It's All Your Fault

The city of New Orleans is now only 60% under water (compared to 80%), all of the necessary supplies and manpower are in place, and even the price of oil went down sending the Dow Jones skywards. Naturally, the focus of Hurricane Katrina has shifted to the nature of the response of federal officials and why it was so slow. But, not all the blame should be placed on the President and FEMA. State and local officials are equally, if not mroe responsible for the slow influx of relief. That's not to say there were problems at the federal level, because there were. In my opinion, FEMA should not be part of the Department of Homeland Security, it should be its own entity as before. Also, President Bush has cut the budget of the Army Corps of Engineers, which would've included possible work on the New Orleans levee system.

But, the ball was dropped at the local and state level, specifically by New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco. Here's why. First, the evacuation plans for a hurricane only considered the possibility of a Category 3 storm with maximum sustained winds of 120 mph hitting the area with no flooding. Talk about going halfway with something. The written plans called for the evacuation of 300,000 people, including the use of school buses to transport the poor out of the area. A year ago, as Hurricane Ivan approached, New Orleans ordered an evacuation but did not use city or school buses to help people evacuate. Should we be surprised that those school buses are currently under water. In 1998, during a threat by Hurricane George, 14,000 people were sent to the Superdome. Even back then, there was widespread theft and vandalism due to inadequate security.

The federal government does not have the authority to intervene in a state emergency without the request of a governor. President Bush declared an emergency on Saturday; Governor Blanco did not request federal aid until late Sunday/early Monday, which means plans couldn't be set into motion until Tuesday, which wouldn't allow aid to arrive until Wednesday.

It also didn't help that officials couldn't communicate with the outside world or with each other that matter. BellSouth's generators lost power due to the flooding, because they weren't put in positions to avoid flooding. In New Orleans, communication problems were caused by the different radio systems New Orleans and its three surrounding parishes used. So while they used a radio system with the same frequency, they were all on different channels. If you've ever seen the movie Smokey and the Bandit, this reminds you of a scene in the beginning:

Snowman: "Now you know those smokeys (cops) got them CBs in their cars now."
Bandit: "I know, I haven't figured that out yet."
Snowman: "I've got an idea. When I say go to Channel 21, forget it, we ain't going to 21, we're going to channel 19. And when I say go to Channel 6, forget it, we're going to channel 3. And when I say go to Channel 2, forget it, we're going to Channel 1. That way, we'll confuse everybody!!!!"

Unfortunately for New Orleans authorities, they were confused.

Lastly, the New Orleans evacuation plan says, "If an evacuation order is issued without the mechanisms needed to disseminate the information to the affected persons, then we face the possibility of having large numbers of people either stranded and left to the mercy of a storm, or left in an area impacted by toxic materials." Well, guess what Mayor and Governor. Since you devised a plan that only takes into effect a Category 3 storm that only has a .5% chance of breaching the levee system and flooding the city, and on top of that you fail to follow the plan, that's what happened. So quit your crying to the federal government and hold yourselves accountable and FIX THE PROBLEM!!!!!

Thanks to the Wall St. Journal for providing some of the information.

One other point, I can not take more than 5 minutes at a time of CNN's Wolf Blitzer. By the tone of his voice, you would think something's always wrong, there's always a sense of urgency. If someone just simply dropped a piece of paper, he could turn it into the next global crisis. "Dropped Paper: The Aftermath". Hey Wolf, calm down buddy, take a glass half-full approach.

Well, Lance Armstrong may be unretired very soon. He told the Austin-American Statesman that he's thinking about coming back to ride in next year's Tour. He says that would be the best response to the French newspaper story of a couple of years ago. Lance, I'm on your side, but DON'T COME BACK!!!! You'll be 34 next year, which is 40 in football years. You've won 7 Tours, you don't need to prove anything else to anybody. Let the French remain frustrated that they can't tear you down. Spend time with your kids and on cancer research. Honestly, I don't think he would win next year if he rode. Even though he won pretty comfortably this year, he was only able to come up with a couple of great individual performances, mainly relying on his team. As many times as he's defied the odds, winning an 8th Tour might be tougher than his fight against cancer.

Notre Dame wins one football game, and suddenly you hear, "They'll win 8-9 games. They're back. Wake up the echoes!!!" Hold on people. First of all, they started similarly under Tyrone Willingham; now look where he's at. Second, they beat the Pittsburgh Panthers, not the Pittsburgh Steelers. Pittsburgh was ranked 23rd nationally, not 2nd, and they had lost 15 of their previous 16 meetings vs. Notre Dame. So Pittsburgh isn't exactly Michigan, who ironically ND plays Saturday haha. As I've said, I love Charlie Weis, but the moronic ND boosters need to stay realistic and realize it's going to take some time. Beating Pittsburgh is a start back to respectibility, not to the national championship.

By the way, Miami made the cover of Sports Illustrated this week. Granted, it's Steve Burke trying to tackle Ted Ginn Jr., but as they say, any press is good press!!!

In the US Open, Roger Federer and Lleyton Hewitt advanced to the men's quarterfinals. Maria Sharapova won a tough 3-set match to advance to the women's semifinals, awaiting the winner of the Kim Clijsters-Venus Williams match still going on. Clijsters is the daughter of a Belgian soccer player, so she's a great athlete. But sometimes when on the run and trying to reach shots, she does the splits. And this happens multiple times during the match!!! Everytime I see it, I have to cringe and yell.

Well, I'm going to settle in for the end of Clijsters/Venus, they might be going 3 sets, so a late night for me.