President Obama spends four whole hours tomorrow in New Orleans, site of what the UCBerkeley ILIT report calls "the greatest man-made engineering disaster since Chernobyl," the "man" in question being the federal government's Army Corps of Engineers. Four hours.
By contrast, when he departs NOLA, he goes to San Francisco. Here's his schedule there:
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of Media Affairs
For Immediate Release
October 13, 2009
President Obama to Visit San Francisco
WASHINGTON – On Thursday, October 15, 2009, President Barack Obama will arrive in San Francisco, CA. On Friday, October 16, President Obama will depart San Francisco.
Details of the President’s open press arrival and departure are below. The airport arrival and departure are closed to the public.
Media that wish to cover the arrival should RSVP online HERE
Media that wish to cover the departure should RSVP online HERE
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Air Force One Arrival in San Francisco
NOTE: The airport arrival is closed to the public.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco, CA
Arrival Time: 5:20 p.m. PDT
Media Access: 2:00 p.m. PDT
ALL media must arrive no later than 2:00 p.m. in order to be swept and escorted onto the tarmac.
Media Entrance: San Francisco City College
Airport Campus Parking Lot
San Francisco International Airport
North Access Road, Building 928
Live Truck Parking: Live trucks will meet at Bldg. 928 for security sweep and be escorted onto tarmac with all other press covering arrival. Live trucks will park behind press riser on the tarmac.
Throw: 150ft
Cable run: 200ft
Media Coverage: The event is open to the press. To RSVP please go to: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/MediaRSVPAF1ArriveSF10-15-09/ and enter your information prior to 9:00 a.m. PDT / 12:00 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, October 14.
Contact for logistical and planning purposes only: Tollef Biggs, tollef@mac.com or 415-939-1266.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Air Force One Departure from San Francisco
NOTE: The airport arrival is closed to the public.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco, CA
Departure Time: 9:30 a.m. PDT
Media Access: 7:00 a.m. PDT
ALL media must arrive no later than 7:00 a.m. in order to be swept and escorted onto the tarmac.
Media Entrance: San Francisco City College
Airport Campus Parking Lot
San Francisco International Airport
North Access Road, Building 928
Live Truck Parking: Live trucks will meet at Bldg. 928 for security sweep and be escorted onto tarmac with all other press covering departure. Live trucks will park behind press riser on the tarmac.
Throw: 150ft
Cable run: 200ft
Media Coverage: The event is open to the press. To RSVP please go to: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/MediaRSVPAF1DepartSF10-16-09/ and enter your information prior to 9:00 a.m. PDT / 12:00 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, October 14.
Contact for logistical and planning purposes only: Tollef Biggs, tollef@mac.com or 415-939-1266.
###
Total elapsed time in SF: sixteen hours. They must have experienced a hell of a federal disaster there. Four times worse, you figure?
UPDATE: Here, courtesy of the Times-Picayune, are some other New Orleanians' suggestions on what a longer itinerary might contain.
Follow Harry Shearer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/letwits
Harry Shearer: New Orleans: What's Been Done, What's on the To-Do List
In New Orleans, there have been notable steps forward in arts, education and entrepreneurship since Katrina. The bad news is that the "temporary" pumps installed for future floods do not, and cannot work.
Recovery funds must be directed not just to rebuild the physical infrastructure of Louisiana, but also to construct a new infrastructure of opportunity to serve the next generation of Gulf coast residents.
Dr. Orin Levine: The Low Hanging Fruit of Pandemic Flu Prevention
While you go out to get your flu vaccines check to see if you should also get the pneumococcal vaccine, and think about how you might help give access to these vaccines to millions of children who need them.
Or what do you say about the fact that Obama hasnt been to Arkansas or Alaska?
He, and you, could read the Executive Summary of the Independent Levee Investigation Team Report. Google "ILIT Berkeley."
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/subjects/katrina/
Just for a little balance, you know.
I think the same thing. What a silly juvenile comparison to make. I think purpose of mission provides context. Length of stay?! Using this logic, Obama should bivouac in Afghanistan to show how important it is.
Harry may be chronologically challenged - act your age.
The federal government is responsible for the aftermath of Katrina only in the sense that it contributed to the culture of dependency and helplessness that continues to infest that part of the country.
More intellectually dishonest and morally bankrupt claptrap from the party of no.....
