re: I just watched spike lee's when the levees broke

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This one imo wasn't like that

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We can agree to disagree there.

Lee had a platform and opportunity to really point out the myriad of failures upon failures of the local and then state governments to adequately prepare and then respond to the event.

And he blamed Bush. And made Ray fricking Nagin look like Nelson Mandela. Give me a break.

Edit: Ace, just read your post. And while I agree that there were some very emotional moments and well shot scenes, I really had a hard time getting past making Nagin look like a saint. Nagin and Blanco failed spectacularly. Remember Blancos "shoot to kill" press conference? And how can we forget Nagin made himself rich during the recovery and is now rotting in jail. Guess Spike wasn't worried about that.

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I really had a hard time getting past making Nagin look like a saint.

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Like I said, one has to ignore the left wing BS. Bush had little to do with the failure. The political infighting about control was shameful, and everyone had dirty hands on that. At the end of the day, Blanco and Nagin preferred what we got over any possibility Bush would get credit.

That's the God's honest truth.

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Surely Nagin read that, yet they did literally nothing.

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To be as fair as possible, there was a mandatory evacuation order issued. It was about 24 hours too late, but it wouldn't have been heeded anyway. The folks had "hurricane fatigue."

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"put everyone in the Superdome and Convention Center and hope for the best."

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The Superdome was a shelter of last resort. The Convention Center was a self-directed act caused by 2 things: Mismanagement by a specific national guard officer (an individual that is both highly intelligent, and Machiavellian about his career to the point that many folks hate his guts, myself included) AND folks self-directing themselves based on wild rumors and media sensationalism.

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No supplies were made ready.

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Now this isn't true. We had plenty of food and water at the Superdome. No one missed a meal at the Superdome, period. That was all media bullshite.

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The the delay in the disaster declaration, the fact that she didn't request federal assistance when the situation was completely getting out of hand.

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The big failures were after battle was joined. You're correct about that. While we were still in a life or death situation, we had to stop what we were doing to give the Governor data for her "Cover My arse" report. All the political infighting was just shameful.

I've told the story before - a lieutenant colonel - who was infamously under indictment for mishandling relief resources - comes down with a tall lieutenant I had never seen before (it was obvious, he was some sort of political insider) - and says, "The lieutenant governor considers this request a high priority." - This was Tuesday or Wednesday night after the storm passed on Monday. The request was, basically, they needed an escort to get a fuel truck to Tulane hospital for their generators.

Now, my guys were going to run the operation (or not run it) based on military necessity. I don't see how Mitch Landrieu making a personal request through uniformed flunkies were going to make a bit of difference either way. I was disgusted to the point I decided, at that moment, to get out of the guard at the earliest reasonable opportunity - and it took me just over 1 year to do it.

That's the way your state operates, folks. Political favors and cronyism. It's not the way I work, which is why I wouldn't consider my national guard career all that successful.

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I was referring to the convention center.

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Fair enough, and like I said - nobody told them to go to the Convention Center. The media said, "The Superdome is actually THUNDERDOME. Oh the humanity!" - and folks were hearing that on their radios, so they redirected to the CC, where a particular national guard unit set up headquarters. They had no facility or logistics package to support what ended being several thousand people camping out there. And he didn't say shite (AFAIK - he knew he'd stepped in it, I think, and hoped it would resolve itself) for about 24 hours. So, we had to divert a lot of resources to clear the CC first - and this delayed us getting the dome cleared for the same 24 hour delay.

Man how dey had us on dat bridge
Yeah we lived how we lived
Well we did what we did
When I lost my city
Almost lost my mind
In and out of hotels
Feel like I'm doin' time
Please, Mr. Officer
Don't shoot
I ain't ate in days
We were stuck up on dat roof
Dey tryin' to make an excuse
Cus dey runnin' from da truf
We know they blew dem levees man
But we ain't got no proof

Whatever I do
Can't turn my back
I was born right
This is right here
Where I'm at
send the troops home
LaDaddy, dis ain't Iraq
Tell FEMA we don't need more tin stacks

Wherever ya't
St. Bernard to the Calliope
One time do it big for DeNero
From H town
All the way to the A
We appreciate the love
But my people can't stay
We got business away

Ace, doesn't the Guard basically serve at the discretion of the governor? So were you guys actually getting orders from the governors office? Or were you constantly getting overruled by local/other politicians? See, this is the story that should have been reported. This is the failure people need to know about to be learned from. Instead all you hear is "George Bush doesn't care about black people." Bush didn't fail NOLA, their own leaders did.

I know Jindal is reviled here, but the disaster management that occurred on his watch was very impressive, or at least seemed to be on the surface.

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If that happened to me I would pack up and move to the mountains in North Carolina.

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Do it anyway. You won't regret it.

Brevard is awesome. Pisgah National Forest right in your backyard and Transylvania County has more waterfalls than any other county in the country.

Mallard

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The entire time I got the impression that no one was really in charge. Nagin was doing his thing, Blanco was doing her thing, none of the state agencies were really running the show and I'm sure the Guard was being pulled in 1000 different directions.

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The coordination was terrible and basically it seemed like no one knew what they were doing from local/state officials to Brownie/Bush. It was a perfect storm of morons being in charge during the perfect storm.

Our only composed person seemed to be Bobby Jindal at that time and he wasn't even the governor. Of course, then he later became governor and became as incompetent as the rest...