The mayor of New Orleans has had it
by Volker Weber
Listen to this this interview with WWL (3.2 MB .mp3). No idea how long this will stay up.
Comments
That is powerful stuff. I downloaded a copy to keep and possibly serve from here in case the original link dies. I think the world needs to hear it.
Truely, VERY powerful stuff. Certainly not typical politics talk, not in the language he chooses, not in the statements he's making. Very impressive!!
I can't get to the link... Didn't stay up long I guess.
The original is gone- Chris are you hosting it?
A torrent is also available at the pirate bay. A stark contrast to the interviews federal politicians have been giving, in which they are congratulating each other on the level of co-operation and support.
It seems the director of the Federal Emergency Measures Agency wasn't even aware of the situation at the New Orleans convention centre until yesterday morning. Pictures of the area look like something from a third-world refugee crisis, but the response of the U.S. government looks increasingly like that of a third world dictatorship, too.
For the time being, try this.
There is a (partial) transcript at CNN
I'm listening to it from the original URL right now.
OK, a few things to note about disaster response here in USA.
I can appreciate that the mayor is upset. But he focuses so much on the Federal Government. The Lousiana Governor is responsible for deploying the Lousiana National Guard. 65% of the guard is available for deployment, so the whole argument that "the entire guard is in Iraq" doesn't hold water. About 40% of the New Orleans Police Department turned in their badges and ran. Many of the policemen who haven't ran are looting now! This mayor can't even say for certain if the governor has deployed the guard (apparently they haven't...)
But we need to put aside any political issues here and stuff needs to be fixed. Regardless of who should request what type of assistance, the Army, Navy, Marines, Guard, etc. should have been deployed in to get people out of there and take charge of the Superdome. At this time, we shouldn't care about laws that keep certain entities from doing something else.
I saw a quote from an official in Washington that a force of Guardsmen the size of the NOLA police force is being deployed into NOLA daily.
I also heard a quote from the general (the one the mayor referred to as a "John Wayne Dude") who said flatly that the worst case scenario that they prepared for was way less than what actually happened. That's the bottom line- that's why it's taking time.
Thank you much for that link, vowe
Have you been following Interdictor's reports? Some scary stuff. He's getting good shots up too:
flooding by convention center
burning buildings
and I liked this one of his bed for the evening:
hp bed
Alternate location as requested.
Whoever is in whatever respect to blame for unsufficient help for those people: If there weren't those emotional outbreaks like that of Ray Nagin only those press conferences would remain where head shaking politicians promise help and leave for the next press conference.
With this interview of Ray Nagin there is a chance that responsible and appropriate people really do something in time.
If you're a german speaker you also might want to listen to the tagesschau podcast from yesterday (at least the first 8.07 minutes). An ARD reporter is talking about the presidential visit in biloxi - time shift to minute 4:36.
