Well you fella's from somewhere else can speculate all you want about what happens here, but if you sit at home waiting for someone else to come take care of you then you're in the wrong place! Emergency disaster plans start at home and goes up from there. When the storm is comming you plan for your situation, whether you leave or stay you still need a plan. People say they should have taken those people out before, well look at how long it took when most were in one location. How about this situation, lets say all those people could have been evacuated before and lets say the storm took a hard turn to the east (Sorry Florida), then all those same people would be pissed that you made them leave for nothing. Its a no-win situation.

Compared to the last time they tried to evacuate most of the area, this one went off really good. Much improvement, but not enough planning overall. The one breakdown in the plan which the people themselves did not have any control over is the disaster plan on the city and state level. As a tiered system it should go like this: 1.) You take care of #1 first thats you, 2.) Help your neighbor if you can (thats community), 3.) Then it starts to go up the public ladder, Emergency prepardness plans for your area, 4.) The citywide Emergency Plan should plan for the infrastructure, 5.) The Parish (County for you guys outside of Louisiana) then takes care of things outside of the city, 6.) Then the State fills in from there, 7.) Finally the Feds come in when all else fails.

If you can't follow that idea, then you shouldn't be down here.

Hurricane Lilly came right over us 2 years ago and we sure didn't wait for someone to come over to help us!! We had no electricity or water for anywhere from a couple of days to a month. The relief efforts started at home and with help from others that volunteered (Thank God!) we got back on our feet. It just took time.

Now I'll get off that box and get back to work.

Peace,
Clayton