'Weather nerd' in Indiana warned New Orleans mayor

A 23-year-old with no formal meteorological training draws widespread praise for his hurricane blog.
The New York Times

The story "'Weather nerd' in Indiana warned New Orleans mayor" published September 4, 2005 at 8:35 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

Content from The New York Times expires after 7 days.

[cjohn17]

Throw the (D) Bums Out!

The best thing the good people of Louisiana can do ASAP is
throw everyone with term "Democrat" attached to their name out
into the street. Decades of local and state official's inefficiencies,
ineptness, and simple stupidity cost people their lives.

The officials had plenty of warning. Even the President pleaded
with the Governor to issue an state of emergency but to no avail
(Sunday Washington Post story). Now we hear that even an
amateur weather buff knew better.

The left can carp all day long and try to blame the Feds and
Bush. But it's State and local officials responsibility by law to be
the first responders.

That's to the kid for pointing the finger of blame where it
belongs - on the left.

[LinuxRules]

Who are you kidding

You got in backwards, where do you get your info? Fox (the
spinner) News? bush did not care, he was occupied over winning
the 'terrorist war', he was doing fundraising for himself, the day
after the storm, the Governor and Mayor issued warnings all week
before. bush is no leader.

[System Tyrant]

Logic.

Why did anybody in those states stay? Probably because of the numerous warnings in the past that never did much. Those people have gotten use to false alarms, but unfortunatly this time it had tragic consequences. It's even more tragic that rescue efforts aren't going well.

Although by my nature I am a republican I can say that I would rather be a democrate with Bush in office. That man is going to drag this country into another depression or worse. He is the worst president we have ever had. But, hey look at the positive things he's done. Started a war over lies to fight terrorist who we can't find, started a gas price inflation and won't do anything about it, killing many of the health care option for Americans, want's to loosing up proposed meth laws because it might hurt the drug companies, and pretty much ignores every American person who doesn't have enough money to pay him to care.

We don't have a leader running our country, we have an a mentally retarted man sending this country into a hole it will take years to pull out of.

I suppose we should just blame George for all the countries problems. We should blame every politician in office.

[aabcdefghij987654321]

There is more than enough blame to go around.

Friday, September 2nd, 2005

Dear Mr. Bush:

Any idea where all our helicopters are? It's Day 5 of Hurricane Katrina and thousands remain stranded in New Orleans and need to be airlifted. Where on earth could you have misplaced all our military choppers? Do you need help finding them? I once lost my car in a Sears parking lot. Man, was that a drag.

Also, any idea where all our national guard soldiers are? We could really use them right now for the type of thing they signed up to do like helping with national disasters. How come they weren't there to begin with?

Last Thursday I was in south Florida and sat outside while the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed over my head. It was only a Category 1 then but it was pretty nasty. Eleven people died and, as of today, there were still homes without power. That night the weatherman said this storm was on its way to New Orleans. That was Thursday! Did anybody tell you? I know you didn't want to interrupt your vacation and I know how you don't like to get bad news. Plus, you had fundraisers to go to and mothers of dead soldiers to ignore and smear. You sure showed her!

I especially like how, the day after the hurricane, instead of flying to Louisiana, you flew to San Diego to party with your business peeps. Don't let people criticize you for this -- after all, the hurricane was over and what the heck could you do, put your finger in the ****?

And don't listen to those who, in the coming days, will reveal how you specifically reduced the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for New Orleans this summer for the third year in a row. You just tell them that even if you hadn't cut the money to fix those levees, there weren't going to be any Army engineers to fix them anyway because you had a much more important construction job for them -- BUILDING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ!

On Day 3, when you finally left your vacation home, I have to say I was moved by how you had your Air Force One pilot descend from the clouds as you flew over New Orleans so you could catch a quick look of the disaster. Hey, I know you couldn't stop and grab a bullhorn and stand on some rubble and act like a commander in chief. Been there done that.

