This has come around before but it needs to stick...
As CNN's website trumpets the general sense of shock sweeping America right now at the feeble resonse to Katrina's aftermath, those on the ground literally dying for aid are lucky they don't have any real connections to civilisation. If they did, they might catch wind of supreme asshole Michael Brown of FEMA telling them they are responsible for their own situation:
More below...
This guy needs to get fired:
Michael Brown also agreed with other public officials that the death toll in the city could reach into the thousands.
"Unfortunately, that's going to be attributable a lot to people who did not heed the advance warnings," Brown told CNN.
"I don't make judgments about why people chose not to leave but, you know, there was a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans," he said.
"And to find people still there is just heart-wrenching to me because, you know, the mayor did everything he could to get them out of there.
"So, we've got to figure out some way to convince people that whenever warnings go out it's for their own good," Brown said. "Now, I don't want to second guess why they did that. My job now is to get relief to them."
I think it is quite amazing that the majority of New Orleans citizens managed to evacuate the city with one day's notice. I can't recall if any outside assistance (i.e. outside New Orleans or Louisianna) was offered to people with no way to actually do so, but that will all come out in writing of this tragedy. If Michael Brown wants to know why some pople didn't evacuate, the answers are many and quite obvious:
Despite the dire predictions, a group of residents in a poor neighborhood of central New Orleans sat on a porch with no car, no way out and, surprisingly, no fear.
"We're not evacuating," said Julie Paul, 57. "None of us have any place to go. We're counting on the Superdome. That's our lifesaver."
The 70,000-seat Superdome, the home of football's Saints, opened at daybreak Sunday, giving first priority to frail, elderly people on walkers, some with oxygen tanks. They were told to bring enough food, water and medicine to last up to five days.
"They told us not to stay in our houses because it wasn't safe," said Victoria Young, 76, who sat amid plastic bags and a metal walker. "It's not safe anywhere when you're in the shape we're in."
There you have it Michael. Unless you offered to drive these people out of New Orleans yourself, then you should just STFU and do your job.