So, Who are the people that ignore BIG warnings? (page 4)

sonnyboy

Some people probably think that they can save their property and their prescious belongings if they stick around.

hillbilly

Hillbilly...you better stop talking sense like that...you're gonna both our asses chewed

Thanks U/D...I have my flame retardent garments donned and await the liberal flames.

I have been in tornados, hurricanes and blizzards...lived on praries and within sight of the ocean during my life and have never understood why anyone would live on the Gulf Coast of this country.

That part of the country is a magnet for retire folks and the young folks who service a retired-rich economy.

Most of the damage done this week would not have been done 20 years ago. That part of the world is a rough place to live.... think of the lifes and property spared if the Fishermen and old timers of the Gulf were the majority today. They had sense enough to get the boats out to sea and send the kids "up north" during hurricane season.

New Orleans has been a disaster in the making for years...the river alone is a seasonal threat. Folks who live up-river on the Mississippi have enough sense to live well out of the bottoms...much less live in a bowl built of levees.

~Hill

rebel8

There is a very interesting link to National Geographic on another thread in this forum. It shows an article written (I believe) last yr stating that a major hurricane in New Orleans would result in the largest natural disaster ever in the US. It describes pretty closely what ended up happening IRL. There were other predictions as well.

Why didn't the local govt. prepare for the inevitable hurricane better? Why didn't they apply for federal aid to get prepared (it is said they didn't)?

Now the WTS would be saying the people should have heeded these warnings at that time. They have a small point, but what they're saying is mostly invalid IMO. Poor people who can't afford to move to a safer area have lots on their mind, like where their next meal is going to come from. They are probably not sitting around reading National Geographic and making plans to move. The non-poor people that live there have valid reasons for staying as well: they trust the government to take care of these things. That trust may be misplaced, but yet it is what most people believe.

rebel8

None of these folks just lit out walking...willing to get to high ground, live in the woods, build a fire or whatever other simple measures it takes to really survive a disaster.
Did the state of LA offer any busses out before the storm hit? Did the state offer any thing other than a stupid plan of using a domed stadium as a potential mass coffin for the inner -city poor?

Hill--You do have some good points, really, but in all honesty we don't know if people did try to walk out or not. I imagine we'll be hearing stories for years to come, book deals, movies, etc.

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/050831/31katrinaprep.htm

A few years ago, the American Red Cross ranked a direct hurricane hit on New Orleans, most of which is below sea level, as the country's deadliest natural disaster threat, with up to 100,000 dead.
So why wasn't more done to prepare for the worst? City officials blame the feds, who have provided little funding to restore the 300,000 acres of wetlands that once acted as a hurricane buffer for the Crescent City and no funds to raise the city's levees to provide protection from a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. New Orleans's levees were designed to protect from a Category 3 storm, but they've been sinking for decades, and local experts say they are not up to even that task.
Along with coastal development, the main cause of the wetlands' disappearance is the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' leveeing of the Mississippi River, which has prevented the waterway from depositing silt to replenish the marshlands around New Orleans. So local officials say wetlands restoration is the federal government's responsibility.
"I think Congress and the federal government don't fully understand the risk to this jewel of New Orleans," New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin told U.S. News earlier this summer. "They spend billions on the Everglades and on the Big Dig in Boston . . . yet our coastal erosion issues are real, but we haven't had the corresponding investment."…
The Corps of Engineers, meanwhile, facing shrinking budgets in recent years, says even a feasibility study to raise New Orleans's levees for protection against a Category 4 or 5 storm is still years away.
With no immediate plans for marshlands restoration or levee raising, New Orleans officials say they've focused their hurricane preparation efforts on evacuating as many citizens as possible. After residents fleeing last fall's Hurricane Ivan got stuck for up to 10 hours on the 90-mile car trip to Baton Rouge, the state police instituted a "contra flow" for Katrina that reversed inbound lanes on highways that feed the city, greatly expediting the evacuation.
But because New Orleans is home to a large poor population–more than 20 percent of its 480,000 residents are living below the poverty line, according to a 2003 U.S. Census report–1 in 6 households reports having no car. And though there were free buses to the city's famed Superdome, which was itself surrounded by 3 feet of water this morning, there was no attempt to provide public transportation out of town for the poor…

hillbilly

Hill--You do have some good points, really, but in all honesty we don't know if people did try to walk out or not. ; I imagine we'll be hearing stories for years to come, book deals, movies, etc.

Walking... what a concept. The point was in rebuttal to the "oh, those poor people who couldnt get a ride" attitudes I keep hearing in the media.

A healthy human, with a moderate load and water, can cover 30 to 40 miles a DAY on foot. Even with kids in tow and using a wagon or shopping cart ( or whatever expedient is available) its reasonable that a family could cover 20 miles a day ..walking.

On 3 days notice thats 60 miles. And remember all services like resturants and stores you would find along the way are still working until the storm hits. Again...where was the State of Louisianna during the prelude? Not doing much.

Again I will point out that the element of FLOODING was a known issue in the New Orleans area. Florida hurricanes represent wind damage... you are back in business (albeit in a roofless house or tent) in a few days. Trucks and supplies and law enforcement can get around pretty well. Floods add a whole new dimension to the storms aftermath.

Can get ou?t.....to dumb or poor to leave? Maybe?... Stupid is stupid..and as long as stupid people live they will die in situations like this.

~Hill

hillbilly

So why wasn't more done to prepare for the worst? City officials blame the feds, who have provided little funding to restore the 300,000 acres of wetlands that once acted as a hurricane buffer for the Crescent City and no funds to raise the city's levees to provide protection from a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. New Orleans's levees were designed to protect from a Category 3 storm, but they've been sinking for decades, and local experts say they are not up to even that task.

I bet most everyone in New Orleans can read... I chose NOT to move to that area years ago because this information has been public knowlege for years.

But because New Orleans is home to a large poor population–more than 20 percent of its 480,000 residents are living below the poverty line, according to a 2003 U.S. Census report–1 in 6 households reports having no car. And though there were free buses to the city's famed Superdome, which was itself surrounded by 3 feet of water this morning, there was no attempt to provide public transportation out of town for the poor…

Did you know that not so many years ago lots of Southerners who were in the same boat migrated to the industrial North to get a J*O*B and buy a car. The 'Poor" in New Orleans (or most of The USA) are not Poor at all. Welfare whores is more like it. Black and White women with no husbands and 5 kids who dont look like one another are a bot on the system. Maybe Louisianna should get off the Federal welfare tit and invest in some meaningfull welfare reform, and solicite some real work outside the beads and boobs industry it's famous for?

~Hill

Mary

Some people are just plain stupid u/d and like others have said, they don't think anything's going to really happen to them. Like the people who were in the ocean front condo when the hurricane struck and they all washed away. Which part of: There's-a-Category-4-5-hurricane-coming-directly-at-us-and-this-city-is-below-sea-level-to-begin-with don't they understand?

hillbilly

And by the way...thousands of working middle class folks like you and I will bear the cost of this... we will all pay our income taxes... and many of us will give out of our bounty to the Red Cross, United Way and Salvation Army to aid all those people who have been left without.

If I sound a little hard in my opinions I suppose it's cause I have the right too. When things are down I put my money and time were my big mouth is.

~Hill

hillbilly

Rebel..all those poor folks without cars dont vote either. Maybe that's why they didnt get the Federal Projects and Mass and Florida do?

~Hill

tijkmo

some people stayed behind to look after their pets...

and someone is now shooting at the rescuers..

just saying...

So, Who are the people that ignore BIG warnings?

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