There will be those who will try to politicize this tragedy and try to use it against you. Just have your people keep pointing that out. Respond to nothing. Even those pesky scientists who predicted this would happen because the water in the Gulf of Mexico is getting hotter and hotter making a storm like this inevitable. Ignore them and all their global warming Chicken Littles. There is nothing unusual about a hurricane that was so wide it would be like having one F-4 tornado that stretched from New York to Cleveland.

No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It's not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh! Race has nothing -- NOTHING -- to do with this!

You hang in there, Mr. Bush. Just try to find a few of our Army helicopters and send them there. Pretend the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are near Tikrit.

Yours,

Michael Moore [e-mail] www.MichaelMoore.com

P.S. That annoying mother, Cindy Sheehan, is no longer at your ranch. She and dozens of other relatives of the Iraqi War dead are now driving across the country, stopping in many cities along the way. Maybe you can catch up with them before they get to DC on September 21st.

[richoid]

Never trust a Republican again

I don't what planet Carl Johnson is from. But he should read the
LA Times article "Why FEMA was MIA" here:


Here is a quote from it: "But with the change of administration in
2001, many of Witt's prevention programs were reduced or cut
entirely. After Sept. 11, former FEMA officials and outside
authorities said, Washington's attention turned to terrorism to
the exclusion of almost anything else."

The Gov. of Louisiana is a central Repugnican leader, and in the
House and Senate of the US the Repugs have been in charge for
nearly 10 years. 5 years of Bush.

[richoid]

Never trust a Republican again

I don't what planet Carl Johnson is from. But he should read the
LA Times article "Why FEMA was MIA" here:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-
fema5sep05,0,685581.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Here is a quote from it: "But with the change of administration in
2001, many of Witt's prevention programs were reduced or cut
entirely. After Sept. 11, former FEMA officials and outside
authorities said, Washington's attention turned to terrorism to
the exclusion of almost anything else."

The Gov. of Louisiana is a central Repugnican leader, and in the
House and Senate of the US the Repugs have been in charge for
nearly 10 years. 5 years of Bush.

[richoid]

Never trust a Republican again

I don't what planet Carl Johnson is from. But he should read the
LA Times article "Why FEMA was MIA" here:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-
nafema5sep05,0,685581.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Here is a quote from it: "But with the change of administration in
2001, many of Witt's prevention programs were reduced or cut
entirely. After Sept. 11, former FEMA officials and outside
authorities said, Washington's attention turned to terrorism to
the exclusion of almost anything else."

The Gov. of Louisiana is a central Repugnican leader, and in the
House and Senate of the US the Repugs have been in charge for
nearly 10 years. 5 years of Bush.

[richoid]

Never trust a Republican again

I don't what planet Carl Johnson is from. But he should read the
LA Times article "Why FEMA was MIA" here:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-
fema5sep05,0,685581.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Here is a quote from it: "But with the change of administration in
2001, many of Witt's prevention programs were reduced or cut
entirely. After Sept. 11, former FEMA officials and outside
authorities said, Washington's attention turned to terrorism to
the exclusion of almost anything else."

The Gov. of Louisiana is a central Repugnican leader, and in the
House and Senate of the US the Repugs have been in charge for
nearly 10 years. 5 years of Bush.

Mayor of New Orleans warned

According to our president, it's not possible that Ray Nagin was
warned. Our president said, "I didn't think anyone anticipated
the breach of the levees."

Why did he say that? Is he really that dumb?

What is going on with this stupid story about a kid's weather
blog. Everybody in New Orleans has known about the flood
threat for over ten years. Our congress president took the
money away for raising the levees over the last three years.
Levees are federal responsibility.

This tragedy was unneccesary.

Bush himself admitted FEDERAL response was unacceptable

Here's what people on the spot have said about Bush and FEMA's
abysmal response: http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/
index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tporleans/archives/
2005_09.html#076771

[SteveBarry687]

If your read, then you know YOU are wrong.

The kids post from 9:44PM 8/26 EST states that the Governor of Louisiana declared a state of emergency.

http://www.bayoubuzz.com/articles.aspx?aid=4836

She then requested federal aid on 2/28.

This kid did nothing but ccreate evidence against Bush.

