But I think about these things, because what ELSE am I going to do while sitting in traffic?
Anyway, you know, it's all over the radio how the police chief of Louisiana resigned in the wake of the Katrina disaster, and how the governor of Louisiana is also coming under heat for how the whole thing was handled...
These people were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, I think. I don't believe ANYONE could have handled it any better -- other than possibly never building a major city in such a huge floodplain in the first place. If a disaster like this had waited, say, 20 more years to hit, it would have just been some other people in those same positions. And if these same people had proactively spent billions on having evacuation transportation at-the-ready, then when NO disaster hit, it would look like a huge waste. Look what happened in Texas -- they say too many people evacuated. Give me a break!
So I feel like it's scapegoating to blame these leaders. But maybe that's just the risk you run, when you take a job with such massive responsiblity. It's too big of a job for one person, and if things go right, they're heroes -- and if they go horribly wrong, well, they take the blame.
Whatever. Feel free to tell me if I'm wrong -- I think it's interesting. :)
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From experience of a Category 3 hurricane, ALL of those people were dumb not to try and leave.
The mayors and the governors have a responsibility to help low income and elderly get to a safe place, when otherwise they might not be able to escape the wrath of the storm. It would have taken supplies and money, but they wouldn't look like such idiots now. It was a matter of using their city and school buses to help people leave ahead of time.
We left last year when Francis was predicted to be a Cat. 5. It only hit us as a Cat. 2, but if it HAD retained it's strength, our area would have been devastated.
Yes, being proactive and evacuating when not always necessary is a pain in the butt, but what is the price then, of a human life? Like I said, we know first hand what it is like to be in something half that bad...we wouldn't stay for another one.
Our school now has many students from MS and LA that now have no homes, no schools, sometimes no family. We have seen too much how much pain those people are in. There is NEVER "too many evacuees". Better safe than sorry.
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