
Yet, the people trained to protect our nation, the people whose job it is to quickly bring in aid were absent. Those who should have been deploying troops were singing a sad song about how our city was impossible to reach.
We’re angry, Mr. President, and we’ll be angry long after our beloved city and surrounding parishes have been pumped dry. Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been were not. That’s to the government’s shame.
Mayor Ray Nagin did the right thing Sunday when he allowed those with no other alternative to seek shelter from the storm inside the Louisiana Superdome. We still don’t know what the death toll is, but one thing is certain: Had the Superdome not been opened, the city’s death toll would have been higher. The toll may even have been exponentially higher.
It was clear to us by late morning Monday that many people inside the Superdome would not be returning home. It should have been clear to our government, Mr. President. So why weren’t they evacuated out of the city immediately? We learned seven years ago, when Hurricane Georges threatened, that the Dome isn’t suitable as a long-term shelter. So what did state and national officials think would happen to tens of thousands of people trapped inside with no air conditioning, overflowing toilets and dwindling amounts of food, water and other essentials?
State Rep. Karen Carter was right Friday when she said the city didn’t have but two urgent needs: "Buses! And gas!" Every official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be fired, Director Michael Brown especially.
In a nationally televised interview Thursday night, he said his agency hadn’t known until that day that thousands of storm victims were stranded at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. He gave another nationally televised interview the next morning and said, "We’ve provided food to the people at the Convention Center so that they’ve gotten at least one, if not two meals, every single day."
Lies don’t get more bald-faced than that, Mr. President.
Yet, when you met with Mr. Brown Friday morning, you told him, "You’re doing a heck of a job."
That’s unbelievable.
There were thousands of people at the Convention Center because the riverfront is high ground. The fact that so many people had reached there on foot is proof that rescue vehicles could have gotten there, too.
We, who are from New Orleans, are no less American than those who live on the Great Plains or along the Atlantic Seaboard. We’re no less important than those from the Pacific Northwest or Appalachia. Our people deserved to be rescued.
No expense should have been spared. No excuses should have been voiced. Especially not one as preposterous as the claim that New Orleans couldn’t be reached.
Mr. President, we sincerely hope you fulfill your promise to make our beloved communities work right once again.
When you do, we will be the first to applaud.
The link to the actual article is:
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/ind..._09.html#076771
------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Mr. President:
We heard you loud and clear Friday when you visited our devastated city and the Gulf Coast and said, "What is not working, we’re going to make it right."
Please forgive us if we wait to see proof of your promise before believing you. But we have good reason for our skepticism.
Bienville built New Orleans where he built it for one main reason: It’s accessible. The city between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain was easy to reach in 1718.
How much easier it is to access in 2005 now that there are interstates and bridges, airports and helipads, cruise ships, barges, buses and diesel-powered trucks.
Despite the city’s multiple points of entry, our nation’s bureaucrats spent days after last week’s hurricane wringing their hands, lamenting the fact that they could neither rescue the city’s stranded victims nor bring them food, water and medical supplies.
Meanwhile there were journalists, including some who work for The Times-Picayune, going in and out of the city via the Crescent City Connection. On Thursday morning, that crew saw a caravan of 13 Wal-Mart tractor trailers headed into town to bring food, water and supplies to a dying city.
Television reporters were doing live reports from downtown New Orleans streets. Harry Connick Jr. brought in some aid Thursday, and his efforts were the focus of a "Today" show story Friday morning.
Yet, the people trained to protect our nation, the people whose job it is to quickly bring in aid were absent. Those who should have been deploying troops were singing a sad song about how our city was impossible to reach.
We’re angry, Mr. President, and we’ll be angry long after our beloved city and surrounding parishes have been pumped dry. Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been were not. That’s to the government’s shame.
Mayor Ray Nagin did the right thing Sunday when he allowed those with no other alternative to seek shelter from the storm inside the Louisiana Superdome. We still don’t know what the death toll is, but one thing is certain: Had the Superdome not been opened, the city’s death toll would have been higher. The toll may even have been exponentially higher.
It was clear to us by late morning Monday that many people inside the Superdome would not be returning home. It should have been clear to our government, Mr. President. So why weren’t they evacuated out of the city immediately? We learned seven years ago, when Hurricane Georges threatened, that the Dome isn’t suitable as a long-term shelter. So what did state and national officials think would happen to tens of thousands of people trapped inside with no air conditioning, overflowing toilets and dwindling amounts of food, water and other essentials?