All the while, Bush was eating cake with John McCain in Arizona, while pushing his MediCare program and then after playing guitar, compared himself to FDR and the Iraq war to WWII in San Diego.

He didn't even stop his vacation until two days after Katrina hit.

[LinuxRules]

Sorry been told before

There have been several studies in the past one by FEMA, itself,
that put New Orleans in the top three big bad emergence events.
There was an emergence hurricane exercise done last year that
predicted exactly what happen during this hurricane event. A lot of
people Knew what could happen. Why they (everyone) did not
follow through with what they learned in last year's exercise is
beyond me. I know one thing, HELL is going to pay.

[j3st3r]

CNET, Where's your correction?!?

"... somehow the author concluded that Becky was the name of my dog, rather than the name of my fiancee."

This from the very blog CNET links to. I hope Brendan's fiancee Becky (just to reinforce the point) isn't too offended by the error.

[zaznet]

Looks corrected now...

I didn't read the original, but the part naming Becky is clearly not referencing the dog this time.

[Earl Benser]

No big deal....

... anyone with half a brain could easily see what was going to
happen to New Orleans if a major hurricane made landfall at or
just east of the city. Loy was not the first, or the only one to
point out the risks; that's been going on for 40+ years.

So the key point is not that someone announced that Katrina
was going to be a disaster, many people did that. What counts is
that the scope of the disaster was well forecast and no one inn
the Gulf state and city governments made any attempt to fix that
problems before they became fatal flaws.

good thought; what next? Change politics

We have seen the very worst of a system gone awry. Our forefathers sought to elect someone local to go to Washington to represent their community (not themselves) for a few years and then return to their regular life. Lifers in Washington was not the plan. Since inception, greed has turned people negligent to reality. I say fire everyone and put people in Washington who will stay for one term and return; and fix these stupid laws and allocations that result in a massive Alaskan bridge to nowhere while the levys in New Orleans get ignored because of porkbarrel politics. Create a one term party platform that is well thought out; and then fire everybody.

[cjohn17]

No Honor Among Liberals

But city and state officials ARE making every attempt to shirk their
responsibilities and blame the feds and Bush for their screw ups.

Their is no honor among liberals.

[cjohn17]

Outrage! Vegas Trips For N.O. Police

City to Offer Free Trips to Las Vegas for Officers; "NEW ORLEANS,
Sept. 4 - A day after two police suicides and the abrupt
resignations or desertions of up to 200 police officers, defiant
city officials on Sunday began offering five-day vacations - and
even trips to Las Vegas - to the police, firefighters and city
emergency workers and their families."- NYTimes

This a great example of the thinking that goes on between the
diseased ears of a liberal. There are servicemen and women that
have just returned from Iraq and were thrown into the Katrina
rescue effort. There are contractors working around the clock to
get services restored and will be for the foreseeable future.
There are citizens that been displaced from their homes and
have family members missing or dead and this is the mayor's
best idea?

There was a terrible break in discipline at the state and local
levels. The New Orleans police department deserve a
tremendous amount of criticism, as does the rest of the state
officials, not a damn vacation! Roll up your damn sleeves as get
busy!

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/national/nationalspecial/
05vegas.html

[cjohn17]

Paste Whole Link into Browser

FYI. Cut and paste the whole link into your browser. Get ready for
some heartburn liberals.

[cjohn17]

Espella Humanzee Speaks

Come and visit http://espellahumanzee.blogspot.com/. I'll bite
your head off ; )

Stay polite.

devils advocate...

I'm not sure about the trips to Vegas, but think about it...in a city whose crime rate was already 10x that of the national average, place yourself in the shoes of a policeman, survive katrina, and see the crime rate rise suddenly, and see all the destruction and loss of hope...thats a lot to take in in one gulp...I wasn't even there and its still hard for me to take in the vivid pictures of the destruction and hopelessness...I can't imagine being in the middle of it trying to keep the peace...I think the servicemen deseve a vacation when they are done...maybe offset the vacation times so as only a limited number are off at anytime so it doesn't diminish the force enough to matter...

At any rate, if you had to deal with what they are having to deal with, you would need a vacation too.

