POLITICAL: FEMA boss pulled off Katrina Efforts, and will resign/be fired shortly.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Glengoyne

I believe the Local government should have those disaster preparedness plans in place, not the federal government. There are lots of local governments, each having one disaster plan to plan. The federal government can't have a plan ready for each locale. The federal government should have plans to assemble and deploy a response for any disaster. I think they should also have assets placed in the field days ahead of a disaster to advise local authorities who lack the experience dealing with these types of events.

I just don't think most municipalities can handle a disaster, manmade or natural. I don't think you can afford to pay a guy, or for a city the size of New Orleans, an entire department of the government, just for disaster preparation. Much like schooling, property taxes, sanitation, etc are best handled by local government, this just is something best done by the federal government (see below).

Not only that, but I doubt there are that many qualified people in the country to do it. That's why you need someone who's used to dealing with these sorts of things- I read a couple of stories about people from FEMA who learned a ton from Hurricane Andrew that helped deal with this situation. That probably educated people more than any book could and that's not something you could do with local government. It's not as if it were at a local level that you could pay people from Seattle go down to assist in a Los Angeles earthquake relief effort. But at a federal level, they do that and can afford to do that.

I'm not saying you have a whole blanket organization that just "does disasters" with no specialization. I just think that some people who are completely anti-government have this idea of "big government" agencies as a large, cumbersome, unstructured black box. But, for instance, you have teams for tornados, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes and each has people who specialize in a locale. You have a New Orleans hurricane planner but also a Miami one and a Carolina coast one and a general one who works with all the others for places that don't have one, etc. Similarly, like you'd have a Kansas tornado guy and an Oklahoma one, etc, who specializes in those locales but can the two can learn from each others. If there was a big disaster like this, you have multiple people working on it.

SI

[MrBigglesworth]

Originally Posted by Glengoyne

To me much more frightening than a political appointment being made to someone in over their head(as if this were the first time that happened), is the fact that it was apparently so debilitating to the entire organization. I would expect FEMA to operate effectively with Mike Brown or whoever is in charge on Vacation during Hurricane season. The organization has been around quite a while, and I would think there are seasoned management folks within the organization. That is the thing I'm interested in knowing, why did having a less than competant FEMA head result in these problems? Did the nepotism spread beyond the most senior positions, as some have said? Are there more fundamental problems that have crept into FEMA?

To answer your question:

Originally Posted by Washington Post

Five of eight top Federal Emergency Management Agency officials came to their posts with virtually no experience in handling disasters and now lead an agency whose ranks of seasoned crisis managers have thinned dramatically since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

FEMA's top three leaders -- Director Michael D. Brown, Chief of Staff Patrick J. Rhode and Deputy Chief of Staff Brooks D. Altshuler -- arrived with ties to President Bush's 2000 campaign or to the White House advance operation, according to the agency. Two other senior operational jobs are filled by a former Republican lieutenant governor of Nebraska and a U.S. Chamber of Commerce official who was once a political operative.

And even the regional people are hacks:

Originally Posted by Seattle Times

John Pennington, the official in charge of federal disaster response in the Northwest, was a four-term Republican state representative who ran a mom-and-pop coffee company in Cowlitz County when then-Congresswoman Jennifer Dunn helped him get his federal post.

Before he was appointed regional director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Pennington got a degree from a correspondence school that government investigators later described as a "diploma mill."

Pennington, 38, says he worked for his degree and he is qualified for the FEMA job.

[MrBigglesworth]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

I think people are still missing the point. FEMA will be good at doing certain things but not in all things relating to a disaster (natural or man-made). The "cavalry" that was urgently needed in days following could not and should not come from FEMA but the state's NG and an order from DoD for other state's NG units as well as other military units. They are the only ones prepared to bring in supplies and maintain order in a hostile and inclement situation. FEMA is a political entity so let them coordinate shelters, insurance claims and other federal assistance.

I still argue to not give back more power to FEMA but look to mobilizing relief and security forces better.

The US Army commander said that his forces were ready to go into NOLA the day of the hurrican and were just waiting for FEMA to give the order. The USS Bataan off the coast was ready to go in the day of the hurricane, was waiting for an order from FEMA. The head of the NG has said that having the NG in Iraq lessened their response time by at least 24 hours. Local police were keeping people from leaving NOLA.

FEMA had no problems taking care of areas not even involved in hurricanes during the elections season with electoral votes up for grabs. They had no problems anywhere when Jamed De Witt was in charge. This is a clear example of faulty leadership.

[Dutch]

Originally Posted by MrBigglesworth

President Bush conjured up the Hurricane and killed all those black people! He hates black people. This is the clear evidence of his hate.

Fixed it for you.

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by MrBigglesworth

The US Army commander said that his forces were ready to go into NOLA the day of the hurrican and were just waiting for FEMA to give the order. The USS Bataan off the coast was ready to go in the day of the hurricane, was waiting for an order from FEMA. The head of the NG has said that having the NG in Iraq lessened their response time by at least 24 hours. Local police were keeping people from leaving NOLA.

FEMA had no problems taking care of areas not even involved in hurricanes during the elections season with electoral votes up for grabs. They had no problems anywhere when Jamed De Witt was in charge. This is a clear example of faulty leadership.

There is no doubt of the incredible amound of incompetence and the lack of knowledge/leadership (as well as cronyism) in today's FEMA, but don't ever look back to a period of time which you don't remember well and say "no problems anywhere". FEMA under Clinton/Lee Witt, while light years better than under Bush 1, was notorious for doling out money without thought to its needs. One can look to the Northridge Earthquake in which they wasted so much money that they had to ask for some of it back. Same thing with the snowstorms in West Virginia. Even Lee Witt has said that one of the primary missions of FEMA was to promote a positive image (it was in one of their brochures back in the mid-90s). I don't have any illusions that they would have responded better - or at least to make you think they would knowing that it would actually be the military that would have been there, not the FEMA bureaucrats.

