Do we really know what is going on?

[Aristocath]

I am shocked that anyone thinks the media is trying to manipulate this situation.

Yes, some people are getting water and some people are getting food. The problem is that there is not enough. They only arranged for something like 435 busses to pick up the people at the SuperDome. Meanwhile thousands more people showed up from different parts of the city. They need at least 600 more busses to get these poor people out.

And Texas dropped the ball on the AstroDome situation.Governor Goodhair here was more concerned about greeting refugees for some photo ops on last night's newscast than taking care of business.

The sad truth is that our country was grossly underprepared for a worst case scenario.

 

[stevenpensacola]

What if all the TV crews in helicopters put down there cameras, flew over to Pensacola, where people are collecting all sorts of needed supplies, and flew back to NO to help drop them where needed?

Do you really think the news crews are "living" with the folks in the bad areas, are do they have a media compound (up on some secure overpass)they're able to retreat to each night?

TIN FOIL HAT WARNING
This whole thing is a government conspiracy...the clouds were seeded by secret white unmarked jets to cause the storm to intensify, after the storm missed NO, the levees were dynamited to cause the disaster, to allow the military to create a police state in the US, United Nations peacekeepers soon to follow....TIN FOIL HAT WARNING OFF

Sad to say, but the wacko conspiracy nuts will say things like the above comment.

Now is not the time to be pointing fingers, but to get the job at hand done....to get help to those truly in need.

 

[Mom2Ashli]

The media loves to show the worst of any situation.

 

[mom2boys]

I have to admit to being a little confused. All day long yesterday I heard screams of they are doing nothing and "WHERE ARE THE BUSSES". The media made it sound like not a single bus had come in.
All of a sudden last night they announced the Astrodome was full! Where the heck did those people come from????
I am starting to get the feeling the media is skewing this for their own purposes. If they evacuated enough people to fill the Astrodome and an overfllow facility there must have been a whole LOT of busses moving all day long.
I just heard this morning that military helicopters were dropping water and MRE's yesterday but I didn't see any video of that.
I am really starting to wonder if the media is showing what they want to show to increase the hysteria and up their ratings

Same old same old as far as the media skewing the "news" for their own purposes.
The media critizes the "authorities" for not being organzied. The "authorities" stage people through the Superdome and sent buses their to pick up people who were "processed" (however minimally). The media shows an empty bus driving past people in the streets on it's way to the staging areas and the media reports the "authorities" are doing "nothing". The media is also doing a disservice to the American people by focusing on the negative behaviors of a few morally corupt poeple shooting at doctors in helicpoters.

 

[snoopy]

Puh-leeze! This is no exaggeration. I've never seen media people so openly horrified as I've seen the past couple of days. Even those who are known for their composure. The enormity of what they are reporting is every bit real, unfortunately.

 

[AuntieM03]

Even Fox is someone guilty of sensationalism in this (shocking, I know). Yesterday, Shepherd Smith kept interviewing that I-10 was lawless, no help was over there, and he had to move from there. Then, they cut to a report on I-10 who was saying how everyone was banding together, trying to take care of one another, that a triage hospital and supplies had been set up, etc.

Which one was it?

I think they might be on 2 different parts of the I-10 (just a guess)

 

[minniepumpernickel]

I like Alex a lot on here, so I hope that he doesn't take this personally. I feel the need to rag on him, though!

Were we supposed to view the 9/11 coverage as sensationalized too? I'm just confused here. Or do we not want to believe that we can let our own people in the south suffer so much?

 

[peachgirl]

Puh-leeze! This is no exaggeration. I've never seen media people so openly horrified as I've seen the past couple of days. Even those who are known for their composure. The enormity of what they are reporting is every bit real, unfortunately.

I have too.

