Quoted: Check out their site: they have a new plan for guns during hurricanes!!!!! I really love these guys, they make me feel so safe at night.

Emergency officials who prepared Louisiana's plan for responding to a major hurricane never guessed that one of their duties would be to protect aid workers from gunmen, one of the state's senior disaster officials said Monday.... No disaster planner, he said, predicted that people would loot gun stores after the storm and shoot at police, rescue officials and helicopters." "Disaster official at NY symposium: Planners didn't anticipate gun problem after Katrina," Associated Press, September 12, 2005

Why why why is it so damn hard for the expert planners to come up with the obvious?  WTF?

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Check out their site: they have a new plan for guns during hurricanes!!!!! I really love these guys, they make me feel so safe at night. Emergency officials who prepared Louisiana's plan for responding to a major hurricane never guessed that one of their duties would be to protect aid workers from gunmen, one of the state's senior disaster officials said Monday.... No disaster planner, he said, predicted that people would loot gun stores after the storm and shoot at police, rescue officials and helicopters." "Disaster official at NY symposium: Planners didn't anticipate gun problem after Katrina," Associated Press, September 12, 2005 Why why why is it so damn hard for the expert planners to come up with the obvious?  WTF? Would YOU think of that?  It's common sense that looters would steal guns and anything else in the stores (except the country & western music).  The guns would be used to commit crimes and used against rival gang members.  But could ANYONE have predicted that those who were sent down there to rescue folks would come under fire?

If you were looting, wouldn't you perceive rescuers as threats to the continuation of your plundering activities?  The lawless element shoots back, even when times are normal, and they do so in a much more free manner after disasters.

Quoted: There are plenty of 'hoods where fire and ambulance won't respond until police are on scene for just this reason.  It happens when there isn't a disaster.

+1.  There is so much information supporting the idea that you approach disasters expecting that all social normalcy breaks down, and the behavior of the lawless element will be magnified and completely unrestrained.  The emergency responders are tremendously strained in a disaster, because they have to cope with all the people who need rescuing, and they have to keep the human wolves at bay.
These things happen on a daily basis in the bad parts of every city.  Magnify and spread it as far as your imagination dares.
I'm so glad that the major media decided to ask the obvious questions, such as why 500 buses weren't used to get those people out of the city.  All the blubbering on national TV about how nobody could have predicted the worst case scenario is inexcusable.  That's the job of the emergency planners.
Hell, if I can sit in my chair here and type out from the top of my head that what are minor annoyances and aggravations will get much much worse, sometimes to the point of being deadly, in a disaster, and I or somebody else has to deal with them, why can't the emergency planners get that straight?

Quoted: Quoted: It's common sense that looters would steal guns and anything else in the stores (except the country & western music).

I can imagine CSI: Distaster zone.
Camera pans around an empty and trashed store, and stops on an overturned rack of Willie CDs.

Quoted: Quoted: There are plenty of 'hoods where fire and ambulance won't respond until police are on scene for just this reason.  It happens when there isn't a disaster. +1.  There is so much information supporting the idea that you approach disasters expecting that all social normalcy breaks down, and the behavior of the lawless element will be magnified and completely unrestrained.  The emergency responders are tremendously strained in a disaster, because they have to cope with all the people who need rescuing, and they have to keep the human wolves at bay. These things happen on a daily basis in the bad parts of every city.  Magnify and spread it as far as your imagination dares. I'm so glad that the major media decided to ask the obvious questions, such as why 500 buses weren't used to get those people out of the city.  All the blubbering on national TV about how nobody could have predicted the worst case scenario is inexcusable.  That's the job of the emergency planners. Hell, if I can sit in my chair here and type out from the top of my head that what are minor annoyances and aggravations will get much much worse, sometimes to the point of being deadly, in a disaster, and I or somebody else has to deal with them, why can't the emergency planners get that straight?

Those of us who have worked in the inner city safety forces understand this.  People who sit in Ivory towers do not.  Its part of the victimization industry that does not understand why the hand that feeds gets bit.