On the flipside... does the state/city really have the money to send then to las vegas?? I don't know but I think that may be a little much... I don't know.

[sanenazok]

might as well

Keep in mind, as the mayor of NO said on the radio, the people who stayed behind had no means to get out or were freakin' drug addicts. Nice environment for your work place: no communications, no fuel, and surrounded by armed withdrawl addicts. Give them the vacations, better use of federal money than keeping them around after that experience.

[zaznet]

So, your big idea is...

To just tell them to jump in there? At least with a incentive promised ahead they have something to look forward to. With a major city being all but destroyed, it's need of services has changed drastically from the normal day to day needs it was used to.

New Orleans needs to address that, and providing an incentive to stay is one way to do it. Expect to see some agressive recruiting and re-hiring as they rebuild.

Right on!!

Arbeit macht frei!!

Work your way towards freedom!

Asinine article

It's not like this kid had any special insight. The state of Louisiana
declared a state of emergency on August 26th, the day of his first
"first and clearest warning."

well...

Sure he was one of the many to predict it...the point is that it was predicted over and over in the past years... and yet they did nothing. I think its interesting that a kid figured it out before the government did (or at least publicly acknowledged it) is a little ... well that the usual m.o. of democrats/liberals: wait till something bad happens then blame the republicans/conservatives.

I don't think the article was asinine at all...

[Des Alba]

Not asinine at all!

The kid did not have any special insight or intuition, and the officials did order an evacuation that same day, but the officials did not make public transportation available for those people who could not leave on their own. And THAT is what the fuss is all about. That's why so many people were in need of assistance. The state and local officials did not follow their own Disaster Preparedness Plan. They ordered an evacuation, then laid back and left it up to the Feds to clean up the mess and solve THEIR problem. That has never happened before, not in Florida which gets hit just about every year, not in Mississippi (Camille '69), and no wheres else either, if you care to check it. Heck, the Central American countries do a better job of Hurricane Disaster Preparedness than Louisiana did! Smells like incompetence and ineptitude...

[Tui Pohutukawa]

So let's say

the mayor of NO and the governor of LA didn't fill in the right
kind of forms. And perhaps they should have hired busses to
get people out.

But I can tell you what I saw watching Fox and BBC World every
night since Tuesday (I live in New Zealand).

I saw Bush holding press conferences, joking, and at one stage
warning people "not to make false insurance claims" down there
in LA. Day after day he looked disengaged and, quite frankly,
out of his depth when faced with a human catastrophe.

[cjohn17]

Shhh... Just Go Away

Out of towners should keep their opinions to themselves. They
know not of what they speak.

There Was a Plan

For the people who think New Orleans should have started evacuating on Friday, there was actually a plan in place that they were following.

My best friend lives in Metairie. Since I had the unfortunate experience of surviving a hurricane and its aftermath, I asked why she was notleaving on Saturday morning.

First, she did not have a car and was depending on friends to get her out. Second, no mandatory evacuation order had been given for New Orleans. The reason being that the government was trying to get everyone south of New Orleans out first !
I-10 was switched to both lanes leading out of New Orleans. The first priority was to get those people out. Then, on Sunday the mandatory evacuation order was announced for New Orleans.
Mekes perfect sense to me.

One newscaster called what happened the "Perfect Storm." I believe that there were multiple events that led to this disaster. Not just one thing.

So, leave the politicizing out. There was a plan in place to get out of Dodge.

Why waste our tax dollars on a doomed city

Let's use history and experience to guide our decisions concerning the future. Let's not get bogged down by egos. The army corps of engineers have done enough damage to this country, let them save their hare-brained schemes for Iraq and other enemies!

Since New Orleans cannot be assured of a secure future, (let's not argue the facts) it's time to remove all levees, let the water reclaim it's territory and only permit building on land above the high water mark nationwide. We will have fewer artificially created emergencies, less finger pointing and just a fraction of disaster relief to spend our tax dollars on.

Those who insist on buying properties and living in dangerous areas should be warned before such acts, and then be made responsible for their own actions. Federal, State and local emergency aid should be reserved for victims of natural disasters, not idiotic living decisions.

