STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

dc · Dooney & Bourke

Mayor to feds: 'Get off your asses'

Pepper · Kenneth Cole

Thanks for posting DC - I only heard bits and pieces and wanted to hear the whole thing.

Exactly - I think everyone's outrage for the government is being let out of the cage.

Irene · Dooney & Bourke

I saw this. One question, why did they not prepare for this? They knew it was going to be bad. I don't understand. The supplies should have been on the ready.

kenzie · Chanel

Irene wrote:

I saw this. One question, why did they not prepare for this? They knew it was going to be bad. I don't understand. The supplies should have been on the ready.

I think that's the question that everyone is asking right now, Irene. It was a ticking time bomb and no one did anything about it.

member · Hermes

NylaBelle wrote:

Irene wrote: I saw this. One question, why did they not prepare for this? They knew it was going to be bad. I don't understand. The supplies should have been on the ready. I think that's the question that everyone is asking right now, Irene. It was a ticking time bomb and no one did anything about it.

I've been wondering the same thing. They knew this Hurricane was coming, and they knew they weren't prepared to handle a level 4 or 5 hurricane. They also know they had poor people w/out means of leaving there - why weren't there buses there before the hurricane hit to evacuate people? Why didn't they have food and water there for these people. It's like they were telling themselves it wouldn't actually happen or be that bad.

cc · Marc Jacobs

I haven't been able to get a handle on why the city and state weren't better prepared either. All I remember hearing prior to the hurricane hitting was that they were telling everyone to evacuate but I don't remember hearing much about what (if anything) was being done to help poor and immobile people get out of the city and what provisions were being made for refugees. I'm assuming that NO (and maybe even all of LA) didn't have the resources to handle this on its own and the mayor has been complaining that "there are too many cooks in the kitchen" and bureaucracy is getting in the way of getting state and/or federal help faster.

laken1 · Hermes

In the world of screwed up politics, Louisiana is notorious for being the worst. What a great example this is...

I am so glad the mayor is "pissed" - I think that's the first thing that has made me smile about this whole situation in days.

sephorablue · Marc Jacobs

yeah I love the mayor. I love him for his rage and his grief and his total disinterest in playing polite politics. He seems like the only one out of the whole pack whose ONLY priority is getting help for these people. He doesn't give a shit about his image, or about navigating the bureaucracy, or his photo ops, he is just desperate to get some help for his city.

I really think this is going to turn out to be so much more than just a really destructive hurricane. David Brooks had an op/ed about it in the NYT: the only possible good thing that may come out of this is that the force and momentum of people's outrage over the whole scenario may cause some changes to occur. The changes are long overdue, but maybe at least things will improve in the future.

lsubatgirl · Gucci

The problem with all of this "lack of preparation" that people are complaining about is you can't predict where a hurricane is going to hit until you reach the 24-36 hour window before the thing hits. Last week before it hit every weather channel had this thing hitting Destin,FL and stood by it till Friday I think. Yes you can have a game plan for what to do when one comes close but you can't just stockpile bottled water and food in case a hurricane hits. Last year LA didn't have a single tropical storm or hurricane hit so having stockpiled supplies would have been thrown away and wasted. We already don't have enough money to cover social programs in LA so we surely don't have the extra cash to stockpile in case we get hit.

It would also be impossible to try and bus out the poor and sick in that 24-36 hour window. When they call for an evacuation it takes 8-12 hours to drive from New Orleans to Baton Rouge which is only 80 miles away because all of MS, AL, and FL are evacuating west also. They could never get enough busses down there and back to get all of the poor people out.

cc · Marc Jacobs

Re states needing federal assistance...
There was a long article in the New Yorker a few weeks ago which discussed everything that New York City has been doing to step up security and improve intelligence since 9/11 and the NYPD officials basically said that they have no faith that the federal government will come through financially and they don't want to rely on federal agencies for intelligence and assistance so they are doing everything on their own. Thankfully NYC's economy is still strong and they have been able to fund all sorts of new programs. It's really sad and frustrating to see another city and state that don't have as much money suffer by having funding for things like important construction projects cut and then when a disaster does occur it seems like federal agencies like FEMA are badly fumbling. At least other states like Texas have been helping out.

halleybird · Hermes

Well, I don't think anyone could have anticipated it being THIS bad, and that's part of the problem.

I was proud of the mayor for saying what probably everyone in his city was thinking. I am sure he's incredibly frustrated.