That may be true, then again it may not be a factor. Even if it is 100% true then it only shows Jeb is a smart governor and willing to make changes so that the same garbage doesn't happen in Florida... Talk about giving a break.. Try being less political and more rational about things.

The only reason Jeb Bush did as well as he did was because Katrina happened prior to Florida so he saw what to do and not to do and what could happen and what didn't happen. Give me a break - the man is as big a bozo as his brother. ---------------------------------------------------------- I beg to differ, ratsafrats. Jeb Bush was an experienced and competent emergency manager long before Katrina hit. Had Nagin and Blanco taken a lesson from him, NOLA would have fared better. To a big extent, Jeb Bush's competence is the reason why Florida fared as well as we did with four major hurricanes last year, as well two major and two minor hurricanes this year. I must point out, however, that his competence doesn't make him immune to error. And I admire that he takes responsibility when he makes a mistake. Prior to Wilma, Jeb Bush made a big deal about telling Floridians NOT to hoard fuel. He insisted there would be plenty of gas both before and after the storm, and asked us all not to hoard supplies. And we listened when he spoke. There were no lines at the fuel pumps before Wilma hit. I filled the gas tank in my car, but I didn't put aside any more gasoline than the fuel tank in my car would hold. I was sorry I didn't put aside several cans of fuel. Going back and forth to work in the stop and go traffic ate up my gas supplies in the first three days. There may have been plenty of gasoline as Mr Bush had promised us, but without power it couldn't be pumped. I had to wait six hours in line to fill my tank again. And many people waited far longer than I did. Lesson for next time, LOL!!! Also, after Wilma hit, Mr Bush published distribution sites for food, water and ice. Fortunately, I was well stocked up and didn't need to deal with them. But people arrived at the appointed times, and waited all day. The food, water and ice never showed up. I believe these problems were corrected within 3 days after the storm. Most people (except the ones who lost their homes and everything in them) should have had enough food and water to last 3 days.

I still stand by my statement. If Katrina did not happen Jeb Bush would have been in a world of hurt. Jeb took a lesson from Nagin & Blanco and all is okay in his state - at least he saw a learned. That does not make him any smarter or better at his job. He and his handlers saw errors and did not make them. Don't you think anyone could learn that lesson?

So who's mistakes did he learn from last year? We were hit by four major hurricanes last year, long before anyone had heard or thought about Katrina. Jeb isn't his brother. I don't know how well we would fare if George was at the helm. Let's give credit where it's due. He's not infallible. But he's very competent where hurricanes are concerned.

The fact is that even if Jeb Bush learned from Katrina, so what? Are we doomed to ignore the lessons from a disaster someone has befallen strictly because of ignorance and arrogance? You are right though, Bush had this hurricane response down pretty good before Katrina hit.. but the point still holds "Are we expected to not learn from others?". If that is the case then NOLA and Louisiana shouldn't do what has worked well in Florida for years.. they should just mindlessly go on and only learn from their own mistakes, foresaking what there is to learn from others.

I still stand by my statement. If Katrina did not happen Jeb Bush would have been in a world of hurt. Jeb took a lesson from Nagin & Blanco and all is okay in his state - at least he saw a learned. That does not make him any smarter or better at his job. He and his handlers saw errors and did not make them. Don't you think anyone could learn that lesson? ----------------------------- The state of Florida has had plenty of hurricanes to learn from and has had excellent management even before Katrina hit anyone. Nagin and Blanco had and still have nothing to teach anyone. I would not be surprised if some of you big mouth guys hardly new of the existance or potentials of hurricanes until last year, possibly even not until Katrina. Some seem to think NOLA presents the example when in fact, it doesn't. NOLA had two events - one was a hurricane which was not that major in damage to her. (Mississippi yes but we are talking a low populated area). If only a hurricane, there would have been little issue, few fingers pointed at the local politicians because NOLA took the storm quite well. Their second event was the breaking of levees and flooding of a whole city and surrounding areas. From what I have read, that was the result of specific poorly constructed levees, most of their levees held up just fine. They were not topped, the city was not flooded by storm surge. There are dams all over this country that could break and cause similar or worse situations.

I've been paying some attention to this levee problem... and it seems to be as I feared from the start. PBS, a couple weeks ago, did a thing on their Jim Lehrer Report, I believe, and they said that the failure of those levies were at the new construction and it was contractors who did the work. A part of the problem was that the water undermined the new work, or so they thought, but after being in the field for 20 plus years this stinks of contractors getting the work and cutting costs in order to make their profits. That idea might offend contractors, especially if they were part of that job and did their best.. but even a contractor, if he or she is fair, knows that there are alot of shoddy contractors out there. I've been hearing their complaints for years about how this contractor messed up or that one did a bad job. The whole trouble with contruction work is that there are so many ways to hide things. Once something is closed up you can't see that they missed doing this or doing that. You have to take it on faith these contractors followed the plans or properly had the engineers change a design.

