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August 05, 2006
Bill Clinton Hates Black People
With the election campaign heating up and the one year anniversary of Katrina promising WALL to WALL coverage in the Drive by Media (since "global warming" isn't yet producing all these hurricanes the left promised), you need to arm yourself with facts that will put natural disasters in perspective. We heard of all of the wonderful competence of the Clinton administration and his FEMA after Katrina.
During the Clinton administration, we had the Chicago Heat Wave of 1995.
The 1995 Chicago heat wave led to approximately 600 heat-related deaths over a period of five days. It is now considered to be one of the worst weather-related disasters in Chicago history.
The scale was shocking, although the event itself may not have been that unusual. Eric Klinenberg, author of the 2002 book Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago, has noted that in the United States, the loss of human life in hot spells in summer exceeds that caused by all other weather events combined, including lightning, rain, floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes.
Because of the nature of the disaster, and the slow response of authorities to recognize it, no official "death toll" has been determined. However, figures show that 739 additional people died in that particular week above the usual weekly average. Further epidemiologic analysis presented by Eric Klinenberg (author of Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago) showed that blacks were more likely to die than whites, and that Hispanics had an unusually low death rate due to heat. At the time, many blacks lived in areas of sub-standard housing and less cohesive neighborhoods, while Hispanics at the time lived in places with higher population density, and more social cohesion.
Between 600 and 739 people died. So, where was FEMA? Were were all the denunciations from black leaders about how President Clinton was a racist and was incompetent for not recognizing that people in Chicago were at risk? It couldn't be blamed on the mayor of Chicago or the governor if we follow the Katrina logic. The blame rests with the first black president, Bill Clinton. FEMA had no destruction to traverse, no flooding, no looting, no people on rooftops and no war draining on the resources of the national guard.
Yet he couldn't get these people a simple glass of cold water.
Now let's look at the reality of Hurricane Katrina as described by Popular Mechanics Magazine (which could hardly be called a partisan magazine):
[T]he response to Hurricane Katrina was by far the largest--and fastest-rescue effort in U.S. history, with nearly 100,000 emergency personnel arriving on the scene within three days of the storm's landfall.
Dozens of National Guard and Coast Guard helicopters flew rescue operations that first day--some just 2 hours after Katrina hit the coast. Hoistless Army helicopters improvised rescues, carefully hovering on rooftops to pick up survivors. On the ground, "guardsmen had to chop their way through, moving trees and recreating roadways," says Jack Harrison of the National Guard. By the end of the week, 50,000 National Guard troops in the Gulf Coast region had saved 17,000 people; 4000 Coast Guard personnel saved more than 33,000.
These units had help from local, state and national responders, including five helicopters from the Navy ship Bataan and choppers from the Air Force and police. The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries dispatched 250 agents in boats. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), state police and sheriffs' departments launched rescue flotillas. By Wednesday morning, volunteers and national teams joined the effort, including eight units from California's Swift Water Rescue. By Sept. 8, the waterborne operation had rescued 20,000.
...Both public officials and the press passed along lurid tales of post-Katrina mayhem: shootouts in the Superdome, bodies stacked in a convention center freezer, snipers firing on rescue helicopters. And those accounts appear to have affected rescue efforts as first responders shifted resources from saving lives to protecting rescuers. In reality, although looting and other property crimes were widespread after the flooding on Monday, Aug. 29, almost none of the stories about violent crime turned out to be true. Col. Thomas Beron, the National Guard commander of Task Force Orleans, arrived at the Superdome on Aug. 29 and took command of 400 soldiers. He told PM that when the Dome's main power failed around 5 am, "it became a hot, humid, miserable place. There was some pushing, people were irritable. There was one attempted rape that the New Orleans police stopped."
The only confirmed account of a weapon discharge occurred when Louisiana Guardsman Chris Watt was jumped by an assailant and, during the chaotic arrest, accidently shot himself in the leg with his own M-16.
When the Superdome was finally cleared, six bodies were found--not the 200 speculated. Four people had died of natural causes; one was ruled a suicide, and another a drug overdose. Of the four bodies recovered at the convention center, three had died of natural causes; the fourth had sustained stab wounds.
...When Nagin issued his voluntary evacuation order, a contraflow plan that turned inbound interstate lanes into outbound lanes enabled 1.2 million people to leave New Orleans out of a metro population of 1.5 million. "The Corps estimated we would need 72 hours [to evacuate that many people]," says Brian Wolshon, an LSU civil engineer. "Instead, it took 38 hours." Later investigations indicated that many who stayed did so by choice. "Most people had transportation," says Col. Joe Spraggins, director of emergency management in Harrison County, Ala. "Many didn't want to leave." Tragic exceptions: hospital patients and nursing home residents.
All of this happened while Bush was on his notorious vacation...
Posted by Aaron at August 5, 2006 12:38 PM
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Comments
You have a point and well taken.
Maybe Bush being on vacation actually helped the situation, he could not screw up the mess any worse than it already was.
Perhaps if Bush spent more time on vacation we could get our country back on the right track.
This message speaks for it self Billboard
http://www.carlsheeler.com/ contribution.htm
Posted by: William Shaw at August 5, 2006 01:19 PM
William Shaw,
I agree with you, the less the government gets involved the better the results. Now make sure you vote to get Social security away from the government, and vote to keep the government out of health care.
Posted by: DoubleU at August 5, 2006 01:41 PM