I expect to be flamed for this..but here goes!!!

Okay, so we all know that New Orleans is in serious trouble. I for one am deeply saddened by the loss of life and the devestation that is happening. But here's my quandry... I realize that many people didn't evacuate (from my understanding of the news it was the lower classed citizens AND they 'the city' didn't provide bussing/transportation for them to evacuate when the order was given). My "beef" so to speak is that now those people that were unable to leave due to transportation are refusing to leave and yet they expect help? They scream that nobody is taking care of them or helping them? Uhhhh excuse me, but WE'RE TRYING but they're refusing! Am I seeing this wrong? I don't mind having a new train of thought to my befuddled mind.

No Flame here....Point of clarification: transportation WAS provided to the lower income people. No, transportation wasn't provided to get them out of state, but to get them to evacuation centers. Also various charity organizations WERE providing stipends for public transportation out of state if there was a specific plan/location in place. By the interviews given from the evacuees that were relocated here in Arizona, the majority did choose to stay and sent other family members to evacuation centers and/or out of state. They remained to "ride it out". The majority when the realization dawned on them it was more serious then they thought and they actually then believed the mandatory evacution decree - left, wading through neck high water to overpasses on the freeways. From what I have read and seen, those *****fuse to leave STILL are being told, "you stay, you provide for yourself - food, water, etc" No help from us. This morning the Gov. is now saying to remove people by force. With the exception of the hospitalized individuals, I don't believe anyone couldn't evacuate. I am saddened that the hospitals did not have the intelligence to evacuate all the patients prior to Katrina hitting. They KNEW it was a Catagory 5 and the levees were only rated to withstand a Catagory 3.

Here is an e-mail I received today regarding this topic (It's a long read). This was apparenty written by a Louisana author. I'll let you be the judge: Interesting Read......... I just can't stand it anymore. So many of you are singing the same tune - "they didn't evacuate so they deserve to die" Now who are the real animals here??? I live in South Louisiana just to the north of New Orleans. My own city was badly impacted by the storm. I speak from FIRST HAND EXPERIENCE when I say that there was not enough TIME for everyone to get out. Katrina looked by all accounts as if she were going to swerve toward the panhandle. For the last 20 hurricanes in the Gulf, we've prepared our asses off and then it turns to poor Florida. NO evacuations were called for until Saturday afternoon - and those were voluntary. Katrina was still a Category 3 at the time. Sunday morning when she suddenly jumped to a Category 5, officials tried to get the word out about mandatory evacuations but if you weren'****ching tv or listening to the radio - you WOULD NOT have known. (Even I didn't know until Sunday afternoon!) Okay, let's say you did hear about them and actually found transportation (and GASOLINE!) to Baton Rouge. Your normally one hour drive is now 10 -12 hours because everyone else is fleeing also. At some point it is safer to shelter in place than to be on the road DURING the hurricane. But let's say you made it to Baton Rouge. There are no hotel rooms. In fact, everything is booked all the way to Dallas, Texas. Where the $#@! do you think a million people are going to go???? So you are facing a good long stay in your car with no gas to run the a/c or fuel to get to another town. No bread or ice because Wal-Mart was already cleaned out by Baton Rougeans. Even if you could find food, you had to have cash because the credit card machines wouldn't work in the power outages. Your new home is now the Wal-Mart parking lot with no relief in sight. And THAT was a best case scenario!!! At worst, you live in the Projects and are barely scraping by. You don't have a car or TV and sometimes you can't pay for electricity or running water. This is common among the truly poverty stricken. You've heard a storm is coming but you have nowhere to go because all your family is in New Orleans. You never hear the mandatory evacuation order AND a bus never comes through your neighborhood anyway because they don't go through the Projects. (Yeah, the media doesn't tell you THAT, you wiseasses) So you hope for the best and shelter in place. As the water rises, you get more and more desperate. The Superdome is MILES away (are you AWARE of how BIG New Orleans is???) so walking there is impossible, especially with debris & sharp objects in the water. There were also dead bodies (new and old) floating and even SHARKS in the floodwater. I think I would have stayed in my house as well! Let's say you somehow DO get to the Superdome. The first day you feel safe until parts of the roof blow off and water starts pouring in. The second day the levee breaks and all of you are suddenly in imminent danger. There are elderly people, those with disabilities, diabetics, mothers with 3 day old babies - all getting more and more frantic. There are no doctors. The third day the water is knee high at the Superdome. The toilets won't flush and there's nowhere to use the bathroom. It's 95 degrees and there's no a/c. The heat makes the stench (of garbage, sewage, dead bodies) that much more unbearable. You see helicopters rescuing people but no one is talking to you or letting you know what's going on. No one is evacuating the Superdome. The fourth day you have run out of food and water. There is human waste everywhere. Babies are dehydrating. The sick and elderly are dying and their bodies are placed in corners. The National Guard is standing around but no one is giving directions and you don't know if anyone is coming or not. Tensions are high! There are other evacuees that are fighting. There's no protection from the criminal element. Many people have run out of their medicine. Disease is starting to break out. There are still no doctors. The Guard wants you to wait outside for a bus that never comes in the 90+ degree heat all day with no water. Given that situation, don't you think you'd be a tad upset that help wasn't forthcoming? It was a natural disaster - not someone being lazy and losing their job, or wrecking their car because they weren't paying attention, or injuring themselves at work. It is not this person's fault that the city of New Orleans did not build the levee strong enough. As for THAT: New Orleans is not a wealthy city. Most of its residents live in poverty. There just isn't a lot of money in the city coffers to reinforce the levee. That money is going toward healthcare, schools, businesses that offer jobs, etc. It only stretches so far. Saying they should have been prepared for "the big one" is like saying Los Angeles deserves to fall into the ocean after the next big earthquake and no aid should be sent because they knew they were living on a fault line. WTF? No one can foresee this type of disaster. We did the best we could under the cir****tances. The time frame for evacuation was very very short. Transportation was extremely difficult to come by. Even if you did get a ride, there was nowhere to stay once you got to safety. I'd like all of you people to get off your g*ddamn high horses and stop being so judgmental. These are MY people and we are suffering. If the U.S. can send expensive rescue crafts for Russian soldiers trapped in a sunken sub, send volunteers and tons of money for tsunami victims, finance a war in the middle east, and defend our country from aggressive nations - then it can send appropriate help when a disaster strikes within it's own borders. Regardless of whether or not someone had the means to evacuate, they are still victims. They are PEOPLE like you and me and deserve to live. God forbid this should ever happen to you and no aid comes because "you deserved to die for being stupid" ~

