I'm angry about the treatment the poor have gotten with this hurricane

[Selatius]

How come the poorest among us during this storm are the ones who had to suffer the worst? Was the message, "If you can't pay your way out, too fucking bad?" What does that say about us as a nation???

[tjdee]

1. Poor people always get the shit end of the stick.

Why should natural disasters be any different?

[Misskittycat]

14. This was a disgrace and a result of poor planning. n/t

[serryjw]

41. That's what is so ironic

They KNEW that the BIG one would happen someday. Yes, NO dodged the bullet and all will be forgotten in 3 weeks but it is a sin how the poor were treated. If NO took a direct hit, the Superdome roof would not have survived and 10,000 poor would have drowned.:cry: :grouphug:

[Cleita]

2. Yep, left behind to drown like throwaway people.

And all the self-righteous wonder why some of them looted damaged goods.

[LSparkle]

3. It'll be interesting to see if federal aid is as generous in NOLA

and other areas affected by Katrina as it has been after NUMEROUS hurricanes in (politically important, at least to the BFEE) FLORIDA. This is a MAJOR disaster and federal help should be overwhelming; if it's not, it will be criminal.

[xultar]

5. It will be interesting how NOLA distributes the aid.

[LSparkle]

16. I'd hope that the city realizes how the poor have been impacted

by this, and will apportion aid accordingly. Don't know about New Orleans politics, though -- everything's subject to corruption.

[Cleita]

7. I'm sure all the major Republican contributing corporations

will be well reimbursed for their damage. I don't know about anyone else.

[xultar]

27. You got that right!

[dbonds]

4. Capitalism at its finest.

:sarcasm:

[proud patriot]

6. shameful disgrace

:cry:

[kbm8795]

8. I agree

It seems to me that buses could have been lined up to evacuate those who wanted to leave and couldn't afford to go.

[tinfoilinfor2005]

21. I worked in a nursing home during Andrew

We were told that there were county vans reserved for us to evacuate our patients to a facility on the mainland before the storm hit. An hour before we were ready to leave, the administrator told us that he had called for the vans and found out that government employees had taken them for private use.
We ended up stranded in the Keys with 130 bedridden patients and 13 employees. We took care of our patients for four days and nights, nursing, cooking and cleaning day and night until we finally got relieved, because most of our staff lived in Homestead and had lost their homes.
Fortunately we weren't directly hit. But if we had, that little nursing home wouldn't have survived.
A big stink was made for about a week and we got some weak apologies. Nothing more.

[CountAllVotes]

28. seems like this is the constant case

When it comes to assisting the elderly, sick or disabled, they always seem to get promised the world and get nothing.

This is not right on any level for them or for people (thank God) like yourself. You deserve a great deal of credit, if not a medal of honor for what you have done.

I for one would like to thank you for being how you are, a real person that obviously does care and did not just walk (or drive) away like those buses did when they were so desperately needed.

I thank god for people like you. Thank you again! Thank you! :hug:

[tinfoilinfor2005]

34. Have since retired from nursing but thought several times today

about people in nursing homes and facilities in the hurricane area that were encountering the same problems we did.

Thanks for your nice thank you. The upside side of that story was that when the community found out that we were stranded without replacement help, people starting coming and volunteering and soon the volunteers literally took over all but the most technical nursing jobs. It was a proud moment in our little neighborhood.

[tx_dem41]

23. Okay....you've just evacuated about 10,000 people.....now what...

do you do with the other 90,000 people?

[HysteryDiagnosis]

9. How much did Hallibacon, KBR and Bechtel rake in in Iraq??? How

much did they overcharge for various services?? And we point our fingers at Chavez and others for being CORRUPT??? All the while the poor and middle class who pay the frigging taxes in this country get screwed more or less. Pity.

[Lars39]

10. The people who say evacuation wasn't possible

or that this was the best we can do as a nation have had their expectations of what government can be,
lowered by decades of benign neglect, outright maliciousness and now criminal acts by this administration.
We can take better care of our citizens, we just choose not to do so. :(

[tx_dem41]

19. No.....we just understand logisitcs.....and what it takes to implement...

a program on a grand scale. No one has yet to come up with a plan that would have evacuated but a fraction of those that stayed.

[Lars39]

22. Good intentions don't cut it. The funding for planning was gutted.

[demo dutch]

35. Including the study recommended by the Corp of Eng. GW cut it from

the budget. Basically a study on the impact in the event of a CAT 5 and recommended improvements to the area.

[tx_dem41]

47. You need to read more carefully....the funding for planning....

is being cut in FY2006, which starts on October 1st.

[Pithlet]

11. The poor always get shafted

in just about every way.

[johnnie]

12. They had two days notice

And they basically had one day for evacuation. I think all of the cities did a pretty good job at helping everyone. The city of New Orleans opened the dome to help those who couldn't get out for one reason or another. They provided food and medical treatment to thousands of people in one day's time.
Sometimes people on DU surprise me with the constant negative outlook on EVERYTHING. I personally think that what was done was quick, decisive and saved thousands of lives.

[tx_dem41]

20. Yeah....but how many of those people died in the Superdome???

Uh-huh!....oh...errrr....nevermind.

