Here is a link and an excerpt from "Hurricane Jim" ... This guy is on heckuva man. He is the leader of a hurricane chase team, and gave a live "blow by blow" of the situation from ground zero. He is not a politcal guy, nor a reporter either. Expect bluntness ...

http://www.ukweatherworld.co.uk/forum/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=23436&start=1

excerpts ...

In reply to:

As I have said before, Air OPs kind of saved the day. Despite a lot of smack being tossed around in the media and by "Pundits" who are as about as qualified to comment on SAR operations as the desk this laptop is sitting on, this was a miracle effort. With New Orleans completely oblivious to the atmospheric A-Bomb that was bearing down on them, it's a wonder anyone got out. Both New Orleans leadership and in no small measure the booze driven, "Don't worry, be happy" culture down there, is where the majority of blame lies for this.

This was America's "Dunkirk" operation and it is really infuriating that all we seem to hear from media, pundits and a mayor who at the end of the day was responsible for his city is criticisms and scandal mongering

Yes, some elements to this operation were a jack up, but when faced with the magnitude of this, it's simply amazing anyone got out fo there at all. 30 years ago and we'd be looking at a Bangladesh in '91 scenario.

What the "Pundits" also don't seem to get, and what a lady during my Live at Five interview last night pointed out, is that the affected area down here is the size of Great Britain, it wasn't just New Orleans. NO just happened to be the most dramatic and most accessable to media (and even then, they didn't ford the waters and push deep like we did with the small boats). Down on the Gulf Coast, the roads were largely impassable, so you didn't get to see what went on out there so much. (and NO had a serious concentration of very photogenic helicopter action going on)

AND....places like Biloxi, Gulf Port, etc had mayors and local officials who actually LEAD and got those mandatory evac orders out the minute they settled into the crosshairs....unlike a certain mayor to their west (whose bar district was in full swing as the first feeder bands came onshore). Where was the forced closures? Where was the loudspeaker trucks? Where was anything besides storm chasers like us cluing people in to exactly what was coming down on them in the NO sector?

Doug Kiesling saved god knows how many people when he showed up on Bourbon St. in his disaster gear and started putting out the word.

The mayor of Kenner Parish to the west of NO didn't seem to have a problem getting out there and leading his emergency response people from the front, going door to door, ordering a mandatory. Where was NO mayor? That still hasn't been answered. "Where were you the night of...." I'd like to know.

Between the boat crews who had riots break out at their offload points, to the mechanics who worked to keep the birds flying until they didn't know what day it was, to the locals from Baton Rouge who trailered down their boats and just pushed in, it was a miracle operation. As bad as it was, suprisingly enough, it could have been much, much worse.

Take it from someone who knows how these things play out in the real world, on the ground.