THE HARD COLD FACTS

I am just wondering who are the people responsible for taking care and protecting our communities.
The local city Mayors, state Governors and Federal Government including agencies like FEMA are the obvious care takers of our people.

On at least Friday August 25, 2005 every breathing soul on the southeast of this United States knew that hurricane Katrina was on the way towards Louisianna, Missippi and Alabama. I would thin that each Mayor and Governow would be making arrangements to prepare for the hurricane coming to land and then for the aftermath. Anybody with any common sense would expect the Mayor to be getting his local citizens out of the area in view of the fact that a Category 5 was expected coupled with the fact that there is a levee that was built to handle only a Category 3 at best. Mayor Nagin should have made mandatory evacuation mean just that instead of giving them a choice although he knew about the direction of the hurricane, and for those that might not hear on the news, vehicles should be sent out with loud speakers informing citizens of the severity and consequences. Instead of leaving the city and county hundreds of transportation and school busses to be totally flooded out
because they are left in parking facilities, these busses could have evacuated the area and at the same time save the busses for use in the city post Katrina. Nevertheless, that takes someone that can think and not someone that will rant and rave and have a temper tantrum like a kittle kid, then blame everyone else but himself. How could he expect the citizens to take him seriously since thisis the true temperament of this mayor?. I know that he power is limited to his city, but the next level would be to get assistance from the governor by presenting his requests based on plans and preparations. The problem is that he doesn’t seem have had a plan, but instead, all he wanted is for everyone to come and help him by doing his job for him.
My advice to the Mayor is to take his own advice he was offering to the federal government, “Get off your ass and do something”. If he did just that prior to the hurricane, his people would have been in a totally different situation today. The real problem here is that the citizens of New Orleans were held hostage to their own disobedience and to the
My advice to the voters of New Orleans……remember this incident when voting for the next Mayor.

Then you have Governor Blanco, who should be in control of the State National Guards.
Her own National Guards were not in place in the aftermath of Katrina, yet still, they are all expecting to have the National Guards from other states and the Military in place. If you cannot mobilize your own forces, I wouldn’t expect you to be able to have the necessary skills and abilities to put together any system to mobilize Federal forces and agencies.
This Governor is at best inept in her ability to manage a state and at worst, just did not care enough for poor people so as to take the necessary steps to take care of them. I will not form an opinion on that matetr but I can say they her gross incompetence owerwhelms her.
I am not sure what party this Governow belongs to but based on the fact that the Democratic Mayor, Jesse Jackson, and all the news folks are not blaming her for the lack of preparation and leadership prior to Katherine’s arrival and obvious absence in the aftermath of Katrina, I have to believe that she is a Democrat.
In other recent disasters Mayor Juliani of New York and Governor Jeb Bush of Florida, have been front and center every step of the way leading the way in preparation of hurricanes as was the case of Jeb Bush, and leading the way in the recovery process as was the case with both Juliani and Bush, after the New York attack and Florida Hurricanes.

The Luisiana Governor Blanco has been in what seems to be hiding until she now begs to get the old FEMA director to help her. Does she want someone to spoon feed her, does she want this old FEMA director to hold her had and lead her? If she was not ready to do her job she should not have sought the job and the voters should not have elected her but of course it seems that voters allow race, hype and big talk to blind their eyes during campaigning for elections instead or looking impartially at the the candidate’s integrity and abilities.
As a point of interest, I notice that the Governors of Missippi and Alabama got thier local agencies going and already had assistance from the federal agencies running without much of the problems that Louisiana is experiencing.

In summary, it would seem that the Mayor should have prepared his citizens and got them out of the state and in the process would have saved many thousands of dollars becuase he would have also saved the school and transportation busses instead of leaving them to be submerged in water. He should have demanded and acted on removing the citizens but instead, he was totally overwhelmed
You cannot give a little boy in long pants a big man’s job.

The Governor lacks leadership and control of her state and has been indecisive in her administration of the state. On Friday Sept 2, 2005 President Bush asked Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin to sign documents turning over the control of all forces including security, evacuation and recovery to the Federal Government. To the Mayor’s credit he surely went with it immediately, but then, the Governor had to think about it for 24 hours and still did not sigh the documents. She has obviously been unable to make important decisions on the spot if any at all which suggests that she has been using other people to run the state while she is only serving as a figure-head. A governor should govern, obviously Governor Blanco lacks this most basic requirement for being a Governor.
I wonder who voted for her.

From all indications, the Federal Government came according to the rules of play and if they came in and took over the whole show earlier and then Katrina did not come or even if Katrina did come, there would be a great outcry about the Federal Government overreaching into the state’s affairs…..damned if they do, damned if they dont, so I would just look at what has happened since these Federal agencies have done since they have been activated. They seem to be doing a decent job now, although it did not start out quite as well.
Remember also, FEMA and other agencies do not ahev any means of transport, they are a management agency therefore Governor Blacnco’s National Guards should have been ready to take the disaster agencies to where they need to go, which they were not.

Just a suggestion…….when we have the next opportunity to vote, make sure not to vote for someone that is black or white, or someone that is popular, or someone that has the gift of gab. Instead, vote for someone with integrity, ability to manage and direct organizations, someone that understands and has experience in communicating with other organizations (and not just a communicator to the voters). Let the person we vote for have proven track records in these areas because many times, we would not employ the people that are voted into power to any major position of authority in any public business.

And for those who continually draw the “Race Card”, there were some white folks in New Orleans, do you think the “racist government” would sacrifice all their beloved white folks in order to get back at the black ones?
Do you think that the government would be putting what seems to be most of their efforts into the black areas instead of concentrating onthe white folks in the other areas of the state and Missippi and Alabama?
I know there are some who do not like the fact that the attention is put on the black folks, but are the people with the authority following that line?

Think……for a change instead of getting emotional.