[demo dutch]

32. Agreed! unfortunately they did the best they could under the circumstances

it takes 3 to 4 days to evacuated So. Fl and many just don't want to or wait until the last moment. I would be more dismayed at the element of the population that decided to loot their fellow citizens! People are just incredible!

[enid602]

13. disaster

I don't know if anyone but the City of New Orleans is to blame for the plan to put everyone in the Superdome, if that's what you're referring to. I wouldn't think they made these arrangements to shirk their responsibilities to their poorer citizens. But when that hurricane looked as though it would bear down directly on downtown New Orleans as a category 5, I couldn't help but think of the potential disaster. I just hope NO's city government decides to get everybody out next time, and commandeer municipal, school and Greyhound buses to transport those without cars.

[madeline_con]

18. "... decides to get everybody out ..."

The city "decided" to give a mandatory evacuation order.

It is not the city's fault if people own no transportation, dawdle, or have no place to go.

The Superdome was open for them. They went there, or they stayed home and took their chances. That's life.

[Cleita]

26. It isn't the city's job to do this by itself. The state and the

federal government should have pitched in to help. There is no reason a city of one and a half million people couldn't have completely been evacuated if all the governments involved would have pooled their resources. Imagine if you had to evacuate a city like Los Angeles with six million plus people. Now that might have been harder.

[madeline_con]

38. But you can't MAKE people leave, or...

be at the bus stop on time, etc.

Human nature, slowpokes and other factors cause people to be stranded.

Jim Cantorre talked about people who were driving around buying snacks who should have been gone hours before.

I have to make my own plans when we have a storm bearing down. I found out the hard way that waiting for in-laws causes huge delays in escaping.

[Cleita]

42. Some people want to be difficult. Leave them be.

But most of those poor people had no choice except to try to get to the dome. As far as waiting for relatives, wouldn't it have been better to be evacuated by an orderly pre-arranged system?

[madeline_con]

50. There's still no way to ...

"get them to the church on time", so to speak.

Some will never leave their homes, no matter what the warnings say.

[enid602]

46. NOLA

And the City, in its ultimate wisdom, grounded all municipal, school and Greyhound buses on Sunday. Seems to me they could have used them to get people out.

[stepnw1f]

15. No Shit?!

Only one question.... where did you hear or see that?

[CountAllVotes]

17. not just the poor ...

Don't forget that many are elderly and disabled people amidst these people deemed to be "poor". This only makes the entire situation that much more loathsome and despicable.

It was a chance to perhaps off the lot of them and I cannot help but think at times. Very sickening.

It saddens me greatly and angers me too. Know you are not alone. I think that "dome" still sucks big time and it still gives me the creeps of what could have happened if Katrina had landed in New Orleans at the Category 5 level. :( :grr:

What happened to all of these compassionate Christians exactly? Where are they now? What are they doing NOW? Do they even give a shit?

:kick:

[Catherine Vincent]

24. That's just the way things are when you're poor.

That's why everyone strives to be rich or well off at least.

[Joy Anne]

25. what the networks are emphasizing

The news anchors keep indignantly commenting that people are not obeying the curfew!

[durablend]

29. Money talks...

Poverty walks

[jobycom]

30. Where have you seen this? Show me.

[demo dutch]

37. They're not obeying the curfew and are looting. It's always the same damn

thing!

[demo dutch]

31. Yeah well, if you wait for the government to take care of you, you're

shit out of luck! That's just the American way.

[msongs]

33. why did your god send this hurricane to affect the poor? nt

[wli]

36. LIHOP ethnic cleansing n/t

[Nikki Stone 1]

40. I don't think so. It's just America's overall contempt for the poor

Goes back to the Puritancal ideas of pre-destination (if you are poor, it's God's will, predetermined before you are born) and a radical interpretation of the work ethic (if you are poor it is your own damned fault.) It creates a society in which people can look down at the poor with great self-righteousness and ignore their suffering.

[etherealtruth]

49. "self-righteousness"

IMO, you've captured the attitude precisely ...

[Nikki Stone 1]

39. YES! There should be evacuation plans for people without cars

How embarrassing to have American's obvious disparity between rich and poor shown to the world on live video on CNN.

[darkstar]

43. "The soft bigotry of low epxectations"

writ large.

[Cobalt Violet]

44. It's that way with health care, housing, education and other things.

"If you can't pay your way out, too fucking bad?"

It is truely sick.

[applegrove]

45. What's worse - they are hiding the numbers of poor with new census

stats. Lying about their numbers. Making them "disappear" into thin air.

[Walt Starr]

48. The poor don't vote in large enough numbers

and those who aren't poor don't make the priorities of the poor their highest priority, plus those who care about the poor's numbers aren't large enough to formulate a huge voting block.

The only way to change the lot of the poor will be for 100% of the eligible poor to vote.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

51. Someone on another thread noted that when NO shut down its

public bus system, the buses could have been used to evacuate people from poor neighborhoods.

I wonder how much of the lack of action was due to the authorities feeling that other municipalities wouldn't want to take a lot of non-paying guests.