Incompetence
Update, September 6, 7:43pm: I’m putting this disclaimer up about the Merritt Island reporter item because I can’t find a source for it other than that commenter on LGF. I don’t know how much of it is true. If anyone comes across anything corroborating this statement please let me know. Thanks.
Okay, just one more and then I really need to get up from this computer and do something else before my eyes shoot out of my head like two flaming golfballs. From this open Katrina thread on LGF, this comment, a report from, I guess, a Merritt Island, Florida news site or blog (no link is provided). Read the whole thing — samples:
On Friday night before the storm hit Max Mayfield of the National Hurricane Center took the unprecedented action of calling Nagin and Blanco personally to plead with them to begin MANDATORY evacuation of New Orleans and they said they’d take it under consideration. This was after the NOAA buoy 240 miles south had recorded 68′ waves before it was destroyed.
Bolds mine. Good God, 68 foot waves. More:
Just before midnight Friday evening the President called Governor Blanco and pleaded with her to sign the request papers so the federal government and the military could legally begin mobilization and call up.
He was told that they didn’t think it necessary for the federal government to be involved yet. After the President’s final call to the governor she held meetings with her staff to discuss the political ramifications of bringing federal forces. It was decided that if they allowed federal assistance it would make it look as if they had failed so it was agreed upon that the feds would not be invited in.
(Bolds mine again.) Frankly I find that unbelievable. A monster storm is heading to your state’s below-sea-level city and you sit around worrying about “political ramifications”??
And this comment right under it brings up something I wondered about too. On the complaint about help not getting to the area fast enough:
Huh. I’ve been asking people over and over if they think the hurricane is *poof* gone after it hits on, say, Monday. Apparently they do! (Really, does NOBODY watch the weather channel?)
I understand that the inexperienced and cut-off people trapped in New Orleans wouldn’t have any idea that what weather conditions were like outside of their area, but what is the excuse of people who had full access to weather reports? No wonder my head hurts.
September 5th, 2005 at 5:59 pm
All the accounts I can find state that Mayfield made his call on Saturday.
September 5th, 2005 at 6:48 pm
I’m finding the same thing, but it’s possible he made the call on Friday and had to call again because of lack of response.
September 5th, 2005 at 7:43 pm
Really nice find. Do you know if any of that stuff can be sourced to anything?
September 5th, 2005 at 9:05 pm
Placing the Blame
I am so sick of all the complaining regarding “who is responsible for Katrina’s destruction”. Why is it that the…
September 5th, 2005 at 10:00 pm
Tony: unfortunately no, the commenter didn’t leave his source. Perhaps it was the local Merritt Island newspaper. I’ll see if I can find it.
September 6th, 2005 at 10:46 am
I think most people were very happy to get one with helping the victims until that idiot mayor and the nitwit governor started blasting Bush unfairly. What especially annoyed me was people from both sides of a face screaming about lack of federal support who were so naive about how the federal system in the US works it was if they never took a governance class in their life. That is what I got angry and started countering the moronic statements coming from some.
September 6th, 2005 at 12:38 pm
The question is, how reliable is this comment? I can’t seem to find any reference to its assertions in Google news or anything else. Obviously if it’s true it’s devastating, but, is it?
(No, I’m not asking you to validate it Andrea, I’m just saying… how reliable is an unsourced comment?)
September 7th, 2005 at 4:04 pm
You know, in the past whenever I watched Jaws I always rolled my eyes at the idiot mayor who puts the lid on the news of a great white shark in the area, in order not to hurt tourism.
“What kind of human being would do that, really?” I asked every damned time. “Speilberg knows whish direction to point a camera but he doesn’t know anything about how people act in a crisis. Nobody would risk lives just to maintain an image.”
Ha ha. Stupid me. I hereby officially apologize to Mr. Spielberg.