[Glengoyne]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

I just don't think most municipalities can handle a disaster, manmade or natural. I don't think you can afford to pay a guy, or for a city the size of New Orleans, an entire department of the government, just for disaster preparation. Much like schooling, property taxes, sanitation, etc are best handled by local government, this just is something best done by the federal government (see below).

Not only that, but I doubt there are that many qualified people in the country to do it. That's why you need someone who's used to dealing with these sorts of things- I read a couple of stories about people from FEMA who learned a ton from Hurricane Andrew that helped deal with this situation. That probably educated people more than any book could and that's not something you could do with local government. It's not as if it were at a local level that you could pay people from Seattle go down to assist in a Los Angeles earthquake relief effort. But at a federal level, they do that and can afford to do that.

I'm not saying you have a whole blanket organization that just "does disasters" with no specialization. I just think that some people who are completely anti-government have this idea of "big government" agencies as a large, cumbersome, unstructured black box. But, for instance, you have teams for tornados, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes and each has people who specialize in a locale. You have a New Orleans hurricane planner but also a Miami one and a Carolina coast one and a general one who works with all the others for places that don't have one, etc. Similarly, like you'd have a Kansas tornado guy and an Oklahoma one, etc, who specializes in those locales but can the two can learn from each others. If there was a big disaster like this, you have multiple people working on it.

SI

I think there are a few metropolitan areas that have departments dedicated to disaster preparedness and management. I do agree that most communities can't afford that kind of thing. Communities should be able to afford to have people whose duties include this kind of thing. Most all cities have city managers or administrators, and I'd guess that those responsibilities would fall to that position. The federal government can and does assist in making these plans, and training the local people, but the local people are in the end responsible for the planning.

I liken it to a business continuation plan/Disaster Recovery Plan. Large companies have staff dedicated to the purpose, but most small maybe even mid-sized companies put the responsibility on an individual as a single bullet point on their job description.

[Tekneek]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

FEMA under Clinton/Lee Witt, while light years better than under Bush 1, was notorious for doling out money without thought to its needs. One can look to the Northridge Earthquake in which they wasted so much money that they had to ask for some of it back. Same thing with the snowstorms in West Virginia. Even Lee Witt has said that one of the primary missions of FEMA was to promote a positive image (it was in one of their brochures back in the mid-90s).

James Bovard spent some time on this in his book _Feeling Your Pain: The Explosion and Abuse of Government Power in the Clinton-Gore Years_. It was all about giving out as much money as possible. That was how they measured the effectiveness of FEMA, as well as a lot of their other programs.

[JPhillips]

Quote:
Originally Posted by MrBigglesworth
President Bush conjured up the Hurricane and killed all those black people! He hates black people. This is the clear evidence of his hate.


Fixed it for you.

And Dutch is back at it. Accuracy for all, except when its a caricature of those he disagrees with.

[MrBigglesworth]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

There is no doubt of the incredible amound of incompetence and the lack of knowledge/leadership (as well as cronyism) in today's FEMA, but don't ever look back to a period of time which you don't remember well and say "no problems anywhere". FEMA under Clinton/Lee Witt, while light years better than under Bush 1, was notorious for doling out money without thought to its needs. One can look to the Northridge Earthquake in which they wasted so much money that they had to ask for some of it back. Same thing with the snowstorms in West Virginia. Even Lee Witt has said that one of the primary missions of FEMA was to promote a positive image (it was in one of their brochures back in the mid-90s). I don't have any illusions that they would have responded better - or at least to make you think they would knowing that it would actually be the military that would have been there, not the FEMA bureaucrats.

So your point is that FEMA helped too much under Clinton? Well, I stand corrected.

[MrBigglesworth]

Originally Posted by Dutch

Fixed it for you.

That may even be mildly amusing, if I had said anything about black people. You see, a caricature is only effective when it takes to the extreme a view expressed. It's not really a caricature when it's completey unrelated. I would call that more, "making sh!t up." Give it another try, you can do it!

[st.cronin]

I find myself disgusted by the impulse to dole out blame after a hurricane so powerful that there IS NO HISTORICAL PRECEDENT FOR IT. While I appreciate that there is corruption and incompetence in any group of people, including people in charge of FEMA and Louisiana, the finger-pointing makes me want to throw up.

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by MrBigglesworth

So your point is that FEMA helped too much under Clinton? Well, I stand corrected.

But not in the way that would have been needed in the aftermath of Katrina. They always have been and always will be a great distributor of money. That's why I said that they are good at paperwork. They are NOT the agency that you want to call in the first 5 days after a major disaster (which Lee Witt et al had never experienced). You want them there to help rebuild lives but not to respond to urgent disasters. But unfortunately, the Feds will make them even stronger now with more cash to dole out.

[Easy Mac]

Originally Posted by st.cronin

I find myself disgusted by the impulse to dole out blame after a hurricane so powerful that there IS NO HISTORICAL PRECEDENT FOR IT. While I appreciate that there is corruption and incompetence in any group of people, including people in charge of FEMA and Louisiana, the finger-pointing makes me want to throw up.

There have been many hurricanes in history that have been as bad as this. Most just hit before there was a CNN or luckily missed massive cities.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

I just don't think most municipalities can handle a disaster, manmade or natural. I don't think you can afford to pay a guy, or for a city the size of New Orleans, an entire department of the government, just for disaster preparation. Much like schooling, property taxes, sanitation, etc are best handled by local government, this just is something best done by the federal government (see below).

