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Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Breaking the contract

T-P's James O'Byrne:

Under Louisiana law, it is still legally not possible to forcibly remove people from their property and make them leave in advance of an approaching storm. So every evacuation becomes an implicit contract between the officials and the public. You tell us the truth, and the risks as the scientists and forecasters see it. We'll try to make good decisions for the sake of our families.
When that contract is broken, as I believe it was in the case of Gustav, then the tradeoff is that fewer people leave the next time


There's much more.
I'll sign off on every single line of it. This really does call for a major class-action lawsuit against every lying official who was in on this unholy business of lying to and subsequently dismissing the citizenry as if their lives and finances were unimportant... as if they were children unable to make grown-up decisions based on accurate information.

Many people who cannot afford to miss a few days of work much less pay for the gas and lodging expenses of this evacuation have lost a great deal of money. Some have lost their lives. Many more will likely lose their lives when they understandably ignore the non-credible warnings of the liars in charge of calling the next actually necessary evacuation.

This is unacceptable. It demands an answer.

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