Last Post from me on this.. We Failed New Orleans like we failed the VETS 70 years before..

Apologies to my right wing, religous fanatic friends on both sides of the Cross who really believe the President is a caring man of God. I believe he cares about his own concerns.. business partners in Saudi Arabia.

I believe once again.. 70 years after we failed to provide a way off the Keys for the VETS who served this country so well.............we failed the poor people of New Orleans out of a geographical bowl that we knew would flood..

My view.. my blog.. sorry if you don't agree. But, don't just knee jerk a viewpoint, read, think and then decide.. and tell me we did not fail the people of New Orleans .. like we did the Vets in 1935.

Let me explain what SUCKS.

For trackers.. like me.. and others.. professional and otherwise.. we knew this was going to happen. We knew NOLA could flood and we knew another storm surge could happen like happened in Camille. You see it is our business to know. We are not "intensity freaks" or looking for cheap thrills. We are dedicated trackers and students of Tropical Weather. We follow history. We study history. We hope (childishly it seems) that history will not repeat itself. We study, we track, we compare, we are in awe of the way the storms form and think that if we write about it, discuss it and educate people that history will not repeat itself and thousands won't die of a direct hit from a storm like Katrina.

But.. it seems we are wrong. Stupid actually.

It seems we have been reading government reports that the government never got around to reading because they were looking for Gremlins and Al Kaida people like people in the 50s thought the Commie Pinkies were trying to take over the country.

19 Terrorists, mostly from Saudi Arabia, got "lucky" and were not detected by any government agency that should have detected them because most had been already put on lists to be watched. Some had warrants out for their ARREST. They operated blindly in America.. mostly in Ft. Lauderdale and places like that and got "lucky" and after much planning and monies that came not from Iraq but from Bush's partner Saudi Arabia.. they took down 4 airplanes and were successful in 911.

We panicked. We freaked. We wanted an enemy to blame. But, we could not blame Saudi Arabia because we are in bed with Saudi Arabia for oil and allignments.. allies.. air bases.. not to mention Bush has friends in Saudi Arabia. So..............we attacked Iraq.

That is my friends like Tom down the block is dark haired and he slammed into your brand new car and you didn't want to beat the shit our of Tom because Tom's brother is your boss at work. You simmered, you got angry.. you decided you needed to beat the shit out of someone and you never liked Joe Blow who lived down the block near Tom so you wanted to show your wife that you were a man ...so you went down the block and looked real tough and beat the shit out of Joe Blow. Don't mess with America. Don't tread on me!

You beat up the wrong man. And, you didn't care. Because truth is Joe Blow pissed you off regally a while back when he threatened to kill your dog. So.. ha ha on you Joe Blow. And, Tom.. gets away with murder.

Most of the terrorists were from Saudi Arabia.. but we attacked a small cruddy 3rd world country that Russia already attacked (fair game) and then we went and wasted billions of dollars of YOUR money firing rockets at babies, old people and nasty dictators in Iraq. Saudi Arabia got off scott free.

I'm so sorry.

Being a student of International Relations who won more awards than you can imagine for her studies... this pisses me off and make me want to freak.. but it is considered not-Patriotic to freak.

When you know the sky is blue and people tell you it's yellow you want to lose it and scream "no stupid its BLUE.. " but people, like in Germany were told the Jews were the reason that Germany had a recession and they were scared, hungry, riled up and made to hate Jews.. so my great, great, grandmother on my father's side was shoved into some firey oven and killed.. because a lie was repeated over and over and over and scared people wanted someone to blame.

Bush created HOMELAND SECURITY. Hiel Hitler! Let's make a defense against "the enemy" and we piled billions of dollars into a new agency that swallowed up FEMA with barely a burp.

FEMA was created to deal with diasters...earthquake, fires, floods, hurricanes.. etc.. twisters.. sorry forgot them I'm not living in Oklahoma..and it was put under the political police type of umbrella that ran Homeland Security which is run like a military agency.

Now FEMA mind you is not a fantastic organization. They tried their best for years now and have responded and it has been the best we have been able to come up with.. but it was shoved into HOMELAND SECURITY (hiel hitler) and is there now to recover from a terrorist attack.. God Forbid that could happen at any time.

FEMA has taken five steps backwards to where it was before Andrew. In a chain of command situation it couldn't respond the way it was meant to respond to a NATURAL DISASTER. Sorry.. no gremlins, no al kaida, no commies.. just mother nature.

Kerry was right. We don't need more people in Homeland Security. We need more better Mosad type of spies who root out the real leaders of the money, do not protect the partners of the President in Oil and go after Osama. Hell..we could pretend 20/20 wants to do a story on him and drag Barbara Walters out of hiding and ask her to pretend she wants to interview him and we could probably smoke him out. This is a man who in hiding gave press conferences and interviews that were shown on American TV a few years before 911.

We started a war... took all the money that we had and threw it in a military budget.

