SOMEBODY BLEW IT--BUT WHO?

Cindy Sheehan is no longer a viable product to be used against Bush. However, the left, in coordination with the MSM, have found the response by the feds to Katrina to be their next product line. Sales seem to be brisk.

You could see this attack by the left developing last week, and if you had any doubts about it, they were all but confirmed if you watched Tim Russert grill the head of HLS on Meet the Press, or if you caught 60 Minutes Sunday. All questions were framed in such a way to suggest a failure at the federal level, and I don't ever remember one question being asked regarding any shortcomings at the state and local level. It was a beautiful, hack job by both shows.

And, as expected, if there's there's to be an attact on Bush, Jackson, Rangel, and Sharpton can't be far behind. Their statements seem to be geared towards inciting a riot than anything else.

Here's the Mayor's announcement for NO to evacuate. He seems to know the worst is about to happen but does little to prepare for the immediate aftermath. I guess he thinks FEMA and the military will just magically appear on his streets. In the announcement, he states that the levees may fail and, with a two day head start, does nothing in the way of providing transportation for those with no way out of town. Which brings me to the buses.

The picture of the buses sitting idle in the flooded lot says volumes about the mayor's plan, or lack of. Here's an enlightening post about what could have been done with those buses. (point 3)

Also, in the mayor's announcement, he designated 10 places for people to go for immediate shelter. But since the locations weren't prepared in advance (part of planning), citizens were told to bring enough food for serveral days. Food should be pre-positioned in these designated shelters. (MREs and bottled water last for decades) For people to carry food during an evacuation would cause many problems, not to mention wasting time. Imagine the amount of food a family of 6 would have to carry. This brings me to security.

Whenever you have a large number of people in a small area, you must provide security. With a two day head start, the mayor should have had security installed immediately. And since he thought the worst was going to happen, he should've had the governor dispatch the national guard in addition to declaring marshal law within NO. Why declare ML in NO before the storm hits, you ask? Well, being the smart guy the mayor is, he is well aware of his population and the elements within it. Here's what the numbers show for LA and NO regarding crime:

Stats are compiled from 1960-2000. In 2000, LA was ranked 22nd in population. LA had the 4th highest crime index. The following are the national rankings of particular crimes in LA:

Violent crimes..............7th
Murder...........................1st
Forced Rapes.................21st ( no stats on Voluntary Rapes)
Robbery..........................8th
Aggravated Assault......6th
Property Crimes...........5th
Burglaries......................4th
Larceny-Theft...............7th
Vehicle Theft.................10th
For your state's rankings, click here. (scroll to bottom)

Out of 350 U.S. cities ranked by SAFEST and MOST DANGEROUS, NO ranked as the 13th most dangerous.
Ranking against cities the same size, NO ranked as the 6th most dangerous.

To see if your city is ranked as SAFE or DANGEROUS, click here.

I'm not a mayor and neither are you, but, I think a reasonable person would come to the conclusion that security would be a front-burner issue, especially in light of these crime stats. Not only should ML have been declared before the storm hit land, I think it should've been declared a long time ago in NO to clean-up the crime problem once and for all. Sounds like a dangerous place on a normal day, and it isn't much of a leap to assume the city would spin out of control without sufficient policing. Read this article to get an idea of how solid the NO police department is.

I'm sure the feds didn't do everything perfect, they never do, but many things could have and should have been done by the city and state prior to Katrina hitting.

"All politics is local."--Tip O'Neil. So is disaster preparation. Somebody blew it.

You make the call.