No Shelter for the Stupid

What a difference it makes having a Republican governor in Louisiana:

NEW ORLEANS — Police with bullhorns plan to go street to street this weekend with a tough message about getting out ahead of Hurricane Gustav: This time there will be no shelter of last resort. The doors to the Superdome will be locked. Those who stay will be on their own.

New forecasts Friday made it increasingly clear that New Orleans will get some kind of hit — direct or indirect — by early next week. That raised the likelihood people would have to flee, and the city suggested a full-scale evacuation call could come as soon as Sunday.

Those among New Orleans’ estimated 310,000 to 340,000 residents who ignore orders to leave accept “all responsibility for themselves and their loved ones,” the city’s emergency preparedness director, Jerry Sneed, has warned.

As Katrina approached in 2005, as many as 30,000 people who either could not or would not evacuate jammed the Louisiana Superdome and the riverfront convention center. They spent days waiting for rescue in squalid conditions. Some died.

Stung by the images that flashed across the world, including the photo of an elderly woman dead in her wheelchair, her bodied covered with a blanket, officials promised to find a better way.

This time, the city has taken steps to ensure no one has an excuse not to leave. The state has a $7 million contract to provide 700 buses to evacuate the elderly, the sick and anyone around the region without transportation.

During Katrina the city had lots of buses too. Unfortunately, they were all under water.

Idiot lefty Michael Moore think the landfall of a hurricane in New Orleans during the GOP convention is a "proof that there's a God in heaven". He's thrilled at the potential for death and destruction as long as it might possibly be used again Republicans.

However, he better be careful what he wishes for because if the state functions remarkably better during this storm than during Katrina it won't be hard to point to the difference in the state government as a major reason. The incompetent Democrats who ran Louisiana in 2005 got a complete pass on the responsibility for their problems during Katrina as the press rallied around the notion that everything bad was Bush's fault. If I was a senior Republican, I'd make sure any successes in this storm were trumpeted.

The good news is the storm's track seems to be taking it away from New Orleans. The bad news is it's moving closer to Houston, and all along that area there are oil production facilities. It's now a Cat 4 - very dangerous.