Not only that, but I doubt there are that many qualified people in the country to do it. That's why you need someone who's used to dealing with these sorts of things- I read a couple of stories about people from FEMA who learned a ton from Hurricane Andrew that helped deal with this situation. That probably educated people more than any book could and that's not something you could do with local government. It's not as if it were at a local level that you could pay people from Seattle go down to assist in a Los Angeles earthquake relief effort. But at a federal level, they do that and can afford to do that.

I'm not saying you have a whole blanket organization that just "does disasters" with no specialization. I just think that some people who are completely anti-government have this idea of "big government" agencies as a large, cumbersome, unstructured black box. But, for instance, you have teams for tornados, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes and each has people who specialize in a locale. You have a New Orleans hurricane planner but also a Miami one and a Carolina coast one and a general one who works with all the others for places that don't have one, etc. Similarly, like you'd have a Kansas tornado guy and an Oklahoma one, etc, who specializes in those locales but can the two can learn from each others. If there was a big disaster like this, you have multiple people working on it.

SI

I think a city like NYC or LA or a state could have a whole DP plan in place. But for a city with all the concerns it has, I don't think - no matter what - that it's particularly feasible.

[rexallllsc]

Originally Posted by st.cronin

I find myself disgusted by the impulse to dole out blame after a hurricane so powerful that there IS NO HISTORICAL PRECEDENT FOR IT. While I appreciate that there is corruption and incompetence in any group of people, including people in charge of FEMA and Louisiana, the finger-pointing makes me want to throw up.

A good majority of our politicians make me want to throw up.
Sorry, but I'm appalled at who was put in charge of FEMA, and that such contempt would be shown for the American people.

[Jesse_Ewiak]

From Time....

The day the storm hit, [Blanco] asked President Bush for "everything you've got." But almost nothing arrived, and she couldn't wait any longer. So she called the White House and demanded to speak to the President. George Bush could not be located, two Louisiana officials told Time, so she asked for chief of staff Andrew Card, who was also unavailable. Finally, after being passed to another office or two, she left a message with DHS adviser Frances Frago Townsend. She waited hours but had to make another call herself before she finally got Bush on the line. "Help is on the way," he told her.

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by Jesse_Ewiak

From Time....

The day the storm hit, [Blanco] asked President Bush for "everything you've got."But almost nothing arrived,

That's the crux of the argument. Forces should have been in place before the storm hit but just like the mandatory evacs didn't start happening until a day late, no one wanted to think much ahead - just react, as they are apt to do. If there was any semblance of foresight or planning at all levels, something besides almost nothing would have been there. But when the call goes out as the storm hits and supplies, troops, etc. are 48-hours away, nothing could arrive instantly.

I also wonder when they interviewed Brown two week ago today (Saturday while the evacs were going on), whether they had anything in place or was there not enough time? But like I said before, I don't expect (nor want) FEMA to be there first but NG and other military units ready to go in under adverse conditions. FEMA doesn't go in while the disaster is happening (they always show up after the fact) but troops can.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Dark Cloud

I think a city like NYC or LA or a state could have a whole DP plan in place. But for a city with all the concerns it has, I don't think - no matter what - that it's particularly feasible.

Heck, even Lawrence has disaster preparedness. But it's basically a few bucks a year to train volunteers in the art of "already dead" versus "lives with help" and give them bright green uniforms to identify them by. But if a tornado somehow manages to go right through campus or downtown and destroys a bunch of the city, a larger organization who is more familiar with dealing with tornado ravaged areas will be much more efficient.

SI

[MrBigglesworth]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

But not in the way that would have been needed in the aftermath of Katrina. They always have been and always will be a great distributor of money. That's why I said that they are good at paperwork. They are NOT the agency that you want to call in the first 5 days after a major disaster (which Lee Witt et al had never experienced). You want them there to help rebuild lives but not to respond to urgent disasters. But unfortunately, the Feds will make them even stronger now with more cash to dole out.

You may argue about whether it's a good idea to have FEMA be the people that are charged with responding to urgent disasters, but the fact is that is their job, that is what they are supposed to do. And when disasters happened when De Witt was in charge, people were there within hours, even when it was something totally unexpected (Oklahoma City bombing, when De Witt was on site in 12 hours). That simply didn't happen this time, and it was something that involved the leadership at the federal level from Bush all the way down. The nineties weren't exactly non-partisan times, and FEMA got nothing but accolades then from the media and GOP congressmen and Senators.

[Flasch186]

Originally Posted by Glengoyne

Cities, Townships, Counties, etc really aren't all that poor. Developing a plan to accomodate your citizens isn't all that expensive. You have staff on the payroll with disaster preparedness in their job description. FEMA provides training, I'm not sure if it is free, but the resources are there. I'm just saying that local governments should be responsible for this type of planning. If they can't, then they need to go to the County, State, and then Federal Governments for assistance. Part of FEMAs mandate is to assist local governments in developing disaster planning when that help is requested(and I'd guess that it is almost universally requested).

WOW....drive through some of the towns in Florida and you'll see what Im talking about. Some could NOT afford or support any type of evacuative plan or facilitate a shelter system. I assume in those cases you would want the state or Fed. to step in prior to the known impending disaster hitting?