One of the most important factors in disaster preparedness/recovery is to be informed:
Laissez-faire Not Fair
----
When the dust settles, who will carry the mantle for disaster survivors? This should help understanding: What do you expect in case of an insured loss? Are You Disaster Ready (hurricane, tornado, earthquake, flood, fire, etc.)? US President Obama affirms government's laissez-faire policy with his telling response! http://www.disasterprepared.net/whitehouse.html
Thank you for any consideration you may give!
Obama is adding that cleanup to his plate of Bush administration cleanups to be done.
He is going to get >90% of the cities votes in his re-election run. And he doesn't have to lift a finger to do it.
He is, who many of us said he is. An empty suit.
Pity.
The next minute he is an empty suit who just wants to sit back and coast to reelection.
You Rethugs need to keep your talking points straight. It is so out of character for you to contradict yourselves....
Republican talking points often contradict the facts, and they often are adjusted to fit the audience, even if that means walking them back from the previous event, to make them salient at the newest one.
So that must mean the banking and insurance industries, along with Wall Street, truly ARE black holes. They just keep sucking Obama into their gravity wells.
There is a Karma out there and I truly believe that until NOLA gets levees based on good geology and until the coastal wetlands are restored, that this country will not prosper.
Bravo, as always, to the U.S. Coast Guard.
Maybe some Americans have forgotten the horror they felt, as they viewed those shocking TV images of people's loved ones floating in the streets of New Orleans during that tragic first week after Katrina made landfall, but those NO natives will never forget.
Anyone who comes here to ask why the city is so impatient with the pace (and quality) of flood protection construction in NO, needs to remember the horror everyone of us felt as we stood stunned in front of our TV sets that terrible week in 2005.
Imagining if that were our mother, father, sister, brother, lover or friend floating in that cesspool of mud and chemicals. Deaths that should NEVER have happened.
Remember how you felt then, and imagine being there today watching the federal ACOE setting up more victims for a repeat sometime in the future. Then ask yourself again why New Orleans is impatient? If you still don't know why, then nothing I can say here can help you.
A Democratic Govenor . A Democratic held State legislature and a Democratic Mayor( Chocolate city Nagin !) along with Bill freezer Jefferson and a host of other liberal key players have failed this Great city.
The facts are indisputable . The Federal Gov. under Bush provided billions to the Gulf Coast Recovery and between there and here something went very wrong. Road Home recovery...FEMA offices under investigation, Nagin and his cronies , along with the state covering Shreveport ,Alexandria, Lake Charles etc before the city in need!
I did not vote for George Bush. But in retrospect, after educating myself to the real facts , not blogged facts, and living here through the aftermath. I have watched Nagin, and city( liberal ) council members block any real recovery!
It is time for liberals to figure out the twisted truth. Progressives and liberal policies may " feel good"
but they are illussions and to date hav enot improved education, poverty, healthcare at all.
They promote dependency for votes!
The liberals are the reason the city hasn't been rebuilt. The levees aren't fixed because of liberals. Wow. Your congressional delegation consists of 2 dems and everyone else is a republican. There is specific legislation that could have been applied to help with many of the issues in NO... the stim bill. It provided billions, tens of billion hundreds of billions for work projects. But your governor turned down part of the money, slow played it so that the money that did come came months after it should have. Further, your republican reps didn't ask for any cash in the stim free for all. They could have. They could have said, "We need to fix these levees once and for all, we need x amount for them. We need to save the wetlands, the best defense against a hurricane. That will take x amount of money. But do you know why they didn't ask, why Jindal didn't make them ask? Because if they had they would have been unable to vote against the bill. They would have been unable to say, the bill is bad, that it won't work that it didn't work (I mention this on a day the DOW topped 10,000). They played politics with your city and now Harry Shear is complaining to the dems about it. Blaming the President. Sorry, elections have consequences.
Only 17% of all stimulus has even been used! Obama was not the key target of my remarks. La.went red not blue in election and stimulus is heavily loaded towards the states that elected him. The levees will NEVER be satisfactorily raised to safe heights by government funds. Private funding is the only solution, If La had the same ability to recieve oilrevenue for th estate as California or Texas we could build Holland like protection on our own dime. Liberal politicians and policies have driven this great diverse city into the ground long before Katrina. Like most major cities in US ( heavily black controlled city gov.) crime and lack of civility and high entitlement and subsidies have created an atmosphere that drives away companies. Billions have been corrupted here since K, and follow the money you will find little Acorn hands, and City hall corupt hands and every major social justice rag tag group attached! Black children are murdering each other and the inner city is eating themselves alive. Barbarism abounds!
Like Chicago, detroit, atlanta etc. The only help to ti scity came from christian outreach groups primarily!