Booted, It is about time

[4moreyears]

Link (http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/02/11/katrina.evacuees.ap/index.html)


NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) -- Twelve thousand families left homeless by hurricanes Katrina and Rita will lose their federally funded hotel privileges Monday, the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced Saturday.

This will be the second wave of evacuees weaned off the federally sponsored hotel stays within two weeks. Last week, the occupants of roughly 4,500 rooms lost FEMA funding for failing to register with the agency.

FEMA said it would continue to pay for families in 5,000 hotel rooms across the country. (Watch how one bus driver is living out of his pickup truck -- 2:45)

Of those departing on Monday, FEMA officials said 10,500 families, or 88 percent, have received rent-assistance checks from the agency, said Libby Turner, FEMA's transitional housing director. The cash can be used to pay for an apartment or to continue their hotel stays. It can also be put toward fixing their ruined homes.

Because they can continue to pay for the rooms themselves, the deadline is not "the equivalent of an eviction," she said. "This is just about the billing of the room -- it will no longer be billed to FEMA."

Yet 1,100 families living in the subsidized hotel rooms are not eligible for further assistance from FEMA. Turner said those evacuees have been referred to other charitable programs.

One of them is Brittany Brown, 21, currently staying on the 13th floor of the New Orleans Crowne Plaza hotel, a floor packed with storm victims. She and her husband have moved from hotel to hotel, all the while waiting for their FEMA trailer to arrive. They want to park the trailer in front of their ruined home so that they can begin rebuilding.

With the Monday deadline looming, she turned to FEMA asking for rent assistance. Brown was told it would take two weeks to review her case, leaving her without a trailer, without an apartment and soon without a hotel room.

She plans to move into her sister's house -- along with her husband, uncle and two children. It will bring her sister's two-bedroom household to 10 people.

It is about time these people were forced to become productive members of soceity. New Orleans has been a welfare state for over 40 years and it is time we stop the gravy train.

[ODShowtime]

How would you like it if your mom kicked you out of the basement?

[FORD]

Originally posted by ODShowtime
How would you like it if your mom kicked you out of the basement?

When Lake Michigan floods his mom's basement due to BCE global warming, it won't matter. Until someone tells him to get a job, in which case his response will be "Hey, I'M the victim here, you Liberal faggot!!"

[4moreyears]

If I know a week ahead of time my home will be destroyed, I will be long gone. Typical liberal mindset though, I guess since Katrina hit we should pay their housing expenses forever.

[FORD]

Actually, I think they should set up all the FEMA trailers at Chimpy's ranch. Maybe Dick can give them hunting lessons while they're at it?

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by 4moreyears
If I know a week ahead of time my home will be destroyed, I will be long gone. Typical liberal mindset though, I guess since Katrina hit we should pay their housing expenses forever.

You would actually have to read a newspaper, or watch news, to know that...

[4moreyears]

Originally posted by FORD
Actually, I think they should set up all the FEMA trailers at Chimpy's ranch. Maybe Dick can give them hunting lessons while they're at it?

I wonder if that cunt Cindy Sheehan will be there?

[4moreyears]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
You would actually have to read a newspaper, or watch news, to know that...

If I can't figure it out, I would just follow the crowd. Even someone who cant read could have been smart enough to get out of New Orleans.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by 4moreyears
If I can't figure it out, I would just follow the crowd. Even someone who cant read could have been smart enough to get out of New Orleans.


Yeah, it's all their fault huh? Did you notice what happened when they 'evacuated' Houston later that summer?

[4moreyears]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
Yeah, it's all their fault huh? Did you notice what happened when they 'evacuated' Houston later that summer?

Jesus Christ Nick, It is a natural disaster, so nobody is at fault. Neither Ray Nagin or George Bush ordered Katrina. But people need to have some sense of personal responsibility to take care of their families. This was not just a thunderstorm. Anyone with some sense would have donewhat ever they could to get out of there and protect their family.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by 4moreyears
Jesus Christ Nick, It is a natural disaster, so nobody is at fault. Neither Ray Nagin or George Bush ordered Katrina. But people need to have some sense of personal responsibility to take care of their families. This was not just a thunderstorm. Anyone with some sense would have donewhat ever they could to get out of there and protect their family.

Read this article very closely, then WAKE UP!!


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-021506chertoff_lat,0,446422.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Chertoff Urges Senate Critics to See Successes
By Johanna Neuman and Edwin Chen
Times Staff Writers (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-021506chertoff_lat,0,4368363,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines)

12:29 PM PST, February 15, 2006

WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff today fielded a withering barrage of congressional criticism about his leadership and his department's bungled response to Hurricane Katrina, and he vowed to do better, referring to an array of reforms that he has initiated.