I watched Jeanne Meserve, a hardened reporter, get to the point where she couldn't file a report without her voice breaking and tears welling up in her eyes. That was not for the cameras, it was real. I watched Sheppard Smith..a reporter I normally cannot stand, have such a fury in his voice when questioning an official about why they couldn't send someone where he was to help. I saw local reporters, wiping their eyes and crying while they listened to a man talk about his wife slipping from his grip as their house fell apart.

And I've watched them while they reunited family members who were lost, set up a system on their websites for victims to find family members.

I think for the most part, the media has done an outstanding job, and yes, many of them lived in some very dangerous conditions to do it.

The President says the response isn't acceptable...perhaps he's been duped by the evil media as well.

 

[Geoff_M]

Do we really know what is going on?

Alex, take my advice... give it up. We've failed miserably, victims are getting no help, if only FEMA had "mobilized" sooner, the government wants them to die, if a singer can get in and out easily then why can't all of the people too, if we weren't in Iraq none of this would be happenging, etc. etc. etc. All hope is lost.

 

[shortbun]

You might just have something there Alex.

I hope it's not contagious.

 

[LVSWL]

Wouldn't be the first time..not showing the whole story always makes for better ratings.

 

[peachgirl]

Alex, take my advice... give it up. We've failed miserably, victims are getting no help, if only FEMA had "mobilized" sooner, the government wants them to die, if a singer can get in and out easily then why can't all of the people too, if we weren't in Iraq none of this would be happenging, etc. etc. etc. All hope is lost.

So, I take it you disagree with the President's assessment?

 

[momof2inPA]

Let's be fair. There were tons of shots of the Astrodome, yesterday, and there were clips of water and MRE's being unloaded, not served to the desperate, but unloaded from transports. There was also a clip of a woman at the Convention Center desperately looking for food and water because the 20,000 people stranded there had none. She found some orange juice. So, if the water and MRE's were handed out to the flood victims, they clearly hadn't reached the Convention Center by that point yesterday. Maybe they were at the Dome, so the reporters went looking for a bigger story. That's possible.

In my opinion, the press did a HUGE favor to those standed at the Convention Center by bringing to light their situation. Those people needed help and were getting none. Maybe because of the press, they were served food and water later that night. We can only hope. Truly, I admire the reporting that's been done, and think the reporters and new people have greatly helped the poor of the South to be rescued. If they only reported happy, warm fuzzy flood storied, we would never know of the dead outside the Convention Center and the hospital evacuees desperate for help and camping out in a parking lot.

 

[Planogirl]

Personally, I've been reading the New Orleans forums. I'm sure that a lot of it is inaccurate but there are people claiming to have witnessed horrible things. I doubt that most would bother to lie but who knows? Maybe everyone here is just a figment of my imagination.

 

[Duckfan-in-Chicago]

I trust the media about as far as I can throw them. This may seem small to some, but I've heard reports of 100,000 stayed in the city and other reports that 200,000 did. When they were moved to the dome, CNN said 10,000 were there, and MSNBC said 20,000-30,000, then changed it to estimated number. Then there was a rape, there wasn't a rape, there may have been many rapes. They report these things as fact on their tickers, and want to be the first to break every story, but when things don't match up, they never retract anything. All it would take is for someone to go up to a reporter outside the dome right now and tell him a lie, and it would be spread as fact to the country.

I feel really bad for all the people left in that city, and for the reporters who just thought they were going to cover another story and are going to have to live with what they're seeing the rest of their lives.

 

[snoopy]

Let's be fair. There were tons of shots of the Astrodome, yesterday, and there were clips of water and MRE's being unloaded, not served to the desperate, but unloaded from transports. There was also a clip of a woman at the Convention Center desperately looking for food and water because the 20,000 people stranded there had none. She found some orange juice. So, if the water and MRE's were handed out to the flood victims, they clearly hadn't reached the Convention Center by that point yesterday. Maybe they were at the Dome, so the reporters went looking for a bigger story. That's possible.