[Flasch186]

Originally Posted by st.cronin

I find myself disgusted by the impulse to dole out blame after a hurricane so powerful that there IS NO HISTORICAL PRECEDENT FOR IT. While I appreciate that there is corruption and incompetence in any group of people, including people in charge of FEMA and Louisiana, the finger-pointing makes me want to throw up.

the hurricane we could handle, the flood we could not....eventhough, regardless of what anyone tried to spin, we had excellent knowledge that this was a likely occurrence if a cane of this magnitude hit. When people say, "we couldn't have known." that is simply ridiculous considering all of the light that has been shown on the studies laying out this exact thing. Head, meet sand.

[st.cronin]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

the hurricane we could handle, the flood we could not....eventhough, regardless of what anyone tried to spin, we had excellent knowledge that this was a likely occurrence if a cane of this magnitude hit. When people say, "we couldn't have known." that is simply ridiculous considering all of the light that has been shown on the studies laying out this exact thing. Head, meet sand.

My point isn't 'we couldn't have known.'

My point is that Nobody was out front taking leadership on the issues BEFORE the hurricane - and now Everybody is pointing fingers at Somebody accusing them of incompetence or corruption or racism or whatever. It's not the discussion we need to have.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by st.cronin

My point isn't 'we couldn't have known.'

My point is that Nobody was out front taking leadership on the issues BEFORE the hurricane - and now Everybody is pointing fingers at Somebody accusing them of incompetence or corruption or racism or whatever. It's not the discussion we need to have.

It's exactly the discussion we need to have. We have to figure out where the breakdown happened, identify it and fix it so next time an emergency situation arises in our country the response is adequate.

There is no reason why we cannot have both an effective relief effort and investigation into the response going on at the same time. It's a big government. They can multi-task.

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

the hurricane we could handle, the flood we could not....eventhough, regardless of what anyone tried to spin, we had excellent knowledge that this was a likely occurrence if a cane of this magnitude hit. When people say, "we couldn't have known." that is simply ridiculous considering all of the light that has been shown on the studies laying out this exact thing. Head, meet sand.

Go look in the big Katrina thread, esp. posts around 200-220 which were posted very early Monday 8/29. Even from someone as knowledgeable as Jim said

It's better news for New Orleans, that's for sure. But they're by no means out of the woods. The eye is still 4-5 hours from that area, and a ten-mile jog back to the west could greatly increase the damage.

Hurricanes can change direction suddenly, and a westward jog would also be an indication of increased strength.

No one knows yet whether Lake Pontchartrain will break the levees.

The computer models predict all of the scenarios. I know this was 2 weeks ago (that's a long time for people with short attention spans), but there were an incredible amount of uncertainty - even as it was hitting. To say that all what transpired was predictable beforehand is simply not true. You are just jumping on the hindsight bandwagon.

We learn from this (and put better people in charge of FEMA/DHS).

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

the hurricane we could handle, the flood we could not....eventhough, regardless of what anyone tried to spin, we had excellent knowledge that this was a likely occurrence if a cane of this magnitude hit. When people say, "we couldn't have known." that is simply ridiculous considering all of the light that has been shown on the studies laying out this exact thing. Head, meet sand.

To add to what Bucc said, I remember a meteorologist beaming with pride on Monday about how it hit pretty much where they predicted with 10 of their 16 models that it his Lousiana. In less than 2/3rds of their models, they had the *state* correct, much less the city.

Now, yes, it could have happened- that the city would be submerged by a large hurricane. There was even a decent chance of it happening. That said, there's also a decent chance of Los Angeles being wiped off the face of the earth by an earthquake. I would even say, given the tectonic history of the area, it is a near 100% lock of happening, much like there was a good chance a hurricane would hit New Orleans before they built up some super water protection into the city. Does that mean we start evacuating Los Angeles now?

It just boggles my mind the number of times people say "it could have happened" to events (Challenger explosion, terrorist attack like 9/11, this hurricane scenario). By that same logic, I could walk out my door tomorrow and get hit by a bus. Everything is not binary, it's a percentage. It's not "could this happen, could this not happen", it's "what's the percent chance of this happening".

If you're trying to manage this crisis, you can't just say "well, it could happen so let's go chicken little". You've gotta make a judgement call where you lose some percentage of your (let's just grab this number since it's nice and round) 1,000 either way. Either you can have an evacuation where their mortality rate is 1.5% and you lose the 15 or wait for the hurricane to hit and flood the city because then their mortality rate jumps to 5%. Seems easy, right since 1.5% versus 5% means you save a lot more lives. But what if NOAA is telling you that the chance of a direct hit on your city are 1 in 10 with another 1 in 10 chance of it missing your city but still submerging it (as happened)?

Similarly, let's run a "super-mandatory" evacuation of the city scenario. Remember how there were hospital patients and nursing home patrons who were relocated, but it's difficult on them and some died. Let's say you start evacuating them by force (80-freaking-percent got out of the city and a decent percentage of those who didn't have the means made it to "shelters of last resort"; that's an insane percentage and quite an accomplishment). Suddenly, you have some elderly people, let's just say 15 who die and the hurricane takes a turn and hits Houston instead. Suddenly you have 15 people who died for nothing, in the binary world of morality I'm arguing against. People are in an uprage because you, the mayor, were trying to do what you thought, given the information at the time, was best for your city.

I know this is math and it's too late at night for math and these are numbers picked out of the air to illustrate a point and not to simulate what happened this time around. But the point remains that you can't just do things because something might happen. There is no 20/20 foresight, only 20/20 hindsight. There are consequences for *both* actions and it's not a binary "something could happen/something might not happen". It's "what are the chances of that happening and the consequences of both sides of my actions".

SI

[Honolulu_Blue]

Well. There's no need to debate this now... We can all just wait for the movie.