New Orleans needs to be replanned and only the areas that did not flood should constitute the new city. Tell that to the whining Mayor who was the real guilty fiddler!!!

[Christopher Hall]

That was uncalled for

Why attack the Army Corps of Engineers? What did they do to you?

[Bob_Barker]

I agree

Why would you build in that area to begin with? Oh wait, the French founded the city. Leave it to them to build on a marsh. Tear it down and move inland. Save some money and a lot of heartache down the road.

Do you live in this country?

Are you one of those godhatesfags.com people? You know, you can get your self some great merchandise from those people that go right along with your beliefs. Maybe you should move there and join their cult. Provide us some entertainment in these horrible times.

Terrible Article

So you quote a number of right wing blogs who have a hero in some snot nosed kid who single handedly from his couch told the mayor to evacuate New Orleans. Wow. If my Uncle Wally decides to do I Ching with his dirty socks, and sends a message to George Bush telling him that the socks say get out of Iraq, are you going to publish that as a meaningful article?

The media has become stupid, and the electorate even more so.

[Christopher Hall]

Whatever. Can we move on?

Honestly, all this finger-pointing is so ridiculously stupid. "So-and-so warned them!" Who cares?

There's a problem.

Fix it.

Move on.

[SteveBarry687]

Because people died

How can you just say move on. Are you freaking crazy? thousands of people died because of Bush's vacation going an extra two days.

He was Eating Cake with John McCain in Arizona while pimping his MediCare plan on Tuesday.

He was playing guitar and comparing Iraq to WWII and himself to FDR.

Get a grip.

[DeanB]

Soothsayers

I am a New Orleanian.

Just so you folks watching Fox very editted for maximum ratings.

We did evacuate when told. 95% of new orleans left.

We have been preparing for a decade for this storm - we had a mock exercise last summer - but the Army Corps of Engineers watched their budget get slashed by Bush. So repairs could not been, new eauipment could not be put in place.

Since the Carter administration, the Gulf states have been trying to get funding to restore the coast lines destroyed directly by the building of Oil platforms, thier docks and refineries.

Ignored.

The president did not bother to end his evacuation until Thursday - nice leadership.

The cops were given trips to vegs - BECAUSE VEGAS IS TAKING IN REFUGEES AND THAT WAS THE ONLY PLACE WITH ROOM.

You're not from the gulf states, or new orleans, please keep your ignorance to yourself. We are trying to put our lives together.

By the way, think on this for a moment, the hurricane could have easily turned up the atlantic and taken..oh...North and South Carolina, Virginia....Makes me wonder how quick y'all be over there with aid..instead of leaving stranded and starving for 5 days.

Mayor Nagin and Gov Blanco did everything in their power as allowed by Homeland Security to do.

Mind you, it was FEMA that would not letin rescue operations, its FEMA that is turning away trucks of food and water and generators because they have not filled out the paper.

And the FEMA director..his last job was running a horse shoe - AND HE WAS FIRED.


America - you have failed. admit it. Y'all thought New Orleans was just a party town. WEll folks, the party is over, you will now have higher gas prices, higher prices on fruit and veggies, higher prices on electronics, and wait old cold north when you don't have enough heating oil in winter.

AS far as I am concerned, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Homeland "Security", Senate and House, and the President have failed us.

Or, should I say, America has failed.

D

[Earl Benser]

The let's just bury New Orleans....

.... as a colossal mistake never to be repeated. It would be the
simple and cheap solution.

That is news?

A blogger paints a worst case scenario and decision makers should search for the blog and follow the advice. The way I read the article, the blogger didn't call the mayor to explain his concerns. He just posted to the blog.

If you want people to believe your a market guru. Send a 1000 people a letter. You tell 1/2 the people the market is going up the other 1/2 down. To the 1/2 that benefit from your advice, repeat the process 2 more times. 125 people are left that think you have real predictive power.

This blog achieved notoriety because he happened to be right in this case but I think decision makers need to listened credentialed experts not bloggers.

[Earl Benser]

Amen, brother....

n/t