Hurricane Hysteria, Louisiana Style!

Here We Go Again!

I don’t know how many more times we folks who live in Hurricane Alley have to shout it… but the Federal Government is not a First Responder when a hurricane strikes a coastal community, be it a city or a small beach town.

I have had it, up to my eyeballs, with the bitching and moaning coming from the American Left about the President’s, and the Federal Government’s, response to hurricane Katrina.

I can’t even tell you how many times the area in which I live has been smashed by hurricanes in the 42 years that I have lived here. One year, fairly recently, we were hit four times in one season, twice in less than 30 days. Winds, rain, flooding, no electricity for days on end, no communications, the whole miserable nine yards!

We know whom to turn to when disaster strikes. We turn first to ourselves. That is where responsibility for one’s safety ultimately resides. Our county governments and the state are on scene long before the storm arrives advising and making last minute adjustments to the emergency plans made months and even years ago. Each year those plans are adjusted, and revised, to meet the shortcomings exposed by previous hurricanes. We know how long it takes to evacuate the barrier Islands and we know how long it takes to evacuate our coastal cities. We have evacuation routes clearly marked along the highways. At predestinated times those four lanes suddenly become one way leading away from the coast and reaching inland as far as is necessary. We have shelters starting 50 miles away, and then 75 miles away, and then 100 mile away, and so on until we have out people out of harms way. Each spring the broadcasters and print media, and emergency management people, and meteorologists from the National Hurricane Center, in Coral Gables, Florida, meet to discuss the previous years plans and what has changed and what must be done to update our plans. For many years, I took part in those meetings. They are no nonsense planning sessions to prepare our people for the worst possible weather scenario we can imagine.

Each year we prepare for the worst and hope for the best. We are already preparing for this years strike, or strikes, as the case may be.

Now, lets get something clear. Louisiana, and New Orleans in particular, are Democrat strongholds. That area is known throughout the South as a liberal backwater ruled over by a slew of Democrat political families much like a fiefdom. It sucks up federal dollars like a sponge sucking up water. You’d think with all the federal dollars going into that area it would be a Left Wing Paradise… that Utopia the leftist loves to boast that only they are capable of creating. I submit to you that when you look at Louisiana, and New Orleans, you are, in fact, looking at that Democrat Utopia! A welfare state. A socialist society located within a single state of the United States.

You can see just how effective such a government can be when the defecation hits the rotary oscillator. They have become so accustomed to sucking from the government teat that when a real problem dares raise it’s ugly head in their paradise, they are completely overwhelmed and don’t have a clue what to do to save themselves… and then they bitch and complain because the federal government didn’t save their hides fast enough!

The people of New Orleans, and the entire coastal areas of Louisiana, were told many times, over a period of several days, that Katrina was going to strike New Orleans and they should get the heck out of town and get as far away from the coast as was possible. They ignored the warnings. For whatever reason they chose to remain in the path of a devastating hurricane and they were stream rolled by it.

The state and municipal governments were totally over whelmed by it and had no clue what to do. That, dear reader, is when the leftist blames the government and… if that government is headed up by a Republican they will attack that government with a fervor unseen by many on this continent. It is their way of drawing attention away from themselves and their own ineptitude.

And it worked. The mainstream media jumped on board and began carrying the Left’s water for it… again… as it does so often. The airheads of Hollywood jumped aboard the blame train and now we have even more entertainers spewing imbecilic charges against the feds for an awful response to Katrina. They are complaining that the President didn’t take unto himself constitutional powers that he does not have. Believe it or not, there are still a few states’ rights left and one of them is that the President of the United States can’t take over a state short of a revolution, an insurrection, in that state. Yet, they bitch because he didn’t take over Louisiana! How stupid can one be?

The entertainers should just keep their mouths shut and allow us to wonder if they are idiots. But, no, they have to open their mouths and remove all doubt!

We have another hurricane season beginning soon. There is a strong probability the New Orleans will get hit again this summer. The city is nowhere near ready for a minor storm, let alone a major storm.

By the way, when Katrina hit New Orleans it was not a Cat 6, or a Cat 5. It was a Cat 3 storm. The levees would not even hold back the sea in a Cat Three storm!

I have news for you newbies out there, until you have lived through a hurricane Hazel, or a hurricane Hugo, or a hurricane Camille, or Andrew, or any number of major storms you have no conception of the destructive power of those storms. None! There is only so much preparation the human species can make when confronted with the eminent strike of one of these storms. The smart people run. As the storm approaches there comes an inevitable moment when those who choose to remain in the path of the storm suddenly realize they are totally at the mercy of the storm. The storm has no mercy. If you try to stand up to a hurricane, you will loose.

Oh, and while I’m venting: to the news media, please do us a favor and stop sending your newly minted news persons and meteorologist to stand out on the beach, in front of a roiling surf, and leaning at a 45º angle into the wind, to deliver a dramatic offering on the storm. In the first place, if the storm was serious, at that point, they’d be hunkering down in a bunker somewhere, not out on the beach making fools of themselves and, in so doing, inviting others, with even less knowledge of the threat posed by these storms, to do likewise.

Until you have sat in a totally black radio station, completely alone, in the wee hours of the morning, with no electrical power, and no communications, and waited as the storm howled above and around you and the very building creaks and groans in protest as it tries to withstand the storm’s attempt to tear it apart, and you wait for precious daylight to see the wrecked landscape around you…until you have done that, you have no right to call yourself an expert on tropical storms. The experts are the survivors.

In the meantime, I am sick and tired of all the “woe is me” wailing and moaning coming from Louisiana. For God’s sake, suck it up, and act like men and women and not like spoiled brats seeking attention. To all you air-headed Hollywood types, and Hollywood wannabes, shut the heck up. You are only encouraging them. You all are pathetic!

Longstreet