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Drew Campbell feels, Tuesday, September 6, 2005, our remarks on the federal response to Hurricane Katrina are ill-judged 
AS always, I read your diary with great interest but on the subject of New Orleans, I think you need some more info. First, the local governments (not George W Bush) ordered the evacuation of N.O. on Saturday before the hurricane hit. This was not done, leaving over 100,000 people where they should not have been. Bush declared the whole Gulf coast a disaster area on Sunday as the storm rolled in. On Monday, as the storm rolled up the coast and north, the Governor of Louisiana and Mayor of N.O. both declared that the city had dodged a bullet (one they have known about for years and done nothing about, long before Bush came along). Then the levees gave way and the flooding started. Well, the governor went on TV and cried and the mayor went on the radio and cursed. One third of the New Orleans police force went AWOL. A matter of fact, three of them committed suicide. To make a long story short, 250,000 refugees (can you believe it) were moved from Louisiana to Texas from Wednesday to Saturday. The real problem is that you are dealing with an American public that can't stay focused for more than 10 minutes at a time. It is bad, but no where nearly as bad as our "friends" would like to believe.
Most of what you write is right, Drew. Every time I went to New Orleans I shuddered to think it was below sea and lake level; the locals talked about it indifferently or as a matter of pride, but having been through two near hurricane hits in Key West and watched the storm surge down there I could not help wondering what would happen when ... (and not if). But it does seem that the locals had arranged a major levee reinforcement program a couple of years back, and that the funding went into the Iraq war instead. If I am reading the news media correctly, that is. I just hope the Texans like their new immigrants. London's evacuees did not exactly endear themselves to the surrounding counties when the Blitz began in 1940, that I do recall. They expected everything, but everything, to be done for them, and the whole country owed them a livin'.
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David Irving replies:
-- this website and no doubt many others are
receiving eye-witness accounts from our friends
in New Orleans speaking of a final death roll
vastly in excess of ten thousand
David Irving