Sunday, September 04, 2005

Chicago was ready to help - the Federal Government said NO - one of many cities

The City of Chicago offered feds emergency help last Sunday, August 27th - but the feds said no thanks----just how many other cities did FEMA say no, thanks to? Chicago is my home town. We had a great fire in 1871 that burned the entire town down. But we saved people's lives. We did not let the 'have-not's' wait to die.

--the story is from the Chicago Sun-Times

Hurricane Katrina
Daley 'shocked' as feds reject aid
September 3, 2005
BY STEPHANIE ZIMMERMANN AND SCOTT FORNEK Staff Reporters

A visibly angry Mayor Daley said the city had offered emergency, medical and technical help to the federal government as early as Sunday to assist people in the areas stricken by Hurricane Katrina, but as of Friday, the only things the feds said they wanted was a single tank truck.

That truck, which the Federal Emergency Management Agency requested to support an Illinois-based medical team, was en route Friday.

"We are ready to provide more help than they have requested. We are just waiting for their call," said Daley, adding that he was "shocked" that no one seemed to want the help.

Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said he would call for congressional hearings into the federal government's preparations and response.

"The response was achingly slow, and that, I think, is a view shared by Democrats, Republicans, wealthy and poor, black and white," the freshman senator said. "I have not met anybody who has watched this crisis evolve over the last several days who is not just furious at how poorly prepared we appeared to be."


Response 'baffling'

Obama called FEMA's slow response "baffling."

"I don't understand how you could have a situation where you've got several days' notice of an enormous hurricane building in the Gulf Coast, you know that New Orleans is 6 feet below sea level. ... The notion that you don't have good plans in place just does not make sense," Obama said.


Obama said he expects his counterparts in Louisiana, Mississippi or Alabama will call for congressional hearings, but he is ready if they do not. "It's heartbreaking and infuriating and, I think, is embarrassing to the American people.''


"Daley said the city offered 36 members of the firefighters' technical rescue teams, eight emergency medical technicians, search-and-rescue equipment, more than 100 police officers as well as police vehicles and two boats, 29 clinical and 117 non-clinical health workers, a mobile clinic and eight trained personnel, 140 Streets and Sanitation workers and 29 trucks, plus other supplies. City personnel are willing to operate self-sufficiently and would not depend on local authorities for food, water, shelter and other supplies, he said."


The City with Big Shoulders was rejected. We can slam FEMA's director, the CDC's director, Rumsfeld, Rice, Cheney, but the BUCK STOPS WITH PRESIDENT BUSH, and no matter what spin they are in, he better damn well know it, and correct the situation at once, or the AMERICAN PEOPLE MUST CLEAN HOUSE THROUGH ELECTED OFFICIALS LIKE OBAMA.

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