It's Been 4 Years Since 9/11...

[J. J.]

We were not contemporaries as it were, but it's good to see you post.  It is an excellent post.

On 9/11, at the time of the attacks, I was gallantly eating a sausage biscuit with egg at the local Micky D's when Flight 77 flew nearly directly over my head and crashed into Pentagon about 3 1/3 miles away.  

As I was driving back to my hotel, I heard a low rumble and thought for a second that it was another attack; I then told myself that I was just being paranoid.  It was the Pentagon wall collapsing, I found out later.

At roughly the same time, Flight 93 flew over my cemetery plot in western PA and crashed next to the house of a sister-in-law of a friend whose campaign I had managed, sending some debris into a lake I have visited.

Ironically, I wrote an article in 1992 on the Emir Abdel Kader, a 19th Century Islamic scholar who was the first Arab nationalist, that unsuccessfully led a jihad against French colonialization in Algeria.  In 1860, while in exile in Damascus, he protected between 12 K and 15 K Christians against rioters.  He confronted the crowd saying, "Wretches, is this how you honor the Prophet!  May his curse be upon you!"  I invoked the same curse that day.

God, has given me a great sense of irony.

[J. J.]

Local level

More the 600 buses under direct municipal control/access (350 from the City, hundred more from the schools) of the City were simply never deployed to help the poor get out..  Not only was this in violation of simple common sense, but also in direct violation of the City's own evacuation plans.... yikes...

Something is really deeply wrong with the New Orleans police department when basically a 1/3rd of the force went AWOL when needed most.

In a time of war if 2 soldiers go AWOL, you Court Marshall those two soldiers... if a third of the unit abandons their posts, you Court Marshal the General in charge...  The screening, hiring, training, etc in the NOPD really needs a hard look...

While I agree, it's even worse than you let on for NOLA:

The 9,000 in the Superdome, none of which wanted to stay in their homes, could have been evacuated.  No telling how many people who had to chose between home and the Superdome, and chose home,  would have gone. 

What gets to me is a quote from today's Philadelphia Inquirer.  The NOLA Emergency Management Director, Terry Ebbert, is quoted, "So why does someone call me up when I don't have any communications and ask me, 'What do I need?'"

Both Nagin Ebbert were able to talk to the press on the day after the storm, but they were out of communications?  Why on earth would Ebbert think that someone 1,600 miles away would know the details of what NOLA needed; that is insanity.  There "plan," which they seemed to have made up the Sunday that Katrina hit, was "We'll wait for the feds."  Insanity!!!

[J. J.]

Here is an on line source of Eddert's comment:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/dmn/stories/091105dnnatkatresponse.2dceebb.html

[J. J.]

Wakie, I have occasionally had information before the media, most congressional staffs, and an occasional sitting officeholder.  It's just a matter of being in the right place at the right time.

[J. J.]

Wakie, I have occasionally had information before the media, most congressional staffs, and an occasional sitting officeholder.  It's just a matter of being in the right place at the right time.

The media is pretty stupid, so that's not hard. Around 3:15  AM ET on Wednesday November 8th, 2000, I figured out that FL was too close to call. It took the media half an hour to figure that out. Poor media got scooped by half an hour on the outcome of the Presidential eleciton by some random undergrad.

Big deal, I was looking at the raw vote totals coming out of FL and said about a half hour before Pat Caddell did that the networks miscalled FL.
I called PA here by 3:15 PM in 2004.

[J. J.]

Freedumbburn[iout[/i], there are still people in trailers from last year's hurricanes in FL.  They are not being "hidden."

As per the "toxic waters," are you suggesting turning NOLA into a toxic waste dump and and how do you prevent the waters from flowing out?