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quibble break. While I will agree that Nagin was, and, no doubt, still is less than competent, with his republican arrogant pride that all reins must pass through his hands, I think that assigning too much responsibility to him means putting too much emphasis on a single point in the sequence. There was money available and the plans were in place to complete additional work-deemed essential-on the levees and canals in and around N.O., but these funds were denied by the bush administration. the vast amount of damage and death was a direct result of flooding, rather than wind, as you are accustomed to.
The people were advised to evacuate by the Nagin apparatus, but, in a city wherein the majority of the inhabitants depend on common transportation, rather than private vehicles, the means simply weren't there. The people who stayed fall into three categories, primarily: 1) They had survived other storms and had rebuilt and repaired and moved on 2)They were too poor to afford to leave, abandoning what little they did have to looters, and had nowhere else to go 3)They had no idea how to avail themselves of whatever transportation might be available
I think the 60%-40% bush vs local responsibility assignation seems about right. Sure, the locals could have been better prepared; and they have accepted accountability by paying with their lives and possessions. Local government officials haven't paid up sufficiently for their roles, but the price being demanded of them--being replaced by even more incompetent republiclowns--is too much, especially as it unduly affects the rest of us non gulf coast residents. Nagin is a thoroughgoing reprobate who only became a dem in order to get elected in 2002. He does have a bit of liberal, in that he has some empathy, but his need to do everyone's thinking for them and to boss everything overwhelms his better motivations. People in Florida are used to handling the crises that develop in storms of such magnitude; it happens all the time. The people of Louisiana do not have the benefit of such prior training and should be expected to be caught flat-footed, for the most part.
The common connecting experience is FEMA and its associated organizations. They should be expected to provide the missing pieces and, because of the destruction of the federal programs by the clowns, were virtually useless and clueless in the immediacy of need. So the ruling crooks emasculated the system that had the responsibility of responding, sidetracked the repairs to flood control, and, probably the most significantly, failed to even show any concern for the human price by not jumping in and showing that they gave a damn. That lack of concern, except for the famous oil platforms, damned anything else that could be done to ameliorate the obvious disdain they held for the poor, the lame, anything at all but money.
They made what would have been a horrific tragedy and turned it into something beyond mere words.
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