WAKE UP CAROLINA.. there is only so much money to go around.

Money given for the budget had to come from somewhere.

Since time began we rob from Peter to pay Paul.. we all do and so does the government.

WE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR ELECTING LEADERS WHO KNEW THAT THIS TRAGEDY COULD OCCUR AND WHO PUT THEIR OWN POLITICAL AGENDAS BEFORE THIS REALITY AND SPENT MONEY THAT WE COULD HAVE USED TO FIX THE LEVEE AND MAKE SURE IT COULD SURVIVE A CAT 3, 4 OR 5. AND, EVEN IF IT DID FAIL.. IN THE YEAR 2005 ARE YOU TELLING ME WE COULD NOT COME UP WITH A PLAN TO FIX THE LEVEE FAST.. CLOSE IT FAST.

ALL WE COULD DO IS LEAVE ONE STUPID CRANE TRYING TO PLUG UP ONE LEVEE???

We can do better.

We must do better.

We must stop electing politicians who are not up to the standards of the American People.

When such a disaster occurs and you have seen (or should have seen) all the papers that told you that the SECOND WORST TRAGEDY in America today was the collapse of the levees in New Orleans you get your butt on a plane IMMEDIATELY. You don't need to fly back 3 days later to Washington DC to figure out what needs to be done.

National Geograhic readers knew.

Readers of every message board in the tropical community knew.

LSU knew.

FEMA knew.

How could you not know?

I love this country. I love the men who protect it. I love the landscape and the people and the architecture of every region.

Those people deserve better.

There is a saying "the buck stops here"

Well... the buck stops somewhere.

Clean Up.
Dig out.
Rebuild.
Count the Dead.

Make damn sure nothing like this happens ever again.

Or it was all for naught.

You have a city that needs to be evacuated in case of a direct landfall you make DAMN well that on city levels, county levels, state levels and federal levels ... there is a plan.

How basic is this?

How pathetic.

And.....................there is a depression forming now just off the coast of South Florida. There is rotation that "has remained nearly stationary over the... and a tropical depression can develop in this area in the next day or two" (listening to the weather radio) and it can develop.

We hope. We pray it won't.

But those of us who know weather, know history and know that today is the 70th anniversary of the day the Vets died on the Florida Keys because the government people in charge KNEW that they had to get them out fast during the hurricane season but didn't have a plan. By the time they sent the train it was too late.

The biggest investigation into the Weather Service before this was the 1935 LABOR DAY HURRICANE.

Ernest Hemigway wrote an article after going there from Key West and seeing the dead.. "who killed the vets?"

What you all don't know is those vets were the same Vets that marched on the White House years back.. demanded action, demanded jobs.. so good old FDR gave them jobs. He sent them down to the Florida Keys in the middle of the hurricane season before air conditioning and let them rot down there working their butts off for minimal pay they sent home or used partying in Miami. And, supposedly there was a plan.

But there was no plan.

Sound familar?

There should have been a plan.
There wasn't a plan.

Those poor vets (who FDR thought of as malcontents) just got washed out to sea.. oops.. should have had a plan. Didn't have a plan. NOTE: there was no racial story here... VETS who fought for America ... who were left on the Florida Keys with no plan, no clue what to do even though FDR and everyone else knew that in the Hurricane Season if they didn't get off the Florida Keys.. the skinniest of Keys.. Long Key and places like that they would get washed away... oops.

There is not an agency in America that deals with emergency management or weather or geography that did not know this would happen.

There should have been a plan.

When do we learn?

When do we learn to stop fighting a war for people who don't even care or want us there when our own people in this country need..

No. I don't support the war. Sue me.

Yes, I want the boys brought back.

Yes.. I want there to be a plan when Americans are in danger living in a city that everyone knows can flood.. I want a plan.

You can't force everyone off a barrier island.
You can't force everyone to leave New Orleans.. or Key West or Galveston.

But you can damn well have a plan.

We failed the Vets in 1935.
We failed the people on New Orleans 70 years later.

When are we going to learn?
When are we going to have a plan?

Do you have a plan if you live in Melbourne and this little tropical disturbance that just flooded my yard.. if it devleops fast into a hurricane?

If it veers southwest and turns into a Cat 3 over hot gulfstream waters.. will you have a plan?

Don't expect someone else to have a plan.

You are obvioulsy like the Vets learned and the poor people of New Orleans learned.. for now.. you are on your own.

not spellchecking, very upset.. going back to bed
before i wake up .... its my blog, I can do with it what I want and if you don't agree.. don't read it.

Or show me the plan, show me the reason there were buses under water not used to evacuate people who would have left but didn't have a way out.. no money, not sure it was that bad.. who waited til it was too late and trusted some government somewhere was going to protect them.

We all trust too much.

We are it seems dumb and dumber and very Clueless.

I wonder if Hemingway was drunk when he wrote that Essay.. that article.
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/wh1935.htm

I wish I could get on the Pilar and simply sail away.

Bobbi