In my opinion, the press did a HUGE favor to those standed at the Convention Center by bringing to light their situation. Those people needed help and were getting none. Maybe because of the press, they were served food and water later that night. We can only hope. Truly, I admire the reporting that's been done, and think the reporters and new people have greatly helped the poor of the South to be rescued. If they only reported happy, warm fuzzy flood storied, we would never know of the dead outside the Convention Center and the hospital evacuees desperate for help and camping out in a parking lot.

You got that right. The media is to be commended -- as peachgirl said upthread, there are reporters that I usually can't stand who are out there playing hardball and asking the questions that need to be answered.

 

[LvsTnk]

I lived on the other side of the river from NO as a little girl, my brother was born there. My father piloted a shrimp boat. We didn't have much and I know it would have been impossible for us to get out before hand let alone help ourselves afterwards. Actually I am sure the house where we lived is now gone. I don't think it is rocket science here people.....poor planning on the goverments part(and I don't give a toot about the election)to get things moving afterwards. No excuses in my book media or otherwise.

 

[live4christp1]

I think it safe to say that one thing we can learn from this is that most areas (and those immediately surrounding them) are not prepared to deal with a disaster of this magnitude.

(Preaching to myself here) How many of us know the emergency evacuation routes for our area? How many of us have inquired into where a staging area for survivors would be in the event of something this catastrophic? How many of us keep on hand something that could be grabbed and taken with us if we had to evacuate immediately? Items such as water purification tablets, a basic survival kit, etc. I know I'm not prepared and vow to start working on correcting that.

How many of us are prepared financially enough and secure enough in our jobs to be able to pick up and head down to help out instead of sitting here saying what all isn't being done?

So many people take that attitude of "oh, that won't happen to us". As Americans we are really blessed with what we have but that blessing can also turn into a hindrance as we tend to get in a comfort zone where we don't think about anything like this happening. We just roll right along in our little worlds never giving a second thought to "what if". Then when "what if" happens we are left in chaos and confusion.

I applaud the work of all those who are in the area doing the best they can with the resources they have been given. For putting their lives on the line in order to save others. I am appauld that these people risk being accosted by people that are victims of this disaster but that just goes to show the moral degradation that is becoming so rampant in our society.

 

[sodaseller]

How quickly it has become "the crisis is exaggerated, and those suffering are undeserving". Not unexpected, but still sad. We are seeing the fruits of a Biblical 40 years of rhetoric trying to destroy any sense of nationhood we might have under a radical libertarian ethos

 

[minniepumpernickel]

I think it safe to say that one thing we can learn from this is that most areas (and those immediately surrounding them) are not prepared to deal with a disaster of this magnitude.

(Preaching to myself here) How many of us know the emergency evacuation routes for our area? How many of us have inquired into where a staging area for survivors would be in the event of something this catastrophic? How many of us keep on hand something that could be grabbed and taken with us if we had to evacuate immediately? Items such as water purification tablets, a basic survival kit, etc. I know I'm not prepared and vow to start working on correcting that.

How many of us are prepared financially enough and secure enough in our jobs to be able to pick up and head down to help out instead of sitting here saying what all isn't being done?



So many people take that attitude of "oh, that won't happen to us". As Americans we are really blessed with what we have but that blessing can also turn into a hindrance as we tend to get in a comfort zone where we don't think about anything like this happening. We just roll right along in our little worlds never giving a second thought to "what if". Then when "what if" happens we are left in chaos and confusion.

I applaud the work of all those who are in the area doing the best they can with the resources they have been given. For putting their lives on the line in order to save others. I am appauld that these people risk being accosted by people that are victims of this disaster but that just goes to show the moral degradation that is becoming so rampant in our society.

You bring up some interesting points. I've had a survivalist class (winter camping), I'm CPR/First Aid certified, I have a gas mask etc.... .

The people that are existing on the poverty level, are the least equiped to handle a disaster. I guess they are the ones left to suffer the most. They are the ones that need the help now.