State Rep. Karen Carter was right Friday when she said the city didn’t have but two urgent needs: "Buses! And gas!" Every official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be fired, Director Michael Brown especially.
In a nationally televised interview Thursday night, he said his agency hadn’t known until that day that thousands of storm victims were stranded at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. He gave another nationally televised interview the next morning and said, "We’ve provided food to the people at the Convention Center so that they’ve gotten at least one, if not two meals, every single day."
Lies don’t get more bald-faced than that, Mr. President.
Yet, when you met with Mr. Brown Friday morning, you told him, "You’re doing a heck of a job."
That’s unbelievable.
There were thousands of people at the Convention Center because the riverfront is high ground. The fact that so many people had reached there on foot is proof that rescue vehicles could have gotten there, too.
We, who are from New Orleans, are no less American than those who live on the Great Plains or along the Atlantic Seaboard. We’re no less important than those from the Pacific Northwest or Appalachia. Our people deserved to be rescued.
No expense should have been spared. No excuses should have been voiced. Especially not one as preposterous as the claim that New Orleans couldn’t be reached.
Mr. President, we sincerely hope you fulfill your promise to make our beloved communities work right once again.
When you do, we will be the first to applaud.
Posted: Sep 6 2005, 12:06 PM
And 50% of voting Americans put this guy back into office. What more will it take to not elect someone else like him in 2008??
Posted: Sep 7 2005, 12:21 AM
While the president will have to be held
account for his actions, there's plenty of
blame to go around, and it is unfair and
yes even irresponsible to put all of the blame
on the president. The majority of the blame has
to be on the New Orlean's Mayor Ray Nagin
and Lousiana's Governor Kathleen Blanco
for their negligence in preparing
for and implementing an evacution for
all the city's residents, not
simply relocating them to the Superdome.
And of course the FEMA director's pathetic
response holds him culpable too.
account for his actions, there's plenty of
blame to go around, and it is unfair and
yes even irresponsible to put all of the blame
on the president. The majority of the blame has
to be on the New Orlean's Mayor Ray Nagin
and Lousiana's Governor Kathleen Blanco
for their negligence in preparing
for and implementing an evacution for
all the city's residents, not
simply relocating them to the Superdome.
And of course the FEMA director's pathetic
response holds him culpable too.
Posted: Sep 7 2005, 07:09 AM
I think there's going to be plenty of blame to go around once all the toxic sludgewater dries up. I have to admit that I was really turned off by all the "it's Bush's fault" cries while the crisis was unfolding. I'm sick of the permanent election season and I want to move on. However, having watched two of Bush's press conferences on the day he started responding to the disaster, I can totally understand the outrage in this letter. This letter came out after those two embarassing press moments.
In the first press conference he kept saying he looked forward to meeting with the people on the ground. He obviously looked unprepared and this was four days after the disaster struck. He sounded more in touch with the dark reality of the situation in the second press conference until the inappropriate joke and the refererences to the hurricane vicitms as "people in this part of the world". That was said four times and the last time as part of a tainted blessing of "may God bless people in this part of the world and may God bless America."
Not being from the disaster area, it was a bit of a humorous moment for me to see that...sad, but kinda funny. If I had just lost everything I owned and I heard the President refer to me as a person from "this part of the world", I'd be pissed too. It is truly bizarre to see the President of the United States refer to citizens of the country that he leads as "people in this part of the world."
As for negligence over the evacuations, I'm not sure how much could really be done to prepare people for a disaster of this nature. If you read the 2002 special report from the Times-Picayune, that predicted what would happen in the case of a major hurricane, experts were already expecting 100,000 to 200,000 people who would be left in the city no matter what. Some would be die hards who'd refuse to leave, but most would be poor or elderly with no means of leaving and nowhere to go.
From what I read, Nagin actually stayed in the city in the command center that was set-up at the Hyatt, but there was no communication infrastructure and cops were forced to survive the way everyone else was forced to survive while trying to do their jobs too. His critics felt that it was a macho act of heroism for him to stay in the city instead of joining the evacuation to someplace where he might have more resources available to exert influence on.
I personally am not ready to blame anyone especially since this disaster has made me realize that I have no clue about what the role of city, state, and federal government is in situations like this. However, from the stories coming out, there appears to be something truly truly truly screwed up about FEMA. If those stories are true, then something needs to happen there soon or the blame is going to escalate to where the buck stops because we may have elected W to a second term, but we didn't elect the directors of Homeland Security and FEMA.
