Screaming on all NOLA TV and radio stations that there is an excellent chance the levees would collapse and the city be flooded to a depth of three fathoms of contaminated seawater and that everybody that can get out, should get out NOW.
Federally-charted buses to evacuate people that don't have cars.
Helicopter evac of critical-care patients at hospitals.
Temporary housing that wasn't contaminated with carcinogenic vapors.
NOT hiring mercenaries to run around beating up and disarming grandmothers.
NOT having four layers of crony contractor buddies to inflate the price of inheirently governmental duties to absurd levels.
And having things like coordination with the various federal, state, and local authorities to get resources to people that are in danger until they can be rescued. Thank god for the Coast Guard; at least
they had their shit together.
On the evening of September 9, 1964, Hurricane Betsy came ashore near Grand Isle, Louisiana, as a Category 4 storm, with the National Weather Service reporting wind gusts near 160 mph. As the storm tracked inland, the city of New Orleans was hit with 110 mph winds, a storm surge around 10 feet, and heavy rain. Betsy devastated low-lying areas on the eastern side of the city and eventually led to the expansion of an already impressive levee system to protect a city that lay mostly below sea-level. After the storm passed, Louisiana Senator Russell Long, the son of the legendary Senator and Governor Huey Long, called President Johnson to get the President to tour the devastated areas. In Long’s unique style, he let the LBJ know that the Betsy had severely damaged his own home and had nearly killed his family.
LBJ arrived in New Orleans five hours after talking to Senator Long. Reporters noted that he was shocked by the suffering and in particular by thirst of survivors in one shelter. He immediately announced that the “red tape be cut,” and he took personal control of operations, which he continued—according to the Washington Post—“day and night.”
http://tapes.millercenter.virginia.edu/exhibit/lbj-and-response-hurricane-betsyLeadership. Imagine that.
I find it interesting that the same people that advocate "personal responsiblity" do not advocate for "corporate responsibility". They begrudge the costs of renting buses and building tents for American citizens that are refugees in their own country but have no problem with a multi-billion-dollar bailout of a major transnational corporation that spends nine or ten figures in annual exectutive compensation.
Incompetent management by massive corporations and executives being paid huge sums of money for their "expertise" is allowed to survive and prosper instead of rightfully being winnowed out by the corporate death of such an organization.
Lets start thinning the corporate herd before we start blaming people that happened to be born in the wrong place at the wrong time, eh?
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