Moore To Capture Katrina on Film?
Controversial film-maker Michael Moore is planning to make a hard-hitting documentary based on Us President George W. Bush's handling of the Hurricane Katrina rescue operation. Moore grabbed international acclaim with his scathing 2004 film Fahrenheit 9/11, which studied Bush's handling of the September 11th terrorist attacks. The Oscar winner is now "seriously considering" documenting the catastrophe in America's Gulf Coast region. He tells the New York Daily News, "There is much to be said and done about the man-made annihilation of New Orleans, caused not by a hurricane but by the very specific decisions made by the Bush administration in the past four and a half years. Do not listen to anyone who says we can discuss all this later. No, we can't. Our country is in an immediate state of vulnerability. More hurricanes, wars, and other disasters are on the way, and a lazy bunch of self-satisfied lunatics are still running the show."

[Buccaneer]

SI: You have articulated this better than I had, well done.

One of the issues that I have not brought to this discussion yet is my role in working with local EM and with FEMA/FERC in the mid-90s. My initial rants about after-the-fact reactionary pin-headed bureaucrats were very accurate from personal experiences.

[MrBigglesworth]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

It just boggles my mind the number of times people say "it could have happened" to events (Challenger explosion, terrorist attack like 9/11, this hurricane scenario). By that same logic, I could walk out my door tomorrow and get hit by a bus. Everything is not binary, it's a percentage. It's not "could this happen, could this not happen", it's "what's the percent chance of this happening".

SI, if you got hit by a bus tomorrow, would you be prepared? If you have a wife and kids, you probably have life insurance. If you have any significant assets, you probably have a will. You probably have told your kids the plan if there is a fire, where to go to get out of the house and where to meet afterwards. You should be prepared for unlikely but highly possible events. If you are not, you are being derelict in your fatherly responsibilities.

Four and a half years ago FEMA predicted that the most likely catastrophic events were a terrorist attack on NY, a hurricane in New Orleans, and an earthquake in SF. The simple fact is that the government was not prepared for this unlikely but highy possible event.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by MrBigglesworth

SI, if you got hit by a bus tomorrow, would you be prepared? If you have a wife and kids, you probably have life insurance. If you have any significant assets, you probably have a will. You probably have told your kids the plan if there is a fire, where to go to get out of the house and where to meet afterwards. You should be prepared for unlikely but highly possible events. If you are not, you are being derelict in your fatherly responsibilities.

I suppose you and I differ in that I think the did a decent job with as much warning as they had. Again, in a hindsight world where we knew for sure the levee would break for sure and the city would descend into an anarchical mess for a couple of days, yes, preparations would have been different. However, given the situation, I think they tried to do the most good to cover the most scenarios. Mass migration of most of the city using contraflow to the point where the bridge to Baton Rouge was clear at 2am Monday- everyone who *could* get out did. Nowhere have I read that anyone got turned away from the shelters like the Superdome- so everyone who could make it to a shelter and *was willing to* did. Short of better response to some of those unable to move such as the elderly, the hospitalized, and the homeless- I just don't see much else they could do. You can claim the Superdome was poorly stocked, but, considering the conditions, very few died or were injured in the shelters.

As an aside, I think the response in the next few days was lackluster, but I think these are two separate issues that need to be talked to and a lot of people are lumping them as one.

I don't want to sound like I'm sidestepping the question (and I did throw out a whole paragraph above )- your points are well taken that there is preparation that needed to be done but the difference between this and the situation described above is that it's so much of a larger problem. Writing a will, buying insurance, and having an emergency plan take less than a week total to do. Divising a better plan for a natural disaster of this magnitude is just so much more complex.

There is *no* failsafe plan where nobody dies, see long post above- and that's not in the "there's a problem so let's throw our hands up in the air and give up"- it's "if you come up with a plan, it has to be better than what's in place for all scenarios, not just the particular one". I'm sure it's out there but, in the end, you start weighing things like "how much is one life worth" in this cruel game. I bet we could have prevented all but a death or two (usually, you get heart attack deaths in natural disasters no matter what) if we had a $500B 50' wall around the city of New Orleans. But then you have to ask where that money is going to come from, how many people die because you cut $200B of that out of health care or something like that.

SI

[sterlingice]

FEMA revises Brown's bio

34 minutes ago
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor..._nm/brown_dc_2



The Federal Emergency Management Agency has quietly revised the official biography of its embattled director, Michael Brown, to correct an error about his background in local government following allegations he exaggerated his disaster relief experience.

Already under fire for a slow response to Hurricane Katrina, Brown was pulled out of the Gulf Coast operations on Friday and recalled to Washington. President George W. Bush is under pressure from Democrats to fire him.

Brown's biography on FEMA's Web site, www.fema.gov, was updated at just after 5 p.m. on Sunday to revise his title while working in local government in Edmond, Oklahoma, in the 1970s.

One correction was made to make clear that Brown had not served as "an assistant city manager," as had been stated in his biography. The new biography states that Brown served as "an assistant to the city manager."

FEMA also revised Brown's role in emergency planning at the time.

The revised biography states that "his background in state and local government also includes serving as an assistant to the city manager with emergency services oversight responsibility."

The old biography said "his background in state and local government also includes serving as an assistant city manager with emergency services oversight."

FEMA spokesman Matt Burns played down the change in Brown's biography, calling it "a clerical typing error that has since been corrected."

The changes were made after accusations last week that Brown had exaggerated his background in disaster relief in his official biography and resume.

A December 2001 press release still on the White House Web site says Brown worked for the city of Edmond from 1975 to 1978 "overseeing emergency services divisions."

Bush had initially given Brown a public vote of confidence, telling him, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job," even though that same day Bush had called the initial relief effort "unacceptable."