Sen. Susan M. Collins (R-Me.), chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, said in her opening remarks that her panel's latest hearing was intended not only to learn why Chertoff's vast agency was "plagued by indecision and delay," but also to avoid a repeat of the fiasco.

"If our government failed so utterly in preparing for and responding to a disaster that had been long predicted and was imminent for days, we must wonder how much more profound the failure would be if a disaster were to take us by complete surprise, such as a terrorist attack," Collins said.

She called the delays in providing help to hurricane victims "both alarming and unacceptable," and prolonged widespread human suffering. "The list of critical tasks done either too late or not at all is staggering," Collins said.

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), the committee's top Democrat, was no less harsh.

"How could you have left us with so many of those agencies so unprepared that when Katrina struck, too many of them ran around like Keystone Kops, uncertain about what they were supposed to do or unable to do it?" Lieberman asked rhetorically.

"Did you not mobilize more of the resources of the federal government to protect this great American city and its people?" he continued.

"With all the information coming into your department's operations center on the day that Katrina struck New Orleans, that the city was flooding and people were trapped or drowning, how could you, as secretary of homeland security, go to bed that night not knowing what was happening in New Orleans and get up the next morning and proceed not to New Orleans to oversee the response, but to Atlanta for a conference?"

Chertoff said he accepted responsibility for his department's shortcomings, but also pointed out the extraordinary nature of the hurricane and urged lawmakers to not overlook "things that succeeded."

"You can't escape the fact when you talk about Katrina that this was a storm of unprecedented magnitude," Chertoff said, noting that the storm affected 90,000 square miles, destroyed 300,000 homes and left 18 million cubic yards of debris.

"So this was an unprecedented disaster. While I'm here, I suspect, mainly to talk about things that failed, I do think we have to acknowledge things that succeeded," Chertoff added.

"The United States Coast Guard rescued 33,000 people.… FEMA rescued more than 6,500 and deployed all 28 urban search and rescue teams for the first time," he continued. "In the first six days, the federal government distributed 28 million pounds of ice, 8.5 million meals, 4 million gallons of water."

Chertoff forcefully rejected the notion that he or other top administration officials had been derelict.

"I have to say that the idea that this department and this administration and the president were somehow detached from Katrina is simply not correct," he said. "We were acutely aware of Katrina and the risk it posed."

But Chertoff also acknowledged: "I'm accountable and accept responsibility for the performance of the entire department — the bad and the good. I also have the responsibility to fix what's wrong."

Among the changes being put in place, he said, is a "unified incident command" to centralize decision-making. Chertoff said he also will expand the department's logistics capability, expedite debris removal and improve communications, in part through new satellite equipment.

Chertoff said that within months of taking over the newly created department, he set out to streamline its operations, targeting Oct. 1 as a deadline. "Unfortunately, Katrina didn't wait until Oct. 1," he said.

Today's hearing served as the latest reminder of how his department's response to Katrina has tarnished Chertoff's reputation just a year after he took office.

As Collins noted, today marked the anniversary of the Senate's unanimous vote confirming him as DHS secretary.

A year ago, Chertoff was hailed by Republicans and Democrats as the epitome of competence and good judgment. At his confirmation hearing, one Democratic senator called him "the right man for this job." The Senate confirmed him 98 to 0.

But as evidence mounts about the department's botched response to Hurricane Katrina, Chertoff's reputation has been impugned. Now some question whether he can survive in the job. The most telling sign of how much heat the Homeland Security secretary is under may be that members of his own party are throwing logs on the fire.

"It's fair to say that he's vulnerable," said Republican Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota, a member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which has been investigating the government's response to Katrina for several months. Chertoff, Coleman said, "came in with really high expectations. He was a star. Now his halo has been diminished."

Lieberman (D-Conn.), the committee member who praised Chertoff as the right man for the job, expressed dismay Tuesday over how the department had responded to Katrina.

"We have found enough pre-landfall warnings of Hurricane Katrina's destructive force to warrant a full-bore emergency response from the top levels of the federal government before the storm struck," Lieberman said. "It is inconceivable to me how the response could have been so weak."

The White House came to Chertoff's defense Tuesday, its words reminiscent of President Bush's praise for Michael D. Brown, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency who was forced to resign when his mishandling of the disaster became known.

"Chertoff is doing a great job," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said in answer to a reporter's question. "The president appreciates his strong leadership."

Times staff writers Nicole Gaouette and Peter Wallsten contributed to this report.

[ODShowtime]

Originally posted by 4moreyears
Jesus Christ Nick, It is a natural disaster, so nobody is at fault. Neither Ray Nagin or George Bush ordered Katrina. This was not just a thunderstorm. Anyone with some sense would have donewhat ever they could to get out of there and protect their family.


great... and then they came back and their house is destroyed, so your point is irrelevant to this discussion. Which you started which makes it even more incompetent. :confused: