I Love Ted Koppel

[luvthatduke]

Can I just say that, please?
We don't have "full" cable,
so we're limited to the local news & Nightline.
Ted started off tonight's broadcast so bluntly,
and IMHO so RIGHTLY, calling a spade a spade.
First he simply stated that our gov't. must be in denial,
then later he played a taped interview with the FEMA director
(sorry, I've twisted his name in my head)
and asked him one direct question after another.
Now, Ted also apologized for grilling him in the midst
of this man's duties, but he didn't apologize for the questions.
My favorites (paraphrased):

Ted: "You keep saying you only today found
out about the Convention Center, don't you folks
watch television? My colleagues & I have been
reporting on the conditions there for days!
How is it that we knew, and the government didn't?"

FEMA: "Well, Ted, we did send one (count 'em one)
of our men down there to get an accurate
assessment and accurate count today, after I found out...
and we are feeding those people..."

Ted: "With all due respect, you are NOT feeding
those people at the Convention Center! We've been
broadcasting from there and today we showed the bodies
that are just pushed up against the walls there.
There is no water, there is no food,
and there is no medical help, and there is no one in control!"

And on the subject of preparation:
Ted:"The people who did not evacuate, many of them
had no means to leave, no vehicles, and no way of
sustaining themselves if they could even get out of the city,
these are tremendously poor people.
When you knew the scope of the hurricane,
why didn't you send army vehicles, even flatbeds,
or order all the Greyhound busses from surrounding areas
to at least give these people the means to escape?"


Please don't think I enjoy beating someone who's down,
and in defense of the Federal Gov't. it is true that they
usually must technically wait for help to be asked for from the state level,
which is what the FEMA director made a feeble attempt at explaining.

But when you see the misery, the babies, the anarchy,
the hospital workers under fire, I mean seriously -
"help is on the way" just does not mean anything!
And I am embarrassed that our gov't. didn't "expect the levees to fail"
- for crying out loud our local news and The Weather Channel
expected them to fail... What a nightmare this is.....

 

[Free4Life11]

I wish I had seen Nightline tonight. Do they ever re-air it?

 

[MandM-Mom]

I love that reporters are asking for answeres, Those families deserve answers so they know what there fate holds. Msnbc did a similiar report earlier with there Scarsbourough Country and there videoographer...... It is quite an embaressment for our Country....our own people suffering and dying while Iraq is being rebuilt from the ground up!!! There will be some explaining to do, and they can say what they want, (we did the best we could) or whatever but I as an american citizien see it differently. If anything this country must realize we need to be better prepared for these things, we need to stop worrying about other countries problems and get our boys back home to help there own.......Its not that I am against the US in Iraq I just want our countries people to be safe aswell and right now the south needs the same rebuilding efforts!

 

[Gymbomom]

Amid all the government/Bush bashing sessions tonight...
I have to say we do need to get a better system in place. This system/plan of action has failed, we need to learn from our mistakes.
I also understand it takes to moblize the army and National Guard....but wow, this is a long time.
I know it seems pointless to spend the money every year on the CHANCE of the rare HUGE national disaster, but wow, it would have seemed worth it if we could have done a better job at helping these people.

 

[luvthatduke]

I wish I had seen Nightline tonight. Do they ever re-air it?

They don't re-air it in my area,
but if you go to abc.com you might
find the video or the transcript.


Also want to add to anyone reading that
I am finally getting a chance to peruse the
other threads from today.
I am not bashing our federal gov't.,
and yes the main fault lies at the feet
of the mayor and governor - no question there, IMHO.
But I sincerely think that because the
disaster responders are mainly on the federal level,
then they should have been maintaining the same
close vigil that the newscasters have been,
whether or not the governor thought to ask them to.
Sometimes the people who know how to do things right
need to prepare "just in case" the ones currently in charge don't.

 

[Virgo10]

Chertoff is an idiot. He couldn't even get the name of the Hurricane correct during his new conference yesterday. He called it Hurricane Catarina.

If any heads roll over this debacle, I want to see his first. Head of Homeland Security... Indeed.

Good for Ted Koppel. I wish I had seen Larry King put it to them last night. Saying everything is alright doesn't make it so and is bad on many levels. Agreeing with the person who says that is worse.

 

[luvthatduke]

In the interest of fairness I'll post this from FOX:


FEMA Surprised By Lawlessness

WASHINGTON — The head of the federal disaster relief agency said Friday it's "heartbreaking and very, very frustrating" to witness the virtual anarchy in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans (search ) and defended the Bush administration's response.

Interviewed on several network morning news shows, Michael Brown (search), director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (search ), blamed emergency assistance delivery problems on "the total lack of communications, the inability to hear and have good intelligence on the ground about what was actually occurring there."

Brown appeared the morning after the mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin (search ), charged that administration officials "don't have a clue" about what's going on in the devastated city that long has been among the nation's premier tourist attractions.

"People are getting the help they need," Brown asserted on NBC's "Today" show. "This is an ongoing disaster. This disaster didn't just end when Katrina left."

But Brown also acknowledged that little in the government's preparedness plan took into account the likelihood of lawlessness in such dire straits.

"Before the hurricane struck I came down here personally and rode the storm out in Baton Rouge," he said. "We had all of our rescue teams, the medical teams, pre-deployed, ready to go. ... The lawlessness, the crime that is occurring, did surprise us."

Appearing on ABC's "Good Morning America," the FEMA director said he "never thought I'd see" the lawlessness that has overtaken the city and interrupted emergency relief efforts. "It's heartbreaking and very, very frustrating to me from a broad operational perspective," he said.

"What we have right now is a situation where, with my having access to the military, bringing in the National Guard troops, securing the area, we'll be able to continue the relief efforts that we have been doing over the last several days," Brown added. "We'll be able to ramp those up and continue the evacuation."

Asked about the difficulty in getting sufficient supplies of food, water and medicine for the victims who need it, Brown conceded on NBC: "That's a frustrating issue for me ... You know, I could sit here and read off all the stats [of supplies furnished] ... We've provided food to people ... It's just a massive process ... to take care of every single one of those individuals."

 

[Jen D]

Ted Koppel is awesome. I wanted to hold up a cigarette lighter at the end of that interview.

 

[Laura]

And I am embarrassed that our gov't. didn't "expect the levees to fail"
- for crying out loud our local news and The Weather Channel
expected them to fail... What a nightmare this is.....

That has bothered me to NO END.

I'm no civil engineer, but when they're predicting a category 5 hurricane to hit a city with levees that can only withstand a category 3 hurricane (I mean before Katrina downgraded to a 4), where's the surprise that the levees failed? And with a category 5, the models that were already calculated predicted that water would've just poured over the levees even if they did hold. I was shocked that they appeared to hold on Monday after the hurricane went through. And Bush says no one expected the levees to fail? It's one of the dumbest things the man has ever said.

Okay, Bush rant over. I can definitely understand FEMA's surprise that people would shoot at rescuers. That one just boggles my mind.