Sunday, September 04, 2005
"We came to save you with the resources we have, not the resources you desperately need..."
Donald Rumsfeld is perhaps the only government official who is blameless in the government's feckless response to Katrina, but that didn’t stop the NY Times from taking a harsh swipe at the Secretary of Defense on their website:
Upon his arrival at the airport, Mr. Rumsfeld spoke to and shook hands with military and rescue officials, but he walked right by a dozen refugees lying on stretchers just feet away from him, most of them extremely sick or handicapped, Reuters reported.
Ouch. Meanwhile, its been almost 7 days since the Katrina came ashore, there has been unprecedented amounts of negative media coverage of the response to the disaster, there have been too many promises by government officials to improve rescue operations than can be counted, and…. and nothing has changed. There still aren’t enough resources in the area.
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Time is running out for thousands of people awaiting rescue six days after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, rescuers say.
Officials say they do not have the manpower, the resources or enough time to save everyone.
"My guys are coming back and telling me, 'Sir, I went into a house, and there are three elderly people in their beds, and they're gasping, and they're dying,' " Coast Guard Capt. Bruce Jones said.
"And we got calls today, 'We need you ... to go to a place in St. Bernard Parish. It's a hospice, ... and there are 10 dead and there are 10 dying.' But those people were probably alive yesterday or the day before."
Though pilots, rescue crew members and maintenance workers are red-eyed and exhausted, they're refusing to rest, CNN's Karl Penhaul reported.
For every person plucked from the flood, there are hundreds still waiting, rescuers say.
"There's simply not enough resources," Jones said.
"It's an awful feeling to know you've not got everybody in time," rescue swimmer Chris Monville said. "You're trying to get everybody out. But in these temperatures the weak and the sick expire first, and it tears at your heart.
Monville said he has rescued 126 people in a single day.
Ugh. More and more, it becomes clear that there will be hell to pay for the government's failure to respond effectively, or even to respond, to this catastrophe. And the disconnect between the administration and reality is troubling. Are they really this clueless? Is that even possible? I guess so.
