Since I’m being bitter right now…
WTF??? WHY are the people in New Orleans SHOOTING at the people that are trying to rescue them? Or if they are trying to rescue someone else, why shoot them? Hello? What is up with that? If you don’t want to be rescued, fine. Let them rescue the other people though.
*sigh*
5 replies on “Since I’m So Bitter…”
I don’t think it’s not that they don’t want to be rescued, they are tired of waiting to be rescued. Not that I would ever condone any of the behaviour that has been shown in New Orleans over the last few days, but I can understand how it has gotten so bad.
These people were forgotten about. They were left for dead. Those with the money and the means got the hell out of Dodge before the Hurricane hit. The poor people had no where to go and no means to leave. The city had no plan to get to the people who couldn’t get out. They were left to fend for themselves and help didn’t come soon enough.
I’d be pretty upset if I was among that group of people as well. It makes me sick to think that a lot of this could have been avoided had they had a good evacuation plan and had help arrived sooner. Hell, we drop packages of food and water to people in Iraq, why the hell wasn’t that done here?
The only glimmer of hope today was when the convoy pulled up and started handing out food and water. Too little too late in my book, but at least there is help now.
Okay, please tell me my whole comment just didn’t disapear!
Wow, that’s messed up.
If you’re tired of waiting to be rescued, why would you shoot at them when they showed up? Yesterday, they were shooting at the civilians who had come with their boats to rescue them – so the government sent the boats away because they didn’t want to put the civilians in danger. So if they hadn’t been shooting at them, well … the rescue would have come sooner.
The city did have a plan for those who didn’t get out in the hurricane – it was to go to the Superdome. They never anticipated the roof to give way like it did. (In hindsight, sure they should have thought of the chance, but still.) Also, living near the coast, I can tell you that some people just don’t want to leave. Not everyone that has the means to get out of town does. We go through this with Galveston and the southern part of Houston every time a hurricane heads our way. And if that storm surge had hit Galveston, most of the island would be nothing but a bunch of sticks.
Houston has no plan for what we would do in that situation either, as far as I know. 20 years here, I’ve never paid attention to it. Every year, we question if the plans that are in place are really enough.
I don’t think it was a matter of not having a good evacuation plan.
However, the government should have paid attention to the reports that the levees would break. And they should have had a “what will we do if the entire city floods?” plan, since they are below sea level.
No matter what – people shouldn’t be shooting at the people trying to do rescues. It isn’t their fault that help didn’t come sooner. And they are only doing more harm than good. I realize it is pure chaos and lawlessness happens in those situations. I know how scared they must be. But still… don’t shoot them.
I said the same thing about the food drop over and over today. We can drop the food into Iraq, why not drop it in there? *sigh*
I don’t think there was any shooting going on. Everything I’ve read says the FAA reported no aircraft were shot at or whatever else is being claimed during that time period. Unfortunately, I think it’s some sort of crazy rumor being used to cover the lack of coordination in the relief efforts.