Jeb took a lesson from Nagin & Blanco and all is okay in his state - at least he saw a learned. ********************************************************* Rat, I'm not sure where you get your information, but your wrong! Jeb Bush did an outstanding job for Florida this year, as well as last year. He took charge, something that Nagin and Blanco never did. He was on TV days before the hurricane hit, talking to Floridians on what to do! He took charge, and did not sit back and cry and whine about FEMA. He had everything inplace, and FEMA came in to assist, like it is meant to do! We learned many lessons since Hurricane Andrew hit, and have improved much since then! Within 24 hour after the hurricane hit, I could have driven 5 miles to get food, water and ice, if I needed them, but I followed what they said about having a 3 day supply on hand, I actually had about a 30 day supply on hand. I am very proud of our Governor!

I agree, Abby, when you said "... that his competence doesn't make him immune to error." Jeb is human, the people advising him are human, that means that mistakes will happen and errors will be made. However, as I see it, Jeb's "errors" were mostly small ones. I don't view Jeb's statements on not hoarding gas as an error, the first reason being that gasoline is alot safer in those underground tanks than being stored in homes, garages or sheds at home. Also I do not consider "Hoarding" as having a full tank of gas in your vehicles that run nor as having 2 to 5 gallons in reserve in a gas can somewhere. Perhaps now Jeb may further enhance his disaster preparedness plans by implementing a law that Gas Stations, Hospitals and other essential businesses have generators. Of course this will probably mean a raise in rates and prices to the consumer, but things do cost money. Bush may have had problems with ice, water and other supplies coming in and getting to the dispersal points but he also stressed people should have supplies at home to get them through 3 or 5 days. I think it was 3 days. Perhaps our politicians shouldn't promote the idea that Momma Government can be instantly there and wake people up to the fact that they are primarily the ones most responsible for taking care of themselves. People may not like to hear it, but I never received a legal document when I was born that life would be perfect for me, have any of you people? There was a world of difference between Nagin and Blanco's handling of their disaster and Bush's.. In fact other mayors and governors didn't have all the problems that NOLA had, or else they dealt with them better.

Everyone needs to walk in such shoes before they go off on others for not being prepared. I went through Rita - let me share about being prepared. After I went through Alicia in 1983, it was a standard that I kept the garage pantry stocked with water. Of course, you have to recycle it which is a little bit of work. Somewhere in the last couple of years (after close to 20 years of not being threatened with a serious storm) I stopped the habit. And when I did, I chunked all the containers I kept it in. it didn't seem to have priority as I would bet it doesn't for most posting these critisims. When they said Rita was coming our way (almost a week before the storm), I left work early and went to Walmart to stock up. Ugh oh, shelves were bear - seemed there was a run on hurricane supplies that even Walmart was not prepared for. Want to talk about gouging? News showed story of the last case of water being fought over!! Three days before the storm - there was no gas to get. People were on the news bragging about not only filling every car they owned, but every single gas can they could get their hands on. And of course, most places closed up as their workers went home to do their own preparation. I thought what I had would at least cover us for two days and we were going into the city and could get more. But not so, the city was in panic mode as well. And with the unexpected traffic situation we had to deal with, I left early in the middle of the night, sooner than I had planned to. The food got left behind in the rush to get all the important papers, clothes, pets, pictures, kids, etc. And we had added a young girl who drove out her dad's truck (he had just recently died). Half way on the trip, we pulled into check under the hood. It had no water and there went a half a case of water. Had we had major hit, I would have been in food line too because I wouldn't have been able to get back to get that food due to no gas available. People are watching the TV drama and playing backseat, after the fact quarterbacking - they really have no comprehension of the reality of living on the coast. This has been a very unusal storm season. It's easy to say people should have been prepared for the worst after the worst has happened. But truth is, no one knows what the worst is until after it happens.

fyi, some of us keep copies of papers ready to go, some keep water gas and food ready to go, I don't live on the coast, but given I am responsible for quite a bit of animals and myself plus want to have enough to share....I keep it. Not paranoid, it's just the right thing to do. I recycled once a year with our september food drive here and go right back and replace everything. I am not back seat driving. I keep cash available for atms not working and needing to pay. It's not a habit, it's important for myself and others. That's just the way it is. I'm not rich and live from month to month. I came up very poor and realize that at any time I could lose my job, emergency, whatever. I always try to have enough to share.

Good for you! It amazes me how many people do not take simple actions which would save them and everyone else so many headaches. You have a plan and I applaud you for it. Here on the Oregon coast it is tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanos. Gotta have a plan!!! I have animals too and have plans for their safety also. They all wear id tags for starters. People who can't or won't get their act together are asking for trouble. They are also the first to scream if they don't get help!!!