In place of Brown, Vice Admiral Thad Allen, chief of staff of the U.S. Coast Guard, has been put in charge of the relief effort on the ground.

Brown, a lawyer, served as commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association before joining FEMA in 2001. He served as FEMA's deputy director and general counsel before becoming director.

[Ksyrup]

Here's a vidcap from the pre-production version of Michael Moore's Katrina documentary:

[HomerJSimpson]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

Here's a vidcap from the pre-production version of Michael Moore's Katrina documentary:

That is funny.

[sterlingice]

FEMA head Brown quits

By Michael Christie 31 minutes ago


The head of the U.S. disaster agency resigned on Monday after fierce criticism of his handling of Hurricane Katrina and U.S. President George W. Bush rejected charges that racism or the Iraq war slowed the government response to the disaster two weeks ago.

Michael Brown, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, quit three days after the Bush administration pulled him out of the disaster area and recalled him to Washington, replacing him with Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen.

Only a week earlier, Bush had publicly praised him, saying "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

Brown emerged as a lightning rod for criticism after appearing unaware of the extent of the humanitarian disaster that unfolded after the hurricane hit on August 29.

Three days after the storm passed, with national TV networks beaming images of thousands of distraught people pleading for help at the New Orleans conventional center, Brown appeared ignorant about their plight.

His fate was sealed after reports emerged that he had padded his resume, lacked real emergency relief experience and owed his job to political cronyism.

Bush's third trip to the devastated U.S. Gulf coast since the hurricane was his latest exercise in political damage control. His personal approval ratings have slumped below 40 percent for the first time in his presidency.

The official death toll from the hurricane passed 500 and was expected to rise further. However officials said the toll would be far below the 10,000 some had initially feared.

Louisiana authorities said on Monday they had confirmed 279 fatalities, at least 214 people died in Mississippi and seven a in Florida. No figures were available from Alabama. One million people in the region have been displaced by the disaster.

Asked whether the government responded too slowly because most of the victims were black, Bush rejected the idea.

NO DISCRIMINATION

"My attitude is this: The storm didn't discriminate and neither will the recovery effort. When those Coast Guard choppers ... were pulling people off roofs, they didn't check the color of a person's skin. They wanted to save lives," the president said.

He also said it was "preposterous" to claim that the Iraq war had drained military resources, leaving too few troops to help out with the hurricane.

"We've got plenty of troops to do both," Bush said during a tour of the areas of the city ravaged by the hurricane. About 70,000 active and National Guard troops have been deployed to help in the region.

The president ventured out into the ruined city, riding in an open, flatbed military truck through flooded streets. He saw damaged houses, downed trees and fetid, black and gray floodwaters. National Guard soldiers swept mud-covered thoroughfares and cleared debris ahead of Bush's visit.

Critics have charged that the president seemed isolated from real-time information and slow to grasp the immensity of the disaster in the days after the storm hit.

Around 40 percent of the city remains swamped by contaminated water, although surrounding suburban areas were drying out. Most of city's 450,000 residents are scattered across the United States in shelters or with friends and family. An unknown number have ignored repeated calls to leave, choosing the brave growing health hazards in the city.

Charles Daniels, 63, finally gave up on Monday and was trying to find some fuel for his car to leave. He was hoping for information on his two daughters and seven grandchildren, evacuated during the worst of the flooding.

"I have no idea where they are. No idea. But they're not coming back, because it's all flooded down there where they lived," he said. "My baby daughter's home is bad. She can't move back there. It's gone."

OUTPOURING OF GIVING

The tragedy has sparked a national outpouring of charity. The Chronicle of Philanthropy reported Americans had given at least $739 million to help victims of the disaster, donating at a faster pace than for any previous emergency.

In recent days, Bush has dispatched Vice President Dick Cheney and Cabinet officials to survey the damage and to counter continued criticism that the administration's response to the storm has been slow and inadequate.

Polls show Americans were deeply unhappy with the response from federal, state and local officials. A Newsweek survey on Saturday found Bush's approval rating at 38 percent, the lowest of his presidency.

The storm could also be the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history. Estimates range from $100 billion to $200 billion. Congress has approved $62.3 billion so far for hurricane relief.

Health officials on Monday were spraying for flies and mosquitoes to minimize the risk of disease being carried by the insects, a step toward making the city habitable again.

Northrop Grumman Corp. , the largest manufacturing employer in Louisiana and Mississippi, put out a call for thousands of ship builders to return to work if possible on Monday at New Orleans and Pascagoula, Mississippi, shipyards.

[sterlingice]

I just don't get why that third portion is in the story ("OUTPOURING OF GIVING" part). The only common thread between it and the previous part is the hurricane. Even the second part is only loosely held together to it by the "Brown resigns/Bush visits area" segue. Shouldn't that last paragraph be it's own article with a blaring headline, giving us some good news, for once?

SI

[rexallllsc]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

Well. There's no need to debate this now... We can all just wait for the movie.

Moore To Capture Katrina on Film?
Controversial film-maker Michael Moore is planning to make a hard-hitting documentary based on Us President George W. Bush's handling of the Hurricane Katrina rescue operation. Moore grabbed international acclaim with his scathing 2004 film Fahrenheit 9/11, which studied Bush's handling of the September 11th terrorist attacks. The Oscar winner is now "seriously considering" documenting the catastrophe in America's Gulf Coast region. He tells the New York Daily News, "There is much to be said and done about the man-made annihilation of New Orleans, caused not by a hurricane but by the very specific decisions made by the Bush administration in the past four and a half years. Do not listen to anyone who says we can discuss all this later. No, we can't. Our country is in an immediate state of vulnerability. More hurricanes, wars, and other disasters are on the way, and a lazy bunch of self-satisfied lunatics are still running the show."

