FEMA CHIEF: "VICTIMS BEAR SOME RESPONSIBILITY"
Cosmo
9,768 Posts
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/09/01/katrina.fema.brown/index.htmlFEMA chief: Victims bear some responsibilityBrown pleased with effort: 'Things are going relatively well'Programming Note: CNN looks at the disaster and chaos crippling Louisiana, "NewsNight," Thursday, 10 p.m. ET.(CNN) -- The director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency said Thursday those New Orleans residents who chose not to heed warnings to evacuate before Hurricane Katrina bear some responsibility for their fates.[/b]Michael Brown also agreed with other public officials that the death toll in the city could reach into the thousands."Unfortunately, that's going to be attributable a lot to people who did not heed the advance warnings," Brown told CNN."I don't make judgments about why people chose not to leave but, you know, there was a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans," he said."And to find people still there is just heart-wrenching to me because, you know, the mayor did everything he could to get them out of there."So, we've got to figure out some way to convince people that whenever warnings go out it's for their own good," Brown said. "Now, I don't want to second guess why they did that. My job now is to get relief to them."Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin have both predicted the death toll could be in the thousands.Nagin issued a "desperate SOS" Thursday as violence disrupted efforts to rescue people still trapped in the flooded city and evacuate thousands of displaced residents living amid corpses and human waste. (Full story)Residents expressed growing frustration with the disorder evident on the streets, raising questions about the coordination and timeliness of relief efforts. (See video on the desperate conditions -- 4:36 )Sniper fire prevented Charity Hospital from evacuating its patients Thursday. The hospital has no electricity or water, food consists of a few cans of vegetables, and the patients had to be moved to upper floors because of looters. (Full story) (See video of a city sinking in chaos -- 2:54)Brown was upbeat in his assessment of the relief effort so far, ticking off a list of accomplishments: more than 30,000 National Guard troops will be in the city within three days, the hospitals are being evacuated and search and rescue missions are continuing. (See video of National Guard efforts to rein in violence -- 3:14)"Considering the dire circumstances that we have in New Orleans -- virtually a city that has been destroyed -- that things are going relatively well," Brown said.Nevertheless, he said he could "empathize with those in miserable conditions."Asked later on CNN how he could blame the victims, many of whom could not flee the storm because they had no transportation or were too frail to evacuate on their own, Brown said he was not blaming anyone."Now is not the time to be blaming," Brown said. "Now is the time to recognize that whether they chose to evacuate or chose not to evacuate, we have to help them."Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, whose father was a longtime New Orleans mayor, said there was "plenty of blame to go around," citing underinvestement by federal authorities over many years "despite pleas and warnings by officials."Earlier on CNN, Brown was asked why authorities had not prepared for just such a catastrophe -- given that the levees were designed to withstand only a Category 3 hurricane and Katrina was stronger than that."Government officials and engineers will debate that and figure that out," he replied. "Right now, I'm trying to focus on saving lives. I think we should have that debate, but at an appropriate time."Brown said Katrina was unlike other hurricanes in which the magnitude of the disaster typically subsides after the initial blow. That was not the case Monday, when the Category 4 storm blew ashore."What we had in New Orleans is a growing disaster: The hurricane hit, that was one disaster; then the levees broke, that was another disaster; then the floods came; that became a third disaster."Brown said he had to be careful about getting rescue teams to the site earlier."Otherwise, we would have faced an even higher death toll," he said.
Comments
DO YOU SEE THESE FUCKING PUNK ASS PEOPLE?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?![/b]
SERIOUSLY I WANT TO RIP MY FUCKING TEETH OUT OF MY HEAD.
Not sure what your trying to prove............but this was nice
"Federal Emergency Management Agency teams and other emergency teams were in place to move in as soon as the storm was over, FEMA Undersecretary Michael Brown said."
Storm was over Monday night folks.........
From the Washington Monthly.
Yeah, I was thinking about this myself. I think sometimes people don't take warnings seriously. It's some crazy shit. If you're ever trying to evacuate a burning building, watch & see how many folks just stand there or go back to their apartements to chill until the fire's done. That shit cracks me up - this happened to me & I was like "Bitch, get your ass up outta here!" I guess most people here won't have to evacuate many burning buildings, but, trust me, its fcuked to watch.
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It's actually a goo d analogy, the burning building.
How long would it take a rescue team and firemen to start attempting to rescue people? They don't wait til the fire's over, they start in when they arrive. This FEMA guy essentially was waiting for the fire to die down without regard to who and how many were trapped, waiting to die. You ask people AFTER the situation has been dealt with why they didn't heed warnings, not during. That's some pointless shit to worry about when the crisis is in front of you.