It’s going to be as bad, or worse as Katrina, except for the fact that New Orleans has a lot fewer citizens than during Katrina. However the death toll has the potential to rocket if if Gustav hits directly, since the city has written off anyone who can’t evacuate:
Unlike Katrina, when thousands took refuge inside the Superdome, there will be no "last resort" shelter, and those who stay behind accept "all responsibility for themselves and their loved ones," said the city’s emergency preparedness director, Jerry Sneed.
In addition, a category 5 sweeping through the Gulf is likely to take out a swathe of oil rigs, causing oil and gasoline prices to spike. Forget the talk about how bad it looks to have another hurricane reminding everyone of Katrina, when gasoline prices spike back up, McCain’s numbers will take a dive on that alone.
Incumbents take the blame for bad economic times. As long as Democrats keep McCain tied to Bush, he’s toast. You might argue that a hurricane is an act of God, but putting the US in a position where an event that is bound to happen from time to time can cause such devastation is something government can legitimately be blamed for. And FEMA still being broken and unable to do a proper job is very much the administration’s fault.
And maybe when Obama is President, the levees can be properly rebuilt, swampland can be reclaimed to give New Orleans a proper buffer and the US can get off oil, so that a hurricane can’t cause an economic shock by taking out oil rigs.
Related posts:
Spotlight
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About Firedoglake
Advanced search
Obama!
Maybe. And Maybe.Not.
Digg it for Ian and FDL!
Sorry, off topic … but funny
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JahdnOQ9XCA
Written off those who can’t/won’t evacuate? Can they really do that? Are we going to see a bunch of bodies floating outside the locked doors of the Superdome?
Question to Bush and the corrupt Republicans: YOU MEAN YOU IDIOTS STILL HAVEN’T FIXED THE LEVIES!!??!!
Enjoy.
Where is everybody?
Anybody taking bets on whether Sarah Palin will be nominated?
Please, oh please, won’t the building trades and unions immediately flood the area in the aftermath of whatever happens to set up apprenticeship training centers, stocked with tools and manned by seasoned working men and women to help those local folks immediately start addressing the needs of their community, to ensure that their communities don’t get sweep up in the same old “Shock Doctrine” actions and responses that we saw after Katrina.
Labor- please don’t let us down!
Ian, I’m surprised you didn’t mention Spencer’s post about Blackwater ramping up for Gustav in NOLA…
This is so like Katrina….another Sunday watching the huge storm coming in. Of course, the storm basically spared NO until it didn’t when the levees broke. On Thursday we saw Obama claim the dream; Gustav is now reminding us of the epic Bush failure.
The concern now is that it will make landfall just to the west of NO which, because the rotation is counterclockwise, will pump in winds and rain directly off the Gulf.
But this is the way with this Administration. 8 years after the 2000 election we still don’t have an accurate and secure way to vote. 3 years after Katrina NO is still staring down the barrel of a gun with marginal levees and as you say a broken FEMA.
I hope Dakine will tell us more about this; I think last time Blackwater pretty much acted on its own grab of authority. Of course, Brownie would not have noticed or cared.
Bush gutted FEMA in his first year.He continues to gut everything else he can up to the minute of his exit(OH HAPPY DAY) from the WH.If McShame gets in, cancel the OH HAPPY DAY & replace it “We`re f-cked.
Still waiting for Lieberman to convene Homeland Security hearings to find out why the levees haven’t been repaired. Perhaps someone will ask him as he goes to speak to the other party’s convention.
That’s about as polite as I can state it.
Hey, Ian, great post! I can’t tell you how important I think that replacing that buffer is, yet you rarely hear anyone even discuss it anymore. You know, it’s not as if we, through federal government policies, didn’t cause the erosion that took those wetlands away. It is our government that determined how to rig up the great river for our own best advantage, even if what we wanted bore no resemblance to nature’s intent. NOLA was there before all this; we should make sure NOLA is there long after we’re gone. Hopefully, like doctors, we can take an oath to do no (further) harm.
Need to relocate the people in those lands. It’ll be hard, but it has to be done. There are some places where people shouldn’t live. That’s not so much NOLA, but the lands that protected it. (Also lots of California lands which are built in places which will keep having fires. Never should have allowed houses to be built there.)
In CA, you also mean the parts along the shore line that have a tendency to landslide straight out to the ocean, don’t you? Bad enough parts of the coast highway are directly on the fault line, as are schools and other stuff.
I think the GOP will struggle mightily to get through the convention with her on the ticket, but I don’t think she will last, no.
Anyone see the Top Gear show (british car series) where they went cross country and ended up in New Orleans??THey were horrified at the current conditions and i felt so ashamed for our idiotic president i remember i was watching cnn the night katrina hit and there was breaking news from Bush..I thoughT “finally he is going to talk about Katrina” but instead his breaking news was that they are voting today in Iraq!!! I nearly fell over
Amen to the person who talks about the buffer…come on Obama At least he CARES
Lives lost in NOLA next week really are on Lieberman’s dreadful head as much as anyone else’s. His behavior has been absolutely criminal, in covering up the criminal cronyism that followed Katrina.
He is, perhaps, one of the worst public servants ever to grace our land.
yep who woulda guessed
Quite to the contrary, I think she will last. She has to; otherwise they are conceding the election the same as McGovern when people discovered he blew his first decision out of the box, his people did not vet the VP choice carefully enough.
I actually think that McBoss thinks he can fix her “brother-in-law-gate or troopergate” problem by sending the Feds in to tell the locals how this is going to go down. He expects them all to then fall neatly in line. I don’t think he’s on the outs with Stevens, and I believe Stevens still has some weight to throw around there. Are there any Dems even in sight in Alaska?
They are stopping free evacuation operations as of 8 am Sunday morning. If you are too late, and you don’t have a car, you will be stuck. If you don’t watch TV (because it is so stupid or you don’t have a TV), how are you going to know?
I thought this post was about the hurricane approaching the Gulf coast, not the hurricane threatening us all in the McSame campaign.
Philip Munger is upstairs!
Sarah Palin – Bad News for McCain, Good News for Alaska’s GOP