You know, I'm not a big Moore fan, but this is a great line:

"...a lazy bunch of self-satisfied lunatics are still running the show."

This admin. is a complete joke. The Newsweek article on Bush this week is pretty depressing as well.

[Flasch186]

at least Bush is stepping up and accepting the blame of the Governement's shortcomings regarding the Katrina rescue effort and response:

From CNN

160,000 homes may be ruined

Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters may have damaged 160,000 homes in New Orleans beyond repair, an official with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said today. Also today, President Bush said he takes responsibility for the federal government's failures in responding to Hurricane Katrina. "To the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility," Bush said.

[HomerJSimpson]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

at Bush is stepping up and accepting the blame of the Governement's shortcomings regarding the Katrina rescue effort and response:

From CNN

160,000 homes may be ruined

Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters may have damaged 160,000 homes in New Orleans beyond repair, an official with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said today. Also today, President Bush said he takes responsibility for the federal government's failures in responding to Hurricane Katrina. "To the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility," Bush said.

Woo-Hoo! Bush took responsibilty for something bad! Never thought I'd see the day. Thank you, Mr. Bush. My respect meter just went up a notch.

[NoMyths]

Now for the folks to come in blasting Bush as a Bush hater for blaming the government's failures on Bush.

[Flasch186]

Originally Posted by NoMyths

Now for the folks to come in blasting Bush as a Bush hater for blaming the government's failures on Bush.

actually with me, it earns some points.

[Buccaneer]

From the CNN article

There are plenty of unanswered questions about what went wrong, when it went wrong and who is at fault.

In the hurricane's aftermath, thousands of people trapped in the submerged city began asking how they got left behind without food and water. And why?

Remember back to Sunday 8/28 when we watching the evacs and the hordes of people lining to get into the Superdome? Do you think that this was only a temporary measure to get out of the storm coming that night and early next morning? Is it possible that the officials thought the same thing since they said on Sunday to bring your own water, food and bedding?

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

Remember back to Sunday 8/28 when we watching the evacs and the hordes of people lining to get into the Superdome? Do you think that this was only a temporary measure to get out of the storm coming that night and early next morning? Is it possible that the officials thought the same thing since they said on Sunday to bring your own water, food and bedding?

Agree 100%. This is why I still don't get the whole "underequipped Superdome" argument. It wasn't called "shelter of last resort" because it was going to be great conditions.

SI

[Tekneek]

Originally Posted by HomerJSimpson

Woo-Hoo! Bush took responsibilty for something bad! Never thought I'd see the day. Thank you, Mr. Bush. My respect meter just went up a notch.

What does it really mean? It doesn't change anything.

[HomerJSimpson]

Originally Posted by Tekneek

What does it really mean? It doesn't change anything.

It could. It could mean they take a real look at what went wrong, instead of a finger pointing, coverup investigation. To me, though, the biggest thing is the prick finally admitted a mistake when it was clearly made. His inability to admit mistakes was one of the first reasons I stopped respecting him.

[Flasch186]

buh bye Chertoff -


Chertoff delayed federal response, memo shows

By Jonathan S. Landay, Alison Young and Shannon McCaffrey, Knight Ridder Newspapers Tue Sep 13,10:00 PM ET

WASHINGTON - The federal official with the power to mobilize a massive federal response to Hurricane Katrina was
Homeland Security Secretary
Michael Chertoff, not the former FEMA chief who was relieved of his duties and resigned earlier this week, federal documents reviewed by Knight Ridder show.

Even before the storm struck the Gulf Coast, Chertoff could have ordered federal agencies into action without any request from state or local officials.
Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown had only limited authority to do so until about 36 hours after the storm hit, when Chertoff designated him as the "principal federal official" in charge of the storm.

As thousands of hurricane victims went without food, water and shelter in the days after Katrina's early morning Aug. 29 landfall, critics assailed Brown for being responsible for delays that might have cost hundreds of lives.

But Chertoff - not Brown - was in charge of managing the national response to a catastrophic disaster, according to the National Response Plan, the federal government's blueprint for how agencies will handle major natural disasters or terrorist incidents. An order issued by
President Bush in 2003 also assigned that responsibility to the homeland security director.

But according to a memo obtained by Knight Ridder, Chertoff didn't shift that power to Brown until late afternoon or evening on Aug. 30, about 36 hours after Katrina hit Louisiana and Mississippi. That same memo suggests that Chertoff may have been confused about his lead role in disaster response and that of his department.

"As you know, the President has established the `White House Task Force on Hurricane Katrina Response.' He will meet with us tomorrow to launch this effort. The Department of Homeland Security, along with other Departments, will be part of the task force and will assist the Administration with its response to Hurricane Katrina," Chertoff said in the memo to the secretaries of defense, health and human services and other key federal agencies.

On the day that Chertoff wrote the memo, Bush was in San Diego presiding over a ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II.

Chertoff's Aug. 30 memo for the first time declared Katrina an "Incident of National Significance," a key designation that triggers swift federal coordination. The following afternoon, Bush met with his Cabinet, then appeared before TV cameras in the White House Rose Garden to announce the government's planned action.

That same day, Aug. 31, the
Department of Defense, whose troops and equipment are crucial in such large disasters, activated its Task Force Katrina. But active-duty troops didn't begin to arrive in large numbers along the Gulf Coast until Saturday.

