Those were the words spoken by rescuers on CNN just now.
They are outmanned and working around the clock. They can’t save them all. If they had just gotten there a day sooner. If they just had more resources…. they were beaten down and demoralized men that had seen so much death and sorrow.
They don’t even know what day it is anymore they are working around the clock. They are seeing so many dead people who couldn’t hang on.
They are losing hope.
They are our heros.
Chertoff, Bush and Brown are liars.
They don’t have enough RESOURCES to get the job done, but goddamn are they trying their best.
How shameful for America that this is what you allow to happen to your fellow citizens. (not you personally of course, but all those fuckers who voted for Bush and by association voted for the cuts to FEMA’s budget and the war in Iraq, etc. etc.)
So yes, Chertoff, the National Guard being in Iraq does matter. It has everything to do with how quickly you can rescue people.
Every offer of help from Chicago or Canada or the Netherlands that you turned down would have put more RESOURCES in play.
Allowing the Red Cross into NOLA would have put more RESOURCES in play.
Let me say this again for the record.
EVERY extra person on the ground doing search and rescue, providing security, fixing levees, putting out fires, providing food and medicine would have helped save lives in time. At the very least it would have shown that you actually cared and tried your best to help.
You say you need to search house to house and that will take time. No one is disputing that. What we are disputing is that:
a) Having more bodies on the ground to go house to house would speed things up
b) starting the widespread searches 4 days earlier would have saved lives… and you could have started sooner with more National Guard in state
I refuse to accept your bullshit excuses and platitudes. People are still trapped and dying as the Coast Guard and NG in the CNN piece so hauntingly told us. It is almost too late now to save them all.
They haven’t had food or water in 6 days. They are living in filth. There are wild dogs roaming the streets as Nagin told us today. There are alligators and snakes in the water in some neighbourhoods as one of the rescued victims told us yesterday.
Pregnant women and children are still trapped in attics, on roofs, in filth.
Firefighters and police are committing suicide because they don’t have ENOUGH HELP to be able to rest and sleep and not go insane with the tragedy all around them.
The elderly are still drowning in nursing homes as Broussard broke our hearts with his tale today.
The levees are not being repaired as Landrieu cried to the BBC today.
THESE ARE ALL RESOURCE RELATED YOU SOB’S.
More troops. More Coast Guard. More emergency medical personnel. More engineers. More doctors and nurses. More firefighters and police. More of everything.
And it must come now or it is too late and they are dead. It can’t wait.
No more press conferences. No more lies. No more Brown and Chertoff and Bush and Rumsfeld taking credit for their swift response considering “it takes time to mobilize people”.
What a load of bullshit.
In no other first world country (especially one with the resources of the US) would it take 5 days to get food and water into the city. In no other FW country would it be 6 days later and people are still trapped and dying on mass. You KNEW the levees could break. Everyone knew it. You took money AWAY from FEMA’s programs. You knew Katrina was heading for the Gulf on Thursday of the week before. Your excuses now are pathetic.
Sorry guys. You criminally failed here. There are no more excuses. At all.
You peaked around a corner on Friday, you certainly did not “turn a corner”. Turning a corner would mean things were under control.
Why the hell did the people of NOLA pay any taxes for fucks sake if they are left to die in their hour of need?
*** WTF?? Someone just asked Rumsfeld to explain about “major combat operations are under way to retake the streets of NO?” WTF??
Rummy said “the DOD doesn’t do law enforcement” but I am worried anyway. I’ll see if I can find anything else out.
This is the only reference I’ve been able to find yet ~
In all, 3000 troops were being sent by the elite 82nd Airborne Division, to be followed by 2700 from the 1st Cavalry Division and 2000 more from 1st and 2nd Marine Expeditionary Forces.
“They (looters) have a gun, and they think it is a game they are playing.
“They are going to learn very quickly the 82nd Airborne does not like to be shot at,” Mr Brown said.
The National Guard was also expected to have 40,000 troops in Louisiana and Mississippi within the week, supplementing a police force estimated to be at a third of its strength.
But New Orleans deputy police commander W.S. Riley accused the National Guard of neglect.
“For 72 hours this police department and the fire department and a handful of citizens were alone rescuing people,” he said. “We have people who died while the National Guard sat and played cards.”
Guard commander Lt-Gen Steven Blum said this was a “low blow”; the Guard had not anticipated the police collapse.
A temporary detention centre for criminals was being built at the city’s Greyhound bus station.