In the first press conference he kept saying he looked forward to meeting with the people on the ground. He obviously looked unprepared and this was four days after the disaster struck. He sounded more in touch with the dark reality of the situation in the second press conference until the inappropriate joke and the refererences to the hurricane vicitms as "people in this part of the world". That was said four times and the last time as part of a tainted blessing of "may God bless people in this part of the world and may God bless America."
Not being from the disaster area, it was a bit of a humorous moment for me to see that...sad, but kinda funny. If I had just lost everything I owned and I heard the President refer to me as a person from "this part of the world", I'd be pissed too. It is truly bizarre to see the President of the United States refer to citizens of the country that he leads as "people in this part of the world."
As for negligence over the evacuations, I'm not sure how much could really be done to prepare people for a disaster of this nature. If you read the 2002 special report from the Times-Picayune, that predicted what would happen in the case of a major hurricane, experts were already expecting 100,000 to 200,000 people who would be left in the city no matter what. Some would be die hards who'd refuse to leave, but most would be poor or elderly with no means of leaving and nowhere to go.
From what I read, Nagin actually stayed in the city in the command center that was set-up at the Hyatt, but there was no communication infrastructure and cops were forced to survive the way everyone else was forced to survive while trying to do their jobs too. His critics felt that it was a macho act of heroism for him to stay in the city instead of joining the evacuation to someplace where he might have more resources available to exert influence on.
I personally am not ready to blame anyone especially since this disaster has made me realize that I have no clue about what the role of city, state, and federal government is in situations like this. However, from the stories coming out, there appears to be something truly truly truly screwed up about FEMA. If those stories are true, then something needs to happen there soon or the blame is going to escalate to where the buck stops because we may have elected W to a second term, but we didn't elect the directors of Homeland Security and FEMA.
Posted: Sep 7 2005, 08:11 AM
Hmmm... today's Times-Picayune has an interesting follow-up to this topic:
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/ind..._09.html#077574
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/ind..._09.html#077574
Posted: Sep 8 2005, 08:00 AM
Hmmm... I just saw these letters from the LA Governor's office and one from the White House in acknowledgement of the state of emergency with request for federal help:
8/26/05: State of emergency declared by Blanco in state of LA:
http://www.gov.state.la.us/Press_Release_detail.asp?id=973
8/27/05: Request for federal assistance to help in state of emergency:
http://www.gov.state.la.us/Press_Release_detail.asp?id=976
8/27/05: White House acknowledgement:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/20...20050827-1.html
8/28/05:Bush telephones Blanco urging evacuation. Blanco thanks the president for his concern:
http://www.gov.state.la.us/Press_Release_detail.asp?id=983
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/20...20050828-1.html
8/28/05: Nagin issues mandatory evacuation:
Nagin sends fire crews through town on bullhorns to make sure everyone gets the message. Superdome shuttles are sent to pick up residents at 12 locations around the city for those with no means to evacuate.
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breakingtp/in..._08.html#074564
From the looks of these pieces of communication, everyone did what they were supposed to do including the White House, but then everything went wrong. Bush called the governors of each three disaster states to underscore the magnitude of the situation. Nagin's comments of "we’re facing the storm most of us have feared. This is very serious. This is going to be an unprecedented event," sure doesn't make it sound like he took the situation lightly.
8/26/05: State of emergency declared by Blanco in state of LA:
http://www.gov.state.la.us/Press_Release_detail.asp?id=973
8/27/05: Request for federal assistance to help in state of emergency:
http://www.gov.state.la.us/Press_Release_detail.asp?id=976
8/27/05: White House acknowledgement:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/20...20050827-1.html
8/28/05:Bush telephones Blanco urging evacuation. Blanco thanks the president for his concern:
http://www.gov.state.la.us/Press_Release_detail.asp?id=983
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/20...20050828-1.html
8/28/05: Nagin issues mandatory evacuation:
Nagin sends fire crews through town on bullhorns to make sure everyone gets the message. Superdome shuttles are sent to pick up residents at 12 locations around the city for those with no means to evacuate.
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breakingtp/in..._08.html#074564
From the looks of these pieces of communication, everyone did what they were supposed to do including the White House, but then everything went wrong. Bush called the governors of each three disaster states to underscore the magnitude of the situation. Nagin's comments of "we’re facing the storm most of us have feared. This is very serious. This is going to be an unprecedented event," sure doesn't make it sound like he took the situation lightly.
