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[personal profile] mandragora
is exaggerating how horrific conditions are in New Orleans right now to make a better news story.

Seeing person after person on the Ten O'Clock News begging and pleading for help, crying that there's no food and no water and that women and children are being raped following the breakdown of law and order, is one of the worst things I've seen. Not because - sadly - I haven't seen similar incidents on TV before. I have. And all too many of them. But these were in poor countries, often following civil war and the breakdown of the infrastructure, and where there just aren't the resources to help.

Not in the world's richest country. Not in the country that has more resources than anyone else.

Why was it too little, too late? And who made the decision to leave the poorest residents of New Orleans - perhaps as many as 100,000 people - behind to die. Why the fuck wasn't there at least some sort of effort to get those people out?

Yes, I appreciate the problems in the logistics of moving over a million people. But why wasn't there at least some effort made to evacuate at least some of the people without their own transport, who were effectively trapped there?

Why?

Date: 2 September 2005 21:00 (UTC)
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From: [identity profile] mandragora1.livejournal.com
Oh God. It was actually 134,000? Jesus.

Muddle is a good explanation, and I can see that here in the UK we could perfectly well cock something up because of muddle.

What I can't see, though, is us in the UK not even making the attempt to get the vulnerable out and evacuating those who didn't have their own transport. Nor not doing anywhere *near* enough for 5 days afterwards.

Date: 2 September 2005 21:25 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] yonmei.livejournal.com
No, nor can I.

The reaction-time has been horrifyingly slow.

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