White House and homeland security officials wouldn't explain why Chertoff waited some 36 hours to declare Katrina an incident of national significance and why he didn't immediately begin to direct the federal response from the moment on Aug. 27 when the
National Hurricane Center predicted that Katrina would strike the Gulf Coast with catastrophic force in 48 hours. Nor would they explain why Bush felt the need to appoint a separate task force.

Chertoff's hesitation and Bush's creation of a task force both appear to contradict the National Response Plan and previous presidential directives that specify what the secretary of homeland security is assigned to do without further presidential orders. The goal of the National Response Plan is to provide a streamlined framework for swiftly delivering federal assistance when a disaster - caused by terrorists or Mother Nature - is too big for local officials to handle.

Dana Perino, a White House spokeswoman, referred most inquiries about the memo and Chertoff's actions to the Department of Homeland Security.

"There will be an after-action report" on the government's response to Hurricane Katrina, Perino said. She added that "Chertoff had the authority to invoke the Incident of National Significance, and he did it on Tuesday."

Perino said the creation of the White House task force didn't add another bureaucratic layer or delay the response to the devastating hurricane. "Absolutely not," she said. "I think it helped move things along." When asked whether the delay in issuing the Incident of National Significance was to allow Bush time to return to Washington, Perino replied: "Not that I'm aware of."

Russ Knocke, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, didn't dispute that the National Response Plan put Chertoff in charge in federal response to a catastrophe. But he disputed that the bureaucracy got in the way of launching the federal response.

"There was a tremendous sense of urgency," Knocke said. "We were mobilizing the greatest response to a disaster in the nation's history."

Knocke noted that members of the Coast Guard were already in New Orleans performing rescues and FEMA personnel and supplies had been deployed to the region.

The Department of Homeland Security has refused repeated requests to provide details about Chertoff's schedule and said it couldn't say specifically when the department requested assistance from the military. Knocke said a military liaison was working with FEMA, but said he didn't know his or her name or rank. FEMA officials said they wouldn't provide information about the liaison.

Knocke said members of almost every federal agency had already been meeting as part of the department's Interagency Incident Management Group, which convened for the first time on the Friday before the hurricane struck. So it would be a mistake, he said, to interpret the memo as meaning that Tuesday, Aug. 30 was the first time that members of the federal government coordinated.

The Chertoff memo indicates that the response to Katrina wasn't left to disaster professionals, but was run out of the White House, said George Haddow, a former deputy chief of staff at FEMA during the Clinton administration and the co-author of an emergency management textbook.

"It shows that the president is running the disaster, the White House is running it as opposed to Brown or Chertoff," Haddow said. Brown "is a convenient fall guy. He's not the problem really. The problem is a system that was marginalized."

A former FEMA director under President Reagan expressed shock by the inaction that Chertoff's memo suggested. It showed that Chertoff "does not have a full appreciation for what the country is faced with - nor does anyone who waits that long," said Gen. Julius Becton Jr., who was FEMA director from 1985-1989.

"Anytime you have a delay in taking action, there's a potential for losing lives," Becton told Knight Ridder. "I have no idea how many lives we're talking about. ... I don't understand why, except that they were inefficient."

Chertoff's Aug. 30 memo came on the heels of a memo from Brown, written several hours after Katrina made landfall, showing that the FEMA director was waiting for Chertoff's permission to get help from others within the massive department. In that memo, first obtained by the Associated Press last week, Brown requested Chertoff's "assistance to make available DHS employees willing to deploy as soon as possible." It asked for another 1,000 homeland security workers within two days and 2,000 within a week.

The four-paragraph memo ended with Brown thanking Chertoff "for your consideration in helping us meet our responsibilities in this near catastrophic event."

According to the National Response Plan, which was unveiled in January by Chertoff's predecessor, Tom Ridge, the secretary of homeland security is supposed to declare an Incident of National Significance when a catastrophic event occurs.

"Standard procedures regarding requests for assistance may be expedited or, under extreme circumstances, suspended in the immediate aftermath of an event of catastrophic magnitude," according to the plan, which evolved from earlier plans and lessons learned after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. "Notification and full coordination with the States will occur, but the coordination process must not delay or impede the rapid deployment and use of critical resources."

Should Chertoff have declared Katrina an Incident of National Significance sooner - even before the storm struck? Did his delay slow the quick delivery of the massive federal response that was needed? Would it have made a difference?

"You raise good questions," said Frank J. Cilluffo, the director of George Washington University's Homeland Security Planning Institute. It's too early to tell, he said, whether unfamiliarity with or glitches in the new National Response Plan were factors in the poor early response to Katrina.

"Clearly this is the first test. It certainly did not pass with flying colors," Cilluffo said of the National Response Plan.

Mike Byrne, a former senior homeland security official under Ridge who worked on the plan, said he doesn't think the new National Response Plan caused the confusion that plagued the early response to Katrina.

Something else went wrong, he suspects. The new National Response Plan isn't all that different from the previous plan, called the Federal Response Plan.

"Our history of responding to major disasters has been one where we've done it well," Byrne said. "We need to figure out why this one didn't go as well as the others did. It's shocking to me."

Chertoff's Aug. 30 memo is posted at www.krwashington.com

To read the National Response Plan, go to:

[MrBigglesworth]

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Bush administration officials said they had been caught by surprise when they were told on Tuesday, Aug. 30, that a levee had broken, allowing floodwaters to engulf New Orleans.

Investigators have found evidence that federal officials at the White House and elsewhere learned of the levee break in New Orleans earlier than was first suggested.
But Congressional investigators have now learned that an eyewitness account of the flooding from a federal emergency official reached the Homeland Security Department's headquarters starting at 9:27 p.m. the day before, and the White House itself at midnight.

Liars.