The Goat Pen

Google execs right, after the election, vowing to “use the great strength and resources and reach we have to continue to advance really important values.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/12/leaked- ... ction.html

Yesterday I almost joked that the MSM would try to blame Hurricane Florence on Trump. Then the NYT Editorial Board publishes this:

“Another Hurricane is about to batter our coast. Trump is Complicit”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washin ... story.html

You just can’t make this stuff up. The MSM has collectively lost their TDS-ravaged mind.

Shocking, sardis. Immigrants and refugees apprehensive about a Trump presidency.

People died in order to make Donnie look bad. That's some serious TDS right there.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... f3247a3c1a

Hurricane Florence just went from a cat 4 to a cat 2. I wonder if the NYT will give Trump credit for that.

Also, speaking of Puerto Rico, FEMA delivered 20,000 pallets of bottled water to the island, as well as tons of blue tarps for shelter. The Puerto Rican government was supposed to distribute it to their own people, but never did. It’s still sitting there. From the Trumptard CNN:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.co ... index.html

Sorta like all those school buses in New Orleans that were supposed to be used to evacuate the city before Katrina hit, according to the city’s disaster plan. But instead those buses just sat there, never used. That was Trump’s fault too.

The use of school busses was not a part of the city of New Orleans disaster plan pre-Katrina. Pre-Katrina, city and Army Engineers did not feel the levees and drain pumps would fail. The plan was to evacuate or report to the Superdome or convention center if you could not leave. During the storm some talked about using the busses, but there were many issues. Among those issues:

-Getting a sufficient number of trained drivers to the busses and the people to the bus pick up with flooded streets.

-Fuel for the busses.

-Food, medicine, water, a place to toilet on the trip (businesses were closed and the interstates were gridlocked).

-Money for the driver to buy fuel on the way and a place to buy it.

-Food and shelter in some unnamed city.

-Sufficent resources to return.

Further, there were an estimated 71,000 people who did not or could not leave the New Orleans area. Of those 71,000, 20,000 were in the Superdome and the convention center. Forget the 71,000. Just getting half of the ones in the Superdome shelter would take 135 busses, finding 135 drivers and getting them to the busses, 15,000 gallons of fuel, money and all the things listed above. Even though the above would still leave more than 60,000 people stranded.

They shoulda drove those buses to Puerto Rico.

Exactly. Or gotten Duck Boats from Missouri!

The use of school busses was not a part of the city of New Orleans disaster plan pre-Katrina.

Correct inasmuch as the NOLA disaster plan did not call for school buses. Rather, the disaster plan called for using regular city buses out of the city. Other than that rather minor distinction in the type of buses to be used, the rest of what you said is Incorrect. Buses were always part of the disaster plan pre-Katrina, but the locals changed the plan at the last minute, and few of the buses were ever used as planned, and most wound up underwater.

From the notoriously pro-Republican NPR:

How New Orleans' Evacuation Plan Fell Apart

New Orleans city officials had an emergency evacuation plan. For those with cars, head north. All freeway traffic would be one-way out of town. For those who couldn't get out on their own, Councilwoman Cynthia Hedge-Morrell says city buses would pick them up.

The plan says the buses would drive two hours north of the city, past a highway called I-12. But a day before the hurricane struck, the city veered from that plan. The roads were clogged with traffic from the million people evacuating on their own. So down at the city's Office of Emergency Preparedness, Councilwoman Hedge-Morrell says officials made a decision: Better avoid the traffic and send the people on the buses somewhere closer to wait out the storm.

What we figured at that point--the city made a decision--the Office of Emergency Preparedness made a decision that rather than try to get stuck in that traffic evacuating these people, they brought them to the Superdome. But the intention was that as soon as Katrina passed, they were going to bus them to shelters past I-12.

That decision quickly became a critical mistake and turned the Superdome, the city's shelter of last resort, into a refuge for everyone. Then after the storm, when the levees broke, thousands more came. And the city buses, meant to take them to proper shelters, were underwater.

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/sto ... Id=4860776

I'm sure that the failure AT THE LOCAL LEVEL in NOLA after Katrina to follow their own plan to evacuate the city by bus, that led to needless drownings, was similarly replicated by similar incompetence AT THE LOCAL LEVEL in Puerto Rico after Maria, to distribute the massive amount of bottled water and tarps, which resulted in needless deaths to dehydration and exposure.

Using the Metro Busses was NOT a plan in the city’s disaster plan. It was suggested in the NOLA Emergency Council Meeting two days before the Evacuation Order was issued. It was never even formally voted on. Councilwoman Morrel suggested it and Mayor Ray Nagin said “Do it.”

Her idea, like the article alludes to, was an unworkable plan. The interstates were gridlocked, there were no resources, no appointed drivers, no place to go (sleeping bags and three days worth of food and water, lol).

As far as FEMA and what local officials did or did not do, I think they did their best. The storm was unprecedented.

I think most of the people who want to blame FEMA have no idea what a natural disaster really is and have certainly never worked one. As some may remember, I worked the aftermath of Katrina and a few others. You are hit daily with things that you cannot plan for and are unsure on how to proceed. Those who throw stones are usually misguided and have a utopian and unachievable ideal for disaster relief.

As far as the Puerto Rico water situation, did the local authorities have the manpower and the resources to distribute the water? If not, did they ask for appropriate help? That’s not rhetorical. I do not know the answer. I usually find second guessing disaster actions -looking for someone to blame- distasteful. Fix the process for when it happens again and stop lobbing stones at Federal and local. It’s a hallmark of ‘just culture’ and it is the only productive use of a retrospective.

Hindsight is always 50/50.

::: Watches Tiger limp home :::

AlabamAlum wrote:Using the Metro Busses was NOT a plan in the city’s disaster plan.

So I guess, “NPR,YAAM”?

I agree that things often happen during emergencies that were not contempled in preparedness plans, and/or the plan just didn’t work, and the leaders have to improvise. That’s probably more the rule rather than exception. There’s an old Army adage, “The Battle Plan never survives the first shot.”

hedge wrote:Is Tony Rand still alive? He's got some kinfolk in Wilson...

Yes. Never knew he was kin to that crowd, but it makes sense.

"Hindsight is always 50/50."

50/50?? Damn, that's sharp...

Nope, no conspiracy heee...

http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/ ... rzok-texts

hedge wrote:"Hindsight is always 50/50."

50/50?? Damn, that's sharp...

But only if you give 110%.

Anyway, I was certain that Yogi Berra was the seen the hindsight 50/50 quote. Cannot find corroboration of that, though.

Professor Tiger wrote:More great job and income numbers released today, miraculously brought to you by guy who is overcome by dementia.

Get ready for Justice Kavanaugh, courtesy of a president with Alzheimer’s.

Kavanaugh's accuser took a polygraph and easily passed. No deception.

Get ready for something, I guess.