What I find amazing is that even after a disaster strikes then people still want to argue over Disaster Preparedness and how some people are too poor to prepare. It just fascinates me to no end. ;)

People are watching the TV drama and playing backseat, after the fact quarterbacking - they really have no comprehension of the reality of living on the coast. ++++++++++++++++++++++++ life is full of choices. it just kinda comes with the territory doesn't it? when you "choose" to build by the water, and "choose" to live by the coast, you must "choose" to be prepared for storms and "choose" to flee when need be. get used to it, the key word there is "choose". You won't get much sympathy from me, hurricane season is coming back next year and the year after that and the year after that.....and so on and so on and so on ...that's why it's called hurricane alley. either "choose" to move or suck it up. no back seat quarterbacking needed.

life is full of choices. it just kinda comes with the territory doesn't it? when you "choose" to build by the water, and "choose" to live by the coast, you must "choose" to be prepared for storms and "choose" to flee when need be. get used to it, the key word there is "choose". You won't get much sympathy from me, hurricane season is coming back next year and the year after that and the year after that.....and so on and so on and so on ...that's why it's called hurricane alley. either "choose" to move or suck it up. no back seat quarterbacking needed. -------------------------------- I don't know what your problem is AmericanJim but you seem to have missed a basic fact of life somewhere. all human beings "choose" to live by water. Those who choose desert areas irrigated and changed the environment so that water flows their way. It happens to be one of those basic necessities of LIFE. It is also fact that ALL areas have the propensity to flood. Your statements are simply "stupid".

Go one better, btdt. People not only live in the desert but out west here people actually move here willingly. They pack up and leave places with ample vegetation, rainfall, water courses and cool weather.. for living in a dry, god-foresaken place where summer temps go up officially into the 120s (but realistically go up into the 140s), water is scarce, and they use precious resources to water things which we used to pull out of our yards as "Weeds" back where we came from originally. Yet knowing all this "we" import grass, trees, bushes and other forms for vegetation from back east and up north which are not conducive to water conservation. And on top of it all when the government agencies tell us about "Saving Water", "Our water sheds being low" or "being in a drought"... we get upset by the very idea that water is scarce. Yet every year thousands more move into these desert areas to make their homes. To do this terraforming we do as you say.. we build canals which can extend for hundreds of miles from places like the Colorado River, in order to survive and have homestead just like back home. To say the least, people are not very logical or rational. lol America has a lot of places where it's more conducive to supporting large populations, yet places like Las Vegas, Tucson and Phoenix thrive. Now when I lived back east I noticed that most of the older parts of our cities lay along bodies of water. When I got older I learned people settled where the water was. They settled along the coastlines, rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, etc. When people began moving out away from the water they seeked out underground wells to get their water from. As you say, basically, water is essential to life and you can't get away from it.

btdt, I think you make a good point. I've tried to respond to your post three times, and the internet keeps wigging out on me, so I'm going to hurry up and click post before it goes again. Let's get away from the blame the victim scenario. Moogie, you're to be commended for being so well prepared. I was well prepared this time, too. But a big part of that is because I had gone through the same routine last year and had the motions down pat. There is so much frenetic activity involved in getting ready for a storm, and tensions and emotions run high. It's easy to make a mistake. Jim, no one wants your sympathy. But a little compassion for people who have suffered isn't out of line. There really isn't anywhere in the world that isn't disaster-free. So next time you see someone in a bad situation, don't judge them. Remember, "There but for the grace of God..." The people who suffered most from this storm are elderly or handicapped. It wasn't so easy for them. I'm glad I was able to share, and I'll never put someone else down for being less fortunate than I am.

I don't think anyone is saying that emergency services are not needed. What they are saying is people need to be more dependent upon themselves. I also do not see a whole lot of maybes being said either, I have seen some excellent input for Disaster Preparedness, which begins in the home. The better we are prepared, the more we are willing to do for ourselves, the less we are dependent on Momma Government coming in and taking care of us. When disaster strikes we should work as a community, we shouldn't sit and be content with the idea that The Lone President and his sidekick Veepo will ride in on their shiney white horses to save the day. This is real life, not some Saturday Afternoon horse opera.

well said. Starts at home. I've never had the "cavalry" show up at my house. I had to take care of mine and myself. Granted it was hard, but I didn't suffer. e.g. Hugo, Charlotte, 4 weeks no electricity in 98 degree weather in September, gas stations did not work, food, stores...I had enough to share.

Life isn't always easy but what else can one do at times besides keep plugging along. Ranting and Raving might relieve frustrations, but it won't get the power turned back on or the temperature and humidity to drop.