Brownie Introduces Me To My Hackles

I tell you what, I thought I knew what it meant to have my hackles raised during the Katrina aftermath...

Michael Brown is a lizard brained smarmy piece of salamander crap. Where does he get the gall to try and blame the Katrina fiasco on Louisiana and our elected officials.

Let me explain a few things... Louisiana does have an evacuation plan for the coastal areas, including the 1.2 million people of the greater New Orleans area. This plan was put into effect at least once a year, including the recent Hurricane's Ivan and Georges, and was well tested. We worked the bugs out long ago for the Contraflow plan. The country must understand that the city of New Orleans is effectively an island with only four exit roads: Airline Hwy., I-10 East & West and the Causeway over Lake Pontchartrain. These are ALL two lane bridges. Even with contraflow, the New Orleans area only had 16 lanes of road to evacuate almost a million people within 48 hours. To get 80% of the population out in this short notice is extraordinary.

And yes, it was only 48 hours notice. As of the Friday evening before, I even had a conversation with two individuals where Katrina came up, and I said we had nothing to worry about, Katrina was headed to Pensacola (unfortunately for them).

PENSACOLA WAS THE HURRICANE TRACK UNTIL EARLY SATURDAY MORNING.

Michael Brown repeatedly stated that FEMA was working properly in Mississippi and Alabama, yet for some reason Mississippi Congressman Taylor kept reminding him that this was NOT true. That Mississippi was completely without assistance for a week. Brown even had the toadlike audacity to try and correct the Mississippi Congressman after he stated the "Federal Emergency Management Association" and then stated that the Congressman didn't even know that FEMA was a Government agency.

A few facts which should help give everyone an idea of where the trouble lay...

• When you have truckloads of food which can and must be delivered to starving people and a FEMA beaurecrat on the ground will not allow the food to go to the people who need it because there are no National Guardsmen to protect it, while there are 100 capable police officers standing nearby - who caused the problem?

• When you have FEMA beaurecrats on the ground seizing diesel shipments to a parish government, fuel desparately needed to maintain generators providing energy for the miniscule communications remaining, to such a degree that the parish government orders parish police officers to arm themselves and forcibly retake control of this fuel - who caused the problem?

• When suddenly the remaining communications available to one parish vanish only for it to be discovered that FEMA has come in and disabled a major antennae tower because it was not FEMA approved - who caused the problem?

• When there is a small group of National Guard troops who are trying to deliver truckloads of MRE's to the disaster area and are halted by a FEMA beaurecrat and the soldiers must then raise a superior officer on the radio who then fires (without the authority to do so) this idiotic beaurecrat thereby allowing the food to be delivered - who was the cause of the problem and who solved it?

Michael Brown you are the one who is dysfunctional and now, you are truly dispicable. DO NOT EVER THINK THAT YOU MAY STEP FOOT INTO THIS STATE AGAIN.

I do understand that there were failures on the state and local level, but according to FEMA's own "Hurricane Pam" exercise, THESE FAILURES WERE ALL PREDICTED.

Our people did their best with extremely limited resources under extraordinary circumstances.

I also must make a statement regarding Mayor Ray Nagin. I voted for this man in his first election, and will wholeheartedly do so again in the next. It is somewhat disgusting to me that parts of this country perceive him to be an idiot because he is African-American and speaks with a good ole New Orleans accent.

Nagin was a CEO of a major corporation before he decided to run for Mayor - bucking and defeating the old line corrupt power groups held by Congressman Jefferson and the Morial family. This man instituted New Orleans' first CTO position which eliminated outrageous things like long distance telephone service for the city government costing upwards of 25 cents a minute, by simply calling Sprint - contracts which were held by the cronies of Marc Morial and Congressman Jefferson. The CTO even began receiving death threats.

Mayor Nagin has done more for this city in his three or so years as Mayor than the last 5 mayors combined.

VIVA NAGIN.

I also want to express my thanks, sympathy and understanding to Police Chief Eddie Compass. You are indeed a hero, as are the vast majority of the NOPD.