must-read editorial from Times-Picayune of New Orleans

"NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- The Times-Picayune of New Orleans printed this editorial in its Sunday edition, criticizing the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina and calling on every FEMA official to be fired:

An open letter to the President
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."


http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/04/tim...ial/index.html

Good piece. I'm equally impressed and disappointed in the relief effort... impressed at the herculean effort made by the Red Cross, churches and just regular folks volunteering.. and disappointed in the monumental ineptness of government to respond. It's like they sat around with their thumbs up their collective asses while everyone else got started pitching in. Bush seems out of touch to the extreme.

so do michael brown (director of FEMA) and homeland security secretary michael chertoff. i read articles quoting them which were unbelievable - the lack of compassion for their fellow human beings truly shocked me, but their lack of awareness of what was going on as late as last friday morning was a jaw dropper.

perhaps people should be in charge who at least read a newspaper or cnn.com because those two guys didn't even have that much knowledge of what was happening in new orleans :(

wasn't it the white house's idea to put homeland security in charge of FEMA?

Yep! They put FEMA under Fatherland Security because they were so obsessed with terrorism they forgot about natural disasters. A fatal mistake, which hundreds or thousands paid for with their lives and property. On top of that, the Bush administration had cut the Corps of Engineers budget for levee work for several consecutive years. Why? So they could rebuild bridges and things in Iraq that they blew up. The news today says that US jets just destroyed 2 more bridges to try to keep insurgents from moving into certain areas. Civil War approaching...

I would suggest that the post 911 response to shore up US homeland security harmed much more then it helped. That will surely come clear over the next many months. So will the answer be more or less expansion of federal government power?

New Orleans may be able to stage events such as Mardi Gras and Jazzfest, and provide parking, crowd control and adequate toilets for millions of visitors, but its hurricane plan was more rudimentary:

"Get people to higher ground and have the feds and the state airlift supplies to them - that was the plan, man." Mayor Ray Nagin said in an interview yesterday.

Steve

Bottom line. All the white people got out which left only mostly poor black people. As you can clearly see from this the goverment does not care about those people and as far as I am concerned wanted them to all die!

I am so sickened by this goverment. They have a plan you watch. They will try to take that city over as federal property.

I love the city of New Orleans. The people are so real. There is no bullshit there.

We have to fight for these people and the city.

And GW appointed himself to investigate himself.

The term "Village Idiot" is too complimentary for him!