this is wonderful, all day today I have heard people giving their opinions! I just kept mum! NOBODY who has not seen this or experianced it can have a real opinion about it, Donna

ABSOLUTELY! Then the issue of not enough National guardsmen, whose job was intended to be to respondants to crisis situations with in the US, however most of them are in Iraq dealing with the mess there. (I won't even get started) Our people are in Iraq rebuilding when Our people are sitting in superdome next to piles of human waste and dead bodies?

AMEN! Boy did I start somethin on the main board or WHAT! HOLY COW - I never dreamed of such a response!

Thanks for starting it early enough so I can watch before it gets deleted tonight Tek

No flame here...what matters to me is that OUR government can help everyone else in an INSTANT (it seems.) ...what is taking/took so long to get to these AMERICANS??? I dont blame them at all! Joyce

at Tek - no problem!

We were all set up here near my town in kentucky to take 500 today and 1500 tomorrow. the news man has waited at the airport all day for the planes. Food is ready, beds are ready. Everything that they need. Then at the last minute they said we (Kentucky) wouldn't be getting any because the people inshelters didn't want to go that far away. We probably have about a hundred here anyway that private individuals went and loaded up on their own and a couple of church groups went to one of shelters and brought some people back. They said the same thing about Ohio. The evacuees just don't want to come that far away. I think most of them are in shock and think they will go home to NO. But No is no more. They need to realize that. I can't for the life of me understand why they would build a city in a bowl anyway and to rebuild in the same location would be the most foolish thing on earth. BTW, the only thing I see wrong inyour post is the fact that you called these people low class citizens. To be poor is not to be low class. The really low class are the looters, the ones stealing not food but big ticket items and the murderers and rapists. But I know what you are trying to say.